Hello Mr. Malstrom.
I have written a couple of times, and once you posted my message about rock music in games and in general, something I am grateful of. I’m glad you found it interesting.
Ever since the Wiikly, I have enjoyed your articles and their insightful challenge of common wisdom. And after that your long posts, peppered with some old fashioned machismo that I not always share but appreciate. There is enough politically correct BS out there anyway. Since your blog is coming to an end soon anyway, I would like to share my point of view about the current state of Nintendo. I’ll let some steam off in this rant and promise not to bother you anymore!
Nintendo displayed impressive foresight of making the DS and then the revolutionary Wii. They spoke great lenghts about the stagnation of the market and the necessary, brave steps they were taking against disinterest. Nintendo found unprecedented success, not by mere luck or effective marketing or ineptitude of their competition, but as a logical consequence of following the strategies of Blue Ocean and Disruption, which they openly proclaimed though seemingly Malstrom was the only one listening.
Logic no more. It’s really baffling the stance they have taken now. It seems like a completely different company. Like you said, Old Nintendo vs Modern Nintendo. Miyamoto has played his part on both. What surprises me is that key people like Iwata and Fills-Aime were agents of disruption. What happened to them? How can’t they see that the 3DS is the opposite of all they stood for since 2005? Shame on you, Reggie!
Modern Nintendo took over again, and it is worse than ever. They have designed the WiiU not to attract new customers but to attract the Industry. We know there is no room for three industry-centric consoles. We know that no matter what Nintendo does, the industry hates it!
How is it worse than ever? Think about this: It is an industry de facto practice for competitors to take any novelty Nintendo puts in their controllers (shoulder buttons, analog sticks, motion controls…) and then one-up or just copy them. But… A screen in the middle of an oversized controller? I think this time they can pass. Nintendo is no longer a pioneer worth following. And of course, they have lost the loyalty of their customers by putting us on hold.
I have mixed feelings about the Wii. All the excitement and expectations of the revolution have slowly faded away… I expected many more “bridge” games to play with my family. I expected deeper motion control games, at least with the motion-plus. I expected cool fighting games, racers, shooters.
Your idea of a Mii Gauntlet was fantastic. I would have loved a motion controled Double Dragon that controled like Wii Sports Boxing. Instead, I settled with some on-rails shooters (which I like, because I can play with a friend) and a few fine FPS. I’m playing Red Steel 2 since there are no other motion plus games. It is a game with many limitations, but it may have been the start of something awesome. Perhaps Red Steel 3 or 4 could become a GTA3-style hit. But since Nintendo does not support the Wii motion plus, I doubt any other company will follow this path.
You know what irks me? That now some anal-yst predictions are becoming more plausible, with an HD Wii on the way, which will lead to PS3 and/or X360 dominance. Although disinterest will be the real dominator.
The saddest part is that the many possibilities of great games that were hinted with the unveiling of the Revolution could be realized without any new hardware if developers just placed content over graphics. So much potential will remain unfulfiled. Another promise that will go unfulfiled is the one of more Malstrom Articles. There is no more revolution in the horizon.
For me, the defining moment of the Wii was on Holidays 2006. Playing Wii Golf with a couple of relatives and my father, the only videogame he has played since Tetris on my old Commodore Amiga. That, and to my amazement, having my then 3 year old daughter kicking my ass on Wii Bowling. I will try to keep those moments as my memory of the Wii and forget about its last two or three years.
I have enjoyed reading your blog more than any other website over the last couple of years. I know your goal was your own education, so thank you for sharing your project. I hope you learned what you set up to.
Let’s frame this in the idea of islands and continents. An island is a self-contained landmass, small, perhaps isolated, while a continent is massive, forever to be explored, and the site of a new world.
We know somewhere around the end of the 16-bit generation, Nintendo decided that 3d was the way. Or to be more precise, Miyamoto came up with a concept of ‘Reality’, and this ‘Reality’ somehow demands 3d and toon shaded graphics. Whatever it was, it was a continent. It is where Nintendo wants to sail. It is the place where Nintendo wants to create a New World. This ‘direction’ is clearly expressed in the Virtual Boy, N64, and Gamecube.
When Nintendo made the Wii, there appears to be two different perspectives on it. The market (e.g. you) thought the Wii was a change in direction for Nintendo. The market thought the Wii meant Nintendo was sailing to a different continent, and this continent was very much like the original one of the arcades, of the NES, and of the SNES.
When the market saw Wii Sports, we saw it as the beginning of this new continent. The Wii mania that resulted was because no one wanted to be left out of this brave new world. We could not wait to see what Nintendo would do next with the system. As time went on and Nintendo did nothing but put out more Gamecube games with ‘shake shake’ controls, or a sequel to Wii Sports, people became very frustrated and disappointed. Wii Mania died.
What we’re realizing now is that Nintendo was not changing their direction at all. They do not see Wii as a ‘new’ or ‘different’ continent to sail towards. They saw it as an island. Its purpose was to be nothing more than as a stepping stone to help people get to the ‘Gamecube’ and ‘Virtual Boy’ direction the company has been obsessed with for the past couple of decades.
Where we saw Wii Sports as a beginning of a new age of video games, Nintendo saw Wii Sports as a self-contained little game whose true role was to get people to buy the system so they could buy Modern Zelda and 3d Mario.
I bet Nintendo is very disappointed that the Wii Sports and Wii Fit consumers did not turn into Super Mario Galaxy or Twilight Princess consumers. But bizarrely, they did turn into Mario Kart Wii consumers and Super Mario Brothers 5 consumers. Those games are not ‘Gamecube’ games in spirit. They are far closer to the ‘Old School’ continent than the other Nintendo games are.
And 2d Mario is the Rosetta stone in all this. When the Wii was released, I was SURE that a 2d Mario would be released on the system. Why? If Nintendo was sailing to this new continent, a new 2d Mario had to be made. It just ‘fit’. Fate had it that a new 2d Mario was made. And the game launched the Wii hardware forward and gave the Wii a tremendous boost. The reason why this occurred is because 2d Mario is a member of that continent that Wii Sports heralded.
Here is Nintendo’s fatal error that people will be writing about a decade or two from now. Nintendo sees only one continent, their bizarro 3d, toon shaded, Miyamoto “Reality” one. Everything else that does not fit to that continent, Nintendo assumes are islands. The huge success of 2d Mario should be saying that there is another continent out there. And perhaps this is the true gaming continent, and the one Nintendo has been pursuing is the Bermuda Triangle.
The reader might ask, “Why is Malstrom using this island and continent metaphor? Can he not talk like a normal blogger?” The reason why is because of how Nintendo views customers like myself.
Who is Malstrom? Is he representative of some ‘island’, some ‘group’ of gamers, who want their Super Mario Brothers in 2d and various other classic games? This is how Nintendo views people like me. Therefore, if they put 2d Mario on the Wii U, then Malstrom gamers should jump on board.
But one consistency of all my writings is that I have never been a specific game advocate or a genre game advocate. I have always been a game values advocate. I am not some interest group out there, some faction. I am trying to give voice to a broader perspective that underpins all gaming, specifically non-PC gaming (which means not Xbox or PlayStation).
Why is the Nintendogs crowd not jumping onto the 3DS? It is the same Nintendo Fatal Error. They assumed the Nintendogs crowd are a self contained ‘type’ of gamer who wanted certain things from a game like ‘no win or lose’. Nintendogs crowd is not moving over to the 3DS because the 3DS is repelling them with what it represents for the direction of gaming.
I do not declare my disgust with 3d or ‘Miyamoto’s Bizarre Reality’ because I dislike it on a personal level. I declare my disgust with this ‘Virtual Boy’ direction because it is contrary to what gaming is.
Is gaming about putting out a handheld that costs as much as a home console?
Is gaming about putting out a handheld with no battery life?
Is gaming about having features on it that prevents children from enjoying it? (3d output and children’s eyes)
Is gaming about developers wallowing in their ‘creativity’?
Is gaming about making Zelda more unpopular and ridiculous?
Is gaming about making Mario uncool?
Is gaming about creating more disinterest?
Why is it that Nintendo’s 3d obsession is the continent and what we love about gaming only considered an island when all data shows it is the opposite? Why does Nintendo assume their 3d obsession, which keeps failing, is the only true way?
What amazes me is that the Internet, which has demonstratively been a revolution on civilization in every way, is being shown no interest by Nintendo. Whatever operation a third party company wishes to use, it is fine by Nintendo. Why? Because Nintendo couldn’t care less about online. What Nintendo is obsessed over is 3d.
It makes far more sense for a third party company to use whatever 3d action (or non-action) it wishes and have Nintendo enforce some online standard. But Nintendo is upside down when it seeks to enforce a form of 3d output on all games even though none of it affects the gameplay while the Internet, which affects gameplay greatly, is of no concern.
Nintendo is going to have to abandon their 3d obsession. It didn’t work before, isn’t working now, and will never work in the future. Currently, it appears Nintendo is in denial. How long will this denial be? Years? Generations?