Hey, Malstrom. It’s me again, the guy who wrote about the open challenge to Zelda fans and another email that didn’t get posted. I had something else I’ve been needing to get off my chest for a while. In many ways, you and I seem to be kindred spirits. There are very few writers online who even attempt to grasp the full scale of the decision-making processes that go on behind closed doors, and are content to merely go wherever their entertainment companies take them. I, however, seek to understand (to the best of my ability) why the people making these decisions make them. You do, too, which is the best thing about your site. (As a side note, I find it amazing how so many people never display any capacity–or even a desire–to understand why the “men in suits” do what they do. I want to know exactly why they do what they do, because they very rarely do it right, and I want to do their job, but better. Is this not the point of the relentless progression of time–to keep moving forward, not to sit still and do nothing? Anyway, moving on….)
Nintendo’s case, in particular, is extremely fascinating. How did the same top-level people who did so many things right just a few years ago fall off the wagon so badly, and without even realizing it? Or do they realize it, and just not care? Do they really think there will be no repercussions for their actions? We’ve already seen the beginning of it–the 3DS is already facing a standing eight count, just months after launch. If Nintendo thinks this situation will improve anytime soon–heh, we’ll I’m going to be highly entertained to watch the executives’ reaction to what’s about to happen. People would do well to remember that up until about ten years ago, it was common practice for game consoles to come out, putter around for a half-year, year, maybe a year and a half, and then disappear, with the parent company fading into oblivion afterward. I’m not saying Nintendo will share that unhappy fate–they most certainly won’t–but they could very easily find themselves in a situation where they are less relevant in the market than they were in the Gamecube days. Very, very easily. In fact, at the rate they’re going and with the attitudes they’ve shown, at this point I would say they will have to pull a minor miracle out of their back pocket for this not to happen.
So, with this in mind, I wish to turn my attention to Nintendo itself. Unlike the superior Master Malstrom, I do not (yet) have an online voice with which to educate the world. Thus, I hope the Master allows his faithful pupil to speak in his place for a day….
Dear Nintendo Executives (Reggie, Iwata, Miyamoto, Whoever You May Be),
I present this information intending to give you firsthand insight into the mind of one of your most loyal customers. From the outset, I will acknowledge that I expect this information to be twisted by you into meaning something that it does not, for that is what you do. It is what you have been doing, and by all accounts it is what you will continue to do. Nevertheless, I assure you that every word I write is to be taken literally, at face value, without any extra meaning than is what is plainly stated on the page.
I have purchased every home console you have ever released. I have purchased more than three hundred different games spread out among these home consoles. I have had a subscription to Nintendo Power since the first issue. I have defended Nintendo–and video games in general–from slanderous attacks coming from all sides, even when I had little emotional investment in doing so; and very rarely did I ever have anything I hoped to gain from it. It was merely my code of conduct.
I purchased a Wii on its very first day. I have since purchased two more. I have been personally responsible for the sales of at least a dozen different Wiis–I bought three myself (red, white, and black), and directly led each of my brothers to getting one (my older brother, who only ever owned an NES and has not played a game since Super Punch-Out, got his after seeing Punch-Out on the Virtual Console–and, later, the actual Wii Punch-Out; my younger brother, who has despised video games ever since they left the cartridge format, was finally convinced after playing Super Mario Bros 5 with me at my place). My brothers’ wives, upon trying it in their own homes, insisted they each have one, too (for Wii Fit Plus in one case and Just Dance in the other). My brother-in-law got one for golf games. He now plays it with his three-year-old twin daughters, who keep asking me to play Zelda while they sit and watch. My parents got one for Wii Fit and the Mii Channel, which my mom loved. My best friend asked me to hunt one down for him shortly after launch because he wanted to play against me in the upcoming Smash Bros. He and his girlfriend at the time came over to my place on one occasion, and when they left the girl expressed a desire to buy one herself. Next I heard, she had done so. In the end, my friend settled on marrying another woman, who also got her own Wii–this time for RPG’s–after seeing him play his.
The thing I want to impress upon your minds is that all of these purchases started with me. Every single one of them. I can guarantee with as much certainty as predicting the sun will rise tomorrow that none of these people would have bought their systems and the games that came afterward if it had not been for me. And by the way you have treated me, I can guarantee with even greater confidence that I will never purchase a Wii U.
In fact, I do not plan to ever buy anything from you again.
I have not even bought anything from you in two years already.
What reason do I have to expect that to change?
What software are you making that is worth purchasing?
You are not making Super Mario Bros. 6. You are not making The Legend of Zelda: Wii. You are not making Metroid: Return to Basics. You are not making a proper successor to Wii Sports. You are actively preventing RPGs from appearing on your console. You have told me to my face that you will never serve me as a customer again. You have insulted my intelligence and spoken down to me as though I were some unintelligent sea slug incapable of conscious thought. You have lied to me, spread ignorance, and pretended that games that exist on your console and that your own company made, funded, and published throughout the world do not exist, and that I, as a longtime fan living in your best-selling market over the last fifteen-odd years, for some unexplained reason will not get to play them.
You are speaking empty words by saying that Wii U will somehow be different. Even if I am to believe you–and I don’t, for you are liars and have proven this over and over and over and over–it is irrelevant. Wii U should not even exist at all. No one asked for it. No one wants it. Your current customers will actively reject it. They will feel betrayed by it. Whatever “hardcore” gamers you claim to be after in your PR rubbish will not accept it, either. You’ve given them no reason to! Even with the most easily persuaded customers in the entire market, you have failed. Even Microsoft and Sony haven’t failed at that!
The Wii U will be a disaster the likes of which you, Nintendo, have never seen. The 3DS will not take off, and will be as irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as the 3D0. Do you even know what the 3D0 is, Reggie Fils-Aime? Have you forgotten, Satoru Iwata? What lessons of history have you paid any attention to, Shigeru Miyamoto? What reason do you have to think that the mistakes that felled so many companies in the past do not apply to you? If the people do not want your product, they will not buy it. It is as simple as that.
If I do not want your product, I will not buy it. If you treat me as trash, you will be treated in kind. I will never get the Wii U. Think about all those Wiis I sold for you, and all that software that flowed from there–where are those sales going to come from in the future? Who will your audience be? Can you tell me who is supposed to buy this product? Do you even know? Have you worked that out yet? Or are you so far removed from the voice of the consumers that you don’t care–or, worse, you just expect them to be there? Because that is not going to happen.
You have been disrespectful, arrogant, foolish, and lazy. And worst of it all, your actions have been deliberate. They have not been accidental, or made in ignorance. You know exactly what you have been doing. What you do not seem to have grasped, however, is the consequences of these actions.
You have lost me as a customer, Nintendo, forever this time (this is not unprecedented–you had previously lost me for a while during the Gamecube years). You had already lost–or never had to begin with–all the people I mentioned earlier. None of them will be running up to buy a Wii U. From 2011 onward, I will never pay any attention to you–or video games as a whole–again.
Also, I canceled my subscription to Nintendo Power.
Another satisfied customer…
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