Hello Mr Malstrom
I recently discovered your blog. It’s helped me make sense of why a longtime Nintendo fanboy like myself was so numbed by this year’s e3.
I grew up a NES, SNES and N64 kiddie. I don’t hold quite the same disdain for 3D games that you do, but I was disappointed that the N64 had more or less abandoned the 2D platformer and was abandoned by JRPGs in general at the time. I had fun with all three.
Then came the Gamecube. Mario Sunshine wasn’t like Mario 64. Wind Waker wasn’t like OoT. Star Fox went off the deep end. Mario Kart Double Dash was the first Mario Kart I skipped. Even as a swan song, Twilight Princess said it was “going back to OoT” but really, it was just putting OoT’s skin on Wind Waker’s time-padding gameplay and calling it a night. Only Metroid was lucky enough to survive the changes it experienced, and that was because of the overall excellence of Retro studios. I played most of the big budget, critically acclaimed blockbusters, but my Gamecube game backlog felt more like a honey-do checklist than the gaming joy I remember from the previous generations. And I still wasn’t getting my JRPGs. Or my 2D platformers.
It was near the end of the Gamecube era that I was thinking “I don’t really need a video game console after this one.” Then the Wii was revealed, and holy **** did that thing look exciting. Motion controls plus access to old games? Great! Then 2D Mario made a comeback on the DS, and even though I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as older Mario platformers, it did open up a great game library that I otherwise would’ve ignored (Point and click adventures rose from the grave, all these JRPGs, omf). That one 2D Mario title helped kick off the 2D platformer revival that hit full stride on the Wii, and it was amazing. My favourite genre was reborn, with new games from classic franchises and old games available again on virtual console. There was a few hiccups along the way (Other M, mini-game collections) but otherwise it was bliss.
I was excited for the 3DS after its reveal, but as time wore on and more details emerged, I was less so. Overpriced. Flawed hardware. Didn’t care about 3D. Didn’t care about the launch lineup and “remakes” with no new content and Mario Kite and a Mario platformer that was trying to trick 2D Mario fans into playing a 3D Mario (I love both types of Mario, but I want left to right stages for 2D Mario and Star Collecting for 3D Mario, not both in one). To finish it all off, I was much more impressed by the Vita’s reveal, a platform from a company whose best-selling franchises traditionally don’t interest me.
And then the Wii U revealed and I about lost it. The controller was horrible. Nintendo was going “hardcore” which really means pandering to shooter kiddies. It “wasn’t going to be cheap.” They’re not interested in being the alternative anymore, they’re interested in direct competition for two other consoles that I had no interest in anyways. Worst of all, the Wii for my North American self was thrown under the bus. No Xenoblade. No other JRPGs. Another Zelda that’s dressing itself up as Wind Waker, but this time in the sky instead of the Ocean. Kirby Returns to Dreamland might be good, and could end up being the only game in the last YEAR of the Wii’s existence worth playing. It’s like they kicked me in the balls, then did it again just to make sure they got both nuts. I didn’t understand what was going through their heads. They made these mistakes before in the past, they should have learned from them, yet here they were making them again. Your blog made sense of it. The pattern has been there all along. They’re pretentious artists at Nintendo, fully believing that all they have to do is create and I’ll buy it, and if I don’t, then obviously I didn’t understand it, or the message wasn’t delivered well enough via marketing, or that they really did give me what I wanted and I’m the problem (Twilight Princess may look like OoT, but it’s not OoT). I will admit there was a time I was buying on fanboy brand-name alone, but you can only be burned so much by that before you start really looking hard at those experiences and deciding to pass. There’s a way to experiment with creativity and still retain the tried and true that the Wii and DS nearly nailed perfectly. I’m not seeing that on the 3DS and I’m not expecting it for the Wii U. Super Mario Bros Mii? Come on.
I’m glad to see they’re floundering right now. I hope heads roll and the people responsible for this are canned or de-emphasized, and they can get back to giving me what I want (which seems to be the same things as a lot of other longtime fans want out of Nintendo franchises). There’s still hope for the 3DS in the future, post-redesign/rebrand, at a DS-level price with with a more fleshed out library, which seems to be happening if rumours are to be believed. But the Wii U looks DOA, and I’m not sure how they can fix that thing without scrapping it completely.
Thanks for reading and thanks for blogging. It’s really interesting and enlightening stuff.
These type of emails are the most interesting. It’s fascinating to read a perspective from someone who is wondering, “What the hell?” with Nintendo’s behavior.
Kudos to you for seeing the connection between NSMB DS and the blossoming of the DS library. 2d Mario is interesting because the consumer gets so excited they tend to go off and buy more games. Some of those early DS games were very critical for establishing the foundation for the entire DS library. For example, Final Fantasy III was remade for the DS. It was primarily made for a Western release (because Final Fantasy III was never released outside Japan). The Japanese sales expectations were low. Imagine the shock when Final Fantasy III immediately sold out in Japan. That spurred Square Enix to start many other RPGs on the DS including the Dragon Quest remakes. And under the large tent poles from 2d Mario to Dragon Quest / Final Fantasy, other smaller, lesser known, and quirky RPG and adventure games were allowed to prosper.
In conventional ‘Game Industry’ thinking, the belief is that the best selling games take away sales from other games. The truth is the opposite. People buy the DS and pick up NSMB DS then they find other games similar to it. People who like Dragon Quest IX or another big RPG will be looking for something else similar. This creates an environment where other games can prosper.
People said that World of Warcraft was not allowing other MMORPGs to prosper. The truth is that World of Warcraft grew the MMORPG market which allowed other MMOs to prosper. If WoW didn’t exist, it is unlikely these MMOs would have even been noticed.
When the original Super Mario Brothers came out, did it take away all sales from other games? No. People loved it and wanted more. If Super Mario Brothers never came out, we would not have seen Mega Man, Castlevania, Ducktales, and other NES classics. There would not have been a Sonic. Good games increase other games’ sales, not decrease. Why? Because good games create passionate customers. Passionate customers keep buying games. After a string of bad games, the passionate customer loses his passion. If the bad games keep coming, the customer just stops buying games. It’s that simple.
The release of NSMB as well as early DS games started a chain reaction. This goes back to the age old truism that the ‘First Party Software defines the philosophy of the console’. Third party software emulates the first party. This DS ‘chain reaction’ cannot be repeated on the 3DS because the software Nintendo wishes to flagship is ‘More 3d Mario’ and games varying around the principle of ‘Flying Through 3d’ such as Pilotwings Resort, Kid Icarus, and even Mario Kart 7. So what will third parties do? They will make games that are about ‘flying through 3d’.
This is what I do not understand. At E3 for the Wii U, they showed a Zelda trailer. In this HD Zelda, we see a grown up Link have a ferocious sword battle with the giant spider, Ghoma. The combat looks almost Zelda II. Fans are very excited over that video. But Nintendo (Aonuma) says that is not how Wii U Zelda will look like or be like. I expect it to be cell shaded. When the Gamecube premiered, it showed an exciting Zelda demo of a fight between Link and Ganon. But the Gamecube Zelda ended up being Wind Waker.
When it comes time to advertise and hype, Nintendo knows what their customers want. But when it comes to the actual product, we get something completely different. What I don’t understand is why tease the customers this way? Clearly, the Wii U ‘tech demos’ show that Nintendo wants to be Sony or Microsoft and does not wish to be Nintendo.
With E3 2006, Nintendo not only demoed Wii Sports on stage live, they actually put a customer on stage to do it. I’m not sure what practice or training they gave to the guy, but the message was about the gamer. The message was not about ‘Miyamoto’ or about the ‘hardware’. Today, Nintendo is acting like a Sony Knock-Off. When given the choice between the actual Sony product and a Sony Knock-Off product, people are going to choose the actual Sony product. Why buy the Wii U when I can just buy a PS3? And then Vita will do everything the Wii U controller will.
Beyond anything else, emailer, you know what a video game console is supposed to be and what it is supposed to feel like. It is difficult to articulate this into words. But when it is there, it is that which gives the console momentum. It makes everyone run around and tell their friends the ‘good news’. The Gamecube definitely did not have that.
The DS did. It does feel like a SNES portable (it creates a similar feeling that the SNES did). People want their consoles to keep that feeling. The 3DS does not create that feeling. The direction of the console and the games released do not feel ‘right’.
I suspect this feeling is about ‘increasing interest in video games’. There are two types of video games: games that create interest in video games and games that decrease interest in video games. Something like 2d Mario always feels right because it demonstratively ‘creates interest in video games’. Something like Super Mario Sunshine ‘decreases interest in video games’. Something like old school or classic RPGs or adventure games makes you feel excited, it makes you want to keep playing more. Something like 2d Castlevania makes you interested in playing more. But 3d Castlevania makes you interested in playing less.
With something like Zelda, Zelda games always had the person saying, “I want to play more Zelda!” Since another Zelda wasn’t out, they would just replay the Zelda they had. Over and over again. But ever since Ocarina of Time, the Zelda games are making people say, “I want to play less Zelda!” If this disinterest continues, the person will eventually not have any interest in the latest Zelda game. This is occurring for many people with Skyward Sword. There probably won’t be much difference between Skyward Sword and Wind Waker or Twilight Princess, but people were excited for Twilight Princess because they still had the ‘interest in gaming’ that Ocarina created. After 13 years, Zelda fans are realizing they aren’t going to get an Ocarina experience anymore especially with Aonuma who wants to remove the overworld.
The bottom line is that the 3DS and Wii U are not going to create interest in video games. They will only ride the DS and Wii’s popularity (which is why they were intentionally branded the way they were). Why is Nintendo even bothering to make consoles whose mission is not to create interest in video games? That is the question everyone should ask. I can only speculate at what is motivating Nintendo. I suppose Nintendo thought they did their ‘work’ with the DS and Wii, got huge sales and marketshare, so now they feel entitled to ‘play’.
Perhaps the way to explain this generation with the most brevity: The DS and Wii are characterized by Nintendo making software they didn’t want to make. The 3DS and Wii U are characterized by Nintendo making software they do want to make.
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