My first video game consoles were the first ones made. The PONG machines, the Ataris, and the NES were appealing because their mission was to turn non-gamers into gamers. Since there was no such thing as a gaming market, a game console could be nothing but turning non-gamers into gamers.
During the 16-bit generation, my interest began to wane in console gaming. Some games I really liked (the RPG/adventure games like Final Fantasy IV, VI), some of the arcade ones (Super Mario Kart), but gaming was going full throttle Mortal Kombat and Killer Instict with in your face marketing. I did like Donkey Kong Country but it was not Super Mario Brothers 5. Pokemon came out during this time but its cartoon show and marketing made this adult not want to try it. And color Gameboy and Gameboy Advance seemed more about porting NES and SNES games over which were games I had already played.
The Nintendo’s obsession with 3d turned me into a non-gamer. While Mode 7 and Star Fox were cool, they didn’t force a change with consoles as the Nintendo 64 did (and other consoles that copied it). The Nintendo 64 controller was wacky.
Cracked’s image here perfectly captures my reaction to it:
When I became a non-gamer, I mean non-gamer to consoles. PC gaming was so much fun then with the RTS eruption, the dawn of network and internet gaming, as well as Quake and Unreal. People talk about ‘innovation’ during this period but the console side was extremely stale. All the excitement was on the PC gaming side which Sony and Microsoft rely on for their consoles.
The DS and Wii brought me back to console gaming, but now I am back to only PC gaming. Unless one of the major console companies change their ways, the Wii will be my last game console. It is an update from the SNES being my last game console, but the same problem exists. I have zero desire to play Nintendo games or other console games (inferior versions of PC gaming).
So now that I’ve gone from gamer to Non-gamer twice, there are some common themes in both times. Neither results in a change in my life. I feel like I didn’t cease to be a gamer, I feel like console gaming has ceased to be about gaming. This forces me to find gaming somewhere else so I turn to PC gaming.
The biggest common theme is Nintendo’s sick, sick obsession with 3d. Ramming 3d down people’s throats didn’t work with the Nintendo 64, it imploded with the 3DS, what more is there to say? There is much riding on Wii U’s success for Nintendo. If Nintendo intends to have a long term plan to turn the controller screen into a 3d output screen, they’ll turn away more people. I will never, ever buy a game console based around 3d.
It won’t matter what games appear on it. I will never buy it. And my buying habits prove it that I’d turn into a big console gamer to walking away from console gaming for decades ignoring every ‘fantastic Nintendo game’ released. I do not feel I missed anything by not being there for Super Mario Sunshine or Aonuma Zeldas. Not. One. Thing.
Another common theme is that I keep asking myself the same question as I did after the SNES: “Why did Nintendo intentionally stop doing what works?” Clearly the NES and SNES had good runs. Why totally screw that up with the N64 and Gamecube direction? Or to be more precise, the DS and Wii mission statements were good ones: bringing gaming to the masses. But the 3DS and Wii U are completely different animals and their mission statements are more like the N64 and Gamecube. Nintendo could not have been unhappy with DS and Wii sales performance, so why changed what worked? Why go back to a failed philosophy for gaming?
And this leads to the difference in myself for these two time periods. Before, I thought Nintendo felt pressured to get on the 3d bandwagon. Mario did not HAVE to be 3d. Look at the sales of Smash Brothers and it showed that non-3d games were just as acceptable as before. Going from non-3d to 3d was not like going from 8-bit to 16-bit. 8-bit games would not sell in 16-bit era. But non-3d games were still hot stuff during all this 3d nonsense. Today, however, I know that Nintendo is intentional in this shift. They cannot claim ignorance.
There is some sort of sick, sick 3d obsession inside Nintendo that, like a disease, keeps twisting their products into something else.
My advice for Nintendo is to drop the 3d obsession and replace that obsession with the Internet. An Internet using Super Mario Brothers would have far more market impact than yet another 3d Mario. Nintendo keeps telling us they are innovators yet they keep repeatedly doing the same things over and over and expecting it to work.
If Nintendo offers a 3DS with no 3d output (normal screens and games can only be played without 3d), I would buy it.
If Nintendo offers a Wii U without the funky controller (a console deck update for the Wii), I would buy it.
Consider where I’m coming from. I would never, ever, use the 3d capability of the 3DS so I don’t see why I should pay so much for that capability in a product. This isn’t like the microphone or even touch screen in the DS. That 3d output screen is a significant cost of the 3DS.
As a Wii gamer, I disliked Gamecube games in part due to the horrible controller. So why would I be interested in the Wii U controller which is a Gamecube controller with a touchscreen? And that Wii U controller will be a SIGNIFICANT COST. The Wii motion controller may have been more expensive than other game controllers, but the difference is nothing like throwing in a freaking touch screen on it.
I do not see ‘integrated hardware and software’. What I see is ‘forced hardware and software’. I love the NES, SNES, and Wii because I could buy the hardware and software differently and suit my tastes. All the funky controllers were sold separately. I wasn’t forced to buy the Power Glove in some deluded corporate mission statement of ‘integrated hardware and software’. In fact, I could replace the NES controller with all sorts of controllers. I could do that with the Wii-mote to a degree. But with that Wii U controller, I will be forced to use that bastard child of Gamecube and DS parents.
When people ask, “Where did that Wii/DS audience go?”, they will be looking at the issue from a bird’s view. I am telling what the issue is on the ground.
There will be a huge myth saying that these Wii/DS audiences are ‘casuals’ who just got tired of gaming and went away. The truth is that Nintendo has zero desire of making games that interest players like myself and is more interested in their sick, sick 3d obsession and gadget-making.
Never forget we had to wait 18 years for a sequel to Super Mario Brothers 4. (It’s like Activision not wanting to make another Modern Warfare because the developers are more obsessed with technology possibilities that don’t translate into better gaming experiences.)
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