Above: What is that thing doing? Whistling? Blowing?
By the existence of Nintendo Land, Nintendo is forcing us to examine whether it looks at its console business as a theme park. Nintendo Land, a fantasy theme park, has ‘games’ as its rides. These ‘games’ are miniature versions of the big IP games like Mario and Zelda.
Nintendo tends to use a language describing their game business that is somewhat odd. I just chalked it up to Nintendo being Japanese but then I noticed the same language throughout Rollercoaster Tycoon. For example, each ride has an ‘excitable’ rating. You want to use expensive rollercoasters to bring in the crowds and once they ride the rollercoaster, they remain excited and then want to go on the ‘gentle rides’ like the Haunted House. When you analyze the little characters, they might say, “That rollercoaster was a really good value!” After time, a ride becomes boring and needs to be replaced with five years being the maximum amount of time.
I’ve always looked at game consoles more like a library. They don’t age and if they do, they were always bad games. I certainly have never looked at a game console like a theme park.
Nintendo follows the same formula for its consoles. They get replaced every six years. They use a few very expensive games as the main attractions to get people in (like Mario and Zelda) with the more ‘gentle’ games for people to play once they got in (like Kirby and Animal Crossing).
The issue of content is easy to see with books. It means the book has a ton of stuff in it and not much rhetoric. “It is value.” No, because there are tons of best selling books that don’t age well as they are more rhetoric than content filled. A game focusing on its graphics or story or gimmick is more about a rhetorical value than a content value. It is a mistake to just slap value as a generalized box. Only the present values the rhetoric. This is true in all mediums. It also explains why games are aging like milk.
It seems like Nintendo sees the ‘value’ of games only in how they get people excited. The reason why people are excited about NSMB U has more to do about it being a next chapter in the Mario universe. What we’re going to get instead is a theme park of Mario themes… this time they are more of the Super Mario World themes. We’re not actually getting a new adventure.
Has it not seemed like every modern Nintendo game has been like a theme park? Zelda games don’t feel like ‘chapters’ as in exploration of Hyrule or the Hyrule universe. They feel like Zelda theme parks. The themes are there. The music is there. Even the gameplay is there. But it feels nonsensical. You finish the modern Nintendo game and think that nothing happened. This was very different when you finished a Classic Nintendo game.
The ‘excitement’ is going to fizzle as more and more people realize that Nintendo is making digital theme parks instead of video games. People do not want a 2d Mario Theme Park. They want a 2d Mario GAME. You remember what a game is, reader. It is something where you can WIN OR LOSE.
This theme park concept doesn’t really sell sequels. It attracts initial customers, but no one wants to return. Nintendogs is a digital dog theme park. So fantastic at first. But what happened with the sequel? It’s not selling at all. Perhaps it is because people thought they were going to get a game about dogs but are instead getting a dog theme park.
Nintendo Land and how Nintendo talks about its games tell us that Nintendo looks at its games more as theme parks than as games.
Miiverse is turning the entire console into a theme park. The games are the rides and the Miis gathering around them not unlike crowds in a theme park.
Is the game console as a digital theme park the natural outgrowth of the arcades? After all, arcades originated from carnival type games. I would say no because arcade games are about winning and losing and making high scores. Nintendo makes their games today where you cannot win, cannot lose, and there is no score to keep track. The direction Nintendo is going will try to throw in more ‘theme park’ elements. You can ‘connect’ with people so you can share in ’empathy’ not unlike other people going ‘Wow! What a crazy ride that was!’ when you get off a rollercoaster.
I do not want my game console to be a theme park. The only reason I buy a game console is to get to the games. Yamauchi said the game console was a box you buy to get to Mario. The idea of our game consoles talking to each other so we gamers can share ’empathy’ is ridiculous. I don’t want to share ’empathy’.
Instead of giving us online solutions, Nintendo is giving us a theme park. “With network solutions, we can do this,” Iwata cheerily says. But I want the network solutions to be used to make the games multiplayer, not to ‘share empathy’ with people I don’t play games with.
You know what the best thing about Wii Sports was? You could lose. And you had to have some skill in order to perform well. Nintendo seems to be on a course for making games that you cannot lose (and therefore cannot win) which are nothing more than theme parks of Classic Nintendo games. When we buy NSMB U, are we getting a sequel or are we getting a 2d Mario theme park of Super Mario World?
Nintendo didn’t have this ‘theme park’ mentality before, so when did it begin? And why? Who the hell is running this company?