Email: Funny how Nintendo sabotaged its efforts to push 3D

Firstly, the Virtual Boy was clunky and unwieldy, so even if the 3D didn’t give people headaches, trying to work the thing was a pain enough.

 

Secondly, the 3DS was overpriced at first (now selling at a loss; give them a round of sarcastic applause), has a much flimsier design than Nintendo’s past portable systems, and they start off with games we don’t really want instead of awesome 2D games that just happen to be in 3D as well (perhaps a port of Turtles in Time, where the Foot Clan soldiers can be thrown at the screen), and the system’s “eShop” is pathetic.

 

Now they are using a screen on a controller, that can play some games directly on it, but NOT as many games as possible? Before the limitations were announced, I was thinking I could live with a blatant attempt to push 3D in the future, if I could still play loads of games on that screen. If they want to push that screen, the sensible thing is to give us every reason possible to use it, which includes Wii games and channels, Virtual Console, and even Gamecube games (and it would still work with standard Gamecube controllers, since the distance of the new controller isn’t much better anyway).

 

Nintendo either really wants to push 3D but stubbornly only on their terms, and/or they don’t really know how to make the audience like a product (as you mentioned, a 3D Mario that plays more like the 2D Mario games would be a lot more appealing).Imagine Miyamoto doing Kickstarter for his latest 3d Mario game. These people want to make the games they want, not what they think will succeed in the market.

Game development is a very mechanical process that is extremely non-glamorous. (This is no different than any mediums.) The people who succeed realize that this is a BUSINESS and that their job is not to make a ‘game they want’ but a ‘game that sells’. NPD does not chart the ‘best games made’ but only the ‘best selling games made’. If a game isn’t selling, then it isn’t pleasing the market.

Nintendo produced much better games before the game developers got in control of the company.