A Dolphin's Tale: The Story of GameCube(dromble.com)
dromble.com
A Dolphin's Tale: The Story of GameCube
http://www.dromble.com/2014/01/07/dolphin-tale-story-of-gamecube/
14 comments
Say whatever you want about the GameCube, but it's a great console.
People over here are starting to play it once again. Lot of people would gather for a beer and a game of Super Smash Melee, even our non game friends.
The controller is great, the games are great, and since the games weren't aiming for looks but gameplay, they all age very well!
People over here are starting to play it once again. Lot of people would gather for a beer and a game of Super Smash Melee, even our non game friends.
The controller is great, the games are great, and since the games weren't aiming for looks but gameplay, they all age very well!
”People do not play with the game machine itself. They play with the software, and they are forced to purchase a game machine in order to use the software. Therefore the price of the machine should be as cheap as possible.” - Yamauchi
If there's one thing Nintendo seems to be forgetting lately, it's this. They seem to think, nowadays, that bolting on new hardware features will improve demand, but it's never true. Software drives hardware sales. Mario sold the NES and SNES. Wii Sports sold the Wii. Pokemon is selling the 3DS these days -- until Pokemon (and to a lesser extent Animal Crossing) came out, the 3DS was doing terribly. And nothing is selling the Wii U. A tablet controller alone can't save it.
If there's one thing Nintendo seems to be forgetting lately, it's this. They seem to think, nowadays, that bolting on new hardware features will improve demand, but it's never true. Software drives hardware sales. Mario sold the NES and SNES. Wii Sports sold the Wii. Pokemon is selling the 3DS these days -- until Pokemon (and to a lesser extent Animal Crossing) came out, the 3DS was doing terribly. And nothing is selling the Wii U. A tablet controller alone can't save it.
> They seem to think, nowadays, that bolting on new hardware features will improve demand
I don't think Nintendo has ever "bolted on new hardware features" for the sake of selling consoles to consumers. The new hardware features are pretty much always for the sake of luring third parties into developing something innovative for the platform.
See this excellent essay: http://www.lostgarden.com/2005/09/nintendos-genre-innovation...
Nintendo makes money on games that explore new genres. It can't keep doing that unless it keeps increasing the design-space and interaction-space to find those new genres within.
I don't think Nintendo has ever "bolted on new hardware features" for the sake of selling consoles to consumers. The new hardware features are pretty much always for the sake of luring third parties into developing something innovative for the platform.
See this excellent essay: http://www.lostgarden.com/2005/09/nintendos-genre-innovation...
Nintendo makes money on games that explore new genres. It can't keep doing that unless it keeps increasing the design-space and interaction-space to find those new genres within.
Nintendo makes money on games that people want to play. To suggest anything else is nonsense, or at least overcomplicating the situation. Innovation can help with that, but isn't guaranteed to. Consider that some of the best-selling games on the Wii and DS were the New Super Mario Bros. games -- these were games that were so popular they moved hardware, and yet their core genres and mechanics are identical to the Mario games of the NES and SNES era. In fact, it could be argued that their success was exactly because they stuck so closely to that old formula -- other Mario games, such as the 3D platformers, don't sell nearly as well.
Innovation is good when it supports the goal of creating games people want to play. Wii Sports, for example, could not be done without the Wii Remote. That was a good innovation that served both to lower the barrier of entry to games and to allow for new modes of play that people found fun. But things like the 3D of the 3DS, which Nintendo is now wisely backing away from, or the tablet on the Wii U, which substantially increased its price tag, don't provide those same benefits. And hardware innovation alone doesn't cut it -- it needs games like Wii Sports to support it.
And I think that for a company like Nintendo, third-party support is heavily overrated. The best way to get third-party support is to sell enough consoles that they can no longer ignore you, and the only way to do that is strong first-party games.
Innovation is good when it supports the goal of creating games people want to play. Wii Sports, for example, could not be done without the Wii Remote. That was a good innovation that served both to lower the barrier of entry to games and to allow for new modes of play that people found fun. But things like the 3D of the 3DS, which Nintendo is now wisely backing away from, or the tablet on the Wii U, which substantially increased its price tag, don't provide those same benefits. And hardware innovation alone doesn't cut it -- it needs games like Wii Sports to support it.
And I think that for a company like Nintendo, third-party support is heavily overrated. The best way to get third-party support is to sell enough consoles that they can no longer ignore you, and the only way to do that is strong first-party games.
Did you read the article I linked? The reason Nintendo makes their money from genre innovation, is that Microsoft and Sony have the resources to invest to make money from polished "genre king" titles--and so Nintendo, necessarily, must take the segment of the market they ignore. They do this by figuring out ways to make games cheaply that nevertheless have the potential for a strong reaction from the market--and this basically necessitates genre innovation. (Or remakes/ports, which Nintendo is also quite familiar with.)
I did read the article, but these points don't hit the core of why Nintendo is successful, when it's successful. It's true that Nintendo tries to make games cheaper than many AAA game companies, though with the ballooning cost of AAA game development that's not saying much. It's true that it's often in new genres. And it's very true that they focused on a different, broader market than Microsoft and Sony back in the Wii's heyday. What I'm saying is that innovation alone is not enough to create success. It must be pointed in the right direction. At times they've gotten this right, at other times they haven't.
It's nonsense to imply that Nintendo games aren't polished, or that third-party AAA game developers will necessarily dominate any genre that they choose to develop for. I can't think of a 2D platformer that has ever done as well as Mario, and 2D platformers are one of gaming's oldest genres -- certainly a "mature genre".
That article was written back in 2005, just after the Wii Remote was announced, when people were still speculating about that strange new controller and what it could mean. We have the benefit of hindsight now, and the best way to understand what was going on then is to take it straight from the horse's mouth, looking back at the early days of the Wii, when Nintendo talked openly about their business strategy. Back then, they outright said that they based their new strategy on the books The Innovator's Dilemma and The Blue Ocean Strategy. (They talked about this in their shareholder meetings, which were available online but which I unfortunately can no longer find.) These books give us a framework for understanding what they were doing then -- no need to create ungainly terms like "genre king". The books talk about conceiving of the market as the "core" -- which were the people who were actively playing and buying games at the time, and which were the target market of their competitors -- and the "expanded audience" -- which were those who weren't playing games, or who used to play but had since stopped. The latter is who Nintendo chose to focus on back then. Innovation did play a part in that, but it doesn't explain it entirely: some games were innovative and succeeded, (ex. Wii Sports), some were innovative and failed, (ex. Wii Music, remember that one?) and some were not innovative but still managed to differentiate themselves by appealing to the expanded audience (ex. New Super Mario Bros.). To lump the latter category of games, which were new entries in genres with long and storied histories, together with games that were in completely new genres, is contradictory.
New Super Mario Bros., for one, effectively used none of the hardware features of the Wii to its advantage, and was still one of the strongest-selling games of the generation. Its success is attributable not to innovation but to being a game that many people, especially the expanded audience, wanted to play. It's as simple as that.
It's nonsense to imply that Nintendo games aren't polished, or that third-party AAA game developers will necessarily dominate any genre that they choose to develop for. I can't think of a 2D platformer that has ever done as well as Mario, and 2D platformers are one of gaming's oldest genres -- certainly a "mature genre".
That article was written back in 2005, just after the Wii Remote was announced, when people were still speculating about that strange new controller and what it could mean. We have the benefit of hindsight now, and the best way to understand what was going on then is to take it straight from the horse's mouth, looking back at the early days of the Wii, when Nintendo talked openly about their business strategy. Back then, they outright said that they based their new strategy on the books The Innovator's Dilemma and The Blue Ocean Strategy. (They talked about this in their shareholder meetings, which were available online but which I unfortunately can no longer find.) These books give us a framework for understanding what they were doing then -- no need to create ungainly terms like "genre king". The books talk about conceiving of the market as the "core" -- which were the people who were actively playing and buying games at the time, and which were the target market of their competitors -- and the "expanded audience" -- which were those who weren't playing games, or who used to play but had since stopped. The latter is who Nintendo chose to focus on back then. Innovation did play a part in that, but it doesn't explain it entirely: some games were innovative and succeeded, (ex. Wii Sports), some were innovative and failed, (ex. Wii Music, remember that one?) and some were not innovative but still managed to differentiate themselves by appealing to the expanded audience (ex. New Super Mario Bros.). To lump the latter category of games, which were new entries in genres with long and storied histories, together with games that were in completely new genres, is contradictory.
New Super Mario Bros., for one, effectively used none of the hardware features of the Wii to its advantage, and was still one of the strongest-selling games of the generation. Its success is attributable not to innovation but to being a game that many people, especially the expanded audience, wanted to play. It's as simple as that.
I'm amazed by how long and exhaustively-researched this article is. And it's all on one big page with only a few ads at the top. How can this possibly be profitable for the author?
I still vividly remember spending nights online trying to find out more about the Dolphin... This is such a fascinating read, it strangely feels like hearing other points of view of a story I was part of, even if just very remotely.
This made me seriously consider buying a WiiU again, if only to experience how that story develops...
This made me seriously consider buying a WiiU again, if only to experience how that story develops...
Funny how N64 to GameCube's focus on developer friendliness is similar to PS2/3 to PS4. Once number 1 then trimming the fat. http://imgur.com/okP8cdO
Nintendo might not make great developer platforms, but they make great games and there will always be a place for a company that makes great games.
This article was totally worth it just for the youtube link at 02:00 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKlbx5niBu8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKlbx5niBu8
It was iconic in it's design no doubt but publishing for GameCube was a disaster for Capcom's Resident Evil franchise.
They released Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube and sold a total of 1.5 million copies. When they ported the game to the PS2 it sold a total of 8 million copies.
They released Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube and sold a total of 1.5 million copies. When they ported the game to the PS2 it sold a total of 8 million copies.
Financially not so great for Capcom, but the GameCube version was far superior to the PS2 port, so as a gamer who considers Resident Evil 4 to be one of the finest single player action games of all time, I'm glad they went out on the GC first and ported later rather than having the PS2 version be a "least common denominator" regulator during initial development because most games that went that route just used shitty low-res PS2-friendly textures across the board.
Oh of course it was. But the director flipped at the thought of it being ported to the PS2 because of this.
Yes. But RE on the GCN was far superior to the PS2 ports in feel and look.
I really loved my GameCube, in many ways it was the best console of it's generation. But it just couldn't compete with the library of games the PS2 had.
It was kind of sad to read this. There are some thing in the article, like the idea of a console as a toy for fun, that are so quintessentially Nintendo and why I love them. But it's also so clear that it's not the direction the market went. You can see how the 3rd party problems got worse and the beginnings of the disaster that Nintendo's on-line efforts. There are points where it's just so clear their arrogance is causing them serious problems.
I really love Nintendo. I hope they can turn themselves around before it's too late.
It was kind of sad to read this. There are some thing in the article, like the idea of a console as a toy for fun, that are so quintessentially Nintendo and why I love them. But it's also so clear that it's not the direction the market went. You can see how the 3rd party problems got worse and the beginnings of the disaster that Nintendo's on-line efforts. There are points where it's just so clear their arrogance is causing them serious problems.
I really love Nintendo. I hope they can turn themselves around before it's too late.
I mean, Nintendo is not perfect by any stretch, but afaik it's not like they're on the ropes. The DS line is still immensely profitable, and they've had mixed success with consoles. There's no need to act like they're on the brink.
From what I've read online about Wii U sales, they may have a big problem. I haven't read anything about the holiday season so they might have turned it around. But I doubt it. There was no significant discounting or console bundles. I thought they'd release a Super Mario 3D world bundle to move sales .. surprising that they didn't do this in the US.
From what I've read they had fairly strong sales leading up to Christmas for the WiiU. It sold well in Japan for instance, but with little competition because the PS4 was late being released there and no XboxOne. They had enough sales to crash the online system with the number of new people trying to register accounts. But nowhere near the numbers they were projecting, of which may take quite a while before they hit their target, if ever. It cannot really compete with PS4 and XboxOne numbers.
But that matters little because they dominate with the 3DS. In terms of handhelds they have little competition. Nintendo can survive the WiiU if they're smart about it, so I doubt they'll be out of the game anytime soon.
They just need to stop doing the stupid gimmicks they pass off as innovation and focus on their strengths, making fun games that everyone can enjoy.
But that matters little because they dominate with the 3DS. In terms of handhelds they have little competition. Nintendo can survive the WiiU if they're smart about it, so I doubt they'll be out of the game anytime soon.
They just need to stop doing the stupid gimmicks they pass off as innovation and focus on their strengths, making fun games that everyone can enjoy.
"I really love Nintendo. I hope they can turn themselves around before it's too late."
Totally agree. Nintendo in the N64 era made games so good that became part of popular culture.
Totally agree. Nintendo in the N64 era made games so good that became part of popular culture.
I still remember the first time I played Super Mario 64. That game had an impact on me like none other. I had played 3-D games before, but with the level of control over Mario and the realism of his movements, that was the first where I felt like I was inhabiting a virtual world. I truly believe that's the greatest game of all time, from a standpoint of historical context.
And I still remember seeing The Legend of Zelda for the NES in a commercial on TV. It was the first game in which I felt I could explore in any direction, and I loved being a sword-swinging hero in a fantasy land! These days I don't really play video games, but I'm still hoping Miyamoto has more surprises in store for us.
So was the Wii really just a re-do of the GameCube and a chance to correct all the problems, especially the perceptions of being a toy?
The Wii was their 'blue ocean' strategy. Let MS and Sony squabble over the hardcore gamers, Nintendo would go after the other 80% of the population. The strategy worked amazingly well.
The problem is, they didn't capitalize on it. A lot of people with a Wii didn't buy much software. The Wii had no real online component, despite being released a few years after the introduction of Xbox Live. Over the lifetime of the Wii, Nintendo appears to have learned basically nothing about online services. Sony & MS kept improving their online experience.
The Wii had the ability for downloaded games, but it didn't work that great. They were oddly tied to the console, and that was never fixed. Meanwhile it worked great for Sony and MS.
But years later, when the WiiU and 3DS came out... they had the same problems. Games tied to hardware (not accounts), terrible online components. They don't have the success to draw in third parties (on the WiiU), so they're having serious problems. That's four generations running of poor 3rd party support.
And they seemed to learn the wrong lesson from the 3DS. They tried something interesting with the Wii, and it worked pretty well. They tried it again with the 3DS, and it's basically failed. Even Nintendo is making games that don't use 3D. So when the WiiU came... it was full of new (and expensive) gimmicks. So the 'just games' console cost most of $400.
Sony, on the other hand, actually learned from the PS2 and PS3 and simplified. They didn't try to cram new exotic hardware in the console, and that made it easy for 3rd parties and cheaper to produce.
I don't think Nintendo will ever recover on the WiiU. I hope they can last long enough to fix things for the next generation.
The problem is, they didn't capitalize on it. A lot of people with a Wii didn't buy much software. The Wii had no real online component, despite being released a few years after the introduction of Xbox Live. Over the lifetime of the Wii, Nintendo appears to have learned basically nothing about online services. Sony & MS kept improving their online experience.
The Wii had the ability for downloaded games, but it didn't work that great. They were oddly tied to the console, and that was never fixed. Meanwhile it worked great for Sony and MS.
But years later, when the WiiU and 3DS came out... they had the same problems. Games tied to hardware (not accounts), terrible online components. They don't have the success to draw in third parties (on the WiiU), so they're having serious problems. That's four generations running of poor 3rd party support.
And they seemed to learn the wrong lesson from the 3DS. They tried something interesting with the Wii, and it worked pretty well. They tried it again with the 3DS, and it's basically failed. Even Nintendo is making games that don't use 3D. So when the WiiU came... it was full of new (and expensive) gimmicks. So the 'just games' console cost most of $400.
Sony, on the other hand, actually learned from the PS2 and PS3 and simplified. They didn't try to cram new exotic hardware in the console, and that made it easy for 3rd parties and cheaper to produce.
I don't think Nintendo will ever recover on the WiiU. I hope they can last long enough to fix things for the next generation.
Nintendo also do a bizarre thing with the software. The platform bindings are in an "ios" (eg the provider for wifi, controllers, memory, storage etc). Rather than use one, and upgrade it over time, new versions are installed alongside older ones. Each game/app says what it uses, and the system loads that ios when the game/app loads. This results in least risk of bugs, but it also means that new functionality won't be made available to existing titles. Only one ios can be running at a time.
This software architecture is not conducive to what you expect from modern systems with hypervisors and multiple things running alongside the games and apps. Read more at http://wiibrew.org/wiki/IOS
This software architecture is not conducive to what you expect from modern systems with hypervisors and multiple things running alongside the games and apps. Read more at http://wiibrew.org/wiki/IOS
> A lot of people with a Wii didn't buy much software
But that's wrong - the Wii had a perfectly fine attach ratio of a bit over 8 games per console - above PS3 but below XBox 360.
Sources:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/01/24/wii-tie-ratio-at-81-i...
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20988
As far as the current gen goes, I see only the Wii U as an actual console. XBone is an always-on camera on a consumer PC and I have to pay to get online. PS4 is a consumer PC without a camera and I have to pay to get online. They have nothing that won't come on the PC that's worth playing.
And for the 3DS the two problems I see are the low pixel density of the screen and the motion controls. The low pixel density means I see different jaggies (aliasing) with each eye and that feels weird. The motion controls don't mesh well with the need to always keep the system at a precise tilt and distance from my eyes, but in games without motion controls it works reasonably well. I wonder if any game studio would decide to not use the 3D feature, but instead push better graphics.
P.S. The one thing that worries me about the 3DS is the lack of homebrew. Flashcarts are already available but only for piracy, I still can't run my own software on the device.
But that's wrong - the Wii had a perfectly fine attach ratio of a bit over 8 games per console - above PS3 but below XBox 360.
Sources:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/01/24/wii-tie-ratio-at-81-i...
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20988
As far as the current gen goes, I see only the Wii U as an actual console. XBone is an always-on camera on a consumer PC and I have to pay to get online. PS4 is a consumer PC without a camera and I have to pay to get online. They have nothing that won't come on the PC that's worth playing.
And for the 3DS the two problems I see are the low pixel density of the screen and the motion controls. The low pixel density means I see different jaggies (aliasing) with each eye and that feels weird. The motion controls don't mesh well with the need to always keep the system at a precise tilt and distance from my eyes, but in games without motion controls it works reasonably well. I wonder if any game studio would decide to not use the 3D feature, but instead push better graphics.
P.S. The one thing that worries me about the 3DS is the lack of homebrew. Flashcarts are already available but only for piracy, I still can't run my own software on the device.
The PS4 has a number of exclusives e.g. Uncharted, Last Of Us, Little Big Planet which are system sellers. And if you think the PS4 is just a regular PC then are you missing a lot. The unified memory and asynchronous compute aspects are important differences from most home PCs.
The PC is the one that is likely to struggle since fewer and fewer people are buying desktop machines. And laptops/tablets are all about battery life.
The PC is the one that is likely to struggle since fewer and fewer people are buying desktop machines. And laptops/tablets are all about battery life.
Well I don't care enough about those to buy a PS4 just for them. And the PC has been dying since forever. I grant you that the unified memory, etc. is really nice, but as we've seen from e.g. the PS2 - how hard it is to program for a system doesn't really matter in the end. And the PC is not in any way hard to write programs for.
I'm a PC gamer, I've been told that my hobby has been dying for something like 25 years. I buy more games for the PC now than I did ten years ago.
We're doing just fine thank you very much.
We're doing just fine thank you very much.
It's not really fair to call the 3DS a failure. While the launch was rough, the 3DS has definitely recovered. Hopefully, they will be able to pull off a similar turnaround with the Wii U.
However, I'm not totally optimistic. The Wii U has been an absurd marketing disaster.
However, I'm not totally optimistic. The Wii U has been an absurd marketing disaster.
3DS as a console isn't a failure. But I think it's safe to say that the 3D part of it is one - and Nintendo admitted as much when they brought out the 2DS earlier this year. Officially it's just a way to create something parents are more comfortable buying for their children. But it's also an open acknowledgement that the autostereoscopic adds so little gameplay value that there was little or no incentive against shipping a version of the system that lacks it.
That's my take on the 3DS. The 3D part is a failure. Most people seems to turn it off and now Nintendo is releasing games that often disable it. The hardware wasn't ready at that price point.
My other problem with the 3DS is that they still haven't learned how to do downloadable software or online games properly. They're making the right noises on these issues... but it's not like it should have been a surprise.
My other problem with the 3DS is that they still haven't learned how to do downloadable software or online games properly. They're making the right noises on these issues... but it's not like it should have been a surprise.
On the downloadable software front I've finally just realized that Nintendo doesn't even want my money, especially when it comes to Virtual Console titles.
Can't figure out any other good explanation behind why they still won't let me buy Minish Cap. Sure it made sense a couple years ago when they wanted to make people who bought a 3DS before the price drop feel special. But that's far enough in the past that they're not earning any additional goodwill from it, so it's morphed into something more like, "Making sure these people still feel whatever shred of special-ness they might still feel from being 3DS Ambassadors is more important to them than earning more of my money."
Got similar suspicions about why they refuse to make SNES and N64 games available on 3DS Virtual Console.
Can't figure out any other good explanation behind why they still won't let me buy Minish Cap. Sure it made sense a couple years ago when they wanted to make people who bought a 3DS before the price drop feel special. But that's far enough in the past that they're not earning any additional goodwill from it, so it's morphed into something more like, "Making sure these people still feel whatever shred of special-ness they might still feel from being 3DS Ambassadors is more important to them than earning more of my money."
Got similar suspicions about why they refuse to make SNES and N64 games available on 3DS Virtual Console.
The hardware wasn't the issue. The hardware at nearly any price point would most likely fail. The whole 3D on a 2D surface thing was a stupid fad that only manufacturers thought was a good idea. The 3D on a 2D surface is a failure pretty much anywhere you look. The only time it could be considered a success is when the consumer has little choice, such as a movie only being shown in 3D with no old-fashioned 2D option.
The only time 3D works is when it is not presented on a 2D surface, such as a VR solution.
The only time 3D works is when it is not presented on a 2D surface, such as a VR solution.
I would love to see Rez ported to the 3DS.
Or a web browser that puts high-scoring HN submissions in the foreground and lower scoring items in the background. (Has anyone done a red blue glasses chrome extension for this?)
Apart from that the 3d is neat, but pointless. I'm sure there are some games that use it sensibly, but most don't.
It's weird to see so many racing titles on iOS and so few on 3 DS.
Or a web browser that puts high-scoring HN submissions in the foreground and lower scoring items in the background. (Has anyone done a red blue glasses chrome extension for this?)
Apart from that the 3d is neat, but pointless. I'm sure there are some games that use it sensibly, but most don't.
It's weird to see so many racing titles on iOS and so few on 3 DS.
I applaud the effort to bring hardware / sensorial innovation on handheld devices, but yeah the 3D ended up in the gimmick bag. The only time people turn it on is to show how it is to newcomers so they understand why they turn it off.
The biggest problem is its name. Many people think it's just an extra peripheral for the Wii, and it's difficult to pronounce (at least, it feels awkward when I say it; I get an urge to abbreviate to "Wii"... and I think we see the problem there).
I really enjoyed my WiiU much more than I expected to. I think the hardware and the platform are really cool. They should rebrand.
I really enjoyed my WiiU much more than I expected to. I think the hardware and the platform are really cool. They should rebrand.
I think I got the 3DS on the day or soon after it came out. I was really pissed at the quality, that they lowered the price so soon, and that their "compensation in games" to the original purchasers was a joke. I forget the details but I recall they initially said they'd give 7 games to original buyers ... later it turned out that the set of games they were giving were old, old, old ... I think some were even black and white. WTF!
It was initially 10 NES games, and they followed it up with 10 GBA games a couple months later. Nothing in black and white, but I think the oldest was Super Mario Bros, which was admittedly about 25 years old at that point.
[deleted]
The attach rate was pretty good for the Wii, unlike the competing consoles, by using older, simpler technology, Nintendo sold the Wii consoles at a profit as well.
But technically, the Wii was just a faster GameCube under the hood. That's what I was really getting at, I guess.
Power wise that was supposed to be (roughly) accurate. But Wii Sports was so successful I think it made the 'Nintendo is for little kids' image much stronger. At a time when Nintendo could have really used more mature and 3rd party games those publishers might have been scared off by the shovel ware system for people who aren't between 14-65.
I still use my GameCube every week (playing through the Resident Evil series at the moment). I've built homebrew, run on my XenoGC chip I soldered on myself. I'm building up the courage (and time) to buy a new one and attempt the IDE adapter. It's my absolute favourite console ever. :)
The bonus mini-game for Resident Evil that is unlocked when you complete the game was astounding. You had to get combos to score so it involved getting yourself into the worst possible situation, totally surrounded by zombies before starting your counter-attack. Incredibly suited gameplay to the zombie genre. (I think they released it standalone for the 3DS too).
My Gamecube is packed away, but I still pull out the Bongo accesories to play Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat via Wii backwards-compatibility. This is possibly my favourite game of all time, there's just something magical about getting into the flow state playing a game that you control via bongos and hand-claps.
Here's a video review that agrees with my view that this is a hidden gem that introduced a lot of concepts use later by Nintendo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGi4yd545Ac
My Gamecube is packed away, but I still pull out the Bongo accesories to play Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat via Wii backwards-compatibility. This is possibly my favourite game of all time, there's just something magical about getting into the flow state playing a game that you control via bongos and hand-claps.
Here's a video review that agrees with my view that this is a hidden gem that introduced a lot of concepts use later by Nintendo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGi4yd545Ac
Just commenting to say thanks for mentioning the bongos! My house-mates thought I was mad when I bought them as a student, but it quickly turned into a house favourite. I would still recommend them to this day if you can get your hands on them.
Re: flow-state - perhaps the only game where this is possible at any level of intoxication.
Re: flow-state - perhaps the only game where this is possible at any level of intoxication.
I disagree.. Even when drunk, I can achieve flow state on expert for Mario's DDR...
Man I wish I still had mine. My luck with my Nintendo consoles has been pretty bad lol:
- I sold my Super Nintendo in high school for $20. What the hell was I thinking...
- My sister took my N64 to someone's house many years ago and I never saw it since (nor do we remember whose house... at the moment I didn't care... foolish me).
- And finally, I left my Gamecube at my girlfriend's apartment, and then she moved and forgot it in some old cupboard in the closet... it's been a few years now unfortunately so I doubt it's still there.
It's funny how in the moment you don't really care that much but later on you're smacking yourself heh.
- I sold my Super Nintendo in high school for $20. What the hell was I thinking...
- My sister took my N64 to someone's house many years ago and I never saw it since (nor do we remember whose house... at the moment I didn't care... foolish me).
- And finally, I left my Gamecube at my girlfriend's apartment, and then she moved and forgot it in some old cupboard in the closet... it's been a few years now unfortunately so I doubt it's still there.
It's funny how in the moment you don't really care that much but later on you're smacking yourself heh.
For about $100 you could buy a SNES, an NES and a Wii (can also play GCN games)
I like the WiiU concept:
- Off TV play
- DS on steriods kind of works
- In a family house hold, having the game on both screens completely gets rid of "You're in the way" frustrations.
- Wireless display streaming!? (When this gets better, it will be amazing).
- Off TV play
- DS on steriods kind of works
- In a family house hold, having the game on both screens completely gets rid of "You're in the way" frustrations.
- Wireless display streaming!? (When this gets better, it will be amazing).
I agree Off-TV play is a really nice feature, but in my opinion the cons outweigh the pros.
- Few games use it in any meaningful way. - It's bulky and unfamiliar. - It muddies the image of what the console is (is the tablet the Wii U?) - It raised the price of the console significantly. - It threw away the momentum they had for something none of their install-base wanted.
While I love my Wii U, it's destined to become another 20m failure. I hope that I'm wrong and that with time they can really iterate on their online functionality and get some better 3rd party support, but I'm not optimistic. If nothing else the 3DS is killing it, so it's not like they're going broke any time soon.
- Few games use it in any meaningful way. - It's bulky and unfamiliar. - It muddies the image of what the console is (is the tablet the Wii U?) - It raised the price of the console significantly. - It threw away the momentum they had for something none of their install-base wanted.
While I love my Wii U, it's destined to become another 20m failure. I hope that I'm wrong and that with time they can really iterate on their online functionality and get some better 3rd party support, but I'm not optimistic. If nothing else the 3DS is killing it, so it's not like they're going broke any time soon.
Great quote that (IMO) demonstrates Nintendo's philosophy towards new technology:
----- [2003]
Each time Satoru Iwata did an interview with the press, the subject of online gaming would rear its head. As you can imagine, Iwata became increasingly annoyed with answering the same question over and over. He slammed critics who claimed that Nintendo couldn’t survive as a business unless they embraced online gaming as the future.
“All the talk in the industry regarding online gaming has been misleading. Network swindlers have made it seem like companies can’t survive in this business without network compatibility,” said Iwata. “That’s the same type of rhetoric people have been saying about the newspaper business, that the paper-based periodical business will be dead in three years. In reality, the number of users willing to pay a monthly fee for online games is small. Many of the American companies who were focusing almost exclusively on network games last year now view network capabilities as an advertising tool. The fact of the matter is, network games can’t provide a stable source of profit for a company of Nintendo’s scale.”
----- [2003]
Each time Satoru Iwata did an interview with the press, the subject of online gaming would rear its head. As you can imagine, Iwata became increasingly annoyed with answering the same question over and over. He slammed critics who claimed that Nintendo couldn’t survive as a business unless they embraced online gaming as the future.
“All the talk in the industry regarding online gaming has been misleading. Network swindlers have made it seem like companies can’t survive in this business without network compatibility,” said Iwata. “That’s the same type of rhetoric people have been saying about the newspaper business, that the paper-based periodical business will be dead in three years. In reality, the number of users willing to pay a monthly fee for online games is small. Many of the American companies who were focusing almost exclusively on network games last year now view network capabilities as an advertising tool. The fact of the matter is, network games can’t provide a stable source of profit for a company of Nintendo’s scale.”
A more classic quote about their approach to tech is (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi):
Yokoi articulated his philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (枯れた技術の水平思考?, "Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikō") (also translated as "Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology") in the book, Yokoi Gunpei Game House (横井軍平ゲーム館 Yokoi Gunpei Gēmu-kan?), which consists of a collection of interviews. "Withered technology" in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun gameplay are more important. In the interview he suggested that expensive cutting edge technology can get in the way of developing a new product.[10]
Yokoi articulated his philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (枯れた技術の水平思考?, "Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikō") (also translated as "Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology") in the book, Yokoi Gunpei Game House (横井軍平ゲーム館 Yokoi Gunpei Gēmu-kan?), which consists of a collection of interviews. "Withered technology" in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun gameplay are more important. In the interview he suggested that expensive cutting edge technology can get in the way of developing a new product.[10]
Nintendo is used to selling games for $40-$60 a pop. They don't want to be lead into the situation like on the iPhone where the average game is 99 cents.
Their strategy so far is to pretend that it's still 2001 and that isn't a strategy that they can sustain forever.
Their strategy so far is to pretend that it's still 2001 and that isn't a strategy that they can sustain forever.
I dunno, it seems to be working pretty well for them on the 3DS (the WiiU, not so much...):
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/hard_soft/index.html
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/3ds.html
What's wrong with making good games and charging more than a fast food lunch for them? It's not like anybody levels this complaint at Microsoft or Sony, who tend to charge even more for new releases.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/hard_soft/index.html
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/3ds.html
What's wrong with making good games and charging more than a fast food lunch for them? It's not like anybody levels this complaint at Microsoft or Sony, who tend to charge even more for new releases.
It could also be argued that their target group is younger than Sony's and Microsoft's. This age group generally have less money to spend so Nintendo's consoles have to be cheaper. Online gaming is also less important for this group.
> the paper-based periodical business will be dead in three years.
That quote was apprently from 2003. Many (formerly) paper-based periodicals may be dying, but some, like the Financial Times and the New Yorker, seem to have a reason to live.
That quote was apprently from 2003. Many (formerly) paper-based periodicals may be dying, but some, like the Financial Times and the New Yorker, seem to have a reason to live.
Read the quote again. Iwata was saying it was rhetoric, not fact.
To me the worst part of this whole ordeal is making the games shorter. I just beat Link between worlds on 3DS, and I really wish it would have kept going. Same thing for Pikmin3 on WiiU.
A Link Between Worlds took me about ~16 hours. I only died 3 times (twice to the 50 floor challenge in the Treacherous Tower because I didn't have enough bottles at the time). I can still replay it in hero mode, but the game just felt very, very short. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I just wish the main content was longer.
I also have my Dreamcast and PSX with screen to keep me entertained. Not sure I'll ever move on to newer hardware, other than the PC games I have! Still reliably playing Homeworld 2 every Monday, pretty sad really.
Great console. Great read.