So, Are Nintendo Right?

[Rensa]

I'm feeling compelled to write a few hundred words on this after seeing a fair few threads on the topic of NIntendo's philosophy of simpler games. There was that MSNBC interview one, and a few others that I'm making up to justify this thread's existence, and they all have some very good points. Well, here are my two cents, which are obviously important enough to be in a whole new thread :p

In one corner, we have Nintendo advocates (read: employees and fanatics) telling us that games need to be simple; that flashy graphics and complex controls should be thrown away. In the other, we have other fanatics (or else also not-so-fanatical people who are simply opinionated) and employees of competitors telling us that Nintendo's ways are outdated (and no doubt sneaking in a comment about Nintendo's demographic). Most of the arguments put forth seem to miss one very important tidbit of information.

The videogame industry, like many others (film, written media, etc.), is a fairly broad one. Not just an industry, it represents a platform upon which creations can be conveyed, not dissimilar to the way a canvas allows an artist to express his or her art. It is for this reason that Jackie Chan films are held in the same regard as Studio Ghibli ones. It is for this reason that I can buy a Picnic bar every day of the week and still expect to find the good ol' Dairy Milk Chocolate bar on the shelf. It is for this reason that Nintendo's games manage to sell well, despite there being so many videogames that take an opposite approach being published.

It is my opinion that the mark of a great work of art (whether it be a painting, a musical piece, or a film or game) is the ability to move its end-user to an emotion. Whether it chooses to make them shed tears of anger or joy makes no difference. Whether it chooses to make them laugh out of relief at seeing their new best friend be rescued at the last perilous moment or out of the sheer joy of blowing around a fantastic course at several thousand miles per hour makes no difference either. And finally, whether a game chooses to create a world that immerses its player with a fascinating narrative, an evocative musical score or an ingenious gameplay concept make sno difference whatsoever.

[Freak of Kane]

This all sounds nice, but back to the real world - if anything, IMO, this philosophy of Nintendo's will make or break them...I'm thinking break. They aren't in much of a position these days to tell gamers what they want - gamers know what they want. The connectivity gimmick is a perfect example of Nintendo's stance not agreeing with ours. If they don't start changing their ways soon, I believe this Cube revival will do nothing for the N5...more and more gamers will just disagree with Nintendo.

[Cooolcorey]

Yeah, but without creative and different games, the market will become stale. We'll have a bunch of clones of SM64 as platformers, we'll have a bunch of clones of Zelda 64 as adventure games, and we'll have a bunch of GoldenEye clones as FPS. All of these games are great, and there's nothing wrong with having a few games that use the same kind of gameplay, but after a while it gets old. It's good that Nintendo (and other companies too) are trying to keep things fresh. The sad part is, new gamers who haven't played the originals are thinking all these types of gameplay are new, but really they're approaching 10 years old, and us older gamers want real new stuff.

[COTTON]

new things, concept things and creative things are good for any industry. Remember the crash of the video game industry back in the early eighties, it killed Atari (for several reasons, one of those reasons was) because there were so many of the same game basically, several crappy movie and tv licenced games (so history really DOES repeat it's self,) and no new inovative types of games.

It's at least good to see Nintendo TRY to distinguish its self from the competition, unlike MS, who goes for the exact same demographic, the exact same target audience as Sony. If you look at how many of each systems are out there MS and Nintendo are doing about the same.

[prime_timer]

I like to see Nintendo stick to simplicity first. thats one of the reasons they wont go online: Its not plug 'n play. I'll use Xbox and PS2 as examples: In one case, you have to go out and buy an adapter for say 40 bucks. Then, you've got to get a certain kind of cable to plug into that adapter. now youve got information going from your phone line or DSL/Cabe modem into that adapter. Now comes the hard part. youve got to configure all these things on your PC and PS2, that you eventually burst a hemorrhoid. Now in the case of the Xbox, its much simpler, as you alreaady know you need to high speed internet. You simply go buy a Starter Kit for $70, the one with the full version of MechAssault packaged in with it. Now you put the start-up disc into the system, and let it read, and it'll bring the Xbox Live menu on your dashboard. Now you have to take a cable, plug into your ethernet port, then plug it into your DSL/Cable modem, or depending on if you wanna play on LIVE and your dad wants to check his email, then you'll need a router, thats another 30 bucks. There's less to configure on your Xbox, but all that is still a pain in the ass. Nintendo wants to keep things simple for you and me. plus they dont want to lose so much damn money running servers. But im just fine with them sticking to simplicity.

[Wh|tE gUy]

Can someone please start making sub-thesis statement replies? Id actually like to be able to read some responses...

[Rensa]

Originally posted by Freak of Kane
This all sounds nice, but back to the real world - if anything, IMO, this philosophy of Nintendo's will make or break them...I'm thinking break. They aren't in much of a position these days to tell gamers what they want - gamers know what they want. The connectivity gimmick is a perfect example of Nintendo's stance not agreeing with ours. If they don't start changing their ways soon, I believe this Cube revival will do nothing for the N5...more and more gamers will just disagree with Nintendo.

That's my point - there is plenty of room for Nintendo's games - the fact that they do sell somewhat proves that there is some demand for them. However, that doesn't mean that they can go off and tell everyone else that they're chasing rainbows (or however the saying goes... I don't know, I was never good with proverbs and things ;)). Although there is a great difference between a game that wins acclaim and a game that sells, they both require balance. People only ever seem to be in favour of one style, completely shunting the other off. Realise that if either type of game (either, despite what many other gamers would have you belive) dies out, this industry is going down the toilet.

[Steve-AMN]

The fact is this, Nintendo is the company that most everyone likes to bash but secretly plays when they are home alone. Done and done. The very same people that bash Nintendo up and down are the very same people that hate to admit that they fell for Smash Brothers or God forbid Animal Crossing. Most people fight to buy a Gamecube. Just like I once fought to buy an X-Box.

Nintendo is the ONLY company of its kind. It is the ONLY company that cares about its customers. It is the ONLY company that truly cares about the video gaming market out of the three console companies. THAT is why Nintendo will continue to sell.

No one denies Nintendo's brilliance. It has just become pop culture to think of them as Kiddy even though those same people go home to play RE0 or ED on a purple gamecube :P

[andre]

I've been a Nintendo fanboy ever since my grandparents bought me a SNES when I was seven. All of their systems have been technical powerhouses when released. If they abandon good looking games, they're screwing themselves over. Games that have good graphics sell, heard of Splinter Cell anybody? I will always only buy Nintendo machines, but games shouldn't be dumbed down for the masses. If anything, it would alienate Nintendo even further. Their games are stellar, and they should keep making them the way they are now.

[retroyoshi]

Here are the real issues:

1) Games are becoming very expensive to make, and need to become "best sellers" to break even. Look at all of the publishers looking for partnerships to try and keep their head above water. Vivendi is dumping their games division, 3DO (once a publishing powerhouse) is no more, Sega (also a mega publisher) is hurting. Eventually everyone is going to follow suit and try to drastically cut development costs- they just don't want to say it.

2) Lead time. You can tie this directly to development costs if you want. 2 years to produce a game is way to long. You miss marketing opportunity, publishers become impatient, and corners are cut.

3) Polish. Adding just one more rule to a game makes it 10 times harder to balance and polish. Try it sometime- Take a simple game (like checkers), try to add one rule to the game and make it as easy to play and compelling as the original game.

About Graphics:
4) Diminishing return. If people have a hard time seeing a lot of difference between Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine then the next generation is going to be even less impressive. Sure, you might have the shaders and processing power to do a lot of need effects- but most take time (read: money) to make and aren't noticed or missed.

No one is talking about a return to pong or astroids (granted, these are great games), but a return to simplicity- or rather a conscious effort to not make things more complicated than they need to be.

[Monkeylord]

Originally posted by retroyoshi
Here are the real issues:

1) Games are becoming very expensive to make, and need to become "best sellers" to break even. Look at all of the publishers looking for partnerships to try and keep their head above water. Vivendi is dumping their games division, 3DO (once a publishing powerhouse) is no more, Sega (also a mega publisher) is hurting. Eventually everyone is going to follow suit and try to drastically cut development costs- they just don't want to say it.

2) Lead time. You can tie this directly to development costs if you want. 2 years to produce a game is way to long. You miss marketing opportunity, publishers become impatient, and corners are cut.

3) Polish. Adding just one more rule to a game makes it 10 times harder to balance and polish. Try it sometime- Take a simple game (like checkers), try to add one rule to the game and make it as easy to play and compelling as the original game.

About Graphics:
4) Diminishing return. If people have a hard time seeing a lot of difference between Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine then the next generation is going to be even less impressive. Sure, you might have the shaders and processing power to do a lot of need effects- but most take time (read: money) to make and aren't noticed or missed.

No one is talking about a return to pong or astroids (granted, these are great games), but a return to simplicity- or rather a conscious effort to not make things more complicated than they need to be.

One of the most INTELLIGENT things I've read all day (and I've been going through contractual documents!)

Kudos to ya, Retroyoshi!

[Cooolcorey]

That's all very true. I've thought about this before, and I've come up with a solution that would definately help Nintendo out.

They could go and develop all of these pixel shaders and awesome lighting effects and texture engines and such, then licence them out to all the publishers. Then the publishers could use them in their games, thusly lowering development time, which means lower development costs, and all of these preprogrammed effects would be proprietary to, or specially optimized for the GC/N5 (I think it's a tad late for the GC...), so they'd have a hard time porting the game to other consoles, so that might make them not want to port them, which means more GC/N5 exclusive games, or the GC/N5 games would look better or play better than their XBox/PS2 counterparts, since for the other consoles the companies would have to develop the engine from scratch.

[Manny]

I think Nintendo is going in a zig zag direction. IMO, they need to get their act together. On one hand, they want to make simple games...but it's not likely that everyone will agree with it. But how "simple" is simple? We really don't know what exactly they mean, so it's just a wait and see approach if you ask me.

As for the graphics being maxed, I don't agree. Yeah, today's graphics are reaching the limits...but it isn't quite there yet. Until I see real time graphics looking like the cut scenes in Final Fantasy games, then I won't agree with that statement.

Nintendo just needs to realize what market they are trying to target. If they want a broad market, they need to give and take...either mix their games (complicated and simple) or make it clear they just want to direct their systems at a certain demographic.

[Rensa]

Aye, cheers, retroyoshi. I wasn't talking from a commercial perspective, but everything you said hits the nail (nails?) on the head. :D

[Robert-AMN]

Madden is a perfect example of why I don't play most sports games anymore. They have insituted as many as 4 or 5 buttons to do different things once you snap the ball its just too much overhead. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, a very combo heavy fighting game also can get complex.

Bring back Tecmo Super Bowl!! :p

[Pied_Piper]

Originally posted by Freak of Kane
This all sounds nice, but back to the real world - if anything, IMO, this philosophy of Nintendo's will make or break them...I'm thinking break. They aren't in much of a position these days to tell gamers what they want - gamers know what they want. The connectivity gimmick is a perfect example of Nintendo's stance not agreeing with ours. If they don't start changing their ways soon, I believe this Cube revival will do nothing for the N5...more and more gamers will just disagree with Nintendo.
I dont think their philosophy will break them i mean look at their sales. Nintendo is the #2 selling software publisher right behind EA. I think what they mean by simpler games is..well lets look back at mario sunshine alot of people complained that the game was too hard. I mean i had trouble at times but it really wasnt that difficult. I think thats why nintendo wants to make games simpler. Nintendo has made changes they will continue to change nintendo wont leave the console market because they make some great games you cant get anywhere else.