Would the industry be better off without Nintendo?

[Bon_Clay]

The gaming industry would turn to shit without Nintendo. I'd rather play Zelda and Mario exclusively than nothing but brown shooters and sports games.

It has some bland games made for their system, but what they make is generally high quality. They seem to be the ones driving innovation rather than Sony or Microsoft. Those two compete with each other by just doing what you would expect, make their system more powerful and have a couple exclusives/take away the others exclusive rights. Nintendo mixes stuff up by focusing more on gameplay than graphics and games that want to be movies.

And to be fair Nintendo isn't the only one making good games, if it was just Nintendo without Sony or Microsoft things would get worse as well.

 

[DanDeFool]

I wouldn't say the industry would be better off without Nintendo. Both the Wii and DS had some very, very good games on them. But Nintendo's making the same kind of mistakes as Sega did when they were in the final stages of their ultimate burnout as a console manufacturer. They're trying to innovate so hard that they've lost sight of what makes a game console really shine: good third-party support.

Nintendo is learning, the hard way, that third-party devs are reluctant to adopt 'innovations' in the hardware department, because it's a big investment of time and money to train your programmers and designers to make the most of things like motion controls and 3D displays. It's a whole other layer of risk that you have to deal with when you're getting ready to make your game.

This lesson was, of course, completely lost on Sony and Microsoft when they decided to make their own motion controls. The Wii wasn't outselling the PS3 and X360 because of it's innovative motion controller, it outsold them because it was much, much cheaper than the PS3, and because the launch-era X360 was a piece of shit that would break 50% of the time.

The PS3 Move might have some potential if the PS3's life-span is long enough, and the Kinect may have a future in games as well, though it is far more interesting as an innovative general-purpose human interface device, but the sad truth is that adding a second analog stick was a more important gaming control innovation than either of these things.

Bottom line, Nintendo is doomed unless they can start designing hardware that gets the third-party devs back on their side, which is a problem they've had ever since the N64.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

I don't think it would be better off without Nintendo but they really need to get with the program. Why they continually resist the, uh, I guess I'll call it online movement. They continue to avoid making an online friendly environment for games.

Their games are more geared towards kids. They are trying to make it so then the children who are left to play online won't fall prey to online predators. Also

It perfectly fine for THEIR games to be more geared towards kids. If they want to do there games that way that's fine, but if they want to attract Third-Party developers of significant quality they need to have the tools they need.

Besides that Nintendo doesn't need to be the one playing parent. Parents should be the ones taking responsibility with parental controls like the ones present on LIVE/PSN. The online systems that Nintendo has implemented in the past have been incredibly irritating and not worth the effort to use.

Also. Also?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The company that is still making unique games in a sea of brown shooters?
The company that still values gameplay and fun in most of their games over photorealism, 100 cutscenes and "deep stories"?
The company that didn't jump on the "Achievement" and "DLC" bandwagon and has actual things to "achieve" in their games?
The company that still tries to innovate technologically (even if it fails at times)?
The company that lets about anyone develop for their platform without acting like a controlling regime? (which might also lead to shovelware...)

No...

Sir, I love your post. I'm gonna print it out and keep it in my pocket.


I did get fed up with Nintendo for a while, but I've been looking on them more favorably lately. The DS has a great library. The Wii does too, it's just weak in the shooter department. And weak in the ugly brown and grey games department. And I could not care less about either of those types of games.

I second everything you said. Except the bit about printing it out. That's going a little further than I'm willing to. Also, I do like some gritty, violent games sometimes, but IMO, the only game that has ever wowed me with brown graphics was Fallout 3.

 

[unacomn]

It would be a lot better off now without Microsoft than Nintendo.

 

[Trogdor1138]

No, Nintendo is still a good company, just because they don't have enough "Hardcore" (hahahaha) games for you people doesn't mean a lot of us don't enjoy what they put out.

Some of us actually really like stuff like Wii Fit as well.

Every console is going to have it's share of shovelware and shit, why pay attention to the games you dislike? There are plenty of great games on the Wii for people to enjoy just like every other system.

This isn't even taking into account how ridiculously different gaming would be without them through modern history. Which deserves some huge respect for turning around a near-dead industry.

EDIT: Also, just wanted to quickly add, Wii bashing is the potty humour of videogames and I'm frankly getting increasingly tired of the constant bashing, it's been going on for ages now. Don't you people have anything else to do? Fuck, the console wars is the stupidest goddamn thing...

 

[Grafin Drachen]

All I have to say is - Respect your elders!

 

[Kevonovitch]

honestly? get rid of GFWL and XboX before we worry about nintendo going down sega's copy+paste road.

 

[Ghaleon640]

I'm happy that so many people are defending Nintendo here. If the wii didn't specialize in kids games, then the kids games would move to the other systems.

 

[Kyrian007]

What would we do when our 360's red ring and our ps3's stop reading discs? Say what you want about Nintendo, they at least make a product that outlasts its own warranty by a matter of years and not days.

 

[Sean951]

No, no it would not. With 1 exception, all of my favorite console franchises are Nintendo Exclusive, and the one that isn't should be, but Microsoft bought out Rare and released Perfect Dark: Zero on the 360, the bastards...

 

[smeghead25]

Rise of Shovelware? Err, I remember the PS2 having its fair share of last generation

Yes, it did have it's fair share... Nintendo however has far more than a fair share, in fact it probably has 99% of the entireity of the share of shovelware.

...whiiiiich is why I REALLY want Nintendo to stay in the industry. If they're happy making money from uninspired crap that a dev team full of boring people with no passion for games shits out every few months, then I say let them. Meanwhile, I'll play my wonderful PS3, PC, and 360 games with better physics, gameplay, controls, story, and well, everything.

Let's face it: Nintendo is kind of necessary. It gets the crappy devs out of the good dev studios, meaning the normal dev studios can make good games, while pretty average developer's can make a living without tainting the good stuff with their mediocrity. It's also necessary as some people actually like the crap they allow to sell for their console. Some terrible parent will abslutely love those games. It means they can go out and party while their child is left at home playing the latest rip off of Singstar that was purchased from a bargain bin for $2.

Only problem is, these kids will grow up hating videogames. Oh well. At least it's not me.

 

[lapan]

People are way to critical of motion controls. I'm happy i have my Wii, or else i would never have played some great games like No more Heroes, Trauma Team, or House of the Dead Overkill.

 

[Sean951]

Ok, can someone please explain how, with the exception of Majora's Mask(which only used the same engine and models) every Zelda game is OoT and how other than beat Bowser and save Peach, every Mario game is also a remake? Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Sunshine had completely different mechanics than any previous game is the series.

 

[megapenguinx]

Nah, Nintendo still makes pretty good (not to mention fun) games and hardware.
Plus if they left, then it would devolve into a console struggle between Sony and MS. Not to mention that handheld gaming would be absolutely dominated by the iPhone/iPod Touch (shudder).

 

[thahat]

In my opinion, Nintendo is that old vietanm veteran, in his time he was at the top, everyone loved him and honoured him. now hes completley senile and finds it freaking hilarious that he can shit in a box and call it a present.

best. comparisson. ever. XD, you sir, win the thread.

 

[thahat]

What would we do when our 360's red ring and our ps3's stop reading discs? Say what you want about Nintendo, they at least make a product that outlasts its own warranty by a matter of years and not days.

like dell pc's those also never die. but it doesnt mean the hardware is worth it.
rocks also outlive their waranty. but you cant play good games with then unless you called ug and live 65 milion years ago.
the reason the 360 keeps frying itsself is because it just gets to hot, causing internal resistances, making the the rip itsself apart from the inside. admittingly, this happens less with the new 360's, but it still happens, yes.