Revolution or end for Nintendo?
Will Nintendo's new console be the Revolution we are all hoping for?
These are strange times for Nintendo. After the optimism inspired by the announcement of the DS and the continuing success enjoyed by the GameBoy Advance (well on course to supersede sales of the original Gameboy) people seem to have forgotten about the good old Gamecube. And not just consumers; third party developers are beginning to ignore the Gamecube. This is a disaster.
Let's be honest about this: the Gamecube is a really good little machine. It's cheap, it's powerful and it has a fantastic controller. The disc medium offers a brilliant compromise between storage space and speed (look Playstation 2 owners... negligible loading times!)
And yet the Gamecube is in danger of becoming a prematurely dead format. In fact things have become so bad that the Gamecube could well be in the last year of its life. And this death could occur between six and twelve months before Nintendo's next console, the so-called Revolution. Obviously, Nintendo would be love to be able to emulate Sony's huge success with the Playstation One, which sold bucket loads even after the release of the Playstation 2.
But this is starting look like an unlikely option for Nintendo. Why is this?
The major reason is that Nintendo are losing many important developers, who either do not wish to develop for the Gamecube, or publishers are reluctant to release Gamecube versions of their games. The case in point is Burnout 3. A version of this game was produced for the Gamecube, but Electronic Arts did not wish to release it on Nintendo's console. It is worth remembering that Nintendo's previous president had a tendency to rub people up the wrong way, and the current president is spending a lot of time mending bridges with deveoplers who were on the wrong end of Yamuchi-san's wrath (Square-Enix being a famous example.)
But the decision not to release Burnout 3 on the Gamecube is a rather mysterious one. Only EA can really answer for their decision, but one things is for certain that it is disastrous to have lost such a great series like Burnout, not only for us Nintendo fans, but for Nintendo themselves. "It doesn't matter," I hear you cry. "Nintendo produce great games, who needs these other games?"
They do indeed continue to produce great titles, but they are few and far between. If you recall the early days of the Gamecube, Nintendo wanted to produce lots of games that didn't rely on creating ridiculously complicated physics models or stupidly detailed graphics. This took too long, they said. And they were keen to keep costs down on game development. Sound reasoning. So instead they stated that they were interested in producing games that relied on gameplay, character and inventive concepts. Think of games like Chu Chu Rocket on the Dreamcast. Think of Smash Bros. Think of Pikmin.
Pikmin had lovely graphics as it happens, but the real beauty of Pikmin lay in the characters and the environments and level design. It was a game, not a graphical demonstration. I thought that Pikmin was going to usher in a new style of game: enjoyable and immediate experiences, that reflected short and uncomplicated periods of development.
So why has it taken an age to produce the sequel?
Although I am really excited by the prospect of Pikmin 2, I have to ask, what happened? What happened to the concept of designing games unencumbered by ridiculously unrealistic production values? What happened to the idea of producing simple games? Shouldn't we, in fact, be already playing Pikmin 3, perhaps even waiting for Pikmin 4?
And Animal Crossing 2 should be released by now, shouldn't it? That doesn't require advanced graphical techniques or complex AI models, does it?
For the moment, let us accept this: but Nintendo should really be doing something about filling the enormous gaps in the release schedules. If their own games are taking too long to release, then their only option is to look for help from quality third party developers. And this brings us back to Burnout 3: what a perfect post-summer game. It's the sort of thing you'd buy just because you fancied a quick fix of arcade action.
"Wait until the new Metroid game," say Nintendo.
"But I'm bored NOW," say I.
To develop this argument further, let us suppose that next year Nintendo release the new Zelda game, a new 3D Mario adventure and, say, a Gamecube version of Advance Wars. Fine.
That's all quite interesting. But that's only three top titles in an entire year, and as gamers we need more than that. We bought your console, Nintendo, now repay our faith. Find us games to play on our console, and we will buy them. You will make more money. Everybody is happy.
Nintendo are starting to lose business this way, and it is extremely frustrating to see this happen. To this, Nintendo might reply, "Well we're happy about focusing on games that appeal to Nintendo fans."
First thing: I'M A NINTENDO FAN, but that doesn't mean that I'm not interested by games that fall outside of this bracket. And let's get this straight: I'm pretty diehard when it comes to Nintendo, but if I'm getting pissed off, then Nintendo have got some big problems ahead of them.
Second Thing: Nintendo still think that people are interested in characters like Mario or Kirby or whoever. This isn't really true anymore. Let's face it: the video game buying public are hardly a fickle bunch. They liked bloody Lara bloody Croft for Christmas' sake. The average consumer just wants to play games: they don't really care who they are in control of, wether it be a funny little fat plumber or some lumbering muscle bound giant. It just doesn't matter that much anymore.
Nintendo are in trouble because they are still living in the early nineties. This was indeed a golden age of video games but it ended years ago: Sony saw to that. Nintendo need to wake up from their slumbers and start thinking about supporting their machines properly. They've done a great job with the DS, but they need to transfer this to the Gamecube and, in time, the Revolution.
