The Eight Eras of Nintendo

[kirbychu]

The Wii age has been by far the worst as far as I'm concerned. But it's still not that bad.

[Shrikeswind]

Still, I do need a better age for the "Dork Age."

One letter's all it takes. "Dark Age." It's not necessarily wrong.

[mrmolecule]

Aug 13, 2010 4:49:11 GMT -5 Shrikeswind said:

Still, I do need a better age for the "Dork Age."

One letter's all it takes. "Dark Age." It's not necessarily wrong.

It wasn't really a "dark age", either. Good games came out, but Nintendo was pushing peripherals while losing market share. Kind of like Sega, in a way.

For the GameCube, I was thinking the "Red Ocean Era", referring to the "overfished" male 15-30 demographic. Unfortunately, in the Wii Era, the "Blue Ocean" Nintendo was seeking quickly got saturated as well. What I mean is, in the Wii Era, the problems are more than the Wii itself...the market is getting saturated with casual games. If you look at the budget PC game section of Wal-Mart (or equivalent discount store), you will see casual titles.

To me, both the GameCube era and the Wii Era are both bad, as in both, we got to sit back and see the competitors come out with better games, better graphics, while we just got Nintendo and a reduced selection of third-party games (whoops, that's my inner fanboy talking). On the other hand, Nintendo's goal isn't really to please their fans and destroy the competition. Their goal is to make money, and unfortunately, the casual game market seems to pumping it.

Microsoft and Sony are aware of the Wii's difference and want to capitalize on it, whether Microsoft, Kinect, and their team of Mii knockoffs (Kinect Sports on Wikipedia) or Sony and PlayStation Move.

Although the video game crash was nearly three decades ago, I fear that a new depression is still possible. A glut of very bad "casual" games can flood the market for all systems. We've already seen good third-party Wii games like MadWorld fall on the wayside due to this. The original video game crash pretty much killed off the video game companies at the time, and if there is another crash, Nintendo may be one of the victims, and the Nintendo Console eras will come to an unceremonious end.

[Fryguy64]

Off-topic, Mr. Molecule, you have been creating far too many new threads lately. Can you please cut down on them a bit.

On-topic... there are no "eras", just console generations. Nintendo usually makes a crapton of games for their systems, and depending on how that goes, they tend to either go off and create a crapton more, or if they're not performing so well, they invest in other companies and new talent.

The former means we get a lot of games, the latter means we get a lot of weird games.

At the moment, Nintendo's kinda got both. It's making more games than ever before, but they're not selling as well to the market that traditionally bought their products. So they're releasing popular games AND weird games. But they're also making a fuckton of money and have much better press than they've had since the SNES days.

[mrmolecule]

Aug 13, 2010 10:41:52 GMT -5 Fryguy64 said:

Off-topic, Mr. Molecule, you have been creating far too many new threads lately. Can you please cut down on them a bit.

With how rarely I drop in nowadays, I think it kind of comes in spurts. Very likely, in a few weeks, I'll be spending time at some other forum, and no threads by me will appear for a while.

On-topic... there are no "eras", just console generations. Nintendo usually makes a crapton of games for their systems, and depending on how that goes, they tend to either go off and create a crapton more, or if they're not performing so well, they invest in other companies and new talent.

The former means we get a lot of games, the latter means we get a lot of weird games.

At the moment, Nintendo's kinda got both. It's making more games than ever before, but they're not selling as well to the market that traditionally bought their products. So they're releasing popular games AND weird games. But they're also making a wizzleton of money and have much better press than they've had since the SNES days.

I do realize that there are console generations, but each one does have distinct differences. It was a different time between 2001 (the beginning of the GCN era), and 2006 (the end). Similarly, the Nintendo 64 had two parts. It seems like there are two parts of every generation.

[Shrikeswind]

It wasn't really a "dark age", either. Good games came out, but Nintendo was pushing peripherals while losing market share. Kind of like Sega, in a way.

Good came during the Plague but that was hardly an era of prosperity.

[mrmolecule]

I think the Wii Era is coming to an end as we prepare for the mid-generational switch. The next era, the latter days of the Wii, I envision will be referred to, at least, as the 3DS Era.

Nintendo is finally noting a slowdown in the sales of Wii and DS. The 3DS looks pretty cool, but it may not be the savior. It could be the revolutionary new product that everyone is looking forward to, or it may be a full-color Virtual Boy. The reason I think Nintendo is not touting it as a "third column" may be a few reasons:

1) Two words: Virtual Boy
2) The Nintendo DS was initially a third column should it not succeed. It was successful enough to displace the GBA and retire the Game Boy brand, but the "third party" marketing may have hurt it when it came to third parties and the PSP.

To win the 3DS Era, Nintendo needs to give more power to NOA and NOE. It is well-known (even since the early days) that NOA needs NCL's permission to do practically anything.

[Dances in Undergarments]

Yeah, because NOA and NOE not having 'more power', whatever the fuck that means, certainly stopped the Wii and the DS being successful. Oh wait.

[Fryguy64]

The company is Nintendo Co., Ltd. NOA and NOE are subsidiaries of a parent company, and as far as subsidiaries go, they have way more control over their territories than should be expected already.

We have come a long way since 5 years ago. Back then, NOE would rely on NOA, while now they usually do their own localisations direct from the Japanese.

But are you suggesting that NOA and NOE open their own hardware and software divisions? That Nintendo allows them free access to the licenses they're so protective over? Do you really want to see a US-developed Zelda game?

[Manspeed]

If it's anything like the US-developed Metroid games we got, then yes.

[Koopaul]

And wasn't Mario VS Donkey Kong US developed?

[Boo Destroyer]

Yeah, nobody thought Metroid would go over well when Prime 1 came out, being US-developed, but later on, so it did.

US-developed Zelda, huh. Well, EU-"developed" Zelda right here.

Damn, I'd try that.

[Wildcat]

I did have some things to say about the 'Cube, but the thread has since left that point, so I'll just say this:

The 'Cube did more for me to respect third party contributions than anything prior. Not everything Nintendo made appealed to me like it used to, and I was able to remove the fanboy blinders and really engage in some excellent stuff I may have missed out on otherwise (and be harsher on things than I might have been before). It made me a more open-minded gamer, and I greatly appreciate it. I have a lot of love for that little purple/black box.

[mrmolecule]

No, I don't want a US-developed Zelda. In partially, I was relying on out-of-date information, and I was also referring to how American video gamers aren't getting the games requested (including, Super Star Wars which WAS promised) because they need clearance from NCL (article: here). Likely this is in the case for NOE as well.

[Wildcat]

Eh, I don't think the notion of a US/NA developed Zelda is a terrible one - it just depends on WHO handled it and HOW it was handled. Capcom's done a few Zeldas in the past, which were pretty solid games, so an outside third party has tackled it before (granted, they were Japanese devs that did them, but still). I wouldn't knock the idea before seeing it in action, at the very least.