Why I Dislike Nintendo (Nintendo W/O)Jul 20 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Don't worry, I'm not Nintendo bashing, just voicing an opinion from a disappointed gamer.
The title should give away my feelings and the nature of this opinion. Now, before you get out your flogging sticks, let me remind you that I did not say I disliked any of their products: I just dislike Nintendo, the business side I know I am not reviewing a game for this write-off, but it is Nintendo related and while I am not bashing Nintendo, I also do not take on characteristics of a “fan-boy“ of Nintendo. In the following paragraphs I will discuss why (obviously, eh) and will detail those paragraphs with thoughts on Nintendo’s lack of innovation, corporate culture, misunderstanding of their fan-base, and where I feel they lie in the future of Electronic Entertainment. Corporate Culture In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai and it’s main order of business was playing cards. The name of the company translated into a few different meanings: “Leave luck to heaven”; “Deep in the mind we have to do whatever we have to do”; and the most popular, “Work hard, but in the end it is in heaven’s hands”. And thus, the mentality of Nintendo was born and continues today. In 1949, Hiroshi Yamauchi was made the third president of Nintendo and he lived with thought of betrayal and disappointment to his father and grandfather, unheard of in Japan because of the strong hierarchy a family should have. 1977 was Nintendo’s first year in the video game business. They produced Color TV Game 6, which play six versions of light tennis (similar to the Pong units of the same decade). But despite the success of this and the sequel (TV Game 15), Nintendo continued to spiral towards bankruptcy. Yamauchi pressured his R&D engineers daily for something new and didn’t let up until they came up with the Game & Watch idea. Really, just a novelty, these little games kept Nintendo afloat so that they could work on their very first console, the NES. In order to compete with other machines, Nintendo only wanted sturdy components at really inexpensive prices. Also, they companies had to be able to be flexible and able to change the components overnight since designs could change on a whim. Most companies could not work with this rigid mentality and even Ricoh, the final company that began building the main chips thought the price Nintendo gave was absurd. But after forced negotiations and a promised buy amount, Ricoh gave in. But it didn’t just stem from component makers. As the NES gained popularity and systems and games flew off the shelves, it was the retailers that suffered the most while Nintendo increased their bank accounts. One of the reasons retailers suffered was that at one point in the success of NES, Nintendo could not keep up with the sales. Retailers were angry and threatened they would stop carrying their products, but all Nintendo would say was essentially, “Deal with it”. Yamauchi cared little for retailers, especially American ones, and anyone who dared to stand up or go up against Nintendo. In the late 80’s a company called Tengen found a way to bypass the security chip which stopped hackers to make unauthorized cartridges. This was because they were forced by Nintendo to do that. There was a microchip shortage and any licensee’s estimated number of chips needed to make games was usually cut by half and most likely by 75%. Tengen’s three big games to be released were Gauntlet, RBI Baseball, and a conversion of Pac-Man--and had received high marks from Nintendo’s quality assurance team--fell to this shortage. Nintendo allowed the licenseess to search for other makers of chips, but every one that was brought to Nintendo was declined because they were “inferior”. Finally, Tengen had enough. Thought I feel their tactics were unethical, their motivations were not and they were the first company to attempt to topple the might giant. So Tengen (part of Atari) filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Nintendo and in turn Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming unauthorized practices in obtaining information. Meanwhile, Tengen produced games and retailers were selling them...and Tengen was keeping up with the sales, disproving the “microchip shortage” ploy Nintendo was playing. Nintendo began writing letters to the CEO’s of retailers threatening that if they continued to sell Tengen products they would be cut off from Nintendo products. Retailers fumed and knew the sole reason: Nintendo was not making a dime on the games and therefore felt violated. Most retailers succumbed under the pressure and pulled the games from the shelves and this fueled Atari’s lawsuit. Toys R Us was the biggest company at that point that fell to the threat of the letters because they didn‘t want to make Nintendo mad. But another retailer, Ames, did not. And Nintendo dropped them one month after they sent the letter, which became evidence in the case. You can compare Nintendo to Microsoft in terms of big-business practices, but one things is equal: everyone loves the products, but can’t stand the people. I don’t care if Nintendo is making millions of dollars, I just want to buy their systems and play the games. But if they don’t think of their installed system base or fan-base, then why should I care about them? Misunderstanding of the fan-base Nintendo thinks that their fans like delayed games. Nintendo thinks that if they make promises and don’t follow through, then their fans enjoy that. Nintendo thinks that “Quality, Not Quantity” is the best phrase ever. When I first heard that phrase I thought that it was a great thing that Nintendo was taking control of the video games that came out for their systems and wanted them to be the best games. I was impressed, let me tell you. But as time went on and games got delayed and released in less frequency, hearing that phrase got tiring. I just wanted something to play because if I wasn‘t playing a game on their system, I turned to the competitor‘s which kept me playing games on a consistent basis. This phrase was mostly heard when the N64 started seeing game delays on it’s system (Zelda, anyone?) and I am starting to hear it now with the Gamecube because game releases are getting scarce right now. Do I like that the games that I know are coming out on the Gamecube will possibly get delayed because of Nintendo’s past track record? Nope. I know that the industry is fickle and that delays do occur with other companies, but it seems that Nintendo just has a few more than most. And I can always expect to hear the phrase, “Quality, not quantity” in regards to this. And why didn’t the 64DD come out? Lack of Innovation Where is the innovation that Nintendo had in the beginning? Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, the Power Pad (ok, it may not have been the best product, but it was different), GoldenEye 007? Pikmin is not innovation; Luigi’s Mansion is like a spin-off to a sitcom: boring and only 25% as good; and just how many sports games can Nintendo allow on their system when there are only a handful of games out? I can expect three constants when Nintendo releases a console system. One is that there will be no more than 5 games released. Two is that Nintendo never seems to estimate the proper demand even though they’ve been in the business for many, many years and should know by know their popularity. Third, is that 75% of the games released on the system in the fist 6 months or so will be rehashed remakes and sequels or close to sequels. A Mario game or in the Gamecube’s case, Luigi’s Mansion. A Star Wars game, 15-20 sports or extreme sports games. Some sort of creature simulation game...ok, I mean Pokemon or Pikmin. Essentially, I know what to expect from the system and I honestly don’t get excited about a Nintendo system or game like I use to with the NES or SNES. The best thing they have done recently was in 1996 when they had 4 controller ports on the N64 and spawned a new era of console muliplayer gaming. That was huge. No longer do you have to go online or buy extra multitaps to play your friends. Nintendo did take advantage of that and that is the last thing that has been innovative from them in a long time. Going from cartridge to CD was just plain smart, but going to the smaller CD format wasn’t innovative...it is just their way to control pirating. If anyone can think of any innovative ideas that I may have missed and can support it, let me know in a comment or e-mail me. I would be happy to read arguments on the subject. The Future I feel if Nintendo doesn’t start empathizing with their fan-base (and I know I’m not the only one...I work in retail in the electronics industry and have heard many, many stories) and start showing some innovation, they may slowly start to lose their gamers and they may have to go back to making playing cards. I did say slowly, now. Nintendo is smart enough to see that coming, but the new ideas may be coming in to late to do something. If they had to, they could rely on their handheld sales, but with Nintendo’s mentality and attitude, they would never be content with that. They are slowly losing my respect and trust and although I may be just a small minority, Nintendo should still care about my feelings as a gamer that grew up on Nintendo. I know that Nintendo will be around for many years in the gaming industry, but without that innovation and psuedo-knowledge of their fan-base and the heightened sense of corporate culture, Nintendo may just fall themselves at the feet of Sony and Microsoft in the gaming era. For The Record To get this cleared up, I own many Nintendo products. I have a Gamecube with 11 games, N64 with over 50 games, an Advance (7 games), a Gameboy Color/Pocket and Original with over 100 games, a SNES (over 150), and an NES (between my brother and I, we have over 600 games). I play these systems regularly, so I am definitely in no mood to sell them. I even have a couple of hard to find Game and Watches, and two Table Top arcade machines (Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong, Jr.). So you can’t say that I am a Nintendo basher because I’m not. I am just voicing an opinion of a ‘gamer’, or one who plays games not by system, but by games. This was an Epinion spawned through Rock_On’s Nintendo Write off. Even though it was not about a particular game, I hope that you have read it and rated it with the same respect as you did the others. Please cut and paste the URL into your URL bar to check out the other write-offs from these other folks: http://www.epinions.com/user-Xeno3998 http://www.epinions.com/user-Kenshin-Guy http://www.epinions.com/user-ChromeKiller http://www.epinions.com/user-Slusy http://www.epinions.com/user-Vince006 http://www.epinions.com/user-Skater6446 http://www.epinions.com/user-StarSoldier1 http://www.epinions.com/user-32_Footsteps http://www.epinions.com/user-Ss3goku http://www.epinions.com/user-Gthomp1 (hi, that’s me) http://www.epinions.com/user-Yarrick http://www.epinions.com/user-Jeremy1456 http://www.epinions.com/user-Pavona21 http://www.epinions.com/user-LaughingTarget http://www.epinions.com/user-Chris_Billings http://www.epinions.com/user-Pearl-drum-man http://www.epinions.com/user-Rock_On (The Host)  |
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