So much so that they let contracts with Konami and Capcom expire in order to pour money into motion controllers. Think if they still held the exclusive rights to Contra and Mega man? damn! What we're seeing though is a little white box that relies on gimmicks and mario games (zelda too) in order to survive. Anybody without a large object lodged in their brain will be able to tell you that is not a good business model. Nintendo really thought the motion controllers would be what people wanted. But what made them think this?
The power glove sucked ass like really sucked ass. The U force worked better after I backed my honda over it-hey I was able to beat Mike Tyson with it...ok that part is a lie. For a while the motion took a back seat but Nintendo just kept it under wraps. God knows how much money was poured into that R&D. What probably ended up happening was that they had poured so much into this thing that one (or more?) of the following happened.
1. It simply wasnt ready. Perhaps they wanted processors and video cards on par with Sony and Microsoft but had to release it with under powered hardware just to stay current.
2. They reached the absolute limit of how much money they were willing to invest in R&D and had to go ahead with what they had.
3. They surpassed their budget by a hell of a lot and figured that a unique console would have no problem saving the day.
In other words I doubt that this was the console they intended to battle sony and microsoft with.
It's tough to think about how they screwed up so bad when in the past they had been spot on...or had they? NES was the new standard in the 80's if you didnt have one you sucked and probably had no friends...no really I'm not trying to be funny. Sure some games sucked it is unavoidable for a console but by and large most games blew you away and left you stunned. SNES...my god it is probably the best console ever made period. N64 yeah I know a lot of people have emotional attachment to this console but here is a good case where the shit started to really hit the fan. Everyone was on disc at this point. Nintendo maintained carts-why? probably because the deal with sony for the cd add on for SNES went completely bullshit and the last thing they wanted to see was a disc...nah they feared piracy. I remember partly shying away because they didnt have a disc format. When discs first started coming out like Sega CD and 3DO people thought this technology was so cutting edge that only God himself could make these games...I was not alone in thinking this. So in the end I kind saw Nintendo as falling behind and I believe that I was right.
The controller looked like a joke and the single analog was only so effective. What pissed me off all to hell? My playstation would play anything I put in it...the FULL game. I put Perfect Dark in and suddenly I'm being told to buy an expansion pack....what is this shit? The console isnt ready to play games as is? fuck that! So began Nintendo's mandatory add ons in order to fully enjoy games. This was WAY different than what I was used to from nintendo. Rumble packs, expansion packs, controller expansion packs memory cards, seriously by time I got my N64 READY for games I was out of spending cash I couldnt buy games for a while and I was very pissed off. This was the old school version of DLC-and we all fell for it. By time I got ready to grow the N64 game collection I found that I didnt really want to outside of surprise surprise Mario and Zelda games.
Gamecube came out and I could give less than a shit I was on my PS2 not looking back. Wii is coming out and I got suckered. I longed for the Nintendo fun days but sadly they wouldnt come in that white box-only disappointment and shame. I got it for christmas and I thought I was a bad ass...I was about as bad ass as a high school kid riding a pink tricycle in front of the cheer leading squad. Apart from the normal mario zelda stuff I struggled to find a more mature game that would be cool. They didnt exist but if I wanted cooking mamma or a million other useless games I had the console for it.
So what next? WiiU...Does anybody care? Does anyone really think that Nintendo is finally going to listen to its fans that it has ignored since the early 90's? well it better if wants to survive in all honesty I think the WiiU was supposed to be the Wii. I think it was rushed to production. I think the Wii was under powered junk that we got screwed over on. Nintendo has acted with reckless abandon since the late 90's...ever since they tried to screw Sony...had they not it would have been the nintendo playstation my my what a mistake.
Now we have Miyamoto that steps down. Now I want you to tell me who replaced him without looking it up. You dont know-no one does. Know why? Nintendo wasnt grooming anyone for his position. Where was his sidekick? where was his apprentice? he didnt have either. Dumb. Even "I" have an apprentice right now. Nintendo thought the gravy train would last forever and so did Miyamoto. The fact that no one knows who is replacing him means that it was sudden and unexpected...even Nintendo as a company wasn't keen or ready for it. This isn't good folks. We have a company hemorrhaging money with crap no one wants to buy and the captain no longer wants to be captain. This is about as fucked up as it gets dudes.
I write this with no joy I love nintendo they raised me and without them I wouldnt have the job I do. It makes me sad that more than likely they will be on their way out. I predict about three years after the WiiU debuts they will no longer be in the console market. They will more than likely go the way of Sega and be a major developer. They will have to sell the ocntract for mario and zelda to either sony or microsoft or both. They may be able to claw their way back in with a handheld in the future...that is if people still play them in the future and not their phones...
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