23-year-old Nintendo interview shows how little things have changed in gaming
23-year-old Nintendo interview shows how little things have changed in gaming
metro.co.uk
23-year-old Nintendo interview shows how little things have changed in gaming
45 comments
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Saying that you have to keep your games on your system because otherwise there would be no reason to choose one system over another is a strange admission. And not one that on its face benefits gamers.
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Always assume that corporate decisions benefits the corporation. If decisions somehow align with customers needs and wants, it's a positive side effect.
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That’s been the motto of video game console makers basically since the beginning of time, they want vendor lock-in. We are starting to see things shift a little bit. Microsoft is becoming a software company over hardware wanting their games to be on every platform.(GamePass is amazing. I say this as a PS fan boy) Sony is starting to follow suit with PC release these days. Helldivers stands out as the only game I can think of they have released same day on PC and not 6 months to a year later.
Nintendo will always be eccentric it’s kind of been their thing since the release of the NES. No one thought the NES would sell and basically had to give retailed their games and be paid back later by the retail stores. Just accept Nintendo for being a little different than everyone else and that’s okay to be a little bit of a snowflake. We need something/one a little different
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Well put! I like Nintendo for what it is. I don't like everything it does, but, a lot of it. And, a lot of it is excellent.
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... And not one that on its face benefits gamers.
Bold of you to think a corp is doing anything to benefit their consumers.
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I know what you mean, but Nintendo is a pretty bad example to illustrate that sentiment. I mean, they totally do corporate crap to benefit them and not the players obviously, but the Zelda series is literally built around the gimmicks of the console. They start thinking about a gimmick, either on the console and / or how to turn that into a gameplay gimmick, and then they make a Zelda game around that. OoT had the rumble pack and then tried to do Ura Zelda that was supposed to be the system seller for the DD64 - but that blew up and was salvaged between Master Mode and Majora's Mask. The GameCube had Four Swords with the connection to the GBA and the multiplayer. The Wii had Skyward Sword with the motion thing, the Wii U had the separate tablet. The DS then the 3DS weren't too relevant for Zelda but they tried, and other games did rely on it.
I'm not saying it's a fact for the whole series, but Nintendo is particularly famous for developing a gimmick console and then building games around that, so yes, the physical console is actually relevant to the game you want to play it on, you'd be hard pressed to port that elsewhere and emulators are always weird and have a lot of work to adapt into something that makes sense on a single screen with a basic gamepad.
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It’s interesting to see the impact that Yamauchi had on Nintendo as a whole. Generally Nintendo games focus on gameplay, with graphics and story built towards servicing the gameplay first. Say what you want about exclusives (not a huge fan of them really) but from the ground up when you buy a Nintendo game it’s generally gonna be what you expect from the previews.
Now I hope they push for better specs in the future but that seems like a pipe dream. A game like Zelda BOTW/TOTK is completely held back by the Switch and that’s not good considering how fucking amazing it was to play them
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Nintendo's hardware strategy has always been to use old, less expensive components to make a console that generates a profit. Something I haven't seen mentioned too often is that Sony and Microsoft sell their consoles at a loss with the expectation that they will make money on software and services. Nintendo sells a console that makes a profit but they have the absolute worst services and their online store is not good for shopping, only buying.
Because of this focus on profitability for games and console, Nintendo will never make a console that keeps up with the performance of the other two. Nintendo is good at fudging the graphics, as long as you don't look too hard at how the system renders stuff, such as the world detail in BotW or Mario games. But they will never be cutting edge.
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I don't really get that argument.
We did get Breath of the Wild. It's right there.
"How fucking amazing it was to play them" but... What? What part of the amazing experience was ruined, and by what? What would have been substantially better if the graphics had been slightly better? -
We got a Switch to play BotW.
I guess you had to grow up playing Zelda games after Link to the Past in order to enjoy the gameplay. Coming from other systems, it was very unintuitive, uncomfortable, and basically unplayable since we couldn't remap the controls. Also, the world was just kind of dead?
I dunno, it was a big disappointment.
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Valid complaints. As far as the world being dead, two points. Story wise, it was supposed to be a world somewhat in ruin due to the events 100 years prior to the game. Also, again, switch being underpowered meant they couldn’t necessarily just pack the world full of npc’s and unique monsters.
I feel you on that first statement a little bit, but my biggest gripe of the Switch was they went away from the linear dungeon design of the Zelda’s from Link to the Past and forward. It’s not gods gift to gaming, nowhere close.
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I beat BotW, and started TotK but couldn't bring myself to play it for more than 3 or so hours. TotK was mostly just more of the same from BotW, and I found BotW pretty dull.
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Some stuff that caught my attention, from the 2001 IGN article
Yamauchi says that life would most certainly go on without the game industry, as it is not an essential part of anybody's life
True. Entertainment, while desirable, isn't essential. Besides, there's entertainment to be had by socializing, something that would probably become easier with less "isolating" entertainment available.
The ironfisted leader believes that "games have nothing to do with graphics"
I agree, but graphics can help with sales, which is what matters for companies
The IGN article stops shortly after this, so onwards with what Metro lists:
‘If users can play the same game on every single system out there, then there’ll be no reason to buy one system over the other,’ he said. ‘It’ll be just like buying a TV; no matter which one you buy you’ll still have all the same channels.
For consumers, that's great. For companies, not so much.
‘Up until now games have had nothing to do with movies, like I’ve kept on saying all this time, but now people are going on about how every game will be like a movie from now on,’ Yamauchi said.
This is interesting for various reasons. For the longest time (???BC ~1970s a.D.), storytelling and games were completely separate things. With the first RPG systems, storytelling became part of the game for the first time. Even then, it was something dynamic, full of unexpected things happening, no two games ever deliver the same story. A "table wide" theater play, if you will. Even with the same group of people doing the exact sequence of actions, it might look similar enough, but never "fully equal".
Storytelling in general is linear. Stories have a beginning, middle and end. This is very noticeable in many digital games, as the players effectively play the middle and cutscenes to explain/advance the plot are bits where interaction is non existent. Even when the devs account for a variety of situations, such as Larian with Divinity and BG3, it's still a limited selection of story branches.
It's no wonder that some of the most popular and long lived games lack a "story". DotA, League of Legends, Fortnite, Counter Strike, they're not unlike boardgames that have a set dressing to "explain" why it is like it is, mechanically speaking. Skyrim and Diablo 2 also come to mind, both have a proper story, both have been around for ages, but neither is particularly remembered for "the story".
45 comments
I like their games but its such a weird company. like... people had been asking for bluetooth for wireless headphones on switch for years and it had just never been a feature. then one day... they like, just turned it on and said hey you can use wireless headphones now! like, that took 4 years! absolutely bizarre.
Sony can't even include basic features in new console releases. Like themes, music players, or folders. Multiple consoles in a row now.
because sony and nintendo realised having ability to have user loaded content is a vector of security vulnerbilities, so they decided the best choice to fight of exploits is not give you the feature instead of having a competent cyber security team.
for instance, neither sony nor nintendo give you an internet browser thats not hidden. Microsoft does.
the followup question is which company has the most experience developing an OS.
Sony and Nintendo care more about preventing piracy than it does giving its userbase good features.
That's a lot of "like"s as filler words for something written out, haha
ya its to emphasize my bewilderment!