War relic Winston Churchill must have been relitively shocked when he the proclaimed hero of the nation was shunned by the British people after the war. Surely he felt that saving the world had gave him some kind of reputation that would have paid off nicely after the war.
The Beatles, well their undenyably responsible for pretty much the shape of pop music yet still despised and considered overrated by some.
The point, nobody and nothing is above criticism. Nintendo for example came along back when the American video game market had collapsed on itself and nobody was playing video games anymore. They had their work cut out for them, since American markets and stores were unwilling to risk another video game system. Nintendo's angle was to market the NES as a toy (a plague that still degrades video games today) it proved to be very successful. Propably because the games were so successful, Nintendo providing lucrative series such as Metroid, Zelda and Mario.
Of course for whatever Nintendo did for the industry it has its critics, none less the gamers. We being a particularly hard to please bunch, calling up on all Nintendo's slip ups (Virtual boy/Power glove) and constantly asking why Nintendo repeats the same mistakes. Heres a review of some of those mistakes and Nintendo issues that we love to find annoying and my own personal takes on them.
The power glove, replaced the simple 2 button layout on the NEs with something far more complex, the product was a complete failure
#5 Nintendo's innability to get along with developers
Lets face it when your buying a Nintendo console you principly buy it for Nintendo's offerings. Anything by Capcom or Konami is just a bonus. I could propably count all the great 3rd party titles for the GC on my right hand with only Resident Evil 4 coming to mind as a particularly strong title yet also present on the PS2. Not that any of these companies really make an effort, their propably too afraid of Nintendo's killer IP's drowning out any noise they make and who wouldn't. Of course most 3rd party games on Nintendo consoles for any gamer in the no arn't a smart purchase. Just look at all the knock off's of Brain Training available for the system. Half arsed games that sport the same title as a good PS2 or GC title (Splinter Cell for an example) but clearly didn't have any effort or care and attention put into developing the Wii or DS version. Effort costs money of course so for all Nintendo's bleeting that its less of a risk for developers to develop on the Wii or Ds they'll always have the disadvantage of having so many killer in house developed games that developers will be terrified of internal competition.
That and Nintendo just can't seem to get along with its 3rd parties, everyone knows about how Nintendo's arrogence and power eventually led to a fall from grace when studios such as Square Enix and Rare jumped ship to develop for Sony's PS. Nintendo's domination and ability to keep the developers in check did however definatly strengthen the industry in the crucial years where the industry was being re-established stopping a flood of bad games, bad consoles and bad decisions that had sunk it in the early 80's. Forgetting of course that when Nintendo did have strong 3rd party support it wasn't exactly a good thing they had no crisis of concious charging the earth and moon.
#4 Dependance on existing francises
I don't know why we complain about this one, we all know you bought the Wii at launch for Twilight Princess and you would do it again. To me this complaint isn't so much centered on how much Nintendo reuses Mario and Metriod in high quality games (you can never have too many) but how its left a climate where Nintendo isn't really establishing any new IP's. The last major Nintendo licence id consider was the Pikmin series. All this Nintendogs/Mii stuff is hardly a new intresting adventure IP to sit beside the big 3 (Zelda / Mario / Metriod) we want something to trickle into the gaming subconcious so badly it gets paroded on TV. Another licence for Nintendo to whore out into submission please.
#3 Delays
Yes, its annoying, yes the other console manufactuers don't do it as much or as bad. Yet Nintendo never reeps what it sows, by the time Nintendo converted VIP stars into Wii points we had forgot they even announced it.
Sure they delayed SSBB for a considerable time, but how many of us are still bitter. When Sony did this with the PS3 there was an absolute outrage but with Nintendo its lots of little dissapointments so we don't get so wound up.
Even so the issue that Nintendo needs 5-6 months to translate US English into UK English/French/Italian/German/Dutch... ectra never did seem too farfetched to me.
#2 Online
We tend to take this one as a running joke now rather than an annoyance. A lack of head sets to allow nasty words on Brawl doesn't fit with the ability to have taunts such as 'Go die you F**' Nintendo's self chosen role of protecting kids against a none existant threat (as far as online gaming is concerned) must seem stupid now even to them. I reckon they'll give us headsets one day they just want to do it with as little loss of face as possible. It certainly won't be announced at E3. The real issue here is the lack of features, sure Mario Kart Wii and Brawl both have more modes but MKwii is simplified so much theres no customisability whatsoever (which is reflected in the *******isation of the single player/multiplayer) Brawl however, well its lags and theres modes where theres 2 player coop which would have been great fun to work with online such as Subspace Emissiary. That and the inability to be with a friend and play randomers, all small complaints that add up to a lack of online functionality, impeding on our fun wherever possible.
#1 Unused potensial
The Wii is a pain for this, Nintendo seems to take ages to add one iota of content, theres no harddrive solution, no ethernet adapter, hardly anything on the VC, hardly anything on Wiiware. On the sarcastic plus side theres a wether channel that requires you to have your PC turned on so that Wifi is operational. They've only just sorted out the lack of games by filling up a close duplicate of the GC's libary within 2 years of release (A Zelda / A Mario / A metriod / A Smash bros / A resident evil / A Mario Kart. Surely a Pikmin game will be announced too just to complete the sensation of deja vu. Theres still promises from E3 2005 that have yet to be fullfilled, Wiiconnect24 doing nothing at all for example rather than allowing Nintendo to send you all sorts of cool things while you sleep as promised. Where are these genre bending games like Disaster and Sadness, the slew of controller innovations, those developers Nintendo said were coming on board in their hordes? The Wii stands as a power house of possibilities, its a shame Nintendo arn't so keen about leading the way. Prefering to play it safe while the Wii is still selling like wild fire.