Six things we love to hate about Nintendo

[Killarapp]

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.

[FooFan]

Yeah all very true and it would take me a long time to count the number of threads that have been created on those subjects here

I do feel that some of it is changing though... Online especially is showing signs of improvement and I agree with you that I think a headset will appear at some point. Although the parental controls over it could be a nightmare!
It's hard to see headsets being allowed outside of friend matches when they won't even let you use custom taunts in SSBB

Delays I can put up with as the majority of delayed titles end up being top quality games(Galaxy, Brawl, MK, etc), but it is annoying when other countries get games months in advance

They can make as many Mario, Zelda and Metroid games as they like IMO! There's a reason why those names are still turning up in games and it's because they always produce the highest quality! I'd much rather be playing an updated version of Mario than a sketchy new concept with the emphasis on being 'New' and 'different'.

Very good blog and it will be interesting to see whether this list changes at all with the release of the next Ninty console

[Dalesy]

Nice thread! I'll give you my top 3 most hated things that they have done! I'l post again if i think of anything

4) Delay of Game Releases - PES 2009 due to release in March 2009?!?!?! Season will be over by then!! (nearly!)

3) Online Gameplay - I suppose they have introduced online play, but i'm sure they can make it better than it is.

2) MSN Online - similar to Xbox Live. I was thinking we could have some sort of Wii Live!? It can't be that hard for Nintendo to do!

1) Cricket - Cricket Game? Why have they not made one??? Obviously they have never heard of the word 'cricket', but surely someone, somewhere would have advised then on it!

[tomster785]

I agree about them not using their potential in their games or, even their channels. I agree about the idea of a new franchise. As much as I love: Metroid, Zelda and Mario, I would still like to see a new one. Or even the revival of a dead series (Kid Icarus or Balloon Fighter for example, heck even ice climbers would rock). Ninty needs to pull their socks up in this department.

[ed.kilverts]

Still waiting on the cricket myself! Personally I don't think all the games use the most of the wii's visual capabilities. Galaxy is a perfect game for the wii, and the graphics are stunning. I watched the intro for MKWii yesturday (didn't realise if you didn't do anything on the start up screen this plays) and again, stunning graphics. I know they're not HD, but sometimes they leave a bit too much off...

Lack of innovation using the controls also sucks - but then look at how many people showed their support for Zack and Wiki - again great use of them. More sports games would have been obvious but neglected by ninty - the mario baseball game looks as naff as anything!

And don't get me started on the channels!

[Ed00wii]

Does anyone know if the Metroid series will be continued?

I thought the 3rd one was the 'end' to the series. Surely Nintendo's best interest would be to continue the series?

I've seen zero punctuation say it a few times though. Nintendo's franchises and storylines are drying up and seem to be focused on the wii and not the future...surely they'll carry on though?

[hillyjo13]

i think they meant the prime series ed (not sure though) so maybe we'll see a whole new different metroid series? fingers crossed we will im not the biggest metroidprime fan but i loved all the 2d metroids with fusion/super being some of my favourite games ever!

[Solar]

Biggest mistake Nintendo made was letting Rare go to microsoft, they made games perfect for nintendos consoles.

[cc182]

Originally Posted by Solar

Biggest mistake Nintendo made was letting Rare go to microsoft, they made games perfect for nintendos consoles.

^^

Absolutely correct,...I mean, RARE practically gave Nintendo a few more years life from the SNES and more or less its popularity on the N64,......silly silly move

[biddenden_sue]

Great blog. Your last gripe got me thinking.

They promised that a Wii connected online would be downloading extra bits for your games overnight and things would happen while you weren't even playing.

I didn't dream it, did I?

I'm sure that's the gist of what was said all those years ago...

At the moment, the only thing that happens at all like that is news of new competitions becoming available on the Mario Kart channel. Hmmm...