17th May 2003, 5:12 PM
I want to make this very clear. Recently, personal opinion of a product and personal opinion of the product's effect on Nintendo have become frighteningly blurred. These are two separate things. Thus, they should be separate. Too often, our egos get wrapped up in liking a game that we automatically assume that everyone else should think the same way, and thus the game will sell well. The reality is that each of our little opinions of a product is an infinitesimal (really really small) part of Nintendo's audience. So, in a sense, my personal opinion of Pacman has very little influence in the scheme of things. Therefore, I shouldn't even consider my personal opinion of a product when I think about the game's sales.
Keeping that in mind, I don't think this is the kind of innovation people are looking for. Certainly not the hardcore gamers that attend E3. The unknown is whether the mass market would grasp this. Unfortunately, Nintendo's got a problem. The numerous Nintendo fans that are dedicated enough to get the full GBA 4-player setup (in general) wouldn't be interested in these simple games. On the other hand, the casuals that might be interested in these games might look at the hurdles (buying a peripheral or several GBAs) and just say, "It's not worth it." For these reasons, I think that these connectivity games will not break out of a small niche.
Personally, I'm not interested in 4 swords (too many GBAs), Tetra's Trackers (doesn't look fun), and Pacman (unless it's less than $20). These aren't the game experiences that excite me. But again, that has nothing to do with the fact that I think the games will not bd successful. As I tried to explain about Celda, I thought the art was beautiful, inspired, and wonderful. Simultaneously, I thought that the art style that I liked was not paletable to the mass market. As I said, I try to keep these two separate, as they are two different things.
Keeping that in mind, I don't think this is the kind of innovation people are looking for. Certainly not the hardcore gamers that attend E3. The unknown is whether the mass market would grasp this. Unfortunately, Nintendo's got a problem. The numerous Nintendo fans that are dedicated enough to get the full GBA 4-player setup (in general) wouldn't be interested in these simple games. On the other hand, the casuals that might be interested in these games might look at the hurdles (buying a peripheral or several GBAs) and just say, "It's not worth it." For these reasons, I think that these connectivity games will not break out of a small niche.
Personally, I'm not interested in 4 swords (too many GBAs), Tetra's Trackers (doesn't look fun), and Pacman (unless it's less than $20). These aren't the game experiences that excite me. But again, that has nothing to do with the fact that I think the games will not bd successful. As I tried to explain about Celda, I thought the art was beautiful, inspired, and wonderful. Simultaneously, I thought that the art style that I liked was not paletable to the mass market. As I said, I try to keep these two separate, as they are two different things.