10th January 2005, 6:42 PM
Donkey Konga is not made by Nintendo. Who was it... Namco? Maybe, I'm not certain.
The mini-DVDs can be called a failure because they led to many third party complaints and some games with reduced feature sets. They did have the good side-effects of greatly reducing piracy and being different, but perhaps the negatives are greater. I don't know, I don't mind the smaller size. Only a couple of games really were affected and I think that laziness was as much a factor there as anything else...
GBA connectivity is a more clearcut case. It was a failure. The connectivity-focused games didn't sell too well. The connectivity features in other games were annoying or mostly unused. It just didn't do too well... and for good reason! It's a very expensive proposition! I mean, you are requiring people to buy $100 controllers essentially... that is not a good marketing strategy...
It also has other problems. You're using a controller running on batteries so you have to worry about that. Yes, the SP can be charged, but you can't run the charger at the same time that the GC cable is connected, annoyingly... it also requires special cables and for the best titles (Zelda FSA and FFCC) requires a GBA and cable for every player. That's a very high standard that most people will never experience.
As for the GC... I don't know. I never have felt like it quite matches up to the N64. Wind Waker is great, but OoT was better... Mario Sunshine? It is very close quality-wise to Mario 64 but Mario 64 was so innovative and amazing at the time (and still holds up so well) that I'd have to give it the edge. F-Zero is also hard... both versions, again, are great... but as awesome as GX is (and it is awesome!) I think that X is probably still a better game, by a tiny margin. Though I'd probably rather just say that they are even. :)
Wave Race is good on Cube but is too similar to the N64 one. Smash Brothers, though, is definitely better on the Cube. But these comparisons are hard... the biggest difference is not quality. The biggest difference is innovation. A lot of Nintendo's cube games are just upgraded versions of N64 games, while a lot of their N64 titles were quite innovative. That's the key difference... but on the other hand, can they help it? After all, the N64 had reason to be innovative with its 3d capabilities! The Cube just builds on that by making everything more powerful but it's not a revolutionary concept (and indeed for the time being it's hard to think of what future concept could be as big to gaming as 3d was) so of course the games are not either.
And one result of that? Thinking higher of the ones that were innovative than the new ones that, while great, just do what was done before as well or better.
Quote:Why do you consider the Mini-DVD's and the GBA connectivity as odd or failed?
The mini-DVDs can be called a failure because they led to many third party complaints and some games with reduced feature sets. They did have the good side-effects of greatly reducing piracy and being different, but perhaps the negatives are greater. I don't know, I don't mind the smaller size. Only a couple of games really were affected and I think that laziness was as much a factor there as anything else...
GBA connectivity is a more clearcut case. It was a failure. The connectivity-focused games didn't sell too well. The connectivity features in other games were annoying or mostly unused. It just didn't do too well... and for good reason! It's a very expensive proposition! I mean, you are requiring people to buy $100 controllers essentially... that is not a good marketing strategy...
It also has other problems. You're using a controller running on batteries so you have to worry about that. Yes, the SP can be charged, but you can't run the charger at the same time that the GC cable is connected, annoyingly... it also requires special cables and for the best titles (Zelda FSA and FFCC) requires a GBA and cable for every player. That's a very high standard that most people will never experience.
As for the GC... I don't know. I never have felt like it quite matches up to the N64. Wind Waker is great, but OoT was better... Mario Sunshine? It is very close quality-wise to Mario 64 but Mario 64 was so innovative and amazing at the time (and still holds up so well) that I'd have to give it the edge. F-Zero is also hard... both versions, again, are great... but as awesome as GX is (and it is awesome!) I think that X is probably still a better game, by a tiny margin. Though I'd probably rather just say that they are even. :)
Wave Race is good on Cube but is too similar to the N64 one. Smash Brothers, though, is definitely better on the Cube. But these comparisons are hard... the biggest difference is not quality. The biggest difference is innovation. A lot of Nintendo's cube games are just upgraded versions of N64 games, while a lot of their N64 titles were quite innovative. That's the key difference... but on the other hand, can they help it? After all, the N64 had reason to be innovative with its 3d capabilities! The Cube just builds on that by making everything more powerful but it's not a revolutionary concept (and indeed for the time being it's hard to think of what future concept could be as big to gaming as 3d was) so of course the games are not either.
And one result of that? Thinking higher of the ones that were innovative than the new ones that, while great, just do what was done before as well or better.
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