26th January 2005, 10:33 PM
A Black Falcon Wrote:By that standard some of the things you said "failed" were successes. Connectivity, for instance -- what would Pac-Man Vs., FF: CC, and Zelda: FSA be but successes? And as for the bongos, that's only meant to work with a few games, but from what we have seen those games (Donkey Konga and King of Swing) are pretty good... Yes, there is less good to say about the Virtual Boy and E-Reader (especially the E-Reader, because at least the Virtual Boy was a good idea that went wrong), but hey, noone's perfect. Nintendo's just better than most. :)
If something is supposed to be 'revolutionary', or even just a major selling point, it has to work with more than a handful of games in three years. Didn't the GBA/GC wire come out in 2002? And there are how many successful games to show for it? Does it even average to two per year for the revolutionary item?
The bongos... I'm sorry, that's going to be another one that no one will remember in five years.
Quote:My point is that you are looking back and saying 'of course the things that were widely successful had valid reasons to exist and the ones that failed did not'. This is only even vaguely mentionable IN RETROSPECT! That is, when Nintendo was making any of these things of course they thought that it'd be successful! Yes, there were warning signs for some of the failed things. But most of them could have done a lot better than they did had circumstances been different. Or in short, your line of reasoning is flawed.
You misunderstand. Most ideas have a good chance at succeeding. But some don't. I knew the E-Reader wouldn't, because it was too flawed. I remember saying so when it first came out, especially after I heard that some games would require it to unlock everything. It was a scam. Doomed.
As for the rest, of COURSE it's only mentionable in retrospect. That's why I'm saying it now. Nintendo would always think they had a chance to succeed, the problem lies in how often they do not take that chance. How often they misread the market (I bet E-Reader did quite a bit better in Japan). Everyone sees better in retrospect. I'm not trying to say that in every case, I could have told you beforehand that they were doomed.
Quote:Oh yeah, and as far as Nintendo goes is the Zapper a success either? Yes, it had Duck Hunt, but almost no OTHER NES games worth mentioning supported the thing... is success measured by one game? If so connectivity would also be a big success, given that it has two or three games that show off admirably what it can be when it is used well.
Yes, because unlike the connector, the Zapper was free. If I get a peripheral for free, I am far less discriminating on how it measured up. Connectivity, on the other hand, requires a substantial investment. You have to have both GBA and GC, and in some cases, copies of certain games for both machines PLUS the wire. To say nothing of the incessant hype about connectivity from Nintendo. So yes, my standards and expectations for it are going to be far greater.
Quote:Now, you do say that other elements are responsible too, and that is true. Connectivity? Price was the big killer I think. The VB failed several tests. But still... Nintendo has taken risks which looked to most people like certain failures before only to have them pay off hansomely, so saying that just because it potentially has some problem that might limit its success, while true, does not necessarially relate to how successful the peripheral actually will be. Certain successes have failed and certain failures have succeeded before. Nintendo isn't sure which ones will be which so they keep trying. And they should.
Nintendo should, with all its experience, have a pretty good understanding of the market. Their most surprising enterprises were in their early days (NES and Game Boy, both newcomers in unproven markets). It was a different market then, and in those days Nintendo had their fingers right on the pulse. Sony changed things tremendously, and one still gets the impression that Nintendo's suffering from shell-shock even after all these years. New and exciting gimmicks aren't really something that should be a focus when your market share and identity are slipping by the day to strong competitors.
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