14th July 2005, 9:21 PM
Quote:They're also not going to try and go after the traditional gamer who demands cutting edge hardware. They want to attract "non gamers" with simpler controls and nostalgia. bla bla bla etc
I don't buy that "traditional gamer" stuff. Nintendo's audience has never been the same as MS and Sony's target audience - "nü-gamers" who wear basketball jerseys, listen to Eminem and play Counterstrike. That's why no matter how odd Nintendo's decisions seem to be I tend to agree with them, because I just felt disconnected from video games when that generation of gamers took over. The bred-on-FFVII generation that always asks for dark/angsty contents and grandiosity and intensity (and let's put it simply, XTREMEness) in their games has always creeped me out and turned me off video games. That side of video games was apparent from the time Sega started up the Genesis and its "cool" attitude, but Nintendo had always managed to keep the upper hand thanks to 1) a headstart and 2) creativity - the same creativity they're championing right now. The only thing is that creativity's been sputtering out for the past couple of years, and there's cause to be apprehensive that they've totally ran out for Revo and that they're just becoming a Pokemon factory like Rtbang said.
On the other hand, call me a nostalgic but I've just been waiting for Nintendo to get even further away from the "nu-gamer" model, so that's why all these new ideas still give me an inkling of hope that they can come up with something good. I realize you can't just invent Donkey Kong and SMB 2 again, so that's why I'm not sure how far creativity will take them, but I'm glad they're giving it a shot.
Shit you know even this use of the word "gamer" makes me queasy. I'm not a "gamer", I just play video games sometimes. Like I also read books and watch TV sometimes, yet don't call myself a READER or TV WATCHER.