Nintendo Unveils Plans To Gain Industry Leadership

[Smoke]

NINTENDO UNVEILS PLANS TO GAIN INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP

New Forms of Game Play, New Partnerships, New Hits, Time Travel Unleashed For E3

LOS ANGELES, May 13, 2003 – With the world's hottest-selling hardware system, Game Boy® Advance SP, and three current best-selling Nintendo GameCube™ and Game Boy® Advance games, Nintendo today unveils its strategy to continue to grow its industry leadership. Today Nintendo revealed the Nintendo Time Machine™. Nintendo plans to use the Nintendo Time Machine™ to go back in time to 1995.....

[A Black Falcon]

Pretty much...

[OB1]

Hahaha, I wouldn't be surprised if that was a part of their plan!

Nintendo sure knows how to please their audience, am I right? We beg for Kid Icarus and original Gamecube games and instead we get Pacman! Woo!

[A Black Falcon]

They fail to please a shrinking hardcore fanbase and fail to please an indifferent mass market. How successful.

[Sacred Jellybean]

They've succeeded in pleasing the tiny faction of Pacman fans that have been praying for years to play as the ghosts.

[OB1]

[Smoke]

Originally posted by Sacred Jellybean
They've succeeded in pleasing the tiny faction of Pacman fans that have been praying for years to play as the ghosts.

Well then, good job Nintendo!

BTW the time travel thing was the most realistic way for Nintendo to become the industry leader again that I could think of. :p

[OB1]

I bet you anything that Nintendo considered that idea for at least a little while.

[Smoke]

[A Black Falcon]

They probably wish so... though maybe for them 1985 would be a better target? The beginning of the most dominant console in history.. though both eras have the bonus of none of this silly "internet" stuff.

[Darunia]

Lol...thats some funny and, tragically true, shit.

[N_A]

To make things worst, Sony is announcing they will try to kill the GBA with their own handheld. Which very well might be a threat to Nintendo's existence. Nintendo better push the turn of the next gen consoles with initiative and a lot of momentum otherwise they loose it all.

[OB1]

We know nothing about the PSP yet, other than the the fact that it might be very expensive and not as portable as the tiny GBA SP so it might not be competition at all.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, the PSP doesn't really look like it is competing with the GBA... and isn't coming out for a year and a half anyway...

[Laser Link]

When I saw the headline I figured this had to be a joke, and sure enough Smoke came through for me.

[A Black Falcon]

The headline is from a real press release though.

[OB1]

Yeah, and did you see some of their stupid points? GC-GBA connectivity is only going to annoy more gamers, not attract new ones.

[A Black Falcon]

Not in Nintendo's version of never-never land it won't... it'll make everyone with a GBA buy a cube just for those games! Sure makes sense to me!

[Smoke]

Actually have you ever imagined what it would of been like to see some of the best looking games of today back in, oh say 1985? Had I seen Rogue Squadron 3, Metroid Prime, or even Wind Waker back then I would of probably shit myself right then and there. :D

Then when I saw the controller I'd probably say something to the effect of "What the fuck is this thing?". ;)

[A Black Falcon]

yeah... not even movies could do these graphics back then...

[Laser Link]

Yeah, I saw the press release but it was so full of blahblah Nintendo-fanboy stuff that I knew nobody would really post it here. :)

[A Black Falcon]

And what are you implying with THAT? :)

[Darunia]

To make things worst, Sony is announcing they will try to kill the GBA with their own handheld.

I don't foresee anything Sony can make to compete with the enormously extensive GBA strangle hold on that market. Maybes it's just me, but I don't think they have it in them.

[OB1]

Yeah. But you know who could give Nintendo a run for their money in the handheld arena? Those guys that made the Walkman! They really know how to make portable electronics. Now if only the guys who made the Walkman and the guys who beat Nintendo in the console industry could team up together to form one company...

[A Black Falcon]

[Laser Link]

Har har har.

[OB1]

You have to admit that I'm right though. If there's one company in the entire world that can seriously compete with Nintendo in the handheld arena it's Sony.

[Laser Link]

That's true. But the one big advantage Nintendo has is that this time there is no one else in the market, where they were split pretty evenly with Sega going into the 32/64 bit days. So Sony has a much bigger hill to climb. I don't think Sony can do much damage to Nintendo, but nobody thought they would 10 years ago either.

Anybody think that Nintendo knew about Sony trying this, and that's why they started making new GBA games?

[A Black Falcon]

No... this thing is a year and a half off so it'd be games next year they'd want to fight it. And I think they are right in so far thinking that its not exactly a threat... its better in many ways but its limitations in batteries put it in a different category from the GB... unless Sony has new Magic Batteries ™.

[Darunia]

We make fun of Microsoft for monopolizing everything, but I really think that Sony is a more sinister contender. They're trying to take over the entire world market. I wonder how soon we'll see Sony sedans and SUVs on the street.

[EdenMaster]

I think Nintendo has a firm hold on the handheld industry. They've overcome many other handhelds, some were even better than the Game Boy at the time, but fell out of grace because nobody bought them. Sonys big lead is in massive game library and internet. Internat portable games are utter nonsense, while Nintendos got all the developers working for their system. Sony would have to pull out something really astounding to trounce Nintendo is this category. Name recognition is everything, and you cannot deny the sexiness of the GBA SP.

Nintendo's fine in the portable gaming area, now as for console...

[OB1]

I hope they release a new handheld around the time Sony releases theirs, with comparable specs and everything.

[Laser Link]

Honestly, I don't. I can't imagine trying to play a fully 3D game on a screen that tiny. It would be so hard to see anything. You almost need the exaggerated look of 2D to make sense of what is going on. And I don't ever want to see 2D go away forever...

[EdenMaster]

Originally posted by Laser Link
I don't ever want to see 2D go away forever...

Amen to that. The more complex games get, the less fun they are. 2D games will always be around, but their releases are becoming few and far between.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah... I don't want to see another Nintendo handheld very soon. After the dissapointing 2 year life of the GBA (released in '98 and replaced by the GBA in '00, I believe), I want to see this one closer to the original one -- 1989-98... :)

[EdenMaster]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
[BAfter the dissapointing 2 year life of the GBA (released in '98 and replaced by the GBA in '00, I believe[/B]

The GBA replaced itself?

[A Black Falcon]

Er, GBC. :)

[OB1]

I never said anything about 3D games. I just don't want Nintendo to be crushed by Sony in yet another arena. With a nice polygonal engine we could get tons of great 2.5D games like Smash Brothers and Klonoa.

[A Black Falcon]

I'd rather see more real 2d. :)

[OB1]

You didn't like Smash Brothers or Kirby 64?

[A Black Falcon]

They're alright... Smash Bros. was good. Kirby 64 was somewhat underwhelming, but that wasn't the fault of the graphics.

But where you have 3d you will NOT see lots of polyagonal-2d plane games. If you think you would you're deluding yourself... and that is the point.

We'd see N64 ports. Then new 3d games. The 2d would die... :(

[OB1]

It's called wishful thinking, Dr. Pessimisto.

And Kirby 64 is a great game. The whole weapons combo thing was so cool.

[A Black Falcon]

Kirby 64 was okay... but not exactly one of my favorite 2d games. I had some fun... but really was dissapointed it. Actually, I never even got all the shards... its true! I stopped with a bunch of them from the last few worlds left because getting them was just not that fun... it was okay, but never great... not a great platformer.

And for Nintendo average just isn't good enough...

Oh, for N64 platformers, the only other one I've played is Goemon's Great Adventure... I've heard of a few others (Mischief Makers, Yoshi's Story) but haven't played those... but I really loved Goemon's Great Adventure. It was a really great game...

[Sacred Jellybean]

2.5d games look kinda silly... at least, the ones I've seen. I prefer the full flat 2D look with hand-drawn sprites and backgrounds and stuff.

[OB1]

Play Klonoa 1 or 2 and you'll change your mind.

I liked Kirby 64 a lot more than any of the previous Kirby games. But then again I was never a huge fan of the series.

[A Black Falcon]

I loved Kirby 1 and 2 on GB... both were really good games. Never played the NES or SNES ones... so 64 was quite dissapointing. I was expecting an equal for Kirby 2... it wasn't even close.

Why? First, NO UNLIMITED FLIGHT! This hurt the game so badly... the best part about the Kirby games was FLYING! This removed that... and half of the fun and uniqueness of the series.

Oh, the incredibly lame minibosses that never move and the slow pace of the game (sure all the games are like that... which makes it not so bad. But for a new platform they could have sped it up a bit), and the ease of the levels... and other things. It was a fun game, sure... but not the great 2d platformer I was expecting. It was merely above average... not good enough! Not nearly good enough. So for me while I'd give it a good score I'd say it was one of the more dissapointing games on the system, no question. It was just ... kind of boring. I don't know how to describe it. It was fun... but simplistic. And easy. And no flying... it just got dull after a while, and that "this isn't nearly as good as I was hoping" feeling just never left me. Oh well... the one thing that saved it was the cool combo powers. Those were fun... but not enough to make the game worth completing.

[OB1]

I liked how the limited flying in the game. That wasn't nearly as fun as becoming a ninja-rock and things like that.

[A Black Falcon]

I edited my last post several times to add a lot to it. Read the rest... :)

Oh, and if you liked limited flight... I don't get it at all. That was one of the best part of the older Kirby games! Sure, it makes the game harder... but in the GB games it was designed so it'd be challenging even if you flew over obstacles. Sure it was easier... but not dramatically so. They could have done that here too, but they were just too lazy... I never liked partnering with Rick in Kirby 2 since he had to jump everywhere -- annoying! Coo was the best... or Kine, in water. :)

Oh, the partners... that was a great feature in Kirby 2 which I was very sad to see go. It added a lot of variety to the game... this game had more powers total, sure... but still, the variety of having the animals to ride still was very nice.

And Kirby 2 was just plain more fun. For all the reasons I've listed, and some more.

[OB1]

The Kirby games, while fun, weren't up to Nintendo's usual high standards. It was neat to be able to fly and suck enemies and stuff, but the rest of the game was a bit dull. Kirby 64 was more worthy of the Nintendo name.

[A Black Falcon]

It was worthy of the Nintnedo name... but didn't come anywhere near Kirby 2 for best in the series...