What Gamecube Really Means [Next Generation]

[Smoke]

A smaller company than its rivals, but one boasting perhaps the world's best game designers, Nintendo's line of attack has instead been to champion creativity over technology. The story has played well to the press; the surprising reality is GameCube has been absent in the birth of most of this generation's innovations.

The gritty urban reality settings and the freedom of play engendered by Grand Theft Auto 3 and its sequels - arguably the most significant creative shift in 21st Century gaming so far - passed GameCube by. Invention and success with add-on peripherals has come from Sony, with SingStar and EyeToy. Microsoft's Xbox Live has left Nintendo for dead in the online and multiplayer space.

This might not matter if Nintendo's AAA-franchises were still delivering peerless gameplay experiences unavailable on other platforms, but Metroid is Nintendo's only top flight franchise to make real progress on the GameCube. While Super Mario Sunshine was fun, it wasn't a groundbreaker in the Super Mario 64 mould. Equally, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is no Ocarina of Time (even leaving aside its controversial cel-shading). The upcoming Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess looks fantastic - but there is such a thing as turning up unfashionably late, even for the most glamorous babe.

Without a significant body of third-party industry support, the game extensions that were enabled by GameCube have failed to take off. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure, while graphically primitive, makes excellent use of the Nintendo's much-discussed the GameCube/GBA link-up. Little else does. The GameCube's broadband adapter has fared even worse. Phantasy Star Online I&II - and that's it. A multiplayer offering serving up one old Dreamcast game speaks volumes about Nintendo's inability to persuade publishers to back its machine, not to mention how Nintendo often seemingly takes its loyal audience for granted.

Full article here: Next Generation

[A Black Falcon]

Doesn't sound like someone who likes Nintendo, or Nintendo's way of doing things, very much... sure there are problems, but I definitely wouldn't make them that extreme (reading the whole article). For instance...

Nobody doubts Nintendo can turn out endless reincarnations of games like Super Smash Bros and Mario Party. But is that the future? Sony doesn't think so. Microsoft doesn't think so. And judging by their output, most of the world's game publishers don't either.

That doesn't make Nintendo wrong.

The design and marketing of the Nintendo DS suggests the manufacturer is set in its ways. It can innovate; it cannot do 'cool'. PSP versus DS can currently be crudely summarised as a battle of style over content. As such, it's a battle Nintendo has waged with Sony over the past two console generations. Battles Sony won.

And guess who's winning... yeah, not Sony.

[lazyfatbum]

yeah that whole GBA to GC connectivity is so bogus, Sony and MS would never do anything as stupid as that

[Great Rumbler]

The design and marketing of the Nintendo DS suggests the manufacturer is set in its ways. It can innovate; it cannot do 'cool'. PSP versus DS can currently be crudely summarised as a battle of style over content. As such, it's a battle Nintendo has waged with Sony over the past two console generations. Battles Sony won.

Read the weekly sales charts from Japan and tell me which dual-screen Nintendo handheld is selling better than the all the other consoles.

Nobody doubts Nintendo can turn out endless reincarnations of games like Super Smash Bros and Mario Party. But is that the future? Sony doesn't think so.

Sly Cooper 12, Jax and Daxter 27, Ratchet and Clank Racing. Yeah, Sony does it too.

[Darunia]

I really don't have any more faith in Nintendo. I predict that within the next generation of systems or two, Nintendo will go the way of Sega: that is, resign from the hardware wars, and go into orbit around either Sony or X-Box, and loan their franchises out.

Makes me want to cry. :bummed:

[A Black Falcon]

GR: As I said, this is a thinly disguised Nintendo-bashing article that retreads a whole bunch of proven-wrong accusations (or proven-Nintendo's-no-worse-than-anyone-else accusations). It's not impartial, that's for sure... I know I do have some doubts about Nintendo, but I don't think that they're going to fold, or get out of the hardware business, or anything like that, anytime soon. The DS was a great statement on Nintendo's ability to be different... I was a bit nervous of how the PSP would do, because of Sony's name and marketing, but it's great to see the DS actually doing well. I guess it says the people don't always look at the graphics first... amazing, I know, but evidently true... :)

[Great Rumbler]

Nintendo will go the way of Sega: that is, resign from the hardware wars

Sega had one successful console and several horrible failures and were on the brink of bankruptcy for years, while Nintendo has had two successful consoles, a long string of handheld success, 5 billion dollars in the bank, and two consoles that had performed slightly less than what fans wanted but still made them tons of money anyway. Nintendo is not Sega. Nintendo is one of the most successful and financially stable companies in Japan, if not the world.

[A Black Falcon]

Of course, the flip side of that is the accusation that they care more about keeping their bank balance high than actually using that money to help their company (and that seems to be at least partially true), but... it's better to have an intact Nintendo than to have them head Sega's way...

[Great Rumbler]

Nintendo has a lot money, yes, but if they start getting in a money war with Sony and Microsoft they'll only get to find themselves in dire straights. They simply don't have the kind of money that the other two companies have.

[A Black Falcon]

That is true too, and another argument to not spend too much... but perhaps they are a bit TOO cautious.

[Smoke]

If the Revolution does even worse than the GameCube I can see them eventually going handheld only. Remember, in the end it's all about the bottom line.

[Great Rumbler]

Of course it is, but with the GC they still made a lot of money.

[N-Man]

We don't have gritty urban settings. :(

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, I think I heard Miyamoto say something about that being in the next Mario game.

[Dark Jaguar]

Anyone else see how many times that article begs the question?

A smaller company than its rivals, but one boasting perhaps the world's best game designers, Nintendo's line of attack has instead been to champion creativity over technology. The story has played well to the press; the surprising reality is GameCube has been absent in the birth of most of this generation's innovations.

That last sentence begs the question, HAS Nintendo been absent in the birth of most of this generation's innovations? Has this generation even had any innovations? It's important to nail down the answer to this before making any assumptions based on this.

The gritty urban reality settings and the freedom of play engendered by Grand Theft Auto 3 and its sequels - arguably the most significant creative shift in 21st Century gaming so far - passed GameCube by. Invention and success with add-on peripherals has come from Sony, with SingStar and EyeToy. Microsoft's Xbox Live has left Nintendo for dead in the online and multiplayer space.

Okay, first of all yes it IS arguable that it's the most significant creative shift of the 21st century. VERY arguable. You run around doing random stuff in a stale world. That's not new at all. Whether you love it or hate it must be accepted that it is certainly not innovative.

As for success with stuff like the Eyetoy or the "Singstar" (never heard of that one), that's debatable. XBox Live on the other hand, that's a good thing, a great feature which is succesful, but not innovative. Too often people seem to ignore the PC when it comes to whether or not to call some new thing on a console "innovative" or not. I myself have been guilty of this too. However, in no way can it really be called innovative, so much as a great addition to that particular market.

This might not matter if Nintendo's AAA-franchises were still delivering peerless gameplay experiences unavailable on other platforms, but Metroid is Nintendo's only top flight franchise to make real progress on the GameCube. While Super Mario Sunshine was fun, it wasn't a groundbreaker in the Super Mario 64 mould. Equally, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is no Ocarina of Time (even leaving aside its controversial cel-shading). The upcoming Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess looks fantastic - but there is such a thing as turning up unfashionably late, even for the most glamorous babe.

This begs the question, IS Nintendo not producing stellar titles compaired to the other companies? Yes, this is certainly an argument in and of itself, but if it's not established either way, it's wrong to draw conclusions based on the assumption that the answer is one or the other.

Without a significant body of third-party industry support, the game extensions that were enabled by GameCube have failed to take off. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure, while graphically primitive, makes excellent use of the Nintendo's much-discussed the GameCube/GBA link-up. Little else does. The GameCube's broadband adapter has fared even worse. Phantasy Star Online I&II - and that's it. A multiplayer offering serving up one old Dreamcast game speaks volumes about Nintendo's inability to persuade publishers to back its machine, not to mention how Nintendo often seemingly takes its loyal audience for granted.

Here is about the only thing that's factually and logically sound in the article. We can't really say anything else about it, because this particular set of statements only goes as far as what the data tells us.

[Great Rumbler]

How about Animal Forest? Did they forget about that?

[Dark Jaguar]

Seems they did, considering that has a similar "free to do as you will" style that GTA is known for. For that matter, Sim City had that same tone, and a host of ways to destroy all that is with the click of a button.

[Great Rumbler]

They seem to be equating the popularity of GTA to its "innovation" and disregarding any other innovations which were not as popular. GTA is innovative, of course, but it's not as innovative as the article seems to believe. It's merely extremely popular and highly copied. GTA on the PS2 took the open-endedness of it's predecessors and added in a story and realism that wasn't present in the previous titles. Games were open-ended before GTA came along, it just made it popular.

[EdenMaster]

I agree with DJ in that there has been very little in the way of "innovation" in this console generation. The EyeToy classified as innovation? Come on. It's as gimmicky as the E-Reader and everybody who isn't a Sony fanboy knows it.

If anything, I'd say the closest thing to any sort of hardware innovation was the introduction of the WaveBird. Sure, there had been wireless controllers before it, and you can find third-party ones everywhere now, but Nintendo got it <i>right</i>. That's just for consoles, now the DS is innovative. It offers dual screens and a touch screen with which to play games. The PSP is a wonderful machine and it's definite competition, but really, what is new about it? It's a widescreen, souped up Game Boy that used UMD discs instead of carts. To use the barest of analogies, that's all the PSP is. The DS offers a new sort of experience, and a break from the same-old same-old.

As far as games, there wasn't a whole lot of innovation, but oh, the sequels kept on pouring out, didn't they? I'd say the innovative game of this gen was Katamari Damacy. It's the only game I've played this gen that was completely different from anything I'd ever played before.

As ABF said, this article was written by someone who either hates Nintendo, is a Sony or MS fanboy, or both. The fact that it spends the majority of it's time bashing Nintendo's faults and ignoring their competitors' leads me to believe this is far too biased to place any stock in whatsoever.

[Smoke]

Why so much Eyetoy hate? First lazy and now you. Is it just because Nintendo didn't think of it? I really do wonder if some people here would be callling it another of Nintendo's great innovations had they thought it up. Sure it's a simple implementation but the idea is there. Minority Report anyone?

They seem to be equating the popularity of GTA to its "innovation" and disregarding any other innovations which were not as popular. GTA is innovative, of course, but it's not as innovative as the article seems to believe. It's merely extremely popular and highly copied. GTA on the PS2 took the open-endedness of it's predecessors and added in a story and realism that wasn't present in the previous titles. Games were open-ended before GTA came along, it just made it popular.

Yeah I think Body Harvest for the N64 by Rockstar North back when they were DMA Design would count as the innovative title. :p

[A Black Falcon]

How about Animal Forest? Did they forget about that?

Things that make the object of your dislike have no place in biased rants GR, you should know that... :)

Why so much Eyetoy hate? First lazy and now you. Is it just because Nintendo didn't think of it? I really do wonder if some people here would be callling it another of Nintendo's great innovations had they thought it up. Sure it's a simple implementation but the idea is there. Minority Report anyone?

I've never used Eyetoy, but I'd say it looks pretty cool... that (PS3) Eyedentify trailer was cool. :)

Yeah I think Body Harvest for the N64 by Rockstar North back when they were DMA Design would count as the innovative title.

Hmm... I don't know. It took old ideas -- the "aliens are invading, kill them all", the "run around in a large world", etc... it just mixed them in a somewhat new way (yes, that did foretell the GTA games). Innovation? Yeah, probably. But not completely new ideas. It was new ways of putting together old ideas -- which is also innovation, but not quite the same kind.

If anything, I'd say the closest thing to any sort of hardware innovation was the introduction of the WaveBird. Sure, there had been wireless controllers before it, and you can find third-party ones everywhere now, but Nintendo got it right.

This I disagree with. This isn't "doing what has been done before differently". This is "doing what has been done before, but perhaps better". That's not innovation... it's improving on existing product, but not really innovation. (and besides, I bet that there had been some PC wireless controllers that were just as good as the Wavebird...)

[EdenMaster]

Why so much Eyetoy hate? First lazy and now you. Is it just because Nintendo didn't think of it? I really do wonder if some people here would be callling it another of Nintendo's great innovations had they thought it up. Sure it's a simple implementation but the idea is there. Minority Report anyone?

I'm not bashing the Eyetoy because Nintendo didn't think of it, I'm not as biased as that (you'll note I referred to the E-Reader as a gimmick too). I wouldn't buy one if it WERE made by Nintendo. I just see very little use for such a peripheral, and many of the games I've seen which use the Eyetoy don't look all that great.

Body Harvest, no I haven't played it. Sounds like an FPS, and if so, then it isn't innovative, sorry. Far as I'm concerned, if you can fit a game cleanly into one particular genre, then it isn't innovative. It's just another game with different characters and a different story. Besides, we're talking about THIS gen. N64 was last gen. Have you played Katamari Damacy? If you had, you'd agree with me on just how innovative and original it is.

[Smoke]

The reason I mention Body Harvest is because it's by the developers of GTA and is basically GTA with aliens. I wasn't pointing it out as an innovative title of this gen but as a reason that GTA3 can't be considered innovative since DMA Design/Rockstar North already did a 3D free roaming game where you could jump in any vehicle you could find. It was a good game for it's time.

[Great Rumbler]

I played the Eyetoy a little bit while I was at Wal-Mart and it was kind of fun...but I don't have much interest in buying it. Innovative though? Well...it's hard to say. I'd say it's more of gimmick since most of the games for it [at least as far as I know] are usually pretty small and more like mini-games and no regular games take advantage of it.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, the wavebird isn't really innovative. It's a really good wireless controller, an improvement on past technologies, but it's neither a unique idea nor does it really change the way you play a game.

[Great Rumbler]

It did set the standard for wireless controllers and single-handedly made it a staple for all new consoles, but yeah it's not really innovative since wireless controllers have been around for a while.

[A Black Falcon]

Body Harvest, no I haven't played it. Sounds like an FPS, and if so, then it isn't innovative, sorry. Far as I'm concerned, if you can fit a game cleanly into one particular genre, then it isn't innovative. It's just another game with different characters and a different story.

Nope. It's a third person GTA predecessor... large world, fairly open, but you progress along a path -- it's just a wide, roaming path. :) You travel through time to stop an alien invasion... shooting bugs and all that. And you can take over any vehicle in the game do drive around and do things with... either as part of the main game or just to wander around (though because of water and stuff you can't bring every vehicle everywhere, you can just use them in the region they're in. But there are so many vehicles that that doesn't really matter...). Fun game, but yeah, it is a bit dated, and the save system is lacking... oh well, good anyway.

I'm not bashing the Eyetoy because Nintendo didn't think of it, I'm not as biased as that (you'll note I referred to the E-Reader as a gimmick too). I wouldn't buy one if it WERE made by Nintendo. I just see very little use for such a peripheral, and many of the games I've seen which use the Eyetoy don't look all that great.

E-Reader is a gimmick. Eyetoy has more potential. Maybe not fully realized potential, but potential...

[EdenMaster]

E-Reader had potential. As did GBA-GC connectivity, but Nintendo never really focused on either enough to make them anything more than a gimmick. Perhaps I'll eat my words later, for it may be too early to tell, but the EyeToy doesn't look like it'll end up any less of a gimmick than R.O.B. or the Super Scope.

[A Black Falcon]

GBA-GC connectivity had a lot more potential than the E-Reader... face it, E-Reader never had a chance of getting beyond "gimmick" because it doesn't have any real uses other than "gimmick". That's not true for GBA-GC connectivity and, probably, EyeToy.

[Dark Jaguar]

Did the Wavebird make it a standard, or would it have happened anyway? On the PC, wireless has been taking over for years now. I still go with wired mice, controllers, and keyboards because, well, I have no reason to ditch the cord. Some do though, I guess.

And yes, the e-reader had no real potential. Expanding SMB3 was something, but it's not like ONLY cards could do it, and it's also not like cards were the best way to do it. Fact is, the same thing will now be replaced by wireless internet access and downloadable expansions. Those cards weren't even original. They are a throwback to the era of punchcards.

I underestimated the eyetoy actually. I see a bunch of dancing around randomly and assumed, wrongly, that that was the only potential use. A more sophisticated system has a lot of promise, as a lot of tech shows have stated, regarding using a visual sensor to replace a controller outright, or better, make a new type of controller.

[Smoke]

The Eyetoy or something based on it will come into it's own when some creative person creates a killer app for it. What about a WarioWare type game with Eyetoy controls?