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vsp · 02-10-2003, 12:24 PM

Nintendo lives and dies solely by the imagination of Shigeru Miyamoto, and Miyamoto's gaming visions are invariably cute, brightly-colored and family-friendly. Without Miyamoto, Nintendo would still be selling Hanafuda playing cards in Japanese shops, instead of being the worldwide multimedia juggernaut they are today.

It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with Miyamoto's style; his games are almost invariably innovative in design, whole consoles have been built around his visions, and many "mature" designers credit him as a primary influence. Where he goes, the faithful follow. The trick is that Nintendo needs to deliver more than that to dip into the ever-growing 18-and-up gamer demographic; Miyamoto chooses not to go there, and no one else has a killer app waiting to fill that void.

Nintendo is acutely aware that the "Nintendo is for KIDS" image is both a stigma and a selling point for their consoles. Many parents bought the N64, then the Cube specifically because they knew they'd find Brightly-Colored Run-And-Jump Action-Adventure Games with familiar characters for those systems, and wouldn't have to worry about Junior bringing home something nasty for it. (Look at Super Mario Sunshine, which fits that description to a T -- a B-C R-A-J A-A Game with Mario, packing a non-lethal water cannon on an environmentally-friendly mission and singing with marching children in the TV commercials. And THAT was the biggest release for the Cube in 2002.)

On the flip side, no matter how good the game itself may have been, how many teens-and-older saw Mario imitating Captain Planet on TV, wrote it off as being childish and laughed their asses off, before switching over to Grand Theft Auto 3?

Nintendo isn't blind; they've seen the PSX/PS2 stomp their sales into the ground by catering to older gamers (many of whom grew up with the NES and SNES, but want something different now), and they want some of that action as well. They spent some serious cash on the Resident Evil licences, pushed games like Eternal Darkness, and allowed a raunchy version of BMX:XXX on the Cube. (The latter, much like Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64, is essentially raunch for the sake of raunch, with all the depth and subtlety of a Benny Hill sketch. Not that that's necessarily bad, of course, but...) Metroid Prime shows what the console is capable of -- a shooter that combines franchise appeal, flashy sci-fi graphics and mature themes to great effect.

But games like Metroid Prime just aren't coming from third-parties, and are clearly the exception rather than the rule on the Cube. It's not entirely a licencing issue; developers just aren't putting in the R&D on mature games for the Cube, because the built-in audience for those games is already on the PS2 and (in lesser numbers, but still a higher percentage than on the Cube) on the Xbox. Worse yet, when major developers like Sega are starting to drop Cube projects, that's a red flag for smaller teams to cave in and go where the more guaranteed money is, instead of taking a chance that games like theirs will help the Cube take off.

And what's the Next Big Thing on the Cube, and probably its only major release before summer? The new Zelda, with cel-shaded graphics that make it look more cartoony than the rest of the series combined, and a bonus disc rehashing an N64 Zelda hit. As always, Miyamoto will save the day and pay the bills.

02-10-2003, 12:24 PM	#3
vsp Syndrome of a Down Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: West Chester Posts: 1,367	Nintendo lives and dies solely by the imagination of Shigeru Miyamoto, and Miyamoto's gaming visions are invariably cute, brightly-colored and family-friendly. Without Miyamoto, Nintendo would still be selling Hanafuda playing cards in Japanese shops, instead of being the worldwide multimedia juggernaut they are today. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with Miyamoto's style; his games are almost invariably innovative in design, whole consoles have been built around his visions, and many "mature" designers credit him as a primary influence. Where he goes, the faithful follow. The trick is that Nintendo needs to deliver more than that to dip into the ever-growing 18-and-up gamer demographic; Miyamoto chooses not to go there, and no one else has a killer app waiting to fill that void. Nintendo is acutely aware that the "Nintendo is for KIDS" image is both a stigma and a selling point for their consoles. Many parents bought the N64, then the Cube specifically because they knew they'd find Brightly-Colored Run-And-Jump Action-Adventure Games with familiar characters for those systems, and wouldn't have to worry about Junior bringing home something nasty for it. (Look at Super Mario Sunshine, which fits that description to a T -- a B-C R-A-J A-A Game with Mario, packing a non-lethal water cannon on an environmentally-friendly mission and singing with marching children in the TV commercials. And THAT was the biggest release for the Cube in 2002.) On the flip side, no matter how good the game itself may have been, how many teens-and-older saw Mario imitating Captain Planet on TV, wrote it off as being childish and laughed their asses off, before switching over to Grand Theft Auto 3? Nintendo isn't blind; they've seen the PSX/PS2 stomp their sales into the ground by catering to older gamers (many of whom grew up with the NES and SNES, but want something different now), and they want some of that action as well. They spent some serious cash on the Resident Evil licences, pushed games like Eternal Darkness, and allowed a raunchy version of BMX:XXX on the Cube. (The latter, much like Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64, is essentially raunch for the sake of raunch, with all the depth and subtlety of a Benny Hill sketch. Not that that's necessarily bad, of course, but...) Metroid Prime shows what the console is capable of -- a shooter that combines franchise appeal, flashy sci-fi graphics and mature themes to great effect. But games like Metroid Prime just aren't coming from third-parties, and are clearly the exception rather than the rule on the Cube. It's not entirely a licencing issue; developers just aren't putting in the R&D on mature games for the Cube, because the built-in audience for those games is already on the PS2 and (in lesser numbers, but still a higher percentage than on the Cube) on the Xbox. Worse yet, when major developers like Sega are starting to drop Cube projects, that's a red flag for smaller teams to cave in and go where the more guaranteed money is, instead of taking a chance that games like theirs will help the Cube take off. And what's the Next Big Thing on the Cube, and probably its only major release before summer? The new Zelda, with cel-shaded graphics that make it look more cartoony than the rest of the series combined, and a bonus disc rehashing an N64 Zelda hit. As always, Miyamoto will save the day and pay the bills.