Nintendo is widely considered to be one of the three main competitors in today’s commercial videogame industry. As of October 2008, Nintendo have sold over 470 million hardware units and 2.7 billion software units (yeah, hark at me with my knowledge of complicated statistics and access to Wikipedia). So, undoubtedly, they’re doing pretty darn well for themselves – in fact, very well for a company originally set up to produce handmade trading cards. But, for all the numbers and reputation, there’s always been a little something which has bugged me about Ninty.

Now, please don’t get me wrong – I love Nintendo as much as the next guy. Unless of course the next guy happens to be the boss of Sony or Microsoft, in which case my last assertion no longer stands. They’ve had some ideas and produced some products which were truly groundbreaking in terms of computer games. Mass distribution of a modest little videogame (which we like to call Tetris); introduction of motion sensing games technology to the mass market (not counting the EyeToy, which was essentially a camera with plug and play cartridges); and the invention of the Gameboy (one of which almost every gamer must have owned at some point in their lifetimes). They’ve done some things which really hit the spot. But they really don’t make up for the flaws which Nintendo, as a company, has.

Take for example, this list of top Nintendo games: Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda (yep, all of them), WarioWare: Twisted! and Animal Crossing. Now, please don’t think I’m moaning for moaning’s sake, but nearly all the half decent games which are Nintendo first party are always so childish. It seems that there must be something in the Nintendo contract which goes something along the lines of: “all games produced by first party developers for Nintendo systems must adhere to the namby-pamby policy”. Seriously.

Because, with maybe the exception of a few games which fall out of this net (Red Steel, No More Heroes and Killer7, to name a few), almost everything that is published on a Nintendo platform has the same oversimplified, childish sheen to it, as though their systems aren’t for serious gamers or adults, but children with half an hour of spare time after school.

But that’s not all. It’s the feeling of unprofessionalism which Nintendo tends to give off nowadays. Their game lineups are never anything to shout about, their IPs are overstretched to snapping-point, and their E3 keynotes almost always ooze with awkwardness. Nintendo just don’t do themselves justice – take, for example, the woman who featured in both the 2008 and 2009 Nintendo E3 keynotes – who seriously thought it was a good idea to put her (up above) on stage? To be honest, I’ve seen five year olds with more marketing capability than her. Hate to be cruel, but it’s true – they don’t use their assets well enough.

And there’s just one more thing; the lack of original IPs which let all of Nintendo’s platforms down. If I had a pound for every time a Mario or Zelda game was released on a Nintendo system, I’d probably be living it up in the Bahamas by now. They hardly ever think up anything that’s new, innovative or even just a tad different, and on the odd occasion they do, it’s never long before they fall back into their old ways. Nintendo, take heed of this warning: there are only so many times that we can play a game as an elf dressed in green or a little Italian bloke with a moustache before we kill someone.

So, Nintendo, listen up and take some sort of notice, because I will say this only once. If you could bring in some new IPs, brush up your act and your professional image and try not to make all your games with a target market of five year old primary school children in mind, you’ll actually do alright. Yes, you might well have created the first decent motion sensing technology in games, and yes, you might have been the first people to license Tetris for your handheld, but for crying out loud, you can’t carry on like you are at the minute. No one’s going to take you seriously if you carry on at this rate.

And, for the love of Pete, sack the woman who presented E3 08.

Linford

Labels: Nintendo, Rant

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