I am sure I am not the only one who grew up with an Super Nintendo playing classic games like Super Mario, Mario Kart and Metroid. Nintendo used to be the gaming giant, they pretty much dominated the console scene especially up against the Sega Dreamcast, at least in my opinion. All of my friends had a SNES and we would often play split screen Mario Kart against each other. Then came the Nintendo 64, what could be argued to be one of the biggest leaps in gaming technology with the introduction of 3D games like Super Mario, Donkey Cong, Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Star Fox, Super Smash to name a few of the great titles on the platform. This was around the time that the Play Station was introduced and when I look at them in comparison their lineup for N64 was much better than the PS1 and more reliable, even though the Playstation 1 saw the introduction of the disc. Then they made a slight misstep with the Game Cube, the discs were an awkward size which meant it couldn't play DVD's, games were still really great with Super Smash Bros Melee, Goldeneye Rogue Agent, Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart Double Dash, Star Wars, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime and many others. This is when competition really ramped up for Nintendo with the introduction of the Xbox and PS2, both cam with very strong titles and had DVD players which games them an edge over the Game Cube, and they also allowed for online play and System Link. That was an area the Game Cube lost out with no online capability and also only the Japanese version of the console allowed for System link meaning that you were limited to 4 players in a game.
Next to come along was the Nintendo Wii(originally know as Revolution) and sold extremely well as they were first to release, had good graphics and has motion control like we hadn't seen before. Everyone was really excited to play games like Tennis on Wii Sports and Lego Star Wars where were would be able to aim the force and swing the lightsaber with our hands. Sadly enough though, coming out first had its problems in the longest running Console Cycle with still no DVD's being able to be watched on it, pressing buttons was easier than using the motion control and very unreliable online play. They still had some very strong IPs to come out on the Wii including Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime Corruption, New Super Mario Brothers, Zelda: Twighlight Princess and Skyward Sword. But that wasn't where they lost out, Xbox 360 launched with HD graphics, Xbox Live, and games like Halo 3, Forza, Gears of War and Mass Effect to make a very strong list of exclusives to battle against the Wii and also Xbox Live Arcade which allowed for downloadable Indie games. PS3 came out a year after the Xbox 360 and has the selling point of having Blu Ray but had major problems including the excessive price, unreliable internet and one that most gamers know the Cell technology that was used to power the graphics and games which had major drawbacks due to the way it delegated power and many developers didn't quite understand how to make games for it. The Wii still survived pretty well as the Xbox 360 suffered from the Red Rings of Death and the PS3 was both excessive in price and had its own issues and did not have a great selection of launch titles. This was not were Nintendo found themselves in trouble, it is in fact now with their current status we see them suffering from multiple issues, some which are completely out of their control and some they need to fix or they will soon be in a very serious financial state and we may even lose them from the console space come the end of the next-generation.
This all sounds doom and gloom and like I am hating on Nintendo, but the reason for this article is due to my love for them and not wanting to see them go. Let's start with their first issue, Mobile gaming: Nintendo had been doing Mobile gaming since the beginning with the original Gameboy which had some great titles like Star Wars, Pokemon and many others. They continued to see success in their DS and DSL range but suffered with the Nintendo 3DS for a few reasons. Mobile gaming has changed a lot in the last five years and nobody could have imagined that the majority of mobile gaming, and gaming in general is now done on mobile phones like the Iphone and Samsung Galaxy. Why? Because it is convenient, cheap and there are so many million to choose from with a huge range of free games as well. This, along with the fact that the 3DS hurt many people's eye, didn't work for some people and it turned out that Nintendo stole the tech from somewhere else and were recently caught and had to pay up a considerable amount in legal fees because of it. Plus the Sony Playstation Portable became popular and the new Playstation Vita, while not entirely commercially successful has a great cross-play feature with the Playstation 3 which Nintendo should consider doing with their Wii U and 3DS in the future.
Now we have Nintendo's big problem: The Wii U, it isn't a bad console by any standards, in fact it is pretty darn good but there are many reasons why this console has had very poor sales and little interest from the console market. Nintendo has never named a console the same as a previous one, what do I mean by that? Well there was first the Super Nintendo, then the Nintendo 64. the Game Cube and the Wii, then suddenly this one is the Wii U. I feel they did it to try and get some traction from the success of the Wii, but it failed due to poor marketing with most people who aren't Hardcore Nintendo Fans or IGN/game article readers have been confused thinking the Wii U is just another controller and not a new console. Their ads don't show the console off properly and it is something that came to my attention when I first saw their ad and it was brought up in the IGN Game Scoop Podcast. Now the second reason it isn't doing well is that there isn't a high level of 3rd Party support with games already saying they won't be making Wii U versions and even some of the exclusives coming for the Wii U including Rayman Legends was delayed because Ubisoft did not think it would be commercially viable to make it an exclusive so they went back so that it can be released on Wii U, PS3, PC and Xbox 360 losing another lot of potential customers with a very solid exclusive. Which brings me to my next point, launch titles and exclusives, Nintendo had very poor planning with their release bringing out a console without a "New" Mario game and a few other exclusives that would have boosted sales. Instead, we have seen a Mario game, ZombieU which didn't review well and a few other titles. But nothing that really convinces me to go to the store and buy it. They are also not having an E3 conference and instead having closed doors announcements and small press releases with most of their new content being announced directly. Now I know that E3 has become less relevant now, but I will leave that to another post but I am not sure whether the fact that they will be having a smaller presence than Microsoft and Sony will damage them in the long run. But I guess we will have to wait and see how they deal with E3 when it comes.
Though it seems grim, there are some ways that Nintendo can almost instantaneously get sales back up on the Wii U and bring them back to the green:
1st: Bring out the exclusives, you buy a Nintendo Console for Nintendo games but so far there haven't been many to actually buy. Luckily for them they have backwards compatibility and aren't blocking used games but their library is still to small of next-gen titles. What would be good for Nintendo is to have the following games developed and released this year and next year:
A new 3D Super Mario game, I would be good with Super Mario Galaxy 3 but I feel they are going to try and utilize the gamepad so they will probably have a whole new system in place.
Metroid Prime, either release a new Metroid Prime game or reboot the franchise with more focus on story, combat and have more current gen mechanics like customization for suits, abilities, perks, wave based game, decent length campaign with a an open world, good puzzles, the ability to swap between 3rd and 1st person, and the ability to swap between Zero Suit Samus and with a Suit to allow for mechanics like the whip to be used like the grapple hook in Just Cause 2 and also allowing for more weapon variety. Plus different environments, snow, lava, forest, swamp, desert, and have different hazards that you need to use certain suits for like Radiation, Poison and no oxygen. Plus a multiplayer that takes into account all the greatness of Metroid Prime with inspiration from games like Halo, COD, Battlefield and have different classes depending on the suit you were with an infection mode were it is metroids infecting Human survivors.
Super Smash Bros, we know it is confirmed and more details will be released at E3 but I am hoping for big things from this game. Many people were very dissapointed by the last game, I really loved it and thought final smashes were a great addition to the game. But I hope they bring back some of the characters from Melee that were missing and get rid of duplicates for other people to join. Add in more 3rd party game characters like Banjo and Kazzoie, Johanna Dark, Commander Shepard, Captain Price, Team Fortress players, Angry Birds, The Dragonborn, Chell, Bayonetta, Sam Fisher, Mega Man. Prince of Persia, Hitman, Lollipop Chainsaw girl and the list goes on. For duplicate players, or ones from the same franchise like Mario and Luigi have them categorized under on thing and then choose the character to make the library less clutter when choosing characters. Plus bring back Subspace Emissary, it was a great addition that added a story line to Smash like we haven't seen before and gave us a great variety of characters to play with, it would be great to see this turned into a 4 player co-op mode and have some more customization in multiplayer including the ability to have more human and AI characters and a reliable online versus mode. Also more maps would be great, maybe even ones where you can interact with the environment and some destructible environment would be nice. They also need to fix the balance issues as some character had much more powerful attacks and Final Smashes than others.
Mario Kart, bring back some of the old tracks and have a much larger selection of tracks, bring back first shells and add more items. That, more characters and better balance between characters and cars and it will be a great game. Another addition to help it from feeling stale would be the addition of special abilities that only certain characters have like invisibility for a limited time, extra boost, reshuffle and item and maybe add a health system like Blur to the cars to make the bigger cars seem more useful.
A HD Zelda game, a new game using everything people have liked from the previous games but on a bigger scale. If they could develop it like a scaled-down version of Skyrim with more diverse gameplay it will soon become a fan favorite.
I am sure there are many more games I could list but they need to make sure they can get third party support and make sure it is on par with the other versions on the different consoles. Developers like EA, Gearbox, Activision, Bungie, Harmonix and the others need to get on board.
2nd: Add an open marketplace like Apple App Store where Indie Devs can submit their games to be made and then charge a small licensing fee and get more games onto the online marketplace. Bring the virtual console marketplace to a new level with the ability to buy games from all Nintendo generations spanning from SNES, N64, Game Cube, Wii and Wii U games to help them take advantage of the length of time they have been in the console space and give them a huge push with hardcore fans and maybe even do HD versions similar to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition.
3rd: Invest into a bigger and better marketing strategy to ensure people know exactly what the product is by first explaining it on ads, billboards etc. then hit them with ads that demonstrates its capability and the games that will be on it.
4th: Take advantage of the gamepad, some uses for it that would have interesting points for gameplay include, using the power wheel and switching weapons for Mass Effect and other games, along with maps, codexs, choices on the gamepad, inventories, menus, skill trees, subtitles, used for the eagle vision in Assasin's Creed, to see through walls or like an X-Ray, augmented reality, touch games like cut the rope and angry birds among other can be brought to this console and map making to accurately place items, plus it could be a great screen capture tool where you could post screens to Miiverse, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among other sc. Plus it can be used to watch game walkthroughs on Youtube when people get stuck or as a music player that you can change your music around with. Nintendo getting a deal with Apple to implement the App Store and Itunes into the Wii U would give them a great advantage. And maybe making a gamepad that can have a single game stored on it to play when you aren't at home or stream though your 3DS. If these functions utilised the gamepad has a big selling point and doesn't just seem like some Ipad Knock-off.
5th: An Ultra Version of Wii U needs to be released with a bigger hard drive, this will mean you can store more games, footage and other content like DLC considering it has become a much larger part of gaming these days. They should also consider adding cross-play functionality between the Wii U and the 3DS like Sony has done so successfully with the Playstation 3 and Vita and will continue doing with the 4.
So that is it from me, there is much more I can talk about but I will leave it at that as I don't want people going to sleep reading my post and I know this one was super long. If you made it this far congratulations and thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to read my thoughts on Nintendo's current status. If you aren't following me yet, feel free to and I am pretty sure future posts won't be quite as long as this one. Hopefully this is a good year for Nintendo and I look forward to seeing what they have to say both directly and at E3.
This could be the year that makes or breaks their future and with PC gaming never being more accessible with the Steam Box coming out, the PS4, Xbox Durango, PS Vita and all the smartphones including Iphone and Android it has never been a more intense climate and gamers have never before been given so much choice with what to buy. If each of these services has their own premium services on top of their console/games prices, Nintendo will have to put forward a pretty good argument for people to want to spend the next-gen with them.
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