Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Nintendo?
E3 is two weeks away which means rumors are swirling about possible reveals like Red Dead 3, Elder Scrolls (eh, we think 6), or a new Watch Dogs – because apparently one year is enough time for collective gamer conscious to forget how lackluster the last one was. One notable absentee in these conversations though is Nintendo. It’s like the press and collective gamer community has given up on Nintendo. Every day I leave my house stopping momentarily to stare at my copy of the latest Star Fox that’s gathering dust next to my TV. I just don’t have it in me to try it knowing how disappointing it’s supposed to be. What has happened to the big N?
Maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised. After all the last couple of years Nintendo opted to avoid E3 almost entirely instead offering to hide out in their Treehouse and offering glimpses of games through video streams. Perhaps as they lose out on more multiplatform titles due to their unique console and controller it made sense to reframe the presentation to focus on their games in a different venue. But if Nintendo hopes Yoshi’s Wooly World and Star Fox (both centerpieces of their E3 show last year) were strong enough to draw gamers back again, they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.
The fact even he had trouble playing this last year should have been a red flag to us
Nintendo has openly stated this year will be all about the Zelda game. We’ve seen the briefest of snippets of this game for a long time now and the actual release apparently is still another year away. On top of that, there’s speculation the game is meant to be a flagship launch title for their do-over console, the NX, as they try to quickly sweep the Wii U under the rug along with the Virtual Boy and the Nintendo DD. So gamers might see a Zelda game that we won’t play for another year and likely won’t be on the console we have now (or if so will be a watered down counterpart to the NX game a la Twilight Princess). Way to give your existing customers the finger, Nintendo.
If you’re not going to support the Wii U anymore can I just sell it back to you at this point?
Well at least the Wii U could be used for funny videos in a few years
What’s frustrating for us is that seems like Nintendo could be doing extraordinarily well. We’ve written about this a few times but Sony’s Playstation Now service offers gamers a chance to play classic PSX and PS2 games for a nominal monthly fee. Best yet, the games are actually streamed from a server farm outside of your home (no need for HD space, download times, or even worry about your console’s ability to emulate the game). Right now that means 50-60 games as Sony ramps up the service but longer term this is a cash cow for Sony provided they get the right games.
Think back about the last time Nintendo was huge (may have to think hard) during the launch of the Wii. Sure the promise of motion controls in your home was incredible, but many gamers (including us) jumped on the bandwagon for the virtual console alone. Getting access to Mario 3, Star Tropics, Mario Kart 64, all of my favorites, from the comfort of my couch instead of through some PC emulator — of course we’re on board! This was perhaps Nintendo’s greatest moment ever.
We’re not kidding, it’s like Nintendo made a deal with the devil for the Wii to sell that well, the penance being the Wii U
Then they got cocky and released the Wii U which introduced an innovative control scheme that only scared off risk-adverse developers and included a marketing campaign that completely failed to convince the marketplace that this was a full-fledged new console. They’ve been struggling ever since and hope to call a mulligan by bringing the NX and a new Zelda next year. But they don’t need new hardware and updates to flagship franchises to be relevant. Just make the virtual console a subscription service at long last and they’d make serious bank.
But Nintendo hasn’t been doing the intuitive thing since the N64. It’s disappointing to see them fade into the background even more. Maybe one day they can strike gold again and dominate the marketplace. But that day isn’t going during E3.
