loves2splooge said:
Resident_Hazard said:
To be fair, 12% of the population isn't very big, and I don't think Nintendo is alienating some mass number of people that want to play it and simply won't get the same enjoyment out of it. Seriously, only about 16% of the US population seems to have purchased a DS in some form, and many of them bought more than one (I have two Lites myself). So the number of people who can't play the system is arguably going to be about the same number as those that buy it. And what's 12% of 16%? That's not very many people.
I don't see what the big deal is about "kids under 7 not being able to play it." For the most part, kids under 7 don't need to be playing video games in general. My kid is 7 and I prefer him to play outside, despite what a massive gamer I am. I make him earn the right to play games, and when his grandparents bought him a DSi for Christmas last year, I was wary of the whole thing. Very few kids under 7 can even play video games with any amount of competence unless that's all they do, and if that's the case, that kid needs to be forced outside a couple days a week before he turns into a fat lazy nothing that does nothing but play games.
Don't get me wrong, I love video games (obviously), but there's more to life than doing that 100% of the time. Like eating, and camping, and sex. Those are good things too (the latter also not for kids).
By the way, I don't think the PSP lost a lot of ground because of the idea of bringing console-like experiences to a portable. God of War on the thing is just amazing. The problems with the PSP were a near total lack of exclusives (mostly PS2 or Wii ports), and loading times from the UMD's--which don't translate well to on-the-go gameplay. Which, Sony seems to be fixing with the NGP as it will use media more like DS cards. Just a note.
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Why would you purposely alienate 12% of your audience? That is insane. And that's just people who can't see 3D very well. What about the people who get eyestrain/headaches/ill from it? Why does Nintendo have to purposely go out of their way to alienate a good part of their audience? Foolish behavior. Even the 3D movies have cheaper 2D versions. I know Nintendo went the 3D route because they were afraid of being disrupted by Apple and Google. But glasses-free 3D smartphones are already coming anyway. The HTC Evo 3D is coming out later this year. And now Nintendo is stuck with the 3DS. Nintendo can't afford to rely on gimmicks anymore. When smartphone gaming took off, the DS touchscreen was no longer a novelty. When the Kinect and Move hit the mark, motion control was no longer a novelty. And glasses-free 3D will no longer be a novelty once 3D gaming hits Android phones. Enough with the gimmicks. Focus on serving the consumer, not forcefeeding things down consumers' throats, not by telling a good chunk of your audience that you don't want their business.
Plenty of kids under 7 play videogames and even for kids 7 and up, parents are gonna freak out when they see those warning labels. You know how paranoid parents are about that stuff.
Chains of Olympus sold well but Ghost of Sparta sales were very, very poor. Home console experiences on the go are not the novelty that they used to be. At least outside Japan. In Japan, the home console market has shrunk so much that a lot of the home console gaming (ie. Monster Hunter, RPGs) have migrated to the portables.
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Nintendo is not "purposely alienating" 12% of the consumer audience. They're taking a risk--and frankly, 3-D is something Nintendo has been attempting to "get right" for a very, very long time. As for the people who get eyestrain, headaches, ill feelings, etc? Those people may find that perfect balance of 3-D that works or doesn't, and likely if they give it enough of a chance, they'll adapt quite comfortably to it. I've adapted quite nicely to the 3-D features and generally always have that 3D slider all the way up.
Nintendo took a gamble--something I wish they'd do with their software once in a while (and make something other than the typical Mario-Zelda-Pokemon whatnots). The 3DS also features a wide variety of other features besides 3-D that have yet to be fully realized, so it's got a lot more than "just 3-D" going for it.
Is motion control no longer a novelty? Depends on your outlook. I have a Kinect and I found that it has renewed novelty due to Microsoft's fresh approach on the concept. I can't wait for the Gunstringer, Child of Eden, Rise of Nightmares, and Steel Battalion to name a few. Did Kinect or Move diminish the draw of the Wii remote? Nah, I think Nintendo is more to blame for growing disinterest in the Wii remote--for a variety of reasons that are probably obvious (and I don't feel like getting into here).
I'm sure that there are kids under 7 playing video games. My kid did, but not constantly because I carefully monitored his behavior and time with it--in my house, Dad (me) owns the games, and Dad won't be letting a certain little someone play them unless he's behaving in school and doing his chores.
The point is, next to no video game company looks at that age group--4-7 year olds--as their primary target market. Even Nintendo doesn't, and hasn't. Five, six or seven are good ages to start learning about video games--not the ages to be a fucking seasoned pro. Even the Lego games aren't necessarily targeted towards that age group, in much the same way that the vast majority of movies aren't geared towards kids that age. They just aren't big consumers, and you'd have to be a pretty lazy parent to be just piling video games onto a kid that's all of 5 or 6 years old. Sure, they're minds are at least somewhat active with a video game, but in many ways, it's no better than expecting Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network to be your babysitters. They're alienating no one by saying the system "probably shouldn't be used by kids under 7." For one thing, at $250 a pop, this is clearly no kid's toy for a 6 year-old anyway.
