RolStoppable said:
Mario Kart Double Dash!! wasn't an online game. It did make use of the broadband adapter to connect up to 8 gamecubes for LAN multiplayer. So either connect 8 gamecubes to have 8-player-multiplayer (or 16 if 2 people share the same kart) or connect 2 gamecubes for 8-player-multiplayer (4-player-splitscreen twice). 1080° Avalanche was the other 1st party game that made use of LAN multiplayer. The only officially online enabled games on the GC were Phantasy Star Online 1&2 and Phantasy Star Online 3 Card Revolution. Although some fans figured out how to take the games MKDD and 1080° online, quite the same procedure as the one for Halo 1 and Brute Force for the first Xbox. But Nintendo themselves did NOT release any GC game that had online support. johnlucas, your posts are well-written, but I had to correct you on that one. |
Well I consider any game played on a network "online". Internet ~> Inter NetWORK. GC had no community aspect like XBox Live, no, but with those LAN broadband games people could play the same game on different machines in different areas so that's online to me. Not players having to be in the same room on the same machine.
Phantasy Star Online just had a infinite selection of people to choose from at will. A more open network. You could just get the game and then search for players. That's really the only difference but both games were online. Mario Kart & 1080 being more closed and Phantasy Star Onlines being more open. Local Area Network. Global Area Network. The only difference. Both networks hence both online.
windbane said: Oh, John Lucas, how long-winded you are. The fact remains that Nintendo made a lot of errors. They are not the only company innovating and expanding the market of video games. You tell me I need to study video gaming history but I beg to differ considering I was part of it. As far as N64 is concerned, cartridges were a MISTAKE. Low memory on the N64 was a MISTAKE. A stupid looking controller that wasn't comfortable I'd say was a mistake. Taking 3rd parties for granted was probably their biggest mistake and led to the first 2 mentioned. You say the Gamecube had faster loading times which just proves that it was unneccessary to stick with cartridges. Comparing a memory card to a cartridge is cute, but you don't run games off of a memory card. The flash/SD/memory stick has gotten faster now, which is why the PSP also loads faster playing games on the memory stick, but a hard drive is now faster (ipod anyone?). Not having more than 512MB of space on the Wii was a mistake in my opinion. Now for your more ridiculous statement: "People forget that Nintendo has done "online" decades before except only in Japan. And Nintendo's GC-era argument that people weren't ready for online was true. Not until the last 2 years did the audience for online significantly grow." I'd like some nice "sourced" links showing that Nintendo had online games "decades" before. That's pretty funny. Japan may not have been ready, but the US sure was and Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Sony) proved that. Not having online play for the Gamecube was a MISTAKE. I would have bought one if they had it! Sega was the first to include a modem in a console with the Dreamcast, not Nintendo. I am not saying that Nintendo does not innovate, I'm just saying they are not the default kings of the industry forever just becase they saved video games in 1983. |
Yeah, it's in my profile. Don't say I didn't warn you about my long-windedness. I like to be thorough. 
Didn't say Nintendo didn't make errors. They're making errors now not quite anticipating demand of their products here. The question is what is the impact of those errors. Saying long load times were bad was NOT a mistake. Using cartridges to remedy this is debateable. They should have tried a happy medium that allowed the durability of a cartridge with the room of a CD. Low memory as in jumper pak? I'll go with that. And I think they anticipated it which is why they made the slot upfront where it could be changed if needed. Taking 3rd parties for granted. Yes the TRUE mistake. That is the one I'll agree with you on. It set them back console wise 10 years.
Controller being a mistake is absolute nonsense. You wouldn't even HAVE a Dual Analog later Dual Shock without the N64 controller. Are you saying camera buttons and truly functioning analog sticks and rumble technology were mistakes??? That controller was one of their most influential controllers outside of the original NES one! Sega stopped doing their special A,B,C,X,Y,Z evolution of the NES control standard and got on board with N64's control in the Dreamcast. The controller pak & its bay inspired the DC's VMU. That controller brought about full-fleged 3-D play in Super Mario 64 which the controller was designed in mind with. How many people followed Nintendo's 3-D gameplay model after that game came out? Though PC guys loved mouse & keyboard for console FPS gamers there was none finer than the N64's controller and N64 exclusives like Turok from PC and Rare's Goldeneye/Perfect Dark influenced FPS for years to come.
TOTALLY disagree with you on that point. That controller was not only useful but highly influential and some people still say that that was one of the best controller designs yet as unwieldy as it looks from afar. Gamecube's controller is just the evolved summarized version of the N64 controller.
Here's a link on Nintendo's online history. Maybe you've heard of a game called BS Zelda?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_ZeldaOld Famicom or NES even had a modem which coincidentally is reminiscent of the Wii Channels of today. You could check weather, news (though mainly about Nintendo), also download programs, even jokes (there might be a Wii Joke channel one day who knows?). Yamauchi wanted the Famicom to be lifestyle system that sought to have businessmen checking it for stock market prices and stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Regional_differences
"Famicom MODEM was a modem that allowed connection to a Nintendo server which provided content such as jokes, news (mainly about Nintendo), game tips, and weather reports for Japan; it also allowed a small number of programs to be downloaded."
From the Malstrom files:
http://thewiikly.zogdog.com/article.php?article=29&ed=2&p=8
Nintendo's long dabbled in these endeavors. Only because it wasn't released in America only Japan do many here don't recognize it. Satellite View? Broadcast Satellite? Wi-Fi??? Hello?
Sega Channel was ONLINE gaming as well (Boy I miss Sega Channel). Seganet?
Networked interplay between individuals is not the ONLY meaning of "online play". If a system is connected to a network of other systems that is online.
The community aspect brought by Microsoft is fresh but online INTERplay really didn't take off until a couple of years ago and that is shown in the numbers. Nintendo doesn't waste. They are not going to do anything if it's not profit-minded first. And I don't blame them. Let these spendthrifts waste funds. It only hurts themselves. I'd rather my company stay in business long-term in order to continue bringing me my games & game machines instead of my company spending itself into oblivion like a certain Hedgehog's homebase. Microsoft can waste like that. It won't bother the users any. They get what they want but Microsoft won't be able to do that forever if they don't start turning that thing into a profitable venture. Shareholders don't put up with TOO much waste. Money don't grow on trees like it do on Animal Crossing now. Nintendo had the broadband adapter for local networked interplay and not enough people bit, not enough people were going for Phantasy Star Online's setup so they obviously called it right. Some people wanted online but not enough to make it worth their while. Not a mistake from a business standpoint and if they tried it it would've been a money drain that still wouldn't have changed the course in PS2's domination. One guy out here might have wanted to call the Wii the Public Toilet as an official name but he's one in billions. His opinion doesn't mean anything for the bottom line.
PS2 had online interplay but that didn't seem to matter much. Never really made the headlines. If online play mattered so much XBox 1 would have had a much better representation on the market than it did.
You'll never understand it because we can't see hypothetical industries in action if certain companies were magically taken out but believe me the bedrock of the modern day videogame industry has Super Mario Bros. 1 groundstones. Nintendo isn't just a part of the industry, they ARE the industry. The 7th gen will prove that to you shortly. If they didn't make mistakes they'd never have any competition upstaging them.
John Lucas
Words from the Official VGChartz Idiot
WE ARE THE NATION...OF DOMINATION!
