| Dodece said: There are a number of similarities in the broad strokes. Sega didn't have anything close to a good relationship with large third party publishers by the time they released their console, and the launch itself only really exacerbated that disconnect. The same does hold true for Nintendo. After all third party games did abysmally on the Wii, and they had done so on the two preceding platforms. I think Nintendo offering a awful design choice. Pretty much mirrors the bad soft launch that Sega put forward. So as far as publisher/developer support both platforms are almost identical. Hell Electronic Arts snubbed the Dreamcast, and it looks to be doing the same with the Wii U. As far as the designs are concerned. I think it balances out to be about the same thing as well. Actually when you think about it for a bit you realize that Sega at least tried to push the envelope, but overshot the mark. Nintendo on the other hand was pretty lazy, and altogether uninspired with their hardware. Can we be honest Nintendo just modestly improved the engine, and dumped a touch screen into their controller, and it wasn't even a good touch screen at that. Anyway it adds up to the same thing. They both made platforms that didn't serve the needs of the third party developers. I want to toss something else into this debate both companies have shown a willingness to abandon platforms in the past. There has been a lot of talk in this thread about the 32x, and the Saturn in this thread. What there hasn't been near enough talk about is the devices that Nintendo itself has abandoned. Nintendo having its name on the box is no guarantee of support if they don't like the sales. It is kind of humorous how so many on these forums decide to ignore the Virtual Boy. Yes it was a Nintendo console, and yes Nintendo abandoned it right out of the gate. When you get right down to it Nintendo has a worse habit then Sega in this regard. The company has a veritable laundry list of failed devices that Nintendo gave up on right at the starting line. Rob the Robot, Four Score, The Super Scope, The 64DD, the Power Pad, the Power Glove. Nintendo feels no compunction about dropping their support for devices. As far as software is concerned it is also pretty close. Both Sega and Nintendo are rest on their laurels types. They both had a couple fantastically successful franchises, and they preceded to milk the ever loving shit out of them. Rather then treating them with the respect they deserved. Thankfully for Nintendo their Mascot was able to make the transition to 3D gaming with no problem, but the fat man is still getting tired and worn. Just about every one of his counterpart Mascots since his inception has succumbed to the public apathy about playing the same game over and over. This you can't explain to Nintendo fans at all. It just doesn't seem to sink in, but the more Nintendo recycles the same old games over and over again. The greater the disinterest becomes. Public interest cannot be maintained if the product that is being sold doesn't reinvent itself. By the time the Dreamcast rolled around gamers were pretty disinterested in playing the same old thing all over again. This is happening with Nintendo. A handful of games that have been retread half a dozen or so times aren't going to stoke the fires of interest. I am not saying there are parallels in all things, but most certainly in the broader trends. I think it is a coin toss as to whether Nintendo will actually keep going with the Wii U after this year. I have the feeling that they are already hard at work on a real replacement for their current console. |
The key is that Nintendo *doesn't* overmilk their main games. Think about the SNES vs Genesis: Super Mario World fought Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. The Game Boy had Super Mario Land and Land 2, the Game Gear had ports of Sonic and Sonic 2, Sonic Triple Trouble, and Sonic Blast. Not to mention Sonic Spinball and a slew of other spinoffs (like Drift and Labyrinth), many of which were poor, compared to the Mario spinoffs of the same era, like Super Mario Kart and Super Mario RPG, the former of whom started one of the strongest franchises in gaming, the latter of which is eternally well-regarded by gamers
Funnily, the only thing they've really milked lately is 2D Mario (4 games in the span of 6 years), but that was after 14 years with no proper 2D Mario.
Hell, one could argue that Sonic is *still* more overexposed than Mario, at least as far as main-type games are concerned.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
