DevilRising said:
The N64 and Gamecube were incredibly "conservative" in their approach, unless you count odd controller designs. N64 stuck to carts as a way of clinging to the past (which in it's own way brought both positives and negatives). Gamecube embraced a form of CDs, but unfortunately those discs still suffered from less space than the competition enjoyed. The GBC and GBA, while awesome, were both just upgraded versions of traditional Game Boy type gaming. Iwata took the company in a whole new direction, taking MASSIVE risks with the dual/touch screen approach of DS that many said would fail and wouldn't appeal to anyone before it came out. As well as with the Wiimote/motion control approach of Wii. His approach last gen was far from conservative or conventional, in fact if DS and Wii had failed, Nintendo might be in a lot more trouble now. They took a major risk and it paid off. Even if 3DS and Wii U they've continued that, to a perhaps less drastic degree. Glasses-free 3D display and a touch screen/second screen in a game controller for a home console are still fairly risky and innovative designs.
And regardless, whether you personally think all of those were GOOD or BAD moves is irrelevent. The point is that you're claiming that Yamauchi wasn't conservative in his approach, and that Iwata is more conservative and doesn't take risks. Which I must say is just flat out incorrect on both counts. Yamauchi, may he rest in peace, was a business man who was out to make money and didn't really understand gaming or gamers on a personal level. The only way I could see where you're trying to argue he "tried to compete head on", is if you're talking about console power. But he himself even said that Nintendo couldn't continue to compete head-on forever, and that just upping the console power every generation was not the way to success. He said that, Iwata ran with it. But the point is, Iwata, like it or don't, has been very risky and anything but conservative in his approach. And the fact is, with DS and Wii, it brought the company massive success and tons of $$$$$. 3DS is also a continuing success, and it remains to be seen if Wii U can be transformed into a success or not. |
I'm talking about software. Metroid Prime was alot more expensive and risky than NSMB. Yamauchi's Nintendo was the one that released cutting edge hardware and cutting edge software. The SNES, N64 and Gamecube all had equal to, or more powerful specs to their competition and featured games with huge budgets. OOT? What PS1 game rivaled something with that scope? It DWARFED every other game in the console market at the time. What Wii or Wii-U game can we say that for? Whatever Galaxy's budget was, it was nothing compared to say, GTA4 or GTA5.
That's what I meant. Yamauchi was a more head on, take no prisioners, victory or death leader where as Iwata isn't.
