| thetonestarr said: Did I say they were a small company? Hmm? I'm pretty sure that I did not. I said they were much smaller than they are now. That rapid growth means a LOT of adapting and new hires that they have to deal with, and that takes quite a bit of adjustment and restructuring. Just because one makes money doesn't mean that money is free to do what one wants with it. There are costs of operation, costs of development, costs of employment, costs of manufacturing, costs of this, costs of that. Sony and Microsoft are both much larger companies withmuch larger budgets and they can afford to rush things a lot more. You remember what happened the last time a gaming-only company tried rushing things? They fell apart and had to drop out of the console race entirely, after two decades of activity in the industry, and now they're in a situation that they could get bought out someday by a larger gaming company. I think we all know exactly who I'm talking about. Nintendo is doing everything they can to NOT be the next SEGA. Think about the situation in its entirety for once, eh? |
Just because there is rapid growth doesn't give you an excuse to be so backwards about the development cycle of certain aspects of your system, and what it offers. Why did Nintendo have no problems addopting the Stylus for the DS, or the Wiimote for the Wii - which are 2 big cash-cows in terms of the fact that "a smaller company" would have to devote alot of resources to make the change, and be at the forefront of controller devices, but about 5 years behind on Online components, and Multiplayer?
It's not like Nintendo has proven to be incompetent - look at how many channels they have for the Wii online - Virtual Console, WiiConnect24, Internet Channel, Forecast Channel, Everybody Votes Channel, News Channel and the Check Mii Out Channel. Yet totally fail at intergrating Online Multiplayer in a majority of their titles, and provide good, quick, accurate channels for WiiWare releases (not saying what they are doing NOW is bad, but the fact that WiiWare is mostly tacked on, 3+ years behind the Xbox, and 1 and 1/2+ years behind the PS3).
So why is it, again, that Nintendo can get an online pass, and say "oh, it's because they are smaller" yet make hundreds of millions of dollars per year and can't find good, strong ways of multiplayer online intergration, and working with 3rd parties on the ultra-lucrative DLC side of the market? Nintendo could easily outsource their online needs to a very competent studio (since Nintendo has dozens of studios they work very closely with), but choose to be behind the 8-ball time, and time, and time again? From what I've seen/heard, SSBB is pretty backwards about it's online play. Why in Gods name does such a big Nintendo IP get a pass for such a failure, on a game that'll sell 5m+ copies in 3 months, when ANY other game that large, that should have multiplayer, get grilled for the smallest of issues?
Think about the big picture here. Because Nintendo isn't painting a very good one, to me. They've been backward with the SD card, and hampering Downloadable content. Try all you want, but launching WiiWare with 9 games, enough to fill up the entire stock SD card, is NOT a good business decision. Microsoft and Sony have upgraded, and tweaked, and shown that they are perfectly willing to implement new changes that make their systems better after launch. Why isn't Nintendo willing to do the same? Is it that old-style "traditional" mentality toward system making? If so, why so many great inventions from the Nintendo camp in the past few years?
And again: why is it that Nintendo has to "go slow to avoid major problems" when they are about at the same online level of capabilites of the Dreamcast, while Sony, an upstart at the online content and ability side, is vastly better?
So to me, atleast, it seems like Nintendo could fix these problems oh-so easily:
#1. Increase the initial size of the SD card included with each Wii to atleast 4gb = more revenue from DLC, VC, and WiiWare
#2. Implement 1st and 3rd party benchmarks for online components, like Microsoft has. Nintendo has a treasure trove of coolness with the Internet, Forecast, and Mii channels. Why not ask devs to use more of it in games?
#3. Hire a 3rd party company, or internally, to help Nintendo with it's online capabilities. This way, Nintendo isn't seen "lagging behind" the Big 2 for online.
As much as people want to excuse Nintendo from the DLC-Less Rock Band, I tend to NOT think that Harmonix and EA just want to magically gimp Rock Band on the Wii - which if handled right, could easily outsell the Xbox 360 and PS3 version combined. It has the market, and power to - look at GH3, and the uber-casual games. Yet if it doesn't, it lands squarely on the gimped version of Rock Band, which again, do you think would be in Harmonix's best interest to gimp? Atleast with the PS2 version, there's absolutely no hardware specs to allow for proper network intergration, and add-on content since no built-in storage system exists. But the Wii does. It's next gen. Next gen is supposed to be better in every way, but if your getting last-gen content, and "real next-gen controlls", it's not very fair to the consumer, is it?
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
