bunchanumbers said:
It worked for a little while but it pretty much shattered 3rd party relationships in the west. Howard Lincoln had it figured out. He even had exclusive baseball game deals to get Ken Griffey Jr Baseball on N64. Hell Madden 64 didn't even have the NFL license and EA still made it happen. Nintendo doesn't do anything like this anymore and it is to the detriment of the company and consumer confidence. Yes Wii was a hit and yes DS were miracles. But they shouldn't have sacrificed NA deals that kept the N64 afloat and kept the GCN in western support. I think neutering NOA was the worst thing Iwata did. |
Well, NGC's gamecube support could have been greatly increased if they used DVDS, I'm pretty sure that wasn't Iwata's idea. Nintendo was just afraid of piracy of all things.
Neutering NOA was a poor choice though but at the end of the day, it comes down to the hardware and Sony and Microsoft were doing things in hardware that Nintendo just refused to do and downplayed. Like online and HD graphics.
Nintendo had a chance to bridge relationships with 3rd parties with the Wii U but they just under delivered. It did shatter relationships in the west but the return from those that did still support NIntendo was tremendous during 2004-2010. The truth be told, if Wii and DS didn't come at the right place at the right time, the next Nintendo consoles after the GCN and GBA would have, in my opinion, flopped as well.
