prayformojo said:
burning_phoneix said:
prayformojo said:
NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube. What do these have in common? They were platforms that could produce games at, or beyond the competition at the time of their release. Do you know who was in charge and responsible for their release? Yamauchi.
Wii and Wii-U. What do these two consoles have in common? They are platforms that can't produce games at or beyond the competition. Do you know who was in charge and responsible for their release? Iwata.
I respect Iwata and admire him as a developer/producer. He helped create some of the best Nintendo games of all time. But as a president? I grew up in the 80's. I am a child of the 80's. My mother bought me my first console in 1986 and it was an NES. The Nintendo I grew up with had a different boss and as such, a completely different way of doing things. I liked THAT Nintendo's philosophy/hardware/software better as did the general CORE GAMING public. The NES and SNES are legend. The N64 was home to GAMES of legend.
Will we say the same for Wii-U in thirty years? I don't think so. So imo, Nintendo needs someone new at the helm. We need someone who has guts and takes risks. Someone more cutthroat like Mr. Yamauchi.
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What I read:
"Nintendo needs someone who has guts and takes risks by doing exactly what the better-funded competitors are doing. Innovation!"
You know what Iwata was responsible for? Nintendo's most succesful period of all time.
You know what Yamauchi was responsible for? Nintendo declining generation after generation in sales. The "CORE GAMING PUBLIC" you so love abandoned Nintendo wholesale when the N64 was launched. Nintendo became the "kiddie" company and Sony/MS were the "cool" places to be.
Then Nintendo decided to ignore a demographic that abandoned them and suddenly all of them start crying "NINTENDO DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CORE GAMERS! WHY DON'T THEY MAKE GAMES LIKE S/NES,N64 AND GAMECUBE ANYMORE?!" when they were the same people laughing at Mario Sunshine and Zelda WW being "kiddie gay shit"
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Nothing you just said argues against my original point. The games that released between NES-N64 are some of the most innovative, industry changing pieces of software and art ever released. Artistically, Yamauchi's Nintendo was superior in everyway. So much so, that Iwata's Nintendo can do nothing but feed off it.
What would the new Nintendo games be if they didn't have the same iconic soundtracks of the 80's and 90's? What would Nintendo of today look like if they couldn't use the franchises CREATED during the Yamauchi era? What if Iwata's Nintendo had to create their own legacy from the ground up in a hostile envoriment like we have today in the way Yamauchi had to when the indstury crashed?
Yamauchi's era was about innovation and creating experiences that literally changed the entire industry permanently. The Nintendo of the 80's and 90's was about forward thinking and vision. It was about taking huge risks. It was about spending large amounts of money on those risks. It was about foresight and attitude.
Iwata doesn't seem to want any part of that. He seems more than happy with the status quo and treading water.
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You actually haven't addressed anything that I said and just reiterated your points or introduced spurious new ones.
Franchises created during the Yamauchi era? You mean the era they started in without any franchises at all?
You're absolutely comparing two things that CAN NOT BE COMPARED: A new startup company with the same company but 30 years down the road.
You act like the Wii and the DS, one system with motion controls and the other a system that DITCHED the most succesful name in gaming (Gameboy) as "status quo" and "treading water"
Your message is clear: Nintendo should focus on graphical upgrades every generation and DO EXACTLY the same thing hardware-wise the competition is doing....because that's "forward thinking" in your book.
Yamauchi had to create videogames in a "hostile" environment? You mean an enviroment where every other major competitor went out of business and they were free for 1-2 years to develop a system?
You know that Yamauchi's "cutthroat" tactics are why Nintendo have had 3rd party troubles to this day? You know that Yamauchi's "guts" is what caused Sony to enter the market, shattering Nintendo's dominance that was only recaptured when Iwata came to the helm? You know that Yamauchi's "vision" had the N64 still using expensive cartridges when the entire industry went to discs? Or Yamauchi's vision that straddled the GCN with tiny Mini-DVDs instead of the better regular DVDs?
I love Yamauchi. He's rightfully a legend in the game industry but to claim that he was perfect while Iwata, a man who presided over Nintendo's most succesful era of all time, is a poor CEO by using spurious comparisons is a weak argument. Both presided over Nintendo at VERY different times in the industry and very different situations were presented to them.
