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Forums - Nintendo - Top 10 worst decisions by Nintendo

Onimusha12 on 18 January 2009
d21lewis said:
Gee, Onimusha. I made my list in about 30 seconds. I'm not here to argue. Heck, I'm posting from my Wii right now (wich is why I can't edit or quote)! Don't take me seriously!! Apparently, this is a serious thread. I'll take my goodhearted antics elsewhere!!

☆○◇□△

 

 No one was accusing you of anything so please get off your cross. This is a nintendo mistake thread, not a wii mistake thread. your input is appreciated but its in a context apart from that of at least what the thread was intended to be.

Don't take things so seriously.



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Mr. Nice on 18 January 2009
frybread said:
I just think it's weird that Nintendo went from a gaming company, to an assissantion company. Seems weird to go from making mario, to killing employees, but oh well! That's wacky Nintendo for ya, gotta love em.

To assert that Nintendo and the Yakuza were somehow behind Yokoi's death is simply just stating a lie, and it's absurd to even think that. There is NO proof whatsoever that this is true and is all just pure speculation started by people on the Internet.

Onimusha12 on 18 January 2009
Mr. Nice said:
frybread said:
I just think it's weird that Nintendo went from a gaming company, to an assissantion company. Seems weird to go from making mario, to killing employees, but oh well! That's wacky Nintendo for ya, gotta love em.

 

To assert that Nintendo and the Yakuza were somehow behind Yokoi's death is simply just stating a lie, and it's absurd to even think that. There is NO proof whatsoever that this is true and is all just pure speculation started by people on the Internet.

 

 That's why it was only presented as such.



superbeast1370 on 18 January 2009

#4 they backstabbed Sony in favor of Phillips



Mr. Nice on 18 January 2009

*EDIT* Deleted post

 



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abcdario on 18 January 2009
Jo21 said:

 

the wii didn't have to be as powerful as the hd consoles but powerful enough to be able to port it games. a single core 3.2ghz 512DDR2 ram would have been enough. but nintendo decide to get bigger profits.

also trying to port a ps360 game would require to make everything again, from the engine textures,  modeling ,animations etc with the wii as it's now.

its not developers not trying to push it, but it would bring their profits down making a wii version also the wii demographic is a blue ocean even having double the sales of the ps3 any third party, fifa,madden shooters, any "hardcore" title sell better in it.

 

porting from ps3 <-->360 is easy , cut the resolution a bit, tweak the physics AI,etc.

its better to make a wii dedicated exclusive marketed to the demographic, that will likely bring profits.

 

 

I agree with u when it comes to "Powerful enough", but it is not like Nintendo wanted to have bigger profits, not sure if you have heard about R&D, but Nintendo lost the 6th generation because they decided to focus on the 7th generation and invested alot, but i mean A LOT, in the controller and all the related software.

It is not like, hey, let´s have a Mouse and a TV Controller together and call it a "Wii", to Clony that idea was very easy(Clony = Sony:P), but to have it done in the right way was the key diference that helped the Wii to be as successful as the PS2 in the last generation.

-------------------------------------

Back to the main topic, i wouldnt say the Game Cube was that bad(Yet, it couldnt be worse XD), in fact, i take it as a "trans-generation" system, it helped to take away the N64 mistakes while making some "friends" again, Soul Calibur II with Link was the best example of colaboration and how sucessful can be a game with this kind of business model. They tried to take this sucess to another games and while there was a drain in new releases, they needed to take it to the market as soon as possible, that´s why Star Fox Adventures came out almost unfinished, not to mention those GBA-Style games such as "The Legend of Zelda: The minish cap" and some other stuff that made me decide to leave the videogames world.

 

Ah, and about the GCN ergonomics, i think they could be best, it was very easy to take it on a bag and carry it to a friend´s house, the controller was very good and while the PS2 got the same control designed 8 years ago Nintendo invested enough on a new one to make it probably the best in his generation.



Mr. Nice on 18 January 2009

Whoops, since I'm on the Wii, quoting doesn't seem to work. If a mod wants to delete the content of the last post, that'd be great.

But what I was trying to say, was that, like others have said, it probably shouldn't have been presented at all since it's only a "rumor."

But do as you please because it's your thread.



johnsobas on 18 January 2009
Onimusha12 said:

Okay, I could only come up with like 9, but what are yours?

 

1. N64’s Dream Team - The straw that broke a long weakening Camel’s back in how Nintendo treated third party developers, the Dream Team was an effort by Nintendo that only allowed select developers to make games for the N64. This following years of bullying and manipulating third party developers lead to a market eager for multiplatform viability and an alternative other than Nintendo. Thus many developers were eager to support Sony’s new PlayStation brand fueling a great exodus from Nintendo’s ranks and crippling them as games like Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider made the Playstation a must have.

 

2. Virtual Boy – Eager to get the Virtual Boy project out of the way so that they could begin focusing on the upcoming N64 game console, Nintendo’s pressured Gunpei Yokoi, its creator, to release the device as best could be managed in its current state. While its questionable that the Virtual Boy could have ever been a viable gaming device given that affordable blue and green LEDs were still more than half a decade away, the device’s failure forced Gunpei Yokoi to resign from Nintendo costing the company not only an invaluable gaming visionary but Miyamoto’s mentor. Going on to create the Wonder Swan, a competitor to Nintendo’s Gameboy, which Yokoi created himself while in Nintendo, he had become an asset to Nintendo’s competitors. Unfortunately Gunpei Yokoi’s life ended tragically in a hit and run car accident leading to industry rumors that the Yakuza or Nintendo had a hand in his death. Needless to say the validity of such claims remains questionable. The Virtual Boy would not only result a shameful black eye for Nintendo beginning their fall from grace, but cost themselves and the gaming world the visionary talent of Gunpei Yokoi.

 

3. Proprietary N64 Cartridges – While not just defaulting on the cartridge format many developers were eager to move on beyond in the fifth generation, Nintendo insisted on themselves being the only one able to produce the cartridges forcing developers to buy through them. Limited space in the N64 Cartridge may have helped push compression technology in the gaming industry, but it ultimately limited the cross platform versatility of the N64 and made development expensive for third party developers and gaming on the N64 expensive for Gamers. All in all, the Cartridge may have been the largest contributing factor to why Sony’s Playstation was able to take the lead.

4. Nintendo's dealings with Sony - Nintendo perhaps single-handedly created its own greatest competitor in working with Sony on a disc system for the SNES then abandoning it based on matters that should have been established or dealt with ahead of time. Thus was born the Sony Playstation, the first console to ever usurp Nintendo's dominance over the market.

5. Nintendo's dealings with Philips - It was Nintendo's foolish dealings with Philips for a CD peripheral for the SNES that resulted in the misserable CD-I and Nintendo relinquishing the properties of several key franchises to be turned into just flat out awful games. This was part of the drama that led to Nintendo's poor business deal with Sony that bred the Playstation.

 

6. Outsourcing & Reprioritizing of First Party Titles – In response to Third Party developers complaining of Nintendo’s near impossible to compete against first party line up Nintendo licenses out several franchises to third party developers during the Gamecube days to try and bring favor back to their brand. In addition Nintendo also tried its hand at letting lower tier talent within the company try their hand at franchises such as Mario. The Gamecube generation was perhaps the worst generation for Nintendo’s first party titles ranging from the Miyamoto absent Super Mario Sunshine to Namco’s uninspired Starfox Assault. It was this trend that led to many calling Nintendo's first party games rehashed and done to death.

7. Gamecube - The Gamecube's design was a severe shortcoming for Nintendo in trying to recover from the N64. The Disc Format, while novel drew scrutiny and limited game size despite its impressive graphical capacity. The box-like shape was unnapealing to many and the controller seemed to lack direction and, like the gamecube itself, seemed as if it was trying to do everything the competition had already done a day late and a dollar short.

 

8. N64 Disc Drive – The laughable peripheral for the N64 never released outside of Japan, the N64DD seemed almost like an attempt to make viable the original vision of the Famicom Disc System peripheral for the Famicom (NES). This new peripheral again featured a unique disc format that promised to take N64 gaming further, but in the end it only lasted briefly and did little more than bring expanded versions of games already on the N64. This no doubt added to Nintendo’s weakening favor in Japan setting an ominous tone for the Gamecube.

 

9. Famicom Disc System – An expensive and unpopular peripheral to the original Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) that used floppy discs to enable game saving… just as new battery technology was making batteries viable for Famicom (NES) Cartridges. It was an idea doomed by circumstance and poor planning and could be the signature culprit in why the Legend of Zelda and Metroid (two titles featured exclusively on the peripheral in Japan) never became mainstream franchises in Japan. To add insult to injury, the instruction manual for the Famicom Disc System was sold separately.

Nice post, you actually made a real list that didn't include fanboy arguments but actually looked at it critically.  I knew the posts that followed would be pointing out stuff that were not mistakes.  Most people will only list stuff that fits their own preferences usually without thinking about what it costs to actually execute it.  Things like "wii graphics" is actually the reason why wii is in 1st place.

 



currently playing: Skyward Sword, Mario Sunshine, Xenoblade Chronicles X

bigjon on 18 January 2009

worst ever imo was the choice to stick with carts. had nintendo gone to disc, the last 15 years would have look completely different.



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

Sky Render on 18 January 2009

10 worst decisions, hm? I'll be a bit different and approach it from the business side of things... I can only think of 9 things that have had a negative impact on their business in the past or that probably will have a negative impact in the near future.

9. Their current anti-cheating crusades (such as locking certain save files to memory cards/Wii internal memory and trying to break cheat device support with each firmware update). Like most of their crusades against the players, it's just hurting their public image and making their long-time users irritated with them. Hopefully they'll catch on eventually and ease up.

8. The anti-emulation crusades of the late 1990s and early 2000s. One of Nintendo's most pointless efforts was to squash emulation, which ultimately failed horribly. However, they did learn from this and devised both the NES Classics series for GBA and the Virtual Console for Wii.

7. The design philosophy behind the N64. The critical flaw in the philosophy was not that Miyamoto was given free reign to design the system around one game. The key flaw was that they did not ever stop and ask themselves "will the user benefit from this decision?". The focus on the product over the consumer was the big mistake that short-changed the Nintendo 64. Instead of designing a system around the user's needs, they designed it around the needs of 3D gaming, and just assumed that the player would adapt to their vision of 3D gaming with it.

6. Competing when they should have been innovating. This was an ongoing theme for Nintendo from about 1991 on to 2004, and it did them a lot of harm. Their focus on dealing with the issue of their fellow hardware manufacturers instead of on their products being something that consumers wanted over those other manufacturers without being told they wanted it was not a good business move at all.

5. Business deals with other electronics companies. Both Phillips and Sony approached Nintendo about developing CD-based games, and Nintendo didn't have the sense to say no to either (at first, anyway; they did say no to both eventually, though not before the workings of a deal in Sony's case and an actual deal in Phillips' case came into being). The Phillips deal was a dead-end, and the Sony deal led to the PlayStation, which did more damage to Nintendo than anything Sega ever devised.

4. Their focus on expansions to the main hardware to enhance capabilities. The Famicom Disk System, N64DD, and N64 RAM Expansion Pack were all good examples of this. By developing additional systems which acted as a stopgap to correct shortcomings of the system, they made a niche market for those products which was never able to come into any sort of fruition. And in the case of the FDS and N64DD, they were rendered obsolete by larger cartridge sizes.

3. The GameCube being "better" than the PS2 instead of different. This was a pretty big slip-up, especially given everything they'd learned about the industry by then. The GameCube had a lot of the same flaws in design as the N64, but its key flaw was most certainly that it did not try to differentiate itself in any meaningful way from the PS2, save in terms of graphical capabilities.

2. Gunpei Yokoi's Virtual Boy. It's understandable that they trusted Yokoi on this matter; he was the mastermind behind the Famicom, after all, the most successful Nintendo system ever. But his vision was too far ahead of its time, and indeed, too far ahead of the audience too. The compromise of a stereographic monochrome screen proved to be a death knell for the system, due to the headaches it caused.

1. The Super Famicom (aka. SNES). Before you go off on a rant, consider: the SNES acknowledged that Sega had made the right move, and opened the door for competition which the NES did not. By being just close enough to the Genesis that it only sustained the values which the Genesis championed, the SNES set events underway which led Nintendo to near-destruction over the course of the next 14 years.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.