Nintendo NX is Coming in 2017… Do You Care?
One of my strongest memories as a child is the first time I was introduced to the Nintendo Entertainment System. My friend had a small tool shed in his backyard where a modest TV and some milk cartons were propped up to create a little oasis where he could play Mario and Duck Hunt in peace. It was in this little dump of a shack with zero ventilation, that I fell in love with games, and I have Nintendo to thank for that.
I was a Nintendo fanboy right from the start; I ran paper routes and cut neighbours lawns, whatever it took for me to buy a NES. Then the SNES came out and I knew it was going to be the pinnacle of modern technology. I devoured games on that console like they were candy. Chrono Trigger, Mario Kart, Zelda, Metroid, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, it didn’t matter I’d play it all. My thumbs would develop callouses and my eyes would hurt, but I was hooked. Nintendo could do no wrong.
Those days are behind me. The NX, Nintendo’s next big console, has a street date of March 2017 and I do not care. I don’t care what Nintendo is planning, don’t care what games are launching, and don’t care what the system will do. How did we/I get to this point? The answer is simple: it is single handedly Nintendo’s fault.
Let’s back up a bit. During Nintendo’s “glory days” they had just an insane run of smash hit games. Sega was the biggest competition, and Nintendo had the software titles to dominate. Then came the N64, a console that completely revolutionized gaming but also caused a titanic shift in the industry. Nintendo’s innovative leap to 3D gaming was bold and confident, Mario 64 defines the basics of 3D platforming even now; but while Nintendo made confident strides in one innovative area, they dropped the ball completely in another: I’m talking about cartridges.
______________________________
“Chrono Trigger, Mario Kart, Zelda, Metroid, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, it didn’t matter I’d play it all.”
From Nintendo’s standpoint the decision is understandable, why wouldn’t they use cartridges? It was a proven model and was bringing in enormous revenue. But, another competitor was coming, and Sony was bringing the CD-ROM to the court. Why is this a significant breaking point? One word: Square.
Square and Nintendo were like two peas in a pod. Even the notion of Square developing for someone else was heresy. Square was producing some of Nintendo’s biggest hits and it was a great relationship for both parties, until Nintendo decided CD’s weren’t important. See, Square was developing their swan song, a game that needed to surpass anything they’d previously done in both scope and graphics. Turns out, cartridges simply weren’t working, and Sony’s CD console welcomed Square with open arms. In 1997, Final Fantasy VII shipped for PlayStation, and the first nail in the coffin was secured for Nintendo. Coincidently, this was also the first time in my life I had actively saved up and even traded a Nintendo console for something different.
But Nintendo didn’t see it. Sure they lost Square, but the N64 was in great shape and properties like Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, etc. were always huge sellers, what was the loss of one publisher? After all, Nintendo had just lead the way in innovation, both with their system/controller design and graphical achievement, they could do it again. And that’s where it all falls apart.
Nintendo became more inwardly focused, looking at how to create new product designs for upcoming consoles. People wanted CD gaming, fine let’s give them that but in miniature form, and also reimagine our controller. Voila, the GameCube was born. How many quality launch titles did the GameCube have? Arguably one: Luigi’s Mansion. And that’s just the start of the problem. Find any list of the best GameCube games and that list is predominantly supported by Nintendo IP’s. What happened to all the third party support? Where did Rare, Konami, Capcom, Interplay, Lucasarts go? While Nintendo turned inward, everyone else found a better party. Sony and Microsoft were actively courting these publishers, knowing they needed killer IP’s to get gamers to trust them, and it was working. Nintendo believed they had already won the gamer crowd with years of goodwill, and for a while they were right. But then the Wii happened.
______________________________
“Where did Rare, Konami, Capcom, Interplay, Lucasarts go? While Nintendo turned inward, everyone else found a better party.”
The Wii was literally a money-printing machine. Nintendo sold over 100 million consoles worldwide, breaking sales records and trumping the sales of both the Xbox and Playstation combined. It was Nintendo’s giant middle finger to everyone that doubted them; Nintendo could innovate better than anyone out there, and they just laid the gauntlet down to prove it. But innovation wasn’t the problem. While Nintendo was selling Wii’s to retirement homes so Grandma’s could play Wii Bowling, Sony and Microsoft were at war developing strong third party IP’s and focusing on the “hardcore gamer”. Again we can point to launch titles to highlight this issue: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports were the backbone of the system, not a single third party developer in sight. But once again, Nintendo didn’t see it, because the money was rolling in and fanboys would cause a frenzy over even the hint of a new Nintendo IP.
So Nintendo repeated the strategy with the WiiU; launch something completely innovative and trust people will buy it. By all accounts the WiiU has been a massive failure. There are only a handful of games worth playing, Nintendo itself has been light on producing IP’s for it, and the company’s profits are down 61 per cent. Nintendo has completely lost third-party support to the point where most publishers are simply pushing lazy ports of PlayStation and Xbox games onto the WiiU. And once again, rather than try to find a way to win back those publisher partners, they are looking inward and focusing on a new product innovation.
So will it work? Maybe. Nintendo might create something crazy that completely blows us away. It might revolutionize the industry once again, after all that’s what Nintendo is great at. It could even be a financial success on par with the Wii, but so what? Nintendo doesn’t have the support anymore. It’s the kid with all the best toys but no one to play with. Sure Zelda will likely be amazing, and I’ll probably have pangs of FOMO when it comes up. But I can fire up Legend of Zelda and instantly feel better. The innovation behind the NX might make it a great technical innovation but it won’t make it a great console, and that’s why I don’t care.
Einstein once said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result, maybe Nintendo should be committed.