2016 Make It Or Break It For Nintendo? Part 2: Intervention

Hello again, and welcome back to BaicunnPress. I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. This is a continuance to my ongoing "2016 Make It Or Break It For Nintendo?" series of posts. Part 1 is here. Today we'll be dealing with a difficult subject... The intervention to save the life of Nintendo. I get a little misty in the eyeball regions when I think about this once proud giant dying.


The Intervention Letter
Dear Nintendo,

I hope you remember me... I was once one of your biggest fans. I played your greatest titles throughout my childhood; Mario, Megaman, Metal Gear, Battle Toads, Zelda, etc, etc. You had it all. You were once the brand I looked up to. You fought valiantly through the Great Console Wars of the 1990's. I knew when I grew up, I wanted to be just like you; smart, strong, inventive. But then it all changed... You changed. It's like you forgot who you were. You began to push me out of your life. I was broken at first, but I recovered and made new friends. They paid attention to me. They listened, and were there for me, and in return I supported them. 

We lost touch at one point, but you reached out to me during a hard time in my life. You brought me on the adventure of a lifetime. I traveled Kanto with you, and sought out the path of a Pokemon trainer. We spent so many hours together over the next few years traveling and looking for adventure. Then almost as quick as you came back into my life, you were gone again. Occasionally we'd chill over a few rounds of Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, but then you were gone again after GameCube was released. It's almost as if you fell back in with the crowd of amateurs, rookies, and noobies you had previously distinguished yourself from.

And again I had to find new friends. Microsoft was more than happy to embrace me, and Sony hung out all of the time. I'd see you around every once and a while, but you kept ignoring me. I felt used and abused. You had nothing to offer me. No FPSs except Metroid, no RTSs, no engrossing RPGs... All it seemed you had in you were party games, and god damn it I don't always want to party. The only time you seemed to care at all was when you brought Resident Evil 4 to the Cube, but then there was nothing after that. And you only responded because you were getting crushed by Halo.

Years went by, and by chance we bumped into each other again. Literally by chance, I won a Wii. For a moment, it seemed like you might have gotten your shit together. You're approach was new, and I had access to the classics again. Your new controls were classic in form and novel in design, but it seemed like you still just wanted to party. It was difficult to find any substance and depth in your catalog... It was just a party all of the time, and don't get me wrong; I like to party, but you just kept going harder and harder to the paint until I couldn't take it anymore. I finally left you. It broke me, but I had become hardened toward you. 

I was tempted so many times to come back to you. I wanted to through down on the classics and share it with the world, but everytime I turned around, I kept reading "Nintendo DMCAs channel into the ground", "Nintendo, takes profit from YouTuber", "Nintendo hates streamers!" One headline after another. I missed you, but I'd be god damned to deal with your shit. What's the point of us hanging out and being friends, if we can't hangout with everyone else. And when we do hang out, we just talk about the good ol' days, back before you made it clear that you pretty much hated anyone outside of Nintendo.

So I end this letter with a few simple statements... Nintendo, I love you man. I wants us to be tight again. I want my son to really get to know you. But we can't until you end your addiction. Your attachment to control and your business model are killing you man. It'd be great if we could hangout again, and if I could share my gaming time with the internet without fear that you'd ruin my life, and shut down my social media and ruining my life. Your behavior is that of a sophisticated drunk. You just keep wondering around in circles hoping that you'll stumble back to your home before you pass out in a puddle of your own making. If you don't change soon, you'll die! You're better than this man. You can be relevant... I believe in you.

Love,
  Chali


Thanks for stopping by again guys. What do you think? Let me know. I'm going to give Nintendo a bit to find itself, but be sure to keep check back for more content and part 3 of  this series. I'm thinking a title of  "Part 3: Redemption or Bust" seems fitting. Again, I want to thank you all for your support and your readership. As always, I'll see you later.

-Chali Baicunn

2016 Make It Or Break It For Nintendo? Part 1: Trouble

Hey what's going on guys! Thanks for stopping by. Sorry for not posting anything yesterday; I was tied up with other things. Today we'll be discussing Nintendo's place in the console market. This will be a 2 to 3 part op-ed. I hope you enjoy!

Oh what terribly sad days we are living in. The ancestral sage of modern gaming is in a pretty tight spot, and 2016 may be the year they thrive or die. For many years, gamers have been speculating on the demise of the old guard. The questions now: Is Nintendo going to make a come back, and are they working on a console exit strategy as I write this?

I personally believed 12 to 13 years ago that Nintendo had one last console in it, before they went the way of Sega, and began producing only games. I was wrong in that assumption... Wildly wrong, but that's because I couldn't perceive the impact of the Wii's shtick; cheap family friendly "fun". I Couldn't have seen how the Wii's motion controls and low purchase price gimmick could have moved the volume that it did. I had no idea back in 2003 and 2004 that the DS platform would have taken off like it did. Both kept a significant flow of capital rolling into Nintendo's coffers, but it may have also set them up for a terrible fall.

It may seem as a bit of a stretch to argue that Nintendo is in dire straights, and this year will prove a lot. I am in no way saying that they'll stop making the DS platform... Why would they? It is obviously a cash cow for them, selling over 5.88 million 3DSes in the last 3 months of last year. These posts will specifically address the things that have brought Nintendo to this point, and what they may do or maybe doing, to move forward.

Big Trouble In Kyoto:
In it's lifetime, Nintendo has gained a reputation for themselves in the industry, for being difficult to work with. Especially, in regards to game development. From the control they exercise over developers to poorly documented devkits. Which has pushed devs away from them into the arms of Microsoft and Sony.

And in recent years, Nintendo's choices to use older chip sets in their consoles has alienated hardcore games and third party developers. Gamers are moving away due to a lack of graphics, and the inability of Nintendo to land quality titles outside of Nintendo family of developers. All the while third party devs are staying away, due to the time and cost of porting their games and apps to the older architecture. Thus become cost prohibitive for 3rd parties to do so as, Nintendo's console user base is shrinking and resources could be better directed at supporting their core user base.

You'd think that this would leave Nintendo, to lean back on small hobbyists for third party support... Well they've done the opposite. In an interview with Gamasutra (here) in 2011; Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stated,

"I would separate out the true independent developer vs. the hobbyist. We are absolutely reaching out to the independent developer. Where we've drawn the line is we are not looking to do business today with the garage developer. In our view, that’s not a business we want to pursue."

Well if not hobbyists devs, then who?... Internet "let's players"? That's a gigantic NOPE! As it turns out that developing for Nintendo is actually easier, than giving them free publicity on the Internet. Nintendo has been waging an incessant campaign against people sharing video of any of their games on the internet. Known for their serial DMCA'ing of YouTube channels, Nintendo has effectively cut themselves off from their audience. With all of the hype and bullshit out there, it's hard to trust publishers enough to buy their games without seeing gameplay. In fact may publishers, including EA give Beta and early access to many popular YouTubers, because they realize the value in free publicity.

Nintendo has continued to tow these ideological lines even through the the shortish disappointing life of WiiU. From a gamer standpoint this has lead Nintendo into a state of entropy. Where they are increasingly desperate, and grasping at air. As if the WiiU was going to continue the gravy train that was the Wii.

I don't believe that this is due to Nintendo's Executives being incompetent or even arrogant. It seems to me that maybe they can't see the forest for all of the trees. Nintendo has always been so cautious in protecting their brand, and I believe they've now done more harm. At this point, you'd think that reality would have slapped Nintendo in face hard.

Is there hope for Nintendo? Maybe... What you think? Make sure to comment on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or in the comment section below. Part 2 has been released and can be found here. Don't forget to like and share. Thanks again for stopping by. As always, I'll see you later.

-Chali Baicunn