02/9/00

Nintendo Still Sucks?!? Are You Sure?

Yup, I’m afraid so. Yeah, it surprised me, too. Anyway, I found this latest example of Nintendo’s insanity whilst surfing the gaming sites yesterday. It seems that some genius at Nintendo of Europe said that the Dolphin hardware will be "33% more powerful than the Playstation2". Wha? In case you haven’t been keeping up with this whole Dolphin business, the hardware is still on paper. And, without any actual hardware to benchmark, don’t you think it’s a tad early to be saying that Nintendo’s paperware is significantly more powerful than the god-like PS2? Yeesh. This kind of reminds me of when the N64 was still called "Project Reality", and Nintendo touted that as being as powerful as an SGI workstation. They showed screen shots of Killer Instinct that were CG quality, so everyone thought that the N64 was going to destroy all competition. And, of course, we all found out that the "Reality" turned out to be a glorified doorstop. Dailyradar.com offered an explanation for this employee’s slight bit of hyperbole: It is possible that this guy is not-at-all a techie, and he may have been referring to the difference in clock speeds. You see, the Dolphin is (supposedly) going to run at 400Mhz, while the PS runs at 300Mhz. Technically, then, the Dolphin would run 33% faster. However, as any rhesus monkey knows, clock speed means diddly these days. That 300Mhz PS2 looks a LOT better than a 600Mhz PC – what actually matters is things like the graphics chip, RAM, architecture, etc. Of course, since Dolphin does not actually exist, who knows what it’s going to look like. Remember, Nintendo has a long history of being not-entirely truthful about their hardware releases. The aforementioned "Project Reality" is one example, as are the oft-delayed Super Famicom, that huge pile-‘o’-dung that they call the 64DD, and the never-released SNES-CD. So, when Nintendo starts spouting off about their latest console, I tend to take all announcements with a very large grain of salt.

Of course, the Dolphin specs themselves are a bit of a running joke; anyone who attended E3 last year will know what I mean. Basically what happened was that Dreamcast turned out to be a LOT better than anyone expected, and Sony unveiled a surprise Playstation2 display at the last minute. The PS2 stuff just consisted of tech demos and a very early version of Gran Turismo 2000, but it was still kinda cool. Anyway, Nintendo was left showing Pokemon stuff and a bunch of mediocre N64 games. Perfect Dark even looked kind of crappy at the time, as the high-res mode had not yet been implemented. So, Nintendo had to come up with something to steal everyone else’s thunder, and they had to do it fast. So, they announced that they, too, had a system on the way, code-named "Dolphin". I’m sure that they just made up that name on the spot, by the way, probably after seeing Sega’s amazing looking Echo demo. Anyhoo, Nintendo thought that they would be real cool and one-up the PS2 across the board in specs. The PS2 was 300Mhz, so Dolphin would be 400Mhz. PS2 was DVD, so Dolphin would be DVD-plus, whatever the hell that means. More RAM, faster drive, yada-yada. Anyway, it was quite obvious to everyone at the show that Nintendo was pulling this one out of their collective asses, and everyone had a good laugh over it for the remaining days of E3. Oh, and just in case there is any confusion over this, there is no abso-smurf-ly no chance that Dolphin will see the light of day this year, in ANY country. Nintendo swears up and down that it will release this thing this year, in a worldwide simultaneous release, no less. Uh-huh. Why then, are they not planning on showing ANYTHING until the fall Tokyo Game Show in September? Gee, if they’re just getting around to showing tech demos at the same time as its intended release, well, let’s just say that it’s gonna take one hellova temporal anomaly to pull that one off.

Anyone who roams the Net on a regular basis will remember that in January, Nintendo of America declared that, sometime over the following 15 days, a major announcement regarding Dolphin would be made. Hell, I was as curious as anyone. Would the hardware be as good as they said? Would they show actual demos and/or screen shots? Would this signal Nintendo’s return to glory? Apparently not. The 15 days came and went, and the only announcements made by Nintendo were that Perfect Dark would NOT include the face-mapping feature (which is odd, since it worked fine at E3, and that was a year ago), and that Nintendo’s lineup for the rest of the year is downright laughable. No Dolphin new whatsoever. Man, do these guys have ANY idea of what they’re doing? I try not to hate any company (except Acclaim, of course, but that’s just common sense), but Nintendo just can’t seem to do anything right these days. Sure, the kids love Pokemon, but they sure don’t show much love for those of us over the age of 10, do they?

So, die-hard Nintendo fans (both of them) will have to wait a full year, and probably more, before Nintendo releases their new baby. What is Nintendo giving us in the meantime? Not much, it seems. Nintendo’s first-party lineup is looking pretty bleak. I’ve always said that Perfect Dark will rock, but the rest of the stuff I could definitely do without. The kids will dig the cash-run Pokemon Stadium, as well as the Gameboy games Pokemon Gold and Silver and Pokemon Card Battle. Of course, I, along with much of this country, I gather, feel that Pokemon needs to die a horrible, nasty death, preferably involving claw hammers. Banjo-Tooie is making me ill already, and Conker just looks weird. Oh, yeah, I guess we can’t forget that recycled Zelda coming this fall. Yippee. Anyway, it is one again a year of happy, bouncy platformers. Yee-haw. And, don’t plan on third-parties bailing you out, either. Electronic Arts, Konami, THQ, and several others have all ceased further N64 development. Lord, even Acclaim has quit N64 development, and they’ll support ANYTHING. In fact, EA and Acclaim, among others, have blamed low profits on slow N64 sales. Everyone’s jumping off of N64 like rats on a sinking ship, and for good reason.

You see, the main reason I really dislike Nintendo these days is that only Nintendo makes money with their systems. Due to the cartridge format, third-parties have to pay Nintendo to produce their games, which are made only in Japan, and shipped to the U.S. at additional cost. On top of that, third-parties have to pay royalty fees to Nintendo that are 3 times what Sony or Sega charge. Add that to the inherent cost of making bulky cartridges versus cheap CD’s, and you can see why companies like Square and Namco have basically told Nintendo to piss-off. Of course, Nintendo don’t have to pay any of these extra fees, so their first-party titles are generally $10-$20 cheaper than any third-party titles. Now, most N64 owners are kids who get games maybe 2 or 3 times per year, usually for holidays. So, what do you suppose Mommy is going to buy little Timmy: A $70 copy of Resident Evil 2, or a $50 copy of Smash Brothers? Nintendo sells tons of copies of any game they make, even if (or, seemingly, especially if) they completely suck. The third-party games sit on the shelf forever and, except for the THQ wrestling titles, end up in the bargain bin, netting those third-parties a sizable loss. It has always been this way with Nintendo, ever since the NES days. They were actually sued for monopolistic practices at one point, but settled out of court. Now how much do you like the house that Mario built?

But wait, you say, what about the never-ending success of Gameboy? Yup, Gameboy is tearing up TRST charts, but again, only Nintendo stuff is selling. Actually, I should say that only Pokemon is selling. Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow are the best selling software titles in the industry’s history in the U.S., and Gold and Silver have sold a combined six million copies in Japan at the time of this writing. That’s good, right? Well, it’s good for Nintendo. All of those other companies making Gameboy games are losing their asses. If not for Pokemon, I am positive that Gameboy would have died out long ago. However, since Pokemon is "the game to have", all other titles fall by the wayside. In fact, even Capcom’s masterful GBC version of Bionic Commando isn’t selling that well. What in the name of John Terlesky is wrong with you people? If the new GBC version of Metal Gear doesn’t sell, it may be time for "The Cleansing". Anyway, there are three more Pokemon titles coming this year, so at least Nintendo will make money, eh? That makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. And, just in case you think you got a good price on your shiny new Game Boy Color, know this: Due to economies of scale, it actually costs Nintendo around $5 to produce each GBC. All the rest is profit. Big profit. Since hardware manufacturers usually use economies of scale to reduce the cost for the consumer, now how do you feel about Nintendo? They seem pretty icky now, don’t they?

So before you get all nutty about the forthcoming "Dolphin", or whatever they call it, and the new Gameboy Advance, do some actual thinking before rushing out to buy them. There is a reason that the N64 flopped in every country besides America: Many Americans will buy ANYTHING put out by a familiar brand, no matter what the quality is. In fact, this ruined my until-now perfect record of predicting the winners and losers in the gaming industry. I knew that 3DO, Jaguar, CD-I, and 32X would never catch on. I even saw the writing on the wall for my beloved Saturn months before it was even released here. Well before their launches, I knew that Genesis, SNES, Playstation, and Dreamcast would all be very successful. So, after seeing the first import N64 games, about a year before its U.S. release, I was positive that the N64 would fail miserably. I was mostly right, but those wacky Americans kept them afloat by buying the thing just because it had Nintendo’s name on it. So let’s not do that again, okay? If this Dolphin thing really is good, and they really do have actual third-party support from companies that I care about, then go for it. However, aside from Nintendo and Rare themselves, the only people signed up to do Dolphin stuff are Acclaim and Midway, generally considered to be the two biggest purveyors of crap that this industry has ever seen. So, as you can imagine, I’m not too optimistic at this point. But, anything can happen, so you never know…

Now, I will leave you with this hilarious quote from some guy called "The Wanderer" from Gamefan Online: "The N64 has arguably the finest library of games of any console to date." BWAHAHAHAHAAA!!! Man, I love it! Say that out loud a couple of times, and you’ll laugh your arse off. Until next time…

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