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Nintendo: For The Win January 19, 2006 Jakub Wojnarowicz |
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Summary: Sony, Microsoft. Xbox 360, PS3. Solid Snake, Master Chief. Hold on a minute, aren't we forgetting something? That's right, Nintendo. Despite all the Sony-Microsoft hype, Nintendo is in the best position it's been in for a decade. You will not be able to stay home, brother, but you will be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. Because this Revolution will be televised.
 Kong returns | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
Consider that in the past year, oil has doubled in price to hit and maintain historic highs. Except for handhelds, game sales have slumped across the board, even in the industry console darling PlayStation 2. The DOW Jones Industrial Average remained flat throughout 2005, with the S&P and NASDAQ barely keeping pace with inflation. At the end of that same year, Microsoft released the most expensive console yet, and one that sold out but is plagued by continuing supply shortages. In Japan, as usual, an American-made (or rather, American-designed) product has flopped. Like countless other American companies, Microsoft has faced a stiff, impenetrable and informal wall of Japanese nationalism which clings stubbornly to a Japanese product. In short, one of the three key markets for the Xbox 360 is denied.
Sony, meanwhile, faces its own problems. Rumors abound of a five hundred dollar PlayStation 3. That’s enough Benjamins to get your hands on a beater car or pay a month’s rent in most American cities not called San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York. It passes that psychological barrier of being half a thousand dollars, and even in these days of raging trade and budget deficits that devalue the dollar, a grand is nothing to sneeze at. There’s a reason that prices like $99.95 are more popular than $100, though that five cents is trivial.
Moreover, gamers are dissatisfied. Though game review scores live in their own little world of the 60-90% range (with everything below being reserved for Daikatana and Mortyr), last year was not a banner year either for game sales or game awards. Nothing blew us away, there was no equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto, a StarCraft, a Quake or even a Call of Duty. Well, there was Call of Duty 2, but it was a sequel, like just about every other major title, and gamers have shown their displeasure with sequels. According to release lists for most major publishers, this coming year will be little different – more sequels!
Gameplay has stagnated beyond the obvious sequelitis. What was the last major revolution in RTS development? Homeworld gave us 3D almost six years ago now. WarCraft III and Warlords: Battlecry gave us heroes about three years ago. Age of Empires III was so similar to Age of Empires II that many reviewers found themselves making sure they weren’t playing a graphics mod for the older game by accident. Where have first-person shooters gone? Great, we have realism. Now what? We had years of Quake games, then we had years of Half-Lifes, and then years of Counter-Strikes and Medals of Honor. Come on, developers and publishers, we need something fresh! And don’t even get me started on the pathetic state of the RPG market, things are as bad if not worse than during those years before BioWare and Black Isle came onto the scene.
| Enter Nintendo | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
Its graphics potential will be considerably lower than the Xbox 360 and PS3, but for the first time in history, this may be a good thing. Game publishers and developers industry-wide are complaining of ballooning development costs, mostly due to art teams that have to grow exponentially to create all the content that’s possible. Think back to Mario 64, one of the best-looking games of the early N64/PlayStation generation. It had flat textures, maybe 1000 polygons per character, and trees that were made of a cylinder and sphere. Now, think about Call of Duty 2 or Perfect Dark Zero. How many man-hours would be needed just to model, animate and texture the faces of the characters? Never mind the technology involved in getting lip-synching working, or the various facial expressions, or all the special shader effects. The typical Call of Duty 2 level – just the level – probably has more polygons, textures and lights on it than all of Metal Gear Solid. Programming has faced similar growth in terms of demands and complexity, though at a slower pace. In short, team sizes have ballooned.
Now take Nintendo’s Revolution. It’s going to be easy to develop for by design, being a simple system rather than some convoluted multi-chip, multi-core, Microsony Playbox 363. Not only that, developers are going to spend less money on artists, because when they make games for the Revolution, the standard of art – the upper limit of what’s possible on the console – is going to be lower than what they’d have to compete with on the Xbox 360 or PS3.
Of course, the success of that strategy depends on the Revolution carving out its own niche. It has to separate itself from Sony’s and Microsoft’s offerings sufficiently so as not to be seen competing with them on their terms. If Revolution is seen to be in direct competition for a market, purely on terms of hardware performance, it will fail. However, Nintendo has three distinct features to move the Revolution into its own segment.
1. The most obvious is the controller. It’s wacky, it’s weird, it looks like a freaking TV remote from the 1980s but and it has been the butt of my jokes for months. This video, however, convinces me perhaps not of the ultimate utility of the Revolution controller, but of the potential. It will, at the least, work. Its potential, however, is high and it offers a new way of interacting with our games.
2. Price. The disparity between cost, especially in times of relative economic uncertainty, can put the Revolution into a new category. The GameCube was a cool “second system” because it was cheaper. The Revolution, on the other hand, is cheap enough to be “the people’s console”, for the every day Joe Schmoe – with the Xbox 360 and PS3 competing to be the second consoles, and only among the richer or more dedicated folk.
3. Image. Image is important. I mean, look at Apple – why would anyone, ever pay that much for anything unless they were image conscious. Nintendo’s image is different. The kiddie-friendly persona lures in parents, but the retro links and gaming history bait hardcore console gamers. Moreover, just the idea that the Revolution is cheap to develop for and might have cool independent games is sexy. Just like the iPod, it’s the idea – not the hardware – that’s sexy. And yes, I know I am helping to spread that idea with this very article.
| The Controller | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |
That’s what the Revolution controller is. Now you may be inclined to say “pheh, what’s the point? I doubt it can do much more than the DualShock.” You may be right. Potential is hard to see and understand, so I’ll use the reverse analogy – the loss of ability, rather than what you can gain with it. As a loyal FiringSquad reader, you’ve no doubt played Quake and CS and other shooters for years now, with your trusty mouse and keyboard. You can get rail shots on fast-moving Quake marines in less time than the average drag racer needs to launch his car off the line. You can do the AK double-tap chest/headshot clear across the CT exit on de_dust, against a moving target at that. Now imagine someone told you to unbind your mouse and play those games with nothing but keyboard. The possibility still exists, just about every shooter still has the option of binding view directions to keys. Imagine if someone does something really cool that works great on the Revolution controller, but will be difficult – or worse, boring - to replicate on a DualShock.
Do you doubt that a controller can make a game exciting? Then you haven’t played enough flight sims. Il-2 is an interesting game with good flight models and nice graphics. It plays well enough with a standard joystick and keyboard combination. Buy a HOTAS, however, like the Saitek X-52 or CH FighterStick/Pro Throttle combo, when your hands never have to leave the controls to touch a mere keyboard, and you’ve got a whole new experience. Top it off with a TrackIR unit, which translates your real-world head movements into in-game movements that permit you to look around your virtual cockpit, to track your target without resorting to anything so crude as a hat switch or keyboard, and the immersion factor goes through the roof. Trust me, as someone who has recently rediscovered his love of flight simulators, controllers matter so much more in games than we’re prepared to believe until we actually experience it.
Conclusion
Nintendo is poised for a coup. As someone who not so long ago was dismissive of what the company can accomplish, I today firmly believe that they’re capable of taking the #1 position from Sony. Slumping game sales, unimaginative games, expensive consoles and expensive games, consoles that will have features (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) that we’re not sure we’ll need. In comes Nintendo, with the promise and the tools to let developers create cool games again. It’s guaranteed that we’ll see Castlevania, Zelda, Metroid, and Mario on the Revolution – but this time there’s the potential for so much more.
What Nintendo is, or at least should be angling for, is the thought that Revolution games should be judged solely against Revolution games. Just like you don’t judge wines by comparing them to beer, or handheld games to consoles, Revolution aims to be its own market. It’s important for Nintendo to establish itself as significantly cheaper than the competition, with a unique controller and that all-important Nintendo game library and image. As long as Revolution offers a unique experience, it won’t matter to gamers that Generic Sequel #168 or NFL Roster Update 2009 look better on the PS3.
The cheapness of the console will help it sell and it’s unlikely that Nintendo will face production shortages since it won’t use exotic and difficult-to-make components. With a large installed owner base, more developers will be inclined to take a shot at it, publishers will feel pressured to release key titles (like Madden) for the Revolution regardless of their past GameCube experience. The controller is standard enough to work for most titles – so Xbox and PlayStation games will most likely work on the Revolution without major trouble, yet that same controller offers unique features that will be difficult to replicate for Microsoft’s and Sony’s consoles.
Sony is vulnerable on three fronts. First, they’re late and they’re feeling the pressure. DreamCast was Sega’s and Sega didn’t have the financial muscle to keep it going. The Xbox 360 has no such problems. Second, Sony’s marketing cannot get away with another “Emotion Engine” claim. The media called Sony on their CGI presentations this E3 and quite frankly, we smell blood and there’s nothing anyone enjoys more than seeing the top dog go down. Third, Sony is betting heavily on Blu-Ray. If Blu-Ray fails to take off, PS3 owners will be stuck with this generation’s Betamax players (and Betamax, if you remember, was a Sony initiative – like the 8-track before it). Sony may offer an HD-DVD add-on in case of that eventuality, but the point is that someone – either customers or Sony itself – will have paid for the extra costs of Blu-Ray. Fourth, while the majority of Sony’s revenue is still from consumer electronics, its games division is the one that’s driving company growth. The only other section of the company to grow is its financial services division – all others have seen reduced sales in recent quarters. Microsoft is deliberately hitting Sony where it hurts, and Nintendo can tiptoe in between the battling giants and steal the prize.