Nintendo: Gaming's Last Hope
By: J. Michael NealThere has been a lot of talk of the "next generation" as console makers scramble for ground on the new hardware battlefront, and with it, criticism of the lack of creativity in today's software. Just as they did at the dawn on Sony's PlayStation 2, industry analysts predict the death of innovation at the hands of escalating development costs and the mainstreaming of gaming culture. For the most part, they are right. New intellectual properties are a hard sell, and much like in film, quirky, original, or groundbreaking work receives critical acclaim and little else. But one underdog has strayed from the pack, and in doing so, has created what may be the only niche in gaming for creativity to flourish.
Of course, I'm talking about Nintendo, the hardware giant that once sat at the top of the video game world. At the end of the 32/64-bit era, Nintendo made a move that many considered defeatist - in a decision that seemed equal parts wisdom and cowardice, Nintendo openly admitted they would not try to reclaim their number one position from Sony. Instead, they would focus on delivering something different, and positioned their machine as something people would want to buy with a PS2, not instead of. And then everyone saw the little, purple box with the funny handle and head-scratching controller and read Nintendo as saying "we are making a kid's toy."
But if you can say anything about Nintendo, it's that they know their market. They made lemons into lemonade, pushing the GameCube to success on little more than a few quality first party titles and a price-point that made it a painless purchase for gamers seeking a second console and parents looking to shut their brats up. It's a formula that allowed it to outsell Microsoft in most territories week-to-week, regardless of its inferior hardware and media presence. More importantly, it's a formula that allowed experimental titles like Pikmin and Animal Crossing to become such hits.
This is why we all should have taken the DS more seriously. With 2005 behind us and the numbers in, the runaway success of Nintendo's little-handheld-that-could is firmly in place. I was like so many others, too enthralled with Sony's shiny new PSP to give two hoots about the gimmicky and questionable design of what many considered the disappointing follow-up to the GBA SP. It was clear that what we all forgot was whenever Nintendo releases a handheld it gets a license to print money. Who else but Nintendo could take a Tamagotchi-clone six years too late and turn it into a killer app? What we all should have saw, however, was how Nintendo's lateral design thinking would prove to be the haven for innovative games.
Two screens, a stylus, a microphone, and a cheap, easy to develop for system has created the most fertile land for creative game development since the early 90's shareware boom. Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center, Kirby, Animal Crossing, Electroplankton, Meteos - without a doubt some of the most interesting games of the past 12 months have been brought to you by the DS, and while "interesting" usually translates to "underappreciated and unsellable", the more clever the title, the more converts Nintendo makes.
But few have learned and, once again, Nintendo is counted out of the race before it has even begun with their Revolution. It's obvious, however, that Nintendo will have another smash hit on its hands, as the Revolution aims to combine both the GameCube and DS philosophies into one, tiny package, then sit back and watch Sony and Microsoft tear each other apart. It will have a retail price possibly hundreds lower than its closet competitor, it will not only be backwards compatible with the GameCube, but offer NES, SNES, and N64 titles (possibly free) to download, and most importantly, it will feature a control scheme that will breed the same kind of creativity as the DS, with the success of the DS allowing companies to feel more secure in bringing that kind of brave experimentation into living rooms.
With the Revolution's low development cost and niche fan-base, it should be the ideal place for daring game designers to explore new ways to interact with games. We've already seen some of the uses developers have come up with for a stylus; imagine a 3D-spacial stylus and you begin to realize what the Revolution's unorthodox control scheme is capable of. It's the best move Nintendo could have made. They aren't going to out muscle Sony or Microsoft, they are going to outthink, by offering the must-have second system for hardcore and casual gamers alike. Frankly, I'd take refreshing and new over rehashed but photorealistic any day of the week.
Posted: 01/20/2006