xenocity wrote:
newageretrohippie wrote:
xenocity wrote:
Rumors are stating February 13th as the launch day for both Majora's Mask and the New 3DS in the U.S.
that rumor better be just that...I need more time to afford one. I hate that about Nintendo, almost as much as the Amiibo issues and the obsession with
lame gimmicks: they like to wait until the last possible second to announce a release date.
Well I hate to burst your bubble, their is a Nintendo Direct airing tomorrow morning.
And nearly all those "lame gimmicks" became industry standards.
I bet you're too young to remember all the hatred the NES controller received for being gimmicky.
Ohhh, I wouldnt say that.
I've been playing on consoles since the 2600 era, and I remember *lots* of gimmicks that didnt go through. This being because I still own most of them. It occurs to me that I was rather a spoiled child.
What most people think of as "gimmicks" are not ideas that appear in game-design. As in, stuff IN the software, specific to individual games. Nintendo definitely did alot of THAT sort of thing, way back when. Donkey Kong? Mario? Metroid? In game design terms, it rightfully earned it's status as... whatever term means "top of the pile", I'm blanking out on it here. They sure knew their stuff as far as this aspect goes.
No, what people think of as "gimmicks" with Nintendo is the bizarro physical stuff that they've always been fond of, as well as a couple infamous non-physical ones as well.
Some examples:
Power Glove; sad thing about this one is, it actually works just fine... too bad it had TWO games (Super Glove Ball and... brawler something). That game (Glove ball) was quite good, actually. But the whole thing just didnt take off... I suspect many just thought the thing was too weird, or possibly it could be that godforsaken assemblage of cables and blocky things that needed to be set up every freaking time.
Super Scope; Dont get me wrong, this one was neat enough, at least I thought so, but... yeah, suffice it to say, while light guns and similar devices were definitely a thing, GIANT ones were.... not. As was very typical of many such gimmicks during this period, the thing didnt have much support in the form of actual games, even if those games that WERE there were fairly good.
ROB; Yeah, this guy has presence and image, but simply put, in the end he was a failed product. He had two games, neither of them very good, and he just didnt work very well. It was an idea that was just too bloody strange in an industry that was still in it's early years.
E-Reader; This is one of those ones that often takes alot of explaining to people, because most dont even have the foggiest clue what it is. And I cant blame them. This thing appeared randomly and died quickly, and for good reason.
Konga drums: What.
GCN-GBA cable: Ahhh, THIS thing. I knew alot of people that just really hated this thing. In-game functionality was often tied to this, and some things wouldnt appear/unlock if you didnt have it, and I seem to remember a couple of games that were almost entirely focused on it. Which was bad since setting it all up for people to play with friends was usually this giant hassle. And there just wasnt much use for the damn thing much of the time. Nowadays, people have wi-fi, so connecting console + other thing can make some sense. Some might say "Well the GBA cable thing shows Nintendo cemented the idea way back then", but no. Currently, with the technology we have now and how much it's spread and how it's commonly used, it's a hyper obvious idea to link something like the Vita with the PS4, and one that sure as heck doesnt require anyone to remember that weird cable thing.
Friend Codes: Holy hell. This. THIS. I hate these. Everyone I know hates these. Every gamer I've ever met hates these. EVERYONE HATES THESE. There have been some annoying ideas out there in the industry, but few were as aggravating as THIS one. This particular gimmick of theirs, well... it's made even worse during the time frame in which it appears. Everyone else makes it ever easier to connect with friends and family, talk online, play online... so Nintendo takes 3254 steps BACKWARDS and comes up with "friend codes". This was one of the final straws for me, really. I can remember plenty of games that sounded so cool in terms of online possibility... only to find that FRIEND CODES were needed. I couldnt just find random new people to play with? That's a problem if none of your friends care about the game in question. And having to scour the Net for forums with 8 bazillion damn codes to slowly enter was just... bad. Ugh. Heck, I'm currently wondering about a particular one I've been waiting for: Mario Maker. I want this, yeeeeessss I do... but if it DOESNT have *proper* connectivity, requiring friend registration to do things like share levels, I am going to have... an episode of some kind. I dont know what that'll entail, but I'll probably get creatively angry.
And of course, the Virtual Boy. I owned one, I personally liked the thing. But I dont even need to explain to anyone what the problems with it were... that story is almost legendary now.
Those are, for the most part, examples of bad ones.
But it's not quite that simple to say that that's all there is that can push people away.
Like the Wiimote. Oh yeah, THAT thing was a success. However... it also permanently turned away plenty of long-time fans, as the whole thing was just this constant festival of random arm waving. It caused the Wii to be DRENCHED in shovelware; I remember this distinctly, because at the time, I had to SELL IT to people. Over and over and over. I knew all of those games. ALL OF THEM. There were so many of them, and most of them were craptastic cash-in attempts. But it wasnt just that. There were those that really just didnt like the idea. "What happened to my good ol' Nintendo controllers? Why does the entire system need to be this weird thing? I want to play games like I always have, not have to wave my hand around!" was a response that many previous fans had.
So it's one of the gimmicks often referred to as "lame" by many. It doesnt mean the thing wasnt successful. Everyone knows it was. And even many of it's detractors still enjoyed Wii Sports, at least a little. But it often just seemed so silly and unnecessary, and the deluge of bad games that used it REALLY didnt help.
And the current thing, the Wii U's.... controller gizmo, is another lame gimmick to many. Now, dont get me wrong here: *I* have nothing against this one. I knew, from day one, that I'd end up with this console, dislike of Nintendo or not, as soon as I saw that thing. I'd had an iPad for awhile at that point, and as I dont just stick to the usual "mobile" games, I've seen what a touchscreen can REALLY do, and so here comes Nintendo using one to create that controller, in an era where tablets had been.... "proven", so to speak. This thing seemed to me like it couldnt lose. Ideas I had gotten used to and enjoyed, squashed together with games like Mario from designers like Miyamoto (or whoever), and such.... I thought it was neat then, I think it's neat now. Heck, I like being able to play my VC games OUTSIDE of my damn room, that's another good function. It's given me back some of the respect for Nintendo that I'd lost over the years. But many people still just seriously dont like it, and Nintendo's history of doing things like that just cements it further with those people.
Now you're right, there have been other things like the original dPad, which brought into existence the iconic controller that everyone still loves despite it's uncomfortable blocky nature. Ya cant go wrong with that thing. But it's all the really weird stuff that are considered "gimmicks", and there's just been so MANY of them. Something like the dPad makes logical sense. ALOT of logical sense. Something like the Super Scope really doesnt. And to many people, that's a problem, and one reason why they just dont like Nintendo much. They wonder, why cant they just put out something NORMAL, and thus put even more design effort into the games instead, making them even better? Or put more resources into pursuing better third party support? And there's just never an answer for that.
10 Jan 2015, 10:37 am
