Originally posted at Pointless Waste of Time, though the link can't be posted because it contains those Red Steel scans.
David Wong and Haimoimoi said:Do you remember where you were when the first Nintendo Revolutions screenshots came out?
When you first saw the scans did you calmly arch an eyebrow, sip your scotch and vaguely wonder about your home entertainment purchases for the fourth quarter of 2006? Or did your heart try to spasm itself out of your chest in frenzied excitement, your trousers suddenly taking on a curious smell?
If the latter sounds like you, close your eyes and take a deep breath. You're among friends. And we have something to tell you.
A 12-Step Program
First, let's thank the guy who bit the bullet and actually paid for a copy of Game Informer magazine, then snapped some shots (apparently with a camera phone and apparently from across the room) to upload the first Revolution screens to his blog:
The game is called Red Steel and is made by UbiSoft, the people who make all those Tom Clancy shooting games.
So? Did you feel the urge to rush into the street with a bullhorn and scream Nintendo slogans at strangers? And did the strangers hurl anti-Nintendo slurs in return?
Well, there's some things we think you should know.
1. Brand loyalty is a mental illness
No, I'm not talking about the guy who buys Smucker's brand Jelly, likes it, and decides he will buy future Smucker's products based on that experience. I'm talking about this bizarre thing gamers do when they start rooting for their brand the way they root for a sports team. These aren't people who are looking forward to the Revolution because they thought the Gamecube was awesome and want more of the same. They're looking forward to it because they think it will make Nintendo "win" the next round of console wars and that somehow the glory of the victory will spill over onto them.
The "Iwata" on his sign is Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. So there you are, cheering on a man who doesn't know your name and is glad he doesn't know it. A man who matches your yearly income in the split second it takes him to whoosh into the air on his Kyoto-bound gold-plated Jetpack.
That kid isn't there to say, "Hey, thanks for making the Revolution so awesome!" He's never played one. No, he's saying, "Make the Revolution more awesome than the competition and defeat them in the marketplace!" And I guess that would make sense, if he owned Nintendo stock, or worked at the company, or had some other stake in Nintendo's success. But he doesn't. I've done some research and it even turns out that guy didn't go to Nintendo University. I hope he didn't put it on his resume.
2. Pre-release hype lowers your IQ
Look, we're not just picking on Nintendo here. Who among you remember headlines like this around the time of the PS2 launch?
Ah, those were the days when Sony was boasting "Toy Story" style graphics on the PS2. Now we have Sony's Ken Kutagari proclaiming the PS3 will run at 120 frames per second, which is more than your television, and more than twice what can even be perceived by the human eye. At this stage of the game, it's easy to get all caught up in it. And when the first screens come out and they're cool... I know what it's like.
But it seems worse with Nintendo fans because there is such a gigantic gap between what they're expecting from the Revolution and what Nintendo is even promising. Half of what the company is saying about the thing sounds sounds like an apology:
"You know, in regard to the power of the Nintendo Revolution versus, say, the Xbox 360, we're looking at making a small, quiet, affordable console."
"At this point, we've only been talking with a few (third party) companies. However, if other companies come forward and they want to join us to work with us to create games, of course that would be great for us."
Look at the Red Steel screens again. Never mind that Ubisoft has a habit of publishing concept renders and claiming they're in-game screenshots, and never mind that shots like that in magazines tend to have usually been "touched up" a bit. Just look at the screens, then look at the inset photos of the people pointing and shooting with their Rev controllers:
Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass "Halo killer." It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
I know, I know, the controller has all kinds of gyroscopic gadgetry that will let the game detect how you're holding it and translate it to the game. One Nintendo site even says:
"One photo shows a player holding the Revolution controller behind his head with the corresponding screen shot displaying the (sword) hilt being held up to the character's face."
That's right. You'll be required to swordfight with this thing, which means you'll have to sit on your sofa, swinging your arm around like you're having a seizure. You can sort of see the guy doing it in the upper-left hand corner of the third shot.
Yes, I know some people will think that's fun. That kind of interactive controller, like the Eye Toy (the camera gadget for the PS2) and the dance pads for the DDR games and the plastic guitar for Guitar Hero... they have their place. But imagine if the PS3 turned out to be just a PS2 with an Eye Toy included. I think you'd say it was a cheap gimmick.
Yes, you could make more than shooting games with the controller. You could make a basketball game where shooting the hoop with a light gun makes your player dunk the basketball. But let's not pretend that's the best way to play a basketball game. Are developers going to have to shoehorn "point and shoot" functionality into every freaking game? How does that help a driving game? Or a sports game?
Go look at your game shelf. How many of those would actually have been better with a light gun stuck to your controller?
3. We must love one without hating another
Am I crazy or is half the fun gamers get out of rooting for one console the ability to abuse owners of the others?
Besides the fact that this is the same sort of petty, angry tribalism that will one day destroy the human race, this phenomenon does more to destroy gaming pleasure than a thumb tumor. It does it by instilling a fear of buying a second game system out of a ridiculous sense of loyalty.
About half of gamers have more than one console in the home... if you count PS2 owners who still have their PS1 in the closet and GameCube owners who still have their N64 under the bed. But no more than 20% of gamers have bought two of the current-gen consoles.
And it's not about the price. If that's the issue, we shouldn't be sitting here talking about buying a next-gen machine this year. Just take the money you were going to spend on a next-gen machine and buy a second current machine instead. I keep hearing from Nintendo loyalists how cheap the Revolution will be. Well, it's not as cheap as a PS2 or an XBox (both $149 right now, probably $99 this fall) and both of those machines have libraries 100 times larger than the Rev will have on opening day.
This goes for any single-console fan. If you're an XBox guy, you're probably saving the $600 it'll cost to get a 360 and two games. For that amount of money, you could put down $149 for a PS2 and pick out the ten best games they ever made for it. There simply aren't ten games that good on the 360 right now. Which way would get you more gaming bang for your buck?
But to simply wait out the gameless dry spell at the end of a console's run, in the name of waiting for the next edition of that console is idiotic. Especially when it's done out of fear of becoming "one of those Sony loving bastards."
4. The "Download Older Games" service will make the Revolution worth owning...
...If you already own another next-gen machine. The Nintendo-or-die fanboy can't possibly point to this as a saving grace for the system because it's not like we haven't been able to play those older games without the Revolution. Nobody forced us to throw away our old game machines and nobody stopped us from buying a replacement off ebay. Don't get me wrong, I can easily see myself spending a Saturday afternoon playing my way through the original Zelda, or Mario 3. But still, my N64 is in the basement for a reason.
And if you haven't noticed, the other consoles have been releasing "arcade classics" and other collections for a while now, and they don't exactly cause Midnight riots at game stores.
And besides, are there any good NES/SNES era games that haven't already come out for one of Nintendo's handhelds? Who among the loyal Nintendo army don't have one of those?
5. Nintendo Doesn't Love You.
I don't mean that in the sense that if you showed up to Mr. Iwata's mansion and asked him for a loan, bits of you would be found in the feces of his guard dogs the next day. I mean, that's true, but that's not the point.
The point is it's silly to root for any corporation to "win" and especially one that's been fined by the EU and the USA over their business practices. People forget that when Nintendo used to dominate the game industry, they tried to kill multi-platform gaming (if you wanted your game on the NES at all, it couldn't appear elsewhere for two freaking years) and were just plain abusive toward the American retailers who sold their games.
People forget that one reason third-party developers abandoned Nintendo during the N64 era was Nintendo's habit of treating them like something they scraped off a hobo. Those third-party guys were making games, games you might have liked. Nintendo didn't care, because when a third-party makes a game Nintendo actually has to share the money with them.
So when you root for Nintendo to "make a comeback" and "dominate like they did before," are you sure you know what you're asking for?
6. Nintendo Doesn't Need You.
As of right now, if you're enough a hard-core gamer to wear a Nintendo T-shirt in public, Nintendo doesn't want you as a customer. That's not who the Revolution is meant for. They say it every chance they get, that they're marketing the Revolution to non-gamers, hoping to "open up new markets" rather than compete with Sony and Microsoft for the existing one.
That was the whole point of making a controller that looks like a TV remote. Iwata:
"It's designed like a TV remote because that's familiar to everyone including those who are intimidated by a two-handed controller. Its intuitive form allows both experienced and new gamers to stand on the same starting line."
It is physically impossible to make a game machine that simultaneously pleases both novice outsiders and people who eat and drink and breathe video games. The first group is easy to impress, the second is not.
So, they made a machine a fraction as powerful as the other consoles (A 729 MHz processor, vs. a 3.2 GHz processor for the XBox 360; 88 MB of RAM vs. 512 MB for both the 360 and PS3) and at a fraction of the cost. They're checking out of the hard core market and making a machine that will be used mainly to play those classic, older Nintendo games, cheaply. In other words, they're making a high-end version of this:
That's one of those cheapie game machines they sell in grocery stores, hoping you'll buy one for your toddler on the way through the checkout line.
Now, there is a whole market of non-gamers and fringe gamers who would enjoy the hell out of that. But if you're the kind of gamer who cares enough to read an article like this, I doubt you're one of those people.
7. Nintendo Doesn't Want You.
Look at the controller again, compared with a current control pad:
First of all, it's freaking tiny. Those proportions up there are correct. Go grab a GameCube controller and contemplate how freaking tiny this thing is.
Secondly, the GC had seven buttons for gameplay. The Rev controller has four (if you include the "nunchuck" attachment). The current controller has two analogue sticks, the Rev controller has one.
It is a mathematical fact that fewer buttons means less freedom for the developer to let you control the on-screen action. There's no way around it. I'm not saying you can't make fun games with it - I'm sure Nintendo can. But they'll be simpler games. Entry-level games.
But, you say, with the Rev controller, you can tilt it around. In Red Steel they say, "...jumping over or taking cover behind objects is done simply with a flick of the free-hand unit, and reloading the gun is performed by pulling back on the controller."
Of course, that means that with any Revolution game you'll have to hold the controller perfectly level in your hand, or else your character will inadvertently stop to reload in the middle of the action or go diving behind something at an inopportune time.
That means a lot of uncomfortable fatigue in your wrists if you plan on playing all night (try holding your TV remote in front of you, keeping it level, for three hours). And that isn't a problem for the Rev target audience. It's not designed for people who play hours a day. It's designed for people who don't generally like to play games and get bored with them quickly. It's for the Freecell crowd.
But wait, you say. Think of all the new, innovative ways the controller can be used! Okay, let's ask Gamespot:
"We're used to pressing buttons in a certain sequence to cast a line in a fishing game, but on the Revolution, expect to pull the controller back and then whip it forward in a real casting motion to get that line out. It's this kind of gameplay that will make the Revolution completely different from the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3."
And later:
"A variety of potential game-usage scenarios were shown at TGS. One involves a fishing game, but instead of pushing a button or moving an analog stick, with the new Revolution controller you could cast a line by flicking your wrist. Basic games such as air hockey can get a boost from the new controller design as well."
Here's a tip from a long-time gamer: if a new console is continually mentioning how well it can do fishing games, it might not be designed with hard-core gamers in mind.
8. Be Honest About Your Needs
You don't need Nintendo to "win." You don't need Nintendo to succeed as a company.
You're a gamer. What you need is games.
What will you have to play on the Revolution?
Well, you've got the Nintendo games, the Marios and the Zeldas and the Metroids. Of course, the last Mario game was Mario Sunshine and it was a step down from Mario 64 by all accounts. Five years later, we've yet to see another Mario game. We got one Zelda game in five years. Two Metroid games. So we can expect about one big franchise game from Nintendo every year.
Otherwise, you've got the select few developers who are willing to make Revolution exclusives (how could Red Steel ever be translated to anything else?) and that's it. The ones willing to take the risk of the Revolution bombing, willing to risk losing money on a small Revolution user base.
You won't get the multi-platform games, because how in the hell are you going to take a next-gen Ghost Recon game programmed for a machine with 512 MB of RAM and squeeze it onto a console with 88? How will you make a game that uses a hard drive (both the PS3 and 360 will ship with one) function on a machine that doesn't have one? How do you translate a game that uses six buttons to a machine that only has four? Are you going to make me twist the controller to activate what should be the "X" button? Better not shift in my seat...
Sure, you can strip the games down, take out features, turn down graphics and animation effects. But even then...
Rumors say Madden '07 for the Revolution will
only feature six players per side
And don't try to reassure me with, "but they're Nintendo! They'll make sure there's enough games for the fans!" I have an N64 in my basement. And I have a distinct memory of that thing launching with two games.
9. Yes, I know it will be cheaper...
...and I know that the $400 XBox and the even-more-expensive PS3 sound outrageous when compared to, say, a jar of pickles at the supermarket. And after all, haven't game machines always been around the $250 mark? Even the original Atari 2600 was priced at $249 when it launched in 1977.
Wait a second... we forgot about inflation. In today's money, that would be $811.
The NES, when adjusted for inflation, came out at $355.
The SEGA Genesis? $390.
Even the PS1 launched in 1995 for $299.99... which is $372 in today's money.
So I have a feeling the lower price tag won't save it. It certainly hasn't helped the GameCube. But really, when has the cheapest console ever come out on top? The cheapest all-time launch price (inflation considered) was the $199 Sega Dreamcast, the console that killed the company. And you older readers may remember some pretty good deals on the Atari 7800 back in the day.
10. No console is worth buying on launch day
Half of the anxiety that makes gamers so edgy is the fear of getting stuck with a failed console. If the machine doesn't sell, nobody will make games for it and by Year Three you're stuck with a $300 paperweight. I should know. I'm the one who skipped on the original Playstation and bought a Mexican-made Amo Del Juego instead.
But unless you have infinite money - and if you do, you shouldn't be reading this and should be out on a jet ski somewhere - there is no reason in the world to line up to buy a gleaming new game machine on opening day. Honestly, if the reason you're out trying to win converts to your console is because you're afraid it's going to fail, why not spare yourself the anxiety? Wait and see.
Give it two years. See how its library shapes up. See if it's getting support. Let the price drop once or twice.
What will you play in the mean time? You'll be following step number 3 and playing your way through the library from one of the other current-gen systems. If you already own two, buy a third. The machine will be the price of two games. If you already own all three, and all the good games for all three, then I have to ask what it's like to read this site on a monitor made of solid gold. Maybe you can let me know after you finish that caviar burrito.
11. Nintendo will never be #1 again, and doesn't want to be
The oddest thing about the fanboy fantasy of Nintendo being King of Video Game Mountain again is that Nintendo doesn't share that fantasy. Nintendo knows where its profit is coming from, and that's handheld gaming. No one console is selling as well as Nintendo's combined GameBoy lineup (DS and GBA and all the various other incarnations) and no game division is raking in the cash like the mountain of licensing fees Nintendo collects from handheld software.
They didn't spend huge developing a new machine - the Revolution is just a souped-up GameCube. They're not taking a loss on the manufacturing - that would require some kind of initial investment and the danger of losing it (Microsoft took a 10-digit loss on the original XBox). They took no such risks because they didn't need to. Anything they make off the console market is gravy to them.
Again, if you own Nintendo stock that's great news. The company is extremely profitable and will likely find ways to be far down the road. But if you're a hard-core Nintendo gamer hoping the Revolution will reign supreme, the news isn't so good.
But again... why do you even care? Why be loyal? Do you think Nintendo will be loyal to you? Were they loyal to the Virtual Boy owners? Do you honestly think they'll keep supporting the Revolution if it requires them to drain profits from the handheld division? Do you think they'll keep the download service online if they start losing money on it? Do you really?
12. You're not alone
If even one sentence of this article has come off as condescending or mocking toward Nintendo fans or any kind of video game fans, we apologize. That wasn't the point, which is why we never pointed out that the Revolution is the first console in history that can be played while masturbating.
The truth is, everybody is a fanboy, for one thing or another. Mac vs. Windows, Rock vs. Rap, Explorer vs. Firefox, ATI vs. Nvidia, Republicans vs. Democrats, Dog people vs. Cat People, Ford vs. Chevy, Pinot vs. Merlot, Emo fans vs. Everybody Else.
We're no different. I mean that. But we all have to grow up sometime.
-by David Wong and Haimoimoi
