Posts Tagged ‘E3’

E3 came and went. In the aftermath of the press conferences and the floor coverage from all the major sites, I am left with one burning question. What does Nintendo have to do for the core gaming audience to cut them some slack?

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Since the Wii came on the scene and Nintendo started making money on their home consoles their old supporters have been crying foul. Maybe not the fanatical individuals who swallow everything Nintendo say but the long time gamers who always respected the company’s ability to produce high quality games. For some reason these players feel betrayed by their ‘new’ casual direction, for making games which are less (forgive the abstraction of this expression) gamey or childish.

These cries of treachery must seem somewhat hypocritical to Nintendo. Their last two generations of home consoles underperformed significant. The section of the gaming world that they relied on for support (those who are now also complaining about the Wii) disappeared. You could certainly argue that a few of Nintendo’s choices were ill-advised. The high price of cartridges for the N64 was prohibitively expensive for the youth skewed demographic of the general audience but the almost total abandonment of the GameCube must have been an unpleasant surprise for them.

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It was during the GameCube’s days that I at worked Game Station store. Trying to convince anyone of the merits of the system was near impossible. Even after the system dropped its price to significantly lower than the competition the serious gamers still perceived the system as not supporting the games they wanted. It didn’t have the moody dark graphics that the now aging teen gamers of old and twenty-something newcomers wanted.

But Nintendo never made games for these players. They didn’t abandon these customers. Like Fisher Price and Sesame Street they chose a young target audience. Their games have always had a bright, family friendly esthetic. It is a decision which has segregated them from the market they created as members of the market matured. With their ‘real’ games being shunned by much of the traditional gaming audience it is their casual offerings which are garnering them attention (and money) from the public but scorn from gaming world.

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The subdued reception to their E3 offerings exemplified this. Every single major IP had a sequel announced but coverage remained underwhelmed. Yes, they are guilty of running Mario into the ground, but Disney does the same to Mickey. Plus true sequels to their top tier titles are few when you consider the time elapsed since their creation. No, Nintendo are not going to announce a new franchise to appease the dissenting voices. Why should they when every attempt at a ‘hardcore’ title has been met with appalling sales? Let them make their casual titles and be happy with the few fantastic games they make for the traditional gamers, especially if you aren’t going to buy them anyway.

We are late, but contrary to my usual apologetic fashion there will be no ‘sorry’ (apart from for my musical interlude). It is packed front to back with gaming fun and discussion.

This episode is longer that usually to accommodate Darren’s recent interview with the legendary Jon Hare of Sensible Software fame. It kicks off at the fifty three minute mark (just in case you want to jump straight to the Sensible Soccer discussion).

Apart from that we quickly hit up what we have been playing before diving into news and predictions for E3. Unfortunately as this has ended up being posted after all the press conferences so you will instantly know if we were on the money or not, all I will say is that we were kind of close, sort of. We wrap up with the return of Darren’s old games, and talk of the amazing Turrican.

Hope you enjoy, and we may even manage two more shows this month to make up for the light May.

The DoFuss Show - Yes, that really is Jon Hare, not Darren. [ 1:42:11 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download