So this week I haven’t had anything done at all thanks of my worries for my flight and the convention of Momentis. I wanted to do something for Dark Zeta but nope, the times had me locked and unmotivated as usual.
When the season transitions, I have 3 weeks of adjusting. Usually my energy breaks up in a big way and I can’t do anything mindful, like program or problem solve correctly. I try to get my mind into something (like writing a blog article) to keep my brain active. This is pretty much my freestyle moment that I’ve been liking so much recently. My goal this month is to have one entry a day. So far I failed already by missing out on a day, but I want to fill at least every day that’s left. But in the end the feeling on doing something constructive gives me hope in myself.
So the secondary point and the most important I want to note in this entry is Nintendo’s up hill battle with the Future and the world!
Nintendo – A company that I prefer and have a very high esteem in loving – Is in on another transition. A transition that’s super dangerous for them at the moment.
This move, if they sleep on it, can cause their business to become irrelevant. Of course they will push on, but slowly all their work will fall on numb senses. How come you ask? Well – Nintendo has an old state of mind. The old mentality has gotten them far because on how they fabricated the need to have their products on folks who grew up with them (me), and seeing something new is beautiful as if a dream was granted to become reality, BUT! There is a new generation that is ignoring Nintendo now. The subtle attack of the phones. N-gage tried there best with carriers, but failed horribly. Everyone before thought – mobile is the only way to go for the future! But that motion wasn’t heard at that present moment. All had tried, even having phones that had just a touch screen – they just couldn’t compete on the bases of gaming. Then years later, Apple came out with their own product and marketing strategy that put all mobile companies on their knees.
What apple did to get people’s attention was simplicity and gradual evolution of adaptation. People who loved apple just pushed their products by word of mouth. First the music player – then iTunes, in which slam dunk Napster and all who tried to P2P their way through legitimately and illegally. The MP3 format then had a furious revival, but seeing how now the ipod had that adaptation period where everyone synced in, then the next most important phase had to come – the iphone.
People forget on how such an evolutionary process the iPod/iPhone had to go through before being so mainstream. It was baby steps that counted towards its familiarity. The style and slickness that a Machintosh had in your palm of your hands – was spectacular. The marketing was even more brilliant! Because on how they penetrated on a wide audience slowly with the ipod first.
This exact method was used with the Nintendo entertainment system. How? They would penetrate it towards a younger crowd, and slowly evolve through game titles appeals. The audience was niche, a very small volume maintained the ever growing crowd. What was sold was just so small, not many noticed at all that video games existed only by the novelty itself. The success became bigger and better as the 90’s rolled out. The golden age of Nintendo Vs Sega was a furious one that helped seed the love to a new generation of players after the old previous generation.
Then, as the years passed, the evolution of console tech kept slowly evolving. It got much more expensive as time went on, but it kept growing the base of customers too. The more spectacular the graphics, the more it attracted new comers. The older crowd has grown now not to care much – as the united states think of things as passing fads. So Apple played on that same bell of how we here in the states think of products to be – passing fads. They used that model to evolve gradually their iProducts to the point that it is now.
Fast forward to today – Nintendo now has a brand new challenge: The Wii U. Apple has of this note unveiled officially the iPhone 5 with Full console graphics in the device. Gaming is about to get interesting and very exciting.
Nintendo’s Wii U spec sheet doesn’t look good for being future proof. In the rumored spec sheet (here), it entails that software will use less graphical options than the current desktop/laptop spec sheet. If Apple has evolved their handheld to equal their PC equivalent graphically – then that’s BAD NEWS for the future of the new Nintendo product. Because it is only focus for today, and it’s not focused for tomorrow’s long end battle vs anything else that might come up again. If Nintendo did small technological and economical leaps in style of the iProducts, then we will have a stream of very competitive software with the hardware that is on par with everything else.
The other console fighters: Sony and Microsoft power can not be underestimated. They have learned on how the Wii took the thunder from them with motion controls and very mediocre hardware specs. Mind you this was before the iPhone and Android devices kicking so much gaming butt right now.
Now you have to mathematically be comparable to your competitors even if you wish to be different otherwise. The Wii U difference is the gamepad touch screen. That there is marvelous! BUT!!!! If you’re not careful, the same tech is now going to be used as an option with future consoles using Android/iOS/Windows devices.
This is why the very fundemental root that has been cultured in the past with Mario Bros, Zelda, Kirby, and Metroid – is not enough if the company doesn’t want to explore new generational ideas that can seed and make grow a new base of consumers. I’m fine that Mario will be there – but many want to see something new that can add to the group of awesome IPs. The developers themselves had opinions about this same problem. That’s why the old staff at Nintendo should go back to the basics and find the gold that will be timeless for everyone to experience.
The experience of feeling something brand new is crucial. The Wii itself did it perfectly with Wii Sports. That was such a brilliant idea that I wasn’t satisfied that my rare Wii Unit forgot to bundle it in. Mario Bros is cool, but if you have something similar to Wii Sports that is brand new straight from the love and care of the creators at Nintendo – it just becomes much more timeless REGARDLESS of technical feat. Why? Because fun is the whole point.
– g –
Sources:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/iphone-5-revealed-full-console-quality-graphics-promised
http://aussie-gamer.com/rumor-2/rumour-final-wii-u-specs-leaked/?