Nintendo's "mystery machine" uncovered

[Anya 0]

People may not buy machines for online play NOW, but they probably will in the future. I don't think anyone at MS or Sony expects it to be a key factor in their success this gen. The point is that it's just beginning. Besides just getting things like the Xbox Live brand out there they now have the perception of being systems with online play. Nintendo now has a perception of being against online. Everyone should know just how important perception is("Nintendo is kiddy!", "Nintendo is doomed!"). MS and Sony have got a huge head start on Nintendo when it comes to online gaming and it's only going to become more and more of a factor. It's already MUCH bigger than their stupid "connectivity".

 

 

BTW, 32X has DOOM, MK II, VF, Star Wars Arcade and WM Arcade so I'd put it ahead of the DD. They're not very good versions of those games...but whatever.

[Guest DVD Spree]

BTW, 32X has DOOM, MK II, VF, Star Wars Arcade and WM Arcade so I'd put it ahead of the DD. They're not very good versions of those games...but whatever.

Well, I didn't really mean in terms of software/ports available for the machine, but what it actually contributed to console gaming (since the context of AndrewTS' post was that it was a stupid, useless machine that did nothing for the cause). Obviously the connectivity feature had a significant effect on the development of GameCube, and the RAM pak impacted N64 software development. The 32X, from what I can see, really did nothing either for the MegaDrive or the Saturn (other than being a cynical, exploitative stop-gap between the two).

 

In terms of the software actually released for the platform, absolutely, the 32X wins hands down. But I wasn't talking about that.

 

And point taken about online gaming in the next cycle, I agree wholeheartedly - I just feel that, until broadband penetration reaches a level feasible to support the feature for all users, it is almost a non-issue. Of course, MicroSoft and Sony have both the infrastructure and the "perception factor" established to pave way for the next wave, but I believe that, shuld Nintendo about turn and fully support online functionality with their next system (not that it's realistically going to happen right now), I'm not sure it will really matter. With each new cycle, the playing field may not quite totally reset itself, but it certainly levels out to a large degree. While the perception of being a kiddie company will probably haunt Nintendo forever (thanks to their persistence in referring to themselves as a "toy company", if nothing else), if they come out guns blazing with online support from the start of the next cycle, Sony and MicroSoft's head start likely won't be much of a factor. Though again, I'm not saying that's likely to happen.

 

And I just want to clarify that I'm not a champion of Nintendo's connectivity either (before I get the inevitable "OMG u think connectivity > onlnie ur ghey" comments), and certainly not at the expense of online gaming. I'm just trying to put over the company's motivations for some of their wackier decisions, because I know a lot of people aren' even aware that a Nintendo console was ever online-enabled. The fact is that Nintendo is a lot like the WWF in a lot of ways, making truly puzzling decisions and failing to see obvious truths that are constantly staring them in the face while simulatenously biting them in the ass. But the fact is that when they get things right, there's nobody better.

[Anya 0]

SNES was online too. XBAND!!!! Not by Nintendo, but oh well.

 

There was also the Saturn online. What other failed online projects?

[AndrewTS 0]

Remember why Nintendo announced the add-on in the first place - to counter not only the dramatically increased storage capacity of CD media used by Sony, but also to counter Square's public and unceremonious dumping of Nintendo (its longstanding home) in favour of supporting Sony.

 

That would be fine and good...except for that glaring "add on" part.

 

I've already stated why an add on, especially for an unpopular console, was a poor idea from Nintendo, regardless of their other aims.

 

In fact, for a time the 64DD looked to be quite the awesome piece of hardware: with titles including Mario 64 II, Mother 3 (Earthbound) and Zelda, the unit was to provide constantly changing and evolving game worlds (think Animal Crossing) not possible on a cartridge or CD-based format, as well as delivering expansion paks for titles to extend game life.

 

Unfortunately, those titles never came out, and Nintendo jumped the gun, unable to see the rise of the DVD format. Not Nintendo's fault, I admit.

 

Now now Andrew, you're deliberately misunderstanding. Besides, what good ever came of the 32X? We've already established that the 64DD at least gave way to the RAM pak and GameBoy connectivity, as well as featured Nintendo's first online game.

 

The RAM pak didn't produce any "must-have" games and the GameBoy connectivity is no big deal. As Sakura said, at least the 32X had some good games.

 

Nintendo were locked into a contract with RandNET that they had to honour, thus the 64DD HAD to be produced and released, no matter how unsucessful a venture it would be. Nintendo actually made the best of a bad situation.

 

I repeat: add-on, add-on, add-on--for the N64. Did they plan this out so far ahead that by the time it was known the N64 was a failure it was too late?

 

In any case, exactly what DID Nintendo learn from Sega's screw-ups? Well, they learned that the DreamCast, an exceptional console lauded for its groundbreaking online capabilities, died an absolute death.

 

Because it used a medium that was percieved to be outdated and inferior--everyone jumped onto the DVD bandwagon. Until the PS2 was right around the corner, the Dreamcast was selling great and had awesome titles--on both sides of the Pacific.

 

So, faced with both the company's own first-hand experience with online and the fact that Sega had to pull out of console manufacturing entirely having fully supported an online infrastructure for its console, you still think it would be a good idea for Nintendo to jump into the next cycle with online this and that?

 

I think Nintendo would have learned that when you released two failed add-ons, and then botch a stand-alone console, that people are going to be a little reluctant to support a new console from that company after that.

 

Besides, there's a bizarre misconception that online capabilities sell systems. While I don't doubt that people who HAVE machines with online functionality would enjoy the fact that they can go online if they want to, people do not BUY machines simply because they feature online functionality.

 

Because without, you know, games to support them, no one would bother obviously.  Is this supposed to be a huge revelation?

In any case, console-based online gaming is almost exclusively an American pasttime, since broadband penetration in Japan, the Asian and most European territories is still almost invisible - in fact, most people in Japan haven't even been online for more than a couple of years.

 

Yet Nintendo didn't know this when they released the 64DD in Japan only?

 

I am simply stating that there are genuine reasons why Nintendo is not supporting online, and outlining what they are, because most people are under the impression that Nintendo has given up on it before they even attempted it, and this is just patently untrue.

 

No, they gave up on it before it actually became viable.

 

There are a million and one reasons why the GameCube has been the red-headed stepchild of this generation (misguided marketing, inappropriate console design, lack of third party support, lack of DVD player, choice of proprietry disc media etc. etc.), but its lack of online support is not a factor in its performance

 

Show me where I said that the lack of online support was the sole reason the Gamecube was doing so poorly before. I also referred to the choice in medium and lack of DVD player as well, and neglected the other things because it wasn't related to the discussion. It was one of several reasons, however. Online gaming is growing and Nintendo's going to be left behind a bit.

 

Besides, North American gamers are generally a fairly self-centered bunch, evidenced by the lack of awareness that the 64DD was even released anywhere; the GameCube has generally lagged in third place in the North American territory, this is true (although recently it has routinely been in second place), but North America is NOT the centre of the universe and this does not reflect the global picture. In Japan and Europe the GameCube is easily the second most popular console, as it is in other smaller territories.

 

When the 64DD apparently came out, nobody cared about the N64 and I don't recall any coverage of its existence in magazines anywhere.

 

Also, if you can't support what should be your most major console in all your major markets, then you're going to have a problem. The Famicom Disc system (which most people here haven't even heard of except for those up on our Castlevania trivia) wasn't too bad since it wasn't supposed to be so much a brand new system as something to expand the NES' capabilities.

 

However, lets assume that the 64DD somehow succeeded in Japan on the strength of its games alone. Nintendo would then be pressured to release high profile titles on it...which they WOULD NOT be able to release stateside. Aside from that, they would still be supporting the Game Boy Color. At this SAME TIME they were working on the Virtual Boy, which managed to be worse than the N64 and 64DD by leaps and bounds.

 

So, Nintendo was planning to support the 64DD and N64 in Japan, the N64 in the USA. Nintendo would have to have plenty of fresh high-profile titles on at least the American N64 to keep it afloat, so Nintendo would have to support two major consoles at once. PLUS they would have to support the Virtual Boy in two different regions if it had succeeded enough to warrant support. In the meantime, the Game Boy Color was still around and still making them money.

 

You were basically telling me that it wouldn't have mattered in the grand scheme of things if one country welcomed the 64DD while another didn't. I call bullshit, because that would mean that they'd have to simultaneously support both, while dealing with their portables (if you can call the VB that). That would be spreading themselves too thin.

 

N64, 64DD, VB--all in the span of a few years. If you don't think there were some major, forseeable mistakes made there, I don't know what to say.

 

However, you ignored my question of: did Nintendo not do any marketing research ahead of time to see what they should do before jumping the gun?

 

I honestly can't picture the Virtual Boy ever getting the rubber stamp after a careful test marking campaign.

 

The fact is that Nintendo is a lot like the WWF in a lot of ways, making truly puzzling decisions and failing to see obvious truths that are constantly staring them in the face while simulatenously biting them in the ass.

 

Actually, WWF/E had done waaaay stupider things. However, unlike the launch of the Gamecube with Luigi, at least WWE hasn't hired Brutus Beefcake back to headline a Pay Per View.

[AndrewTS 0]

Interesting feature on Nintendo's many oddball peripherals.

 

64DD

Pity the poor 64DD -- it was probably doomed from the moment of conception. Touted from before the N64's launch as a perfect, inexpensive expansion system for the company's 64-bit console, the 64DD lagged about in development limbo until it was finally canned for U.S. release. The add-on did see life in Japan, presumably as a desperate bid by the company to recoup at least a portion of its development costs, but it did so in a terribly limited capacity. A mere handful of titles were released for it, one of which was just an add-on for F-Zero X. The only worthwhile games -- Animal Forest (aka Animal Crossing) and Doujin the Giant -- were remade for the GameCube.

 

In theory, the 64DD could have been great. Based on technology similar to Iomega's Zip Drive (though hopefully less susceptible to the Click of Death), the 64DD would have offered an affordable and completely rewritable alternative to the console's expensive silicon carts. Some of the promised software, particularly the ambitious Mother 64, promised amazing potential for innovation and play depth. But the price of cartridges came down, ROM sizes grew (Ogre Battle 64 featured twice the 64DD's capacity), and the N64 foundered at retail. Of all of these wacky Nintendo inventions, this is the one that really deserved better. A moment of silence.

[Guest DVD Spree]

Hey, is this thing on? Goddamn boards. If this bastard thing fatal errors me again, I'm going to be a very pissed off bunny.

 

After all this time, my passion for this thread has waned a little, so if no-one can be arsed replying to all my nonsense, I totally dig.

 

The RAM pak didn't produce any "must-have" games and the GameBoy connectivity is no big deal. As Sakura said, at least the 32X had some good games.

Yep, I agreed with that totally - the 32X actually had some good software. But, as I said before, in the context of the hardware and what the add-on achieved and contributed to either the current system (64DD - N64, 32X - MegaDrive) or the next generation system (64DD- GameCube, 32X - Saturn) the 64DD actually contributed a fair bit to the technology. Yes, yes, nobody likes GameBoy connectivity, I know that, but the fact is that Nintendo have made it a big part of GameCube functionality, and it was first fully exploited on the 64DD. BUT I'M NOT SAYNIG CONNECTIVITY IS OUR HOPE AND SAVIOUR. And the RAM pak... you wouldn't call Perfect Dark a must-have? How about Rogue Squadron, which has spawned two massive-selling sequels and arguably the GameCube's first killer app? Both the GameCube and N64 owe a lot to the 64DD; yes, the 32X had some good software, but it didn't really contribute anything to the technology of the MegaDrive or Saturn, and that's the point I was making.

 

I repeat: add-on, add-on, add-on--for the N64. Did they plan this out so far ahead that by the time it was known the N64 was a failure it was too late?

Yup, that's about the size of it.

 

I think Nintendo would have learned that when you released two failed add-ons, and then botch a stand-alone console, that people are going to be a little reluctant to support a new console from that company after that.

And you would be quite right, but you also have to concede that all the available information at the time (the DreamCast's failure and the failed 64DD experiment) emphatically proved that console-based online functionality did not sell systems. Sega nearly went bust keeping the DreamCast alive (man it was sad driving through London while they dissembled Sega's old offices and teh company moved into a little shitbox setup), and as ill-conceived as teh 64DD ultimately was, it only reinforced teh idea that people weren't going to support a console no matter how online-capable it was. Yes, today is a different story, I know and am not arguing that; all I'm doing is stating WHY Nintendo decided not to back onlnie ventures - I'm not defending the decision, just pointing it out, because very few people seem to know. For the record, I think it's a huge fucking mistake.

 

Yet Nintendo didn't know this when they released the 64DD in Japan only?

Like I said, if they had their way Nintendo likely wouldn't have released the damn thing at all, but they were locked into a contract and they had to deliver a system to support RandNET - it wasn't a matter of choice.

 

they gave up on it before it actually became viable.

Yes, that would be a fair assessment of the situation. But it still isn't true to say they never attempted it, and that really is the only point I was trying to make when this whole debate started.

 

Show me where I said that the lack of online support was the sole reason the Gamecube was doing so poorly before. I also referred to the choice in medium and lack of DVD player as well, and neglected the other things because it wasn't related to the discussion.

Um, but you never said that. And I never said you did either. It was a general point, related to the fact that everyone seems to be in such a tizzy about online being the reason GameCube is where it is. I don't know if anyone here necessarily subscribes to the theory, but I've heard it repeated so often that it seems to be a common misconception amongst less informed gamers (I guess we're videogame Smarks).

 

When the 64DD apparently came out, nobody cared about the N64 and I don't recall any coverage of its existence in magazines anywhere.

Well, like I said, the American gaming market is pretty self-centred. Indeed, American gamers as a whole have no knowledge of teh Japanese market, and the fact that there are literally THOUSANDS more titles available. Just because the import market gets no pub in the US, doesn't mean nobody cares about it. When Nintendo's latest console the iQue came out, where was the US magazine coverage? How about the WonderSwan, GP32, and Panasonic Q? The import market in the UK and Europe is huge, and while I appreciate that it is not the same in the US, that does not the fact is that one country's lack of interest in something does not mean it is not of public interest.

 

Also, if you can't support what should be your most major console in all your major markets, then you're going to have a problem. The Famicom Disc system (which most people here haven't even heard of except for those up on our Castlevania trivia) wasn't too bad since it wasn't supposed to be so much a brand new system as something to expand the NES' capabilities.

 

However, lets assume that the 64DD somehow succeeded in Japan on the strength of its games alone. Nintendo would then be pressured to release high profile titles on it...which they WOULD NOT be able to release stateside. Aside from that, they would still be supporting the Game Boy Color. At this SAME TIME they were working on the Virtual Boy, which managed to be worse than the N64 and 64DD by leaps and bounds.

 

So, Nintendo was planning to support the 64DD and N64 in Japan, the N64 in the USA. Nintendo would have to have plenty of fresh high-profile titles on at least the American N64 to keep it afloat, so Nintendo would have to support two major consoles at once. PLUS they would have to support the Virtual Boy in two different regions if it had succeeded enough to warrant support. In the meantime, the Game Boy Color was still around and still making them money.

You're confusing the INITIAL plans for the 64DD with what ultimately became of the platform, which remember was only released aftert the N64 was already dead and buried.

 

The 64DD was planned to be a peripheral released in every territory, so these notion sof only developing software for it in Japan "which they WOULD NOT be able to release stateside" are nonsense, as is the idea that "lets assume that the 64DD somehow succeeded in Japan on the strength of its games alone". You cannot apply the circumstances surrounding the 64DD eventual release to the initial plans for the machine. That's like saying hey, this rock band sells out stadiums now, so why didn't they play dome shows back in the 70s when they were selling tapes out of the back of their truck? The 64DD was never intended as a Japan-only device, and it was never intended to be released when the N64 was a dying console. There was never an issue of "Nintendo was planning to support the 64DD and N64 in Japan, the N64 in the USA". And there was never a chance that the 64DD could succeed in Japan, because the mother unit was already at the end of its life cycle - the 64DD, upon its actual release, was never intended to somehow miraculously save the N64 or make it to foreign markets; as I have said again and again, it HAD to be released somewhere due to contractual obligations, and Japan still had some degree of N64 development at that time. After all, Custom Robo V2 and Sin and Punishment were two of the console's brightest moments, and they were released around that time. (and again, Sin and Punishment is hailed by hardcore gamers as one of the best titles on the console, yet it got virtually no press in the US). The only reason the device only made it into Japanese release is because that was the only territory that the N64 still had any legs.

 

As for the Virtual Boy... well, if you think that figured into Nintendo's long-term development plans, you is crazee. Although you're right, the Famicom disk drive was awesome.

 

You were basically telling me that it wouldn't have mattered in the grand scheme of things if one country welcomed the 64DD while another didn't. I call bullshit, because that would mean that they'd have to simultaneously support both, while dealing with their portables (if you can call the VB that). That would be spreading themselves too thin.

No, I didn't say that, but I can see that you think I inferred it from the comments above. I didn't say anything about one coutry welcoming the 64DD while another doesn't, because like I said, you're applying hypotheticals that don't apply. There was NEVER a concern over supporting the 64DD in ANY country. The machine was never intended to achieve any more than it did - fulfil a requirement of a contract with the RandNET people and recoup some development cash. In 1999 Nintendo were never going to support the device, and in any case it wouldn't have interfered with their support of the N64, which was non-existent as everything was geared towards Dolphin development. You're trying to apply the initial goals and functions of the machine outlined in 1996, when both it and the N64 were newly-announced, to the device's ultimate release in 1999, and as I've said, that isn't fair and doesn't provide a realistic base of analysis. The 64DD, upon release in 1999, was not intended to achieve 80% of the objectives set out for it in 1996, so condemning it in that context really serves no purpose.

 

It was never a case of spreading themselves too thin - the Virtual Boy, N64 and 64DD were all the furthest thing from Nintendo's mind at that point, and they couldn't give a shit about any of the three platforms because they were into heavy Dolphin development. And again, if you think that Ninty devotes thousands of man-hours and resources into the frigging GameBoy... crazee.

 

N64, 64DD, VB--all in the span of a few years. If you don't think there were some major, forseeable mistakes made there, I don't know what to say.

Well, I don't know what to say either, because I never said that there weren't huge fucking mistakes made. Jesus, all the time I've been arguing the points of the 64DD, I've been saying things like "ill-fated" and "ill-conceived". The Virtual Boy is a joke (albeit a very collectible joke), and while I've been defending Nintendo's decisions regarding online, I've still been saying I disagree with those too.

 

So please, don't think that I'm saying the N64 was a collossal success, the 64DD was a brilliant add-on, GameBoy connectivity is better than online gaming and the GameCube is only failing because it doesn't have online games, because I don't think that AT ALL.

 

However, you ignored my question of: did Nintendo not do any marketing research ahead of time to see what they should do before jumping the gun?

Well, I don't really know how I'm supposed to know that - would you like me to go to Kyoto and ask Miyamoto-san? You still seem to be harbouring these misconceptions that Nintendo released the 64DD because they thought it would be a good idea and might revitalise the N64 or something, but that's just not the case - they HAD to release the damn thing because they were legally obliged to, market research had nothing to frigging do with it. What they did was arguably turn a shitty situation INTO a market research opportunity, that's not so hard to understand, surely. Hell, I even gave a Peer Shneider quote explaining the thinking behind it.

 

Actually, WWF/E had done waaaay stupider things. However, unlike the launch of the Gamecube with Luigi, at least WWE hasn't hired Brutus Beefcake back to headline a Pay Per View.

SummerSlam 89? WrestleMania IX? At least Miyamoto doesn't put his frigging children in Smash Brothers so they can go over Mario.

[Anya 0]

I would not say PD is a must have. In fact just thinking about it makes me angry. GoldenEye is a classic....PD sucks.

[Guest DVD Spree]

I would not say PD is a must have. In fact just thinking about it makes me angry. GoldenEye is a classic....PD sucks.

Controversial!

 

I dunno. I never got to play GoldenEye in multiplayer until AFTER I'd been playing multiplayer PD for months, so I'm naturally biased towards PD in that respect. The co-op missions are enough to put PD above GoldenEye though, even if the slowown is generally horrendous.

 

But sheet, I don't wanna start another debate where I spend the whole time on the defensive, so yeah... Perfect Dark sucks balls.

[BUTT 0]

The only reason the device only made it into Japanese release is because that was the only territory that the N64 still had any legs.

I don't know about that. N64 was much more successful in the US than Japan.

 

By the way, does anyone know the approximate cost of running an online console gaming network? I'd imagine Microsoft and (especially) Sony aren't making any profits from it.

[AndrewTS 0]

And the RAM pak... you wouldn't call Perfect Dark a must-have? How about Rogue Squadron, which has spawned two massive-selling sequels and arguably the GameCube's first killer app?

 

I don't like FPSers not called Metroid Prime, and I rented Rogue Squadron--did not like it.

 

The thing I hated most about N64...okay, one of the things I hated most about the N64, was that nearly every other release was a damn FPS.

 

Most of the rest were ports of old Playstation games or something like that.

 

"I repeat: add-on, add-on, add-on--for the N64. Did they plan this out so far ahead that by the time it was known the N64 was a failure it was too late?"

 

Yup, that's about the size of it.

 

Okay, this was the part I didn't quite get. I wouldn't think that Nintendo would plan waaay far ahead of time to release a very unconventional add-on for a system that had yet to be proven, and let themselves be roped into a long-term contract like the RandNET one.

 

So basically, it wasn't so hot an idea from the start, but the real "why?" could be summed up in three words: escalation of commitment. The n64 came out quite a bit after the Saturn and Playstation. It seems to be from the degree that the 64DD was planned ahead, that Nintendo was under pressure to release something, and while perhaps the 64DD and N64 were supposed to come out together in one machine, Nintendo felt they had to throw out the n64 by itself--settling for released a half-ass machine rather than nothing at all. If they waited too much longer, their competitors will have gulped up so much market share that they'd have a hard time coming back.

 

The question I was asking about "marketing research" was that I was asking if Nintendo researched the viability and interest in the 64DD/N64 set up before they had made the commitment to RandNET. I can buy that there was some interest because of the similarity to the Famicom Disk System, but if research had shown *NO* interest in online gaming, I don't see why Nintendo would have gone ahead with the RantNET agreement.

 

Likewise, I don't see how Nintendo could have dome marketing research on the Virtual Boy and this GB DS and decided "hey, we should do this!"

 

Now, I loathe the use of focus groups and so forth for deciding what games should be released in America and so forth--usually when Sega would do it they would grab some little kid out of a mall who was there with a parent, regardless of if the kid was interested in gaming or anything of the sort, then have the kids give their impressions on products they've never tried before.

 

How do I know that? I was one of those kids a couple years before I got my first video game system, the Genesis. The marketing feedback I gave was, among others, that the Game Gear was way better than the Gameboy (Hey, I didn't know any better. I saw one had color and the other didn't).

 

However, there's a difference between that and determining your target markets, and finding out if a certain piece of hardware is at all viable. If you asked the gamers' opinions about some of Nintendo's failures beforehand, I'd think lots of mistakes could have been avoided.

 

The import market in the UK and Europe is huge, and while I appreciate that it is not the same in the US, that does not the fact is that one country's lack of interest in something does not mean it is not of public interest.

 

Unless something major changed since I last heard, isn't the entire video game market much smaller in Europe, and especially the UK, than it is in the States? At least UK I'm pretty certain on. The UK has to import a lot of titles that we get anyway. Because of PAL TVs, it's even more of a pain because usually the games are incompatible so NTSC systems, NTSC TVs, and adapter plugs are needed to play games over there. Otherwise, they usually get low-quality, very late versions of games we've already gotten. Often times they're letterboxed to boot.

 

Again, I may be going on outdated info, and Sony's mainstreaming of gaming may have had a similar effect on Europe/UK, but I doubt it has changed that much. I've heard quite a number of complaints online from UK gamers who say "you US gamers have no idea how good you have it" anytime that a US gamer bitches about X Japanese release not making it Stateside.

 

On a related note: how *is* Sin and Punishment? I've yet to know anyone who actually played the game.

 

And the RAM pak... you wouldn't call Perfect Dark a must-have? How about Rogue Squadron, which has spawned two massive-selling sequels and arguably the GameCube's first killer app?

 

I don't like FPSers not called Metroid Prime, and I rented Rogue Squadron--did not like it.

 

"I repeat: add-on, add-on, add-on--for the N64. Did they plan this out so far ahead that by the time it was known the N64 was a failure it was too late?"

 

Yup, that's about the size of it.

 

Okay, this was the part I didn't quite get. I wouldn't think that Nintendo would plan waaay far ahead of time to release a very unconventional add-on for a system that had yet to be proven, and let themselves be roped into a long-term contract like the RandNET one.

 

So basically, it wasn't so hot an idea from the start, but the real "why?" could be summed up in three words: escalation of commitment. The n64 came out quite a bit after the Saturn and Playstation. It seems to be from the degree that the 64DD was planned ahead, that Nintendo was under pressure to release something, and while perhaps the 64DD and N64 were supposed to come out together in one machine, Nintendo felt they had to throw out the n64 by itself--settling for released a half-ass machine rather than nothing at all. If they waited too much longer, their competitors will have gulped up so much market share that they'd have a hard time coming back.

 

The question I was asking about "marketing research" was that I was asking if Nintendo researched the viability and interest in the 64DD/N64 set up before they had made the commitment to RandNET. I can buy that there was some interest because of the similarity to the Famicom Disk System, but if research had shown *NO* interest in online gaming, I don't see why Nintendo would have gone ahead with the RantNET agreement.

 

Likewise, I don't see how Nintendo could have dome marketing research on the Virtual Boy and this GB DS and decided "hey, we should do this!"

 

Now, I loathe the use of focus groups and so forth for deciding what games should be released in America and so forth--usually when Sega would do it they would grab some little kid out of a mall who was there with a parent, regardless of if the kid was interested in gaming or anything of the sort, then have the kids give their impressions on products they've never tried before.

 

How do I know that? I was one of those kids a couple years before I got my first video game system, the Genesis. The marketing feedback I gave was, among others, that the Game Gear was way better than the Gameboy (Hey, I didn't know any better. I saw one had color and the other didn't).

 

However, there's a difference between that and determining your target markets, and finding out if a certain piece of hardware is at all viable. If you asked the gamers' opinions about some of Nintendo's failures beforehand, I'd think lots of mistakes could have been avoided.

 

The import market in the UK and Europe is huge, and while I appreciate that it is not the same in the US, that does not the fact is that one country's lack of interest in something does not mean it is not of public interest.

 

Unless something major changed since I last heard, isn't the entire video game market much smaller in Europe, and especially the UK, than it is in the States? At least UK I'm pretty certain on. The UK has to import a lot of titles that we get anyway. Because of PAL TVs, it's even more of a pain because usually the games are incompatible so NTSC systems, NTSC TVs, and adapter plugs are needed to play games over there. Otherwise, they usually get low-quality, very late versions of games we've already gotten. Often times they're letterboxed to boot.

 

Again, I may be going on outdated info, and Sony's mainstreaming of gaming may have had a similar effect on Europe/UK, but I doubt it has changed that much. I've heard quite a number of complaints online from UK gamers who say "you US gamers have no idea how good you have it" anytime that a US gamer bitches about X Japanese release not making it Stateside.

 

On a related note: how *is* Sin and Punishment? I've yet to know anyone who actually played the game.

 

SummerSlam 89? WrestleMania IX?

 

I said "hired back" Beefcake. You're talking about when Beefcake was initially in WWF before leaving for WCW with his buddy Hogan. Even in those cases a) both were tag teaming with Hogan b) Beefcake was over back then c) WMIX didn't have that tag match as the main event. The M.E.'s was the Yoko/Bret WWF Championship match.

 

At least Miyamoto doesn't put his frigging children in Smash Brothers so they can go over Mario.

 

Okay, got me there. I don't know if he has children, though.

[Guest DVD Spree]

I don't know about that. N64 was much more successful in the US than Japan.

Well, I didn't say it was more successful in Japan, but by the end of the console's life, there were still new games being released in Japan when virtually nothing came out in other territories - Sin and Punishment is a perfect example of Japanese companies trying to keep th emachine on life support, but not getting released in the US. Such a shame.

[Guest DVD Spree]

I don't like FPSers not called Metroid Prime, and I rented Rogue Squadron--did not like it.

That's cool, different strokes, different folks and all, but most people consider Perfect Dark one of the system's best games, and Rogue Squadron was a massive seller on the N64, and also on the GC where it was the first killer app, so I still maintain that at least two good things came out of the RAM pak (and, subsequently, the 64DD). Although, calling Metroid Prime a FPS is controversial.

 

Okay, this was the part I didn't quite get. I wouldn't think that Nintendo would plan waaay far ahead of time to release a very unconventional add-on for a system that had yet to be proven, and let themselves be roped into a long-term contract like the RandNET one.

Well, that's just the way things go sometimes. They had HUGE plans for th drive, which ultimately just got bogged down in development. They were sincere when they announced Zelda, Mother 3 and Mario 64 II for it, so I don't see any reason to believe that they didn't have long term plans for the unit. But when Mother 3 hit all the troubles it did, and Mario 64 II became a next-gen title (Sunshine), things started to fall apart.

 

You're right, it's hard to believe they got things so very wrong. At the same time:

 

Likewise, I don't see how Nintendo could have dome marketing research on the Virtual Boy and this GB DS and decided "hey, we should do this!"

Nintendo is just being Nintendo. Does ANYONE see anything good coming of the DS? Have they done any marketing or screening for it? Have they given the games press any reason NOT to be utterly sceptical about it?

 

This really all comes back to your market research point (which I now undertsnad what you mean). Nintendo doesn't typically use research in the first instance to veto software or hardware. I believe that they occasionally do focus group-style research in the US to gauge response to titles they are planning to localise, but as far as taking betas and prototype hardware on the road, that's not how they do things. Which probably explains a great deal of the situation the company currently finds itself in, and you're absolutely right, with proper feedback from the gaming community, a lot of Virtual Boy-stylee mistakes could have been avoided.

 

Unless something major changed since I last heard, isn't the entire video game market much smaller in Europe, and especially the UK, than it is in the States? At least UK I'm pretty certain on. The UK has to import a lot of titles that we get anyway. Because of PAL TVs, it's even more of a pain because usually the games are incompatible so NTSC systems, NTSC TVs, and adapter plugs are needed to play games over there. Otherwise, they usually get low-quality, very late versions of games we've already gotten. Often times they're letterboxed to boot.

I'm afraid quite a lot has changed since you last heard. While Europe and Australia (PAL territories) have traditionally been shit all over in terms of software releases and lack of optimisation (when the time is not taken to correctly optimise software for PAL televisions, games run 17.5% slower and with borders at the top and bottom of the screen), the market here is still nonetheless huge. When Sony got into the game, it totally shaped up the market - release dates are in many cases synched with US release dates, and I can't think of the last title that wasn't optimised. So yeah, I think your information is out of date - certainly in the SNES and early N64 era, the PAL territories were much less significant. However, for the past eight years or so the UK, Europe and Australia has been just huge for gaming, and teh days of late releases and letterboxing are long gone.

 

At the same time, that is irrelevant to the point I was making - I was saying that the IMPORT market here is huge, which is only reinforced by your saying "The UK has to import a lot of titles that we get anyway." Like I said, traditionally PAL markets have been shit on by companies and we didn't get a great many titles that were released in the US. Then again, the US gets shit on a great deal more by the titles released in Japan that never make it over there, and it is arguably the Japanese import market that is much bigger than the American one. Today, we get 90% of titles that are treleased in the US, but the US and UK combined probably get about 60% of what is released in Japan. The point I was making is that the rest of the world has been used to importing Japanese titles forever, which is why I said that while you guys may never have heard of things like the 64DD, Sin & Punishment, Panasonic Q, iQue etc. etc. etc., the rest of the world did and took great interest in them.

 

On a related note: how *is* Sin and Punishment? I've yet to know anyone who actually played the game.

It's awesome - it's made by Treasure, so if you like their flavour of mental shoot-em-ups then you'll love it. What's so baffling about the game not getting a US release is that the whole thing is in English, and was totally accessible to Western gamers (unlike, say, VPW2 which contained a lot of Japanese text), so no localisation was required. All they had to do was slap the damn thing in an American box, but like I said, non-Japanese markets had long given up on the cnosole by then.

 

I said "hired back" Beefcake. You're talking about when Beefcake was initially in WWF before leaving for WCW with his buddy Hogan. Even in those cases a) both were tag teaming with Hogan b) Beefcake was over back then c) WMIX didn't have that tag match as the main event. The M.E.'s was the Yoko/Bret WWF Championship match.

I know, I know, I was just being pedantic. Although the Hulk/Brutus match was all over the promotion for the event -- Rock-Hogan wasn't "technically" the main event of Mania X8 either, but come on. And as long as Hogan is trying to pull all his politics in TNA, don't think there isn't a chance that Raven and AJ Styles will be jobbing to the Booty Man before long...

[AndrewTS 0]

That's cool, different strokes, different folks and all, but most people consider Perfect Dark one of the system's best games, and Rogue Squadron was a massive seller on the N64, and also on the GC where it was the first killer app, so I still maintain that at least two good things came out of the RAM pak (and, subsequently, the 64DD).

 

While I understand they are related, the 64DD wasn't needed to run those games.

 

Although, calling Metroid Prime a FPS is controversial.

 

Eh, whatever. I dislike it when people make a big deal over what genre a game is called. Maybe "First Person Adventure" is the proper term, since you can jump around effectively and roll into a ball. However, that's still a First Person Shooter to me. I'd call something a little less ambitious, bland, and cookie-cutter by its proper term: Doom Clone.

 

and Mario 64 II became a next-gen title (Sunshine), things started to fall apart.

 

Is that really even the truth, incidentally? M64-2 was, from what I had originally heard, supposed to let you play Mario and Luigi. Sunshine I had always heard was a new game from the ground up. Sounds similar to the "Sonic XTreme later became Adventure" even though none of the same team worked on it and the games are nothing alike from what we know. Just because an old 3D game was axed doesn't mean the new 3D game built upon it.

 

(Man, this topic spiraled off-topic pretty badly. )

 

Nintendo is just being Nintendo. Does ANYONE see anything good coming of the DS? Have they done any marketing or screening for it? Have they given the games press any reason NOT to be utterly sceptical about it?

 

Nope--which is why we're here. Yeah, it is really unfair to give hell to a machine that nobody has played yet, but is sounds so impractical it's hard to do much else.

At least the 64DD was supposed to be practically. However, like the VB, this system seems built upon a gimmick with limited appeal and application.

 

I can actually see the reasoning behind the E-Reader. If you have plenty of money to blow it is a great idea, since the cards can contain entire classic games. However, using them to unlock stuff that could have already been contained in the GBA games they work with seems pretty crooked and greedy.

 

This really all comes back to your market research point (which I now undertsnad what you mean). Nintendo doesn't typically use research in the first instance to veto software or hardware. I believe that they occasionally do focus group-style research in the US to gauge response to titles they are planning to localise, but as far as taking betas and prototype hardware on the road, that's not how they do things. Which probably explains a great deal of the situation the company currently finds itself in, and you're absolutely right, with proper feedback from the gaming community, a lot of Virtual Boy-stylee mistakes could have been avoided.

 

Okay. I can sort of see why not, because they may figure the process would stifle creatively and kill off a lot of actual good ideas at the outset. Nintendo has gone ahead with tons of off-the-wall, quirky ideas that few other companies would risk doing. At the same time, it would help prevent a lot of major blunders like those.

Not that they have to listen to the research--just use it to get a feel for things. If you're going to launch a system that's whole appeal is based around a rather impractical gimmick, then maybe it's best that it is killed quietly.

 

Still, a happy medium can be struck. Sega's marketing research was terribly misused and the results were costly. They just resorted to constant hocking of shitty licensed games, not supporting good games that had the misfortune of being original.

 

Today, we get 90% of titles that are treleased in the US, but the US and UK combined probably get about 60% of what is released in Japan. The point I was making is that the rest of the world has been used to importing Japanese titles forever, which is why I said that while you guys may never have heard of things like the 64DD, Sin & Punishment, Panasonic Q, iQue etc. etc. etc., the rest of the world did and took great interest in them.

 

Maybe the UK gamers I heard from recently were bitching about the other 10%.

 

And yeah, Japan has way more games released there, but I'm not exactly crying over missing out on dating sims, hentai games, Sailor Moon fighters, and so on.

 

We heard about the 64DD, the Q, and a good bit of Japan stuff (like the PSX disaster now), but mainly we're talking the major stuff.

 

I'm glad things changed for ya guys. 16 bit era sounded like a gamer's hell in UK. I also managed to pick up once, by mistake, UK magazine that apparently was being published here briefly. I think it was just a UK Sega magazine (Megaplay?), and it was the most astoundingly shitty game magazine I've ever seen. It made Flux and Gamepro seem fantastic. Are all your magazines in the UK printed on pages that friggin' huge?

 

It's awesome - it's made by Treasure, so if you like their flavour of mental shoot-em-ups then you'll love it. What's so baffling about the game not getting a US release is that the whole thing is in English, and was totally accessible to Western gamers (unlike, say, VPW2 which contained a lot of Japanese text), so no localisation was required. All they had to do was slap the damn thing in an American box, but like I said, non-Japanese markets had long given up on the cnosole by then.

 

I had heard of it originally from classicgaming.com's Contra site. By "mental shoot 'em ups" are we talking "friggin' hard pattern-based gameplay?" I like Contra for instance, but the games that are just hard as hell and expect you to memorize everything and make it through on 3 lives aren't my cup of tea. I'm more of a Metal Slugger myself.

 

In general, I've been skeptical of all the blind praise I often see about Treasure, many times from people who have never played a certain one of their games.

 

And as long as Hogan is trying to pull all his politics in TNA, don't think there isn't a chance that Raven and AJ Styles will be jobbing to the Booty Man before long...

 

Not a chance.

 

....WWE owns the trademark.

 

However, they might end up jobbing to an evil "Oriental" wrestler.

[Guest DVD Spree]

You were right about this thread veering wildly off-topic - which more than anything else, shows how little interest there seems to be in teh DS. Oh well.

 

While I understand they are related, the 64DD wasn't needed to run those games.

Nope, but without the DD, the RAM Pak would never have been released, and games like PD and Rogue would have had to be SEVERELY scaled-down in order to run (at least Rogue was still playable, albeit looking a lot more ragged, without the pak, but with PD half of the play options weren't available without it).

 

Eh, whatever. I dislike it when people make a big deal over what genre a game is called. Maybe "First Person Adventure" is the proper term, since you can jump around effectively and roll into a ball. However, that's still a First Person Shooter to me. I'd call something a little less ambitious, bland, and cookie-cutter by its proper term: Doom Clone.

Yeah I know, I was just being pedantic again, since I used to get shouted at for calling it an FPS when, admittedly, it really isn't. It's just easier to explain to people who haven't played it as an FPS rather than saying "Well, it looks like an FPS, but it's really an exploration and adventure titles with occasioanl FPS elements."

 

Is that really even the truth, incidentally? M64-2 was, from what I had originally heard, supposed to let you play Mario and Luigi. Sunshine I had always heard was a new game from the ground up. Sounds similar to the "Sonic XTreme later became Adventure" even though none of the same team worked on it and the games are nothing alike from what we know. Just because an old 3D game was axed doesn't mean the new 3D game built upon it.

Well, from everything I heard, the title was always envisioned to be pretty much a Sunshine-esque reworking of the original title as opposed to a whole new build from the ground up. I don't think Mario 64 II (for which code was actually written and sits somewhere in a Kyoto vault) actually evolved into Sunshine by any means, but when the project was scrapped and assigned as a GameCube development, it was certainly spiritually related. Given the 200+ R&D team at Nintendo's new lab, it's hard to tell who's working on anything these days...

 

I agree with everything you said about the DS and e-Reader. I think if this were the 16-bit era, which in many ways Nintendo still seems to be stuck in, this stuff would have fared a lot better. But in a three-home console race where Nintendo isn't doing all that great, these ideas really are luxuries that most people won't bother with. I know I'd rather buy two or three GameCube games than a DS, even though I'll probably pick one up for curiosity's sake.

 

Okay. I can sort of see why not, because they may figure the process would stifle creatively and kill off a lot of actual good ideas at the outset. Nintendo has gone ahead with tons of off-the-wall, quirky ideas that few other companies would risk doing. At the same time, it would help prevent a lot of major blunders like those.

Not that they have to listen to the research--just use it to get a feel for things. If you're going to launch a system that's whole appeal is based around a rather impractical gimmick, then maybe it's best that it is killed quietly.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there, and it really harks back to Nintendo's being a very traditional Japanese company who follow and stick by their own ethics regardless of what the rest of teh world thinks. And yes, on the one hand it means that they take chances and release some mind-blowing and original stuff, but it also means that they release a square purple console as their flagship machine. To me, and to Nintendo, that's cool, but commercially it's suicide. They could certainly do a lot worse than have a proper market/testing service but I can't ever see them changing their ways. The DS won't be the last of their wacky misadventures, that's for sure.

 

Maybe the UK gamers I heard from recently were bitching about the other 10%.

 

And yeah, Japan has way more games released there, but I'm not exactly crying over missing out on dating sims, hentai games, Sailor Moon fighters, and so on.

 

We heard about the 64DD, the Q, and a good bit of Japan stuff (like the PSX disaster now), but mainly we're talking the major stuff.

Well, there's always a few instances, and things like NCAA titles that have a cult-like following never get released here. Bear in mind that online gamers are kinda like online wrestling fans - they're more informed about things like Animal Crossing that the general gamers might not even have heard of, so are more likely to bitch about it. Then again, I can't believe anyone is so lazy as to want a game that's available on import, but fart and whinge waiting for a domestic release.

 

As for Japanese games, well there's a shitload of good stuff that everyone's missing out on - judging by reaction in these forums, VPW2 would be a major one, since it's an N64 title that people are still trying to buy now, nearly four years later.

 

I'm glad things changed for ya guys. 16 bit era sounded like a gamer's hell in UK. I also managed to pick up once, by mistake, UK magazine that apparently was being published here briefly. I think it was just a UK Sega magazine (Megaplay?), and it was the most astoundingly shitty game magazine I've ever seen. It made Flux and Gamepro seem fantastic. Are all your magazines in the UK printed on pages that friggin' huge?

Well, like I said, we've got an import culture here, so I feel no pity for anyone who says they want a game "so badly", knows it's out in Japan or the US, but sits and waits for it to get a UK release. I've only ever bought UK games for the PlayStation (because they were cheap in a discount bin) and the Neo Geo cart system. Other than that, my library is entirely US/Japanese.

 

megaplay sounds half-familiar... in fairness, there were a lot of shitty magazines put out by small companies back then. Actually, most of our magazines here are much bigger than US mags - I dont really know why. Mags the size of EGM tend to get lost on the shelves here, so I guess it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that mags have to be big to sell, so nobody bothers making them smaller and they stay the same size. I know NGC used to make their mag ridiculously huge so they could call it "The biggest selling GameCube mag in the UK!", but they've since made it a more compact, sensible size. Oh well, good to wipe your bum with if you're out camping.

 

I had heard of it originally from classicgaming.com's Contra site. By "mental shoot 'em ups" are we talking "friggin' hard pattern-based gameplay?" I like Contra for instance, but the games that are just hard as hell and expect you to memorize everything and make it through on 3 lives aren't my cup of tea. I'm more of a Metal Slugger myself.

 

In general, I've been skeptical of all the blind praise I often see about Treasure, many times from people who have never played a certain one of their games.

It actually treads a nice balance between enjoyable shoot-em-up and memorise-everything-or-you-die (which I also am not a fan of). It's not insanely hard like Ikaragua, but it's no cakewalk by any means. I think I'd still side with Metal Slug, just because I've got a soft spot for 2D side scrollers.

 

Treasure are kinda like the Ultimo Dragon of the gaming world - everyone fellates them like crazy and talks about how great they are to sound smart, but when it comes down to it, very few people actually own the Japanese comps to back up their alleged fanhood. I'm not a Treasure lover by any means, but S&P is certainly typical of the company.

 

Not a chance.

 

....WWE owns the trademark.

 

However, they might end up jobbing to an evil "Oriental" wrestler.

Genuis!

 

They could always call him "Ed The Hairdresser" or something. I still don't put it past Hogan to bring him back with him in some capacity wherever he ends up though. Maybe he'll be a "legend" at Mania XX...

[Renegade 0]

As a UK gamer where do you import your games from Spree? I have a few contacts in Hong Kong that hook me up with games now and again but besides that and Lik-sang stuff is just too expensive to import.

 

Neo AES? That stuff is expensive.

[Guest DVD Spree]

As a UK gamer where do you import your games from Spree? I have a few contacts in Hong Kong that hook me up with games now and again but besides that and Lik-sang stuff is just too expensive to import.

 

Neo AES? That stuff is expensive.

 

(Sorry dude, I'm not usually online Friday-Monday.)

 

Well, I used to be a diehard Another World fan, but I finally got tired of paying £65-£70 for import stuff and they appear to have stopped selling import GC titles anyway (after the Nintendo clampdown, I think). Before that it was Krazy Konsoles, who I think are out of business now, and Raven Games (http://www.ravengames.co.uk) have always been reliable.

 

These days, I ONLY get US games from http://www.videogamesplus.ca, because the current exchange rate means that new games are about £20-£25. I've been using the company for a good few years now and they are so f'in good - really quick, cheap shipping too (only £5!).

 

Japanese games I've been getting less off recently, but http://www.fl-games.com are pretty good. They're French, but don't hold it against them - the customer service is great, and in English, and games work out about £45 including shipping.

 

And yeah, the Neo AES was mental expensive. I remember paying £200 for games back in 1990. That's just crazy...

[Renegade 0]

I have bad memories buying from the uk ones like anotherworld, ravengames and cex.

 

The french site seems decent, but I found better for what I wanted at lik-sang.

 

My friend is going back to Hong kong for easter, so I guess I can shop from lik-sang till then.