Ranting is Fun

Matt,

Great article. Unfortunately, I think this will be the proverbial straw that breaks Nintendo's back. The only thing it is going to accomplish is to further alienate itself. Granted, the next generation has only begun on paper; however, Nintendo will maintain third place. Something it seems to be comfortable with.
I am a fan boy in his earlier '30s who has purchased all previous Nintendo consoles on day one. This news curbs enthusiasm and fosters the wait-and-see attitude for me and other potential buyers.

I wish the big N luck, I truly do. It's going to need it.

Matt responds: I hear you. I should note that my e-mail box was flooded with angry e-mail about this issue. I got thousands of e-mails over the weekend and I'm sure Nintendo of America's customer service department got a good chunk, too.

So, as could be predicted, it's time for a good old-fashioned rant. It's been, what, at least a week, right?

As some readers have already pointed out, Revolution's lack of high-definition support is particularly painful for me because I've long been a self-admitted technology nut. I'm the earliest of early adopters and have therefore already been on the high-definition bandwagon for several years. So sure, that sucks for me, but the bigger disappointment is the reasoning behind this decision, which is to save money. I hate to make absolute statements and so I won't. Clearly Nintendo still innovates. But in recent years, I've found that the company as a whole has taken fewer risks simply because it has been afraid to lose cash. This was why it ultimately didn't include DVD-playback in GameCube. (Note that Revolution is supposedly a pure gaming device, too, but it will play DVDs with a dongle.) It was why it didn't develop an online model this generation, despite momentum for online gaming on the other systems. And now it seems to be the reason why it won't include high-definition support in Revolution.

If you read any Nintendo message board at the moment, you'll see that fans everywhere are upset over this decision. There are also those who couldn't care less. They don't have a high-definition television at present and have no immediate plans to buy one. That's of course fine for them. But the thing is, there are people that do and every day there are more of them. Fact is, both Microsoft and Sony are pushing high-definition for their new systems, but Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will still work on analog sets. Gamers with old TVs will never know what they are missing. On the other hand, HDTV owners who see just how great Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games look in high-definition will know exactly what they're missing every time they boot up Revolution and its games look low-res by comparison. Do you think any HDTV owner is going to be happy about that?

The new generation hasn't even started yet, and already Nintendo has alienated a growing market of gamers. Worse, it's alienated the early adopters, whom you want first and foremost to be in favor of your next system if you're a hardware manufacturer.

Videogames are technology-driven and yet Nintendo continues to dismiss new, important technologies. It's unfathomable. It's like a painter throwing away his paintbrushes because they are too expensive. I mean, I've tried to understand this approach, but I don't think it can be understood. No matter how you look at it, it makes no sense.

Nintendo's public excuse here will of course be that it is investing in new technology: just a different kind. It will say that graphics have reached a saturation point, which they haven't. (That's such public relations garbage. Until I can boot up a game that perfectly recreates reality so that the game world is indistinguishable from the real, graphics have not reached a saturation point.) It will say that gamers will understand everything when they see the new "revolutionary" controller. And you know, that might actually be true. The device might be the best thing ever. But with Nintendo, why does it always come down to an either/or decision? In this case, we either get high-definition games, or we get a weird, new controller. Why does a major sacrifice always have to made in order to innovate? Why can't we have both? It's such an off-the-wall approach to appeasing consumers. Imagine if Toyota came out and said, "Well, our new Camry will have a revolutionary new steering wheel, but because we're emphasizing this new wheel, we've cut down on horsepower by 300 percent." It'd be a disaster. And still, this is how Nintendo works, and everyone just accepts it.

I guess Nintendo can always fall back on the issue of cost. Perhaps by eliminating the hardware for high-definition gaming, it can sell Revolution at a slightly cheaper price. I expect the difference would be marginal, but that's another topic. Still, let's say it's significant. Did a cheaper price tag help GameCube sell better in the end? Nobody seemed to care. The majority of consumers went with the system that had the most games, which was PlayStation 2. Others were enticed by Xbox's technical specs and exclusives. Both systems were far pricier than GameCube and yet they outsold Nintendo's console.

No. As usual, I don't think Nintendo's decision to forego high-definition has anything to do with consumer benefits. It's thinking about itself. Which -- you know -- is kind of crap since we're all consumers and none of us are in fact Nintendo.

Gloom and doom mostly over. I'm quite sure that despite this lunatic decision Revolution will have its unique appeal. It'll still have a place in my living room. But I think it will become more niche due to a domino effect that's sure to happen. I predict less third-party support because cross-platform ports are sure to be more difficult. And as a result, I'm sure Revolution -- like GameCube -- will become a console for Nintendo fans.

Will there still be great games? Undoubtedly. Does that make Nintendo sane? Nope. It's officially crazy.