Gaming-Age Nintendo-in-trouble editorial 8/12/03

[1CCOSA]

Sorry if this was already discussed to death (i've been out of the loop) but what did everyone here think of the GA story found at this link: http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/sp...stit&pagenum=1 entitled "has Nintendo Lost Its Mind"?

I think the article raises some valid points (especially the lame frequent plyer miles promo and the Pacman game being a waste of the connectivity feature) but I think it fell short of telling exactly what they think Nintendo should DO to get over that 80,000 system sale point (if that's even possible at this point). Discuss. I need to read a good discussion.

[Johnny Nighttrain]

bad article. i've read the same about....4 million times in the last 3 months. none of these never have anything new to say.

[1CCOSA]

You have to admit though the 80,000 systems statistic and Nintendo's atitude towards the PSP is worrysome.

[Johnny Nighttrain]

sure it is, but it's nothing that we haven't already heard a few hundred times since may.

[Drewbacca]

sure it is, but it's nothing that we haven't already heard a few hundred times since may.

Nintendo is #1!!!11

[Schlep]

I know that I'm in the minority, but Nintendo floored me at E3 while Sony seemed ho-hum and Microsoft was abysmal.

I myself saw 0 must have exclusive games for the other two consoles within the next year. My tastes are different, yadda yadda. Honestly Sony has been slamming Nintendo into the ground the past couple years with some extremely well done holiday lineups, but I don't see that this year.

I wanted to love Microsoft's booth, but it was a joke as far as I'm concerned. I felt like the whole message was 'the good games are next year, but playing these might be better than a kick in the teeth?'

I walked away from the show remembering:

GC: Mario Golf, F-Zero GX, Viewtiful Joe, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Mario Kart: Double Dash, and Resident Evil 4

GBA: Mario & Luigi, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Wario Ware, Sword of Mana, Advance Wars 2, and Fire Emblem

PS2
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and Metal Gear Solid 3

Xbox
Halo 2...Halo 2. (and also how crappy Grabbed by the Ghoulies was)


Whenever I make a post like this, it comes off as fanboy, but you don't have to look too deep into past posts on this board to see me slamming Nintendo. I can't predict sales, but I liked what I saw at E3 for both exclusive and multi-platform GC titles. I could survive on it and GBA until this time next year from what I saw.

What particularly disappointed me about Sony wasn't the lack of their software, but of good software from 3rd parties. Capcom had nothing that I could remember, Square was missing Kingdom Hearts 2, the best Namco games were multiplatform, Sega's PS2 only titles weren't real impressive, etc. No fault of Sony's, imo.

Xbox just had nothing and I have no idea whose fault that was, but even Microsoft didn't have its key titles playable. True Fantasy Live Online was nowhere, Halo 2 was video only, Rallisport Challenge 2 was nowhere, Fable was nowhere...what games that were there sucked; don't even get me started on Rare's 'games'.

I think the theme this year was that most games were on at least 2 out of the 3 consoles (and most of the bigger ones are on all 3). This kind of left it up to the first party exclusives on each system, and with a lackluster showing by Microsoft, an average showing by Sony, and Sega out of the race, Nintendo shined, imo.

[1CCOSA]

Believe me, Schlep. I won't argue on quality. I'm going back to E3 this year (man, Nintendo and Sega smoked at E3 '02) and I expect them to win me over again.

Also, is it really true that Viewtiful Joe sold out in Japan?

[Johnny Nighttrain]

Also, is it really true that Viewtiful Joe sold out in Japan?

only the first 2 shipments.

US sales are the most important to Capcom though.

[Will]

Nobody goes to Gamingage.com anymore.

Oh and Nintendo sucks. Take that omfgninjas.

[Steve Badguy]

Sorry if this was already discussed to death (i've been out of the loop) but what did everyone here think of the GA story found at this link: http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/sp...stit&pagenum=1 entitled "has Nintendo Lost Its Mind"?

I think the article raises some valid points (especially the lame frequent plyer miles promo and the Pacman game being a waste of the connectivity feature) but I think it fell short of telling exactly what they think Nintendo should DO to get over that 80,000 system sale point (if that's even possible at this point). Discuss. I need to read a good discussion.

I don't know where that 80,000 number came from, but I compile the sales information for Power Charts in Nintendo Power and I can tell you that the figure is totally bogus. It may have been 80,000 shipped (since stores had a lot of stored up inventory), but the TRST data reports greater sales than that for a single month in the last fiscal quarter (and that's just in the U.S.).

And in the interest of fairness, Microsoft and Sony also sold more than 80,000 systems per month (in Sony's case, a lot more).

Edit: I took a look at that financial document that Gaming Age linked to, and the 83,821 figure is net sales in millions of yen, not in terms of units sold.