Nintendo’s iconic logo escaped an “age-up” remake
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Nintendo Japan thought it was weird that a potential President of Nintendo of America would want to speak to what sounds like would be his primary superior? Am I reading that right?
effectively, yes. This was a large part of why nintendo's online strategy was so poor for such a long time. The Switch is the first of their products where they specifically asked the younger employees to lay out what it should look like.
Friend codes were actually really neat; they managed to do interesting things in terms of casual online interaction (I still remember being blown away at video chatting with someone half-way across my country on DSi hardware (16MB RAM and ARM processors that weren't even capable of running Linux[1]), in a (first-ish party; Game Freak) video game where it wasn't even a sideshow it was such a small feature), they managed to do pretty painless interaction between your device and a PC in 2010, Flipnote Studio was a really innovative/impressive piece of social media in 2008 (more like Vine than Twitter, really, and first-party), etc.
Like sure, most of their uses of online prior to the Wii U or so were novelty uses, but they were still really well-executed, and at least early-on had a whole lot of genuinely interesting uses of it.
[1] I think there's a port of a very very old version of μClinux that kind of works on the system, so this is only partially true.
Only being half-snarky here, I only own a SNES and a GameBoy Advanced.
They introduced friend codes with either the original DS or the DS Lite, I believe.
Which, coincidentally, is why Wii and DS online no longer work; Nintendo never built a replacement service after GameSpy shut down in 2014.
Anything that requires specialized hardware to access the internet isn't ready for general consumption.
PSOepIII (episode III, not PSO III. It was actually PSO II) was an MMORPG; MMORPGs are aimed at a far different demographic than the group that the Wii was targeted at. Also, weren't PSO ep. I and ep. II released on the GameCube? Pretty sure they were.
"There were multiple companies in the 60s that had mainframes that didn't even work very well; are you telling me that your average family wouldn't be ready for computing back then?"
Focusing on internet connectivity on the Wii would have harmed the Wii, yes. The Wii had Wii Shop and a few titles that could interact online. Making it the core feature in many of them would harm the console, because not only would many people have difficulty setting it up, there were also significant portions of even the United States that were almost entirely decrepit of even moderately decent internet connections.
Not sure if it used the Internet, however.
If I remember right, which I might not, XBAND used the phone system but didn't use the internet.
Pretty sure it had a browser and a store.
Netplay on Nintendo consoles has been terrible. I admit that they did some interesting social things with the handheld consoles, Miis, and leaving comments (Mario Maker, Mario 3D World), but playing anything against another player was almost always terrible.
Smash Brothers has been one of their biggest competitive titles across many generations. Yet on the Nintendo Switch, the 5th iteration of Smash is still unplayable unless you're on a wired connection. Even then, you can still feel the lag in Smash more so than any other fighting game. Street Fighter 5 is notorious in the FGC (Fighting Game Community) for having terrible netcode. Yet I can still have high quality matches on a wireless connection.
You can't share digital games or DLC across accounts bound to the same consoles in a sane manner. Even if you specify that the accounts belong to the same family, it doesn't matter. Nintendo somehow made buying digital assets on a Switch more restrictive and a bigger headache than physical copies.
Don't get me wrong, there's some definite novelty in some of Nintendo's online offerings, but they are definitely stuck in the past.
For what it’s worth, I always play Smash Ultimate’s online on Wi-Fi (NAT type A) and practically never have problems with it. Though I guess the average player’s wireless connection might not be very good, and most players don’t use a wired connection as it requires an adapter.
I think for casual play like Mario Kart, Pokemon, etc, it worked fine. It absolutely hamstrung more complicated efforts like Smash, Metroid, and third parties were forced to all heavily build out their own infra or not build the feature at all.
These were problems that plagued much more powerful systems (Wii, 3DS - until very late in the lifespan of the console, Wii U, and even the Switch)
1. Trading phone numbers is easier than adding Friends on a switch
2. No voice chat service
3. No built in streaming
4. No game invite system
Bundles are a clear example where territories have pretty good leeway to call their own shots. “Not his decision to make” means he needed to approve it with NCL but, well, isn’t it normal that the corporate HQ would want to have final approval on such matters?
I suppose that's still less contentious than Sega of Japan vs. Sega of America.
> It's more surprising to me that he was able to advocate for the Wii Sports bundle in America and Europe
It's not like the decision was without precedent for Nintendo: the NES came with the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge.
https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generat...
In 2003, he was interviewing for the position of VP Sales & Marketing. He wouldn't become president of NoA until 2006.
NOA started taking some cues from Microsoft, and started moving some technology competency into NOA. NCL (the japanese acronym for Nintendo of Japan), of course, saw this as a threat. Even 5 years ago, when I was last there, the entire office had a hidden resentment for the Japanese office. The US office had pulled off some amazing feats, and it resulted in most of the interesting technology projects being yanked back to Japan.
Another example is Library of Congress logo designed by C&G, timeless until it lasted and Paula Sher(Pentagram) destroyed it. https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_log...
Recent articles on the history of the Volkswagen logo [1] [2] and it's retreat back to flatness are a perfect look into this phenomenon.
[1] https://www.motor1.com/features/369759/vw-logo-history/43475...
[2] https://medium.com/content-shailee/evolution-of-the-volkswag...
I think that the very nature of being employed to do a job makes it harder than not to resist doing anything. I mentioned this the other day with regards to A B testing. It feels odd to do all that work and conclude with: do nothing.
I think this is exactly why you need someone like Reggie at that level of the process. As an executive he's more resilient to the sense of need to do something, anything, given how much time and money you put into the project. This is also why you need someone who lives and breathes your product. Not just generic executive cog in a suit.
I had three arborists in my forest last year. They all had opinions on what to do and they were all different. Probably because I'm paying them to have an opinion and "don't do anything" feels like you're cheating someone of their cash.
0: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/77bodv/the_n64_logo...
"Most companies have their logo as just a logotype. And every once in a while a company has a logo that's sort of a little jewel, a symbol, that can be used independently of the logotype." [1]
Personally, I think Nintendo's logo is somewhat the Mickey Mouse symbol of video games. I'm glad they didn't change it, because when I see it I associate it with the quality and holistic design they're known for.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emblem_of_Fukushima_...
I think most gamers would consider any innovation since a gimmick or a terrible executed idea.
I don't think Nintendo could invent a new logo or new game. They seem like an antiquated company with a big marketing budget and high margin products.
They're the only ones trying anything at all in terms of hardware; Sony and MS have always just targetted being a locked-down PC.
And in terms of games, it's also the same case; most first party games are evolutions or reiterations in Sony and MS universe, whereas Nintendo both does rehashes as well as dramatically different designs in each of their staple series.
That they're flawed innovations (turning them into gimmicks), perhaps, but looking at the big 3, they're the only hope of change. The innovation you expect from MS and Sony boils down to media center and absurdities like disks being shipped with only the data necessary to tell your Xbox where to download the game..
plus, my switch can play skyrim, so...
For PS4, Xbox, and PC I never find someone with enough controllers for 4+ players. Even if indie developers make these games people don't buy the gear to play them. They're almost designed for single player and only online multiplayer.
On the other hand almost every Nintendo console will always have many controllers. They company produces high quality party games, and in the case of the switch they're literally selling joycons two at a time which means indie developers can rely on players having 4 or 6 or even 8 controllers.
I honestly think the revival of board games is because of this gap that video games created when this type of play was abandoned in favor of online experiences and graphics.
[1]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/f/f5/Ni...