Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning: "Nintendo is going to be here in 100 years" - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Fangz;41609725]Do you even know Nintendo's history? They have adapted several times, heck they were in the hotel business in the 50s.[/QUOTE] Didn't they get into the gaming industry from making slot machines?

[B][U]WARNING: Tons of text below![/U][/B] For everyone who's saying Nintendo is always a generation behind in hardware, you're assuming that they're even trying to compete with Sony and Microsoft in the same fashion that the two compete with each other. From what I've seen, Nintendo's always been going at their own pace, starting from the NES days and continuing into the present generation. Nintendo [I]did[/I] lead and set the standards back during the NES to N64 days, but as far as I can tell that was just because they were the first to try and succeed after the infamous ET fiasco. Naturally, the runner who starts a full minute or two ahead of the others will be in first for a good while. They continued pumping out great games and consoles with only the occasional stumble (or in the case of the Virtual Boy and CD-i, faceplant) for years, and even outlived most if not all of their rivals. Sure, there was competition between Nintendo and its rivals at the time, but it was more of a friendly rivalry between them rather than the all-out war that Sony and Microsoft are trying to fight with each other nowadays. Interestingly enough, it was one of the aforementioned stumbles that started the slow end of their dominance. The [U]CD-i[/U], bane of Zelda & Mario, spawn of infinite YouTube videos with random editing as humor. As many people know, Nintendo originally planned to cooperate with Sony and make a disc-based console. However, they pulled out of the deal at the last minute and shacked up with Philips instead, which naturally pissed Sony off. Sony then went on with the original idea sans Nintendo, which gave us the PlayStation and birthed a new competitor. Meanwhile, Nintendo got a turd from the pits of hell itself, which they wisely exorcised in short order. After that major screw-up, Nintendo started to slowly be outpaced by their new competitor Sony. Sony caught up to Nintendo in time and kept up with the N64, and by the time Microsoft decided to join the party, the Gamecube was coming. Without the competition, the Gamecube probably would've been heralded as a miracle. However, with the new kids on the block working to one-up their new enemies, Nintendo's more relaxed, old-timer-y take on things earned from years of uncontested dominance caused them to fall behind their competitors in terms of tech. Right around the twilight year(s) of the Gamecube's life, it seems Nintendo took a good, hard look at the newer folks trying to push better graphics, social media, and other such buzzword topics, and decided to go at their own speed and down their own path in response. And thus the Wii was made. Nintendo, seeing how hardcore-focused the other two big names were, decided to hoover up the casual market that was mostly ignored by Sony and Microsoft. Cue insane Wii sales, which resulted in both of the big companies collectively losing their shit and trying to crowbar their way into the motion-control casual market alongside ol' Ninty. Whether or not it worked out for them in the end is a matter of personal opinion. After watching this spectacle from its certainly-existent yacht made of solid gold that was bought with Wii-generated dosh, Nintendo then decided to keep it up and continue doing whatever they felt was best. Long-time fans got pissed that the Wii was mostly casual and had "ehh" motion controls, so they tried to fix it with peripherals and games while still ignoring the pissing contest going on between the other two giants. When that didn't work out well, Nintendo released a sort-of-new generation of console that iterated on the previous one, rather than trying to go yet another entirely different direction like they did previously, months before the other two leaders even debuted theirs. That'd be the WiiU, the current console. Nintendo now seems to be trying to strike a happy balance between casual and hardcore with this latest console via core franchise iterations, new non-casual IPs and better audience focus, while still finding new tricks to implement for the sake of doing so. And while all this is happening, Nintendo isn't having to lift a finger against the others, as the supposed "falling behind" that's happened has removed Nintendo as a real enemy in the eyes of the other two big boys. Now, not being seen as a threat to the other two, Nintendo can continue their long tradition of not giving a fuck about the race and entertaining the crowds in their own weird way. You can't really fall behind in a race you once competed in if you're only there now for the sake of entertaining the bored people in the crowd. [U]TL;DR:[/U] "Old man" Nintendo isn't falling behind because it isn't really trying to compete anyways, and has decided not to give a single fuck about the race or its "rivals". To stretch the previous race analogy/metaphor/whatever even further and possibly to the breaking point, Nintendo's busy entertaining some of the less-interested spectators like a genuinely fun guy in a mascot suit, while the two serious racers who are actually competing trip every 5-10 seconds. Nintendo lead for a while by pure luck and good timing, the other people slowly caught up and flew past in terms of hardware, and Nintendo summarily said "fuck it" and went off to go do whatever they felt like since they realized the race wasn't for them anymore. [U]TL:DR2:[B]Not Reading Harder[/B]:[/U] Nintendo isn't winning because it don't give no shits about yo race, son. Nintendo will probably keep sticking with watching from its swimming pool of gold coins and flagship IPs, while the other two big guys keep running laps and faceplanting.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;41609755]and then they go ahead and arbitrarily take out Gamecube backwards compatibility on later models. I don't even know what to think about Nintendo anymore.[/QUOTE] That was just so that they could lower the price of the Wii though. Up until then the Wii was still like 200 dollars. By then, most people probably didn't even mind that they removed the feature since most of the people who wanted one with backwards compatibility most likely already had one in the first place. Removing a feature as a form of cost-cutting to keep the cost low isn't a big deal, especially considering the fact that by the time they removed the feature, there wasn't anything else coming out for Gamecube and you couldn't pick up any Gamecube accessories anymore.

[QUOTE=darkzero226;41610415]That was just so that they could lower the price of the Wii though. Up until then the Wii was still like 200 dollars. By then, most people probably didn't even mind that they removed the feature since most of the people who wanted one with backwards compatibility most likely already had one in the first place. Removing a feature as a form of cost-cutting to keep the cost low isn't a big deal, especially considering the fact that by the time they removed the feature, there wasn't anything else coming out for Gamecube and you couldn't pick up any Gamecube accessories anymore.[/QUOTE] My understanding was that Gamecube and Wii had basically the same internals, just more juiced up for the Wii. I'm skeptical of the fact that it cost them [I]any[/I] money on top to include that functionality.

The Compatibility is still there, but the actual physical part of the hardware (the controller/memory card ports) are gone. If you have homebrew you can actually just switch the compatibility back on, but there's no ports for the controllers so it's not like you'd be able to do anything unless you had some form of third-party adapter. But also keep in mind that at the time they were being sued for patent infringement on the controllers and they were almost banned completely as a result. So here's possible reasons they did these changes. 1. Gamecube was already dead for years, so there were no point in keeping up production of the ports since most people wouldn't be able to find new accessories or games anyway. 2. They cut the feature out just in case the controllers were banned because it took two years for a verdict to be reached and they had to redesign the hardware as a result of a flaw that ended up with important parts being melted as a result of having WiiConnect24 features running constantly and not enough ventilation going through the system. It didn't affect that many people but it was still a flaw that had to be fixed and they were unsure of whether or not the controllers would be banned in the first place, so they made a safe choice and just took the ports out.

[QUOTE=TMBGFan;41609358]While I'd like to think Nintendo will still be around in a hundred years, what I'm wondering is will video games still be a [I]thing [/I]a hundred years from now? In 1913 the hot shit was radios. As far as entertainment went, you couldn't beat your favorite radio program. A hundred years later, radios are peripheral things, something you listen to in your car or while you do something else, and then usually for music rather than radio programs. They [I]have [/I]left a legacy in the form of television and the internet- which both descend from the same concepts as radio. But radios themselves are much less of 'a thing', now. In 2113, who knows what people will do to entertain themselves? If you told someone in 1913 that in a hundred years, there'd be a magic box in the living room that you could use to make a digitized space soldier shoot another space soldier, controlled by someone across the planet, they'd look at you like you were crazy. Maybe video games will continue to be a thing a hundred years from now. It's possible. But maybe a hundred years from now they'll be amusing themselves in ways that seem completely inconcievable to us today.[/QUOTE] There would still be games regardless, games have existed pretty much ever since humanity has been searching for ways to entertain itself. Sure yeah they probably won't be "video" games but they will definitely be some kind of game and hey, if they're better than video games then bring it. I'd say the epitome of games is a virtual reality device that can simulate lucid dreaming, just being able to create whatever you want using just your imagination, like you imagine something and it happens.

[QUOTE=darkzero226;41610543] It didn't affect that many people but it was still a flaw that had to be fixed.[/QUOTE] I was one.

Now let's see if Nintendo can make it to a possible tricentennial anniversary.

[QUOTE=woolio1;41609134]Nintendo's been around a hundred years, they'll be here a hundred more. It's something about the way Japanese companies are managed, they're built for long-term growth and development. Look at Panasonic, Mitsubishi, or any of the Japanese tech giants... They've got roots that go back one, two hundred years. Nintendo's largely the same.[/QUOTE] Nintendo's made a living out of just remaking the same set of great games over and over again, and if people ever stop liking them they're legendarily fucked. I seriously doubt they can keep that going for another hundred years, and if their attempt to change up their plan doesn't work then they're boned

-snip- already said!

[QUOTE=Elspin;41610963]Nintendo's made a living out of just remaking the same set of great games over and over again, and if people ever stop liking them they're legendarily fucked. I seriously doubt they can keep that going for another hundred years, and if their attempt to change up their plan doesn't work then they're boned[/QUOTE] They have so much money backed up, i'm sure they would realise that something is wrong and change before they started to lose money. Also Lorne seems very active recently.

[QUOTE=Elspin;41610963]Nintendo's made a living out of just remaking the same set of great games over and over again, and if people ever stop liking them they're legendarily fucked. I seriously doubt they can keep that going for another hundred years, and if their attempt to change up their plan doesn't work then they're boned[/QUOTE] Well to be fair they do still introduce new IP's every now and then. They're fairly well at creating good game universes, and while they don't create them often, they're often good at creating them in such a way that they can keep building onto them. Hell... the Mario universe even have spin-off games turned into their own universes with their own spin-off games, most notably the Donkey Kong universe.