Nintendo's worst mistakes.

[CastletonSnob]

Nintendo is a very successful business, and gaming wouldn't be the same without them. Unfortunately, they've had their share of missteps.



What do you consider the worst decisions Nintendo have ever made? My pick would be sticking with cartridges for the N64, causing them to lose third party support.

The reason I say sticking with cartridges is the worst mistake Nintendo made and not breaking the SNES CD add-on deal with Sony is because if Nintendo had chosen to use CDs for the N64, they likely would have kept more third parties and beaten the Playstation, or at least not have lost as badly.

[Roswell]

I don't know if optical media would have saved the N64.

 

Look at Gamecube. Beat out PS2 handily in terms of performance, tons of 3rd party support and optical media. Still only managed to sell a fraction of what Sony did.

[8tg]

The entire Wii U era was basically just a blur for Nintendo not knowing what they’re doing. The majority of the games from the time period including their major first party titles were basically DOA, and the console itself was marketed so poorly that nobody really knew what it was at first.

Everyone thought the Wii U was a Wii accessory. It looked like it was just some kind of fancy controller, so the original marketing where it got the most attention left everyone asking exactly what it was.

As well the games, the biggest titles came out too late for the console, it had a really mediocre launch, and the titles themselves were marketed just as poorly as the Wii U was. Namely that they didn’t have a proper name for the Wii U smash brothers, which launched alongside the 3DS smash brothers (kinda, weird gap but close enough) with everyone thinking they were the same game, which they weren’t.

There were some big games, splatoon, super Mario maker, super Mario kart 8, but they didn’t coincide with the consoles release so launch sales were minimal. They could’ve postponed the console or cut the games development short for a regular launch and they chose neither, just launched the console with a tiny library.

And then the biggest titles took so long they just became switch games instead, IE breath of the wild was going to be a Wii U game but it got delayed so many times they made it a switch game and launched a Wii U version just to appease the few remaining Wii U users.

New Super Mario brothers as a whole got boring as it was the same game over and over, and the Wii U version was a kick in the teeth to a lot of people who were hoping for a major Wii U Mario game. Instead they got two side series reboots, new super Mario brothers Wii U and super Mario 3D world. Bowsers fury is what people wanted but it was basically a small, side game to the other 3D universe games and even now it’s kinda looked at like it’s just a bonus to 3D world.

 

0/10 time, everything that was done would’ve worked better on different consoles or had the worst timing in history 

[emosun]

Nintendos arrogance in defending their IP in overly harsh ways and being anti consumer , anti internet (like seriously?) and anti progressive in tech and industry changes/evolution.

 

If they keep pissing off their core fanbase that fanbase isn't going to stick around and buy nintendo products for their kids. If they keep trying to prevent game preservation they will only fuel it and make the alternative (them) be highly undesirable.

I don't think using carts in the mids 90s with 0 loading times during an era when optical media gave little to no advantages except for bad FMV was really an issue.

[Kazooduck]

9 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I don't know if optical media would have saved the N64.

 

Look at Gamecube. Beat out PS2 handily in terms of performance, tons of 3rd party support and optical media. Still only managed to sell a fraction of what Sony did.

GameCube used optical media, just not the right ones ;D

they still didnt have enough space 

[Roswell]

16 minutes ago, emosun said:

I don't think using carts in the mids 90s with 0 loading times during an era when optical media gave little to no advantages except for bad FMV was really an issue.

What?! The benefits to optical media were enormous compared to cartridges. Actual audio samples for effects, digital music, way way more room for assets, lower costs, the list goes on.

 

CDs held 700+ MB, your average N64 game was 16, 32 if they wanted to drop a ton of money on their cartridge run.

[emosun]

11 minutes ago, kamonanban said:

GameCube used optical media, just not the right ones ;D

they still didnt have enough space 

1.46gb is plenty. Lotta great games are half that size in those days. Even the original halo was less than that.

[Roswell]

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

1.46gb is plenty. Lotta great games are half that size in those days. Even the original halo was less than that.

Nope.

 

OG Halo ISO is 3.35 GB.

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, Roswell said:

What?! The benefits to optical media were enormous compared to cartridges. Actual audio samples for effects, digital music, way way more room for assets, lower costs, the list goes on.

 

CDs held 700+ MB, your average N64 game was 16, 32 if they wanted to drop a ton of money on their cartridge run.

On a console with 2mb of ram and a 1mb gpu , yippe.

I do like that you felt the need to tell me how much storage a cd has just in case I wasn't already aware and didn't own both consoles both back when they were new and currently. I sure hope I can get a "it doesn't matter what the consoles specs were they are optimized games" response next. it's always great to hear the hits from the 90s.

[Roswell]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

On a console with 2mb of ram and a 1mb gpu , yippe.

I do like that you felt the need to tell me how much storage a cd has just in case I wasn't already aware and didn't own both consoles both back when they were new and currently. I sure hope I can get a "it doesn't matter what the consoles specs were they are optimized games" response next. it's always great to hear the hits from the 90s.

I don't even know what you're trying to go on about.

 

You said the only benefit were FMVs. You were objectively wrong, I corrected you.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

On a console with 2mb of ram and a 1mb gpu , yippe.

I do like that you felt the need to tell me how much storage a cd has just in case I wasn't already aware and didn't own both consoles both back when they were new and currently. I sure hope I can get a "it doesn't matter what the consoles specs were they are optimized games" response next. it's always great to hear the hits from the 90s.

But then we have games like Conkers Bad Fur Day.  I never had an N64 because the games were WAY too expensive, especially that one, which even without considering inflation launched for more than games do today.  If you include inflation that would still be more expensive than deluxe editions of games at launch cost today.

Optical media reduced the manufacturing price dramatically, making games more affordable.  Although I also think piracy played a huge part in the Playstation success.  I know one family who must have bought at least six Playstations over its life span because of failing optical drives, but that was cheap as 99% of their games were copies.

Another big thing at that point was magazine demos.  Due to optical media being so cheap, being able to try a ton of games before buying them was quite cheap.

During the Xbox 360 years I bought a TON of XBLA titles due to being able to try them first.  Developers were required to let you play a certain amount of the full game, even better than what we had before with curated demo versions.  I'd probably buy a lot more Switch games if Nintendo had demos of everything (and a store that you could actually navigate easily to find them), quite a few games they do have demos of I decided to buy thanks to that.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Screwing Sony over at the last minute when PlayStation was originally supposed to be a CD add-on for the SNES. Not only did they create their biggest competition, but part of their last minute agreement with Phillips to do the never released CD addon was licensing the Zelda IP out to Phillips, who made two ridiculously awful Zelda games for their CDi system.

[demonix00]

On 5/23/2022 at 7:58 PM, Roswell said:

I don't know if optical media would have saved the N64.

 

Look at Gamecube. Beat out PS2 handily in terms of performance, tons of 3rd party support and optical media. Still only managed to sell a fraction of what Sony did.

Only because the PS2 included support for DVDs like how blu-ray won the HD format war because the PS3 could play regular BD films.

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, demonix00 said:

Only because the PS2 included support for DVDs like how blu-ray won the HD format war because the PS3 could play regular BD films.

It's impossible to know. If that was the sole reason, we'd have seen the PS3 succeed since it was likewise the cheapest way to get into Blu-ray. But it didn't, XB360 wiped the floor with it.

[Colty]

On 5/25/2022 at 6:17 PM, demonix00 said:

Only because the PS2 included support for DVDs like how blu-ray won the HD format war because the PS3 could play regular BD films.

It could also play PS1 games, whereas the GC wasn't backwards compatible at all. 

Everyone who had a PS1 (which outsold the N64 3 fold) had a reason to stick with Sony. The people who didn't, still had a reason to buy it since they may have outgrown Nintendo's "family friendly" lineup and you get the "bonus" DVD player. 

[skywake]

I've gotta go with the mini-DVDs on the GC purely because there was basically no even theoretical advantage to that choice. I know some speculate that that choice was to "make it harder to pirate games" but as someone who wasinto that scene in the early 2000s, I would think bandwidth was the barrier to piracy not physical disc size. I don't see what they gained out of that. It just gimped the size of their games and locked them entirely out of any chance to also be a DVD player. Which mattered a lot in the early 2000s. Also, if they had used regular sized discs they could have continued to release GC compatible games through the Wii era given how close the Wii was to the GC internally

 

With the other things people are talking about, the Wii U Gamepad and the N64's cartridges? Of course they were gambles that at the time did not pay off. But they were at least reasonable gambles. I'd argue when you look back now games on the N64 generally hold up better than PS1/Saturn games because it was a more capable machine. And load times weren't exactly stellar on those old 2x CD ROM drives. Similar deal with the Wii U, the Switch has kinda proven that the concept itself was sound even if they were just a little bit too ahead of the curve. And those games released on the Wii U have been ported to the Switch and sold 10s of millions of copies (Mario Kart 8, New SMB, 3D World, BotW)

 

So yeah, GC Mini-DVDs -> dumb move

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 hours ago, skywake said:

as someone who wasinto that scene in the early 2000s, I would think bandwidth was the barrier to piracy not physical disc size. I don't see what they gained out of that.

Bandwidth wasn't an issue around here as you could buy pirated Playstation games from multiple stalls at the local market.

 

What Nintendo didn't realise was that piracy actually helped Playstation grab the market.  Even though PS2 piracy didn't seem as a common, a lot of people went forward to it as it was in their mindset that Playstation was the platform they loved.

While the platform holders proclaim piracy as losing them a ton of money, the people I know who pirated wouldn't have owned the console at all without piracy and they DID still own some retail games.  So piracy actually gained Sony income they otherwise would not have had, while also encouraging those people to choose PS2 as their next console.

 

I rode the high seas during my teen years myself, downloaded GTA3 over dialup if I recall correctly.  Many of those games I've since bought, sometimes more than once, thanks to that initial ability to trial them for free.  Sometimes I would trial games on PC to see if I liked them, then buy the console versions.  I would never have known I liked modern RPGs without piracy as I associated the term with turn-based games, and I don't want to admit how many times I've bought Skyrim.

[HumdrumPenguin]

Not having a proper server structure to support online gameplay may not be their worst issue, but it's something I'd like solved.

[Ithanul]

On 5/23/2022 at 2:08 PM, kamonanban said:

GameCube used optical media, just not the right ones ;D

they still didnt have enough space 

And the games where damn not cheap for the time and slow loading.  Along with....the price...on the memory cards...

 

Me knows....god those loading screens on it.  I love the games I had for it, but compare to the PS2 (had that too), it had no hope.  Plus, a PS2 had internet ability built in(at least what I remember of later models); for Gamecube, you had to go buy the modem for it and make sure you either bought the dail-up or cable one depending on what you had.  Also, PS2 double has the DVD/CD player.  Could not even do that with the Gamecube.

 

Though...Wii U imo was the worst failing they did.  While I did have one and like certain games on it: the naming was a royal screw up for it (even my Mom was confuse by the name and thought it was an add-on to the Wii), controller it came with makes the og Dreamcast controller look like a saint (and thats saying something consider I endure a Quake game with a Dreamcast controller), and overall, quite lacking really in the main line Nintendo IP games.  The whole console just gave off prototype vibes.  Reason when I saw the Switch, I was like, they should of just never did the Wii U and went straight to the Switch.

[Zodiark1593]

Using the Nvidia Tegra for the Switch's SoC was probably not a great long term decision. At the time, the Switch was able to boast performance that matches or exceeds that of the Wii U, and the disparity between itself and the base Xbox One and PS4 were not severe. However, now the Switch has Series X and the PS5 as competitors, and the lack of a mid-cycle refresh with upgraded GPU is really showing. Compared to smartphone SoCs, the Tegra X1 isn't even very efficient for the performance it provides. If Nintendo wanted a beefed up Tegra X1, I'm unsure Nvidia would've considered the idea, as they've a reputation for being hard to work with, in which case, they're kind of stuck on hardware now 2 gens behind (performance-wise).

 

Going with an RDNA based APU would be an easy fix for next gen while allowing for scaled up designs in the future, but Intel has some pretty compelling solutions as well. Alternatively, and kind of an unrealistic dream tbh, Nintendo could request to procure chips from Apple. Not only are the chips extremely efficient, use of the Metal api can introduce more experienced devs into the Apple ecosystem, potentially making a partnership a win for both Nintendo and Apple. Nintendo would jut need to focus on making the best quality handheld they can.

[Rauten]

Online support.

They've always felt so far behind compared to anyone else.

 

Back in the GC, that thing had both a modem and an ethernet adapter sold separately as add-ons. In terms of online play, for anyone outside Japan, they were basically "Phantasy Star Online enablers". No other, and I literally mean NO other games with online support made it to the rest of the world, and even inside Japan there were only like a couple extra weird games.

Nintendo didn't release a single online enabled game. Not. One. Why did they even bother giving the console any online connectivity at all?!

Even the by-then defunct DreamCast (may she forever roam in the halls of Valhalla) had a much broader and more interesting online catalog. And that system only lived for 2 and a half years!!

[Middcore]

17 hours ago, Ithanul said:

controller it came with makes the og Dreamcast controller look like a saint 

 

Nah. At least the Wii U controller had all of the actual inputs a modern controller needs. The Dreamcast controller inexplicably had only one thumbstick when every competitor already had or was coming out with a controller with two, and that was a huge mistake. 

[Ithanul]

On 6/15/2022 at 8:40 AM, Middcore said:

 

Nah. At least the Wii U controller had all of the actual inputs a modern controller needs. The Dreamcast controller inexplicably had only one thumbstick when every competitor already had or was coming out with a controller with two, and that was a huge mistake. 

For its time period, sure the Dreamcast controller is the weaker.  But, I rather deal with it than the Wii U controller.  I made a point to use any of the other controllers that could be use on the Wii U instead of that darn massive controller.  Hence, my statement.  Out of all the controllers I use over the gens, the Wii U is pretty darn close to the bottom of my list.  At most, I do rate it higher than the Switch controllers, for solely the fact is has a d-pad and not the stupid arrow buttons.