🚀 go-pugleaf

> I will hail the N64 for some tributes that it has made, such as the built-in
> four player capabilities, or pioneering the analog and jolt features on
> controlers. But let's face the facts; Nintendo still contiues to cater to the
> younger crowd of gamers, and this has hurt them badly. You would think they had
> learned their lesson when they cencored MK1.

MK2 came out fine, didn't it?  Nintendo as a company realized that they
were losing money 
from liscensing by censoring MK.  So, they allowed other developers to
produce more "mature content"
games.  However, Nintendo as a game developer has maintained their
commitment to making games that 
are suitable for the whole family.  (Isn't that's why the machine was
called Famicom? Eh?)  Rare has obviously done its part with Goldeneye
and the upcoming Perfect Dark, but they're only one developer.  Midway
doesn't have many games aimed at a younger audience, do they? Quake?
Blitz?(It got an E reating, even with cuss words.) BioFreaks? MK4?

The other thing that you might be missing is that some of these games
that you write off to the younger crowd have more depth in them than you
might realize.  Diddy Kong Racing is every bit as challenging as any
other racing game I have played.  The game controls are fairly simple to
learn, but there are nuances to them that require time to master.  I saw
lots of people with Game Shark codes on the Nintendo newsgroup so that
you could drive as T.T. (the 10th playable char.) but I actually beat
all of the times myself.  It took me several months, but I only raced a
few tracks after work every day and kept at it.  

> 
> You would think with the CD medium being popular, Nintendo would have chosen it
> due to the fact that it allows a greater base for creativity, but no. The
> Nintendo 64 is the second biggest blunder the big N has made (Virtual Boy being
> the first). Even Sega knew that cartrige games were on the way out. 
>

Please don't bring up Sega. That only ruins your case for CD games.  The
Sega CD did horribly,
and the Saturn is already unsupported by Sega now.  The Sega machines
only proved that the technology is not the selling point.  
And the other problem is, since Nintendo never resolved its problems
with Sony when they tried to make a CD addon for the SNES, they probably
have a bad taste in their mouth for trying to do business with a CD
manufacturer.  Nintendo wants fast loading times!  Little kids with
short attention spans do not want to sit through "Now Loading" all the
time.  The one PSX game that I have played that seems like it loads fast
is Tekken 3.  All the SF  games take _much_ longer to load.  (I know,
it's all the animation frames you have to load for each character.)

> In no way
> will Zelda 64 have the standing and lasting power that even it's predecessors
> hadm simply because of memory restaints on an aged technology. You, Thelma,
> think it's just pretty cinematics that you're missing on your N64? No. It's
> much more.
>

Let's see.  We're also missing CD sound, and several megs of storage on
the game.
However, someone has to be willing to fill those megs with a good game.
 
> I tried so hard with the N64. But I lost my faith in Nintendo, and thank god I
> tried before I bought it. I can only compare the N64 to like playing pc games
> that come on 3.5, because that's what it feels like. 

This sounds interesting.  What games did you play?  One of the big
reasons I like my N64 so much is Bomberman and Goldeneye.  (Definitely
not done on a 3-1/2. Yeah. Definitely.) The multiplayer modes in both of
these games insure that I play them again and again.  I don't really
relish the idea of finding _another_ PSX and _another_ copy of TM to
play that game 4-player because the PSX hardware doesn't do a 4-way
split screen with enough resolution to see what you're doing.

You can bet your next paycheck I'm going to rent the 4-player Vigilante8
when it comes out for N64.   

> And this 64DD thing that
> got scrapped? Another fine example of Nintendo's stubborness to improve upon
> itself. Business is like life, and I'm afraid Nintendo will learn this lesson
> the hard way:
> 
> "Those that do not adapt will not survive."
 
So you think that doing things the exact same way that your compeditors
do is a good survival trait?  What if the bottom falls out of your
strategy? Everyone goes down the tubes?  The best survival trait in a
compeditive market is an ability for the market to maintain multiple
roads to success.  This insures that at least one party survives in a
catastrophic failure, and leaves the market existent for the failed to
regain market share. If everyone does the same thing and it fails, BOOM
- no market to regain. 

The reason that Nintendo is lukewarm about the 64DD addon in the US is
probably because of the failure of both the Sega CD and the 32X.  The
only machine addon that ever made any money was probably Super Game
Boy.  Since the Game Boy market was an already installed client base,
and there was already an overlap between SNES and GB owners, it was a
no-brainer.

I still think it's important for different companies to offer different
kinds of gaming experiences.  I like some of the games that I have
played on my friend's PSX, and I would never complain about the lack of
portability to N64.  Likewise, the N64 games that I like that I bought
the system for, would be unreasonable to make on the PSX.

Why did Nintendo make Zelda? Because they can.  Zelda is part of
Nintendo's history, and they strive to make a commitment to the players
that have played through that history.  I owned Zelda for Nintendo.  I
finished both missions, and it sat there after that.  As a result, I
never ended up buying Zelda for the SNES.  (I did rent it a couple of
times.)  Meanwhile, I played SF and Bomberman 1 and 2 endlessly because
of the replay value of human opponents.  That's the same reason that I
may never buy any Resident Evil or Mega Man or Final Fanatasy games. 
You finish it, and it's done.  I would never stop anyone else from
buying those games (or a N64) for that reason, but I would tell them
what I thought.  Some people are really into the epic adventure thing
and don't think very much of learning freeze/flame combos or how to trap
tanks in an underground tunnel.

There are things that no one can be right about.  This might be one of
them.  

Chris