Why I Hate Nintendo
Throughout the years of my life, the perception of video games has changed fairly dramatically. Where once games were “only for children,” and the adults who played them were called nerds, now we have gramma playing candycrush and the jocks are playing [insert popular but redundant sports game here]. In the early days of computers, the Atari, Amiga, and Commodore 64, among others, all struggled to push their tiny limits, until finally Nintendo really made their mark, and they’ve been the most prominent game company ever since. But, if they are so popular and well-known, and oft well-loved, why do I hate them so much?
Let’s start with a look at controllers over the years. The first NES controller was a rectangular piece of plastic, with directional buttons and four other buttons. It was simple, but functional. Not exactly ergonomic or comfortable for playing for long periods of time, but it worked. They also released about a hundred variations of this, from joysticks to gloves to mats you placed on the ground. None of these worked particularly well, but they were new to the game, and innovating, and so while they were figuring things out you can’t really blame them too much.
Then in around ‘94 they released the Super Nintendo, which came with a more rounded controller, easier on the hands, with two more face buttons and the addition of shoulders buttons for your trigger fingers to use. It was a vast improvement, and their innovating paid off.
But then they completely lost their minds. The N64 controller was designed for someone with three hands. It had a “Z-Trigger” on the underside that was straight up worse to use than the shoulder buttons from the Super Nintendo, so that wasn’t much of an improvement. Moreover, while it had a directional pad like all previous iterations, it didn’t use it, and nearly always forced you to use a janky joystick that never quite went in the direction you wanted. And what lesson did they learn from this?
Well, when they released the Gamecube… I don’t know what they were thinking. They did realize that people only have two hands, and they ditched the z-trigger, in favor of two sets of shoulder buttons, ripped off from what the guys at Sony were doing. They also copied Sony by adding a second joystick, except then they decided to take a page from Picasso and just throw all of the joysticks and buttons in random places. The face buttons were all different shapes and sizes for… some reason, and even the two joysticks were dramatically different in color and response feel. It was an improvement to the N64, but was straight up worse than the Playstation, which they were copying.
Throughout this time period, they were also releasing handheld systems, which did alright. This was mainly because the controls for these handhelds was never anything more than what the Super Nintendo had: a couple shoulder buttons, a few face buttons, and a directional pad.
And then the nightmare really began. Nintendo went all-in and released a system called the Wii, which defaulted to motion sensors to play. We were back to the NES days with rectangular controllers with very limited buttons. You COULD turn this sideways and use it as the world’s worst game controller, but if you were at all serious about playing for more than five minutes, you would have had to buy a peripheral that attached to this remote monstrosity, and what was it shaped like? A Super Nintendo controller.
And their next system was just as greedy and useless. The Wii U didn’t really have anything special to separate it from the previous Wii, except that it came with a massive crossbreed between a tablet and a controller, with a touchscreen, but also joysticks and a d-pad and buttons. The system came with one, but only one, and you literally couldn’t get another. If yours broke you had to get Nintendo to repair it (a page out of Apple’s greedy playbook), and the entire gimmick of the system was limited. It would have been interesting, at least, if you could have four of these controllers, and play with your friends in the same room, with each person having their own touch screen, and a shared main screen. But this feature wasn’t even given as an option. Now, again, you could buy extra controllers of various shapes, and go back to something actually useful, but again, that’s just an excuse to get extra money out of you.
And now, we have the Switch. Again, another stupid cashgrab, as any game made for the switch could have been made, exactly the same, for the Wii or Wii U. But, if you want to play anything new, now you need to buy a whole new system, and these aren’t exactly cheap. But, it gets worse, because the Switch is yet again another gimmick system. It can be taken portably, and played as a handheld! A massive handheld, to be sure. But the controllers come off! You can have one somewhat functional controller, or two completely useless ones! You can play with your friend by giving them one of them, except the controllers don’t both have the same buttons (because they are two a-symmetrical parts of a whole), and if there is literally anything in between you and the console, the controllers drop inputs. And you die.
I don’t know about you, but if I buy a full game console, I expect to be using it in my home. If I wanted to buy something portable, I would buy a portable system. And it wouldn’t be massively huge and clunky. It is technically portable, but it’s not like it’s going to fit in your pocket, or comfortably in your purse. But hey, Nintendo has you covered! They released a version of the system that isn’t a hybrid, you can get a Switch Light! Except this one is only portable… There isn’t a cheaper one that is console only. So of course, they went the wrong direction on that one too.
Playing games is something you generally do at home. I mean, I can understand if you’re on the bus and have some time to kill, or you’re on a road trip with your family, but then I would prefer to have something a little smaller and discrete. And to have this be your new console that you’re pouring all of your resources into, and not have a dedicated home version (which is what your entire target market has been using for thirty years, and people generally don’t like change that much) is just bonkers. And because this system has all of these portable “features”, it is really not cheap. So to play the two or three games that look interesting, and buy controllers that aren’t horrible, would cost me about $1,000, and that is just not worth it at all. Especially when there is absolutely no reason that these games shouldn’t be able to run on the systems I already have, with the controllers I already own.
If you’re going to release something new that makes something else obsolete, at least make it better. Literally the only reason for this decision is because it forces people to pay more money, or give up on their hobby. As I said earlier, this is what Apple does. Releases really expensive things, that they’re going to force you to replace in just a couple years. And while for many games, you have a choice of playing it on one system or another, Nintendo owns most of their titles, so they are exclusive. So if you grew up with Mario and Donkey Kong, you either have to pay up, or leave your childhood behind.
Now, I do understand that companies exist to make money. But, you can still make money doing good things. Personally, I would probably spend more money if I felt like I wasn’t getting ripped off every time. But, because I can see that the Switch will be obsolete soon I don’t have one. If I had confidence in the company, that they would support it for a decent amount of time (and if it weren’t just a terrible idea in the first place), I would get one, and play their games, and all would be fine.
I can’t think of a single Nintendo console that surpasses the Super Nintendo. This isn’t me just being nostalgic or anything, but the biggest change from the Super Nintendo to the N64, and therefore onwards to the rest, is 3D. I can think of… one game for Nintendo consoles that uses 3D well — Marble Mania (and it’s sequel, but it’s basically the same game). Smash Bros.? It’s basically a 2D game. Mario Kart? It was just as good in two dimensions. Super Mario 64 / Galaxy / Universe? Was better in 2D. 007? Really not a good shooter, it was just one of the first some of you played. Okay, I guess Starfox used 3D well also. And there may be a small handful more, but look at something like Donkey Kong Country Returns. It is a 2D game, in 3D, and for some reason instead of binding certain actions to a button like they were in the past, they force you to shake the controller and use motion controls. There is no reason for it, it feels awkward and unintuitive, and was done just to make it seem like putting in the motion controls wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Now, yes, the graphics are better than the Super Nintendo era, but the overall experience is worse. If they just upgraded the console’s abilities, and didn’t force the gimmicky mess? It would be so much better. This is why I like the Playstation. The controller layout hasn’t really changed since the first one, and while they have released new versions, and we’re on the PS4 right now, each one is the same, just better. They can do more, but they don’t mess about with the experience of it, so the games look better and better, but they still feel good, and that’s what’s important. When I put my hands on a Switch controller, I just really don’t want to play anymore. When I do play on a more recent Nintendo console, I use the “classic” style controller, which interestingly enough is shaped very similar to the Playstation.
For a company that keeps trying to innovate and reinvent their experience… you think they’d have had at least one good idea in the past twenty years.