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The more mature Nintendo
Editorial by Trent Dickerson
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Long have the words "Nintendo" and "kiddie" been synonymous. Hopefully, the next twelve months or so will change that. Several games from the Nintendo 64 library, such as "Banjo-Kazooie" and "Diddy Kong Racing", cemented this idea in the minds of gamers. For the longest time, gamers only had games on Nintendo's and Sega's systems to choose from. Unfortunately, the games both systems had to offers were basically the same, offering few mature titles. However, in the past 7 years or so, this had changed.
Ever since the launch of the PlayStation by Sony and the demise of Sega, Nintendo has always been known as the company with the largest audience of children gamers of the two companies withstanding. Sony shaked up the competition by allowing the release of such games as the famous "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill", as well as many other franchises. Sure, the N64 had its share of mature titles too, like "GoldenEye" and "Conker's Bad Fur Day" and, umm, oh yeah, that's it.
Currently, Nintendo's adult audience is limited due to a lack of mature titles. As of today, Nintendo only has a handful of mature titles, named the remake of "Resident Evil" and "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem". Speaking of Resident Evil, I think it was an extremely wise move to make Capcom's Resident Evil franchise exclusive to GameCube. With "Resident Evil 0" coming out in a few weeks, upgraded versions of "Resident Evil 2" and "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis" ports being planned, plus "Resident Evil 4" supposedly being under development and to be released sometime next year, this should help Nintendo substantially.
In addition to the "Resident Evil" franchise, Nintendo is also going to allow several mature titles to come to GameCube, such as Acclaim's "BMX XXX", Eidos' "Hitman 2: Silent Assassin", Midway's "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance". That list also of course includes several tactical squad-based games, such as "Medal of Honor: Frontline", "Ghost Recon", "Conflict: Desert Storm", and the recently announced "StarCraft: Ghost".
In my opinion, there are two things that are going to make Nintendo win the No.2 spot in the console wars: mature titles and online games. But I will not talk about online games because there is too much there to talk about and I will save that for another editorial. I recently stated in another editorial that Microsoft's acquisition of Rare will boost their children gamers audience, causing Microsoft to win the No.2 spot. However, the situation is obviously inverted for Nintendo, since they have an ample child gaming audience. I believe that as long as Nintendo can release several decent selling mature titles before Xbox gets the chance to release their "kiddie" titles, Nintendo will come out the No.2 company in this generation's console war.
In conclusion, the path is clear for Nintendo, but that path is filled will several obstacles. Should Nintendo decide to follow this path, they can easily come out the victor of the No.2 spot. But I think the more important question to gamers is, "Can they come out No.1?" That's a tough question to answer without all out lying about it. Sony's PS2 system currently accounts for 72% of total games sales worldwide, with Nintendo's GameCube far behind at only like 15%. Even with Nintendo's new arsenal of mature games and their upcoming lineup of online games, Nintendo will have a tough time beating down Sony's best selling games such as "Grand Theft Auto III" and the "Final Fantasy" titles. As a loyal Nintendophile, I'm not saying they can't do it. I'm just saying there's a better chance of it snowing in Hell than Nintendo winning this console war. In my personal opinion, I think it would be smarter for Nintendo to aim for second place, then begin focusing on the next console war between their next console, Sony's PlayStation 3, and Microsoft's Xbox 2.
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