Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Nintendo's New Line-Up Fail

The Nintendo 3DS is due to release March 27th in the US, making it the fifth release of a DS systme including the original. I'm not a major fan of 3D technology as I find it more of a gimmick than anything. What I've seen of the current 3D market I'm unimpressed, it is usually used to explain a gigantic price hike while eliminating the need for plot, character development, and everything else. Simply put 90% of the 3D market, at least in cinema, is pure crap. I've yet to play a 3D game since it's currently out of my budget to get a new 3D television.




However the 3DS has piqued my interest for the simple fact that it doesn't require glasses. To me this is an innovative feat considering even now you have to wear 3D glasses at the movies. But I fear that Nintendo is just trying to cash in on gimmicks in an attempt to make more money, i.e. Wii's motion controls, and 3D graphics. That's not to say that Nintendo doesn't make outstanding games still, but 90% of the third party games on either the current Nintendo DS or Wii are shovel-ware. The 3DS's release line-up seems to confirm that that's exactly what Nintendo is attempting to do.

Nintendo's current release line-up consists of three games actually developed by Nintendo, Pilotwings Resort, Steel Driver, and Nintendogs + Cats. The rest are third-party games, Street Fighter IV, the Sims 3, Madden NFL Football, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, Ridge Racer, Super Monkey Ball, Bust-a-move Universe, Samurai Warriors: Chronicles, Asphalt, Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs, Rayman, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars.

The current price point released for the games is $39.99 USD, at least for the Nintendo developed games. Not one of these games is something I would consider a console seller, nor would I pay $40 for any of these games, 3D or not. Yes, I'm extremely interested to see a 3D driving game or a 3D fighter, but is my interest piqued enough to spend the price of the console plus another $40 for the game, the answer is no.

Nintendo should have waited to release the 3DS until they had at the very least a decent first party game. This is the first Nintendo console without a Mario title being released at the same time. I think this kind of manuver will only hurt Nintendo until some of the anticapted titles are released like Kid Icarus, 3D Zelda, and a 3D Mario title.

14 comments:

  1. I wont be getting one right away, like usual ill be waiting for the price of the console to go down and some good games to come out

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  2. i never got a DS, but im definitely going to check the 3DS out its just ridiculous

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  3. i never got a DS, but im definitely going to check the 3DS

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  4. I don't think they're trying to cash in on gimmicks as much as they are trying to keep up with technology and stay competitive. More than that, they seem to be leading the way with their niche(s).

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  5. I want a purple one, take my money Nintendo.

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  6. Rayman FTW

    Not big on portable gaming anyway though.

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  7. The lack of a need for glasses is some pretty sweet tech, I'd like to see it trickle down into other products as well.

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  8. Wake me up when you can play Gran Turismo in 3D.

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  9. They want to get rid of the perception that third party titles don't sell on Nintendo's systems...so they backed off and want other companies to have games at launch. (They still have nintendogs, pilotwings and the submarine game tho).

    The bad thing is that this "perception" is 100% true, all I see is lazy ports from third party companies, nothing interesting..

    Capcom milking Street Figther, EA milking Madden and the Sims, LucasArts and their boring Lego Star Wars games, Konami with a lazy PES port,Ubisoft porting their iPhone games, etc!

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  10. I really wish that it had more coming out at the time of launch.

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  11. I can't really do the hand held gaming anymore.

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  12. not really a fan of the ds, or any hand held now that I have a smart phone...

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  13. if they don't release something really good from the release week, then it's going to be a slow way up. Just like Kinect

    I will be back for more updates, keep it up:
    http://noobotorials-rocks.blogspot.com/

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