Good Day Nintendo

By Tyler Barber



I've gone from feeling let down by Nintendo at their recent E3 2007 press conference, to being a born-again Nintendo zealot. Today, I received two shirts that I ordered from The King of Games. You may remember I featured this website in last year's Christmas buyer's guide.

This time, I ordered the white Zelda 20th Anniversary shirt, as well as the Super Mario Bros. 20th Anniversary shirt (with clutch back design). Note the awesome packaging! The Japanese are so hip. Seriously, they even sent me a little K.O.G. notebook. Too bad it's not 'Merican-ized.

Yeah, Nintendo really dropped the ball this year at E3. Reggie Fils-Aime kept reiterating that while Nintendo is expanding to the mass-market, they're still making games for the hard-core, and that they've been delivering great online gameplay. Too bad we haven't noticed. I can see where you're coming from Reggie, but get a fucking clue. When we say we want online play, we mean that we want Metroid deathmatches, we want Mario online co-op, we want what you haven't been delivering. Gamers are sick of Nintendo's antiquated approach to online gaming.

To play Nintendo online with your friends, it's not easy like it is with PS3 or Xbox 360 -- where all you have to do is enter their gamer-tag and then suit up for gameplay. Nintendo's idea is that each game will assign you with a random 16-digit code for that particular game -- meaning, you'll have to give your friends this random-ass code to meet online. And, as if the codes weren't enough of a hindrance, you're telling me there are going to be different codes for each game? Nintendo, wake up! It's 2007, people have more internet capabilities in their cellphones than they do with your consoles.

Nintendo also repeated that they haven't turned their backs on delivering games for hard-core gamers, but the games they hyped up the most were all non-games and casual games (like Wii Fit, which I'm sure will be on Good Morning America, Oprah, you name it). Gamers don't care - we want solid games that test our logic, hand-eye coordination, give us autonomy, and give us the chance to master something difficult.

In their press conference, Nintendo breezed past Mario Galaxy to talk in depth about Brain Age 2. And while I'm glad Brain Age got my parents playing videogames, the fact that they chose to talk about that rather than their system-fucking-mascot is direct evidence that Nintendo is going down a dark, dark road called the mainstream. What's worse, this column is printed in a mainstream media paper, not one dedicated solely to games. So, when I'm schmoozing with bigwig gaming journalists and I tell them I write for mainstream media, it's like I'm Judas, and our gaming savior Jesus (Nintendo), has just been crucified by me.

Well, that's all for today folks. Enjoy the pics from my online purchase, and if you feel so inclined, stop by the King of Games website and peep their shirts.

Clutch-time.