It pretty much says that Nintendo got an award for inventing the d-pad. Which when I thought about it, Nintendo really has always made unique and strange controller. Before the NES, all controllers were joysticks, like the article said. Then Nintendo didn’t really revolutionize anything, it just evolved the controller with the NES. Then it came out with the analog stick which was new when the N64 came out. The GC just refined the N64 controller and now the Wii-mote is another revolution. When putting it in this sort of light, the Wii-mote really isn’t all that strange for Nintendo and Nintendo seems to have set the standards with its new systems. Hell, I know I didn’t like the Wii-mote at first (and I still don’t know if I will since I haven’t played the Wii yet), but it really isn’t any different from the NES contorller at the time. It seems like since most of us grew up with an NES or later, the d-pad is just natural, but we forget that it was a joystick before.
Nintendo has also done well in the gameplay sector. They took the 2D platformer genre and almost made it their own, created the exploration/puzzle based Zelda and Metroids, managed the transition from 2D to 3D gameplay with great results in their 1st and 2nd party games(I still marvel at the sense of freedom Mario 64 gives, even nowadays). They also showed that people will buy a slightly different version of a game (Pokemon:Marine Blue Light Hued) many times in the same year, instead of waiting two years first. That’s quite useful in RPGs. I think the party games (Mario Kart/Party) also tie in somewhere.
While they are no saints, at least Nintendo’s business is video gaming and they usually try to improve on it instead of taking the easy way out. Here I must mention the Tetris version for the game boy is the best I’ve played. I’ll cut the eulogy here (and I’m being etymological).
All the systems have their first-party stuff. Just not as much as Nintendo. Sega had Sonic, Microsoft has Halo, and Sony… well, I’m not sure what Sony has, to be honest.
But none of the others have the same level of first party appeal that Nintendo has. Sega would be in second place, but they still trail far behind. And they’re not even considered ‘first party’ anymore, anyway. It’s partially thanks to pure mascot power that Nintendo was able to survive after Sony lept ahead with the PSX and PS2. Nintendo has the power to stand on their own, if all else fails. It’ll always have Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Kirby, and Pokemon. Plus everything else.
Which is why Sony is in a lot of trouble if the big-name third-party producers decide to jump ship for the 360 and the Wii. Sony can’t stand on its own, without third-party support the PS3 has nothing. Whether or not this will happen, of course, is still hard to tell.
Some recent events point into that direction. Some time ago the head of a company that makes gaems for the PSP said they felt abandoned by Sony and intended to stop making games for it. And the PSP is strategical for Sony, unless they have given up the handheld market. I can so picture these companies extending that tendency to the PS3 too.
Also, it’s been said by people from some companies that making games for the PS3 costs just too much, which inhibits production somewhat. It will have to drop considerably before a continuous stream of games can be made.
Back to topic: Nintendo deserves the award deeply. I just find it funny that when the 8-bit NES was made, they weren’t selling it exactly. They sold a pretty charismatic robot that could be plugged into the NES and play the two only games for SNES that existed back then. The NES was just a side bonus.
NES was my first videogame system. I really couldn’t picture myself playing most videogames with a controller that didn’t come from that one (but only until Wii-mote came out)
Originally Posted by Spoony Bard All the systems have their first-party stuff. Just not as much as Nintendo. Sega had Sonic, Microsoft has Halo, and Sony… well, I’m not sure what Sony has, to be honest.
Sony has Jak.
Nintendo also brought forth the hand-held market as well. Before them there were games like Football with it’s mind blowing graphics of 16 LEDs and a robust sound system using the latest blip, beep, and buzzt sounds.
The SuperNES controller was the first to see shoulder buttons as well as adding 4 face buttons which many controllers have used since. The original PSX controller design was mostly copied from the SuperNES controller with only an added set of shoulder buttons and cosmetic changes.
Also, the first controller that could rumble was the N64 controler. (abeit the fact that it was not built in and also required batteries.) And between that time and until now every controller had one built into it.
And the idea of memory cards came with N64 too. If I remember well, the first shooting games which took pistols as controllers were made for the NES. The first controllers with Rapid Fire - with a special button which, when pressed, the system thought you were pressing one of the normal buttons repeatedly - were also for the NES. And then they even mixed both things in a chaingun controller, which was a pistol controller with rapid fire. Now that was fun.
And then the SNES had a bazooka controller. That was one of the funniest things I’ve ever played with.
Memory cards came before the N64. Hell, the playstation came out several years before the N64 and we all know that used memory cards. Also, the rapid controllers weren’t Nintendo making them. The bazooka wasn’t really new (remember the NES zapper?).
But adding two buttons to the face and and adding shoulder buttons isn’t really innovative, it is more of an evolution of the NES controller (as I mentioned in my first thread). By this definition, the PSX controller (for doing 2 more buttons and a second analog stick) is inovative as well as the XBox controller (for its placement of the analog sticks and its black and white buttons). Hell, the Jaguar controller would be the most innovative thing ever then since it had a shitload of buttons. Going from a joystick to a d-pad is quite a change and completely changes the way you play. Instead of using your whole hand and wrist, you are justing using your thumb to play, yet you are getting the same level of control. An analog stick is also more innovative than just adding buttons since it has the pressure reading and changes the way you play.
I want the world to know Bungie was already famous for Myth, before Halo came up, and before Myth, for Abuse. Myth was awesome (and downright sadistic to its players).