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As the war between the Sony PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 goes on, the question on a lot of people's minds is: What does Nintendo have planned for gamers this fall? What do they have in store for their millions of loyal fans? What do they have in store for their bitter rival Sony and their revitalized competitor Sega? The surprising answer: Absolutely nothing. You may be saying to yourself, "Ivan, what the heck are you talking about? Do the words 'Perfect Dark' mean anything to you? How about Donkey Kong 64? Jet Force Gemini?" All three of those games are developed not by Nintendo, but by their British development house Rare. As a matter of fact, Perfect Dark and Jet Force Gemini will supposedly be "self-published" by Rare as well. While Nintendo will more than likely end up taking care of all the publishing duties, at the very least those two games will feature the Rare name on the packaging much more than past Rare games (and rightfully so; Rare has carried Nintendo on their backs for long enough). So, let's ignore for a moment the fact that all of the N64's Big Three this holiday season are developed by Rare, not Nintendo. Let's ignore for a moment the fact that Rare, while not quite as bad as Nintendo, is still an extremely slow-working company that takes release deadlines about as seriously as the 64DD's chances of being released in the US. Let's assume that Donkey Kong 64's November 22 release date will not slip, and Perfect Dark's December release date will not slip. Even if all of these assumptions turn out to be true, three games are still not enough for the N64 to have a prayer of being competitive with the PlayStation (or the Dreamcast) this fall. Jet Force Gemini looks like the typical "way too cute for anyone over the age of nine" game from Rare. Perfect Dark got a very mixed reaction at E3, with some people saying it rocked while others were disappointed with its lack of innovation and general "average" feeling. As for Donkey Kong 64, it looks EXACTLY like Banjo-Kazooie. The brainstorming sessions at Rare must have come to this conclusion: "Let's just replace the bear with a bunch of monkeys and make new levels!" I certainly hope that Rare proves me wrong in the case of Donkey Kong 64, but the overwhelming opinion at E3 was that it's a glorified Banjo-Kazooie re-release. As for Nintendo's claims that Donkey Kong 64 will out-sell Zelda, that's just their way of telling us that DK 64 is 1999's Honorary Game That Nintendo Is Going To Shove Down Our Throats More Than All Their Other Games Combined. Sometimes this game is good enough to warrant such promotion (Zelda 64), but sometimes it's not (Diddy Kong Racing). Regardless of how good or bad Rare's trio of N64 games turns out to be, the fact remains that Nintendo itself has practically abandoned the N64. The only notable games they are developing for it this year are Pokemon Snap (running around taking a bunch of pictures isn't my idea of fun in real life, much less in a video game) and Pokemon Stadium (COUGH, cash-in, COUGH). And if Nintendo doesn't support the N64, who will? Certainly not third-party developers, that's for sure. The N64's third-party support is horrible, and it's only getting worse as more and more companies dedicate more and more resources to the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. In addition to abandoning the N64 in the game department, Nintendo has no aggressive marketing campaign to get the system back into the minds of gamers (it doesn't have much of any marketing campaign, for that matter). The cheesy and dry "Get N Or Get Out" slogan sucked when it was first introduced, the fact that it hasn't been replaced by something better in all this time is just embarrassing. It makes sense that Nintendo doesn't want its next system, Project Dolphin, to be a software-starved piece of crap like the N64, so naturally, they want to scale back on N64 development to make room for more Dolphin development. However, it's one thing to get a head start developing games for your next system, and it's another thing entirely to abandon your current system. The N64's games (and sales) have been stagnant for quite some time. The system clearly needs something to boost excitement for the system, and it needs it right now. A mass-market $99 price point could be that excitement booster, but instead it appears that Nintendo is holding out until closer to the Dreamcast's launch to drop the price. Here again, it's one thing to want to hurt a major competitor, but it's another thing to do it at your own expense. Nintendo also made a mistake by jumping the gun and announcing Project Dolphin early. Nintendo was clearly jealous of Sega and Sony's growing mindshare. Everyone was talking about Sega's next-generation system, everyone was talking about Sony's next-generation system, and no one was talking about Nintendo's next-generation system because it's still at least two years off. Nintendo was clearly desperate for attention. While they did get a lot of it at E3 because of the Dolphin announcement, announcing your next system when your current system hasn't even been out for three years is just plain stupid. As if Sony weren't already driving enough nails into the Nintendo 64's coffin, Nintendo itself just added a few more. And for those of you who think that Project Dolphin will actually be released in the US before the end of next year, I'm willing to sell you to the Brooklyn Bridge. Just send me $5,000 and the bridge is yours. Seriously, Nintendo is notorious for announcing extremely premature release dates in the hopes that some idiot somewhere will decide to wait a year and buy Nintendo's next system instead of buying another system today. Just how stupid does Nintendo think the game-buying public is? Nintendo's originally announced 1995 release date for the N64 didn't stop people from buying PlayStations, and Nintendo's proposed 2000 release date for Project Dolphin won't stop people from buying Dreamcasts. If anything, the backlash that comes when you delay products for years at a time out-weighs the benefits of easily fooled gamers waiting to buy Nintendo's next system. When Project Dolphin is eventually released, it could revolutionize the video game world and take Nintendo back to the market-leading status it once enjoyed. But until then, Nintendo can either flourish as a solid second-place company behind Sony, or they could become a joke like Sega was towards the end of the Saturn's life cycle. It is up to Nintendo to determine which one of these two scenarios will take place. Send your thoughts on this issue to ivan@mastergamer.com
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com