The Rise and Fall of the Nintendo Empire

I’ll admit, the title is possibly, maybe, slightly over-dramatic. The ‘Big N’ hasn’t really fallen. Yet, with the recent announcement that the long-running Nintendo Power magazine is closing its doors, and as a loyal consumer and fan-boy of Nintendo’s for over two decades, I cannot ignore the perceived decline of a gaming juggernaut.

Allow me to take you back to the beginning to fully understand where I am coming from. Imagine, if you will, the Christmas of 1991, back when the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) had recently launched. Its predecessor, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), successfully revitalized the entire gaming industry in the late 80′s after the Gaming Crash of 1983, and Nintendo now dominated this fledgling landscape. I was nearly three years old, however, and as such don’t remember much from that year. What I do remember, though, is unwrapping an original Nintendo Entertainment System.

Yes, that’s right, I said the original NES. Apparently, my parents wanted to see how I would like a video game system, and opted for the now cheaper precursor to the Super NES. It worked out perfectly, though, because I had access to an already established library of games, and the term “love at first sight” may not be strong enough to describe the affection I had for this little gray box.

Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, the Super Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt combo game and others all became well-worn cartridges while encased in my magical electronic machine. Hundreds of hours were poured into these titles, many of which went on to spawn several of the most successful franchises in gaming. I would destroy my cousins, friends and younger siblings alike in Duck Hunt and Super Mario level runs, and even though my parents ensured I technically shared the console with my brother and sisters, in reality there was no question as to who actually owned the machine.

The trend continued for a couple of years, when I finally got my hands on a Super Nintendo like ‘all’ of my friends. Hundreds of hours more were sunk into Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, The Lion King, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, and other iconic games on the system, leaving another indelible mark in my mind on the legacy of Nintendo.

It was around this time in my life that I began to become more involved in school sports, and my free time available for gaming dropped significantly. The later portion of the Super Nintendo console generation flew by me, as did much of the Nintendo 64′s. The sheer awesomeness of the three-dimensional revolution did not escape me, however, and games like The Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., Donkey Kong 64, and 007 Goldeneye provided moments of bliss between busy school days.

By the time the GameCube generation started, in 2001, I was pulling back on sports to place more focus on my social and family life (I was, in fact, in Jr. High, and needed to ensure I became and remained a bad-ass), but strangely I did not find myself putting more time into my new Nintendo system. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed Metroid Prime, Super Mario Sunshine, and Mario Kart Double Dash, and I played the hell out of Super Smash Bros. Melee, the Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, but overall I logged far fewer hours on the ‘Cube than its fore-bearers, and I played almost exclusively Nintendo-made games on it. Instead, I found myself playing more Halo, SOCOM, and Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 and Xbox. I was disturbed.

Notice, if you would, the game titles I have given you to justify my attachment to, and explain my affection for, the Big N. Nearly all of them were developed by Nintendo (first-party) or a second-party developer (namely, Rareware). The original Nintendo system sold nearly 62 million units, the Super Nintendo nearly 50 million, the Nintendo 64 close to 33 million, and the GameCube almost 22 million units, and what largely drove these huge sales numbers was the wide appeal and lasting impact of Nintendo’s first party games and high quality franchises. Also good to notice is the fact every successive Nintendo console, from the Super NES to the GameCube, sold fewer units than its predecessor.

This pattern began to reveal a structural problem for Nintendo. The company has been notorious for their handling of third-party developers and publishers from the early days of the NES all the way through to the Wii, and a steady flow of support was fleeing to the cheaper, more open competition like Sony and later Microsoft. And, even when third-party games were released on Nintendo’s systems, they often lost out to first-party titles in sales while selling better on other consoles.

The result was a slow sapping of Nintendo consumers to Sega, Sony, and Microsoft machines. The company was still successful in its own right, but less in relative and absolute terms with every new generation of hardware. Nintendo’s first-party games continued to fly off retailer’s shelves, but the migration of gamers old and new to its competition proved a new strategy was in order.

Enter the Wii. This strange little device actually made me laugh the first time I heard the name. Was Nintendo serious? Did they really expect to take on the PlayStation dynasty with a “Wii-mote”? Apparently, they were, and they made myself and many others look the fool while doing so. To date, the Wii has sold nearly 97 million units around the world, putting it just behind the original PlayStation’s 102 million to land the #3 spot on the best-selling consoles list (the PlayStation 2 has sold around 154 million units to take #1).

Though the motion controls proved incredibly popular, and propelled Nintendo’s sales through the roof for several years, time has shown its success to largely be a fad. That’s not to diminish its accomplishments, or predict the Wii U will not be successful, but it is intended to put some perspective on the Wii’s good fortune. The console was able to both correct several of Nintendo’s mistakes with past consoles and simultaneously make new ones, primarily against those that stuck with the company through previous generations.

Millions of ‘casual gamers’ jumped on board the Wii-train years back. Middle-aged parents played Wii Play and Fit with their families, senior citizens in retirement homes were entertained with Wii Sports by the boat-load, and young men and women in their teens and early twenties got together to play Rock Band (back when it was still socially acceptable) and Mario Party (slightly stereotypical, I know, but often true). Now, however, Wii sales are stagnant, software sales lag behind those of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and Nintendo is being pressured to launch a successor platform at least a year ahead of the competition. Where have all these casual gamers gone?

Why, to mobile games and Facebook, of course! You see, casual gamers are quite the fickle bunch, seeing as they are often new to the industry and have little to no emotional attachment or loyalty to specific brands or companies. That is not to say we ‘core’ gamers are paragons of customer loyalty, merely that casuals are often even less so. So, with quicker development times, lower prices for software, more open and eclectic development communities, and the benefit of always having your device on you, a majority of these casual gamers have simply jumped the Wii-ship.

Simply put, the Wii has actually been competing more with the iPhone and Android than the Xbox or PS3 in recent years. Microsoft’s and Sony’s respective jaunts into the market with Kinect and Move haven’t helped the Wii’s sales either. All the while, those of us that grew up with Nintendo have been left with a dry spell from the casual-catering company, forced to wander to other options for ‘core gamers’.

There have been some truly fantastic games on the Wii, and a number of excellent first-party titles have slowly come to fruition (Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart Wii come quickly to mind). Yet, my Wii sits disconnected from my television collecting dust, because it’s been clear that the “wider audience” has been the Big N’s target this generation. Now, they seem to want to change that.

It appears that finally, Nintendo has accepted they need to fundamentally change the way they do things. They continue to dominate the handheld market with the now-successful 3DS, but in many respects have lost their way with consoles. So, with the Wii U, Nintendo has reportedly been incredibly gracious with third-party developers and publishers, looping them into the system’s development and courting them to attempt renewed commitment to their brand. In addition to greatly improving their online features and user connectivity (supposedly), Nintendo has promised renewed focus on the legacy gamers, those that have followed and supported the company for years. Gamers like myself, and quite possibly, you.

I would be remiss, however, to fail to tell the inspiring story of the handheld side of Nintendo’s business, which has been an unstoppable boon to their coffers. Way back in ’89, the first Game Boy launched Nintendo to the very top of the handheld charts (aided by little competition), and its a title they hold to this day. For five generations of the Game Boy, the company easily trounced all competition, and if you ask most gamers which products competed with Nintendo’s handheld line before the PlayStation Portable (PSP), I’d bet my Xbox 360 (not really, if you try to take me up on the offer I will not hesitate to bitch-slap you) few would be able to tell you.

Then came the year 2004, and the Nintendo DS (Dual-Screen). A new chapter dawned in the handheld saga with this unique and ridiculously successful device, but well known and far heftier competition emerged to challenge the Big N’s unquestioned dominance. Released in 2005, the PlayStation Portable had the full weight of the PlayStation brand recognition behind it, and Sony’s machine put up quite the fight, selling over 71 million units. This was still no match for Nintendo’s charming darling, however, which went on to sell over 152 million units through four different iterations of the device.

As it turns out, three-dimensional was the next step for Nintendo. Not three-dimensional graphics in-game mind you, that obviously already existed, but full stereoscopic 3D display in the form of the Nintendo 3DS. A mix of a spiritual successor to the Virtual Boy (if you don’t know what that it is, check it) and a physical successor to the DS line, the latest handheld of Nintendo’s stumbled out of the gate a bit, with few attractive titles and a slightly too high price point. Games like Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 3D, plus a price drop in July of 2011, helped lift the 3DS out of its doldrums, and suddenly the device became the latest of Nintendo’s handhelds to become barely acquainted with store shelves.

So, with the continued success of Nintendo’s handhelds, the wide appeal of the Wii, and the refocusing of the Wii U, one might think the Big N is nearly unstoppable. I, and many others, would disagree with that train of thought. True, only a fool would argue Nintendo is doing poorly, or is somehow doomed to fail (and let’s face it, I am no fool), but the way the gaming market appears to be heading does not bode well for their current position.

Take the handheld market, as an example. Mobile gaming is exploding, and though there is certainly a niche for a dedicated gaming device or two, it narrows with every passing day. As technological advances draw the iOS, Windows Phone, and Android platforms closer to handhelds in ability, and gaming experiences become ever better on them, people’s go-to device is and will increasingly be their smartphone or tablet.

Next, take the console market. Though I believe cries of, “consoles are dying,” from gaming media is overblown, it is undoubtedly clear the market is becoming more competitive and risk-averse. PC gaming is on the rise again (partially because we’re nearing the end of a console cycle), and social gaming on Facebook and the mobile market has sucked many potential consumers away from consoles.

More specifically, many potential casual customers have been drawn away from consoles. This cuts directly into the Wii’s and Wii U’s margins, as I stated earlier. Now, given that the Xbox and PlayStation brands basically have a lock on the dedicated ‘core’ gamers that are the consumer engine of the industry, this puts Nintendo in a precarious position. Hence, the change in strategy as described with the Wii U.

Nintendo can go many ways from this point. They may decide the console market is more risk than reward, deciding to focus on making the best mobile/handheld experiences possible. Or, they may be edged out of the handheld market, instead putting their energy into developing innovative and forward-thinking consoles to fully take on the likes of Sony and Microsoft. Another possibility is Nintendo goes the way of Sega, admitting defeat in both the handheld and console spaces, instead becoming a third-party developer with some of the most popular franchises in gaming at their back.

Of course, my beloved Big N may also do what it does best, surprise us all with out-of-the-box-thinking, and write the ticket to their own success. Only time will tell if Nintendo is able to attract meaningful third-party support while drawing in casual and core gamers alike to its successive devices and schemes. The company will have to rely on its unmatched stable of first-party products, continue to innovate on the status quo of the industry, convince outside companies their products are worthy of investment, and keep gamers of all kinds tied into their platform. Though that seems like a tall order in this competitive market, the Big N has handled worse before, and is well suited to deliver under pressure. Hopefully, we will all live to see the rebirth of the Nintendo Empire.

On the Dualism of Humanity

Duality, this is what characterizes humanity, life on earth, the universe. Chaos and order, creation and destruction, coming together and tearing apart, death and life, selfishness and compassion, dichotomies we cannot escape. Life is struggle, existence is an uphill battle, order is rare and easily destroyed, yet chaos always gives way to order once order is imposed.

Energy, composing everything in our plane of existence, visible and otherwise. Colliding, fusing, repelling, radiating and combining, energy is the very definition of chaos, yet it is the precise foundation on which order is built. Balanced on a blade’s edge, energy forms asteroids, planets, stars, galaxies, and at least on our planet, life. It is the lifeblood of our duality, order in the chaos.

Life, the product of particle physics and quantum mechanics giving way to Newtonian physics, and that to chemistry, finally giving way to biology itself. A remarkably improbable event, life nonetheless will exist where it is able. An infinitesimally small, blue dot in the incomprehensibly vast universe, which may itself be in a sea of many, the Earth, Terra Nostra, is our bastion of order in an ocean of chaotic energies.

Time, a concept developed by those with a finite amount of it. 13.82 billion years, the estimated amount of time our plane of existence, our laws of physics, our universe has existed. Our own planet formed an estimated 4.8 billion years ago. Colliding, super-heated masses of energy coalesced, separated and settled over the course of eons to produce our solar system. Our particular rock would come to retain its heated, molten core, liquid water, chaotic order, indelibly defining life on it.

Cells, conceptually simple yet functionally impressive things. Lipid bilayers folding in on themselves, creating membranes which house proteins, amino acids, organelles which power the most advanced of creatures today. Beginning as objects hardly different from a virus, life struggled, fought the chaos, and shaped the very nature of this planet. Basic chemical reactions repeated, continued, combined with others of its kind to create ever more complex, self-sustaining cells over the course of eons. Prokaryotic cells gave way to eukaryotic cells, colonies of cyanobacteria reworked the very atmosphere of our planet, single-celled bacteria filling warm, shallow oceans the world over began to work together as multicellular organisms. Order in the chaos.

Death and rebirth, time and again our planet has provided this reality. Soft-bodied creatures in the Achaean, diversification of sea-based life in the Cambrian, early fish in the Devonian, land plants and insects in the Carboniferous, dinosaurs and large-scale diversification of life from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous, dominance and diversification of mammals upon the downfall of the Jurassic-era world, emergence of the great apes, humanity’s more recent relatives the like of Heidelbergensis and Neanderthalis, and finally anatomically modern man. A never-ending cycle of order fighting chaos, death and life, creation and destruction, the duality of our existence at its most apparent.

Struggle, the only true constant known to life on this planet. Survival demands it, our planet ensures it, our very neural structure, instincts and primal urges, compel us to challenge and overcome obstacles in our path. We are the product of hundreds of millions of years of such struggle. Fighting to survive, outcompete our adversaries, dominate the environment around us, continue our genetic heritage, give a safer, tamer world to our offspring, such prerogatives define life on this planet, and ourselves as a species.

Humanity, currently the undisputed, dominant land-based life-form on Earth. As impressive as this position is, we cannot escape the duality of our nature. Our reptilian brain structures still instruct us to respect strength and violence, to take, dominate, and win at all costs. Selfishness leads to survival, and survival is the rule of the day. In contrast, our more mammalian brain functions push us to be social, caring about others and their opinion of us, taking care of the community and cooperating with fellow humans for the greater good, promoting survival of the species over the individual. Both aspects of humanity, our urges to create and destroy, take and give, dominate and protect, accept what we have and struggle for something more, these urges define us, motivate us, keep us keen and working towards something greater. We are, in essence, both the figurative light and dark, good and evil, a delightful and terrible fusion of order and chaos.

Acceptance, this is required for one to truly live a fulfilling life. Our social customs, law codes, cultures and religions all acknowledge our duality, whether passively or actively. The reasons given for this duality vary based on custom and belief system, but the fact thereof remains inescapable. We may be born innocent and primarily ‘good,’ yet are selfish and self-absorbed from the outset. As we age the world forces one and all to adapt to the relative harshness of our existence, the more feral side of our nature. Yet, caring people and institutions abound even in the most chaotic places on the planet. Family, friends, and communities still support each other in a way remarkably uncommon outside of the human species. With the exception of small percentages of the population that are incredibly philanthropic or sadistically lack empathy, humanity is a never-stopping sliding scale between what we commonly consider good and evil. Rarely one, rarely the other, thin strands of order atop the chaos.

Thusly, I propose the human species wholeheartedly embraces and adapts to this reality, mapping it onto more primitive belief systems if they must. Realistic relativism within absolutist concepts would most equitably govern the nature of human society today. Laws which acknowledge human nature, mitigating the effects of its negative components while preserving individual freedoms, seem far more valuable than neo-puritanical governance we are too often saddled with today, which prefers to pretend the problem of humanity’s more negative nature is strictly criminal or does not exist.

Social structures and institutions which enact and personify the best in our species should be uplifted, ensuring a baseline equality for all citizens in the realms of education, healthcare, housing and sustenance. Modern religion, notably the semitic variety, with a focus on the supernatural and archaic, outdated beliefs supported by violent and arrogant deities, would better serve humanity to give way to less legalistic, discriminatory and close-minded versions of themselves, simply encouraging the selfless parts of human nature, pushing humanity to greater discovery and cooperation while admiring and appreciating the natural world.

All in all, humanity would do well to remember we were not the first, nor are we likely to be the last dominant species on this planet. Caring for our environment, responsible management of resources, supporting our fellow humans and building a theoretically more ordered world are worthy goals we should work towards. Yet, we must also accept and relish our more primal nature. Our anger, violence and vanity, when properly harnessed, drive us to work harder, protect our loved ones, compete more intensely, and push everyone around us to be the best version of themselves. Our sexuality should be explored and nurtured in safe, sane and consensual environments, fulfilling one of our most basic urges in a healthy, gratifying manner for all involved. Our need to love, be loved, and feel wanted is intoxicating when met, and loved ones allow us to tap into a drive to better ourselves and our lives more than nearly any force known to mankind.

Humanity must fully embrace our nature if we are to properly harness and maximize its effectiveness, as individuals and a collective species. We are dualistic creatures, light and dark, good and evil, selfish and selfless, order and chaos, creation and destruction, we are the product of a dualist world in a dualist universe. Struggle and competition will continue to define us, as will compassion, love, and determination. When accepted and internalized, the duality humanity possesses allows us to be the most dynamic, successful, reality-changing species to ever exist on this planet. In short, a channeled order on the knife's edge of chaos.