Nintendo doesn't want to compete with Sony and Microsoft--it's in a competition with itself to realize a vision of the video game industry that has been in the making for more than two decades.
That was a very well said statement. That's probably the most accurate statement about Nintendo's philosophy I've read before and I agree with it 100%. I think that's why they're okay with taking the blows that they have done. They're the only company to be able to take these kind of risks, move forward, fail again, move forward, have moderate success, move forward, how blowout success and still move forward. Nintendo is certainly doing their own thing but this statement puts "doing their own thing" in perspective.
I do frequently chuckle at some of the censhorship going on there but now that I hear that they're trying to add another rating into the mix, it's a little bit more understandable.
But it does suck the Australians can't play Mortal Kombat.
When making a game that will include a story, there is no way any developer should be putting gameplay over story. They shouldn't be putting story over gameplay. They have to meld them together to create the best experience. To say story is more important, that will make gameplay suffer and we all know what happens when gameplay suffers. If a game, having an in-depth story, puts gameplay over the story, then the game will suffer since players have to put up with a ulcer inducing story.
There's a reason why Platformers and other genres have been kicked to the back of the bus and that's simply because the mainstream audience or core gamers are looking for the next big, graphical, open world, T or M game. It brings to question, if the game industry stopped making all their killer-IP's--Mario, Zelda, Halo, CoD, GoW (both), Final Fantasy, Pokemon, etc--and began making other IP's, would consumers buy them? I'd have to say no and that's a huge problem with the industry.
What's good is that some developers are trying to push innovations in their established IP. The most recent, unreleased, Splinter Cell: Conviction is working that direction. It's not a total overhaul but they're trying new things. Modern Warfare is actually a good example. Straying away from WWII motifs and other real world settings, they went for fictional warfare and nailed it. It was gutsy (despite people were getting tired of the WWII theme) but it was successful. I do agree with Sophia though, this core vs. casual thing has got to go. Make games and let people buy them without having to feel like they're abandoning their "gaming roots."
Game addiction is real; no doubt about it. For some people, it can be as intoxicating as a recent girlfriend. I had been playing games since I was 7 and I used to be addicted myself. It wasn't until my parents cracked down on my play time when I finally got over it. By the time I got to high school, I wasn't playing games that much but I would talk about them to my other friends. Games were (and still are) the love of my life but I used it in a much more social way. Consequently, my other "non-gaming" relationships got better because I wasn't couped inside all day.
As with any addiction, it is a lack of self-control issue. Some addictions are caused from chemicals, others are caused from lack of control. Video games is one of those that is simply lack of control. Yes, dopamine is released but that is for "any feel" good thing. Whether it takes help or not, a person addicted to video games needs to learn self-control.
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