The Video Game Critic

Thanks or the replies.

Interesting, as backwards compatibility was never anything we thought was possible in the NES-SNES-64-etc era, but now it seems to be an expectation. It was just weird to me that they figured that out now. I guess it wasn't originally planned, but when they saw folks hanging on to their 360s, they though they needed something to push them forward.

Someone said "DRM". What is that?

Thanks again for helping an old man catch up.

It's inexcusable how bad Nintendo's live event was. Mario Maker? Okay, totally never heard of that one last year. Oh, new Star Fox? eff you, I have it on the 3DS already! Who cares!?

Voor wrote: Interesting, as backwards compatibility was never anything we thought was possible in the NES-SNES-64-etc era, but now it seems to be an expectation. It was just weird to me that they figured that out now. I guess it wasn't originally planned, but when they saw folks hanging on to their 360s, they though they needed something to push them forward. Someone said "DRM". What is that?

Forgive me if I put on a history lesson.

DRM is Digital Rights Management, a fancy term for digital items where buyers lose the rights of the 1st sale doctrine. That was basically if you bought a physical game, you could then rent or resell that game, because you owned it. The new owner could also do the same. It did not give you the right to copy it. Copying was an issue even back in the analog 1980s, but analog products wear out while digital items are identical to the original. The 1st sale doctrine helps libraries, used book stores, and ebay, but its also seen as a threat to people involved in making and selling new products. Once things went digital, selling and copying products became a big concern (beginning in the 1980s actually), and to combat that companies created DRM. I own lots of video games that I was not the original owner of, however, the computer games I have purchased on the Steam website I can never sell to anyone else.

Backwards compatibility actually goes back to the Atari golden age in the early 1980s. The Atari 2600 was a huge hit, and the next model they came out with was the 5200. However the 5200 had a very different architecture, and was not compatible - but consumers did not understand why the hundreds of dollars of games they had would not play on the new system! It was a painful moment, and hurt Atari. They did come out with the 7800 which was fully backwards compatible, but the story of the 7800 is a bit sad. Meanwhile, Coleco actually made a 'sideways compatible' product that let their machine play Atari 2600 games! Insult to injury. The idea has been of only limited value since, but its most useful at the beginning of a console's life when the library of a new console is small, and people still are very interested in their older console. The Genesis was with an adapter to the Master System. Nintendo thought about doing it for the SNES, but chose not too. The change in technology to optical discs made it harder, although I think Sega thought about it for the Saturn - although again, the architecture change was dramatic. Something of the idea continued not with backwards compatibility but with compilations of older games - yes, you had to rebuy games, but you usually got quite a few and for a reasonable cost. The PS2 though was the first console I can think of whose success was helped greatly by being backwards compatible with the original PS. The PS3 launch model added an expensive chip to keep PS2 compatibility, but dropped it in later models (although keeping original PS compatibility, but that really no longer counts). The Wii was backwards compatible with the Gamecube, but the Wii's success was not derived from that, but from a killer app. The Wii U is backwards compatible with the Wii, but it also did not really benefit there either, in part since to play the old Wii games you needed additional controllers from your old Wii - so what was the point. Compilation discs have mostly gone away now, replaced by companies trying to get people to rebuy older games one at a time, or since the Dreamcast days gamers seeking out emulation (a topic that wraps right back around to DRM) or with companies like GOG selling older games that can play on modern computers (without DRM, which is a major feature of GOG).

Edit: Nintendo portables often have backwards compatibility, although the DS line dropped it over time.

Yeah, I was actually watching a AVGN video where he talked about how the Celecovision could play Atati games, and how something like that would NEVER happen today.

Yeah, I actually owned one of those when I had a Colecovision. They were pretty cool but pretty flimsy. Still, back then it was a cool add on- it would never happen today.

Nintendo's E3 was terrible (or close enough). Nintendo should have used this opportunity to build hype, get a selection of titles gamers never saw coming, instead it seems like they folded up shop. I agree with NX that it seems like Nintendo has pretty much given up at this point and is trying to salvage whatever they can to prepare them for the next console. Seriously... Amiibos were in like 3 or 4 of their biggest announcements...

scotland wrote:Backwards compatibility actually goes back to the Atari golden age in the early 1980s. The Atari 2600 was a huge hit, and the next model they came out with was the 5200. However the 5200 had a very different architecture, and was not compatible - but consumers did not understand why the hundreds of dollars of games they had would not play on the new system! It was a painful moment, and hurt Atari. They did come out with the 7800 which was fully backwards compatible, but the story of the 7800 is a bit sad. Meanwhile, Coleco actually made a 'sideways compatible' product that let their machine play Atari 2600 games! Insult to injury. The idea has been of only limited value since, but its most useful at the beginning of a console's life when the library of a new console is small, and people still are very interested in their older console. The Genesis was with an adapter to the Master System. Nintendo thought about doing it for the SNES, but chose not too. The change in technology to optical discs made it harder, although I think Sega thought about it for the Saturn - although again, the architecture change was dramatic. Something of the idea continued not with backwards compatibility but with compilations of older games - yes, you had to rebuy games, but you usually got quite a few and for a reasonable cost. The PS2 though was the first console I can think of whose success was helped greatly by being backwards compatible with the original PS. The PS3 launch model added an expensive chip to keep PS2 compatibility, but dropped it in later models (although keeping original PS compatibility, but that really no longer counts). The Wii was backwards compatible with the Gamecube, but the Wii's success was not derived from that, but from a killer app. The Wii U is backwards compatible with the Wii, but it also did not really benefit there either, in part since to play the old Wii games you needed additional controllers from your old Wii - so what was the point. Compilation discs have mostly gone away now, replaced by companies trying to get people to rebuy older games one at a time, or since the Dreamcast days gamers seeking out emulation (a topic that wraps right back around to DRM) or with companies like GOG selling older games that can play on modern computers (without DRM, which is a major feature of GOG).

Edit: Nintendo portables often have backwards compatibility, although the DS line dropped it over time.

Awesome job! Very solid history there. You even got the bit about Nintendo thinking about it for the SNES in there (which is, of course, a large part of the reason the SNES was stuck with a chip that made it's games play in slow motion compared to the Genesis).

One tiny bit of hair splitting: The Colecovision, I think, counts as working to be backwards compatible with the 2600, not sideways. The Colecovision is 5 years newer than the 2600, had a new Atari (the 5200) it was competing with, and had huge technical superiority over the 2600. That's the difference between the N64 and the Xbox. That's a different generation.

One odd system for backwards compatibility was the original Gameboy. Not only could the GBC play Gameboy games, but (and here's the odd part when you think about it) the original Gameboy could play some GBC games. I remember being a kid and checking the box to see if a new GBC game would work with my Gameboy. I kind of resented if it didn't. But in some cases, games were marketed to the GBC, but probably sold as many or more copies on Gameboy when they were dual mode games.

By the way, anyone who doesn't like Nintendo even a little, try not smiling a little that this is still a page on their current site:
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/system ... ychart.jsp
That's long time customer service.

I'm not really interested in Nintendo as far as the Wii U or NX goes, but I am interested in their potential mobile games. Were there any annoucents about that?

Hmm, I don't think so. Nintendo pretty much showed off 3DS games and Wii U games.

As E3 goes Nintendo really sucked monkey balls. It's now clear to me at least that the NX is coming out next year. Else, we'd have seen the demos of possible Wii U games Miyamoto demoed last year at e3 or failing that new, unannounced games.

The only new Wii U game that I hadn't seen was something called FE. Did anyone else catch that? It reminded me of the Hentai games you'd see on the NEC PC-FX. There were more bouncy ladies than on the Man's Show's Girls Jumping on Trampolines segments.

As for who won e3 for the future - it's definitely Sony. For the fall it's definitely Microsoft.

I'm stoked about a Rare collection. And Mal from Firefly is going to be in Halo 5. How awesome is that? <squeel like a little girl>

FF7, c'mon who doesn't want that?

Out of all the games shown though, to me at least, my favorite was Cup Head by Nintendo on the Xbox One. Its 20s/30s cartoon style looked amazing.

ActRaiser wrote:Hmm, I don't think so. Nintendo pretty much showed off 3DS games and Wii U games.

It's now clear to me at least that the NX is coming out next year. Else, we'd have seen the demos of possible Wii U games Miyamoto demoed last year at e3 or failing that new, unannounced games.

I've changed my guess for what the NX is, but not for its release date. The timing doesn't work for it to be next year. Nintendo is slow bringing consoles to market after they're announced or shown. The Wii console body was at E3 2005, then the controller was at Tokyo gameshow or Gamescom or something that year, with the controller at E3 2006, before releasing that year in November. This Christmas they're still pushing Star Fox and Mario Maker and Amiibo, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and New 3DS (confirmed now for NA), and new 3DS XL, and they already have games announced for 3DS for 2016. They (Miyamoto specifically I believe) have said since the digital event at E3 that Zelda is still coming to Wii U (even if it goes Gamecube, that sounds like a confirmed 2016 title for Wii U).

So, on your timeline, they have to play out this year selling the Wii U, until something like February 2016. Then, between then and November 2016, counting E3, they have to show the NX, explain what it is, sell the idea to gamers or general consumers (whichever it is aimed at), announce pricing and release dates, manufacture and ship it out. All the while, still trying to sell 3DS, and with Zelda to promote? When it doesn't even have a real name or design out to discuss yet? That's too much to do and no time to do it.

The time line I see:
2015: sell Wii U, Star Fox, Amiibos, etc. Sell new 3DS and XL.
2016: Sell Zelda Wii U (and barely anything else on Wii U). Sell late 3DS stuff. Talk a lot (constantly) about NX- the cross between console and handheld. Talk it up, target it, bring it to E3, announce Super Mario Universe for it.
2017: It replaces Nintendo's handheld and console markets and launches like one of their handhelds, in March or the summer.

In that timeline they do what they have no choice but to do this year (which definitely means little to no Nx talk this year), gives them lots of time to talk about it next year, gives them one talking point for Wii U to save face on it, gives Zelda Christmas to itself, and assures that neither Wii U nor 3DS has to make it far into the following year, while still letting both have respectable life cycles.

I think if NX was 2016, it would have been at E3 in some manner. The fact it wasn't makes me fairly certain 2016 is Zelda, New 3DS, and a lot of hyping for early 2017.

hehe, let's agree to disagree!

The other reason my hunch is they're not announcing the NX this year is to avoid cannibalizing any Wii U consoles until the NX arrives. If they announced this year, well, there goes Wii U sales from now through Q4 of 2016.

If they announce the NX at e3 2016 or even earlier for a Q4 2016 release all they have to do is port Zelda to it and they have an immediate sell out for the console. Sure, they'll release a copy for the Wi U, say after the NX port. They've already done this strategy before.

The reason why I don't see them releasing in 2017 is frankly due to the fact that I find it unlikely for Nintendo to release a single game in 2016 for the Wii U in the 4th quarter. That's a lot of money left on the table that if they pulled in the release dates for the NX. They'd make a killing on hardware and be able to offer 3rd party publishers a 3rd option for porting their games to a system that's arguably going to be on par or better than its peers.

I definitely get that the timeline is tight but when you factor in that Nintendo's major development areas don't seem to be working on much (at least announced at e3) they have to be heads down on something else...something called NX. Star Fox was off loaded to Platinum games, right? So...what's Miyamoto working on? NX, why? They've moved on from the Wii U.