UK tabloid attacks Nintendo over epilepsy Comments by Rob Fahey

dk_rare, actually, no. MS would probably issue a statement and watch the reaction, then decide what to do, and Sony wouldn't even care. Nintendo doesn't either.

Want to know what it is to dirty Nintendo name? Is simply to dig up their past. Did you know that during the Nes, SNes and N64 times, Nintendo practiced price fixing with stores, and it was already punished in court twice for doing so? Price fixing, is threatning the stores, that if they don't sell their system for the price they wish, they'll stop giving the system to them (thus there is no market competivity betwen shop prices, and the system remains solid at the same price). This was effective in the Nes/SNes age, since Nintendo was the only brand that sold. Who got fucked? Who got fucked? We, consumers, got fucked.
Want me to draw my toilet paper "Nintendo fucked us bad" list? You just have to ask. I could be here all day long.

Nintendo may not be perfect, but neither are Sony and Microsoft. Every business needs to make money. Besides, the good outweighs the bad - Nintendo has arguably done more for the industry than any other company.

Yea, and also went to court more than any other company's gaming sections (MS's XBox or Sony's PS).
Some people forget they are here for only one thing, making money, and if for that they need to force you to use 4 GBAs, or threaten shops to not supply them with their products in case they don't fix the prices, it just starts getting low you see? Why are some retailers not supplying Nintendo GC stuff anymore? I'll tell you what, I bet price fixing as something to do with it, either bad business now, or simply ressent from bad business not so long ago (N64 age).

I could go on forever. Why did Sony disagree with Nintendo when developing the PSX? I mean, Nintendo would be up now if they hadn't screwed things with Sony and their partnership. Instead, Nintendo wanted to do things their way, and fucked things up. Sony kept the PSX, Nintendo moved to develop the N64.
Why are 3rd party devs neglecting Nintendo GC? Just because it bunks at sale, or is there something more to it? Nintendo has the arshest 3rd party support and agreements, specially compared to the other 2 gaming giants. And believe me, it is nothing compared to how it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you'd make a blood oath with nintendo, and promise them your firstborn so that you could develop a game to their system.

I don't think that Nintendo have 'fucked things up'. They are, despite what you may hear, still quite successful (especially in Japan), and I don't think they are too worried about the position of the GameCube. The reason that Nintendo likes to do things their own way is because that is how they work best. You mention the incident with Sony and the original PlayStation as if it was a bad thing that Nintendo didn't continue on with the partnership. They went on to produce the N64, featuring some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. Then came the GBA, which virtually sealed the handheld market for them, and again featuring excellent games. And the excellent games still keep on coming, and will continue to do so for quite some time. If they did 'do a Sega', then all the focus will be on Microsoft and Sony, and all epilepsy claims etc. will be directed at them.

Kay, are you telling me Zelda, Ocarina of Time wouldn't have been better on the PSX? Sure, the graphics would suck, but the sound samples and music would be way better.

Keep in mind N64 could only read games that took up to 32 Megs of memory. Thats very few, compared to PSX 700 Megs, Dreamcast 1.2 Gig, or PS2/XBox 9 Gig.

There were good 1st party games, and that was about it. Nintendo did a couple of good games, and Rare made many excelent games. But there was no third party what so ever. The N64 could take the high polys, but it hadn't the memory to take the textures, so the models would all bland, and without any deepness. If Nintendo was a inovator, they'd be more worryed with having a good and cheap medium. Instead, they went for the fast and harder to copy medium, but that cripled their games in many ways, from sound to textures.

Just that you imagine, a each DOA3 character model, has 2 megs of textures. Musics are 10 -30 Megs each. And sounds go from 600ks to 1 meg. Now imagine having to do a whole game limited to 32 megs...

Nintendo made many mistakes in the N64.

Want another small example of Nintendo way of doing things?

Nintendo releaces GBA - what you say is the finest portable machine (and you are right, since it's the ONLY one, short of the NeoGeo Pocket Color which doesn't have support), but you pick up ANY review of the GBA, and you'll read about the crappy design that makes it impossible to play games in it. The monitor isn't lighted up and it's reflective, so one can't see S#!t. How come this was even released?
Anyhow, they keep to the guns, release this, people buy it, and when afterburner kits started being sold (so you could mod your GBA and make it be self lighted), Nintendo releases the GBASP - which was now really a fine machine IMO. Folding in half, lighted up, rechargeable batery... excelent console... if it wasn't missing features that GBA had. For some reason (a reason I'll explain in a minute) Nintendo found convinient to not include a phone jack in GBSP, while GBA, GBC, GBP and the original GB, all had phone jacks. Now the reason is quite obvious. Nintendo has a fetish for acessories. Better yet, Nintendo likes to suck us to the bone, making us buy 80 extra bits and boobs. So, the phone jack was now an adaptor. Not a big diference, but uncompreencible, unless you open your eyes and see that they really are fucking us in the arse.

This is the reason why I KNOW for sure FFCC was "forced" by Nintendo to only work with 4 GBAs in MP. They want to sell HW to the fans, because the software sales are sinking.

Oh, and they like to do things their own way, because they are moneywangers. They drive the arshest business in town, fucking everyone, not minding the laws, and fucking the 3rd party devs, just that they can make the extra buck today. They simply are stupid because they forget that in the next day, they are presented to the court for their ilegal business (happened at least a couple of times), and that the 3rd party support moves on to other consoles, leaving them in the hunger. It happened with the N64, and it is happening with the GC. Specially nowadays that 3rd party is many times as good as 3rd party, they should be making the extra effort not to loose any more 3rd party support. But they still have arsher rules to publish on the GC, than to publish on the PS2 or XBox. How many 3rd party exclusives can you think of? Right now, ony a couple comes to my mind, Billy Hatcher and FFCC from SEGA.

I look at the XBox, I look at the PS2, and I have many good 3rd party games. Final Fantasy, GTA, Metal Gear, Otogi, Ninja Gaiden, DOA, KUFTC, Fable...
They are all 3rd party.

I can think of at least 15 3rd party games that I want to see released in XBox, and other 15 on the PS2 which are now in development. I can't think of one single 3rd party game for the GC not yet released (which remotly interests me). Tell me in what way is this a good aproach? Tell me in what way would it hurt their way of doing things to have a bigger 3rd party support....

Yea, but nowadays only big publishers like EA or Ubisoft take the risk. As for exclusives:
Billy Hatcher - exclusive
FF:CC - exclusive
Metal Gear TTS - remake of the PSX/PC version (a graphic update, to an old game, by no means exclusive, and missing many features of the original, like the VR missions)
P.N.03 - Exclusive
Beach Spikers - exclusive
Super Monkey Ball - exclusive (I am trying to remmember if I saw this one before in another console, I believe DC, but I can't recall - and if you consider NGage half assed convertion it's not exclusive - but lets not go there)
Super Monkey Ball 2 - exclusive (read above)
Virtua Striker 3 - exclusive (it's like saying Fifa 2005 if exclusive the PS2. So fucking what. It's Fifa 2004+1 and plays and looks exactly the same - Virtua Striker 2 was released on the DC)
Resident Evil Remake - not exclusive, remake of the PC,PSX,Saturn game
Resident Evil 0 - exclusive (Capcom broke the exclusivity on Viewtifull Joe, will it break in the RE series?)
Resident Evil 4 - exclusive (read above)

Which is funny because you only mentioned titles already released. No future whatsoever for 3rd party GC support - other than the big guns (EA and Ubisoft)?
Sega released it's fair share of exclusives in the Cube, and Capcom had an arragement which they are now breaking free of. The question, is that the few 3rd party support it had in the past, is now turning into no 3rd party support at all (like I said, exclusives). Taking into consideration they are the only manufacturer who says they intend to milk this console, doesn't talk of the next console, says this console still has much to give, yada yada yada - it's really funny. MS and Sony are all guns-o with developing the new console, and preparing for it's launch. Rummors fly left and right every day. They are supporting the current generation, with the best 1st and 3rd part titles to be released on them, but after the final and best wave, they'll move on. Fable, KUFTC, Tekken 5, Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tune, Armored Core Nexus, FF12, KH2, Ico 2 (if it wasn't canceled) GTA SA... I'm just picking names off hte top of my mind, of games I'll certainly look into. All 3rd party, all exclusives, and all of them still to be released. Nintendo on the other hand, keeps bumping the GC, saying there is still much power to use in it, etc. but we only see promising 1st party games in the future - no exclusive 3rd party support.

What I'm saying, is that with the GC, we can only count with the first party for quality exclusives now. MS and Sony have more 3rd party exclusives I'm looking into than 1st party, and they both still have a big share of 1st party, believe me (Halo 2 pops into my mind ^^;)

CyberClaw - you really hate Nintendo, don't you? I have about 12 games on the GameCube which I consider brilliant (I only buy the brilliant games), and there are tons more games which I haven't managed to get yet because of time and money. I think all this obsession with lots and lots of games is ridiculous - as long as they have a healthy amount of good games on the system, that will be fine for me. I want to play the likes of Halo 2, GTA SA, Ico etc., but as I said before, there's only so much games I can play. Nintendo have made some of the greatest games of all time, and for that they deserve a place in the industry. In fact, if you were look into the practices of Microsoft and Sony, arguably the two biggest companies in the world, I'm sure you will find a lot, lot worse. Otherwise they wouldn't have got where they are today. And please - calm down.

10 games on the GC, 3 on the GBA, 3 on the SNes, 10 in the Nes, 5 on the N64, and 2 on the GBC.
Do I find their comercial tactics insulting for me as a consumer? Hell yes.

I also have Windows in my PC, that doesn't mean I enjoy licking Bill Gates by supporting it (although Windows XP is very good, unlike ME Edition). Although I support good products that care for the consumer. One such example for me is the XBox. Excelent consumer support. I mean, the stuff they do with it, it's the stuff I want them to do with it. I don't feel fucked over and over again just because they want to make the quick buck.

Kay, MS only went to court for stuff you and me will find amuzing to say the least. Stuff like having Internet Explorer pre-instaled in Windows, and not being able to de-install components of windows (media player and internet explorer) - because that way people won't buy their competitors software (netscape, etc). Oh, they also went to court, because they are too big, and they should be split into 2 companies.

I dunno what you think about the above accusations, but I find them pretty silly. Can't they bumdle whatever they want with their OS for free now? So what, it can't be un-installed, does it bother you? It's not like you can't install netscape in it. And splitting the company into 2 was just pure jolly. WTF, can't a company be big now (in case you are wondering, MS wasn't split as you probably guessed).

Anyway, while MS is attacked at court because it is too big (let's face it, no one would charge another OS because it comes bundled with a browser), Nintendo is attacked for being comercially incorrect - and exercing "threats" over comerciants, and influenciating market prices. I mean, not supporting online games, forcing one to buy 4 GBAs to enjoy FFCC mp, that's all internal decisions on their products, that may sound cool or lame (the examples given here are lame in my pov), but they went the extra step to get near a comericant, and say something on this lines:
"You ear me bub, you either keep those N64 games at 80 Euros a piece, or you won't get any more pokemon shipments"
Now, in the N64 era, this didn't have almost any influence at all, since N64 was a prety minority in the market. But in the Nes/SNes era, the videogame stores profit was solely from Nintendo products (which regained public trust on videogames after the big crash - kudos on Nintendo for that - the problem being that they abused their position).

I mean, when one person finds the cure for AIDS, they won't sell it for a kuasilion dollars to 3 people. They'll sell it at a reasonable price, with a profit margin, yes, but still in the buderies of the law.

I know AIDS is a medical disease, and it's a more serious business - but don't be fooled. It's a business all the same. All they want to make is a buck in the end of the month.

What distinguishes the good from the bad, is the business etic and the persuasion techniques used with the merchants. Nintendo obviously, is a street bully, who once bullyed merchants, and now is fucked in the arse by many who won't store their products.

Nintendo may have been to court for worse things, but MS and Sony have also most probably done some bad things that are not yet known about. No-one knew about the price fixing until it came in the news, did they? Who knows, in ten years time Microsoft may be in court for something that they are doig now.

Well, sorry, but you are accusing MS and Sony of something they MIGHT have done. That's just plain silly. For all we know, Nintendo might sell children into slavery, or even use real human kidneys to make their Pikachu dolls. But since we don't know about it, we don't speculate.

Anywho, I received an email this afternoon which was interesting. Mr. Richard Trahant, an attourney who appeared in the BBC Nintendo documentary commented on a small detail about Nintendo and Epilepsy I personally didn't know, and I supose most of you don't. I'll quote him:
"What the avid gamers (I was one at one point in the early 1980's) don't realize is that Nintendo has been held in contempt of court more than once for tampering with and hiding documents on this topic."

I'll just add one small thing that Mr. Richard Trahant sent me. He said to google for "Roccaforte v. Nintendo of America". I found interesting stuff, really. It's a lawsuit against Nintendo saying children suffered seizures for playing Nintendo games. Here is a quote on the case:

"Unfortunately for Nintendo, the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit held in November of last year that the company's numerous discovery abuses during the Roccaforte trial required that the verdict be vacated and the case remanded for a new trial. The district court sanctioned Nintendo for questionable oversights twice during the trial. In the first instance, Nintendo, without court approval, redacted the contact information of consumers who complained of video game related seizures from documents requested by the plaintiff. On the second occasion, Nintendo failed to turn over hundreds of pages of documents which proved that not only was Nintendo aware of the problem of video game induced seizures, but also that the company knew which games were more likely to cause such seizures. The information was finally given to the plaintiff on the third day of the trial. It was only at this point that Nintendo stipulated that the video game had caused the plaintiff's seizures."

Apparently, not only do they threaten shop owners, but they also hide and "modify" evidence. They are going to go to a new trial face the hidden evidence.

can't a company be big now

Actually no, but there's no 'now' about it, this has been the case for a long time. If one company has too great a market share in one area the Monopolies and Mergers commission looks into whether or not it should be allowed to continue trading as one company, as to do so would be disadvantageous to the consumer.

Kolmar, yea I understand the reasoning for it, but it's like measuring basketball player heights. Nope you can't play. You're too big. It'd be a disavantage for everyone else. And look at your arms.

:) I just find it silly, that's all. They go to court not because they did something wrong, but because they did extremely well.