Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

At what point does Nintendo's "kiddie" rep fuel itself?

Nintendo has definitely embraced the kid-friendly image but maybe the embrace has turned into a bear hug and Nintendo can't let it go.

[ ButtonMashing.com: Some light reading. ]

Sure, my license plates announce to the world that I'm a total fan boy, but I still think that I can be objective. The fact of the matter is that this is how I see the current three consoles:

• X Box
  
  Pros:
  
  Games all have at least a T rating, if not M. Anything that even begins to smack of less than T gets a dose of blood or guts or sex to boost the rating, thus no games for kids.
  
  Most appealing due to on-line play excellence, thus best liked for death matches and Madden (and other sports too, I guess).
  
  Most choices in controllers. I like seeing some of the crazy controllers that people come up with for the XBox. There are all types of gamers and they appreciate all types of controls. I would like to see the NextBox have mice available for it without having to hack it, that would silence a large number of FPS PC gamers.
  
  Best FPS experience due to Halo & Halo 2. What can I say, picking up Bungie was a great move for Microsoft, and one that has gone the farthest to making them a contender.
  
  Cons:
  
  New to games, still trying to figure out what everyone wants. Not able to be all things to all people. Too concerned about their image to release games like Katamari Damacy or Pikmin.
  
  Likely to have culture conflicts with Microsoft proper. Microsoft truly wants to build the one ring to rule them all, and could be forcing things on the NextBox that will make it unpalatable to the gaming community at large.
  
  
• PS2
  
  Pros:
  
  Biggest library. Again a vicious cycle. If you want to maximize your sales you write your games for a minimum of the console that most people have (unless you're a 2nd party developer). Thus the Playstation gets the most games because it has the most games.
  
  Most appealing due to breadth of games. Best platform for RPGs due to exclusive on Final Fantasy series. More best fighting games.
  
  Cons:
  
  Crappy hardware. Higher failure rate than any other console. Crappy support for getting things fixed too.
  
  Only 2 friggin' ports. Why not just put in 4 ports and fore go the stupid multi-tap?!?!?
  
  Most expensive console (especially with above crappy multi-tap)
  
  Super crappy website. Sure that has little to do with the purchase of a console, but I really think Sony can do better.
  
  
• GameCube
  
  Pros:
  
  Great first party games, great second party games. Best designed hardware giving great value for the money. Tight controls over hardware and software reducing the chance of buying crappy 2nd or 3rd party software or peripherals.
  
  Tons of innovation means you never know what to expect. If something is hot in games there is a good chance that Nintendo tried it first (except on-line, but I agree with Nintendo).
  
  Cons:
  
  "Kiddie" rep keeps "mature" gamers from considering the platform. This one drives me crazy, there are adult oriented titles out for the Cube, and for the most part these titles are only when necessary. I think that the blood and gore and extreme violence are great in Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness, but somewhat unnecessary in PS2's Mark of Kri. This means that I can't play these games with my impressionable young daughter around, and cuts into my gaming time.
  
  Rep also seems to make people think that the Cube is less powerful than other platforms. I'm not sure where this comes from. The base specs for the Cube put it squarely between the PS2 and XBox in terms of power. I'm amazed by some things on the PS2 that would seem commonplace on the Cube. So many reviews of RE4 expressed surprise in the quality of the game on the Cube, but I think it's par for the course. Of course XBox has the most power here, but the Cube still is heads above the PS2 across the board.

I currently own a GameCube (duh) and a PS2. The PS2 came down to a price that I was willing to give it a chance, and I'm glad that I have. There are enough gems for the PS2 that it was well worth picking up: Ico, Ratchet & Clank, Kingdom Hearts. Due to my current experience I'll be doing everything to ensure that I have a Nintendo Revolution and PS3 around their launch dates.

As for XBox, I'm starting to see the appeal. I still don't understand why I'd want to go on-line and get my butt whipped by an anonymous 12 year old at every game that I buy, but there are a few XBox titles that I'd love to play: Halo, Halo 2, and Fable for example. If the NextBox will be backward compatible, I'll likely wait for it's price to sink a bit, if not I'll likely pick up a 2nd hand XBox.

Where has Nintendo gone wrong? Lost too much in the 2nd party arena. I don't pretend to know everything about the inter-workings of the gaming business, but they let slip Rare, Silicon Knights, and an exclusive on Resident Evil 4. Surely one of those at a minimum was worth a few bucks on Nintendo's part. Rare hasn't come up with much for the XBox, and I'm not sure what happened to Silicon Knights, but Resident Evil 4 rocks. If Nintendo would just pony up the cash to turn the Resident Evil series into a Nintendo exclusive, and bundle RE4 with cubes, I think they'd sell a ton. Perhaps they are already giving up on the GameCube and have something certain with the Revolution, we'll have to wait for the gunfight at E3 to tell for sure.