My Nintendo Years ('96-??)

Sure, everyone is giving their two cents on Nintendo and what they should and should have been doing, so I'll join in the conversation as well.

My time with Nintendo started on Dec 25, 1996. I was 10 and recently moved to a new city for the first time. On that Christmas morning I opened up Super Mario 64 and Cruis'n USA. My eyes lit up and then it hit me and I said to my parents, "How am I suppose to play these? I only have a SEGA Genesis." Then I saw the large present under the tree with my name on it. There it was, a Nintendo 64. I couldn't have been happier. From that point on I would always be attached to Nintendo.

For the next five years I had some of the best video game experiences in my life. Playing GoldenEye 007 multiplayer with a large group of friends will forever be in my mind. I was involved in a bunch of Mortal Kombat 4 tournaments. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is one of my favorite games ever and I would beat it over and over again. Maybe I liked it so much because it was the first Mature-rated game my mom let me purchase? Then in 1998, what would turn out to be my favorite game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released. During the late 90's I started playing football in middle school and I was instantly addicted to NFL Quarterback Club. From that point on I would be playing football games every year. Overall I had most of my best and favorite gaming years with the Nintendo 64.

Then the new Millennium had come and gone and in 2001 my friends and I couldn't wait until the GameCube was released. Around this time in my life I was getting deep into sports. I was playing football, basketball, and soccer (I wasn't good enough to make the baseball team). So most of my GameCube years were spent simulating seasons in Madden and MVP Baseball with my friends (sometimes when we should've been at school. Oops.). There were a few multiplayer games that hooked me and those were Time Splitters 2 and Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. I can recall so many all-nighters yelling and screaming and waking up my friend's parents many times and I wouldn't trade those moments for anything.

Then another five years passed and the Nintendo Wii was set to be released. I was very skeptical about the whole motion control set-up so I decided to not purchase one at launch. The night Wii was released I spent the weekend at a friend's house that did get one at launch. He only had Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. We spent most of the night bowling. Twilight Princess was fairly fun when everyone got their shot to play it but no one wanted to play it for longer than 15-20 minutes. That worried me. Myself and everyone there are huge Zelda fans and if none of us wanted to play a new Zelda game for longer than 20 minutes at a time something is wrong. Eventually in 2008 I bought a Wii because of Mario Kart Wii. I bought steering wheels and everything. After having weeks and weeks of fun I decided to give Twilight Princess another shot. I couldn't do it. I made it a few hours through the game and using the Wii remote and nunchuk just annoyed me and I stopped playing it all together. My time with the Wii was short-lived.

In 2012 the talk about the Wii U started ramping up and I was eating up every word I was fed. I don't know if it was because it had been so long since there was a Nintendo console I was looking forward to or that I really liked what Nintendo had to say about the Wii U. Nintendo was talking about great first party games like New Super Mario Bros. U, Project P-100 (now Wonderful 101), and Pikmin 3, along with the teaser title of Super Smash Bros. The third party lineup was looking amazing as well and I couldn't help but think, "Could Nintendo finally is going to get the third party support we all want?" Games like Mass Effect 3, Arkham City, ZombiU, Darksiders 2, and Ninja Gaiden were coming to Wii U. What wasn't there to like about the Wii U at this point? I was into the idea of the GamePad being a second screen. I thought it would be like a 3DS for my living room. I put in my pre-order for the Wii U and was ready to dive back into whatever Nintendo threw in front of me.

It's now been almost 15 months since the release of the Wii U and I'm disappointed in my purchase. New Super Mario Bros U was pretty fun, Super Mario 3D World was a blast, ZombiU was new and interesting, LEGO City Undercover had its moments, and The Wonderful 101 is a lot of fun. The first three games listed have one thing in common and that is I played them for two weeks and haven't picked them up since. After the initial wave of third party games there have been few to none. Sure Mario Kart 8 is coming by the end of May. And sure, other games I'm looking forward are coming out later this year like Bayonetta 2, Super Smash Bros (U, I guess is the actual name), X, and Yarn Yoshi, but will they be enough to make Wii U somewhat of a success?

I'm torn on what I want to happen to the Wii U. If it succeeds that means I'll keep getting fun Nintendo games on a console I own. If Wii U fails (I mean completely bomb) that means Nintendo will have to realize they need to do something different right now. Does that mean a company-wide "refresh" (or firing if you will) and allow some new, younger people to bring Nintendo back to relevancy? Maybe. Japanese culture is a lot more different than what we're used to in the USA. Here in the USA we're used to seeing a CEO or President fired if their company starts to fail or shareholders are asking for heads to roll. In Japan they're a lot more patient and willing to allow people with proven track records to workout their issues.

Personally I wouldn't mind seeing some replacements for Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto. From my eyes Nintendo hasn't innovated enough with their first party games. It's just more Mario, more Donkey Kong, more Mario (yes I said it twice), etc. Yes, The Wonderful 101 is a new IP out only on Wii U and that's great. I've enjoyed the time I've spent with it but it didn't sell well from what I've read. Where is the next new Nintendo hit? With Mr. Iwata and Mr. Miyamoto still at Nintendo I don't believe we will see one. And the Wii U as a console is a mess. How can Nintendo, the company that created the GamePad, not know how to use their own hardware? And apparently the GamePad is what's making the Wii U lose money with every console sold. The battery is horrible. The screen is a single-touch, touch-resistant screen. Those two features were out-of-date years before the Wii U was even a thought. The fact the GamePad doesn't use Bluetooth is pathetic. And then you add the face, along with the bad battery life, the GamePad HAS to be on whenever the console itself is on is mind boggling. If I'm playing New Super Mario Bros U with two other friends no one wants to use the GamePad just to place blocks on the screen so we're all using Pro Controllers but the GamePad cannot be turned off. When I'm watching Netflix on my Wii U I can't turn off the GamePad, it needs to have information fed to it and drain the battery. It's like Nintendo was looking for a way to make us drain the battery life on it. And the Wii U UI is... old. It's the same UI as the Wii. How does that happen? Did Nintendo just forget about it? Finally, how can you not have a connected account system between the 3DS and Wii U? And the Club Nintendo system is separate, too. That should never have happened and it shouldn't be separate to this day, but it is (aside from a shared wallet). Nintendo needs to realize the world that's around them and get with the times.

Overall I have loved my time with Nintendo hardware and software. My favorite game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is on the Nintendo 64. My early years of split-screen multiplayer is thanks to Nintendo. But lately Nintendo has been disappointing my in the direction they're going. The lack of games on the Wii U is disheartening, along with the lack of third party support because of the inferior console specs and other reasons. I want to keep believing in Nintendo but I don't know how much longer I can hold on.