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The 1980’s was a troubled time for video-gaming. Trying to
establish itself as an equal commodity to film and music production
in the entertainment industry whilst never really being able to
shake-off that “toy-thing” public image, the advent of home
consoles as opposed to games PCs was surely inevitable.
Nintendo’s first system, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES),
launched in the mid-80’s and with it, a whole host of names that
are now as much a part of our language as Morse Code was an
effective communication skill during the First World War. The
Japanese launch of the system was, of course, spectacular – with
the
UK
managing to grab hold of the system enough to keep it on shop
shelves by about 1988.
Worldwide dominance was then held by two companies who, at
the time, were deemed relatively small – SEGA and Nintendo –
and through this began to emerge a competitive struggle that has
yet been unrepeated in the industry. During the 1980’s and, with
the launch of both companies follow-ups in the early ‘90’s,
video-gaming began to metamorphosis from a
fat-kid-in-his-parents-basement hobby to another family
entertainment device. This was clearly a conscious decision on
behalf of the two birth-right fathers of console gaming in order to
not only raise their company’s own profile, but also to expand
the market away from traditional environments for future growth.
While today’s consoles clearly are far better established than
those of fifteen to twenty years ago - even more so than five years
ago - it’s not difficult to see some old market trends still
being viable.
The 21st century policy of avoidance, however,
seems to be a rather ludicrous one when compared to the stance of
the same company twenty years ago. Being only twenty-two myself,
much of my argument is bore on recorded history of the companies as
opposed to first-hand experience, but having benefited time and
time again from the innovation both SEGA and Nintendo displayed in
this era I believe I am fairly qualified to continue arguing my
point - and it’s this “innovation” that is in question.
Before you start writing your letters of complaint -  I am not
trying to say that the industry is without innovation or
creativity these days - personally I feel that gamers have rarely
seen better days within their chosen industry. With releases such
as Donkey Konga, Dead Or Alive: Ultimate, the Eye-Toy
and the Wario Ware series, it’d certainly be hard to argue
a point in time when so many developers would be willing to invest
in such novel ideas, with merely the possibility of being
able to pull it off and receiving the recognition such development
deserves (however you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned
today’s publishers, who seem far less intent on making
working amounts of revenue available to those out-sourced
developers creating a title without containing a numeric or
genre-formulaic structure). With all four of the stated titles,
there is one flaw in the conception of the innovation – they’re
not really that innovative.
While we may be seeing new concepts and increasing game
horizons, it seems that our vision may have been blinkered a
little. New concepts for games are often left as a sideline or
released in a totally ludicrous manner beyond their demographics
means and while this may be good and well for the publishers, it
seems that conceptual characters are far from their minds. Nintendo
are certainly the main culprit of this hideous crime. Renown within
the industry for their simple gaming genius and ability to move the
industry further forward with one release than most companies would
dare with ten, Nintendo seem to have lost that spark for the
development of Intellectual Property (IP). For a company who’s
reputation within the industry players is that of near-total
genius, Nintendo have moved away from their once readiness to
experiment. Some thirty years ago, a young apprentice was given the
chance to develop his own title, and sent Nintendo hurtling into
the record books…
 While Nintendo may still
be offering the chance to many young hopefuls, it’s certainly
been some time since there’s been a new Donkey Kong –
and I’m not talking about Diddy, Grampy, or
any other Kong. The creativity of a game is measured as to
how it plays certainly, but how would this feeling pan out with a
new partner to send you on your bongo-bashing travels? It now seems
written that Nintendo titles may only use established
characters, as while Pikmin managed to offer a fresh,
inventive experience, the freshness was all but forgotten with the Wario
Ware series and constant expansion of the Mario
franchise in all areas other than his home genre – platforming.
It seems that innovation is now only acceptable on a slimmer scale
and while I personally believe that Donkey Konga could’ve
received its incremental sales peak with a new IP at the helm, I
doubt that anyone within Nintendo’s marketing department would
agree with me. The company born from risking itself wholly with new
ideas seems now to have become complacent, and is willing to settle
for refinement as opposed to re-establishment.
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