Comments on: Is Nintendo Taking A Big Step Towards Edutainment?

By: U kidding me???

U kidding me??? — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:36:41 +0000

Since when has Nintendo's primary target been core gamers???? Are you joking?? I mean, they were a freaking TOY maker before they entered the videogames business! The Japanese names of the Nes and Super NES were Famicom (short for family computer!!!) and Super Famicom for Christ's sake... In the beginning, they considered video games to be just another toy for kids!!

It's really OBVIOUS Nintendo has targeted children and families since the beginning anyway... What is hardcore about Mario?? Pokémon?? Zelda?? Link is depicted as a Teen in Ocarina and Twilight only because westerners don't like the cute cartoony style, but the Japanese market (which is mostly casual) favors the cute Windwaker artstyle, and the inspiration for Link IS Peter Pan, that well known piece of hardcore adult's literature (sarcasm)...

Animal Crossing?? The only Nintendo franchise I can think of which targets core gamers is Metroid.

And core gamers play mostly on PC in Japan anyway, consoles are mostly casual. Maybe in the US they (Nintendo) tried to pretend their games were hardcore, but in Japan, they ALWAYS targeted children and families. They have been doing the kind of advertising they recently do in the US or Europe, in Japan, since the NES era! They just started doing it more, and stopped pretending their target was teen boys in the US, when it's children and families in general.

Seriously, hardcore games are the kinds of games which have a 200 page long instruction manual and are insanely difficult, unlike Nintendo games.

People...

By: U kidding me???

U kidding me??? — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:36:41 +0000

By: daizyujin

daizyujin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:41:54 +0000

Absolutely, you are right. Nintendo isn't even close to the worst and in a lot of ways they have been a victim of this setup. I still have read the case about immersion over and over and can't really see how somebody could say such a rudimentary idea is patentable.

Some of these patents seem to fall into the “put a couch in a room with a tv” scenario, which is interestingly enough not able to be enforced in a lot of other countries. Part of the problem with our patent system is that instead of protecting a way of doing something, they protect in effect the ability to do it at all. This is the key problem IMHO. Saying that you need to find your own way to do something is one thing, saying that you can't do something at all is ludicrous.

By: jarrodand

jarrodand — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:02:03 +0000

It's been broken a long time. Patenting game concepts really started in the mid 1990s with Sega (3D camera change) and Namco (loading screen retro games). Nintendo's been relatively late to the party actually.

By: daizyujin

daizyujin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:53:20 +0000

Spencer is right. If patent law was written correctly, this plus most of the other stupid and vague patents wouldn't be able to be enforced. Unfortunatly the patent office accepts things that would seem rudimentary to almost anybody, thus all of the frivolous lawsuits you see over ridiculous things like controller rumble and online game services.

By: Spencer

Spencer — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:31:36 +0000

It's the system of using the remote on the specific games Nintendo is attempting to patent. Not the overall idea of edutainment. It sounds a bit strange, but in patent law it would be considered an “improvement” on an idea, perhaps enough according to patent attorneys to be original.

By: f

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:19:35 +0000

omg

By: matty

matty — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:24:39 +0000

Yep. I don't know what Mario is planning, but it's unwise to run behind towards a cow like that.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:35:58 +0000

How is this remotely patentable? It looks exactly like 100 other edutainment computer games with the exception of using the wimote instead of the mouse.

By: Tatsu

Tatsu — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:07:07 +0000

Edutainment isn't anything new for Nintendo, you guys know this. (From Mario Teaches Typing, to Mario is Missing, to Donkey Kong Jr Math…) They seem to have taken quite a break from all that though; the last one I can think of came out during the SNES era.

I imagine this will be more appealing to parents than the vsmile if they already own a wii. Tons of older people do (thanks to wii sports, wii fit…), so now really is the most strategic time for N to bring back their edutainment.

By: daizyujin

daizyujin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:40:50 +0000

You are right. Also for people that already own a Wii but not another edutainment system this is a perfect idea. The only thing is I just can't see a parent that wants to buy a purely edutainment system considering the Wii at $250 when the Vsmile is ony $40.

One other thing about the software, I seriously doubt Nintendo will license all the large IP that Vtech does either. A $20 game with Mickey Mouse on the front of it is probably more likely to sell than a $40 game with the word Wii in the title.

By: daizyujin

daizyujin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:38:03 +0000

Nice flamebait man. He never said that they owed him anything. ;)

By: Methanie

Methanie — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:40:43 +0000

Without their fans they are nothing

Shame on them...

Kids can go to school

By: Mazen

Mazen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 09:31:14 +0000

Who said they owe us anything?, also am sure they will not abandon the gaming fan base they build through the 20 or so years, with time they will balance things to an OK degree I think.

also am happy that they make more money in one year than all video games/cpnsoles publishers in the world (Japanese or westerns) combined (even Microsoft game division and Sony game division),
one year profit of Nintendo equal few years profit from all of them combined if you think it that way this is a legendary company even more Nintendo of Japan have only 1000 employee.

By: MadMirko

MadMirko — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 08:43:50 +0000

Depends and pricing and quality of the Nintendo titles, I guess. I'd like to think that a Nintendo developed children's game would be of high quality, on pricing I'm not so sure. On one hand the regular Wii titles are not as cheap as the stuff from Vtech, WiiWare titles on the other hand are.

Anyway, shaping the tastes of the gamer of tomorrow is a sound long-term business strategy.