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 Previous page | Nintendo is one of those companies that seems to openly seek out failure these days.
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Still - the titles that emerged, held the high-water mark for inventing whole new ways of playing games in a 3d world. They were Mario-64, and Zelda. Each presented a whole new way to create a compelling storyline within an explorable universe. It would take the rest of the industry years of playing catch-up to surpass the lines Miyamoto drew in the game-design sand.
Today, there's new game system on the block from Nintendo - the Game-Cube. A game system unrestricted from the limitations of catridge-based media, and a hardware configuration - while still only 64bit - is in most other respects, leaps and bounds beyond what the N64 provided as a canvas for Shigeru's ideas.
[Tech note: Yes Nintendo fans, the Game-Cube is running on a 64-bit Power PC processor from IBM, but it's far better than the 32bit Pentium 3 pushing along the Xbox. At present, only the PS2 is cranking along at 128 bits - but by looking at the 3 systems side by side - it's obvious that yesterday's "bit-marketing" from the Jaguar, to the 32X, to the N64 is all but irrelevant next to graphic subsystems and programming tools. If you still think splitting technological hairs counts for something, other than chat-board fodder, that's your problem.]
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Now the limitations facing Shigeru Miyamoto are something altogether different - and much more disturbing for Nintendo, it's fans - and the industry. Content, marketing, and politics now made up the bulk of restrictions being leveled on the titles coming from the mind of Miyamoto. And the politics must be interesting indeed. Take the upcoming title from the Zelda franchise "The Wind Waker" for instance.
If you look at the side photo, you'll see a comparison on what was presented at SpaceWorld 2000, and SpaceWorld 2001. SpaceWorld - for those unfamiliar with consumer electronic expositions, is Nintendo's self-produced trade-show that displays Nintendo products exclusively in Japan, much like MacWorld only caters to Apple enthusiasts.
The two photos look a tad different don't they? In fact they looked so different the usual cadre-of western reporters covering SpaceWorld 2001 actually were stunned stupid - preventing the usual avalanche of applause that accompanied typical edge-of-your-seat product announcements. Perhaps it was the bold-new direction the franchise was taking - or perhaps it was something else.
Either-way, the senior staff members of Nintendo in Japan were overheard making confusing statements at the silence that greeted their announcement. A silence which was a first for the circumstances.
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Are we not Link? We are DEVO!
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Dramatic historical replays aside - obviously the games are damn-different. In 2000, Zelda was going to be an environmental and cinematic tour-de-force recreating, in vivid detail, everything the series was building to thematically for the last decade. In 2001, a Zelda was presented that was more of a Disney throwback, rendered in a style known as "cell-shading".
[Tech note 2: "Cell-shaded" is the nomenclature for in-game graphics that resemble a hand-drawn animated-cartoon. This is a style that stands in contrast to attempts at creating a virtual-world. A world created with a high number of polygons, special effects, and reality-accurate lighting. Sometimes the reason for making a game cel-shaded is because of technological constraints, or sometimes it's for artistic reasons. The unfiltered truth behind the "Legend of Zelda's" transformation into (what some people have begun calling) the "Legend of Cel-da" is still unknown. That isn't to say there hasn't been a few megatons worth of speculation within the game community however...]
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Next page | Questions from the court-of-public-opinion...
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