Controversial: Is Nintendo currently in its golden age?

[Kaladron]

I know it might sound daft but I think Nintendo is currently in its greatest age ever.

-There are soon to be THREE Nintendo Consoles on the market at the same time (Maybe even four!).

-The Gamecube is home to some of Nintendo's greatest games: Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, F-Zero GX.

-Squaresoft, Capcom and (incredibly) Sega are churning out high-quality titles for all three machines.

-The best NES, SNES and N64 games are still being released through various channels so we can almost experience every generation of Nintendo games through two machines.

-The GBA and GameCube link together in ways that no other consoles ever have and with fantastic effect (See Four Swords).

-Namco, Sega, Rare etc... have been working on traditional Nintendo franchises.

-Nintendo are back in the arcades with F-Zero and god knows what else in the future.

Call me crazy but I don't think Nintendo fans have ever had it any better.

[Ginza]

That man is right. Buy him a beer.

/puts fanboy hat on. Cant wait for the DS1111!!!!eleven tbh

[Captain Olimar]

From a business perpective I do believe Ninty could be approaching it's "golden age".

However from my gaming point of view, I can't consider them to be at a higher level than when they were in a tug-of-war with Sega. My reasoning is that Nintendo seem to be relying too much on past glory. We are seeing re-hash after re-hash and re-release after re-release. I can picture the cash registers going "ca-ching" now and those crazy Japs rubbing their hands in glee. Full marks to them for targetting and efficiency.

It IS nice to be able to play some of the older classics on the move, and it IS nice to see your favourite franchises getting the face-lift and being updated. BUT on the other hand, I'd like to see a little bit more originality, less re-hashes and lazy ports and most of all more FUN in gaming. It seems to be more interesting reading about gaming culture than it is playing recent titles. Sadly the stereotypical "casual gamer" will hand over ?40 for the latest FIFA tweak or mindless shoot/destroy everything FPS. It leaves a very small market for the more open-minded gamer who would like a little mental stimulation and an ESCAPE from reality.

I truly hope Ninty manages to wrestle the home console dominance away from Sony or at least eat into a huge portion of it's share. Nintendo DO seem to be the company most interested in offering gamers something unique. But even they have been bitten by the retro repackage bug. Maybe they will use that cash to persue more adventurous avenues (DS; Revolution?). Only time will tell.

[Alf-Life]

I agree with Olimar, particularly when you mention F-Zero GX and Metroid Prime, which OK OK Nintendo did have a hand in, but is hardly their work.

[gingerj]

I think the complete opposite... I think nintendo have gotta put there ass in gear next generation to stand a chance against sony and microsoft. Many of those 'big' titles that you mentioned were published by nintendo not made by in-house nintendo. 3rd party support is still poor, they have yet to realise that online play is the way instead of trying to con us into purchasing a million gba's to play a few multiplayer games. Plus the titles that they have made for the gamecube haven't been up to scratch or of any selling us to them at all bar zelda: tww...

[MD]

Currently its 2 (GBA and SP are effectively the same console) and 3 sometime in the future, at one point Nintendo had 6 consoles released and available... golden age my arse.

It's golden age was the days of the Super Famicom and the twilight of the N64.

Back in the arcades? My arse they are, they haven't been in the arcades since the Playchoice system, every Nintendo game since then has been either other hardware (Midway) or if it is Nintendo Hardware it's been made by other companies (Sega and Seta...). Take away the F-Zero front end and it could be a futurisitic driving game by Sega...

[df0notfound]

Currently its 2 (GBA and SP are effectively the same console) and 3 sometime in the future, at one point Nintendo had 6 consoles released and available... golden age my arse.

It's golden age was the days of the Super Famicom and the twilight of the N64.

Back in the arcades? My arse they are, they haven't been in the arcades since the Playchoice system, every Nintendo game since then has been either other hardware (Midway) or if it is Nintendo Hardware it's been made by other companies (Sega and Seta...). Take away the F-Zero front end and it could be a futurisitic driving game by Sega...

Yeah but everyone knows you've got a chip on your shoulder about anything Nintendo.

[MD]

Oh really?

[macosx]

Golden age? Absolute rubbish, a company recycling and recycling past glories. Famicon and N64 were the days when Nintendo blazed a bright trail, Now Nintendo is a gamimg also-ran only saved by a few key titles like Prime, Monkey ball etc. It was all there for the taking with the GC but I feel Nintendo have just droped the ball with this generation and have failed to be the fantastic innovators they can be.
Golden sunset more like.

[Firsty]

They're nowhere near as good as they were in the early 90's
And ffs, everyone stop saying F Zero GX is good. It's ****ing ****e.

[Zsolti]

Now if this is their golden age, i sure do not want to stick around for their next gen, as a side note, if we do use the current generation as a golden reference..then we might have to invent a scale with a few more metal, of higher value naturally to refer to their previous consoles.

Zelda:WW is a far inferior Zelda to any previous incarnations, this is purely my opinion, again , mario 64..compare it to sunshine?..Now thats unfair really...metroid...well...not bad i guess, their best effort this gen..still utterly weak when compared to Golden eye and even perfect dark....I think Nin has been suffering a serious slowdown ever since sony entered the market.....Snes should be the rightous bearer of the title in my opinion, and the grades should follow chronologically.

[gingerj]

everyone stop saying F Zero GX is good. It's ****ing ****e.

Ahh man F-Zero is just raw, its one the best titles on the gc by far. Nintendo should give up on developing games because its a waste of there funds to pay for the dev time. The should just use there funds to purchase more second party teams. Keep a few of there own develoeprs who can just join 2nd party teams to help them out. Plus that iwata or however you spell it should stand down because his ignorance will be there down fall. More mario party titles is not the way to sell consoles and units. But what will do it would be to create new games expand to other genres or resurrect old games like bring back raven blade.

[Firsty]

Everyone loves F Zero GX.
but there's just something about it that rubs me the completely the wrong way.
Maybe it's Casinopolis.

[macosx]

nintendo = increasingly niche gaming

[Paul3704]

Nintendo are ****ed. Jesus Christ is that not apparent to everyone?

Golden age? where the **** was you playing when i was playing a NES and a SNES?

Nintendo can't sell games.

lets say we give Nintendo and Sony one million to make a game

Sony make sex, drugs and guns at hollywood high

Nintendo make mum and dad milk a cow.

Who do you think would have a golden age then?