Nintendo is weird. We just don't get it. The company seems almost wilfully and deliberately stubborn at times. You know: like one of those idiots you went to school with who would avoid doing the stuff everyone else was doing, just because everyone else was doing it (jokes on you, idiot: while you were "enjoying" your Husker Du albums and Kurt Vonnegut books - we were all watching Expendables 2 - BOOM!). But why IS Nintendo so weird?
Why, only this week Nintendo bucked prevailing trends to seemingly deliberately goad YouTubers, offering them a controversial profit-share scheme regarding Let's Play videos featuring Nintendo products.
So incensed was the YouTube community at not being allowed to keep 100% of all YouTube revenue on Nintendo-themed videos, that their Lord and Master - 25 year old Swede sophisticate "PewDiePe" - was forced to shriek the following: "What they are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTube/YouTubers. What better way to sell/market a game, than from watching someone else (that you like) playing it and enjoying themselves?”
He has a point, but then Nintendo's corporate strategy sometimes feels like it's being drawn up by a bunch of bulb-faced aliens, on some distant world, where the atmosphere is 90% booze and 10% entrenched inflexibility.
WHAT DID YOU REPORT RECENTLY?
As we reported recently, the company seems happy to coast on past glories and trade on nostalgia, apparently content with not having the market leading console if it means it doesn't have to compromise whatever the hell it is that it thinks it's doing.
But while once we would've despaired at this approach - in the days when Nintendo's market share first began to droop like a boozehound's ardour - we'd argue that Nintendo is currently the most interesting console manufacturer around. Yes: we actually went there. We're saying something positive about Nintendo.
Frankly - much as we appreciate the Xbox One and PS4 - we can't shake the feeling that Sony and Microsoft are just a bit boring. Let's face it, neither of the market-leading next-gen machines are strictly games consoles. They're black slab 'everything-o-trons', almost like they're ashamed of what they are.
Even with Microsoft's woefully misguided Kinect - a technology that is never going to take off, however much they refine it - both systems are there to play stock genres of game, in as stock a way as possible, while not drawing attention to the real reason why people buy them.
So incensed was the YouTube community at not being allowed to keep 100% of all YouTube revenue on Nintendo-themed videos, that their Lord and Master - 25 year old Swede sophisticate "PewDiePe" - was forced to shriek the following: "What they are missing out on completely is the free exposure and publicity that they get from YouTube/YouTubers. What better way to sell/market a game, than from watching someone else (that you like) playing it and enjoying themselves?”
He has a point, but then Nintendo's corporate strategy sometimes feels like it's being drawn up by a bunch of bulb-faced aliens, on some distant world, where the atmosphere is 90% booze and 10% entrenched inflexibility.
WHAT DID YOU REPORT RECENTLY?
As we reported recently, the company seems happy to coast on past glories and trade on nostalgia, apparently content with not having the market leading console if it means it doesn't have to compromise whatever the hell it is that it thinks it's doing.
But while once we would've despaired at this approach - in the days when Nintendo's market share first began to droop like a boozehound's ardour - we'd argue that Nintendo is currently the most interesting console manufacturer around. Yes: we actually went there. We're saying something positive about Nintendo.
Frankly - much as we appreciate the Xbox One and PS4 - we can't shake the feeling that Sony and Microsoft are just a bit boring. Let's face it, neither of the market-leading next-gen machines are strictly games consoles. They're black slab 'everything-o-trons', almost like they're ashamed of what they are.
Even with Microsoft's woefully misguided Kinect - a technology that is never going to take off, however much they refine it - both systems are there to play stock genres of game, in as stock a way as possible, while not drawing attention to the real reason why people buy them.
WHAT DO YOU ADMIT TO?
We admit that we weren't sure about the Wii U controller when the machine was first released - and the jury is still out, frankly - but it does kind of work, even if it isn't quite as instinctively user-friendly as the original Wii controller.
But you only have to look at last year's Wii U schedule to know that Nintendo offers the best exclusives of any console manufacturer: Bayonetta 2, Super Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors...
Dig further back and you have perennials like Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Pikmin 3, and this year alone should see cutesy paint shooter Splatoon, Mario Maker, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Yoshi's Woolly World, Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Mario Party 10, and - possibly - brand new Zelda and Starfox games.
Admittedly, the above list almost entirely trades on new versions of past glories, and knowing Nintendo everything will get delayed to 2016, but they're the sort of glories that only Nintendo offers - and the antithesis of post-pubescent male fantasies that make up much of the Xbox One and PS4 release schedule.
We admit that we weren't sure about the Wii U controller when the machine was first released - and the jury is still out, frankly - but it does kind of work, even if it isn't quite as instinctively user-friendly as the original Wii controller.
But you only have to look at last year's Wii U schedule to know that Nintendo offers the best exclusives of any console manufacturer: Bayonetta 2, Super Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors...
Dig further back and you have perennials like Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Pikmin 3, and this year alone should see cutesy paint shooter Splatoon, Mario Maker, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Yoshi's Woolly World, Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Mario Party 10, and - possibly - brand new Zelda and Starfox games.
Admittedly, the above list almost entirely trades on new versions of past glories, and knowing Nintendo everything will get delayed to 2016, but they're the sort of glories that only Nintendo offers - and the antithesis of post-pubescent male fantasies that make up much of the Xbox One and PS4 release schedule.
WHAT IS NINTENDO THE ONLY COMPANY PREPARED TO ADMIT TO?
Frankly, Nintendo is the only company prepared to admit the shocking truth at the heart of all gaming: that consoles are toys, and that games are to be played, rather than experienced. The Wii U - and its baby brother the 3DS - offer the purest, most fun-skewed, games on the market.
They might not all be brilliant, but every one of them is a robust example of Nintendo's singular and focused approach to what makes games great. There's no trying to be cool or edgy - just good-natured attempts at entertaining the player. And, let's face it, nine times out of ten Nintendo does that better than anyone else.
With the news that Tesco is now selling the Wii U for just £99, we suggest this: whatever other console you own, get a Wii U too. You won't regret it - unless you're that idiot we went to school with, who probably thinks it's cooler to make his own games out of an old petrol can and a couple of raw chicken fillets stuck on the end of pencils, or something.
In other Nintendo news, we recently stumbled across this 1980s NES commercial starring a young Colonel Sanders:
Frankly, Nintendo is the only company prepared to admit the shocking truth at the heart of all gaming: that consoles are toys, and that games are to be played, rather than experienced. The Wii U - and its baby brother the 3DS - offer the purest, most fun-skewed, games on the market.
They might not all be brilliant, but every one of them is a robust example of Nintendo's singular and focused approach to what makes games great. There's no trying to be cool or edgy - just good-natured attempts at entertaining the player. And, let's face it, nine times out of ten Nintendo does that better than anyone else.
With the news that Tesco is now selling the Wii U for just £99, we suggest this: whatever other console you own, get a Wii U too. You won't regret it - unless you're that idiot we went to school with, who probably thinks it's cooler to make his own games out of an old petrol can and a couple of raw chicken fillets stuck on the end of pencils, or something.
In other Nintendo news, we recently stumbled across this 1980s NES commercial starring a young Colonel Sanders:
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