PREDICTION: NINTENDO GOES THE WAY OF SEGA BY 2006

You know, everything is pointing to the slow and painstaking death of Nintendo, which is kind of a shame but unfortunately they're doing it to themselves and have been stunting themselves consistantly for years now. I've watched during my life as Nintendo fell from being THE video game company to trailing dead last and gradually slipping further and further off the map. Nintendo has continued to make a lot of big mistakes and poor choices and it's going to "swim up and bite them in the ass" the same way pissing off both Squaresoft and Sony as well as going with cartridges for the Nintendo 64 did for them back in the 90's. Now according to the numbers, sales of the GameCube as well as the unit penetration into the market have declined steadily since around the time of the release of X-Box. The only thing keeping Nintendo "in the game" so to speak is the GameBoy Advance, however with the unveiling of Sony's Playstation Portable at E3, it looks to be the GameBoy killer unless Nintendo starts figuring it all out and makes an Ubergameboy that makes the Gameboy Advance look like crap. I was reading the specs for the Playstation Portable and holy crap it's beyond awesome, it could be another console game system in itself, yet it's portable. It has more useful buttons than the GBA, 33 Million Textured and Layered Polygons per second, Memory Stick support, 802.11b Wireless communication with other PSP's and LANs, It plays movies, and low and behold it comes with a backlit screen on release (something the numbnuts engineers at Nintendo couldn't figure out with Gameboy until this year - yikes). I mean, the things is just a HUGE leap forward for portable gaming and you don't even hear so much as a peep from Nintendo saying they have something better than GBA in the works.

I'm sorry to say folks but Nintendo is fixing to head for troubled waters, and fast. I kind of wish I could go to Tokyo or Redmond and have a serious talk with the CEO's about what they MUST DO to save themselves, but I think they could give a shit about what I have to say anyway. They MUST release a highly detailed Polygonal Zelda game that has some incredible storyline of Final Fantasy grandeur, that will get GameCube's rolling off of shelves again. Metroid Prime was excellent, and if "Not so big anymore" N made more games along those lines they wouldn't be in such lousy shape as they are. N says that they like to focus on making great games, but in reality the games they have on their system are limited, kind of odd, for mostly children, or just ports of games already released for the PS2 and X-Box. Zelda: The Wind Waker didn't sell anywhere near the amount as Ocarina of Time did at this amount of time after release and sales of the Cel-Shaded Zelda continue to diminish - why? Well, the game was a mediocre Zelda, designed with children in mind, and the main hardcore fans of Zelda are now between 20 and 25 and it just doesn't wash with us anymore. Miyamoto needs a lot of help now understanding what depth in storyline means, hell ask Hironobu Sakagauci if he has to, and that great games are more than just great gameplay.

If I had to place a bet, the odds are leaning in Sony's favor with Playstation Portable, the only thing that could screw them if is if they price it above a hundred dollars. But knowing Sony they'll gladly take the profit hit on unit and sell a ton of units, to sell the games for a profit and make back more than they lose. This equation has proven successful for them with the Playstation so undoubtedly they'll continue with it on PSP.

I often wonder if the same Execs who commissioned Sony for the Super NES CD (a.k.a "The PlayStation Project") and backstabbed them by going to Phillips (who ultimately failed miserably with the Phillips CDI) are still working for Nintendo. I can't imaging how many times they would have kicked themselves for making that assinine decision. If in fact Nintendo just lollygags about answering Sony's challenge with PSP or continues to focus on games for small children they will lose, and right about 2006 we might find out that Nintendo is no longer in the hardware business like SEGA and no new consoles with the name Nintendo will be made, rather they will just focus on making games only, which they have always done rather well with. Honestly when I was a kid, back in about 1991 I would have never thought in a million years either SEGA or Nintendo wouldn't make hardware, every kid and his uncle had a Nintendo or a Genesis. But I suppose that's just what happens when old guys who probably don't even play the games they market make stupid decisions I guess.

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