The Geek Media » Opinion

Is Apple Nintendo’s Problem?

Candace — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:02:00 +0000

Nintendo has seen a significant drop in profits lately and most say Apple’s mobile gaming platform is to blame. Nintendo themselves are even keeping an eye on Apple. Sony and Microsoft is no longer the thorn in Mario’s side. It’s the big “little i”.
Is Apple really the biggest issue Nintendo is facing or is it a larger issue? Most likely, a little bit of both. As a hardcore Nintendo fan, I can safely say that my favorite gaming company has failed me the past few years. It all began with the shoddy release of Twilight Princess, the lack of core titles for the DS and then the Wii games that were off-shoots of “Sports” started to move through the shelves.
What’s left for us? The Moms, families and kids are only going to enjoy their Wii for so long. Then, they will put it down for a new toy that’s promising family fun. I have it on good authority to say this since I’ve sold my Nintendo Wii. Why? Because my kids stopped playing it and moved on to something else.
Nintendo has forgotten about their core audience. They have been pumping out games for a brand new audience that were quite successful. You can only go so far with the “Wii-fit-sports-swimming pool-billiards-backyard party” franchise. Frankly, you can only go so far with any franchise. I have to admit, even Zelda is in desperate need of an upgrade.

Bring that issue alongside Nintendo’s current handheld competition and you have a major problem. Apple is starting to dominate in that category. Wait a second, the iPhone/iPod Touch isn’t a handheld system! It’s not? It fits in your hand and you play any game that you can play on other systems. I should say it is.
Nintendo DS requires wi-fi to get into the shop or to download. The iPhone requires a cell phone signal and that’s all. Nintendo DS games cost between $10 and $40. iPhone games cost between $0.99 and $7.00. Even popular games like Command and Conquer and Civilization cost around $6.00.
Apple has a big advantage over Nintendo in the ease of getting your games, organizing your games and they are much more cost effective. Plus, the accessories needed and the price of the games are in Apple’s favor as well.
Nintendo long ago lost a good part of their core audience. They didn’t seem to care since the core audience stuck around for the DS. They moved to a new market with the Nintendo Wii, bringing in the family gaming system and allowed Microsoft and Sony to take their core console gamers.
Apple has moved in on their handheld market in a big way. Not only have they taken a large chunk of the core handheld audience, but they are also taking the casual audience as well. This isn’t the end for Nintendo. It isn’t time to scream doom and gloom or get ready to plan the funeral of Mario. It is time for Nintendo to start looking closer at their audience, the behavior of their audience and who is holding the market shares.

HAWKEYES WIN THE ORANGE BOWL!

Leto — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:10:55 +0000

This isn’t geeky or nerdy news. This doesn’t have anything to do with out network. This doesn’t have anything to do with PCs, XBoxs, or IPhones. I don’t care.

THE IOWA HAWKEYES HAVE WON THE ORANGE BOWL!

I had to yell it somewhere, that is all. Go back to your regular lives.

Random Thoughts: Kotaku Complaints

Leto — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:06:31 +0000

I was getting into my day job this morning bright and early, and one thing I like to do is check Kotaku.com and Curse.com for any major news in the realms of gaming and geekery. Take for example the post below this, note the Kotaku watermark on the picture of the big-ass Space Marine.

There’s one thing that I don’t like about Kotaku though. They tend to go a bit overboard with things. One major recent example of this is their most recent comprehensive article on Star Wars: The Old Republic. The article as a whole isn’t bad, but their opening to it really turned me off to it as a whole because of the horribly negative opinion of what a Sith Inquisitor actually is versus their confusingly good thoughts on the Jedi Consular…

I get that they’re (The Sith Inquisitor) supposed to be a more badass version of a Sith Warrior with different ranged abilities. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t all players playing as Sith Warriors graduate to Inquisitors after playing long enough?

Is the Kotaku writer, AJ Glasser, who hasn’t had a great track record already in my opinion, not intelligent enough to see that they’re simply taking different archtypes in the Star Wars universe? It’s almost as simple as saying the Inquisitor is like playing as a young, even more psychotic Emperor Palpatine. I don’t like putting it in that simple of terms, but that’s a very good way to set things up for people that don’t pay attention to any extended universe or pre-movies Star Wars material.

I’m not about to take a big, steamy dump on the quality that Kotaku gets out, or say that I don’t use them on R&D for a good chunk of news, but I am willing to say that THIS article really rips on the Sith Inquisitor in a way that turns me off from the article right off the bat. It’s a tragedy because the article’s not bad at all, besides the fact that he spends a LOT of time talking about boobs, but oh well.

Maybe Glasser felt that the actual in-game mechanics were simply similar between the Sith Warrior and Inquisitor, which is very understandable considering the first few levels in any mmo seem very generic and similar between most classes, even in an extremely well-developed MMO such as World of Warcraft.

Webcomic Beacon #85 – Editorial Comics

Fesworks — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:08:17 +0000

Elissa Rose (Girl vs. Robot), Jason Braaten (Tweetics), and Jason Dustan (Ardra) join Fes and Mark to discuss Editorial Comics! Don’t worry! We soon spin off into tangents about the evolution and quality of news and reporting in general! This is the most intelligent episode of The Webcomic Beacon yet!

**Listen to The Webcomic Beacon: Episode 85 – Editorial Comics, with Elissa Rose of Girl vs Robot!**

We broadcast our episodes LIVE on TalkShoe!: On Sunday, August 9th, @ 3pm Eastern, We’ll be discussing: “SIMS Comics and Homelessness” with Robin of Alice and Kev.

Leto’s Random Thoughts; Kotaku.com Argues Words

Leto — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:28:10 +0000

We here at The Geek Media have quite often referenced Kotaku.com as a fantastic reference for gaming and geeky news. This time is not one of them, sadly, as I read an article on their website, which can be found here, argues about the use of the word “Exclusive”. As a member of the media, not only here but in my regular job, I’ve already began noticing that as people continue to grow and change, the way words are used are personalized, warped, and slowly mutated to fit different meaning and experiences that need to be described.

In the Kotaku.com article, Stephen Totilo talked about the supposedly fraudulent use of the word Exclusive by Bethesda and Microsoft to describe their releases of not only Fallout 3, but the DLC for the game that continues to follow. He makes a decent point of it until he quotes a former Kotaku.com member, now a member of GTTV, says that the meaning of the word Exclusive has changed slightly in the past couple years, to mean that the release or premier is exclusive to a certain system or consoles. This completely negates the entire article, because it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation as to the change of the use of the word in this day and age.

The article splits hairs, as I’ve been known to do and sometimes enjoy. I think, although, this is unreasonable to the point of being annoying. Words change and evolve over time, and it’s best to just accept change and change with them.

These random thoughts have been brought to you by your local CEO and closet writer, Leto.

Monkey Madness, Pirates, and Some Guy Named Guybrush Threepwood

Leto — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:48:02 +0000

It appears, according to a Kotaku.com put out today, that there could be a joint effort released at E3 about a special edition of the original monkey island, The Secret of Monkey Island, for the 360. Whether this is coming along with revamped graphics or new gameplay has yet to been stated, as this is all on the level of rumor and hearsay still. What do you think about more Monkey Island action? Post your opinions in the comment section and we might talk about your thoughts on next week’s R&D!