Fanboy Confessions, Part II
The Uncertainty Principle
Being a Nintendo fan is often like believing in some deity; sometimes, the best you can do is have faith that the company is keeping an eye out for your best interests, and that ultimately, a big payoff will arrive. Oftentimes, it does, in the form of a new Zelda game or innovative new peripheral. But even the most devout religious believers have their faith tested from time to time...and those who don't can wind up to be blind followers, every ounce of free thought drained from their minds.
If these ignorant believers were into video games, we might call them fanboys.
Two-Way Streets
It is natural for a Nintendo fan to assume that something incredible and wonderful on the horizon because Nintendo has always been an exceedingly secretive company, constantly cloaking not only their release dates, but the very existence of their games and products, often vehemently denying the literal reality of software, hardware, or Nintendo-related announcements until mere hours before revealing exactly what was rumoured to the public...all at a pace that the company is comfortable with.
Case and point: the GameCube's American price drop to $150 from $200. Widely rumoured due to reports of price drops from the competition, the reduction was brought up repeatedly to several different members of Nintendo, all of varying status and importance. The answer, however, was always the same: "Nintendo has no plans to lower the price of the GameCube console." Within 72 hours of the last logged official refutation of a price drop, NOA officially announced the console's lowering to $150.
As a recovering Nintendo fanboy-turned-skeptic, I find this refutation, and others like it, exceedingly disconcerting, and it's primarily due to a phenomenon I refer to as "Two-Way Streets". The idea is quite simple: Nintendo drives down the street one way by denying the existence of something that does, in fact, exist -- in the example discussed above, the "something" in question is the GameCube's price drop. But what about the other way? What's to stop Nintendo from leading people to believe that things are there that really aren't?
We are not talking about a PR-spokesperson saying "No comment", or an Internet messageboard rumour grown out of control because Nintendo shouldn't and doesn't care enough about it to say anything. We are talking about official statements from the company that are blatantly contradicting what actually is.
We are talking, in other words, about lies. They may exist to keep the company's business maneuvering more secretive in the interest of a tactical advantage over competitors, or they may simply exist so that the company can continue to establish a sense of control over media outlets like magazines and websites reporting on its inner workings. The fact remains, however, that the reasons for them do not change their existence. And if Nintendo is so willing to directly lie about whether or not a price drop will occur, logic dictates that they certainly should not be above a misleading statement or two about their 2003 software lineup.
Regale The Rhetoric
Both Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of America have attempted to reassure us that 2003 will be another stellar year for the GameCube in their respective territories, using words like "unique" and "diverse" to describe this year's software lineup. And indeed, in looking at the North American release date chart, highlighted by a press release from NOA just today, we do see some noteworthy games. Treats for mature gamers include ports of acclaimed titles such as Hitman 2 and Red Faction 2, proving that not only is GameCube perfectly suitable for an older audience, but that third parties are still enthusiastic about the system, as well. For the more traditional "Nintendo" gamer -- the one who purchased a GameCube mostly for Nintendo's first-party offerings -- new versions of F-Zero and Wario await, following the release of the much-anticipated Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. 2003 -- for the first half, at least -- does indeed look diverse.
But, taking my recovering fanboyism into consideration, I have to keep myself in check. Let's put faith aside for a second, and look at the 2003 schedule with skepticism.
The Facts
- After F-Zero in June, we have no first-party releases officially slated for 2003. We know that versions of Mario Golf. Mario Tennis, and 1080 Snowboarding are on the way, but even if we assume that they will make a North American debut in 2003, that still leaves them as the only Nintendo-developed titles on the horizon after June, with the less-than-noticeable exception of Nintendo Puzzle Collection, which may or may not make its North American appearance this year.
- There is not one original internally-developed game on the official 2003 release schedule. All games slated to debut this year are updates of existing franchises.
- Even titles that are Nintendo-published are shrouded in secrecy. We know we are getting mysteries such as Star Fox from Namco and Giftpia from Skip Ltd., but as to when is anyone's guess.
- Miyamoto and others allude vaguely to a few sequels and projects in the works, such as Pikmin 2 and something stemming from the Mario 128 demo shown so long ago, but again, how close those games are to completion is one giant question mark.
In a year where Nintendo is repeatedly stressing their originality -- which is a buzz word that the company has been throwing around ever since the GameCube's Spaceworld unveiling -- we do not know of one new franchise debuting in 2003. So I'll ask again: isn't it possible that things for this year are not quite so optimistic as Nintendo would like you to believe? That, in fact, there may not be much originality -- or for that matter, Q3 and Q4 first party games at all -- to be found?
Don't look so surprised. It's happened before.
History 101
Raise your hand if the Nintendo 64 was your only game console at the time of the holiday season in 1997. Okay, good. Now all of you: assuming you celebrate Christmas, what games did you ask your friends and family for? Going under the presumption that you owned all of the N64's noteworthy releases up to that point, you might be hard pressed to answer that question. That's because with the exception of Rare's Diddy Kong Racing, which ended up being the N64's saving grace for the holiday season, there were not really any games worth getting. Nintendo itself had nothing ready for the crucial holiday season, and if not for the efforts of Rare, Christmas may very well have been cancelled for the company.
And in the months leading up to this near-catastrophe, did Nintendo come out and actually say that the N64's holiday season wasn't going to be a very merry one? Of course not. In fact, particularly avid researchers are sure to stumble across press releases suggesting the very opposite -- that the N64 was poised to have an "exciting" and "unique" Christmas, with plenty of games worth buying.
I am not suggesting that Nintendo be as frank as I am being anytime it gets into trouble. Such a company would be a shareholder's nightmare, and would probably find themselves without a solid user base in a matter of years, if not months. Due to the nature of the economy and the way our society works, it is virtually necessary for a company to sugercoat things, especially when those things are of the negative variety. But though clever misdirecting, half-truths, and the occasional baldfaced lie may be the nature of the beast, that doesn't make it any easier to look the other way when it looks as though the beast just may be considering taking a large chunk out of you.
Hope Floats
I hope you are still reading at this point, because this editorial up to this point has been decidedly pessimistic, a tone that I did not intend to blanket the entire piece. It is likely, after all, that Nintendo has at least a surprise or two up its sleeve for E3 2003, and the holiday season for this year is still a long way away. We are, after all, talking about a company that managed to keep a new iteration of the Game Boy -- the world's most popular gaming system -- hidden from the majority of the public until mere months before its launch.
But although my aim was not to turn you into someone full of spite and doubt towards your video game company of choice, I was attempting to demonstrate what a large role faith plays in the typical Nintendo fan's life. Faith that something better is around the corner, faith that the games you aren't even sure are coming will be every bit as good as you hope, faith that the games you know are coming will be every bit as good as all of your old Nintendo favourites, faith that Nintendo knows what the hell its doing. Once you can acknowledge all of this faith, you can acknowledge that the answer to all of these questions cannot always be yes. You can acknowledge that the true answer is not always in a press release. You can acknowledge that sometimes, questioning everything is the only way to know anything. Such acknowledgement will make you a more industry-savvy gamer -- even a more life-savvy individual -- and always less of a fanboy.