— Nintendo Enthusiast:
The Switch has ran into a few hardware issues early on, but is the situation really as dire as some are making it out to be?
Two married costume designers share stories from a decade of traveling the globe with Nintendo.
In a YouTube video showing Nintendo Switch owners how to create a Nintendo Account, Nintendo of America revealed that Bowser is canonically 34 years old.
TG: “Most of us also grew up with Nintendo, likely forming a nostalgic connection with games that have long been crowned as our personal favourites. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was an experience that shaped my view on open world fantasy, and Super Mario 64 changed my life like it did for millions of others. These titles have earned their place in history, and remain loved to this day for so many worthwhile reasons. We replay them and beg for remasters all while delving into their worlds time and time again because they mean that much to us. It’s a shame then that the company behind them often kicks its own sweet darlings to the curb.”
I never got the love for Nintendo games personally. The annoying vocalizations and ugly character designs do nothing for me.
Don't forget the constant hand holding with tutorials. Learn this new ability by pressing Y, now prove that you can press Y 8 times before you can move on....
Another very weird article.
Nintendo is a great company by almost all possible normal measures. The biggest one being: their own staff is happy, and they seem to be very happy, well compensated and retain rate is solid. They are also financially very stable, profitable, and cash rich, so shareholders love them.
Overall it is an extremely creative group of people, and their mission statement is fantastic as well "to put smiles on the faces of everyone we touch. We do so by creating new surprises for people across the world to enjoy together." The social impact is also massive, not to speak culturally. Additionally, they have a really strong core business, high customer retention rate and loyalty. Nintendo's reputation is extremely good, I think in the US alone they are 9th most reputable company, their customer service is better than the average company. Plus, the press gives them a pass, because they are Nintendo. But there's a reason why they do that, it's not "because they are Nintendo", there are more layers to the argument.
Then, then there's the random negative gamers online...and their "reputation" which is inside their heads. And their western ideas of how a Japanese company should behave or what they should do. But they have no right to ask a company to do anything for them, because they can vote with their wallets.
There's a small vocal community online who dislikes Nintendo for what they are, but then again, there's always a small vocal community that dislikes something.
Nintendo also disagrees with the Western world about IP, but most people call Westerners "hidoi!" when they emulate Tears of the Kingdom and do not experience it the way Nintendo wanted them (even if it is not the best visual way), because it is a matter of principle to them (Japanese are very much against anything close to plagiarism, and there are laws that are tight about creative works copying etc.)
The Western Braveheart "freedoom!" shouters need to understand that it is not an American company, nor they need to behave like one. They can have their own fights based on their principles (against emulation). And they very well may lose the battle with that and change, or find a new audience.
In the end, it is so very simple. Don't buy the products if you don't like a company, but there's no need to paint a picture that is unrealistic about Nintendo either.
I hate virtually everything about their business practices, actually. Suing everybody for virtually anything, shooting down fan projects, games they never let devalue, their online infrastructure and how they handle BC.
They're lucky they make great games, because that's the only thing I feel they do right.
my issue with them, is the complete refusal to have decent tech for us.
and their odd censorship and lawsuits for modders.
Yes they are a "big deal":
- Cheap plastic screens that are easily scratched by the very dock that Nintendo bundles with the Switch (and will take heavy abuse from normal daily use)
- Stuck/dead pixels and flickering screens
- Very poor wifi performance
- Frame rate issues for BotW when docked, yet the game only runs at 900p (a bad sign when the flagship game for the system can't perform well on the hardware, particularly in its docked mode)
- plastic clip parts on joycons that wear down over a short period of time when the joycons are removed and replaced during routine use (parts that are supposed to keep the units firmly attached to the Switch)
- Desynching issues with joycons
- Poor placement of charging port (can't charge while using the kickstand)
And that's just the issues that have surfaced in the few weeks since launch. Far from a solid piece of gaming technology. It really seems like Nintendo completely dropped the ball on the design of the Switch, and failed to properly test it for problems before they launched it. All of these problems are damaging their reputation, if they don't take extreme measures, they're going to have a very rough road ahead of them.