Upon hearing the news that the Wii U was getting a proper gamepad to supplement its oversized, bottom-half-of-a-3DS Frankenstein-esque hack-job of a controller that they seem to want to bill as the "future of gaming", (or some such other garbage) I was delighted; now they'll be able to fail in yet another respect by attempting to compete against Sony and Microsoft for the attention of the "hardcore" gamers with a hopelessly underpowered system that'll likely be ignored by most developers of "hardcore" games due to Nintendo's ever-present kiddie image. Well done, big N; you've opted for a remarkably ambitious scattershot approach - and gallantly gone and missed every single target. Oh well; marks for trying, eh?
But people will still buy it despite it being junk, because it's Nintendo, and Nintendo has a stellar first-party line-up. That, however, I've come to expect from them, and I don't really have so much of a beef with it as I used to; what's narking me this time is people's reactions to the new controller:
On various other forums, (which shan't be named) I saw a few users posting comments like "omg nintendo r ripping off microsoft and sony with the pro controller baawwww" and decided that dealing with them wasn't worth the effort that it would doubtlessly expend. Then, someone retaliated to them with this image:
Which got me riled. Why? Because somebody clearly hasn't been doing their research or their reasoning to a sufficiently sensible degree:
Going by the same standards of judgement displayed in the picture, the first true analog stick in a videogame was first seen on Space Harrier in 1985, dual-analog technology was first seen in Virtual-On in 1995, and analog triggers were first seen on the Dreamcast in 1998 - so it's all a load of cods-wallop, and - by their insanely twisted and (for lack of a better term) retarded logic - Sega were the true innovators. They also pioneered motion control in console games (the Samba De Amigo maracas and the Dreamcast Fishing Rod - the latter being compatible with titles such as Soul Calibur, Virtua Tennis and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing) and offered full voice-recognition functionality in Seaman.
But did I scream and shout at other innocent forum-goers when the Wii sported a motion controller that behaved suspiciously like the Maracas or when Kinect was revealed to have voice recognition? No, I didn't, and the reasons for that are that the progression of technology - like the natural process of evolution - calls for the strongest products (subjective to the markets of the time) to survive, and clearly, Sega had some strong ideas that have, fortunately for the companies that used them, been able to work and succeed in the modern gaming industry. If anything, I felt vindicated in my arguments that the company was ahead of its time, and that if Sega had ever felt ripped off by their competitors and contemporaries, then Sega would likely have already sued them.
So, no; even by the deductions made in the arguments presented in that picture, Nintendo aren't "stealing" or "ripping off" Sony's, Microsoft's or their own "innovations" - and in reality, it's not at all because no-one remembers Sega, either; truthfully, it's because the design of the modern gimmick-free videogame controller has been tried, tested and developed to the point where there's only one real way to do it properly, and only a certain number of cosmetic and ergonomic variations can be made to the core design without making it either too crazy or inferior to its competitors.
Myself, I'd advise whoever created that pic and those arguments in the first place to shut up, suck it up, and be grateful that Nintendo aren't "innovating" like they did with the Wii, but are at least trying to make a proper gamepad that will provide a decently workable interface for the enjoyment of those who they class as the "hardcore" players - though it is, while admirable, a blatant exercise in futility in the face of Microsoft and Sony's impending iron grip on said "hardcore" market.
And that's all I have to say on the matter.
