Anyone remember the significance of 9.9.99? That was the day Sega launched their last hardware console in America, the Dreamcast. Despite featuring an extraordinary amount of brilliant titles, graphics that were never before seen on a dedicated gaming device, and an onboard modem so you could actually use the thing to connect to the internet, most people didn’t buy it and it nearly killed one of the most loved gaming companies on the planet. How did Sega fix their problems? Simple, they owned the brands people adored, namely Sonic, Super Monkey Ball, and Virtua Fighter, so they brought said brands over to every console on the market. It may not seem odd to you now to see a blue hedgehog running and jumping around on a Nintendo console, but it was for many of us the first time it happened.
Now Nintendo today is in the same boat as Sega in the 90s. Their recently launched 3DS isn’t selling as well as they’d hoped, and for obvious reasons. The 3D feature is a gimmick, and most people do their mobile gaming on smartphones. Nintendo, being the stubborn bastards that they are, keep on repeatedly saying that their franchisees will never, ever, come to non-Nintendo hardware. That’s soon due for a change with “Pokémon Say Tap?“, a new title headed for iOS and Android, but it’s nothing like the Pokémon games you’re used to. Still, we hope that some day Nintendo would ditch their arrogant attitude and all of their bring their beloved characters to new platforms. There’s a reason Rovio is kicking ass with Angry Birds, they make sure it runs on everything under the sun. And while the Angry Birds brand is hot, Rovio sells various knick knacks such as toys and t-shirts to their most loyal fans.
It’s Brand Whoring 101, a class that Nintendo obviously skipped so they could get high under the bleachers and dream up the Mario universe.