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by bitwize 370 days ago
Nintendo has ABSOLUTELY competed on graphics. The NES, SNES, N64, and Gamecube were graphical powerhouses upon release, at or near the top of their generations in graphical performance. It was only with the Wii, when they chose to iterate on the Gamecube design rather than pair a powerful multicore processor with a powerful shader-capable CPU like the PS3 and Xbox 360 did, that Nintendo started going all "but muh lateral thinking with withered technology" and claimed they never intended to compete in that space.
2 comments
Taek 370 days ago
The GameCube was released 24 years ago. Its hardly fair to hold Nintendo accountable to a direction they haven't moved in for two and a half decades.

The visual difference between the N64 and GC was enough that it made sense to focus on upgraded graphics. When you play an N64 game, there's always the initial shock of "wow these graphics are a bit dated".

But you don't get that feeling when playing Melee, or Wind Waker, or many of the other artfully done GC games.

Essentially, somewhere around the GameCube era, graphics became good enough that the right artist direction could leap a game into the "timeless graphics" category.

And so it makes sense that Nintendo said "let's stop chasing better graphics, and instead focus on art direction and gameplay".

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pimeys 370 days ago
I think the biggest issue with Nintendo games until Switch at least has been the abysmal frame rates. We're not talking about dips just under 60fps, there are good examples of 15fps frame rates even with the best games such as Tears of Kingdom. I think they've finally fixed that issue with Switch 2, but the horrible performance of the games have been a huge issue since forever.

And of course it does not matter, Nintendo still sells because it's Mawio (and I say this with all the love, I'm a huge Mario fan myself).

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zimpenfish 370 days ago
> the Wii [.vs.] a powerful shader-capable CPU like the PS3 and Xbox 360

Outsold both the PS3 and XBOX360 by 15M units though. Given the lower hardware costs of the Wii (I've seen estimates of ~$160 compared to $840 for the PS3 and $525 for the Xbox 360 - both higher than launch price btw!), I'd suggest Nintendo made the right choice.

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