From the very start, Nintendo knew that it was going to have an uphill climb in terms of making its mark on the gaming industry. After😼 all, the company wasn't exactly known for video games given the fact that they had dealt primarily in trading card games before that. Even so, they felt that they had a real chance at making a splash in the industry thanks in large part to the fact that they had a large group of young video game designers and artists to choose from. They had a vision of changing the video game industry forever and they were able to convince some of the brightest young minds in the industry to join them in their quest of transforming video games before our very eyes. They were committed to hiring only those individuals who loved video games through and through, and as a result, they were able to create some of the longest lasting and most profitable titles of all time.
Today, Nintendo still has a place at the top, despite its recent setbacks and it continues to innovate and think outside the box even when investors caution against it. It's their belief in the gaming community and their commitment to innovation that has forced other companies to do the same and the industry is hitting its peak as a result. With the Nintendo Wii, many felt that the company had made a grave mistake, but then-president Satoru Iwata knew that gamers would love it and that it would allow them to capture parts of the market that others had failed to. At first, many spelled its doom because of its lack of graphical capabilities and power in comparison to the likes of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, but it wasn't soon afterward that consumers fell in love with the console. Nintendo promised a console that would be fun and innovative and they delivered, becom𝓰ing the best selling console within that generation by a wide margin.
20 They Pitched PlayStation And Xbox First...ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ ℱ
The implementation of motion control has been something that has been a part of the gaming industry for a long time. Many companies have attempted to apply the technology to games over the years and through time and experimentation, it has improved immensely. While it was on the edge of being used, gaming companies pulled away from it because they felt that the timing wasn’t right and that consumers were not ready for it. Nintendo, not being one to give into pressure, decided to try their hand at motion control with the Power Glo🌠ve, but unfortunately, it didn’t really take off in part because of the limited amount of games.
The price point of the Power Glove also didn't help matters much.
Despite the failure of the Power Glove, the company wasn’t willing to give up on their vision of bringing motion controls into the mainstream. They had a general idea of what they wanted to do, but they still felt that their technology was a bit behind and not quite ready for full implementation. It wouldn’t be until airplane pilot and inventor Toꦗm🦄 Quinn introduced them to his motion control concept. Originally, it was going to be developed for the Gamecube, but Nintendo executives decided to hold off and implement the new technology into the Nintendo Wii instead. As it turns out, before going to Nintendo.
19 🦹 A Very Different Look🦹
Design is everything and it can be the difference between having a great amount of success and having something flop. Sadly, the first thing that people see is how something looks and this can turn them off of it almost immediately. We’ve seen this many times within the gaming industry when add-ons and systems were passed over even though they were better than the competition simply becaus🤪e of how they looked. Even today, we see a similar thing happening with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One despite the fact that they a🐷re both similar in appearance and specs to one another. That isn’t to say that they don’t both have their advantages and disadvantages, but the long-standing conversation about their differences in looks is a bit overblown.
A company like Nintendo is no stranger to creating revolutionary designs and they have had many naysayers over the 🦄years who thought that their design choices were far from ideal. In the end though, more often than not, Nintendo wins out and it dominates the market despite having a console that may not be up to par in terms of graphics to its competitors. Having this large amount of success no doubt drove the company to 🌱look to the Gamecube for inspiration. It was fitting given that the Wii would be backward compatible with the system and the company had this in mind when they made the , a hybrid of the Wii controller we know today and the iconic Gamecube controller.
18 Murky Wa🍃ters 🌊
Whenever you have a piece of technology come about it can often be hard to say who came up 𓂃with the idea in the first place. After all, a smartphone that was similar in both appearance and function to the iPhone was created a full ten years before the iPhone was introduced to the public. What this shows is that it doesn’t matter so much if you are the first to introduce it, it matters when you introduce it. If the public isn’t reaꦇdy for such a technology it can fade into the background and never be seen again. That being said, it is a bit odd to see a well-known company being sued by previous patent holders given that they have a team of lawyers who should be able to warm them about potential problems with their piece of technology.
Nintendo wasn’t exempt from such problems and the moment 👍that the Wii remote was introduced it was faced with all sorts of lawsuits. It was hardly a surprise though, given the fact that there have been so many general patients given out even though they are not supposed to be granted by law. Today, the patient office is attempting to rectify these problems, but they still occur because general patients 🌊are awarded. Phillips, ilife, and ThinkOptic, all sued Nintendo over certain aspects implemented within the Wii.
17 ❀ A Tall Order 𓃲
When the company made the decision to go ahead with a console based around motion control, they had a ꧟lot of hurdles to overcome. They needed to have a whole host of games that were built around its implementation and that provided enjoyment to gamers for extended periods of time. There was ♒a deep discussion about what they would be able to do with motion control in terms of graphics and frame rate. They knew that they needed to find a happy medium between the two and they were ready to tackle the issue until then Nintendo president Satoru Iwata called them into a meeting and told them that they must create a system that was no bigger than two DVD cases together.
If you were thinking that this is rather small you would be right. Understandab𝓡ly, the engineering team was a bit shocked by this proclamation and they insisted that it would be rather difficult to do. Iwata understood, but he said that he had a vision of creating a console by gamers for gamers. He wanted consumers to have a system that they could easily transport to any location and one that was close enough to the television that the motion control system would work effectively. After the meeting, the engineers got to work and did their best to create a decently powerful system in a small form factor. Despite their hard work, it only managed to be twice asౠ powerful as the Gamecube before it. Though it received some negative feedback as a result, it would end up being the highest selling console of the era.
16 The Hid✱den Meaning Behind That Blue Light
When the Wii was introduced many were confused by the inclusion of a bright characteristic blue light within the CD tray. At first, many felt that this was simply used as a way of notifying the user that a CD had been inserted into the system, but over time people began to notice that the light would change based on certain things happening on the system during its operation. When a certain type of message was sent, 🦄the blue light would glow a certain hue or it would flash a certain sequence to indicate that a message had indeed been received. As people began using it similar to a notification on their smartphone they also began to record it happening in an effort to ask others wh🌱at the sequence could mean if anything.
As consumers began to analyze things they became aware that the light was following Morse code. Thꦕey were unsure what it allꦑ meant and it wouldn’t be until Nintendo was flooded with inquiries about it that they finally spilled the beans and told everyone the secret behind the blue light. As it turns out, it was designed to mimic the call in morse code of the . No one is sure what drove the engineers to select this particular bird for the light, but it was perhaps a way of Nintendo testing its consumers to see just how aware they were of their surroundings.
15 In It For The Long Haul 𝔍
Competition within the gaming industry is always a good thing. It forces companies to innovate and adapt and it also allows for engineers to think way ahead of time so that they can prepare for the future. Certainly, no company wants to take risk that could cause them to lose money, but Nintendo always encouraged their engineers to pitch ideas to them that were outside of the box. Believe it or not, this same mentality was alive and well even when the company had just begun putting their foot into the gaming industry door. With the success of the NES, they knew that they couldn’t take their foot off of the pedal, so to speak, and they knew that gaming giants would be going after them the next time around. Having a limited amount of resources meant that they had to be careful about what they invested in, but they wanted their engineers to create things that they might be able toౠ implement later on.
Character creation was something Nintendo game designers had been discussing for years.
Knowing this, Shigeru Miyamoto and Kensuke Tanabe joined forces tꦑo create the first iteration of the Nintendo Mii’s that we know of as part of t🐼he Wii today.
14 🐠 Gamers First
When Nintendo threw its hat into the ring and became a focal point in the gaming industry everyone was put on notice. From the very start, the company had the mission of putting gamers first no matter wha🍌t, and as such, they based the design of their consoles and games around the enjoyment of gamers. There were many factors that played a part in the decisions that the company would make with each console they would create. First and foremost, they looked at price point, attempting to create a console that was both profitable, but also very affordable for gamers. Second, they needed to have a console that was portable and reliable. Next, they sought to create a console that was always ready to play at a moments notice. At the start, this was relatively easy to achieve, but as software required updates, they ran into a new hurdle with the Wii.
As with many hurdles, it didn’t take long for the company to figure out what to do to rectify the situation. They knew that the updates would have to be downloaded, but they also knew that the last thing that consumers would want to do after coming home from work or school was to run a d🔯ownload for a few hours. The solution came in the form of passive downloading when the console was in low power mode. This allowed the console to download updates when it was not in operation.
13 ♚ ♍ Safety Measures
Given the amount of experience that the company has had with motion control, it is a bit confusing to many why they had to make so many de🥀sign changes with the Nintendo Wii. For starters, many felt that it didn’t make much sense that the Wii sensor bar wasn’t wireless to start with, even though the controllers themselves were and the company had stated that they wanted the console to be portable. There are many reasons why this could be the case, but the most likely reason is the fact that a wireless sensor bar would have risen cost for the end user and as a result would have gone against one of the company’s core policies. You would have the option of buying third-party wireless sensor bars later on, with Nintendo releasing their own shortly afterward. Additionally, users were a bit perplexed by the fact that the company had made the decision to only go with a single sensor bar even though their tracking was much better with the NES when they used more than one. Again, this could boil down to the cost of manufacturing the system.
Though these issues were understandable, it was certainly a head-scratcher when they made the decision to release the Wii remotes without a safety strap. After all, the Power Gl🉐ove fit around your hand for this reason and they even discussed the possibility of issues with certain commercials. Even so, the original systems were not released with straps 🐽on the Wii remotes.
12 ♊ Crackiඣng The Code
Since the introduction of the Sega Saturn, companies have been battling counterfeit games and tried their best to curve their inclusion. The Saturn did it about as good as anyone else and used a weighted disc and hidden code to prevent burnt discs from running on its system. It was so hard to crack, in fact, that it would take some twenty years for a single individual to crack the code and learn about how the system itself runs. When t꧅he Dreamcast decided to use the more reliable computer CD-Rom they ran into a wide array of counterfeit games and they never really recovered from it. Nintendo no doubt was aware of the pitfalls of the Dreamcast and they did their best to lock down their console in a way that even the best coders couldn’t crack the system.
Coders have helped the company come up with some amazing solutions.
It wasn’t that Nintendo wasn’t interested in seeing what people could do with the Wii, but they wanted to control what was available on the system. As a result, it would take a lot of trial and error for h꧃omebrew creators to find their way onto the system, but in the end, they would thanks to a glitch that was present with Zelda: Twilight Prince꧃ss. As it turns out, you can beat Twilight Princess and then use a Homebrew file to open up the Wii and make many changes to its UI.
11 ꦜ Surfing The Web In Style
When you have a console that i🤪sn’t exactly setting the world on fire in terms of graphics, it can be easy to overlook some great things that the console allows users to do. Even after having a Wii for many years, it took me a while to find out some of the amazing things that the console is able to do. Long before either Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo had an idea to create an everything console, and as a result, they had the idea of giving users the ability to watch certain videos as well as access the web to download games and browse. If you were lucky enough to secure a console right as it was released you were treated to an application known as the Opera Web browser for free. This was pretty amazing considering that those who wanted it for the Wii afterward would be paying fifty dollars to have it.
Though the application worked wonderfully for browsing, many users felt that it was rather hard to use given that they would have to use the Wii remote or controller to type. It was a bit interesting that Nintendo chose not to make a keybo✨ard available, that is until users realized that they could plug in any USB keyboard and use it with the browser. T🐼his showed not only the companies forward thinking nature, but it was also a way for them to help gamers save money in any way that they could.