Top Ten: Nintendo Blunders

Nintendo is king here at the Dojo, but it’s not all chuckola cola and mushroom pops at the house of N.

By Kyle England. Posted 01/30/2013 14:00 11 Comments     ShareThis

1. The Sony Betrayal

While Nintendo did not end up using discs in the Nintendo 64, the company did realize their potential. In the early 90s, Nintendo teamed up with Sony to create the “Play Station” which would be a disc-based add-on for the SNES. The new project was announced in 1991, but something happened shortly after the announcement. Nintendo turned around and said that the deal was off, Sony was out, and Philips was in. This came as news to Sony, who was given no previous notice about the deal. Apparently, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi did not agree with the revenue sharing and management in the business contract between Sony and Nintendo, so he pulled out at the last minute. Couldn’t they have worked something out? That’s scummy business practice to say the least.

This decision had a few results, and none of them went well for Nintendo. Philips never ended up releasing a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo, but the company still got some rights to use some Nintendo characters in some Philips CD-i games. You know what happened with those. Regardless, Sony had even made a prototype SNES CD-ROM, but Philips didn’t get the idea going anywhere.

The deal also resulted in Sony turning against Nintendo. Sony used the prototype and idea of the Play Station device to start its own line of consoles. When the new Sony PlayStation was released, it took the world by storm. Nintendo was left in the dust as Sony outsold Nintendo consoles for two consecutive console generations. Many developers jumped shipped and favored Sony. Nintendo had goofed, and goofed badly. By cutting the business deal with Sony, Nintendo had created its own worst enemy. What worse blunder could you make?


Well, that does it for the rogues gallery of Nintendo’s greatest mishaps. I love those guys to death, but man did they do some things I wish they hadn’t. But so it goes. Many of the entries here were infuriating and dreadful, but we’re still here. Nintendo knows how to remain resourceful in an environment of extreme pessimism. What else has made you disappointed with Nintendo, and why do you stick it out? I think the good outweighs the bad. Nintendo has done some things wrong, but never the games. Nintendo games are some the best you can play, and that’s all I ever need.

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11 Responses to “Top Ten: Nintendo Blunders”

  • 132 points
    gekslupis says...

    The funny thing is that most people I know who support nintendo also own a Playstation 3. Even though they betrayed nintendo, people who love nintendo still enjoy the playstation. I can only imagine what could have been if nintendo kept their deal.

    • 285 points
      Kyle England says...

      I’m a big PlayStation fan myself. If they had stuck together, we might have gotten some sort of awesome mega super console! Although, much of the PlayStation character did come from the fact that it was a brand new system from a company not established in games. Who knows what would have happened?

  • 745 points
    OG75 says...

    This list is one of the first “top 10” lists on this (or any gaming) site that I totally agree with. Not that that validates anything (I know lists are just opinions anyway.) Just wanted to say: great job on this well-rounded list. Not only does it cover many generations, but also strikes a balance with the kind of hardware (consoles, handhelds, and virtual boy) as well as software… and even the Super Mario Movie. It even made me think about Rareware. I had been of the opinion of “good riddance, who needs ‘grabbed by the ghoulies?'”, but you got me thinking about what could have been… Oh how I yearn for a Jet Force Gemini sequel. Love the site. Keep the great features coming!

    PS. I was worried from the picture on this feature that you were going to mention allowing Team Ninja to handle Metroid: Another M. While it’s not my favorite Metroid (I’ve beat them all the week they’ve come out. Yes, even the original.) I did enjoy “Another M.”

  • 1244 points
    lukas85 says...

    i love the n64 era and i know that cartriges have their limitations, but i cannot imagine playing ocarina of time with a loading screen.

    • 285 points
      Kyle England says...

      I agree, and I love those cartridges. But Squaresoft and Nintendo were such good buddies before N64. If Square had stayed Nintendo exclusive, Final Fantasy VII would have been on N64, and we might have even gotten some FF characters on Smash. Now that would have been pretty cool.

  • 1379 points
    xeacons says...

    History is tough to research, and many books tend to contradict each other. I wouldn’t blame a lot of this on Nintendo. According to my research, many were seemingly logical decisions that turned out badly because Nintendo dealt with the wrong people.

    • 285 points
      Kyle England says...

      Yeah, hindsight is 20/20. No business intentionally tries to make bad decisions, but some just turn out bad. Nintendo made the Virtual Boy because they thought it would sell, but it didn’t. I’m glad Nintendo takes risks like that, because then we would never have had systems like The Nintendo DS and Wii. I do think Nintendo has made better decisions than some other companies too.

  • 1379 points
    xeacons says...

    At any rate I totally understand when defending a cause looks pointless. I’m a member of a variety of groups (Nintendo fans, not least of all) that take a lot of bashing, and just when it seems we’re making progress, someone stands up and does something incredibly stupid in our name. Sometimes, I just want to believe it’s our opposition trying to make us look bad.

  • 60 points
    Dustin Grissom says...

    So relieved to see that you didn’t put Other: M on here! That game gets such a terrible rap for what is a fairly good, if not great, game! Good list!

  • 33 points
    mailorderninja says...

    Three words: Wii Vitality Sensor. I literally shuddered when I saw this. Luckily it never saw the light of day.

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