9. 16-bit Censorship
Won’t someone think of the children? Nintendo definitely thinks of them. Nintendo thought about children and Western sensibilities so much that in the NES and SNES days, the company censored many aspects of Japanese games for an international release. Everything from removing references to religion and churches in Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games to editing out blood and other gory content. While these changes seemed well-meaning, many seemed unnecessary.
With no formal rating video game rating system in place during video games’ infancy, Nintendo had an unnatural amount of control over the content of games allowed to be published on its systems. Didn’t like the censors? Well, you don’t get a Nintendo release. In a couple instances, these censors changed entire characters and stories, such as the removal of references to Nazis in Bionic Commando and Wolfenstein 3D.
By censoring games to make them child friendly, Nintendo started to cement itself and its systems as “being for kids” in the eyes of many. The most notable instance of this is the original console release of Mortal Kombat, in which all the blood was removed in the SNES version. As a result, the Sega Genesis version sold way better. In fact, during the 16-bit era, Sega advertised the Genesis as being the cooler and more grown up game system, compared to the childish Super Nintendo. While that was definitely not the case, Nintendo put itself into that category, and this is a stigma that Nintendo struggles with even today.
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.
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?
It’s not betrayal; it’s connoisseurship. You can’t limit yourself.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Three words: Wii Vitality Sensor. I literally shuddered when I saw this. Luckily it never saw the light of day.