The 800 Pound Pikachu in the Room

As the year 2009 approaches, it seems once again that the Nintendo Wii has managed to uphold its dominance in the console war at large. The ever constant battle between the three major gaming consoles mirrors a struggle of dominance that occurs in every major form of entertainment media. Early in the days of the film studios, the prosperity of success would shift to a virtuous and lucky studio while another may suffer a slump.

This is prevalent in the examples of major television stations where NBC is currently lacking in the ratings and ABC and Fox retain more levels of dominance. The studios still continue to obey this pendulum change of power as 20th Century Fox suffers from a bad fiscal year in terms of box office and Warner Bros. successfully obtains box office numbers in the black. The large scope of power that the conglomerates of media obtain lead to everlasting power struggles that continues until companies crumble from within.

The current ideas and philosophies that envelop the video game industry parallel the past struggles that have occurred with various entertainment mediums in the past. Nintendo’s own creations and philosophies bare strange parallels with another entertainment company that was also chastised for going against the crowd and taking part in subject matter that was uncommon at the time. The Nintendo Corporation’s famous titles that appear to gamers of all ages make Nintendo the Walt Disney Company of the video game industry.

Apparently, mice are the key to fortune in the entertainment business.

Like the Walt Disney Company, Nintendo has come under fire in the past for their established identity in manufacturing games aimed at children. The backlash regarding children based products is a common act of satire and rebellion for persistent members of the entertainment community who think the entire world must endure their controversial and “groundbreaking” works (I admit, at times, I am one of these assholes).

The sheer act of creating entertainment for children may be perceived as exploitation since, let’s face it, children are easy to exploit. Look at McDonald’s, better yet taste McDonald’s. McDonald’s is openly seen as the most evil of American corporations for their quality and service (except for in Japan where quality still matters). McDonald’s is a corporation that should have failed a long time ago (or been bailed out at least), but they don’t because they market their biggest asset, their happy meals, to little children.

A cute puppy toy accompanies every burger that tastes like dog shit


When some political journalist wants to complain about a political leader, they compare him to Hitler. When a political journalist wants to complain about commercialism and consumerism, they point the finger at McDonald’s and people listen. Ironically, there’s an entire market dedicated to exploiting the corporate McDonald’s phenomenon:

They even sell McDonald’s hate books to kids!

However, child exploitation, while a staple of McDonald’s, is not a deciding factor in Nintendo’s dominance, nor was it the dominating factor in the early rise of the Walt Disney Company. The deciding factor in both of these entertainment corporations was their ability to know what the people want and innovate their respected entertainment mediums on a high level of quality.

The Walt Disney Company realized early on that the customer is more than someone to make money off of, and Walt Disney used his own experiences to justify his need for quality. Disneyland is a great example. Walt Disney created Disneyland out of what he wanted out of an amusement park.

The story goes that when Walt Disney was at a younger age, he would encounter Fairmont Park, a small carnival, on his walk to and from school. Walt would look at the children playing and wished to join them, but he could not afford to enter the park on the account of the high ticket prices. It was this experience which Walt Disney wanted Disneyland to have low ticket prices so that “every child in America” could come into Disneyland.[i] This philosophy has of course been abandoned, and Disney continues to suffer because of it.

The same ideas apply Nintendo’s brainchild, Shigeru Miyamoto. Recently, it seems that every game that Miyamoto has created lately has been the result of Miyamoto’s experiences. Miyamoto adopts a puppy, comes up with Nintendogs. Miyamoto likes gardening, comes up with Pikmin. Miyamoto gets fat, creates Wii Fit.[ii] Hell, Miyamoto’s colleague, Satoshi Tajiri, created Poke’mon because he liked catching bugs (and subconsciously liked cockfighting).

Miyamoto is famous for pushing back the due dates of his games for his need of perfection, and is credited on the lines of his famous philosophy, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a bad game is bad forever”. This philosophy is the driving force of Nintendo, and this mantra combined with their sense of creativity and innovation is why Nintendo is as successful as they are.

In the end, video games are not too different from their cinema predecessors. Gameplay is to a video game what a good story is to any motion picture. When the executives of both of these entertainment mediums understand that as the reason people play video games and watch movies, instead of CGI, graphics, and explosions; then they can bring their “game” to the table. Either that, or Nintendo will destroy them for another year.


[i] Schweizer, Peter, Disney: The Mouse Betrayed, 5.
[ii] Lewis, Leo, The Nintendo gaming world awaits another Mario.