The USS Quad Damage

A murky relationship

The first system I owned was an SMS. I'd often gone to people's houses and play on their amigas and C64s, but my parents didn't buy a console until the SMS. From then onwards, I've been on the sega side of things: More mature games with serious content. You punch people in the face, you don't jump on turtles. It was with a heavy heart that I bore their post megadrive crappiness. I was shocked to hear of their departure from hardware, right when their brightest flame was burning. I was crushed, and I've been wandering the gaming landscape aimlessly since.

I guess I got jealous of everyone playing their game boys. I've been looking enviously at the nintendo crowd, and when I found that Ikaruga was available on the gamecube (and a gamecube could be had for sub AU$100), I joined the ranks. It's been an uncomfortable relationship. On the one hand, I like thinking outside the box, I like the new ideas and designs that come out of the company in an industry making largely dull titles. So is nintendo my champion? My saviour?

No. Not by a long shot. This company puts in a lot of work to make sure that it's very difficult to develop for their platform. This is why there's hope in the Revolution. I'm hoping that alongside their NES and SNES library, they'll give away a dev-kit for free games. Sure, they don't make money from it, but if the game were free they wouldn't be making money from it anyway. On top of that, it makes their platform more dominant, which means more games for it.

Anyway, I'm ready to get my bubble blown yet again. Fucking Nintendo...