Genesis of a Titan

In the beginning of his life there was no joy of the hunt, no thrill of conquest or victory. There was only a deep feeling of exhaustion as he finally broke through the eggshell. He couldn't remember when his brutal struggle for freedom had begun, how many times he had smashed his egg tooth into the wall, or how he had grown from a single cell into the hatchling of the most fearsome predator the world had yet known.  All he knew was that he felt weak, and hungry.

As he emerged from the nest, his eyes began to open and see the vast, frightening world around him. Whirls and flashes of color slowly began to congeal into solid images, forms embedded deep in his subconscious instinct. Though he had no concept of descriptive language, he began to see the objects through his conscious vision for the first time. Things that the later inhabitants that the later inhabitants of his world would call trees, grass, mountains, and sky came into view.  He could see wasps flitting through the vast grove of trees to the south of the nest, hear the calls of the toothed birds roosting in the upper branches, and smell the scent of another hatchling in his nest...

And in that second, he realized he was not alone, not the undisputed king of his miniature universe. He looked around and saw the first creature he would come to know as Rival, enemy. His older brother. Rival had hatched from his egg a few hours earlier, and had enjoyed a brief reign as undisputed lord of the nest before his younger brother hatched. Now, his once tranquil mind was flooded with thoughts of anxiety and rage, dark visions of his younger brother killing him with a bite to the throat and claiming his rightful place as master of the world.

So Rival attacked his younger brother, and they fought, not in the calculated style of adults trying to bring down prey at the hunt, but in a rough, thrashing brawl. Rival clumsily charged his younger brother, snapping furiously with his already sharp teeth, trying to rip a mortal wound into the upstart's neck.  The younger of the two combatants dodged late, and Rival's attack only struck a glancing blow, but left a small red scar on the left side of the neck.  His own rage inflamed by pain, the younger retaliated against Rival, throwing himself forward violently on top of his older foe.  As the younger brother grappled on top of Rival, he could feel his toes rip the soft newborn flesh of his opponent, and his mind surged with its first thoughts of bloodlust and violence.  From the ripping sensation of the talons in his feet, his mind forged its own consciousness, a knowledge of who he, rather than his Rival, was.  Your talons and teeth rip the flesh of your enemies, the Instinct sang within his mind.  You are the Ripper.  Go forth and grow strong, and you will crush even bone and knock down trees with your might!

But his glory in battle was short-lived, as an ominous shadow emerged from the sky.  The unfamiliar shape,  on its great leathery wings, soared across the azure heavens in a slow, almost lazy manner, with none of the desperate, raucous flapping of the toothed birds.  Both Ripper and Rival stopped their fight and dove into the safety of the nest at its approach, feeling for the first time in their lives, the oldest and most primal emotion of all. An emotion which predated the rage and lust which would come to dominate their later lives, and which brought with it an uncomfortable evolutionary memory of when their own ancestors had been mere lizards scuttling in the darkness, living in the shadows of massive, terrible beasts.

Fear.

Ripper watched as the massive airborne dragon sailed away, its shadow leaving the nest, dispelled by an even larger shadow. As he looked up, Ripper saw the massive form of the creature that he instinctively recognized as Mother looming over him. He watched as she bent over the nest, dropping a piece of fresh meat in.  The terrible hunger gnawing at him overcame his sense of fear, and he began to grapple for a part of the meat, slashing and tearing with his jaws. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a third, yet unhatched, egg, and was dimly aware of the fact that another Rival would eventually emerge from it.  But such thoughts were of little concern as he fought for his piece of the day's kill, and the memories of his first day's lesson of anger and fear.

He could not comprehend the development of his own mind and body. Still unaware of both the massive growth spurt he would undergo in his adolescence and his tendency of his predatory mind to contract the experiences of his life to fit the Now-Moment and the current action, he did not realize how quickly he would come to forget almost all the events of this day.  The pain and rage of this day would be replaced by an uneasy sleep, and the thin scar he received in battle would ultimately heal.  However, he would never forget his first taste of fear under the shadow of the dragon, and he would come to recall this moment again in agonizing clarity at the end of his life.

Rise and Fall of the Nintendo Portables

It was 1989

Believe it or not, there was once a time when Nintendo wasn't considered regressive and laughably quixotic in its reluctance to embrace technological change. In fact, back in 1989, they were considered cutting edge.

I owned the first Gameboy back in 1989. It doesn't look like much now--brick shape, pea-green screen, 2 buttons, games with less memory than some Flash games now--but in its time, it was an amazing achievement for a portable system. The Gameboy was essentially a portable NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) without any color and crappy sound. Its competition were extremely limited Tiger handhelds that consisted of a simple "game" that utilized 2 or 3 endlessly repeated motions. The Gameboy, on the other hand, could play games that had levels, scrolling, bosses, beginnings and endings. Which would you choose: a Castlevania that consisted of a stick figure who could move two places on the screen and whip at a pixelated blob that was supposed to be a bat or a game that played just like the classics you loved on the NES? I chose the second, and so did most other people.

Although most Nintendo games from this early period played much like (and in some cases, were ports of) early NES games, this eventually changed due to the adoption of the SuperNES and later Nintendo64. Gameboy games began to increasingly evolve into very specific genres and types that did not correspond to the console games of the time. Perhaps the Gameboy's ultimate "killer app", Pokemon, was released in 1995 in Japan (1996 in US), a year after the NES was finally phased out. But as a whole, Nintendo's product maintained a certain level of consistency based on 3 points:
1. aimed at a younger audience

2. affordable for said audience (cost was always less than $30.00 US)
3. innovative at the time of creation
Even as Nintendo entered the 2000s with the Gameboy Advance, the pattern of success was maintained, and why not? Nintendo's handhelds had no competitors since its one steadily pushed adversary, the Sega GameGear, was discontinued.  Even though Nintendo's "core product" was always for the kiddies, the margin of success was so great that publishers could afford to take risks on things like Japanese RPGs, sidescrollers, and reissues of arcade classics.

The ride started to end in 2006, with the transition to Nintendo's first post-Gameboy handheld, the DS (dual screen). Several problems began to emerge. The cost of most game releases increased from $5 to $10 over the Advance's games, despite the fact that DS flashcarts were theoretically cheaper to manufacture.  For the first time, Nintendo faced a dangerous rival in the portable market with Sony's PSP. Although Sony managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, due to excessive system costs ($250), obsession with DRM, and an unsuccessful media format for films (UMD disks), the DS can't truly be called a success either.

Many DS games were either "shovelware" releases aimed at young children or casual puzzle games aimed at older adults. The more esoteric releases became rarer and rarer over the DS' lifespan, although there were always a few. Profit margins on the games that did exist were further hurt due to rampant piracy of the DS flashcart format, and the cost jump made games more difficult to afford anyway. The DS was essentially a system saved by Brain Age and Pokemon sales that was never a great match for other genres. Whenever a release like Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword was announced, it was like rainfall in the desert.

It was 2011 that finally saw the straw that broke the camel's back: the release of the Nintendo 3DS. This system was a virtual catalog of everything gamers love to hate. Excessive costs? $250 new and all games cost at least $40! Sick of 3D gimmicks? Enjoy ours, and our 4 hour battery life! Think Nintendo doesn't do enough to attract third party developers? You'll love this!

Nintendo is under severe threat from smartphone gaming from two ends. One, the "casual" gamer market has essentially shifted to low cost apps like Angry Birds that can be had for little money and played by virtually everyone. Two, the "hardcore" gamer market is slowly but surely appearing as games such as Street Fighter 4 and Grand Theft Auto III appear for Apple iOS devices. Nintendo's response to this seems to be to hard-sell its old franchises and audience appeal in a rapidly changing game world.

So far, its not working. The 3DS seems to be suffering from a fatal case of "wrong idea, wrong place, wrong time". With no killer apps at release and less of a reason to buy a dedicated game handhold than a smartphone, the 3DS is a severe blow to Nintendo's most reliable revenue stream and first Nintendo handheld to become a commercial failure. If we end up seeing Nintendo games on Apple or Android devices, perhaps it will all be worth it. But it's always sad to see the end of an era, particularly a run of success that lasted over twenty years.