Should the original Nintendo Seal of Quality return?
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 12:43pm by Jack
Today Gamasutra asked a bunch of analysts if Nintendo should revisit the 1980s, when the Nintendo Seal of Quality actually meant something, and then apply that mindset to the Wii.
Apparently, there’s a dearth of low-quality, sub par efforts on the Wii right now, and it’s officially time to completely forget the DS’s early track record and again start declaring to the hilltops that the sky is falling and the bubble is set to burst.
First, some housekeeping: While developers, pundits and bloggers might crave a rebirth of the Seal, Jesse Divnich of the simExchange knocks us down a peg and reminds us what the Seal was originally intended to inform consumers about piracy:
People have forgotten why Nintendo introduced the seal in the first place: to stop piracy and to inform consumers of any extremely low-quality titles. Once piracy wasn’t an issue and game quality began to evolve, more and more titles were receiving the seal, diluting its significance.
Believe it or not, back in the 80’s, a lot of gamers made purchasing decisions based solely on the box art and the description on the back.
Fortunately, technology has evolved and we now have numerous media outlets (magazines, gaming community web sites) that have taken the place of needing a “Seal of Quality.” It is unlikely any poorly developed title will fool consumers — shame on Manhunt 2 for thinking otherwise!
Game industry go-to guy Michael Pachter says more households don’t even know what the Seal is today, so re-establishing its significance would probably do very little. Besides, he says, “Nintendo will continue to thrive in 2008. The Wii supply situation should improve by 3-to-4 million [consoles], and at least 1.5 million of those will flow to the U.S. So we should see a year-over-year increase in sales as Wiis show up at Target and Wal-Mart.”
Yay Tarjay.
Ed Barton, Screen Digest, says even with a slowdown in 2008, he believes the Wii will continue to be the bee’s knees and will maintain global installed base leadership through to 2010. Not too shabby.
“The perception that Wii games need more rigorous standards arises largely from vocal hardcore gamers who cannot, and do not want to, believe that a collection of mini-games is hammering their peccadillo du jour in the marketplace. In reality, the ‘Nintendo Seal of Quality’ promised nothing more than that the game was officially licensed, would work on the specified platform, and would be suitable for the entire family,” he said.
If you really look at things closely, the DS and Wii share a similar history when it comes to third parties, but ti’s not exact. In fact, one year in, I’d say the Wii is doing BETTER than the DS. Maybe not in software quality, where I see them as pretty much equal one year in, but instead in hardware sales. The Wii is still hard to find, in demand, and “cool” to own. The DS couldn’t say that in January 2006, not yet anyway. With that in mind, 2008 will be a pretty amazing year for Nintendo. Again.
So, what’s the quick answer about the Seal and whether or not it’s needed to spur some quality game design on the Wii?
“No thank you, not necessary.”
And a counterpoint: Maybe we should invest in a Seal of Quality for the publishers and developers we buy games from. Seems to me the problem with the Wii right now has nothing to do with Nintendo and everything to do with perplexed, confused or lazy developers.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I played plenty of games in my day with the official “Seal of Quality” and felt the game was anything but quality…and almost felt resent towards Nintendo for putting their quality stamp on it. Bottom line…Nintendo putting their name on someone elses product to assure quality could only hurt them…especially with a lot of the half-assed ports we’ve been seeing. Nintendo IS quality…not any game that just happens to be on Nintendo’s system.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, the Forums talked about this:
http://www.infendo.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2021
And we came to the conclusion that it was a b.s. seal in the first place.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
As much as the Seal is a bit of unique Nintendo history I don’t think it should be brought back.
The point made that it would highlight low quality games would all be based on Nintendo’s point of view, which I feel is harsh on developers. And with Nintendos track record of 3rd party games Nintendo should really be willing to take on any games, including poor quality.
Gamers have enough ways of telling if a game is good or not through the net
January 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Dearth means lack, not glut.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The purpose of the seal was to signify that Nintendo had licensed that product: it was not a pirated game or a third-party accessory. This has nothing to do with the game-play quality of duly licensed, but low quality games. The seal of quality would go on these games just as it would go on everything else with a business relationship with Nintendo.
A better thing for Nintendo to do would be to refuse to license games unless they pass Nintendo’s muster of “quality” in game-play, which, frankly, would stifle innovation.
I think we need to realize that the 80/20 principle of crap applies to Nintendo games just like everything else, and that this is necessary in order for the market’s natural selection to function properly.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I think it was actually the Nintendo seal of “These Guys Paid Us the Entry Fee”
January 30th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
“The Wii is still hard to find, in demand, and “cool” to own. The DS couldn’t say that in January 2006”
Jack, I just spent 3 weeks trying to find a new DS in every GameStop in Chicagoland, and they were all depleted! I finally found one store with three units only, and only because I got there less than an hour after they pulled them out of the box!
This is 2008, and the DS is still hard to find in stores! Too soon to say that the Wii will be selling as well three years after its launch… (OK, one and a half if we are talking only about the DS Lite…)
January 30th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Invis, I said 2006 with the DS. It wasn’t until late January 2006 that the first “DS Shortages” would occur. What I was saying is the Wii is a parallel on a bigger scale — its shortages started from the onset and persist today, whereas the DS shortages took a while to get going (notably after the DS Lite was introduced).
January 30th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Maybe we should have the seal of “co produced by Nintendo and said 3rd party”? Just a thought.
January 30th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
NO, I’m strictly against any regulation.
Let the customer decide.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Unless they refuse to publish the steaming piles of crap on the market I doubt it
January 30th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
amen brotha!!! oh yeah!!!
January 31st, 2008 at 12:34 am
When calling Nintendo support the other day for some vertical lines I was seeing in RE4 & RE:UC, I mentioned the 3rd party component cables I was using and the representative informed me that that would VOID MY WARRANTY! Wtf? So…it made me think about this a little before this post. I think it would be nice to have so I could know that my $7.00 set of cables (vice $30 or so for Nintendo ones) could void my warranty. Anyone already know this?
January 31st, 2008 at 8:27 am
hilker wat r u happy about
January 31st, 2008 at 9:30 am
I don’t see the point, other than maybe just a PR move. I’m with TWhite, I played many a game back in the NES days that had the seal and there was just as much crap then with the seal. I don’t see the pont. Unless they can do something to stop the flood of crap, then there’s no reason, although at the same time I guess even though it sucks, I don’t want Nintendo to stop the crap because I’m pretty libertarian at heart. I agree to let the consumer decide.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Sure lets bring it back cause it looks nice. If Nintendo were to adopt the policy again, it would have zero affect on the games we get. I don’t think they ever changed the idea that games should be quality they just quite putting the seal on stuff. In the NES days companies would get around the policy (by the way that policy was just a three game limit to those who could afford to pay the licensing fee) by setting up a second company to release three more usually crap games with. So there’s a nice bit of Nintendo history for all my fellow Nintendo fanboys. The seal of quality really had no meaning other than “yes this company paid to get the software that gets around our lockout chip”. Not even Nintendo themselves were putting out 100% quality games. I shouln’t have to mention the crap nes or snes games Nintendo published. The nes was even worse though. One silly example, nintendo put out Wrecking Crew (one of Mario’s first appearances and I could be wrong but I think its is Luigi’s first game?) Anyway Nintendo shipped it to the US with a level editor with a broken save feature because the US had no disk drive.
In fact the game was one of the early NES games that felt heavier, which was due to the contents actually being the actual japanese famicom game board (60 pin) connected to a clunky 60 to 72 pin adapter all stuffed inside the grey cartridge. NES collectors have used this little tidbit to their advantage by saving $10 on a converter to play import nes games.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Either I’m confused about what dearth means or Jack is?
Anyway, the seal never meant the game was good, so why should it now?