Nintendo has a rich history of innovative and gameplay contributing hardware. You know: new hardware twists that improve the way we interactive with games. Having played all of the company’s systems since 1986, here’s how I’d rank ‘em in terms of most gameplay enabling to least gameplay enabling:

1. Nintendo DS. Whose to blame for the ongoing touch gaming revolution? This little guy. Not only that, the DS lends itself better to virtually every genre ever created. Talk about adaptive hardware. Consequently, it’s the best-selling video game system ever (console or handheld, whether made by Nintendo or not). Talk about well received.
2. Nintendo Entertainment System. Directional pads and face buttons might not have existed if it weren’t for this gray box. Joysticks are retro-chic and all, but they’re horribly imprecise when compared to gamepads that the NES pioneered. In fact, some of the best Wii and iOS games mimic the NES joypad (Wiimote turned sideways or on screen d-pad and two face buttons).
3. Wii. The only thing that keeps this from being higher on my list is the limited number of genres that benefit from motion control. Obviously, Wii works great for a lot of games, including apparatus sports (tennis, golf, bowling, etc), arcade shooters, and puzzlers, but other popular genres like platformers, first and third-person games, and others are better served overall with a gamepad. The current gaming landscape is a testament to that.  (more…)

Over the years, Nintendo fans (especially children of the 80s who were growing up right as the NES was released) have amassed quite the impressive collection of systems, games, controllers, and other peripherals. Some would call this business I’ve got going on here a veritable shrine to gaming greatness. When I got to thinking about it, I realized that I’ve never met another female with a Nintendo collection that could even come close to surpassing my own. I have only ever met one guy who had more Nintendo games and systems than I (including numerous Game Boy Advances of every iteration, a DS, a DSi, and a DS XL), but even he had to give me props for collecting something he hadn’t — a Virtual Boy.
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Nintendo has posted the transcription of another session of “Iwata Asks”, the ongoing roundtable discussions featuring Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigesato Itoi, and Satoru Iwata. You can read through the whole interview here, but we’ve also collected a few juicy excerpts from the discussion here for your ravenous consumption.

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With the Nintendo 3DS fervor of late, does that mean the Virtual Boy wasn’t technically a failure, but a gadget before its time?

Personally, I think the widely accepted answer to that question may be that the technology was poorly executed (headaches!) and the idea of it was sound, but it was simply too early to be widely accepted by the masses.

The 3DS, for me, shows we’re “ready” for 3D in the video games space. Glasses-free 3D, that is. Thoughts?

Of  all of the amazing 3DS demos Nintendo showed at E3, one of the most overlooked was a 3D port of the classic arcade shooter Xevious. It featured no new graphics or gameplay elements, levels, or power-ups – it was a direct simple port of a definitively 2D game, slightly tweaked for depth perception. The result? The game looked a little more fresh – the ground far below the aircraft… actually looked quite far away. A very simple tweak to a classic game lent it a new dimension – perceived altitude.

Xevious stands with Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 as an example of something the 3DS is poised to be very good at – breathing new life into old games. Although a novelty to be sure, the added depth perception brings an excitement to games that may have grown mundane to long-time gamers. Aforementioned titles excepted, what classic Nintendo games should receive the 3D treatment? There are three major categories the Big N needs to cover to warm fanboy hearts:

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