My conclusion's were that Nintendo is facing one of two realities:

1: N64 Sucked and they ALMOST got it handed to them in the SNES erae. N's Facing a Market loss that its never face before (3 systems) in the TV console race. On the other hand, its facing an actual BETTER saturation than the NES in the GBA. I mean, come on. Pokemon wave or no, this thing look awesome. </nostalgia>

But the Gamecube is facing knowledgeable gamers who bought the N64 shearly out of respect to its predacessors. The games for it were good...when and if they came out. I myself, even though I'm a Nintendo whore, probably wont' get a GC Till next year. (Moving sucks.) If Nintendo's wisened up and figured out that by the time their system comes out 18 mil. will have PS2's and god knows how many fanboys will be waiting for an Xbox then good for them I say. The GC doesn't have the those nifty little extra ensentive's like DVD playback a-la-PS2(Xbox), and launching another unsuccesful console at the price of producing GBAs (which fly off the shevle's) would be a mistake. Why take a drink when you can have the bottle, neh?

#2: (This is the one i'm leaning more towards)

But also, you have to ask yourself: Just how many times has Nintendo SCREWED US? I mean, come on. Propaganda, LYING, CUTTING RELEASE QUOTA'S TO GENERATE HYPE, the retarded censoreship of unsignifigant things(FF4), anounceing games that never get released, to name a few. They've already cut the number of GBA's to 500,000. That probably goes as no surprise since the Japanese launch last month though, but I digress. The point is that the Big N has gone out of its way before to PISS US OFF so that we take notice and care of some of its products, or to ensure they sell. If you've ever read "Game Over" you know what i'm talking about.

And I quote: "At the time, we were doing what we did at Mr. Yamauchi's direction, and it all made a great deal of sense, and we had a heck of alot of fun doing it...at the time it seemed like the correct buisness discision"
Howard Lincoln, Refering to pissing on Sony off in and tailspining the playstation into existance.

When you remember, he's the person who basically started Gaming as we know it, you have to love the man. I guess Ihave faith in what he's doing, but not in the practice. Oh well, I guess i'd have to be a Japanese buisness man to understand.

This turned out alot longer than I thought it would, sorry. -Xell-

(RPGamer news story from early march)
"Digicube, the Squaresoft-owned Japanese videogame retailer, has reportedly begun selling Nintendo software for the first time ever." ... "The decision to market Nintendo software is undoubtedly an indication of further effort on Square's part to obtain a better standing with Nintendo."

It's not hard to see who has the advantage here. Hiroshi Yamauchi seems to be much smarter than he sounds.

And about the gamecube at E3, I'll just point out something. Yamauchi's words were:
"We(plural) may even have to(an undesirable possibility) consider(very much open for debate) pigeonholing the sale of GameCube" Not, as some people seem to think "I will personally see to it that you never get your hands on the GameCube, you worthless drones! Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go stand on my head for a week."

In fact, looking at the statement, there isn't even anything there that suggests any of it was his idea in the first place.

In any case, he'll probably be dead before long. Who will we harass then?

Kristian Bjorkan, just ranting

As a female gamer, and one that's been around for years, I have to say that homosexuality and transgender shouldn't be as big as an issue as people are starting to make of it these days. First off, those girly, "bishonen" characters (which the term bishonen doesn't just apply to effeminate young males, but to ATTRACTIVE young males in general...get it right) have been in video games for years. Just pull out all those old SNES and Genessis games, namely rpgs, that we all played so dearly, and you'll either a) be shocked or b) kicking yourself in the head for not noticing then. Ah, isn't youth great?

What I don't like about this is that it's becoming an issue now that more women gamers are coming out of the woodwork. Sure, it's okay to girls to play games now as it was opposed to then when I was a closet gamer, but as soon as we women see a male that's attractive, which just by design it usually is the "effeminate" one, it's a bad thing. And I put "effeminate" in quotes because most of the time, those so-called gay looking characters aren't feminine at all as far as looks or nature (except for Kuja...but he's Kuja), they just happen to have longer hair. It's true. Take characters like Sephiroth, Sydney, or even Vega (who I remember used to be considered cool by guy gamers until this pointless trend of disgust started recently). Aside from his ridiculously long hair, Sepiroth looks masculine. Hell, he's more way masculine looking than Cloud and Vincent, yet no one seems to complain about him. Or Sydney. Yes, he has somewhat longer hair, but his build and facial features are very male. Maybe he's not built like a bodybuilder, but he looks like any lanky skater boy.

Back to what I'm getting at, what's wrong with having a male protagonist/antagonist that's pleasing to the eye for women? We play games too, you know? In fact, you'd probably be pretty damned surprised how many of those Squaresoft games that are actually bought up by high school and college aged women, or how many of us like sitting down and playing Resident Evil for an hour or two. Just as men are getting spooked by the apparent new trend with male characters, just imagine how women felt for years. I almost never buy gaming mags just because there's usually this huge, bad 3D rendering of Lara Croft on the covers (in impractical clothing I might point out. Who the hell runs around in the Arctic in Daisy Dukes?). Or what about that no one cares that Tifa's hanging out her clothes and her constant pantyshots when she attacks? And this is coming from an openly bisexual woman. It's been embarrassing to look at and degrading for women for over a decade now, and yet men have the audacity to start complaining about Ashley Riot's buttocks and also very impartical clothing instead. What kind of sense does that make? None whatsoever.

So, I say either you guys need to start complaining about scantily clad women too, or shut the hell about visually pleasing men. Either way, it's time for the masses to realize there is more to gaming audiences than just hormonal teen guys.

And of course, sex sells. That's why Ashley's ass is exposed.

Lea Johnson, who convinced that Squaresoft's target audience is....women.

The chance of a video game having an openly gay main character is approximately zero, unless by some crazy 3rd party start-up. And if they did, they wouldn't sell very many copies. I understand everyone has a right to do what they want and live their life, and express themselves their own way. Conventional media mirrors this view: shows like "Ellen", "Normal, Ohio", and "Will and Grace." Those are, however, from PASSIVE mediums. Video games are a whole other animal, in the fact that they are INTERACTIVE.

I'm not longer watching John Goodman ruin his career, I'M ruining my career. I'm being taken out of my normal setting and being superimposed in a gay simulation. Sadly, I don't think the best story in the world could rectify (uh, pardon the pun) this displacement.

Example: On the most basic level, I can relate with Cloud because he is a guy, like me. He likes Aeris and was pissed off when she died (as did I). We can relate, despite his frequent psychotic episodes (well, maybe there too...). But if Cloud was gay, and the entire 1st disc was bonding Cloud and Barret together, I couldn't relate. It'd be awkward, and I have no desire to pay $50 and give up 40+ hours for an awkward-playing game.

Besides, do you really think any developer would (could) handle it in a serious and mature manner in the first place? I rest my case.

-Red Raven

It never seems to work with the televangelists- they still prowl the UHF and cable channels in bountiful numbers. So ,I don't think we really have anything to fear from the good Rev. Yamauchi.-big squirrel

Yeah, women like yaoi because it breaks our gender roles and it gives us lots of good looking guys to watch at once. However, there's not that much violence/humiliation in the stuff I read, and most of the time it goes right back into the gender role thing - women are, as a group, a *lot* more afraid of sexual violence than men are. Of course, when you spend most of your life being warned that rape is a constant threat, it's impossible not to be. (Yes, rape is a real threat - but my rant on that subject would consume entire columns.)

Now to my real point. I *like* Cait Sith. Cait is fun to play, his limit break Dice is extremely useful when you first get him (and Slots, later, is fairly good though I still prefer Dice), and he has an interesting backstory and tie-in to the rest of the game. (I also happen to adore Reeve, who is one of the more interesting characters in the game, much more so than say, Tifa, who turned into a wuss.) Chu Chu I loathed, but Chu Chu was never even remotely useful.

Kallah

The idea of gay and lesbian couples in RPGS, or games in general, is one I agree with whole-heartedly. Considering a good deal of games have a straight, strong, caucasian male as the lead hero and a sometimes frail though sometimes tough as nails straight white female as the lead heroine, a change would be nice for this 20 year old gay gamer. The letter about British leathermen as villians gave me a chuckle, but sometimes there are balancing heroes, at least that looked like the direction in Final Fantasy 6. Sabin is gay, I'm sure of it, but because he's such a tough fighter, no one would say it, despite the fact that he somewhat says it himself.

a) He does not try to hit on any of the female characters.
b) His best move is called the "Bum Rush"
c) Just read his dialogue during Gau's makeover scene
d) At the very beginning, he refers to himself as a "Bear". Bears are, for those who don't know, the subculture of gay men who are usually bigger and more hirsuite than say your run of the mill Will And Grace screaming queen. Think James Gandolfini in The Mexican.

It's a small step, but it's a start. I doubt there's been a stronger ensemble since FF6 so there's been a bit of character diversity lacking (except in FF9), so until Square decides to use more characters as leads again, I guess I'll be stuck with the emaciated, hetero waifs saving the world. I'm sure there'd be quite a few more young gamers who could accept themselves more readily if they had some VG heroes. All we'd need is some decent VG writing that wouldn't make it the central one and only theme to a character. Hmm...

*picks up pen, starts writing a story*
Anyone know how to code? ;)

-Steve Curtis

I've already sent a letter that's off topic for today and now I'm sending another.

Reason? I like spending time typing things that will never get posted.

I don't think Yamauchi is crazy. His comments do indeed sound crazy, but I think that's the whole point.

Yamauchi is so confident about the Gamecube that he feels comfortable making a statement about shelving it based on reaction.

He knows astounded press and gamers attending E3 will want one the second games are revealed.

Is there a threat that Gamecube will be shelved? Yes. Why? Because this recent statement might not be crazy, but unfortunately, Yamauchi is. He's probably looking at Sega's new path and thinking that Nintendo would do even better as a software maker.

Did I just contradict myself? You bet. That's the point of this letter. One word, let alone a sentence, can carry very different meanings.

Graeme

Sorry this is late, but it just sorta popped into my head after reading the past couple columns..

"Hi, I'm Chris Jones, and I run the Double Agent letters column at The GIA. It is a column dedicated to the discussion of current games (usually puzzle, RPG and strategy genres) and gaming issues, such as Yamauchi's plot to drive Nintendo fans insane, or the up coming Final Fantasy X. But I'm not going to discuss any of that. I'm going to throw out any semblance of gaming out the window, and talk about *reading* in my column, yep, that's right. Screw games! Let's discuss the current illiteracy rate in America! Woo Hoo! Yeah! Howare poverty and illiteracy rates related in urban areas? Don't forget, I want your essays on why the current social air is sometimes called the "post-literate era" and the "literate era." Be sure to include references from the past 30 years and how leisure time has defined the time spent on reading. Oh, and uh... throw in 2 video game names (preferably sports titles) hidden in the text for extra credit, and a cookie. Due Friday!"

Well, that was rather long winded, but don't take any offense, you must be the only letters columnist I know to discuss literacy reports in a gaming column... and actually have the discussion *relate to video games... relevantly!*....and I love ya for it. Keep up the work, and feel free to call me a poopie head and ban me from the letters column for my flame.

-- Brian W.