Game Tapes 04: The Rise of the Revolution

Man, Iwata :(

2005 seems so recent in my mind, but holy shit. That press conference really drives home how much things have changed since then. Maybe not as big as the difference between 2006 and 1995, but still.

I'm particularly surprised at how much vestigial 90s-ness was still in play here.

@artisanbreads: Definitively yes.

Drew's reaction to the whole flirty Miyamoto/"you haven't seen this!" Reggie is this year's GOTY.

It's good reminder how far particularly Nintendo has come. Watching this made me remember how awful they were at any sort of press conference like this for years and years.

Sony was the same way. I think we take for granted a bit that these things have gotten vastly better in the last few years.

I already made a joke about it but man that Miyamoto part is INSANE. Watching it again funny how Brad and Jeff don't react much but Drew's side eye look kills me.

This was great.

Time for Tape Talk, everyone's favorite show about obsolete media formats! Next week on Tape Talk...the 8 track revolution!

best video feature on the site!

Gamespy partnerships!

The pain on Drew's face when Brad revealed the bare tape was palatable

Someone should've warned them that Mario Party 7 was getting a shoutout late in the proceedings...

Wireless

Right Brain

Internet

Portable

Physically ill during that Nintendogs demo.

@enik: god bless you sir

Iwata :(

we got wifi because of the Wii

I can't believe he was the only one who picked up on the weirdness.

@tammolives: Sounded like Scissor Sisters - Take your Mama

It's pretty crazy how much they were focusing on things like online functionality and backward compatibility, only to have those things crash and burn over the next decade in comparison to their competitors. Online is still a nightmare on most Nintendo consoles, Virtual Console became an overpriced joke while other companies started moving towards more better sales or streaming services. Even now Sony is starting to do really interesting things with PS Now and its associated library, something Nintendo could have been at the forefront of.

The only thing they got right in terms of pushing things forward was the new control, and at least in this conference that wasn't even really discussed.

They should also do Nintendo's E3 2008 one if they have a tape of it. That's the one with Wii Music.

This is like two years before I started watching E3 properly. It's amazing how today, Nintendo have basically arrived at the same turning point they were at in 2005 all over again.

@jeff the black Wii came out MUCH later in the cycle.

@ConVox Bingo. Thanks!

Something about Iwata saying playing old games to feel young again made my room get a little dustier than normal. Damn dust

I just gotta say, about the Wii; it never was the online experience of the 360, that's granted. But me, personally? I played a CRAPLOAD of hours online on the Wii, in Tetris, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and a TONNE of Fortune Street and Dr. Mario.

And, Nintendo ended up being 100% right about the virtual console, but not in the way they probably hoped. If you mod your Wii, it does become the ultimate way to play every Nintendo game ever (Uniracers notwithstanding... need the bendiness of the SNES controller for that). I spent a lot of time with my Wii, and I know it didn't have the hardware of the other two systems, or the always-online presence of the 360, but it has to be one of the best things Nintendo ever put out if you include the features Nintendo didn't intend it to have. (SCUMM VM and Mario Paint with a Wiimote instead of a mouse is AWESOME)

"Nobody deserves a party more than Mario..."

Jeff's reaction to those words sums up how I think everyone feels about Mario Party at this point thanks to Dan for pitching the idea of the Mario Party Party series.

They did make good on some of that console Wifi stuff, I remember DS download play being cool for Mario Kart and some other games but yea I don't think they have totally made good on it yet either.

I now get why everybody freaked out about Reggie back then. He's a really good hype man. If you told me he had previously worked for WWE, I'd believe you.

Reggie misstated what show Tina Wood was on. It was G4TV.com (yes, like a website). She and co-host Laura Foy did indeed move over to Microsoft, though the former now uses her married name and the latter works off camera.

lmao, I love Drew's video guy reaction to Brad opening the tape up.

This is the best content on this website right now. Shit like this is what keeps my subscription on.

Good job guys.

Having only just played Twilight Princess for the first time, "boring" is pretty apt. It's OK, I was bored for a lot of it.

My parents bought a black Wii in 2009 for themselves (which just goes to show Nintendo fucking nailed it when it came to their strategy of attracting non-gamers)

Did it just come out in Europe or something? Obviously this was a few years after launch.

Tina, would you like to play?

It's funny to see that Reggie getting beaten at smash is still an ongoing joke with him getting beaten at Smash by Hungrybox.

It's also ironic how they first make a comment about how bad online communties can get, and then the sentence that comes through that DS is exactly the kind of sentence that they don't want to spread.

Iwata was a hell of a guy.

@djhworld: Mine too got caught up in the Wii zeitgeist and spent an entire day tracking one down (they were sold out practically everywhere) before Christmas.

True to form, they played it once or twice and never tried anything other than Wii Sports, before giving it to my sister a few weeks later.

@hatking: Don't get me started. But yeah, i'm glad at least Drew did.

I forgot you could get a pug in Nintendogs. Holy shit. I need to re-buy that game somehow.

I have to keep pausing this video, I can't even get through 1 minute at a time. Wonder why I cringe at this & not demo derby.

What a strange thing to look back on and see how much has changed. I remember going with my sister to a McDonalds to play Mario Kart DS online when it launched because they were an official Nintendo WiFi Connection partner and we didn't have WiFi at home, and that was a couple of years before I bought my 50 foot Ethernet cable so I could play on Xbox Live without buying the WiFI adapter. Hell, the first time I heard about Mario Kart DS was when I saw it on the cover of Nintendo Power at a grocery store. I was also looking at the chart of companies Nintendo had lined up to make DS game and thinking about how many of those have either shut down or are out of the video games business. It's hard for me to believe all this stuff happened and I lived through it.

And we NEVER GOT THOSE COOL COLORS OF THE WII! BAH!

Crystal Chronicles music was SO GOOD.

That 2004-2009 was a great place just like you said, Jeff. Now the 3DS and Vita was Good but an extra purchase, and we carry Good Enough around with us anyways (he says as he plays a 3DS with a phone at arms reach with all 3 Ubi Go games on it).

new fonts? i like em!

follow me backstage hehehe

The last thing I expected to do in the first 6 minutes of an episode of game tapes is to start tearing up.

Why you gotta do me like that, Iwata?

Domo arigato Mr. Miyamoto!

That classic perverted Japanese humor

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land... good times.

This was during a weird time in Nintendo's pre-release press for consoles between 2004/2005 where the Revolution and (working title) Nintendo DS both got some prime coverage in Nintendo Power as mockup 3D renders. It was one of those times where your imagination went wild over the potential the consoles would have. Combined with the GBA SP spread, I had a lot of Nintendo consoles on wishlists during those years.

@artisanbreads: How is this even a question. Yes, of course they did!

Bold move from David Holland to wear his BEST sequin & rhinestone long sleeve teeshirt.

brad was in a different world

MARIO PARTY IS COMING