first of all, i finally graduated this year and got my exams done, i finally have time for some gaming, going out, and all that stuff you dont get to do with intense studying. it payed off though as i raised my overall average to an 87% from my regular 82% and got accepted to all of the universities i applied to, it feels good to succeed after a rough year

now about nintendo. they increasingly make me worry about their most recent decisions. the way i see it, the company that used to dominate gaming back in the 80s-90s is falling down greatly.

i could see what they were going for with the wii, and i accept it, but the 3ds is where i started to get confused. its launch was just terrible. high price and no games. that is the worst a company can do to their gaming product on release in my eyes. now my brother bought a 3ds around launch even though i warned him not to, but 10 year olds just dont listen to advice do they lol. we were treated to a much lower price later on, ambassador games that werent any good at redeeming the full price we payed (i mean come on ive played all those games already on their original consoles, and owned many of them on the wii, they didnt do us any good), and now the 3DS XL

the 3ds XL doesnt look like its a must have update, i mean its just got bigger screens for the most part. but what really ticked me off was releasing an "upgrade" only a year after release, AND WITHOUT THE SECOND ANALOG. why nintendo, why NOT put the second analog into the so called upgrade, i mean you already released some big ugly peripheral for that right? why dont you just release an even bigger second analog peripheral, im sure that wont hinder the 3ds's portability. leaving the second analog outside of the first 3ds model was already a mistake in my eyes.

now for the new smash brothers game. smash bros is a solid frnachise. its considered a great party game for family and freinds to duke it out with their favourite nintendo characters, but it also has plenty of depth, so much that you can get very good at it and get very competitive at tournaments, thats saying alot about a game. then nintendo had to give it to namco bandai... seriously when i read this news i think i zoned out for 10 minutes in confusion. why in the world would nintendo give a solid franchise to a 3rd party, and important franchise at that. one where if you mess up, the damage will just be too great. was this a good or bad move on nintendos part i dont know. im sure sakurai is monitering its development, but they still gave it to a 3rd party. just look at what happened to metroid other m. that game was being monitered by nintendo as well, but they still managed to screw it up. dont get me wrong i liked other m, but they seriously messed up the whole concept of a metroid game with that game.

of course there is the wiiu which everyone has mixed opinions about. im not so sure this will do so well because the casuals wont really be able to tell the difference. it looked the same as the wii, in fact i thought this was just an add on to my wii. besides that im glad they fixed the gamepad, and the games look good so far. i also like how they are offering that regular controller as an option. but something makes me feel like not many people will notice this console due to it looking just like the wii, and possibly by microsoft and sony completly over shadowing it in the near future. oh and the games are already avaliable on the ps3 and 360, im sure i wouldnt buy a wiiu to play assassins creed 3 or mass effect 3 when i own both a 360 and ps3.

anyways i thought i would vent out that info here since its been awhile since my last blog (even though not many people care to read them). what are your opinions on nintendo. are you surprised by these decisions just like i am?