Remember when Games used to be about fun?

[Rusty Venture]

Another thing to note is that it doesn't say "Seal of Quality" any more... they changed it to "Official Nintendo Seal".

It still doesn't mean squat.

[Smii]

Another thing to note is that it doesn't say "Seal of Quality" any more... they changed it to "Official Nintendo Seal".

*sigh*

[Guntz]

Another thing to note is that it doesn't say "Seal of Quality" any more... they changed it to "Official Nintendo Seal".

I always thought "Seal of Quality" meant that the game was made with high-quality materials. Like for an NES cart, the plastic wasn't total garbage and the circuit board had good quality components on it. A "good game" in the sense that it's fun is extremely subjective.

[M4R14NO94]

I knew someone was going to put that. Down Under is awesome

[N.Saibot]

Wii does have some good games. Madworld by Sega
seems to be a truly good game, at least from the gameplay
footage I've seen. There is also Metroid which I think should
be decent also. But god, so much casual games and such
a bad controller. I wouldn't play on a Wii any more even if it
would be the only current gen console.

PS3 pwns everything, nothing gets close ; ) Currently I am
waiting for the prices of the units to drop, then I will get it!
Emulation of pretty much everything in Linux ruuuules.

[17daysolderthannes]

The "Nintendo Seal of Quality" never meant game was good. It only meant that Nintendo allowed a game to come out on one of their systems.

Actually, if the stuff I've read over the years is correct, the Nintendo Seal of Quality was to prevent games like E.T. for the 2600 from coming out. In other words, to prevent horrendously broken, short, or weak cash-in games from alienating consumers again. In a related story, it is meaningless now because EVERY game on the Wii is all 3 of those.

PS3 pwns everything, nothing gets close ; ) Currently I am
waiting for the prices of the units to drop, then I will get it!
Emulation of pretty much everything in Linux ruuuules.

I wish more people would learn this, PS3 is sooooo boss.

[Knuckle Duster]

Emulation of pretty much everything in Linux ruuuules.

Not true at all.
The PS3, given it has a hypervisor bottleneck implemented, really crushes anything high end from running good at all. Given the RISC architecture, You can't run wine to carry the windows side of things over either.

The slim can't run linux due to Sony artificially restricting it on the slimer CPU chipset. (I don't think they've overhauled anything, least of all to the point that it wouldn't be easy to patch with an updated firmware.)

The good news though is that 'all' current PS3 hardware has been reverse engineered & dumped, which opens up massive potential to the homebrew scene once the software is ripped apart.

[j_factor]

Actually, if the stuff I've read over the years is correct, the Nintendo Seal of Quality was to prevent games like E.T. for the 2600 from coming out. In other words, to prevent horrendously broken, short, or weak cash-in games from alienating consumers again.

Anyone who thinks that hasn't played certain NES games that bear the seal. Taboo: The Sixth Sense, Three Stooges, Back to the Future...

The "problem" with E.T., strictly speaking, wasn't just that it sucked. Atari spent a ridiculous amount of money on the license and manufactured way too many copies of the game. It ended up being a multi-million dollar loss for the company. Although the Nintendo Seal of Quality appeared on all Nintendo games as well, its purpose was to control third-party releases, and therefore has no link to E.T., which was a first-party game. Surely, however, Nintendo had taken notice of Atari's mistake with E.T. (along with their many other mistakes) and was careful to avoid such a debacle.

The main reason for the NES lockout chip and the corresponding Seal of Quality was so that Nintendo could control who released games for the NES, and profit from it. Third parties had to sign a binding contract to become an official Nintendo (third-party) developer, and pay a licensing fee on each new game, something that Atari, Coleco, Mattel, etc. had not been able to enjoy. They were also required by this contract to use only Nintendo-manufactured cartridges, which Nintendo additionally profited from. Further stipulations from Nintendo included that games had to be Nintendo exclusive, which was an attempt to hinder competition from the likes of Sega and Atari (and NEC soon after); games would have to adhere strictly to a code of content, similar to the Comics Code, in order for Nintendo to maintain a family-friendly image; and any given third party was only permitted to release a certain number of games per year. It was perceived that the market in 1983 had been "flooded" with too many games, and this is the irony, when you compare to Wii and DS. It could also be construed as a sort of generalized quality-control measure ("if they can't release that many games, the ones they do release won't be too shitty"), but Nintendo never assessed the subjective quality of any game.

The Seal itself only guarantees that the game boots and runs correctly and will be fully compatible with your Nintendo system (and that it won't contain objectionable content). There had been some issues with Atari with some third-party games not working right on certain systems. In this way, Nintendo was able to argue that their restrictive policies were some sort of consumer protection. If you look at any NES game packaging, the text next to the seal says: "The official seal is your assurance that Nintendo has approved the quality of this product. Always look for this seal when buying games and accessories to ensure complete compatability with your Nintendo Entertainment System." The context makes it clear that the phrase "the quality of this product" refers to quality in an operational sense, not in a "fun" sense.


tl;dr The Seal never meant that the game was good, only that it would work and that they followed Nintendo's policies.

[Melf]

I can imagine all those poor people who bought LJN games thinking ""hey, if Nintendo approved it, it's got to be good."

Suckers.

[Zork]

It's true, there are a few good ones, Madworld, No more Heroes, Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros., etc.. But the ratio of casual and crap to good is absurd. It really isn't only the Wii though, only a huge example.

I do think the companies are at fault for such crap.

But who can blame them? They're making money off of it. If they could make money while cutting back on time, resources, effort, and over all originality, why not do it?

The Wii was mostly marketed to casual gamers and families anyways, so I believe the games that are made for it suit it well. At least the Wii has alot of multi-player games were the players are actually playing on the same television. Because I can hardly find any like that for my PS3...

[Nunzio]

Anyone who thinks that hasn't played certain NES games that bear the seal. Taboo: The Sixth Sense, Three Stooges, Back to the Future...

I have no problem with your argument, however there is nothing wrong with these games. Taboo is a useful supernatural tool, it actually predicts the future and my copy is haunted. Three Stooges is a port. And Back to the Future can be fun but you have to warm up into it. Except the goddamn bees, they're tricky.

[MrMatthews]

The magical nintendo wizard urged me to purchase only NES games that bore the official Seal of Quality, assuring me that this would ensure that I'd only be playing the best on offer for the system. And so I did. I used that Seal of Quality as a selling point for my parents. It wasn't long before I realized that this "quality" seal in no way guaranteed the game to be good.

[kool kitty89]

It still doesn't mean squat.

Actually some really early NES games (the 5 screw ones mostly it seems) had a different seal. Rather than the simple "seal of quality" there was a whole mess of fine print emphesizing quality assurance:

This seal is you assurance that Nintendo(R) has evaluated and approved the quality of this product.

It would be interesting to see if (coinsidence or not) most of such games were above average, or rather, if none of them included any actual "poor" titles in the library.
Nintendo genuinely seemed to be trying to enforce restrictions to limited flooding of poor quality software, namely the number of games alloted per year per publisher (2 iirc, or at least initially or without special approval). Of course the whole exclusivity contracts thing was entrirely self serving and ... well monopolistic. (which in itsself could have led to more problems in the industry had competition not forced their hand finally -ie Sega)

[rift]

the wii is not a video game console, it's a toy for non-gaming adults and little kids.

[j_factor]

the wii is not a video game console, it's a toy for non-gaming adults and little kids.

So was the NES.