It’s been widely established that Rob Summa hates Nintendo. That point isn’t really up for argument anymore. During our last episode of Podtoid, though, he made a point that I find myself grudgingly agreeing with today regarding Nintendo fanboyism.
After all the reports of people harming themselves and others with the Wiimote, and then people blaming a shoddy strap, one of the writers at Nintendojo took it upon himself to test the tensile strength of the strap, and his test seems to have shown that the strap itelf is pretty sound. After all, it withstood loads up to 25 pounds! He makes an interesting point, as well, that if the strength of the strap itself is not the issue, it must be the “wiitards” themselves, right?
Now, that’s all well and good, but it points out an interesting idea that Mr. Summa presented to our listeners; no other game company has such insanely dedicated fans as Nintendo and while it does benefit them financially, perhaps it is less than advantageous to us as consumers. You never saw people running experiments at home to test (and prove) the fact that the 360 doesn’t overheat or that the PSP isn’t a total abortion, did you? Yet Nintendo has one possible minor problem, and you have people turning into the new century’s version of Mr. Wizard to prove how “science says it’s not Nintendo’s fault”!
Don’t get me wrong, I still think Rob is off base with a lot of his irrational hatred, and the other day when he punched that kid in the face, well, that was kinda screwed up, but he is right about Nintendo just being a corporation that doesn’t deserve this kind of idolatry. Yes, they have brought us more video-game-based happiness than Sony or Microsoft ever will, but they are still a company who only cares about you as far as they can dig into your wallet.
