The NES mini and Why it is OK to question a companies decisions even if you love them.

Ok so you might see this picture and if you are a regular reader of my blog you might be thinking why is he on about the NES mini again? Yes I  already coverd it in his post about the NES mini and the AT games Megadrive, well I am actually writing about it because of something I saw posted in a Nintendo Street Pass group, I wont go in to too much detail about this group as some of what I say could be considerd highly critical of them and I dont want to turn this in to some kind of slagging match, I instead just want to talk about the issue/issues that were raised.

I have already talked about if the NES mini is worth its price of £50 or not, I mentioned that it came with 30 games on it but no way of adding any more, I also added the fact that it can not play the original NES cartridges. I also mentioned that for your cash you get the machine a HDMI cable and one joypad. What I didnt mention is that you get a USB power lead. Now it had kind of slipped my mind/attention that you get a USB lead to power it and you either need to plug this lead into something it can draw power from (the USB port on a telly for example) or you need to get an adaptor to allow you to plug it into a regular plug socket. Well the idea for this whole post started with someone complaining that Nintendo did not supply the adaptor to turn the USB cable into a fully functioning regular plug, now you would expect this to be met with a response on the lines of one of the following ''well it kind of sucks you dont get the plug but youll proberbly have one in the house for a phone or something you can use'' or ''well it kind of sucks but at least you can buy them relativly cheaply''. What kind of response was this actually met with, well it was met with one saying how Nintendo are in the right for not supplying the plug and that they are actually doing us all a favour by not supplying one and that we should indeed be gratful for there generosity because if they had included a plug then they would have had to add another £10 on to the price, and instead they are allowing us to choose if we want to buy one seperatly or not. Now some people might think that there is a little bit of merit in the response after all extra pieces do cost extra cash, but then stop and consider the fact you get reasonably decent USB plugs in pound land for £1 and Nintendo is a huge company who can have things mass produced, its proberbly saving them 50pence per unit to not include a plug adaptor so no it shouldnt put the price up by £10 to put one in the box at all an considering this they could quiet easily raise the price of the machine by 50pence and it not really make much of a diffrence or heavens forbid they could foot the bill and loose a smidgen of profit but gain a little bit extra customer respect.

Well I wrote a response to this effect saying that with the lack of a plug added to the fact that the pads wires were not long enough and that if this was a problem for you then you were expected to purchase extension cables it just felt like Nintendo had been a little greedy in this instance considering that its not exactly the most sophisticated piece of hardware. I mean lets face it rinky dink little companies have been making NES clones with lots of games 2 pads and in some cases even cartridge slots for a long time and most of the time asking for a darn lot less than £50, yes they have been unoficial and some of them asthetically lacking but still if some pirate company with limited resources can churn them out cheap then Nintendo have clearly plucked the figure of £50 out of thin air. I was met with a response which reminded me that the NES mini was intended as a collectable more than a truly functional machine and added that Nintendo was tottally jusified in there price and all of there business decisions, that if I did not like the price I simply should not buy one and that Nintendo was very generous giving resources to 3DS street pass groups. Kind of funny isent it that a runner of a street pass group should both jump to Nintendo's defense with so much vetrol and also mention how generous they are in helping street pass groups. It makes one stop and wonder does he want to support Nintendo because they do so much for him and he feels in debt to them or is he in some way bound to jump to there defense is it in the terms of something he has signed? I dont know and if I claimed to know I would be talking utter rubbish but it does make you think doesnt it? I would have responded to his response but it dissapeared as did my original response as did the entire thread, leaving me wondering why, does he have to remove things which might paint Nintendo in a bad light or did he simply want to have the last word by throwing a tantrum and deleting things?

I wont be naming this person or the group itself, yes I have said what kind of group it is but there are lots. I am not writing this to have the last say, I am sure more people are a member of that group than will ever read my blog. So why am I writing this? Well I think it is always important to think about everything you hear and read about a Video game company, to think why you hold the oppinions you do and if any of them are effected by blind loyalty. I think it is important that consumers always question companies and dont just follow blindly. I will use the example I have many times in the past but look at the XBOX One's original launch information, it was going to launch with all kinds of really draconian limitations, things to stop you lending your friends games without jumping through hoops etc and what stoped them from doing this? Well partly the fact that there main rivals decided to be far more liberal with there policys but mostly the fact that there own fan base turned around and refused to accept what they had been told the fact that people protested, they argued and they made there oppinions heard, and did this hurt Microsoft? No not at all after people stood up to them Microsoft dropped these stupid ideas and people actually purchased the Xbox One people who otherwise would not have. I will end this with some simple words just because you love a company and the things it produces and has produced it does not mean that you cant compalin or question one of there decisions.