5 Weirdest Mistakes Ever Made By Nintendo

5 Mortal Kombat? How About Friendly Kombat

The Mistake: In the early '90s, the original Mortal Kombat hit the arcades so hard that it was a no-brainer that it would also basically print money for home console makers. Unfortunately, whereas the arcade business was an awesomely cool lawless hellscape,  the home console realm was ruled by parents worried that their kids would stick Scorpion-style chained kunai inside their wrists or gather dangerous amounts of snowballs that they’d bring to school. Parents, politicians, and news media outlets pressured Sega and Nintendo into avoiding making a deal with the devil, but only Nintendo was dumb enough to say no to such a sweet deal and ended up heavily censoring their port of the original Mortal Kombat.

The Result: The genesis/mega drive version also featured censorship, but it also included a cheat code that made all of the violence from the arcade version available in the console version. That cheat code doubled as an instant-win code business-wise, as it caused everyone to flock to the Genesis port of the game, outselling the Nintendo version 5 to 1.

4 Always going for dumb game formats

The Mistake Remaining in the cartridge business for too long, then avoiding putting their games on CDs and regular DVDs. Isn't it mind-blowing to think that despite its enormous success, Nintendo never had a console that read the best type of media format of its time? 

The Result: Nintendo's choice for weirder and weaker storage may have successfully warded-off pirates, but also came at the cost of textures, music, and voice work.

 Also, the company was once going to work on Sony to get disc base games, but they kind of hurt Sony to the point of making it a sworn enemy instead of an ally.

3 Having randos make their games

The Mistake: Nintendo spent a few (console) lifetimes refusing to forge alliances with other successful companies and video game makers to one day decide to work with the worst of the bunch. Yes, they did decline an offer from the people who made DOOM to port their games to the PC.

The Result: Even though Nintendo is responsible for some of the best 2d and 3d platformers ever made, it's also partially responsible for the worst, as their fall out with Sony resulted in the company working with Phillips to make the awful CDI console, and in giving a nearly-amateur game company to make not one but 3 licensed Zelda games. Those were so bad that their only redeeming aspects were their unintentionally hilarious cutscenes.

2 The Wii U

The Mistake: For many, the original Wii was the most surprising smash hit of all time. We're talking about a console that featured fun motion controllers to appeal to a larger audience instead of trying to cater to niche gamers. Who could've predicted its success? It looks like Nintendo merely lucked into it, though, because they followed up on the in the dumbest possible way. The Wii's follow-up, The Wii U, managed to throw away the Wii's awesome controllers and replaced them with an unfinished blueprint for the Switch that still baffles people to this day.

Not to mention that it was also less powerful than either of its older market competitors.

The Result: A major fall from grace for Nintendo and an awkward tomb for some of the best exclusives ever made.

1 Not learning from the past

The Mistake: Current Nintendo is ruthless when it comes to hunting down fan content, even when the fan content in question slaps and is non-profit. That's extremely dumb considering how Rare, Nintendo's best partner and the company responsible for gems such as Goldeneye 007, Banjo Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Perfect Dark, began as a hacking operation that Nintendo decided to give a chance to instead of destroying right away. 

The Result: Not even Dr. Strange could count the amount of missed opportunities. What we do know, however, is that Nintendo ended up letting Rare fall in the hands of Microsoft, and boy, that didn't go well.

Top Image: Nintendo