The Trouble with Nintendo. A TL;DR topic.

[NEG]

I doubt it's a troll just more of a 'be happy with what you get, our hobby wasn't even as big as it is currently. We complain a damn lot.' type of post.

We should expect more, of course, and some of us are passionate because we truly want them to do better. Not have to own at a minimum 2 different consoles (Nintendo + whatever) to get a large enough selection of what the industry is currently up to.

[Red Alignment]

I mean shit like nintendoland. Not the classic nintendo stuff .like OOT or SMW. You really class them in the same league?

Incidentally, while I wouldn't called Nintendo Land "shit", it's definitely not amongst Nintendo's greatest in terms of delivering a satisfying games experience.

For me NL had the initial appeal that the Smash Bros games had, "ooh look, Kindly Old Uncle Nintendo's being all cheerful and warm and nostalgic", but that doesn't last: doesn't help (IMO) that the NL minigames are about as shallow as the average disposable smartphone game, and don't do the Nintendo series they visually reference much service. So. yeah, it's not a system-seller other than in the 'something bundled with the console that you quickly tire of' sense.

[angel]

Stuff like nintendoland just signal nintendo's wildly low ambition. Where is metroid, where are all the studios they should be courting. The stellar line up convincing us to buy the Wii U. Where's the marketing, the press coverage. Where is the investment in it. Where are the new franchises. Where is...anything? Its an empty shell of broken promises and its 3 months old.

Even compare to the n64 launch which was as expensive..but my god...the excitement for that. Mario 64! Turok! Wave Race, Pilotwings! Fuck me what a line up. I think nintendo are insane. Theyre throwing away success by being stubborn and not making what people want to play.

[HarryBizzle]

EDIT: The concept of farming out franchises, considering the last one was Metroid: Other M, might not be such a fruitful idea however.

Other M is a very good game. Probably my favourite Wii game. In many ways it feels like an old Metroid game where the Prime games don't. Sadly what they did to Samus was horrendous but the guy who created her had full creative control and was clearly having a breakdown - he even admitted to crying when he played the game (from how emotional it was, not how embarrassing).

And F-Zero GX and the Prime games say hi. I can't actually think of better "Nintendo" games.

[Chopsocky]

The Prime games were hardly farmed out imo and in any case Retro were already made first party after the first game. Other M was shite both technically and story-wise. I also don't rate the Capcom Zelda's very highly. Namco also did Starfox Assault I believe which didn't exactly set the world on fire. I think farming out has a lot more misses than hits. Punchout on the Wii was a great revival though.

I don't want to play a Mario Kart or 2d Mario game for a long while. I think new IP's should be the focus and I welcome less played out titles like Pikmin. I really think that NoA has become completely useless and in two generations they have become much worse than NoE in terms of releases and translations. It is ridiculous that operation rainfall had to happen in this day and age. Nintendo seems to have very poor western links and maybe a useless NoA is part of that.

What are Nintendo even doing with franchises like both Fatal Frame games which haven't been released stateside and just been left to rot? Why not HD releases of those rather than freaking Wind Waker.

And yet the 3DS is doing well, barely any western support though.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Tiresome is when people keep expecting Nintendo to make non-Nintendo games. You know what they're like, it's daft to expect anything else.

Well, that's the thing isn't it? It may be hard to believe, but there actually was a time when Nintendo games were new, fresh and surprising. When they invented new genres or pushed existing genres in exciting new directions. Back then you didn't know what to expect at all, because Nintendo would push the envelope and surprise us. These days it's just more of the same - polished up versions of games we already played on the N64, GameCube and Wii, with the exception of some more experimental non-games like Wii Sports / Fit / Music which are not very appealing to most 'serious' gamers.

[angel]

Remaking Wind Waker is somehow a great hope for them...but even that is based on the ancient zelda formula, with some horrific padding late on. Hookshot, boomerang, slingshot, bombs..all the puzzles clues highlighted in green text to ruin any fun solving them. Just old ideas rehashed.

[kensei]

I loved the Wii series. Like lots of people here. What you mean Nap is that you don't like them. I had not heard this before.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Lots? I think you'll find that there are more disgruntled ex-Nintendo gamers than newly won Nintendo gamers on here.

[layten]

Not quite. PowerPC was never die shrunk to 45nm. Nowhere close to it infact.Now because it's not a standard chip and it's not being that massively produced it's likely costing a fair bit. Nowheer near the CPU I'll give you that but it's still a bit high.

The CPU in the WiiU has some slightly odd bit's in it. For example one of the cores contains 2 megs of cache while the other two contain 512k a peice. This is a bit odd to say the least. Also remember that the CPU and the GPU sit on the same socket which is quite a new thing. The people at chipworks give a good indication of just how much it costs altogether.

None of that matters all that much. The cost of the chip boils down to the price per fabricated wafer divided by the number of working chips. Given that the die is quite small and 45nm is a very mature process these chips are not going to be costing Nintendo all that much per unit.

Oh and both the 360 and PS3 have had CPUs manufactured on a 45nm process, both have PPC derived cores.

[RubberJohnny]

I'd have preferred them to create a box that sits under the TV and can do HD and XBLA/PSN level downloadable games (maybe you could also get them on an SD card or something) and really throw open the store for App developers and indies. I don't see Nintendo needing next gen POWAH, their stuff is all about art styles that look great regardless of the tech. They'd head off the mass rush to that kind of device that GabeN says is coming, and they have a strong brand through all their IPs, so they'd stand out ahead of the endless Android boxes.

The problem with that is, the only way I can see them getting their online network stuff to a decent standard is to partner with someone else - they can't manage a modern account system, their system seems to have barely evolved since 2004, and is still full of weird idiosyncrasies that provide a poor user experience.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I don't see Nintendo needing next gen POWAH, their stuff is all about art styles that look great regardless of the tech.

Again, this is the same notion as 'people should know what to expect from Nintendo games'. When Metroid Prime was released, it was a visual marvel. Maybe the best looking game at the time, definitely one of the prettiest of the generation. Same on the N64 with Ocarina of Time (as a relatively early title) or 1080 snowboarding - it looked great. Mindblowing even for the time. Waverace was also something special with its amazing water effects. The notion that Nintendo doesn't need the POWAH due to relatively simple / clean artstyles is a revisionist notion; they make simple / clean artstyle games now because they're restricted by the technology, rather than they choose restrictive technology because it matches their artstyle.

[NecroMorrius]

They're totally missing the boat on the transition to service platform that all the device peddlers are maneuvering towards. Everyone else seems to know that these game services are going to go more-or-less BYOD at some point. Steambox, Sony with Gaikai, MS with 'Xbox' transitioning to a brand name for entertainment in the cloud. Meanwhile Nintendo can't even make an online profile work across devices or provide a service to match that which shipped with the Xbox 360 in 2005. I don't bet against Nintendo but they really seem like they might be heading for trouble in the near future.

I'm in the same boat as Smitty, I want to play Nintendo games, but I don't give a shit about the Wii U. I'm starting to wish they'd go the Sega route if they can't be arsed with the service side of things.

[RubberJohnny]

I just don't think Mario needs to look next gen detailed.

I'd also like to see Nintendo carry on doing something different in the industry, but in a way in which they have more success with than the Wii U - getting the sort of devs who up-port Apps to Steam and so on would be far better than trying to get retail games that cost $30 million for a single platform that's sold fuck all, when most of that sort of investment is for next gen.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I just don't think Mario needs to look next gen detailed.

No, but the point is that Nintendo should look beyond Mario. Let's say they were to continue some of the trends of the olden days. A new Metroid game, a new 1080 game, a new Waverace or -shock horror- actually something genuinely new might hugely benefit from being next gen detailed. The problem is that Nintendo has locked itself in the Mario / Mii range of games for some reason.

[NecroMorrius]

I don't mind if they want to keep their production modest, Good Nintendo games will always be good, they're the kings of inventive design. I would really like to see them try something new however, in terms of software. They're so iterative and so conservative. I want some new IP! But right now anything would do for the Wii U, their big release this month is Need For Speed for Pete's sake.

If all we're going to get from NIntendo is gimmicky hardware, a bad online experience, incompetent digital services, lack of third party support and great first party games, I'd rather just play those great games on something else!

[Larsen B]

No, but the point is that Nintendo should look beyond Mario. Let's say they were to continue some of the trends of the olden days. A new Metroid game, a new 1080 game, a new Waverace or -shock horror- actually something genuinely new might hugely benefit from being next gen detailed. The problem is that Nintendo has locked itself in the Mario / Mii range of games for some reason.

Because Mario and Mii's sell and those other games don't.

Now that the Wii U is struggling, maybe we'll see that those types of games don't sell anywhere near as much as they did on the Wii and maybe this will lead to Nintendo doing things like a new Pikmin game (which they are) or a new Metroid game (which they no doubt are) or a refocus for Zelda (which they are).

Have patience. Nintendo's boneheadedness is saving you £250. Play the old games you already own.

[NecroMorrius]

I wish they'd maybe started some of these games before the Wii U came out. They said in Nintendo Direct that Zelda was very far off. Imagine how old-hat it's going to look when it comes out in 2016 and we've all been gorging on next-gen for years. I really hope they completely reboot the whole Zelda thing too, Skyward Sword had some charm but it also bored me frequently.

[HarryBizzle]

No, but the point is that Nintendo should look beyond Mario. Let's say they were to continue some of the trends of the olden days. A new Metroid game, a new 1080 game, a new Waverace or -shock horror- actually something genuinely new might hugely benefit from being next gen detailed. The problem is that Nintendo has locked itself in the Mario / Mii range of games for some reason.

More importantly, they should look beyond their own bloody games rather than having an underpowered console and wondering why third parties don't support their console when it's more effort than it's worth to put games on it because they can't do proper ports.

The idea of owning just a Nintendo console is ridiculous to a lot of gamers just because they don't want to miss on all that third party stuff. It really shouldn't be such an odd idea. They're getting the 360 and PS3 stuff now with the Wii U but once the next gen gets going it's going to be the same story all over again.

[NecroMorrius]

Platinum being on Wii U is the one glimmer of hope I have at the moment. But what happens when Bayo 2 and 101 sell 20k copies each?

[HarryBizzle]

Bayonetta 2 is why I will buy an old and battered Wii U from Cex in a few years.

Even that pretty big announcement seems to be far off. No gameplay footage, just a quick teaser trailer. It's almost like the Wii U took Nintendo by surprise. I'm not even expecting it in 2013.

[scottcr]

I suspect that whatever Retro are cooking is going to look pretty damned impressive... Also, remember they hired artists that worked on Uncharted and Darksiders... Combine that with the imagination behind some of the stuff in the Prime games...

The problem is, Nintendo haven't shown us what they're cooking. Although that X game will be great.

[Uncle Mike]

Both the Platinum games will be on PS4 and Xbox whatever before long, just like Zombi U.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

As they're published by Nintendo, I assume they have some exclusivity deal in place.

[HarryBizzle]

Platinum man (dunno his name) said that Nintendo paid for it to be developed and its not coming to anything they don't want it to (i.e. anything else).

[scottcr]

Both the Platinum games will be on PS4 and Xbox whatever before long, just like Zombi U.

as much chance of Bayonetta and Wonderful 101 coming to PS4 or Xbox as a Mario game.

Gamers : Nintendo don't do any core games

Nintendo : TADA! Behold these Platinum exclusives

Gamers : It's not fair! I don't want to buy a Nintendo console to play those core games...

[HarryBizzle]

Gamers: Nintendo don't have third party support!

Scottr: AH-HA! Here's TWO of them! Count 'em. Not one, but TWO. Now you've got no excuse to buy one!

Gamers: Is this guy serious?

[squirtle]

Platinum being on Wii U is the one glimmer of hope I have at the moment. But what happens when Bayo 2 and 101 sell 20k copies each?

Well it's hardly like Platinum games sell huge numbers on any console, is it?

[rgraves]

While I do actually agree with a lot of the sentiment, I think Nintendo are given a lot less slack than either Sony or MS on things. They are criticised when others are not, and not excused when others are. They appear to be the subject of extreme reaction even on an internet known for extreme reaction. People box their output into great or shit - there appears to be no allowable shades of grey for them. People will either appreciate the stuff like Wii Music/Fit and see them as new IP, or they think they are shit and that they don't count. The reality is in the middle - they are new IP, but they are not for everyone. Their existance is not meant to be a personal insult to gamers, it's meant to be there to attract a wider audience to our 'little bit of England'. Because, like it or not, something needs to change or else the market just won't support itself.

Sony may have mocked with it's 'Yoga isn't gaming' stuff just recently, but if anyone honestly believes they don't want a slice of that casual market themselves they are mental. They want to see a bigger audience in gaming just the way Nintendo do, because a bigger audience means bigger potential sales. They want PS4 to sell more than PS3, and that means they want some of those Wii gamers to make the transition - and they'll be doing their own stuff like Singstar to work on that.

People have very strong opinions on them having (usually) grown up on their output - people have changed, some might say Nintendo have not. Is that a good or a bad thing - it's both - Nintendo still have an audience that love Pokemon for instance, but some of those previous gamers are now looking for something that they just don't (and to be fair to them never really did) provide. I always struggle with it - to me they provide now what they always did - great games in their style. Stuff like SMG and NSMBU are no more casual in my eyes than CoD.

They [Nintendo] have a LOT of work to do and they can (and must) improve in just so many ways, but I think gaming would be worse off if they were not around, so we should be careful what we wish for in terms of them betting the farm on something that's 1) just not them and 2) already catered for very, very well by somebody else.

TLDR: Embrace the diversity, exercise your right to choice as a consumer, don't assume that anything which does not conform with your exact view/requirements is therefore entirely wrong and without any merit or consideration to anyone else.

1) Cheapskates.

Spend some money. Open more studios. Hire some new talent. Maybe set up a few studios in the West.

I'd love to see them do this, I have no idea why they don't. It would be really nice to see a journalist go after somebody at Nintendo with just this question.

Nintendo have got so much IP that if they wanted to, they could release a fan favourite title every month for years. WiiU would have been THE console to have. Who could resist a launch with Mario, Metroid, Zelda and Mario Kart? Why don't they do it?

It's probably as simple as - making games to the quality we expect from those franchises takes time. If they rushed them to market at the rate you are talking about the quality would dip. They should do better than they are absolutely, but I don't think it's fair to assume they can turn out Mario or Zelda games to the quality that they do every year - I don't want them to move those titles to the CoD model because I don't think they'd be as good - having more stuff that's not as good doesn't interest me.

2) Cheapskates.

Why don't Nintendo make hardware that represents an advancement of the form?

It's all about opinions. Your view here is that a leap in graphical power is the only real 'advancement of form'. Nintendo would say that they are delivering advances in other ways. Clearly we'd (as gamers) like something that's a mix of both, but that's our wish and not one that is based on any kind of knowledge of if that would keep them in business. It could also be said, that for a company which apparently doens't advance things, they haven't half brought a lot of things to the business - things which other have undoubtedly improved upon at times yes, but that's the way of the world. You can't deny that they take risks with their hardware, and if we don't benefit from their initial implementation we usually do when the v2 or v3 comes around later on from either themselves or another manufacturer.

3) Cheapskates

Let's invest in new IP. They'd have to hire more developers, OBVS (not allowed - $$$) but assume that they have new people onboard. Here's a Nintendo press conference: Miyamoto strolls out and says “I am pleased to announce these brilliant new minds that I have been working with. They have brilliant games for you, I have been overseeing their ideas and I love them.” They get the Miyamoto Seal Of Approval and their games will be out before the PS4 is on shelves. PANDEMONIUM. Miyamoto says these games are amazing?!!? Who knows games better than he?! I cannot wait. What does Miyamoto do now? Is he fully onboard with many games? How long until he retires? Nintendo need to get their eggs out of that basket and start promoting for the future.

Imagine a release schedule like this:

January: Metroid

February: New Miyamoto approved IP

March: Mario

April: Zelda

May: StarFox

June: Smash Bros

July: New Miyamoto IP

August: Mario Tennis

September: Rayman Legends (An authentic third party title, just for fun!)

October: Pikmin

November: F-zero

December: Pokemon Hue of Choice

Bit Better than

January: Relax, post Christmas

February:

Rayman (Delayed)

March: Cancelled.

April: Port of last year's PS360 hit with controller gimmick tacked on.

And so on, Isn't it?

Not possible? Why? Get the games made and out on shelves. Hey, Capcom, fancy making some money? Knock us up a Starfox will you? People want to buy it.

We'd all love that scenario, but surely we also see that's it's just not going to happen. Expecting it to is just fantasy - quite aside from development bandwidth, why on earth would they cannabalise the sales of their own titles by releasing something else the next month? And what would they do in year 2 - sequels to everything? That would go down well....

They clearly excected Rayman to come out around now, then they had Lego City and MH to cover shortly after that. Then they most likely have Pikmin and Wonderful 101 to come. Then they had E3 at which point I suspect we'd see what their big Q3 and Q4 titles were set to be - I strongly suspect either Mario Kart U or SMG-U will be with us before xmas.

4) Cheapskates

Why is everything always cheap with them? Tiny battery when there's room for a big one. I've got to charge it up every ten minutes now. Oh, I can't be bothered. Why's the web browser on 3DS so bad? Like worse than a £100 smartphone bad. Why's the screen always so bad on Nintendo stuff? Like worse than on a £100 smartphone bad. Why does their hardware match last gen's specs? Why do purchases/downloads take forever in the E-shop? How much money did you save on that battery, the slow processor and the crappy screen? Was it worth making a product that irritates? Why bother putting a web browser in 3DS if it's that bad? Just don't do it.

I just don't see this. Perhaps I'm not as discerning. When I held a Wii U gamepad for instance I was very surprised at how light, comfortable, and good it felt. The screen was also better than I expected. Games look great on it and that's the measure I used. I've not found myself wishing it was higher res or anything. I've not had problems with the battery life since it just sits permanently in the charging cradle. There are just as many good things as bad, I guess it depends on the focus.

5) Tight arses

How old's this game now? 25 years. How many times have people bought it now? About 5 times each. Hmm. How much shall we sell it on the E-Shop for? £12? Hmm. Let's go for £13.99. Nintendo sell everything from their back catalogue at “it'd be rude to” prices. Who wants this stuff enough to pay real money for them? As in, in significant numbers? Do I want to buy their system when I know I'm going to be paying top price for everything all the time? I'm not so keen. Will I get to keep those purchases? No, the account doesn't transfer and they want to charge me again later.

This is such a frustrating argument - they aren't forcing you to buy anything. If you think a VC title is too much, then don't buy it. I'm personally with you - I think the costs are too high, but that's their call and I don't think they are alone in not quite having the pricing right for digital content. Sony are no better - the PS4 looks like it'll have releatively limited BC and those PSN titles that are so lovingly tied to an account not a machine and not going to be making the transfer regardless so it's not like that's a magic fix.

[Smitty]

TLDR: Embrace the diversity, exercise your right to choice as a consumer, don't assume that anything which does not conform with your exact view/requirements is therefore entirely wrong and without any merit or consideration to anyone else.

Nobody gives a shit if something is of 'merit or consideration' to somebody else when coming to their considered opinion of something. I won't go and see film I think is shit just because some other people like it. I don't cut COD slack because lots of other people love it. And it's the same with games or indeed a console - I will buy them when I think they look good or have something to offer me.

Is the WiiU's problem that too many people aren't factoring in whether others show it 'merit or consideration'? No, that's completely irrelevant. The WiiU's problem is that not enough of the people who are in the market for games and consoles are interested in what it has to offer.

Besides, your argument is nonsensical because when people say 'I think the WiiU is crap' or 'I don't think there's any interesting Nintendo games at the moment', they are obviously speaking for themselves and not for everyone. This is just a tedious rerun of the very tired argument constantly made during the Wii era, to people complaining about that console: oh, but you're not everyone! That's your opinion! The Wii is popular!

No shit, doofus. But that hardly affects my personal view.