pertho is right. Nintendo is never coming back. Money speaks louder than loyalty. Loyalty buys Bison dollars and doesn’t create real money.
Very few studios are still making good money. Smaller companies are shutting down left and right, production costs are increasing, M$ and $ony are operating at a loss, etc
Things are only bright for a select few companies, the industry outside of those giants is not doing well. Gamers are royally screwed, the big companies know they can make money rehashing shit so they don’t take risks and keep playing it safe with the same ol, same ol.
I don’t think Nintendo left so much as the PSX and PS2 overshadowed it. PSX took most of the first party support, PS2 dropped an elbow from the top rope, 360 dropkicked the PS3 before it got in the ring and the Wii found out that it could make hella money doing commercials for Rent-A-Center.
So if you want to understand the decisions Nintendo is making, you can’t get all sentimental and talk about it as gaming. Gaming is not some virgin holy grail, it is a business and has to make money. They created a brand new market with the Wii but they couldn’t go hard on it because the system was way underpowered compared to the competition.
This is why answering the questions above with good business sense will tell you what to expect out of the Big N. This questions have to keep in mind that the launch of your latest handled, the 3DS, you dropped the price early AND gave away games on top of it.
The scary thing about is that Nintendo has to figure out whether or not they can count on the same consumer base that bought the Wii to buy your next console. Wii came out in 06. This means that 5-8 children are going to be teens and tweeners. Are they really going to choose the next Nintendo console or will they go on to something with more to offer like the PS4 or 720? Is it possible to replicate the success of the Wii with the new controller that they created?
In all honesty I don’t think the controller is a great idea; it is way more complicated that nunchucks and doesn’t lend itself to games old people might play. Still what should have been discussed here is business strategy, not nostalgia.
Well from a business perspective, N is doing great. I just don’t like it because of reasons I posted earlier. they still make games I like but i can’t justify spending that kind of money for 3 or 5 games.
But for controller? I think N can do great (I think not so good for gaming) things with it. All those Iphone Android developrs? They can easily come over to Nintendo and create more fleshed version of those games easily making more money for N (who need EA, Activision, Capcom, etc, when you have a small company making cheap games that generate more money that those big companies). It heresy to me and I expect it to be heresy to a lot of other people, but the market where farmville dominates, is the market where N wants to be at right now. I can see it now, farmville on Wii U, where you can, connect to facebook and monitor face book, watch multiple videos, all the while playing that shit. I can also forsee a future where Apple and N team up and bring all that horrible shit to a convenient medium like the Wii U.
As of now, all that fat SaikyoJosh was talking about isn’t fat, but its a marketing ploy to bring and suck in the largest market of gamers (the market I don’t consider gamers)
Nintendo isn’t aiming for little kids anymore or the kids that are now 16 who grew up on Wii, N is aiming for a bigger demographic that will be ignored by Microsoft and Sony for a while. The people who watch TV on their phones, those who live on their phone all day, for the people who use a computer for networking or cheap entertainment instead of actual work, and for the parents that used the Wii once in a while. That controller is a fully functioning tablet, mouse, keyboard, microphone, and controller. I wouldn’t be surprised that if there is a partnership with apple, where the Wii U mote can be used as a phone when people log in into accounts with their phone information.
N will make tons of money for all the wrong reasons (at least this generation), and continue to thrive like the successful business that they have been for the past 30 years.
Dragon Quest > FF. And Dragon Quest X still looks amazing
So for the record you this E3 nintendo conference is good?
You dont agree that from a gamer perspective this wiiu thing is joke, poor visuals, ported log of games we all played years ago and a piss poor presentation?
I don’t like N, at all. I don’t like their direction, and I think they should die. Their conference and everything they did was shit. But the asshole business man in me see’s that money can be made with the crap I just talked about. And I know they are going to make money. N is paying attention to what real people want, not what a small minority wants.
This is why I hate gaming now, I mean I know it’s always been a business since day 1 but I just fucking hate how the soul and spirit of gaming has been sold out for fucking casual idiots. What if nintendo went into a 3rd party developer, do you think this new console has enough legs cause nearly the entire community of gamers hates it so how long will it last this time?
I think its sustainable, and in fact it will be the only thing sustaining big gaming in the coming next gen war. N knows this, Micro and Sony do not. 25 million dollar games are not sustainable, I doubt 50 million dollar games will be when the next gen console come out. By the time Sony and Micro realize that they need this stupid demographic, N will have the lock down on this market. Games will become smaller and smaller, and the industry is going to depend on these retarded games to fuel big games.
If this happens that means games as we know it will be gone, everything will be casual orientated for the fucking idiots so the innovation, quality and POINT about gaming will be gone. In the next gen war I think gaming will be over…at least real games:(
well not neccesarly. If you look at PS1 N64 games expensive games where funded by smaller cheaper games which were easy and cheap to make and provided plenty of money. As much as I love the series, how expensive was Megaman Xn compared to Resident Evil? Megaman was cannon fodder for Capcom’s bigger titles. Maybe we can go back to an era where there are a lot less games for the hardcore community, but when they do come out they go hard and try to do their best with the money they made. Maybe we can go back to a time where less was more.
But this is considering that companies are willing to do this. but in a world dominated by profits, I doubt it.
Just follow developers. FROM SOFTWARE, Monolith (whom Nintendo OWNS), for two easy Japanese examples.
What’s funny about this gen is that all the games that have stood out to me are the small stuff you get from arcade and PSN store: Geometry Wars, HDR (I’ve had a lot of fun with it), Trenched, Fat Princess, Awesomenauts, Skullgirls, Scott Pilgirm vs The World, Castle Crashers, Flower, Bomberman…this list is just from the stuff that I have played.
In a weird way the indepedent developers are giving us stuff closer tow hat the SNES/PSX era had to offer than the bigger companies are. Because they aren’t putting a lot of flash into the graphics (in terms of putting BIG RUSSIAN POLYGONS into it), most of the processing power is going into the gameplay. At this point most of the games I want to play come from the PSN store rather than the big ticket items. If it didn’t cost so much to patch these mofos, it would definitely herald the next wave of smaller devs bringing the pain.
Why can’t Trenched be on PSN store? Hate you xbox cats for keeping that one. One of the funnier things about the list on top is how much 2D it has. If they make an indy diablo on the PSN store, I wouldn’t need a comp anymore.
I have always wondered why don’t companies like Capcom, Konami, Square, Sega take full advantage of the marketplace and release smaller scaled games built from scratch. It doesn’t make sense why they wouldn’t use it. I hope that they do take full advantage of the marketplace this time around. And I hope a lot of the games are universal unless they are first party games. Hell, why even buy DS games if you have a Wii U. the controller is a 3ds
Nintendo will die.
They must die for the good of humanity.
will they really die? Im just not seeing it anymore.
They don’t give a crap about the Sony Microsoft crowd because that type of gaming isn’t sustainable. And they are targeting an even larger untapped market base than when they did with Wii.
Right now they’re targetting people that don’t actually exist. Seriously, they’re using games that already are out on the other systems to try and lure the hardcore gamers in, with the promise that the tablet screen adds new functionality? That’s completely retarded. People who want ME3 already own it, and the only reason to buy ME3 again on the Wii U is whatever added gimmick the tablet controller offers, and if it doesn’t have such a feature, then why bother putting it on the Wii U at all? The ones who care about Batman AC and ME3 don’t give the slightest shit about new touchscreen gimmicks that only casuals will like, thus they are targetting a completely nonexistent audience with the promise of “touch-improved” hardcore games that are already on the other systems.
So that means they’re targetting the casuals again. Let’s talk about them. The grandma gamers, the elderly catholic priests who were the driving force behind the Wii’s success. The soccer moms who didn’t want to spend much on video games for their kids and hence bought the cheapest option available at the time, which was the Wii. Well, those kids are now entering their tween years, and have likely convinced their parents to buy them 360s and PS3s for Christmas because all their friends had them and they weren’t playing their Wii at all. Or they did what my 10 year old cousin did and simply saved up their allowance until they could buy one themselves. Meanwhile, the grandma gamers and catholic priests have basically forgotten that they bought a Wii n the first place and have since moved on with their lives. The only reason they bought it was for that “neat little sports game” that came with the system, which they actually thought was the whole reason for the system itself. They didn’t know that it could play other games. It was just a “little chinese motion sports box” to those people.
Neither of those audiences are going to buy the Wii U. If you tell a casual/grandma gamer that there’s a new version of it they probably won’t care, and when they hear that it’s $300 they DEFINITELY won’t care. They already own the Wii, they’re fine with that. Meanwhile, the tweens playing their 360s and PS3s won’t buy the Wii U because they’re already settled in with their online accounts on the systems they own. They’re happily playing COD and other games with their friends and won’t see any need to get the Wii U. In fact they’ll probably call it “gay”. These kids aren’t complete idiots. They see things like NSMBU and NSMB2 and see that it’s the exact same game that came out for the Wii a couple of years ago, they’ll realize they’re not missing much and happily stick to the system they have.
My point? There is every reason to believe Nintendo’s runaway success was a one-time thing. They were simply the cheapest option available with a novel new idea that interested the curious. Now they’re one of the more expensive options with an unoriginal and unnecessary idea that offers nothing. There’s no reason to believe it’ll happen again, especially with a system this expensive. The Wii’s success, and the DS’s by extension, were due to simply releasing the right thing, with the right price, at the right time. This is not the case anymore.
I have been reading on some of the things said in here because I think everything is quite funny but I just read your long post and had to point out what made me just bust a gut laughing so hard because the contradictions are so insane.
They are in bold just to make it easier for other people to see as well. I also did not alter the text.
You just said that these kids arent idiots because the will see NSMBU and NSMB2 as the exact same game as it was a couple of years ago. ok then you said they are happily playing COD. Problem there is that if these kids are so smart to see that NSMBU and NSMB2 are the exact same game as it was a couple years ago and will avoid because of that, how are they not smart enough to see that COD is the same exact game that came out the previous year.
I guess I just found that funny because you just said they were happy being ignorant on one system rather than the other. Just hilarious.
The real problem again with gaming now is if it doesnt have guns and explosions it is going to be frowned upon.
Lets take a quick look at the new tomb raider game, Uncharted games, and the older tomb raider games.
Older Tomb Raider games were focused more on puzzles and action rather than just action.
Look at Uncharted, the puzzles in that game were not as hard and not as relevent as anything in the past and was pretty much focused on action and beautiful scenes. Not saying it was a bad game because I did enjoy it.
Look at the new Tomb Rader demo. They focused entirely on action sequences and showed you no type of puzzles at all. Now I am not saying that there arent any puzzles to the game but if there are then i can damn well guarentee you that they will not be hard at all.
I didn’t say they were buying new COD games every year, I didn’t even specify which version of COD they were playing. I just said they were playing COD, with the idea that there’s one version that they’re all playing. I was just using COD as an example of a PS3/360 game that kids play with their friends, you could replace it with anything. Halo. Uncharted. Gears of War. Fifa. The game they’re playing with each other doesn’t fucking matter. It’s not the focus of my statement. COD just happened to be the first game that came to mind. You are missing the entire point, and it makes me question your intelligence.
Could you define “frowned upon” in this context please? Are you saying that it will be criticized and hated for not having guns and explosions? Or maybe that they won’t sell well? Because games like Journey and SSX and Skyrim don’t have any of that shit and they are both critical and commercial successes. You seem to be confusing “the easiest way to make money” with “the ONLY way to make money”. Not even a greedbucket company like EA sees things this way, they still release a variety of games that don’t have that stuff.
Spelling words like “relevant”, “raider” and “guarantee” correctly seem to be difficult puzzles for you.
I never played Uncharted but I don’t think it sold simply because it had guns and explosions. It contained those things, sure, but it wasn’t their primary focus. Same with the new Tomb Raider. Both these games seem to be more about telling a story, climactic setpieces and deep characterization than anything else. They don’t seem to be any of what you’re talking about.
You can question my intelligence if you like, I really dont care this is the internet after all. I honestly just read something that made me laugh out loud so I thought I would say it, it was my opinion after all.
You are correct, you did not say which version of COD they were playing or that they bought the same the updated version every year. However you did say COD which refers to the whole genre itself which has been pretty much the same. That is what made me laugh because you said kids werent idiots because they happily played a game that rehashed itself rather than another game that also rehashed itself. Whats even more funny to me is that you listed even more games that rehash themselves and Uncharted. I will give you Uncharted for the story but the other games focused more on multiplayer with their sequeals. What you were trying to say is that these kids were playing better games on better systems but used a poor example and it just made me bust a gut. It is someones opinion however if one game is better than another. I personally would choose NSMB over COD any day but that is my preference.
Certainly, what I meant was the flashiness, the prettiness, the wow factor that most games have to have nowadays. I used a poor choice of words when I said guns and explosions. When I said guns, I really should have said shooter, and when I said explosions, I should have said the action packed, over exaggerated graphics that most big games come out with today. I do like the use of EA though because they come out with the smae sports games every year with a new roster and make alot of money off of those because the majority of the world likes sports. I see a majority of shooters and sports from EA. Not sayting that is all they do of course.
If you judge someones intelligence because they misspelled a word on the internet, then your intelligence should be judged. You never know where someone is from or if english is even their first language so that makes me think that you are one of those people that believe that just because someone does not speak your language wel that they are not as smart as you are, which would make you quite ignorant. Not saying that you are of course but this is a world wide internet forum, spelling should only be important for legal documents and those spelling bees you are too old to enter.
It did not sell because of guns and explosions but that is not what I meant. I was actually comparing games of the same genre from two different generations, which by doing so I was hoping to show what the problem with gaming was.
It is the degeneration of varying types of challenging gameplay in favor of the “I know this will sell” gameplay and the increase of the graphics.
Take Xtekken for example. It is a flop right now because they tried to make it too welcoming for newbies to pick and play.
It seems you hate nintendo because that is the approach that they seem to have taken. The only problem with that is that the whole industry has pretty much taken that approach, the other systems just have nicer graphics to look at while they are doing it.
I did a poor job of tying to explain why gaming is failing on the second half of my first post and thats is probably because I am tired. It is late after all.