Topic: RFN Live Panel @ PAX East 2011

[stardust462]

I thought the panel was a lot of fun!  I agree that the live radio trivia portion was slightly chaotic (people weren't sure whether to shout out the answer, cut in front of a questioner at the mic to give the answer, wait for the panel to finish answering a question, etc) but it seemed to work out fine.

I agree on this part. It would have been cool to have it be separate that way people don't have to worry about interrupting the conversation. I totally knew the Secret of Mana song, them someone shouted it out, then a couple minutes later someone else went up to the mic and answered, so there was some confusion there. But definitely bring it back next year and do it separate from Q&A.

The hour was definitely too short. I just started listening to the podcast recently and I really enjoy it and it was great seeing it live. Hopefully you guys will be there again next year!

[NWR_Lindy]

We will, definitely.  Since I'm now a local, at the very least I will be performing a one-man show in which I recite the dialogue from Disaster: Day of Crisis.

[LittleIrves]

Thanks, fellas (and Karlie!) for putting this on, and I hope to see it again next year.  I brought my girlfriend and a buddy (who's a lapsed Nintendo fan now that he has a big screen HDTV and Mass Effect 2/Uncharted 2) but even he wore his vintage Zelda shirt.  I agree that the questioners could've been more interesting...  but I can't complain, since I sat stuck to my chair.  And it was lovely to go up and meet y'all briefly afterward, shake some hands, extend some appreciation.  (I mentioned Killer Instinct to Dr. Metts, who went on to discuss the relative merits of Fulgore vs. Cinder and shouted out a nice "C-C-C-Combo Breaker!").  PAX East needed some Big N love, and I'm glad RFN was there to provide.  Keep preachin' the good word.


Also: NWR_Lindy, was that you playing SEGA CD 'Kriss Kross: Make My Video' in the Classics room?  Well done, sir. 

[Crimm]

He and I made art.


There is video, but I don't think Karlie will ever let me see it again.

[NWR_Karl]

I actually have some video of that as well. I might throw it up later.

[Kytim89]

What did Metts mean when he said that games like Dead Space 2 borrow elements from Nintendo franchises? Is there any other franchises and what do they borrow?

[ShyGuy]

Dead Space has some Metroid-ish roots.

[Kytim89]

Dead Space has some Metroid-ish roots.

Elaborate because I have only played Extraction.

[ShyGuy]

It's more thematic than direct correlation, The First Dead Space featured a masked protagonist, isolated in a space setting fighting non-humanoid creatures and exploring.

[NWR_Lindy]

You're also exploring a big space ship in the original Dead Space, which has been used several times in the Metroid series.

And yes, that was me playing Making the Video: Kris Kross.  It was MAGIC.

[pureval]

I was at the panel and had a blast. I brought my wife along and she enjoyed it as well. I was one of the people who got cutoff from asking a question due to time, but oh well. It was cool meeting you guys after it was done. Thanks for the frisbee.

[Shaymin]

I cannot unsee how much James looks like Tobey Maguire.

[ShyGuy]

I cannot unsee how much James looks like Tobey Maguire.

hahahahaha

[Crimm]

 

[tyrian3]

listened to the show, thanks for recording it for us who couldn't come there. That's too bad because I could've got at least three songs right and I'm still sad for not answering correctly to the trivia in the RFN Live charity show!
The Milon's Secret Castle quote question was too difficult!

anyway I was listening to the retronauts panel and big kudos to friend of the show Chris Kohler for the plug he did for the RFN panel It's great you guys get some love because you absolutely deserve it!

glad Greg got to be in the panel somehow, even if it was just via online chat.

I hope to see some curious videos like the epic nhl 94 game on the genesis last year!

[Chocobo_Rider]

I love you guys dearly but I wish I had been a part of this panel to respectfully provide the view-point that not every decision Nintendo has made in the last 5 years has been bad.

You're worried about M+ support and cite the Move/Kinect? What are the awesome Move/Kinect games Nintendo should be looking to for inspiration? ... exactly.

You're worried there aren't enough Wii games coming out this year? Cool. Go get started on that backlog of Wii games you've been unable to play/finish for the last 5 years.  Go get the last stars on SMG/2.  Go finish that bad-ass armor your wanted in MH3.  Go get around to playing Fragile Dreams cuz you heard it was interesting.

Oh, but you're worried no new games/hardware is bad for investors? Where was that attitude when Nintendo was setting sales records with hardware and software and no one wanted to hear it meant things were accepted by the expanded audience and thus, could no longer be "cool."

You're ticked at Nintendo for poor 3rd party support? Don't blame Nintendo when the third parties are too scared to INVEST in making a quality game for the most popular platform.  Nintendo has shown the console has the horses for beautiful graphics and complex gameplay.  Third parties act like a bunch of cowards and give us TvC instead of SSF4.  They give us Extraction instead of Dead Space.  Monster Hunter 3 wasn't skimped on, it wasn't an afterthought in the wake of an HD version.  It was an awesome game and it was rewarded with the best sales of the franchise (console-wise) and stellar play-time numbers.

Again, love you guys, love the show, but hey, maybe those same people bought Just Dance 2 because it was a great game (for them)... and not because they are stupid people.

Hope I phrased everything in a way that properly explains my view.  But I'm sure many will dismiss my satisfaction as some kind of fanboy blather. *le sigh*

[ShyGuy]

Preach it Sage!

[NWR_Neal]

I see your point, man, but I don't think anyone on the panel said that Nintendo's just been screwing up for the past five years (cue someone showing a quote where Lindy's just like "Man, I think everything Nintendo's done for the past five years is terrible.").

And now to engage in some old-fashioned debatin':

I know I can definitely get short-sighted with only looking at what's ahead, especially since I started writing for NWR, but the fact is there are two big games we know about that are coming out for the rest of 2011, and one of them might not make it out this year (Conduit 2, Zelda). Yes, Nintendo will drop some bombs at E3 and we'll all be happy/shocked/surprised/giddy, but that's Nintendo. They better support their system.

The reason third parties don't invest the time making these great games for Wii is because they don't sell. Just Dance 2 has been mopping up on the sales charts. Where's GoldenEye? Where's *insert similar third-party title here*? You can say it's because they don't make quality games until you're blue in the face, but they do make quality games. I've played a lot of them. They don't sell well and games of their caliber generally sell better on 360/PS3.
I mean, let's look at Super Meat Boy as an example. Team Meat said they pitched bringing their completed critically-acclaimed successful game to Wii retail and third parties didn't want to invest in that. To me, that says a lot about the third party perception of Wii. Yes, Super Meat Boy wouldn't sell millions of units, but still.

Lastly, I should play Fragile Dreams (though I'm honestly not complaining about lack of games to play, just lack of games to cover), and I can't speak for Just Dance 2, but Just Dance is a fundamentally broken game that doesn't work. I can see why people have fun with it, but the gameplay is ass.

[Kytim89]

The problem with the Wii's third party titles is that we have gotten many games that are not all the way good due to flaws, but are not slouchess either. What I mean by this is that because third party Wii titles do not sell, not only are we not getting any more to amount to anything, but even the series we have gotten will not be continues because there is no cash incentive to bring out better titles. The Wii could have good third party games were it not for bad sales.
 
I mean No More Heroes 2 is one of the main reasons why I love my Wii and it is just a few of many good titles for the console that are not perfect, but get the job done interms of entertainment. Look at how many hours that gamers have logged into Monster Hunter 3 and it has surpassed Brawl as the most played Wii game. Extraction was not a bad title, but I am pissed at EA for not making it like RE4 Wii edition.
 
The biggest question for me is whehter the Wii 2 will aquire better third party support and sales? If the system is as powerful as the PS360 all it will get is ports of exsisting titles. Even if it has better online and graphics than the Wii will third party games still sell poorly due to being on a Nintendo system?

[Armak88]

MH3 is the only 3rd party game I can think of off hand that doesn't feel like a bastardization of game that is available on the HD consoles. For FPS's the problem is nintendo's fault. Their online infrastructure doesn't allow for the full fledged FPS experience found on other consoles. It doesn't help that shooters seem to make up most of the AAA titles on other systems either. So I understand that if you want to make a shooter (which it seems many developers do) then the HD consoles are the only place where you can create a full experience and it also makes sense that these games don't sell well on wii as gimped shooter experiences. What I don't understand is why almost all third party wii games look WORSE than game cube games. Anyone here could have told you that most of these "good 3rd party games" were going to be sales flops. I'm not saying that they are necessarily bad games, but if you say to me fragile dreams is a good game and it didn't sell, I'm going to ask you seriously if you didn't see that coming. That game has no mass market appeal and I am the only person that I know personally who even knows the game exists. If a third party developer wants to be serious and make money on the wii they need to either release a mainline game from one of their existing AAA franchises, or decide to create a dedicated wii franchise with real gameplay and promote it like they would any of their other titles. I can't think of the last time any 3rd party did this on wii, with the exception of MH3 and I think that was fairly successful for what was a fundamentally niche game to begin with. It seems to me that developers are the only ones shocked to see their games fail.

Consider also that Nintendo themselves have second tier franchises that are amazing games that will never sell. I love Pikmin and Wario Land to death but they will never be successful like Mario and Zelda no matter what nintendo does with them. I think the best example of this is the metroid franchise. Metroid is a fantastic, but niche game. With a push from nintendo the Metroid revival boosted the popularity of metroid and fans think of it as one of nintendo's big three, but it won't ever sell as much as mario or zelda. I don't think that anyone, including nintendo was shocked at the sales figures of Wario Land shake it. Why should third parties expect their games to do any better when their games aren't made with the same amount of effort or skill as a second or third tier nintendo developed game?

Edit: I have a feeling that this post is a mess. I'm falling asleep and losing my train of thought so I'm wrapping it up there for now at least.

[MoRZ]

Will there be a drunkcast or a magiccast or anything for people who have become RFN fans instead of just regular Nintendo fans?

[Chocobo_Rider]

Lots of good stuff here to talk about.

See, this is a good place with smart people... I like it.

Now ... Debate GET!

1. I'm aware that Nintendo has short comings.  To me, online is their NUMBER ONE.  I mean, friend codes are a travesty.  And while I feel the pain of those who have had slow/faulty connections, mine has always been just as good as my PS3 experiences in terms of QUALITY.  HOWEVER, in terms of interface? Yea, Nintendo has a lot of work to do.  I mean, right now they are so concerned with keeping the online "safe" that they are essentially acheiving this by simply making people not want to play online!!  That HAS to stop.

MH3 is, again, a great example.  There's voice chat if you want it and FULL KEYBOARD support.  Go ahead and censor stupid words like "after" ... I don't care if it means I don't have to deal with the Nintendo-brand method of chat where you select phrases from an awful list (Mario Kart, Pokemon).

2. I guess I should clarify part of my point on third party games.  I think many of them are of high quality and, obviously for me, were great gaming experiences.  HOWEVER, no matter how much fun I had with Umbrella Chronicles, it wasn't RE5.  And frankly, given the experience I had with RE4 on the Wii and RE5 on the PC?? There's no g-darn good reason why RE5 shouldn't have been a Wii PRIORITY... let alone on the console at all.

That's the difference.  As I said, TvC is great, but it's not SSF4.

So no, the sales will never be there if the INVESTMENT isn't there.  Put out a game with less demand? You're gonna get lower sales.   AND THAT'S ON THE THIRD PARTIES, NOT NINTENDO.

So why do the third parties do this? Do they hate money? No.

But more so than any other generation, modern gaming has a schism between what is "hardcore" and what is "not."

The Wii appealed to everyone.  So it couldn't possibly be hardcore.  It was marketed to happy, shiny families.  Not the "edgy" males in their parents basements.  Not hardcore.

Also, being hardcore apparently means having the highest tech possible.  Arguing over textures and shading and other worthless aspects of gaming.  Sadly, the stupidity of this technological obsession showed itself in the fact that these "hardcore" could not wrap their head around the fact that the Wii was actually the most technologically advanced of the three consoles!!

Yes, you heard right.  The Wiimote was a more drastic and important technological advancement than just upping the screen resolution and the CPU.

This is why Sony/MS have had to emulate the Wiimote.  Yet Nintendo has not (yet) had to emulate the PS3/60.

So ... the Wii wasn't "cool."  Just being a male gamer and admitting you love the Wii has somehow become like admitting you love The Care Bears or Miley Cyrus.  So, yes, no matter what the content, it's an uphill battle when you're trying to sell high tech to tech-junkies that only perceive it as a Care Bear.

I will never play an FPS without pointer control again.  But I know all kinds of Wii gamers who couldn't bear the humility of un-learning dual analog enough to enjoy the bliss of point and shooting.  That's a problem.

3. I was in a dress store with my wife this past weekend.  Outkasts' "Hey Ya" came on the store's sound system and the very good-looking sales girl behind the counter blurt out: "Oh! I LOVE playing with this song on Just Dance!"

That's a big frickin' deal, people.  Remember, if people like her are gaming, it DOES NOT MEAN you have to stop playing Dead Space 2.  It just means there will be MORE GAMES. Period.

Also important in this conversation: remember five-ish years ago when Guitar Hero was for "real gamers"? I rest my case.

4. I love NWR and the podcast crew.  I am deeply grateful for their existence.  95% of the time I think they really hit the nail on the head.  So I really don't want to sound like a whiner.  Just wanted to speak up when I felt the need to.

Rock on.

[Jonnyboy117]

Thanks for the comments, NinSage. I think we were probably a bit overcritical of Nintendo during this panel, and maybe it's because we were rushed for time or just not sure exactly where to take the Wii successor topic. I don't really have a problem with Nintendo's overall strategy with Wii, and it obviously worked out well for them. Some of my comments during the panel were more concerned with where that strategy has left the Wii at this point in its life cycle. Both first-party and third-party games are slowing down drastically, and if Nintendo doesn't make moves to release a new system soon, I think we could be looking at yet another very long, depressing decline in activity for the console, just like we had on N64 and GameCube before they were succeeded by new systems. These periods are bad for gamers who want a steady influx of quality titles, but it's also bad for Nintendo, since active gamers will begin to migrate elsewhere if software releases appear to be more lively and interesting on other platforms. I think Nintendo has to be disappointed that MotionPlus didn't spur a new wave of third-party interest in the system, but then it also hasn't resulted in many new ideas from within Nintendo, either. Kinect and Move probably won't end up with significantly deeper or more interesting libraries than MotionPlus, but Kinect in particular does appear to have picked up a lot of mindshare and pretty big sales in a very short time frame. It's a good bet that Nintendo is threatened by these developments, because it levels the playing field to some extent and forces the company to reexamine what unique qualities it brings to the market. All of this informs the direction Nintendo will take with the next console. Our points about investors and such were simply to denote the financial urgency of the next hardware launch. I personally do not care about Nintendo's stock price, but in this case, it is a reliable indicator of how the company is obligated to proceed, i.e. the status quo will be unacceptable.

[Jonnyboy117]

Also, Just Dance and Just Dance 2 are not good games. That's a personal, subjective position that is not swayed by sales figures. I think these games sell because they have a lot of famous pop artists listed on the box. I love the idea of a casual, accessible, fun dancing game to be played at parties, but with near-arbitrary scoring linked to highly questionable motion controls, Just Dance is essentially a visualizer that spits out randomly generated numbers at the end of each song. I would buy The Michael Jackson Experience in a heartbeat, if I thought it had any remote potential to teach me those dance moves in a fun video game context. It does not.

[Chocobo_Rider]

1. "That's a personal, subjective position that is not swayed by sales figures."  Thanks so much for stating your opinion as an opinion.  That's a very mature thing that happens far too rarely online.

I actually completely agree on your assessment of Just Dance in terms of its gameplay quality.  However, just as a Slinky was a plastic piece of crap that largely acted arbitrarily, millions of people really enjoyed it.  And at the end of the day, isn't enjoyment the bottom line in gaming? Even if the bliss is largely based on ignorance?

I mean, folks like us had all kinds of fun with NES games and let's face it, some of them were NOT well made, right? ... even with Game Genie that first Turtles game can be unbeatable due to the lava in the final(?) stage. =P

2. A big part of why I defend Nintendo is because I just don't see the same scrutiny towards Sony and MS from the gaming community or media.  I honestly am wondering why that is?

I mean, people jump all over Nintendo for slipping into second place in its 5th year.  Yet, years of third place for Sony is just looked at as ... what? ... building steam for the future?  I mean, hasn't every year been "the year of the PS3" for a while now?

The 360 had an incredible hardware failure rate, yet MS's reputation as a maker of quality gaming products never really suffered.  I have three friends with 360s.  Two of them are on their second console and one of them is on his third.  NONE OF THEM COMPLAIN.  They just shrug their shoulders and act like it's part of the deal if they want to enjoy the awesomeness of the 360.

The HD twins release wave after wave of "GRRR I'm a man!" shooters.  I believe they've become known as "dude bro" games.  Yet, the media largely can't stop praising them.  Is that one song really the only one gamers need to hear?

3. The 2010 Wii lineup saw a new Mario, Metroid, Donkey Kong and Kirby game.  So, yea, Nintendo might be back at the drawing board at the moment.  I'm not gonna hold that against them.

Additionally, how many of those games needed Motion+ support?  Would people prefer they shoe-horned M+ functionality into those games?  Seems people already complain about shaking the wiimote to make DK pound =P

Would people prefer those games NOT get made in favor of untested IPs that lend themselves to Motion+?  Yea, maybe the result would be sweet... but I know I'd still be missing Kirby!!

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In the end, I guess I just feel like there is too much to like to FOCUS on the negative.  Sure, opinions should be voiced and critiques lead to a better tomorrow, but can't gamers/media strive for at least 50/50? =)

Plus, I'm willing to bet Nintendo has plenty up its sleeve - haven't we learned that by now?

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 Once again, best show on the net, please never stop. ^_^