Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: Spak-Spang on July 10, 2013, 01:05:08 AM
Title: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Spak-Spang on July 10, 2013, 01:05:08 AM
There have been plenty of negative posts and comments about the Wii U. Some rightfully so, and others are not justified. However, it got me thinking about Nintendo in general.
Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase. I am mostly interested in Hardware purchases not software, but if there is an interesting point you want to make with a software purchase or the software purchase included hardware, please include it.
For me I can only think of a few instances. First I was disappointed with the initial DS purchase, because once the DS Light came out, I had to rebuy hardware. The original DS was also overly lacking and I didn't expect to have such a hard time viewing the screen. A very similar thing happened with my Gameboy Advanced Purchase, but I didn't regret it as much, because it still seemed useful, and I ended it keeping the original longer than the SP.
For my console purchases I can say I have never really regretted any of the Nintendo systems. I have found each to be interesting and fun. I know many quote the N64 as the last great Nintendo system, and yet also a signal of Nintendo's doom...but to me that system was the top of Nintendo's creative era. The Gamecube was also filled with great games that I would never want to ignore...or have not played.
So looking forward though, I look at the Wii U, and I am confused by the product and don't know if I would want to buy it or not. I do see great potential, but what is combining of the Tablet controller with the Wiimotes. I feel like the system is trying to do too many things, but without a clear vision of what it is.
Obviously, I do not regret the purchase, because I hadn't made one. And if I do make it...I am sure some game would have pulled me in to purchase it.
Those are my thoughts...how about yours?
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Nemo on July 10, 2013, 01:45:37 AM
The most disappointing hardware purchase is the 3DS. I got it for $250 and then they shortly dropped the price $80. Ya, I got some free games out of it, but it was a lot of free games I'd already bought and played a long time ago. Also... the two vertical lines/scratches that have formed from when the system is closed. I'm pretty disappointed that Nintendo didn't see that coming and do something about it. Eventually, there were some pretty fun games released (and certainly more to come), so I'm not disappointed software-wise.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Oblivion on July 10, 2013, 02:07:57 AM
I agree. I was MUCH more disappointed with the 3DS than the Wii U's launch. Honestly, I don't understand why the hate for the Wii U has been so much stronger compared to the 3DS.
For the record, I bought the 32GB Deluxe version with a copy of ZombiU, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Scribblenauts Unlimited and I still do not regret it whatsoever.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: smallsharkbigbite on July 10, 2013, 08:10:38 AM
I'm not sure disappointed is the right word, but I Wii could have been better. Wii Sports was fun, so were some of the light gun games, but I never felt they truly made an in-depth game that greatly benefited from motion controls. I had a Gamecube/Xbox the generation before and I much preferred the Gamecube despite it not receiving some multi-plat games. I had a Wii/PS3 last gen and I much preferred the PS3. Late in the generation I did pick up a bunch of $10 Wii games that were fun, so I wouldn't say it was a failure, but I feel it was a missed opportunity.
Surprisingly, I really like the Wii U. It feels like a return to the Gamecube roots to me with more standardized controls. I use the off-screen gameplay alot since it's harder to utilize a TV with a family. Nintendo games in HD is a big plus. With Nintendo not being the leader, I expect them to take more game chances with the return of franchises and I expect more sales opportunities as they try to push their games into consumers hands. The Gamecube had a players choice line a year after release, the Wii never really had a players choice line. I also think that a couple of big 3rd party games will make it to the Wii U. Remember Resident Evil with the Gamecube? It was a perfect chance for Capcom to revitalize that series without going against Sony/Microsoft big hitters. Plus, honestly I just don't have enough time to play games anymore. The games for the Wii U are solid and maybe it won't get all the PS3 sequels I have, but I think Steam can supplement the Wii U and I don't currently plan on picking up a PS4.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Ceric on July 10, 2013, 08:33:37 AM
GBA SP. Such an unergonomic system.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: ejamer on July 10, 2013, 08:54:05 AM
Getting a GBA at launch left me sorely disappointed with the screen quality. For a portable system, it was almost impossible to play on the move. (Games and hardware were both good outside of that one issue... but it's no surprise that the Afterburner mod and later GBA SP releases with backlighting made big waves, allowing people to actually see the games they were playing.)
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Pixelated Pixies on July 10, 2013, 09:09:31 AM
I too was pretty disappointed with my 3DS purchase, not only because the price dropped so steeply soon after it's release but also because there were very few games which interested me in the months that followed. Now the 3DS is a great system to own, but owning it at launch was a real bummer.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: MrPhishfood on July 10, 2013, 09:30:35 AM
Disappointment usually happens when hype doesn't match reality. I've never bought in to all the hype so I've never really been disappointed.
I never really felt Nintendo owed me anything either.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Adrock on July 10, 2013, 09:54:23 AM
Hardware: No. That's a fairly big investment and I don't buy anything that pricey unless I'm comfortable paying for it. They've never been impulse purchases. When I buy Nintendo hardware, I know what I'm getting it for and I've never been disappointed as a whole in their first party offerings.
Games: A few. Skyward Sword is probably at the top of that list. I also paid more for the golden Wii Remote that is still in the box.
I regret not buying a Virtual Boy. Seriously. Just to have one.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_Neal on July 10, 2013, 11:43:44 AM
I regret spending money on Paper Mario: Sticker Star, but I also would have coveted it until I played it and realized I hate it.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: lolmonade on July 10, 2013, 11:49:27 AM
I bought a Virtual Boy back when it was still in stores.
While I loved playing the thing, and had a lot of fun with Teleroboxer, Gravity Pinball, and the Wario game (forget the name offhand), playing it as often as I did gave me consistent headaches.
Also, the stand that came with it was a poorly made, thin plastic that would crack/break if you breathed on it hard. If I were an adult and known better, I would have called Nintendo and asked them to replace it because of how lousy it was.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: BranDonk Kong on July 10, 2013, 12:50:37 PM
3DS and Wii U unfortunately. The regret for the Wii U took a couple of months though, oh well.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Ian Sane on July 10, 2013, 12:56:57 PM
The most disappointing Nintendo game I've ever bought was Metroid: Other M. I was even warned about it by people on this site but then others were saying it was great. It was Metroid so I felt I had to try it for myself.
I was pretty annoyed when the GBA SP was announced because I really found the GBA screen hard to see and felt Nintendo pretty clearly jerked us around on that one. I refused to buy the GBA SP in principle but was able to overcome visibility issues with the GB Player. I distrust Nintendo on handhelds now and it is completely justified as they always have a superior revision in the works. Never buy the first model.
But the Wii is the most disappointing Nintendo purchase I have ever made. The only thing it had to distinguish it from the Gamecube was motion control which I hated. If Xenoblade had been stuck in Japan it really would have felt like a waste of a purchase. Motion control was like a disease infecting potentially great games. The Super Mario Galaxy titles were awesome but still had waggle and those horrible manta ray levels. I could not enjoy a game without some slippery imprecise waggle sticking its nose in the game. I considered Nintendo to be the best at having responsive and intuitive controls. The Wii threw all that out and I now see Nintendo as one of the least reliable companies for good controls. The Wii also had last gen visuals, cookie cutter sequels, a focus on a casual audience I was not a part of, and terrible third party support. It is the only time that I bought a non-Nintendo console during a generation. I was so sick of the Wii's bullshit that I bought a PS3. I own a PS1 and PS2 but bought then after the generation was over to grab some of the games I missed. This time I felt it was clear that the Wii was failing to meet my needs and that I would have to effectively switch teams. And I have not bought a Wii U and have virtually no interest in it at all because it seems to follow the same design as the Wii. I realistically could not call myself a Nintendo fan these days as my tastes are way out-of-sync with Nintendo's current product and the Wii was the turning point. It's a Nintendo product that was so disappointing that it made me stop liking Nintendo.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Oblivion on July 10, 2013, 01:23:06 PM
So you've always been like this?
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: ThePerm on July 10, 2013, 03:23:51 PM
i do remember him being pretty happy with Nintendo at some point. He complained about the lack of third party games during the gamecube era, but so far the gamecube was a better system then wii u is now.
it is quite fun to read Ian's old posts. They are pretty well put together, but they are never aware of whats coming. Like on the first page of his posts there is a good one about what the companies have to do to be successful. The first 3 years of the ps3 the system was a failure as far as sales. Despite this 3rd parties still made tons of games for it. Nintendo suffers the same fate and 3rd parties leave the system. Wii is successful and they decide to make games for it, and then despite the enormous userbase they sell horribly. Not because the Wii in particularly, but because they were a poorly executed game.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Ian Sane on July 10, 2013, 04:00:36 PM
Nintendo has worn me down over the years with their incompetence and destroyed the enthusiasm I used to have for them. Realistically each Nintendo console has been inferior to its predecessor and the Wii was the breaking point for me. Being a Nintendo fan is what I imagine it's like to be a fan for a sports team that used to be great but is now a perpetual bottom dweller due to years of mismanagement.
I was very optimistic going into the Gamecube as I assumed that Nintendo was going to bounce back and the N64's troubles were entirely due to the single mistake of going with cartridges. Everyone makes mistakes, right? Their first party games were amazing so I figured I could cut them slack on one mistake. But then on the Cube I slowly learned that a company dumb enough to make such an obvious mistake like sticking with cartridges would also be incompetent in all sorts of other ways. The N64 was easier to deal with because there was hope that things would improve next gen. Once you lose that hope, Nintendo's bullshit is insufferable.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: TJ Spyke on July 10, 2013, 04:03:50 PM
The N64 sticking with cartridges retrospectively was a bad idea, but look at what happened back when they made the decision. The PS1 was not yet a huge seller (when Nintendo made the decision), Saturn was not doing that well (though in Japan it was doing alright), 3DO was a failure, Sega CD was a failure, Jaguar CD was a failure. There wasn't much success with CD-ROMs for gaming.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Ian Sane on July 10, 2013, 05:14:28 PM
The N64 sticking with cartridges retrospectively was a bad idea, but look at what happened back when they made the decision. The PS1 was not yet a huge seller (when Nintendo made the decision), Saturn was not doing that well (though in Japan it was doing alright), 3DO was a failure, Sega CD was a failure, Jaguar CD was a failure. There wasn't much success with CD-ROMs for gaming.
Every other console was going with CDs and CD-ROM drives were becoming the standard for computers. Nintendo was the sole holdout. The logic of the Sega CD being a failure is EXACTLY the sort of logic I often see out of Nintendo, where they make a decision that will impact them for the next five years based on where things were six months ago. They used this "at this exact moment" logic for online gaming and supporting HDTVs and looked like old fuddy-duddies within a year. To me the most obvious reason to go with CDs was simply that they held WAY more data than a cartridge for a fraction of the price. Anyone with half a brain would know that cartridges would be a hard sell not just to third party developers but customers as well. How can you ask devs to make less money or customers to pay higher prices for games that can't do cool new stuff like FMV or redbook audio that literally EVERY OTHER COMPANY is offering? They were banking everything on the notion that load times were so valued to everyone that we would give up functionality and pay more money.
Nintendo used to lead the videogame industry but I think around the N64 they mistook being a leader for being contrarian. When Nintendo does something THEIR way it typically falls into one of three categories:
1. They're penny-pinching. Cheaping out on something to save them a few bucks or over-charging to squeeze every penny out of us. Nintendo will gladly throw away $1000 tomorrow for $10 today.
2. Their isolation has made them ignorant of what the rest of the industry is doing so they re-invent the wheel in an inferior way that no one likes when the proper and logical solution has already been done by others. I've also hypothesized the possibility that it is arrogance instead of ignorance that fuels this and that they do things their own goofy way so as to admit to themselves that other companies can have great ideas.
3. They come up with something absolutely brilliant that nobody else has ever thought of and change videogames forever. They have done this far more times than other companies have but this is still a rare occurance as these sorts of things are by their nature. There are times where Nintendo is perhaps trying to achieve this and fails.
I don't like it when they do 1 or 2 and that seems to happen way more than 3. 3 shouldn't even be attempted without proper risk analysis. Nintendo might think that they're capable of pulling industry-changing ideas out of their butt and that arrogance would also be a problem. They absolutely shouldn't jerk us or their business partners around and shouldn't be ignorant of what everyone else is doing. They should aim to do things right or do things better. Doing things different is arbitrary if it provides no obvious improvement.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: alegoicoe on July 10, 2013, 05:55:11 PM
My biggest disappoimnet with the WiiU is the lack of key titles Nintendo promised and never deliver in the time frame they originally said.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Kytim89 on July 10, 2013, 06:23:39 PM
So far I am disappointed with the Wii U. I was initially excited that the Wii U would be powerful enough to attract a larger percentage of third party support than previous Nintendo systems. As time went I have been increasingly dissapointed with the Wii U. Although I hold out hope it, the PS4 is looking even better by the day.
Edit:
The Wii U must be really doomed if its number one fan is worried about?
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Sarail on July 10, 2013, 06:43:59 PM
I was disappointed with the original GBA. Of course, Nintendo released the sidelit, and later on the backlit SP, and so I was then satisfied. But man, all of those times sitting underneath a hot lamp trying to play Castlevania: Circle of the Moon... ugh. So infuriating.
As far as software releases go, I was fairly burnt by DDR: Mario Mix and Star Fox: Assault. The former because I expected true DDR with a Mario/Mushroom Kingdom skin. The latter was a good game in parts, but I felt Namco tried a bit too hard for the majority. I wanted (and am still waiting) for a true sequel/prequel to Star Fox 64.
Though, I could go for a real sequel to Star Fox Adventures. I loved that game to no end. Ground-based, Zelda-inspired battle mechanics with Fox McCloud wielding a bo staff was pure SEX.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: rlse9 on July 10, 2013, 10:49:59 PM
I would have been disappointed by the original DS, I got one a couple weeks before the DS Lite was announced (which luckily ended up having a defective screen and was returned) and the system just felt like a prototype and not a finished product. But I returned to the original and waited for the Lite to come out so it never became an issue.
The Wii was a disappointment in that it seemed like it had so much potential early in its life that never got realized. No Pikmin, no great MLB game, and motion controls just didn't feel like they got as many interesting uses on the Wii as touch screen controls did on the DS. I probably had as much fun with the Wii as any game system I've ever owned but at the same I expected more.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: pokepal148 on July 11, 2013, 01:54:52 AM
outside of bowsers inside story and mario kart 7 (no single player vs. mode ruined the entire game for me) not really...
oh wait... wii play(I think that's a given)
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Adrock on July 11, 2013, 08:08:03 AM
I judge Wii Play almost entirely on Tanks which I actually played last week so I definitely got mileage out of the game. It also came out at a time when Wii Remotes were hard to come by.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: shingi_70 on July 11, 2013, 10:32:42 AM
Probably the Gamecube. While it had a ton of great games its the biggest example other then the N64 of nintendo shooting themselves in the foot by using minidisc to save money.
I don't have a Wii U but i'm less disappointed with the system and more disappointed on how Nintendo has handled the thing.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Adrock on July 11, 2013, 11:29:41 AM
The GameCube disc and drive were proprietary. Wouldn't that have cost them more? They'd still be shooing themselves in the foot, but for an even worse reason. "Let's spend more money for fewer benefits." If they thought it would curb piracy, it's optical media which is protected for 37 seconds before someone figures out how to beat it.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: shingi_70 on July 11, 2013, 01:24:08 PM
The GameCube disc and drive were proprietary. Wouldn't that have cost them more? They'd still be shooing themselves in the foot, but for an even worse reason. "Let's spend more money for fewer benefits." If they thought it would curb piracy, it's optical media which is protected for 37 seconds before someone figures out how to beat it.
Oh it was for piracy.
Either way I think the Gamecube would have been a bigger contender and did better if it had a standard Disc Drive.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Nemo on July 12, 2013, 02:06:49 AM
I know I'm in the minority, but I thought the DS Phat was better than the Lite. I liked how it fit my hands better. I like that the L and R buttons are bigger and slightly angled. Mine also is still 100% functional, although the paint has worn away in some spots from much use. :)
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Dasmos on July 12, 2013, 02:37:30 AM
I know I'm in the minority, but I thought the DS Phat was better than the Lite. I liked how it fit my hands better. I like that the L and R buttons are bigger and slightly angled. Mine also is still 100% functional, although the paint has worn away in some spots from much use. :)
It's close to the ugliest thing that Nintendo have ever designed! I liked the size better too, but I hated the buttons.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Oblivion on July 12, 2013, 02:43:09 AM
At least the buttons lasted longer than the Lite's. I had my Lite for two years and by the end of it's run the majority of the buttons were loose and unresponsive. The original Phat? Perfect to this day. I feel like every iteration of the DS (including the 3DS) has had shitty buttons with the exception being the Phat.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Kytim89 on July 12, 2013, 03:01:16 AM
I had an original DS phat that scrapped, dented, scratched, and pounded beyond recognition. It was even accidentally ran over with a lawnmower and survived. Hell, it even survived being sprayed with a water hose when my house was damaged by a fire next door. I let it sit in the window for about three or four days to dry before powering it up. It worked like new for the exception of causing GBA games to freeze, but this eventually stopped. Sadly, a burglar broke into my house and stole it before I could put it into more torture tests. I was planning to take the electrical components and shoot it with .22 caliber shorts and then put it back together.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: pokepal148 on July 12, 2013, 01:52:45 PM
the phat I have heard has one of the best d-pads on any console
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Khushrenada on July 16, 2013, 10:39:30 AM
I still use my DS Phat for some of the more touch specific games since it has a few scratches to the screen in an effort to protect my DS Lite's touch screen and keep it more newish. That said, I've always liked how well GBA games fit in it and the feel of it also. The only thing the Lite does better is the brighter screens. I do wish I could crank up the brightness on the Phat a bit more and then it would be just fine as far as I'm concerned.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Agent-X- on July 16, 2013, 04:52:55 PM
The N64 sticking with cartridges retrospectively was a bad idea, but look at what happened back when they made the decision. The PS1 was not yet a huge seller (when Nintendo made the decision), Saturn was not doing that well (though in Japan it was doing alright), 3DO was a failure, Sega CD was a failure, Jaguar CD was a failure. There wasn't much success with CD-ROMs for gaming.
Every other console was going with CDs and CD-ROM drives were becoming the standard for computers. Nintendo was the sole holdout. The logic of the Sega CD being a failure is EXACTLY the sort of logic I often see out of Nintendo, where they make a decision that will impact them for the next five years based on where things were six months ago. They used this "at this exact moment" logic for online gaming and supporting HDTVs and looked like old fuddy-duddies within a year. To me the most obvious reason to go with CDs was simply that they held WAY more data than a cartridge for a fraction of the price. Anyone with half a brain would know that cartridges would be a hard sell not just to third party developers but customers as well. How can you ask devs to make less money or customers to pay higher prices for games that can't do cool new stuff like FMV or redbook audio that literally EVERY OTHER COMPANY is offering? They were banking everything on the notion that load times were so valued to everyone that we would give up functionality and pay more money.
Nintendo used to lead the videogame industry but I think around the N64 they mistook being a leader for being contrarian. When Nintendo does something THEIR way it typically falls into one of three categories:
1. They're penny-pinching. Cheaping out on something to save them a few bucks or over-charging to squeeze every penny out of us. Nintendo will gladly throw away $1000 tomorrow for $10 today.
2. Their isolation has made them ignorant of what the rest of the industry is doing so they re-invent the wheel in an inferior way that no one likes when the proper and logical solution has already been done by others. I've also hypothesized the possibility that it is arrogance instead of ignorance that fuels this and that they do things their own goofy way so as to admit to themselves that other companies can have great ideas.
3. They come up with something absolutely brilliant that nobody else has ever thought of and change videogames forever. They have done this far more times than other companies have but this is still a rare occurance as these sorts of things are by their nature. There are times where Nintendo is perhaps trying to achieve this and fails.
I don't like it when they do 1 or 2 and that seems to happen way more than 3. 3 shouldn't even be attempted without proper risk analysis. Nintendo might think that they're capable of pulling industry-changing ideas out of their butt and that arrogance would also be a problem. They absolutely shouldn't jerk us or their business partners around and shouldn't be ignorant of what everyone else is doing. They should aim to do things right or do things better. Doing things different is arbitrary if it provides no obvious improvement.
Nintendo was always clear about their reasoning in sticking with the cartridge medium, which you make no mention of. CD-ROMs were borderline unusable for game consoles. Nostalgia has a way of blinding us to the flaws of the past, so you'd have to sit down with a PS1 and play some games to recall how insufferable the load times are. My friend and I would set our controllers down and go make some sandwiches while waiting for the load screens.
In spite of the drawbacks to cartridges, it's silly that anyone still blames Nintendo for this decision. The industry was in rapid change, and even Sony nearly doomed the Playstation with insufficient hardware (they didn't think polygon graphics were going to be that important). No one knew how significant a role pre-rendered game environments were going to be, and that's really where the cartridge medium fell short. It's unfair to blame Nintendo for not predicting that that ONE generation would build around such an inferior concept when it's arguable that game companies based that decision around the Playstation's limited hardware in the first place. Draw some direct comparisons between Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII and tell me that games really needed to have pre-rendered backgrounds to be blockbuster. I would wager OoT was a vastly bigger game and it did not require 3 CDs for all the content.
You claim Nintendo is incompetent and clueless, and this will make at least the third time I've told you how silly that assertion is. Just because you dislike their decisions and have a different opinion does not make them wrong and you right. Why not just stick to the really bad decisions that have had lasting consequences like feuding with Square and making disparaging (almost racist) comments about Western consumers and developers? With cartridges, many gamers actually preferred the nearly non-existent load times of the N64 to the [sometimes 10 minute] wait times of [pick any PSOne title]. I'll also go on to briefly mention scratched up game discs and wore out disc drives as frequent experiences that most of us forget about in the fondness of our memories with that system yet they were very real problems. We basically totally lost some really great games after a few years simply because the discs were bad to stop working.
Conclusion for me: It's debatable whether cartridges were actually a bad decision.
Nintendo's mistake has always been not building great partnerships with gaming companies. The GameCube had no serious limitations but still failed to attract great third party support and pretty unanimously was disliked by western developers who preferred to work with Microsoft and would not ignore Sony. Here again, with the Wii U, we see rather poor third party support on another Nintendo platform, but this time the system is much more comparable with the platforms from Sony and MS than the Wii was, and the great excuse now is lack of an installed userbase. Other people on these forums see the hypocrisy of that claim since newer systems that aren't even on the market yet are grabbing real support, but some will continue to rail on Nintendo's hardware decisions. How can that be the real problem when this problem has existed all the way back to the N64? That's when developers began exclusively supporting an inferior Playstation platform whose market was non-existent and userbase was lagging until the last couple of years of its life. What was the excuse then? Oh, game cartridges. Right... It couldn't possibly be some other reason. The hardware was great, and the userbase was bigger. Still, somehow, developers found plenty of reason to develop on the Playstation while that platform grew.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: oohhboy on July 17, 2013, 01:50:47 AM
Super Paper Mario Sticker Stars. I was hoping for something like Paper Mario and The Thousand Year door, what I got instead was closer to Super Paper Mario. It burn me enough to be wary of getting Mario and Luigi Dream Team.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: swordslinger on July 28, 2013, 03:10:36 PM
Hardware-wise, I can't say I have. For me, Wii U's launch lineup was very solid. I would have got six or seven of the launch games if I had had the money. There hasn't been a steady release of new retail since launch, but there have been a couple gems like Monster Hunter and Lego City. And really, is any console's first year on the market ever filled with hits?
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Mop it up on July 28, 2013, 03:17:19 PM
The original 3DS was surprisingly shoddy considering how expensive it was, it has numerous hardware flaws and feels like they released a prototype. The XL has fixed the shoddiness, but still has some of the same layout issues. It's quite shameful that the original 3DS is still on the market without at least fixing the construction issues.
The Wii U seems a bit unfinished as well, but I haven't bought one so I can't call it a disappointment.
Then again, to be fair, Nintendo have almost always been a disappointment on the hardware side of things.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Wah on July 28, 2013, 09:30:21 PM
Guys stop whining about prices in america! Come to australia any time soon! Average 3DS price preowned $200 ( i did get mine on laybuy for $169 dough)
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: EasyCure on July 28, 2013, 10:54:32 PM
Mop it up, are you talking about hardware specs, or hardware design? Besides the pin connector issues with the original new, Nintendo console hardware has always been reliable. Can't speak for handhelds though.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Wah on July 28, 2013, 11:22:08 PM
Mop it up, are you talking about hardware specs, or hardware design? Besides the pin connector issues with the original new, Nintendo console hardware has always been reliable. Can't speak for handhelds though.
Are you sure no one knows better handhelds then Nintendo! ahem.. PSP doesn't even come close in sales!
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Khushrenada on July 29, 2013, 11:09:45 AM
And really, is any console's first year on the market ever filled with hits?
Gamecube's was (back when Nintendo released games ho ho ho ho ho). Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, Rogue Squadron 2, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Star Fox Adventures and Eternal Darkness were all released within that 1 year span of the Cube's first year. While mileage may vary on what constitutes a hit or not due to one's opinions, that is still a pretty solid line-up and by the end of the second year, the Cube was stacked with great games.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Mop it up on July 29, 2013, 08:43:46 PM
Mop it up, are you talking about hardware specs, or hardware design? Besides the pin connector issues with the original new, Nintendo console hardware has always been reliable. Can't speak for handhelds though.
A little of both really. You already mentioned the NES, but the Super NES has pretty loose construction that makes it feel a little cheap and flimsy, and the controller buttons are squishy. These aren't a big deal though, and the SNES is probably Nintendo's best and most complete system, from a hardware standpoint.
The N64 has the whole cartridges instead of CDs thing, and other problems like no sound processor, a small texture caché, and other bottlenecks. Oh, and the analogue sticks that wear down from use.
GameCube has the small discs, and then the limited availability of the component cable (and later removal of its port). And the short cords compared to the competition (I know they're about the same as Nintendo's previous systems, but at this point in time that was getting too short). There's something I'm forgetting at this time...
Wii has the most problems, not just from tech specs, but also durability. A weak disc drive, and memory corruption wasn't that uncommon either.
I don't have a Wii U, but the current OS problems and the day one update stuff sound like things that would annoy me. There may be some other stuff that's yet to be seen...
I know I can't expect them to get it perfect, but that's why it would have been nice if they had released some revisions for these systems like how they have with their handhelds to improve them and fix issues. The revisions for the NES and SNES came too late and removed features.
The original Game Boy and Game Boy Color were good, I can't think of any problems they had, at least ones that could have been solved during their time (such as battery life or colour screen). The original GBA had a dim screen to conserve power, even moreso than the GB and GBC, which was a huge problem. The SP fixed that though, and I can't think of any problems it had either, aside from the lack of a headphone jack which I don't care about. The Micro didn't seem to have any problems either, but a tiny handheld doesn't appeal to me so I never had one.
I never had an original DS but it did seem like a bit of a mess, a prototype, similar to the original 3DS. The DS Lite was good though, but it sounds like it has some durability issues as I commonly hear people have trouble with the shoulder buttons. The DSi/XL might have fixed that, but it was a lame stopgap system.
Now this isn't to say that I think other companies have done a better job at making systems, just that I'd like to see the quality of Nintendo's hardware match the high quality of their games. In most cases, I feel they don't.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 29, 2013, 08:53:05 PM
It's a lot harder to make something as durable as the old ones these days. The SNES was durable because it had no moving parts, which isn't really possible anymore. Things get more complex, and thus have more ways they can break down.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Mop it up on July 29, 2013, 09:03:02 PM
Though that is true, there are still places where they can make things more durable than they presently are. For one example, using a flip-top disc drive like the GameCube (and Wii Mini) has instead of a slot-loading drive would help make the disc drive more durable. The small size of the Wii was also a problem, because heat from the Wi-Fi communicator was known to melt the GPU. I know, it's "cool" to have the slot-loader, but Nintendo doesn't usually take the "style over substance" approach with their games, so they shouldn't take a similar approach with their hardware.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 29, 2013, 09:39:12 PM
I think the main problem with the Wii's disc drive was the added ability to accept the smaller GameCube discs, which most slot drives can't do, which I'm sure added even more moving parts to the mix. We'll see how the Wii U fares without that.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: MagicCow64 on July 29, 2013, 11:19:17 PM
Nintendo was always clear about their reasoning in sticking with the cartridge medium, which you make no mention of. CD-ROMs were borderline unusable for game consoles. Nostalgia has a way of blinding us to the flaws of the past, so you'd have to sit down with a PS1 and play some games to recall how insufferable the load times are. My friend and I would set our controllers down and go make some sandwiches while waiting for the load screens.
In spite of the drawbacks to cartridges, it's silly that anyone still blames Nintendo for this decision. The industry was in rapid change, and even Sony nearly doomed the Playstation with insufficient hardware (they didn't think polygon graphics were going to be that important). No one knew how significant a role pre-rendered game environments were going to be, and that's really where the cartridge medium fell short. It's unfair to blame Nintendo for not predicting that that ONE generation would build around such an inferior concept when it's arguable that game companies based that decision around the Playstation's limited hardware in the first place. Draw some direct comparisons between Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy VII and tell me that games really needed to have pre-rendered backgrounds to be blockbuster. I would wager OoT was a vastly bigger game and it did not require 3 CDs for all the content.
You claim Nintendo is incompetent and clueless, and this will make at least the third time I've told you how silly that assertion is. Just because you dislike their decisions and have a different opinion does not make them wrong and you right. Why not just stick to the really bad decisions that have had lasting consequences like feuding with Square and making disparaging (almost racist) comments about Western consumers and developers? With cartridges, many gamers actually preferred the nearly non-existent load times of the N64 to the [sometimes 10 minute] wait times of [pick any PSOne title]. I'll also go on to briefly mention scratched up game discs and wore out disc drives as frequent experiences that most of us forget about in the fondness of our memories with that system yet they were very real problems. We basically totally lost some really great games after a few years simply because the discs were bad to stop working.
Conclusion for me: It's debatable whether cartridges were actually a bad decision.
I'm with you on cartridges. I'm glad Nintendo stuck with them. Discs introduced horrendous loading times (which are still going strong), pre-rendered backgrounds (dead-end), and FMV cutscenes (awful aesthetic direction that has thankfully mostly died). I can't remember how many times people gushed to me about how good the graphics were in FFVII, with seemingly no awareness that the actual game looked like ****.
As for the larger topic, and I've said this before, I think the Wii would have been golden if it shipped with Motion Plus, but I still think it had a great library. I'm digging the WiiU for what it is, and look forward to the next year of releases. It might totally die in two years, but if so I'm sure I'll have gotten the $240 back out of it.
Specific games that were a let down: DK64 left a bad taste in my mouth. I wish NSMBU had pushed the envelope more. I'm pretty good at not buying games that I won't like, so I can't think of anything that sucked that I didn't just rent (Other M).
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Retro Deckades on July 30, 2013, 10:16:13 AM
I had an original DS phat that scrapped, dented, scratched, and pounded beyond recognition. It was even accidentally ran over with a lawnmower and survived. Hell, it even survived being sprayed with a water hose when my house was damaged by a fire next door. I let it sit in the window for about three or four days to dry before powering it up. It worked like new for the exception of causing GBA games to freeze, but this eventually stopped. Sadly, a burglar broke into my house and stole it before I could put it into more torture tests. I was planning to take the electrical components and shoot it with .22 caliber shorts and then put it back together.
Don't have kids.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Shaymin on July 30, 2013, 10:36:54 AM
I'm sure natural selection and evolution would take care of that.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Agent-X- on July 30, 2013, 01:32:22 PM
In spite of how cheap optical media are these days, I think a truly bold move on Nintendo's part and something I would like to see in a game console is the use of flash cards for games. Solid state drives are still a tad expensive, but 32 GB flash cards aren't all that expensive and would really kick the snot out of the other consoles in terms of load times. I would pay for that. :)
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 30, 2013, 02:03:42 PM
Load times really aren't a huge issue most of the time anymore. Certainly not enough of one to justify drastically increasing the cost of the media.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: BranDonk Kong on July 30, 2013, 04:30:11 PM
If you author your disc in an efficient manner you can help load times. Cartridges were too expensive and the N64 missed out on a lot of good games because of it. You also end up with compromised ports like Resident Evil 2, which was amazing to pull off on the N64, but could have been a better port if they had discs.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Mop it up on July 30, 2013, 11:01:37 PM
Conclusion for me: It's debatable whether cartridges were actually a bad decision.
I'm with you on cartridges. I'm glad Nintendo stuck with them.
I'm a little conflicted with the Nintendo 64, but I mostly agree with what you guys have said. The system unfortunately did miss out on thousands of games because of the lack of CDs, but it also has a lot of amazing games, many of which haven't been surpassed. And since it was Nintendo's game design philosophies that lead to sticking with cartridges, their games would have been completely different had they chosen CDs instead. There's no way to know what they would have been like on a CD system, and considering how great they are I wouldn't want to risk giving them up just to have had some games that I can still get by having a PlayStation.
I still don't think I could argue that it wasn't a mistake in the grand scheme of things, but I'm glad it exists as it does.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on July 30, 2013, 11:07:44 PM
In terms of long-term strategy it would have been better for Nintendo to use CDs, but as far as the quality of the games on the system went cartridges were the right way to go.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Ian Sane on July 31, 2013, 12:43:14 PM
I wouldn't mind the N64 cartridges as a one-off gamble that didn't pay off. If Nintendo realized that losing a big chunk of third party support was not worth the lack of load times and then made an agressive effort with the Gamecube to make up for lost support and lost market share then it would all be fine. "Ooops, we goofed. Now we'll our act together and aggressively try to make up lost ground and bounce back." But they didn't and going with cartridges in retrospect is Nintendo's jump-the-shark moment. If Nintendo learned from their mistakes any of the short-sighted decisions they've made since then would have made them think "wait, this is just like the N64" and then they would have done something else. You wouldn't stay offline on the Cube or go with last gen hardware on the Wii or Wii U if you regarded the N64 cartridges as a mistake. It is the exact same overly conservative living-in-the-past thinking. The specifics have changed but it is the same mistake of sticking with old technology for too long while the rest of the industry moves forward.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Adrock on July 31, 2013, 01:55:44 PM
I swear 95% of your posts are about the same things. We get it, man. You're on a Nintendo message board constantly complaining about Nintendo. Why even write that much? Every time you feel the itch to write an obscenely long rant, just post "Dear Nintendo:" then the following video instead:
Look how much time I just saved you. You are welcome.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Phil on August 01, 2013, 01:08:06 PM
I don't know. The other way is annoying, too. People who are overzealous in defending everything Nintendo does. It's better to strike a nice balance between the two viewpoints and not come off obnoxious.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Oblivion on August 01, 2013, 01:33:15 PM
I don't know. The other way is annoying, too. People who are overzealous in defending everything Nintendo does. It's better to strike a nice balance between the two viewpoints and not come off obnoxious.
We are on Nintendo World Report.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: NWR_insanolord on August 01, 2013, 01:42:08 PM
Even still, there's such a thing as being too positive. Still, I'd take that over constantly bashing Nintendo, because at least then I get why you'd be on a Nintendo site.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Phil on August 01, 2013, 01:49:53 PM
I don't know. The other way is annoying, too. People who are overzealous in defending everything Nintendo does. It's better to strike a nice balance between the two viewpoints and not come off obnoxious.
We are on Nintendo World Report.
When you get overzealous to the point where you are insulting someone or being condescending to someone because they don't agree with you and your ultra-positive outlook despite facts, it DOES get obnoxious. Sorry.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: Mop it up on August 02, 2013, 05:20:28 PM
Even still, there's such a thing as being too positive. Still, I'd take that over constantly bashing Nintendo, because at least then I get why you'd be on a Nintendo site.
Seriously. There are plenty of places to go on the Internet to be negative, but precious few places left with positive people.
Title: Re: Have you ever been disappointed with your Nintendo purchase?
Post by: toddra on August 19, 2013, 08:10:25 PM
That is one of the few reasons I still like this place, despite all the evidence you guys remain optimistic and positive but not fanboyish like other sites and not constantly negative like pretty much every other site out there. This place has a good balance of common sense and love for Nintendo. I for one will always love Nintendo but I do think they have made some mistakes over the years that are making it harder and harder to support them.
To answer the question of the thread, the only Nintendo purchase I have ever made I was disappointed with was Zelda Wind Waker and Luigi's Mansion, I really wanted to like those games but I just couldn't as hard as I tried. I knew what I was getting into with Pikmin and at that point I was just happy to have something fresh to play but even that wore off but it wasn't a disappointment it was just too much going on in one game for me to stay focused, plus at the time I was really deep into Harvest Moon AWL and that game took all my attention. Also I really hated DK 64 despite loving DKC.
