Topic: Enhanced Launch title strategy

[bmfrosty]

It occurs to me that there are a lot of games in the third and fourth N generations that could use an update and re-release:
 
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Super Mario 64

These are the A+++ titles that come to mind as the first candidates for this type of upgrade.   There are many others that Nintendo could likely release as "Revolution Editions" later on, but these are the ones with the likely shortest dev times (port to the new zelda and mario 128 engines respectively) and the most highly tied in nostalgia.  These games would not sell for the full $50 price tag, but at a more reasonable $30 price tag instead.  Beyond this they could be used as pack-ins.  One randomly packed in with each system.

As for what changes lie in store for each title is fairly simple for the n64 ports.  Higher resolution textures, and higher poly-counts in models that need them.

Wind Waker is a different story.  It will have a few sections rethought:
1. Goodbye Tingle.
2. The Triforce quest will no longer involve pulling treasures off of the ocean floor.  Instead it will involve a series of quests in the time-frozen hyrule castle, surrounding countryside, and dungeons.

I know this post may be arrogant and presumputous of me, but I also believe that there are huge gaps that nintendo needs filled for it's launch title list, and these 4 games would fill one of them in a sure-fire manner, at a fairly minimum cost.

I'll update later with more thoughts on more launch titles.

[KDR_11k]

Please drop that "AAA" or "A+++" labelling, a title is either "good", "great" or "killer app level" (or, well, "bad" or "someone must die for this").

Reissuing old games on a new system that's supposed to be different from anything before it is plain stupid. That makes Nintendo look like they can't even make a new game, let alone a new era of games. And ports should NEVER be a substitute for killer apps. The Rev must be able to stand on its own feet, not use games from previous systems as a crutch. And even if it canstand alone, those crutches will still give the media something to point out and complain about. Nintendo must minimize its potential area of attack because the media will give them broadside after broadside.
Also, do you realize that "higher resolution textures and models" means completely remaking the art for the game? There are no easy upstep converters for textures or models, you can just as well start from scratch.

BTW, OOT, MM and WW will be available for the Rev at launch because the Rev is backwards compatible.

[Artimus]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Please drop that "AAA" or "A+++" labelling, a title is either "good", "great" or "killer app level" (or, well, "bad" or "someone must die for this").

Why? A+ is used often in describing video games. Arrogant much?

Otherwise I agree with you.

[MysticGohan24]

Well it was a horrible idea, to have ports of 2 generations ago games as launch titles for a new system, bad idea. Nintendo can spend their resources on doing something much more noteworthy "or is it fistworthy?"

KDR is entitled to his own opinion, don't assume he's arrogant for his views on what label of good or bad a game gets.

[Ian Sane]

The DS currently is under a fair bit of criticism and what title did it launch with?  Super Mario 64.  If you launch with ports people assume that you're not really offering anything different.  Plus as the GBA shows Nintendo focusing on ports starts a snowball effect where everyone starts releasing tons of ports.  The GBA was just littered with them and a large part of that was because Nintendo had a port as their flagship title.  Plus the games you mention are not very old.  Mario 64 is currently on the DS, and all the Zeldas are on the Cube.  There's no real nostalgia for these games because a lot of people played them only a short while ago.

The pack-in idea has some merit provided they're very careful about what they pack in.  It has to be something where there is high demand for a port but one has never been released.  I think a Metroid collector's disc would be ideal since Super Metroid has never been ported and it is one of the most wanted re-releases ever.  They can include Metroid and Metroid II as well and get the whole original trilogy.  It would require less work than a full-on remake and as a pack-in would seem more like a bonus than blatant rehashing.  I think it's very important that it be a launch pack-in ONLY with no individual sale.  When Nintendo released ports of the Mario games on the GBA people complained they were rehashing but no one complained about the Zelda collector's disc because it was FREE so it didn't look like Nintendo was just rehashing for a quick buck.

Though one port that would be a good addition to the lineup would be a collection of some of the Japanese-only Fire Emblem games.  Since they've never been released here it would look more like Nintendo was providing a nice service for their fans instead of rehashing for a quick buck.  Again though this can't be one of the major launch titles.  They need at least two or three brand new titles to go with it.

[bmfrosty]

You've completely missed my point, which may also be my daydream, that there are *MANY* gaps in Nintendo's current generation lineup that should be filled early on during nintendo's next generation.  Nostalgia is one of them.  The three n64 titles are ones that could be handed over to an outside developer to port over to the new engines that nintendo has already developed for the gamecube (which will be easily ported to the Rev due to what appears to be a very similar architecture).  Each one could be done over the course of a year with a programmer and a 10 man art team to be ready for revolution launch.

Rethinking the triforce quest portion of Wind Waker does something else entirely.  It gives the critically acclaimed game a new lease on life.  It attracts people who didn't try it the first time, and gives fans of the game something to get excited about.

There are other games that deserve the same treatment, but many of them are owned by Rare.  

[bmfrosty]

Another genre that needs to be touched upon early in the systems lifecycle is the FPS.  I think the Nintendo needs a title on the level of Goldeneye for the N64 to fill this need early in the systems life.  I'd absolutely love to see Nintendo contract Free Radical for a new franchise FPS.

[bmfrosty]

I also believe that three of Nintendo's key franchises need new titles for launch, not early lifecycle, but launch.

Mario (presumably 128)
Metroid Prime (presumably 3)
and
Star Fox (hopefully without the horrible land based levels)

Waverace and Pilotwings wouldn't be bad either, but they have always been and will be mostly lengthy tech demos, and I doubt they'd be able to go past what we've seen on the GC and N64 versions anyway.

[KDR_11k]

FPSes are easy to catch. If the Rev controls prove superior for that genre FPS fans will get the Rev.

[slingshot]

I recall playing 007 deathmatches for hours, and days.  That was when it first came out.  I did love Perfect Dark.  But I've
since lost all interest in FPS.  I have WW, Metroid Echoes, Tak, and Winnie the Pooh Rumbly Tumbly adventure.

I obviously have a 3yr old child.  I love WW- one of the best games I've every played.  Great music, awesome animation in the
dungeons- very cool puzzles!  The best Zelda dungeons yet!- and great Dungeon BOss battles!  The Gannon battle- though
different- I did not like at all.

CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOMETHING OTHER THAN GANNON!

I just can't take Metroid any more.  After the first one for the cube- which was cool- this feels like a copy with different scenes.

Weapons malfunction- again!  Yet Samus is able to find all the same suit upgrades just laying around the planet as if they
are these magnificent treasures of a people long past.  It is too repetative.  I would rather see some really new weapons
that we havn't had before.

[slingshot]

PS, I also want to travel into deep space in her ship- why does it always crash!  Can't we go on a glactic bounty hunt- finding
awesome weapons on the way, and picking up clues on derilect planets, while being hunted ourselves by a dark turncoat
bounty hunter that has been secretly deployed by our own headquarters because we saw something that we shouldn't have
on a recent mission....?  Lets think bigger.

[Myxtika1 Azn]

Actually, Samus' suit only malfunctioned in the first game.  Her items were stolen from her in the second.  She also did not have to find the same upgrades in the second game -- she had to get them back!  Unless the seeker missiles and the screw attack was in the first prime game, everything that Samus had to find were new.

Also, her Power Suit is able to absorb alien technology, thus making her able to use it a la the dark and light suit, and the energy module.

I also believe that her ship did not crash in the first Prime.

[Savior]

Hopefully Geist is a succes on the GCN... so Geist II gets released on the Revolution.

[PJ gamer10]

Yeah Geist sounds pretty interesting, I hope they can pull it off. Nintendo should probably avoid doing any remakes right now unless its a franchise that has not been around for a long time like Kid Icarus. Besides that they should make a new franchise for Revolution. They have always introduced new franchises with their harware launches so it just depends on what they have in store for us. Maybe it will be a game that will showcase some of the "ideas" they feel will be Revolutionary. Maybe they will be able to perfect console FPS, which some agree here would be a great genre to launch with.  

[slingshot]

Just technicalities...  So what's next, the baddies download a virus into Samus' suit that shuts off her abilities, and she has to
run all over a planet to find the anti-dotes for each separate piece of equipment...  My point is that the game play is the same.
If she would have retained her previous abilities, and added new ones.  Or perhaps her suit has more physical custamization
where she can go back and forth to her ship to store items because she can only carry 4 different types of weaponry and
armour at one time- so she could KEEP all the weapons and items from Prime 1, and store them on her ship when she needs
more room because she is finding new items and weapons.  How about some sort of shield technology?  Some that absorb
weaponfire, and some that repel it-   It would just be cool if I didn't have to RELOCATE all the same junk that I had in the first game.
I know there was light and dark beams- Screw attack was resurected from the old days- and I know something seeked
out enemies in Prime1, I don't think it was missiles though.

I am sure that I would have liked Echos better if it was the first of the 2 released, since there is more cool puzzle solving than
in the first game.  You actually have to interact with the environment more than just blasting doors with the right weapon.  
Ah, I'll give it another go, but  

[KDR_11k]

Hey, Megaman lost all those guns at least 8 times now. Perhaps they should just skip that tutorial in the beginning so they can let Samus start without anything as she did in the other Metroid games. Doesn't need an excuse why she loses her stuff that way.

[Ages]

OK, so for Nintendo to fill the gaps in genre's for the Revolution, you propose they launch with 3 Zelda games, all of the same genre, 2 Marios (great way to confuse the masses there) and...oh yea 2 more sequels.  heh, with all that support, who needs 3rd parties?

[ThePerm]

Games that should be at launch


Launch

1st Party
Mario rev
Smash Bros
Eternal Darkness 2
Duck Hunt
Doom 3
Half-Life 2

3rd Party
Metal Gear 3:rev
Street Fighter
a new splinter cell game
a new prince of persia game
ridge racer
madden 200x
NBA street vol x.x
Tiger Woods
Fight Night
Soul Edge 3
Ace Combat
Mortal Kombat 7
Sonic

Second Year
Zelda rev
Shenmue 3
Final Fantasy 13
Pokemon rev
Ea games
Residenty Evil 5
F-Zero
Too Human
Silent Hill

[darknight06]

Metal Gear 3:rev
What, so Kojima can shaft this like TS and promote the heck out of MGS4 or whatever?  No thanks.

Street Fighter
Street Fighter hasn't been a relevant series since Capcom quit caring about the quality of their fighters.  No point at all.

Mortal Kombat 7
C'mon we can do better than this...

The rest of them I'm OK with.  However Soul Calibur 3 NEEDS to be fixed badly.  SCII overall was a POS.

[bmfrosty]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ages
OK, so for Nintendo to fill the gaps in genre's for the Revolution, you propose they launch with 3 Zelda games, all of the same genre, 2 Marios (great way to confuse the masses there) and...oh yea 2 more sequels.  heh, with all that support, who needs 3rd parties?

Accually, I hadn't finished.  What I'm saying is that at launch (this includes a few months after) Nintendo needs to make sure a lot of gaps are filled in their library, and wanted to post what they could likely either provide themselves or arrange to happen.  I posted a few first examples.  Here's another.  They should begin talks with Capcom to attempt to make RE5 a Rev launch title or near launch title, and exclusive for at least six months.

I agree my first post was a bit ham-handed.  I'll work on that in the future.

-bmfrosty

[KDR_11k]

I doubt Capcom's shareholders would agree to another deal with Nintendo when they just broke the last one.

[couchmonkey]

I'm sure they'd be happy to make a deal as long as there are enough moneyhats on the table.  I don't have any particular ideas for how to handle the launch lineup other than to release as many games as possible as fast as possible without sacrificing too much quality.  Oh yeah, and give me a Mario game.

[Don'tHate742]

Sometimes I wish money wasn't involved in this.....well only as an incentive to make a stellar product, but that's it.....

One conole, many developers out for the cash pot, many many good games.....