Topic: Episode 252: Sky Puppies Defeat Fake Hero

[Yoshidious]

We've got a lot to say about the 3DS price drop and Ambassadors Program.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/27313

This week on RFN, we change things up by opening with an email about Nintendo's odd 3DS marketing strategy so far. Of course, that is merely the launch pad for an extensive, segment-filling discussion of the big price drop and how it will influence the platform's viability going forward. We also take a close look at the 3DS Ambassador Program that marks a drastic new way for Nintendo to reward (and apologize to) the company's biggest fans. Ultimately, we all agree that this development is a savvy move and can only be a positive thing for gamers.

After the break, we catch up with a number of games for New Business, including some unreleased titles, as Greg just got back from the annual "E3 in England" event. He reports on the newly renamed Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, but also gushes on the less-hyped DS swan song, Kirby Mass Attack. James spends his time dictating a love letter to the new XBLA release of Half Minute Hero, the unique micro-RPG, which he also got to play online with Jonny. The latter finally got around to playing Ghost Trick and Dark Void Zero, and he has kind things to say about both. So, all in all, this is a very positive episode of RFN. Remember, video games are fun!

There are a few days left to vote in the new RetroActive poll -- help choose which GameCube title we'll play and discuss on an upcoming show!

[jimwood27]

Wow, a reasoned, level-headed, yet critical analysis of the 3DS price drop announcement and what it means for the future of the platform.  And on the internet, no less!  Not like all the other outlets declaring this the end of handhelds and fellating their iPhone.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Nice feature discussion, guys. It puts initiatives like Sega's delay of Shinobi and Crush3D into perspective, as they directly cited the current hardware sales situation as their reasoning. I wonder if third parties maybe got the heads-up on this news - Sega probably reckoned these medium-to-low profile releases had more chance later this year and early next year, knowing that there would be a substantial influx of 3DS owners from the price drop and the spirit of the season of giving.

Question about Super Mario 3D Land: I've read that a new control quirk added to this game is the roll, done with a press of the R Button. Apparently, it helps to cover ground quickly and can serve as the de-facto long jump. Did the three of you observe this during your time with the demo, and do you think it could mitigate the potential problems of slow character movement that you talked about? When I initially heard about the slowness of Mario, I was concerned about what that would mean for levels designed with urgency in mind, but perhaps the roll could play a part there.

[Jonnyboy117]

In the demo, you can roll under some structures to get coins, but it didn't seem like a way to move faster. The run mode is plenty fast, just feels a bit odd to toggle it with a button in a 3D game with analog control.

[slash]

thank god you guys are back. Couldn't listen to anymore ignorant comments about 3ds.

[KDR_11k]

I'm not sure how strong the "seeing it in person" effect for the 3DS is. When I saw it in person all I thought was "meh". Seems some other people react more strongly to it but to me it's more of an extra gimmick that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't (it's fine in Samurai Warriors but in OOT it's extremely disorienting when particles hit the near clipping plane of the camera which Navi's fairy dust does a lot, SWC seems to have a pretty distant near clipping plane). The biggest purchasing decision factor for me was that my mother could replace her busted old fat DS with my DSi which would give her a non-busted touchscreen and the ability to play Plants vs Zombies as DSiWare.


As for the attach rate, that's an average so 3 is extremely unlikely. I doubt many people own more than 3 games and I'm pretty sure most own less. In fact I wouldn't be surprised by an attach rate below 1. The middling quality of the 3DS games out there combined with the crazy high prices (45€ or more, I can get new Wii games for less!) won't make for a good attach rate.

[Lithium]

woah, that was some really good 3ds coverage. Best i've come across so far good job guys.

[Yoshidious]

As for the attach rate, that's an average so 3 is extremely unlikely. I doubt many people own more than 3 games and I'm pretty sure most own less. In fact I wouldn't be surprised by an attach rate below 1. The middling quality of the 3DS games out there combined with the crazy high prices (45€ or more, I can get new Wii games for less!) won't make for a good attach rate.

When I said the attach rate for software on 3DS was about 3, I wasn't just guessing--it comes from the global 3DS numbers in Nintendo's latest round of financials that went out at the same time as the price cut announcement. The full numbers are as follows:

Total hardware sales: 4.32 million units
Total software sales to 13.96 million units

Hence the precise attach rate is 3.23 units of software sold for every 3DS unit sold. Initially this does seem quite high, but I can think of a couple of factors that help to explain it.

Firstly, the numbers are global and so incorporate Japan, which has seen better performance from the 3DS generally, but in particular has some big name titles that Western markets don't have yet, such as the latest Professor Layton game.

Secondly, the high attach rate reflects how low the hardware sales are; the 3DS user base is sufficiently small right now that it is dominated by the kind of early adopter who is willing to devote their disposable income to buying 3DS games, even if some of them (i.e. not Ocarina 3D) didn't receive extremely high review scores or come from a really big franchise. In other words, the attach rate is one figure Nintendo would probably like to see go down a bit before it goes back up, because they want to sell a lot more hardware to a much broader crowd at the new price point. 

[alegoicoe]

I dont like timed games, but from the discussion you guys had of Half minute hero, i might give a try, great 3ds discussion too.

[Crimm]

Half-Minute Hero is timed but not "timed." You can easily reset the clock, but it does become so expensive that you do need to keep moving quickly.

I would point out that the title "Sky Puppies..." is a reference to the game. Jonny and I were marveling over the enemy names during the multiplayer session. We found that these small pink dragon-like things very fast and gave us a lot of trouble. Jonny noticed their name was "sky puppies" and they went from being evil to hilarious.

[yoshi1001]

Shame you guys couldn't work in a reference to the Ambassadors of Funk. Ain't no place like Super Mario 3D Land!
 
I was also very surprised by the price drop news, especially that they went significantly below $200. I'm actually tempted to get one for my mom even though she can't stand the 3D just to get her the classic games.

[gypsyOtoko]

Johnny, I'm surprised that you only have 1 game for the 3DS. Which one is it? Honestly I'm surprised that people feel the launch titles were subpar given other console launches in the past. DS had just Mario 64 and Feel the Magic. Wii had Wii Sports, Red Steel and Zelda. Gamecube had Luigi's Mansion and.... what? GBA had SMBA and Castlevania (man, Circle of the Moon was goood), N64 literally ONLY had Mario 64 and Waverace. PS2 had Tekken Tag Tournament and Ridge Racer....


What I'm getting at is that I think quantity-wise, the 3DS has had a decent number of good games in its launch window compared to the usual 1 or 2 that other systems has. I bought SSFIV off the bat and then Pilotwings and now Zelda and I think those are all awesome games. I'm also considering Layton, Starfox and even DoA right now. These are all at least "pretty damn decent" titles I would say.


I'm rambling. Lemme ask you this - what KIND of game are you looking to play on your 3DS. For that matter, what kind of games do you enjoy the most?

[yoshi1001]

Actually, N64 Launched with two games in the US: Mario 64 and Pilotwings-Wave Race came later (were you thinking of the Japanese Rumble Pak rereleases?). You're also forgetting Rogue Leader, which launched with GC (and a few other games) in the US. There seems to be a tendancy for launch games to get more diverse as time goes on-anyone else notice that?

[gypsyOtoko]

Actually, N64 Launched with two games in the US: Mario 64 and Pilotwings-Wave Race came later (were you thinking of the Japanese Rumble Pak rereleases?). You're also forgetting Rogue Leader, which launched with GC (and a few other games) in the US. There seems to be a tendancy for launch games to get more diverse as time goes on-anyone else notice that?

Ya, sorry about that - I got Wave Race and Pilotwings 64 mixed up. (Man, the N64 only debuted with 2 titles - but there WERE good ones.)

Regarding Rogue Leader launching with GC - is that right? I totally forgot it debuted with the system. Good God that was an awesome game.

..Well, when you put it that way - the 3DS didn't debut with the quality of the Gamecube then. (though I think Pilotwings Resort is at least as good as the N64 one)

[ShyGuy]

Without Lindy, that was like a cheeseburger without bacon.

[Crimm]

I'm rambling. Lemme ask you this - what KIND of game are you looking to play on your 3DS.

Extant ones

There seems to be a tendancy for launch games to get more diverse as time goes on-anyone else notice that?

Indeed, however there does not seem to be much relief on the horizon for bored 3DS owners.

[KDR_11k]

BTW, Anomaly is currently 66% off on Steam, amounts to a price of 3.33€. Not even waiting for the iPad version is going to make that any cheaper.

[alegoicoe]

When the Gamecube came out i only had one game Star Wars Rouge Squadron, which was at the time very impressive.

[Jonnyboy117]

The only 3DS game card I own is Ridge Racer, which I've talked about on the show once or twice. I have also downloaded several GB and DSiWare games.


GameCube had one of the best launch periods I can remember for any platform. Within two months, it had Luigi's Mansion, Rogue Leader, Super Monkey Ball, Tony Hawk 3 (close to simultaneous multiplatform release), Pikmin, and SSB Melee. Wave Race too, if you're into that. 3DS has a larger quantity of games but nowhere near a similar level of quality.

[alegoicoe]

Am planning on getting the 3ds once the price lowers with zelda Oot, i havent played Ocarina in like two years, and am really looking forward for the improved graphics and 3d effects, cause i know the adventure is triple A, other than that there is really nothing else on the platform that i like, i have seen street fighter on gamestop stores and it looks really cool and plays very nice, but that is not my type of handheld game.

[gypsyOtoko]

The only 3DS game card I own is Ridge Racer, which I've talked about on the show once or twice. I have also downloaded several GB and DSiWare games.


GameCube had one of the best launch periods I can remember for any platform. Within two months, it had Luigi's Mansion, Rogue Leader, Super Monkey Ball, Tony Hawk 3 (close to simultaneous multiplatform release), Pikmin, and SSB Melee. Wave Race too, if you're into that. 3DS has a larger quantity of games but nowhere near a similar level of quality.

Man, that WAS a good launch for the cube. My memory must be failing me cause I got at least SSB and Rogue Leader when they were released and those were some awesome games.

In any event, I still recommend Pilotwings and SSFIV. They both have alot to do and keep you occupied. In Pilotwings I've gotten triple stars on all the missions and collected everything in free flight. Eventually I'm gonna try to perfect all the missions to see the hidden credits screen.

[NWR_insanolord]

I've personally contributed quite a lot to the 3DS attach rate, having now bought 10 games for the system because I'm crazy.

[TJ Spyke]

I think "Mario Kart 7" is not a good name, it just sounds too generic and like a placeholder name. They should have called it Mario Kart 3D like most people were (and it fits the naming standard used for the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th games in the series. Only the GBA and GCN versions differed, though in Japan the GBA version also fits the name standard used by the others).

[alegoicoe]

I think Mario Kart 3D sounds more generic, something about saying Mario Kart 7 makes is sound bad ass, on the other hand the one am struggling with is Super Mario 3D Land, the land part is kind of tough to get around.

[Lithium]

I think all of the mariokart kart games this gen had generic names anyways...
Mario kart DS
Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart 7

I vote that they call it Super Mario Kart: ultra turbo gliders subaquatic extreme tubular edition...X