Topic: Launch Order (Revisted)

[odifiend]

Many think that Nintendo must launch first to gain a lead similar to that of the PS2.  For a while I thought this too.  However Nintendo's new philosophy is more innovative games, simpler gameplay and stories, and no fancy graphics.  This philosophy has come out of the mouths of both Nintendo President, Iwata, and Nintendo figure head, Miyamoto.  This philosophy worries me a A LOT.  Citing the philosophy, both Miyamoto and Iwata have said there is no need for specs to be further increased and while I agree that we are approaching that point in technology, we are not there yet.
Also stacked against Nintendo is their horrible reputation with the casual gamer.  Unless NIN has some universally appealing, dazzling launch title, most people are going to wait for their PS3 or Xbox2 to come out anyways.  Therefore the week or month extra on the competition is not going to be much benefit.  Not to say Nintendo won't come up with a dazzling launch title. <<Crosses fingers>>
So, what do you guys think, will the N5's specs be much better than the GCN's?  Will Nintendo have the sense to ignore their philosophy enough to keep up with competitors?  And go on pick a number between 1 and 3.

[KDR_11k]

Analysts on the CES stated they believe N will come out before the PS3 does. Even the ones proclaiming the console should be the new media hub (Microsoft apparently knows better) agreed that Nintendo might stay in business with a games only device that was sold substantially cheaper than the competition.
Everybody proclaims his new console would replace all entertainment devices. However, unlike console games, all entertainment devices (CD, VCR, DVD, etc) use standardized media, everything plays in every available device. Gaming consoles don't seem to get anywhere near a standardized format which will prevent them from becoming as widespread as CD players. Even if there was a standard at some time you can be sure it'd be the most inadvanced format available (comparable to the PS2 nowadays). Standardization doesn't work wth consoles that become obsolete after five years unless you make them like PCs which would defeat the whole point.

[Crash]

I think everyone is way off on "simpler games" and "graphics aren't everything." Look at Mario Kart, great graphic, simple game, excellent experience. Want other examples? 1080, Smash, Mario Golf etc. etc. etc. I think they are just saying that graphics doesn't make or break a game; and that they aren't going to be the leaps and bounds that we've seen recently (seriously, Madden, NHL, RE, Rogue Squadron all look pretty damn good). They want to remain focused on gameplay. Remeber how basic Super Mario Brothers 3 was? Run, jump, run fast, trick.

My interpretation of this is that the next Nintendo machine will have equally amazing specs to Sony and Microsoft, with renewed focus on gameplay. Imagine a new Mario game with "Toy Story" graphics and gameplay of a Mario Brothers 3; or even Super Mario 64.

Because they say simpler games doesn't mean everything from them is going to be Tetris or Pong.

[odifiend]

Not Pong or Tetris but maybe Kirby's Air Ride -ish.  Especially after FZero, I found the game APPALINGLY simple.

[Guitar Smasher]

Yeah, there's a difference between keeping a game easy and intuitive, and just making plain old dumb simple.

[Bill Aurion]

To me, simplicity doesn't matter if the game is fun...As for launch titles, I have yet to be disappointed...Just don't set your expectations to extraordinarily high levels like most people do...

[odifiend]

The GCN's launch to me wasn't bad but only b/c I couldn't open mine 'til Xmas, and by then SSBM was out.  I played Luigi's Mansion and it was okay but it almost seemed like it shouldn't have been a game by itself.  Monkey Ball was great and was a pleasant surprise for me.  Still other than SSBM, none of the games were system sellers and that is what I think Nintendo needs for its launch, just like the N64.  I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment (nice advice) by expecting FF or MGS or GTA.  But at the same time I think it is reasonable for Nintendo to launch with impressive in-house games like a Mario, Metroid, or Zelda and maybe some goodies from second party, SK.  
Give SK a launch title, advertise the bejeebus out of it, and I guarantee people will be at the store buying the N5 and the SK game before they realize they left their house.

[Edisim]

A launch title from Silicon Knights as a system seller? It will never work. Their games are way too sophisticated and subtle for mass market appeal. You need to appeal to the lowest common denominator with games like Grand Theft Auto if you want EVERYONE to want it.  Or if we'd rather not go that direction, as Nintendo doesn't, then something with flash AND substance. Nintendo's problem is that they feel their games will sell on substance alone. And maybe partially on their reputation. But that just isn't true. To appeal to everyone and sell, sell, sell, they really need to do something big and flashy. They need to create demand for the SYSTEM before it even comes out--and not just from Nintendo-philes like all of us. Idiots--err. Some gamers were frothing for the PS2 and xbox before any killer games were even shown. Hype. That's what advertising is all about. I personally don't believe ANYONE buys a system just for any ONE game. They buy into the whole philosophy behind the system/company. I buy into Nintendo's promise of quality, fun, innovative games, and I base by faith on their reputation. Others bought into the PS2 and Xbox because of claims of superior performance, future plans (harddrives, online, etc), entertainment center functionality, and slick promotional campaigns. Hell, I still remember way back before the Xbox launched when some idiot representative from Microsoft talked about some stupid FOOT RACING GAME and talked about how their first stage in the game used up more megabytes than the entire Mario64 game did, and used that to imply that their game was better. (And he was so smarmy the way he said it...) Obviously a completely different, and ridiculous, approach to game design.

Hey! Bill Gates plays Gamecube?!  

[KDR_11k]

He has a Mac, so why shouldn't he have a Gamecube?

[Sooper Dood]

I think Edisim said it well. What Nintendo needs to do is sell their system before it's out. Build the hype. Let's face it, they don't need to work to sell the system to Nintendophiles, we all know we're gonna buy one anyway. They need to work to sell the system to the casual gamers, and that means they need to do a few things.

1) They gotta get solid third party support, and come out with a few big games of their own that will sell to the casual gamer. A big racing game here (with more mass-market appeal than Mario Kart), a snowboarding game there (improve the 1080 franchise), and a few other things to draw in the casual gamers.

2) They should work that cool-ass Zelda demo from SpaceWorld into a game - something dark and awesome. I loved Wind Waker, it was a fantastic game, but unfortunately, the fact that it kicked ass didn't draw people in - they were first and foremost turned off by the graphics. If the game was identical to Wind Waker with 3D polygonal graphics that pushed the Cube to it's limit, it would have attracted many more people (and maybe lost a bit of it's charm). If there's one franchise Nintendo has that they could make look cool enough to appeal to the mass market without touching the essence of the game, it's probably Zelda.

3) They have to come up with something to rival X-Box live. A lot of games are getting sold based on X-Box live playability. X-Box live was set up really well, and Nintendo has plenty of games that would work well on a similar format. For starters, there are all of the sports games and stuff. Then there's Mario Kart, Smash Bros, 1080, Mario Party (maybe, if they can do something more original with the series), PSO, and maybe a few things they could either develop themselves or have other studios develop for the purpose of using such an online system.

4) Advertise the hell out of everything. Commercials on TV. Billboards. Trailers at movie theatres. Put slips advertising other games in EVERYTHING (like that RPG booklet they had in Mario & Luigi, that was pretty cool). They've got this whole system planned where buying stuff gets you points to get free stuff (or however it works) - if that comes to fruition, advertise the hell out of that, too. At the end of every ad, do something like "Don't forget to register it online to get points that will get you some KICKASS FREE STUFF!!!" Advertise it so much that it's burned into the brains of everyone who owns a TV.

Of course, that's just what I think they need to do. My opinions don't really matter much until I have a marketing degree, which I don't.

[odifiend]

FREE stuff? Marketing degree or not.  I think a problem which Nintendo has is, that it is a company of geniuses, so they miss the obvious, alot.  Advertising is scarcely done by Nintendo, but when it is done, it is done pretty terribly (this generation).  How many here remember the ads for SSB on the 64.  Beautifully done.  Same with the OoT commercial.  How many remember the ads for SSBM?  Utter crap... Samurais fighting inside a cube, inside a mall, with 3 seconds of gameplay.  Unless people were looking for SSBM, they would have missed it in that commercial.  The focus groups or any idiot should have seen that.  The Metroid Prime and Fusion commercials were also pretty terrible.  These depicted humans in halloween costumes of Samus, with again little gameplay, hiding a beautiful game.  Nintendo's games are NICE, they could sell themselves if people could just see the game.  Personally Nintendo's gimmicky commercials are a turn off and I'm not really impressed with the new "Who am I?" campaign.  In my eyes, the slogan pales in comparison with "Get N or get out."  One of those commercials actually made ME cry because I didn't have a 64.  "Who I am?" makes me what to respond "not a Nintendo fan," and turn the channel, even though I am and have been since I was three years old.

[Ian Sane]

"How many remember the ads for SSBM? Utter crap... Samurais fighting inside a cube, inside a mall, with 3 seconds of gameplay. Unless people were looking for SSBM, they would have missed it in that commercial. The focus groups or any idiot should have seen that. The Metroid Prime and Fusion commercials were also pretty terrible. These depicted humans in halloween costumes of Samus, with again little gameplay, hiding a beautiful game. Nintendo's games are NICE, they could sell themselves if people could just see the game."

I agree completely.  It's funny how you mention the original SSB ad and how great it was because, although it was a great commercial, it was the first ever "costumes" commercial and as a result it can be considered partially responsible for today's crappy ads.

I think what Nintendo should do is just show the trailers they make for E3 as TV commercials.  They're virtually all game footage and they get people more excited about a game than a bunch of a actors in dumb costumes.  The "focus on stupid other sh!t" approach to game ads made sense years ago when game graphics were not good enough to sell themselves but now that game graphics are amazing they should be front and center.  GTA is the most successful game of this generation and its ad is 100% game footage.  Final Fantasy VII was arguably the deciding factor in the 32/64 bit console wars and its commercial focused entirely on the game itself as well.  Sure it was all FMV footage but that was FMV from the game.

Another problem with Nintendo's advertising is that they assume everyone is already familiar with their games.  Well here's a reality check: the average gamer doesn't know sh!t about Nintendo beyond Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon.  Therefore assuming everyone knows what F-Zero or Wave Race are is foolish.  Assuming anyone knows about Metroid which had remained dormant since 1994(!) is really REALLY dumb.  That's why Splinter Cell sold better.  To the average gamer who has only been playing since 1997 BOTH Metroid and Splinter Cell were brand new.  SC was marketed better and thus sold better.  Nintendo ads have to be informative.  They have to tell the consumer WHY the game is so great and thus should be purchased.  Just telling people that Eternal Darkness exists isn't going to make people buy it.

[Guitar Smasher]

Just to add to what Ian Sane said, I think the commercials should focus on one thing: coolness factor.  Don't bother reminding us that there's a new game in a series; Nintendo fans will have already known that for a year, and the mainstream will just see it as dumb.  That's why they have to make the game look like 'the coolest thing ever'.  Show the best movies in the game, make it look better than anything before, just don't leave any doubt in the mainstream gamer's mind that he/she MUST get it.  They don't understand 'interesting concepts' or 'creative style', they either think of things as 'cool' or 'not cool'.  

[J]

i think that we often think the casual gamer cant play anything complicated.  but if you think about the two big casual gamer games, Madden and GTA, those arent exactly the simplest of games to pick up.  the more mature gamer has grown up with games and can probably figure things out.  

as far as advertising, Nintendo needs to look cool.  To be honest, they have never been the cool system.  Sega always one upped them in the cool deptartment.  Sony did, and now MS is doing it as well... the metroid prime ads made me not want to get the game, seeing a person in what looked like a foam suit was laughable... why not show game play set to cool hip music?  and like another said, give out some free stuff!

[Aslan the Lion]

It seems like they've actually been trying to get better with their advertising now.  Has anyone seen the FF:CC ad?  Almost all gameplay, and it doesn't look that bad either, which is surprising given the poor capture system that the GCN has.

[odifiend]

The FF:CC commercial was OK but it wasn't as good as say the FFX or X2 commercials.  What makes me particularly mad with the "Who are you?" campaign is that Nintendo hides the gameplay of their games.  They all start off with some people doing something mundane and to get the reference to the character(s) often times you need an attention span - BAD ADVERTISING .  Nintendo doesn't have Microsoft's huge pockets to pay for lots of time on the air, so I wish they would just show their games during their air time, instead of people I could see on the street.
Still the "Who are you?" campaign has come away with some good commercials- hats of to Metroid Zero Mission and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!