Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

[Mop it up]

If the game is "half complete" then I have my doubts that it was actually in development for 4+ years. It probably spent a lot of time in the concepts and planning stages before they started creating the game.

what does the Wii have until then?  Conduit 2?

Looks like a pretty good game to me, but if you're burned out on shooters, there isn't much else I know of slated for release. The only confirmed Nintendo-published title for North America in 2011 is Mario Sports Mix. I wouldn't be surprised if Rhythm Heaven Wii were announced for a US release sometime soon, though. Pikmin 3 is still a Wii game last we heard, so I expect to hear something about it soon. Those and The Last Story are all I've heard of, but Nintendo doesn't usually announce new titles too far in advance.

I hope they go the route of localizing games though, there are a lot to choose from. In addition to ones already mentioned, I'd like to see Another Code R, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Captain Rainbow, Takt of Magic, and the New Play Control! versions of Chibi-Robo and Pikmin 2. There are probably a couple of others I'm forgetting too.

[NWR_insanolord]

I think if Zelda gets a November release, Pikmin 3 is perfect for the late-August release slot. They could do NPC Pikmin 2 earlier in the year to build excitement.

[Caterkiller]

Pikmin is going to get the TP treatment. Miyamoto already mentioned Pikmin would be great in HD. That's how he sets us up so we don't lash out in too much anger.

[TJ Spyke]

I don't think fans would want to wait 2-3 more years for that, and it's not a big enough franchise anyways. The only reason they did it with TP is because they knew the Wii would be coming out not much longer after they would finish it.

[Luigi Dude]

It's not that surprising that the game is only half way done and probably wont be out until next fall.  I mean, look at what the E3 trailer and all we see is basically one little area, that Aonuma himself has said will even be different from the final game.  Not to mention the music uses from the trailer is one of Twilight Princess promotional songs showing that the trailer itself was basically thrown together as quickly as possible and they didn't even have anything new ready to use in time.

On the topic of what else will be ready before Zelda.  Like others have said, Rhythm Heaven will fill in the gaps since the DS game did well in America and Europe so the Wii version will also be released as well.  Pikmin 3 also has a good chance since EAD 4 hasn't released anything since NSMBW in 2009, and they did the New Play Control Pikmin ports before that so Pikmin 3 could be ready at any moment for all we know.  Not to mention the Fatal Frame 2 remake will make it over here as well since Fatal Frame 4 was SUPPOSE to be released wordwide, but since Tecmo refused to fix the terrible glitches in the game, NCL was the ones who refused NOA and NOE to localize the games in order to punish Tecmo for doing a sh!tty job.  I'd imagine after the Fatal Frame 4 disaster, Nintendo is going to make sure Temco removes all glitches from Fatal Frame 2 before the games even released in Japan meaning it's guaranteed to get a worldwide release this time.

On the issue of Xenoblade and The Last Story, I still feel both games will make it over here but it will take a while.  Both games are huge RPG's with thousands of lines of text and dialog to translate.  NOA has never had to localize anything of this size and scoop before which is why both games will take a while.  Chances are pretty good that NOA has been working on Xenoblade since it's release in Japan last June, but because of all the text and voice work it's taking forever to translate and probably won't be ready until the summer at the earliest.  This is why The Last Story probably won't come out in North America until Spring 2012 at the earliest since that game still hasn't come out in Japan yet and is already looking to be just as big, if not bigger in text and dialog then Xenoblade.
 
Oh yeah, and don't forget that Monster and Next Level both haven't made anything for Nintendo since Exitebots and Punch-Out!! in 2009, so I think they's a good chance both studio's will have something ready for the Wii in 2011 as well.

[broodwars]

On the issue of Xenoblade and The Last Story, I still feel both games will make it over here but it will take a while.  Both games are huge RPG's with thousands of lines of text and dialog to translate.  NOA has never had to localize anything of this size and scoop before which is why both games will take a while.

Forgetting Baten Kaitos Origins on the GameCube, are we?      But in the end, they did have an outside company do that localization, so I suppose you're technically correct on that.

[Kytim89]

Too bad my time machine is busted because I would travel into the future and but these games and then return to 2010 and play them while everyone else is still waiting for their release. 

[Luigi Dude]

Forgetting Baten Kaitos Origins on the GameCube, are we?      But in the end, they did have an outside company do that localization, so I suppose you're technically correct on that.

According to people who've imported Xenobade, it's suppose to be a much bigger game then Baten Kaitos.  Not to mention it took 11 months for the first Baten Kaitos to be localized and 7 months for it's sequel Baten Kaitos Origins to be localized.

So if Xenoblade was to be localized at the same speed, we could expect it sometime between Febuary - May 2011.  Of course since it's a bigger game, I'm going to put my money on it being released sometime between June - September 2011.

Of course I'd love to be wrong in this situation so it'll hopefully have an earlier release date.

[Retro Deckades]

Depending on how desperate Nintendo is to release something in NA, I suppose it's possible for them to make translation of certain games a priority and speed up the process.

Also, I actually thought of a third party 2010 release that I am really looking forward to: Lost in Shadow. It's coming out relatively early though, and has already been released in the UK as A Shadow's Tale, if I'm not mistaken.

[Kytim89]

I see titles like Skyward Sword, Last Story and Xenoblade as laying the red carpet for the Wii 2 and closing the door for the Wii because it just seems to me that the Wii can not get much better that it already is in the past year or so. Of course there are still plenty of good titles for the Wii to come out this year, I just can not shake this feeling that the Wii is due for the obituaries.
 
If Skyward Sword is released for holiday 2011, then it will be the Wii's swan song.

[Peachylala]

Not to mention the Fatal Frame 2 remake will make it over here as well since Fatal Frame 4 was SUPPOSE to be released wordwide, but since Tecmo refused to fix the terrible glitches in the game, NCL was the ones who refused NOA and NOE to localize the games in order to punish Tecmo for doing a sh!tty job.  I'd imagine after the Fatal Frame 4 disaster, Nintendo is going to make sure Temco removes all glitches from Fatal Frame 2 before the games even released in Japan meaning it's guaranteed to get a worldwide release this time.

Doesn't Nintendo have it's own debug unit so they could avoid this, or were they really that PO'ed at Tecmo? (though for valid reasons)

[Stratos]

Maybe Tecmo had all the code rights and refused to even allow Nintendo to alter it. I remember reading an article about Nintendo and localization where is was revealed that Nintendo was unique in how it kept a dev team together to keep fixing up a game after Japanese release. This was why we always got new things in our NA releases. Tecmo is probably more into throwing a new project at the team immediately to better turn a profit.

[Luigi Dude]

Yeah, Tecmo was responsible for all the development of the game since Nintendo was only publishing and funding it in order to have the game a Wii exclusive.  This is why Nintendo didn't know about the bugs until after the game was released and reports of gamebreaking bugs started to appear.

I'd imagine Nintendo will be involved in Fatal Frame 2's debugging though to make sure another accident doesn't happen again.

[TJ Spyke]

I am still mad at Tecmo Koei, I wanted to play the game but they refused to fix the bugs (and Nintendo said they would only allow the game to be localized if TK fixed the bugs).

[Stratos]

Don't publishers usually have enough clout to get things like that fixed?

[Caliban]

I want some Skyward news off of Nintendo's January 19 special event.

[Luigi Dude]

Don't publishers usually have enough clout to get things like that fixed?

Well Nintendo did tell Tecmo to fix the bugs for the worldwide release, but Tecmo refused.  Which is why Iwata got pissed and banned NOA or NOE from publishing the game.

[Ian Sane]

With Zelda almost assuredly being delayed till sometime Q4 next year (hint: November), what does the Wii have until then?  Conduit 2?  Don't make me laugh.  If Zelda gets an official delay, I would expect Nintendo to announce something to fill in the gaps.  Otherwise, this is pretty much the N64 and GameCube all over again.

Well, we've already seen this sort of thing on the Wii.  Back when the NPC titles were in full force the Wii's release list was utterly barren.  We've asked the "well what do they have until then?" question before and the answer has been "jack ****".  And Nintendo didn't suffer from it.  Wii sales didn't tank.  So what do they care?  They think they can get away with it so they'll just do it again.
 
Though what does surprise me is that the plan is for NOA to localize previously Japan-only titles.  Well then what does Japan get?  Nintendo cares about the Japanese market more than anything.  They must be extremely confident if they're cool with having these sort of release gaps there.  But then you never know these days when Nintendo will randomly pull some game out of their ass.  They're very quiet about future products.
 
The problem with this type of release schedule, and I noticed this with the N64 and Gamecube as well, is that it puts a lot of pressure on each title.  When you have to wait months between games it really sucks if that one game for the quarter lets you down.  You don't have an abundance of titles to choose from.  Either this game rocks your world of you've got jack **** to play for ANOTHER three months.  That game has to deliver.
 
So Skyward Sword has to deliver.  If it has wonky controls or conservative design that is too similar to Ocarina of Time or is missing obvious content due to being rushed, well that's not really acceptable.  You can tolerate that sort of thing on a system with an abundant release schedule.  But if you've twiddled your thumbs all year with nothing to play, you deserve better.  I think that hurt Twilight Princess a lot for me.  I waited a year with absolutely nothing to play on my Gamecube at all for THIS?  It was a great game but it wasn't worth all that waiting around with nothing to play.  Few games ever could be worth that much.  It's just setting things up for disappointment.  But if it's just released as a great game in a healthy release schedule of good games, it can get away with more rough spots.  It doesn't have to be the "saviour" of the Wii or anything like that.
 
Still Nintendo can have some stuff to show at E3 and it's not unlike them to show titles for the second half of the year at E3.  But the problem still is that we currently don't really have anything until E3.

[Stratos]

Well, there are some games that Nintendo announced or showed that are still MIA anywhere. Cosmic Walker? They probably have a lot pinned on Last Story as well. I'm curious what the next Wii__ game will be if there is even one more. Maybe a new M+ exclusive game?

[TJ Spyke]

I think that game could be unofficially considered canceled. I think the last time Nintendo even mentioned it was in May 2009, when they released of list of games scheduled to release in Japan in 2009.

[Mop it up]

When you have to wait months between games it really sucks if that one game for the quarter lets you down.  You don't have an abundance of titles to choose from.  Either this game rocks your world of you've got jack **** to play for ANOTHER three months.  That game has to deliver.

Or you could check out some titles that have already been released. Whenever there is a gap in Nintendo's release schedule or if they put out games that don't interest me, I check my wish list of released titles that I passed up for Nintendo or other games I wanted (which currently has about 60+ games on it). Unless your taste is extremely limited, you should be able to find plenty of good games to tide you over.

[ThomasO]

You could also go back to your other games and try to 100% them. I have a large back log of games on my Wii that I have been neglecting for a while; I have put "Play Okami" on my list of to-dos before my winter break ends, as I literally have not touched the game in two years.

[Dirk Temporo]

Unless your taste is extremely limited, you should be able to find plenty of good games to tide you over.

There's a necessary balance to strike between perceived quality and value of one's personal time. I feel I would be hard pressed to find even twenty games on the Wii that I find interesting enough that I would fully dedicate myself to them. I want AAA gaming experiences, and as cool as De Blob is, I know I'm never going to play it to completion.

[Mop it up]

I think that falls under "extremely limited taste."

[Ian Sane]

I'm of the idea that if one has to make an effort to find something they like then the selection is crap.  I never had to deal with this on the SNES.  I've never had to deal with this on any of the Playstations.  Those systems always had such a large amount of variety that I never felt like I had nothing to play.  You don't have to look hard to find something.  The games are just always there.  One should be allowed to have whatever tastes they want regardless of whether or not it is "limited".  If a console has true variety and selection then it caters to even the most niche gamers.

Nintendo consoles have utterly sucked at this for three generations now.  Even if you feel one should put some extra effort in to looking for games to play or to be more open-minded, the other consoles DON'T ask that of their userbase.  So why should I or anyone else bother?  Nintendo should not ask of their userbase (or third parties or retailers) more than the competition does.  That's Nintendo in a nutshell - always asking for this exception or for people to cut them slack on this or that.  Nintendo is not entitled to any special treatment.  Everyone else provides enough variety that it is effortless and easy to have something to play.  That is the standard that I expect everyone to meet.  Nintendo does not meet that therefore their big games have extra pressure to make up for that deficiency, which is disadvantageous to them.

I would argue that other consoles do encounter this from time to time, usually around launch when selection is slim.  A big game that ends a slump can face extra pressure to deliver.  Both the X360 and PS3 suffered from this early on.  But it was a temporary inconvenience for them.  For Nintendo it has been the consistent routine since 1996.