Topic: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

[Shaymin]

Actual rumor: Nintendo and partners taking steps to cut off system flippers?

First sign: Our own Andy Goergen has this experience when he goes to preorder:

GS told me today that they couldn't guarantee a Wii U on Day 1 for me, and that priority would be given to customers with more pre-orders.

Then I was told that more preorders got me higher priority in the queue.  I preordered NSMBU and LEGO City Undercover.

When I pressed them why preorders should matter, they said something about wanting to be sure I was a serious customer.

I asked about flippers...

If this means they're telling the eBay flippers to jump off a cliff, I approve.

And got this response...

He specifically cited that as a reason as well.

Now tonight, a post on another prominent internet messageboard...

  It's a rumor I've heard from two sources now and one of those sources is a friend who works for Ebay. He said that internally there are serious talks of deterring resales of Wii U, which, in the past, has led to unhappy customers acting out and fake-bidding to sabotage auctions. Apparently there will be some screening/checks in place when it comes to listing the Wii U in the launch window and possibly a waiting period of 2 weeks to list the system when it releases.
 
 Seems a little harsh but Considering some of the backlashes from last gen it makes sense. I wonder if Nintendo could have possibly had a hand in that.

Has anyone else gotten this treatment when pre-ordering?

[Zach]

Actual rumor: Nintendo and partners taking steps to cut off system flippers?

First sign: Our own Andy Goergen has this experience when he goes to preorder:

GS told me today that they couldn't guarantee a Wii U on Day 1 for me, and that priority would be given to customers with more pre-orders.

Then I was told that more preorders got me higher priority in the queue.  I preordered NSMBU and LEGO City Undercover.

When I pressed them why preorders should matter, they said something about wanting to be sure I was a serious customer.

I asked about flippers...

If this means they're telling the eBay flippers to jump off a cliff, I approve.

And got this response...

He specifically cited that as a reason as well.

Now tonight, a post on another prominent internet messageboard...

  It's a rumor I've heard from two sources now and one of those sources is a friend who works for Ebay. He said that internally there are serious talks of deterring resales of Wii U, which, in the past, has led to unhappy customers acting out and fake-bidding to sabotage auctions. Apparently there will be some screening/checks in place when it comes to listing the Wii U in the launch window and possibly a waiting period of 2 weeks to list the system when it releases.
 
 Seems a little harsh but Considering some of the backlashes from last gen it makes sense. I wonder if Nintendo could have possibly had a hand in that.

Has anyone else gotten this treatment when pre-ordering?

Pre-ordered from best buy with no such requirements.  I can see how Ebay would be getting on this, people using their service to flip systems is bad for their image.  However, from the sound of it I would bet that Gamestop is just trying to get more pre-orders by telling customers they're "not guaranteed" a system, playing on the concerns about sellout, and on parent's fears of ruining little Johny's christmas by not getting the hot item.  GS probably doesn't care that much about what happens to the system after it's been payed for.

[TJ Spyke]

If this is true, I very much approve. It sucks that someone who actually WANTS a system so they can play it, can't get one because someone else bought one just to sell it on eBay (and never had any intention of keeping it).

[Caterkiller]

http://gimmegimmegames.com/2012/09/retailer-lists-grand-theft-auto-5-for-wii-u/





This Swedish retailer has GTA V listed for Wii U. Accident? Who knows! I certainly don't. There is only one major 3rd party game I've been hearing reliable buzz about and this isn't it. I sure hope so though!

[Adrock]

I think GTA V will get ported to the Wii U, but I don't think this is a confirmation by any means.

Now, about that other game you teased...

[BlackNMild2k1]

uMote has a rear facing camera!?
Is Nintendo still keeping a few secrets from us? According to Firebrand games they are...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/sep/17/wii-u-interview?newsfeed=true

So you think the most interesting possibilities of the hardware won't be realised for a while?

There is still a degree of uncertainty about exactly what you can, should and must do with the Wii U, almost as if Nintendo is still working this out for itself, or not quite ready to show all its cards. Even though we have the hardware in house, we won't really know what it's all about until we see the first wave of first Party Titles, and see and play what Nintendo have been working on.

It definitely has a lot of scope for experimentation. The combination of a second viewport on handheld screen, very accurate gyroscopes and accelerometers, and front and back cameras seems to offer a lot of possibilities – and you're seeing some of the more obvious ideas already in titles like ZombiU. The Controller itself is light, nice to hold and has a great display on it – it feels impressive and natural in the hand; once you hold it and play with it, it does make sense – perhaps not in the revolutionary way Wii Remote made sense, but it is intriguing nonetheless.

Seems like an obvious inclusion to me, should it turn out not to be a misspoken feature.
I can already think of tons of uses for a rear facing camera on the uMote.

[tendoboy1984]

Why does every developer play "the waiting game" with Nintendo consoles? You don't see them do this with Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

[Chozo Ghost]

Why does every developer play "the waiting game" with Nintendo consoles? You don't see them do this with Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

The same reason why so many people were posting comments threatening to kill themselves because Bayonetta 2 was announced as a Nintendo exclusive. Haters gonna hate, and what haters are going to hate is unfortunately Nintendo. There is clearly an anti-Nintendo bias in the industry and its been that way for the last 15 years or so. If you try to point out this bias they will deny it, but its the truth.

[Adrock]

Yamauchi earned that reputation for Nintendo. Then, Iwata inherited the problem and has been trying to mend it ever since without completely turning his back on the principles that made Nintendo the company they are today.

"No, no, dig up, stupid!"

I don't think it's necessarily fair that Nintendo is still paying for mistakes made over a decade ago, but they haven't found a strategy that works for everyone. It's not as simple as following the leader because then, they'll never be the leader. I think they're as close as they've ever been with Wii U though no one knows if that's good enough yet.

[tendoboy1984]

But then developers make the excuse that they "can't compete with Nintendo's games". Do they mean Nintendo's quality? Or sales?

Also, both Sony and Microsoft have plenty of 1st-party games, yet developers never complain about that.

[Adrock]

Probably sales because quality is subjective and they most likely don't care about matching perceived quality as long as the games sell well. That's part of the problem. If a bad game sells well, they'll make more. If a bad game sells poorly, it's Nintendo's fault for making better games that people actually want. Not every time, but that doesn't really matter because it's nonsense if it happens more than never.

I think it's a concern, but perhaps grossly overblown. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm more than ready and willing to support 3rd parties if they didn't treat me like a 2nd class gamer and an idiot who accepts shoddy ports and other quarter ass efforts. Give me the same games that are on PS3 and 360 with the same effort and quality and I'll gladly consider your wares.

[tendoboy1984]

You know, it's odd that developers strive for perfection when making games for Xbox and PlayStation consoles, but when they make a game for Nintendo, they just half-ass it. Why give Nintendo gamers a sub-par effort like that? Do they really think Nintendo gamers deserve less?

[Spak-Spang]

Developers will half ass projects if they think they can sell it and still make a profit.  Only a few projects can be the high dollar budgets...and it is usually only the biggest multi-platform games that are getting the large budgets.  Nintendo didn't get the ports because it would have cost them too much money to port the games. 

You can actually see this same trend in Nintendo's games.  You see Nintendo releasing 2 really big high budget titles a year...sometimes only 1.  And then they have 2-3 smaller budget games they release.   The more games they release a year...it seems the smaller the budgets for many of those games, because Nintendo has to look at it from a business perspective. 

If Nintendo is doing it...of course the 3rd party developers are doing it.

[Adrock]

Nintendo's smaller budget games are still generally well made. That's the difference. Nintendo might put more care and money into Zelda and Mario, but their 2nd tier franchises won't be released riddled with glitches and errors.

[Spak-Spang]

That may be because of the level of talent Nintendo has...and the level of talent Nintendo chooses to partner with on their lower budget games. 

But I still say a 3rd party developer will make crap for any system if they believe it will make them money, and they can get away with it.

[Adrock]

I agree. I was only point out that when Nintendo releases smaller budget games, they're still held to up to quality standards. I wonder if 3rd parties understand the difference because blaming placing the blame on Nintendo isn't especially fair. Don't put out a crap game then act flabbergasted when it performs poorly. Even if the 1st or 2nd don't, consumers wise up.

[tendoboy1984]

Good points, but that still doesn't explain why developers put their best games on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, while Nintendo consoles usually get the B-team efforts.

[Adrock]

If I'm going to spend millions on a high profile game that will carry my company for the quarter or even the Christmas season, I want my best team on it. Then, I (hopefully) get a competent team to port over to PS3 or 360, whichever was not the lead platform. If there's a Wii version, that's like making an entirely new game and it's less priority since it's expected to sell less. If I'm putting all my eggs in the HD basket, my best team isn't working on the only non-HD console (version or original game). I'm not saying I agree with the sentiment, but that's probably the reason.

[Ian Sane]

The Wii's lower graphic standards and perceived casual audience allows you to get away with less.  That becomes the B-team project because the bare bones standards for a PS360 games is higher.  Also it isn't Wii vs. PS3 or Wii vs. Xbox 360.  It's Wii vs. PS3, Xbox 360 and PC COMBINED.  The Wi is the best selling console but doesn't sell better than everything else put together.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Sometimes the Nintendo SKU team (the so-called "B-team") did it better than the lead SKU team (i.e., PS3 or 360). Like for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Guitar Hero World Tour and GH5, and Dark Void Zero (the DSi tie-in game which folks liked much better than the console game).

[Chozo Ghost]

The Wii's lower graphic standards and perceived casual audience allows you to get away with less.  That becomes the B-team project because the bare bones standards for a PS360 games is higher.  Also it isn't Wii vs. PS3 or Wii vs. Xbox 360.  It's Wii vs. PS3, Xbox 360 and PC COMBINED.  The Wi is the best selling console but doesn't sell better than everything else put together.

In the early years of this generation the PS2 still seen some support and probably benefited the Wii to some extent, because a game developed for the PS2 could easily transition to the Wii. So in the first year or two it was PS2 and Wii Vs. everything else. Eventually though the PS2 support died off, so now the Wii was in a category by itself.

Hopefully the Wii U situation isn't going to be a repeat of that. Is it more accurate to describe the Wii U as the first 8th gen console, or the last 7th gen console? This is the question. It has 4 times the RAM of the Xbox360, but didn't the Wii have a similar technical advantage in power over the PS2?

[Adrock]

Sometimes the Nintendo SKU team (the so-called "B-team") did it better than the lead SKU team (i.e., PS3 or 360). Like for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Guitar Hero World Tour and GH5, and Dark Void Zero (the DSi tie-in game which folks liked much better than the console game).

Good for them. I don't mean that to sound sarcastic. Maybe they had a chip on their shoulder for being considered that B-team. It doesn't really matter. It's always a great thing when developers work their asses off to put out a quality product. It's also a great thing for Wii owners (even if I never played any of those games myself).

[Ian Sane]

Another thing to note is that devs will naturally want to work on newer and more powerful hardware.  They're creative people with ambitious ideas (at least until the publisher breaks their spirit).  Chozo pointed out how Wii projects could also get PS2 versions.  Yeah, what ambitious game developer wants to make a PS2 game after the PS3 is already out?  No one is going to volunteer for that, they'll get assigned.  How inspired are you if you feel you got "stuck" with the old hardware?

I think Nintendo really underestimated that.  What developer would want to stick with last-gen hardware while the rest of the industry moves forward?  Motion control was never THAT enticing.  And while Nintendo had thought about it for a long time and thus could pump themselves up, the rest of the industry had the idea dumped on them unexpectedly.  Devs would have been dreaming about what new games they could make for more advanced hardware and now Nintendo says "forgot those ideas.  Stick with the current hardware and make ideas for this peripheral you had never even thought of before."  Who wants to be yanked in another direction like that?

I'm sure someone will suggest that if devs are so ambitious and want new hardware why didn't they flock to the 3DO or Jaguar back in the day.  Well they didn't have to.  They knew Sega and Nintendo were going to make a follow-up to the Genesis and SNES.  It's easier and smarter from a business perspective to just stay the course since they would get to use the new hardware in a few years.  But with the Wii Nintendo was telling them to hold back for a whole generation.  That's a huge difference.

[Adrock]

Some developers made some flat-out fucking fantastic games on DS even with the PSP out...

[Chozo Ghost]

I'm sure someone will suggest that if devs are so ambitious and want new hardware why didn't they flock to the 3DO or Jaguar back in the day.

I think a lot of them did.... at least at first. The 3DO had a large software library because the licensing fees were "3 Dollars Only" which is where the 3DO name came from. Unfortunately, most of the software was hastily slapped together interactive video CD games which were popular at the time. And as for the Jaguar, it was the console where the Rayman franchise by Ubisoft made its debut. The Jaguar also had Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Tempest 2000, and Aliens Vs. Predator. All of them highly acclaimed games of the era.

So from a developer standpoint the support was kinda there at first, but consumers didn't buy the systems (or the games) so that caused the developer support to dry up. The 3DO was $799 which I believe makes it the most expensive console of all time (especially when you factor in inflation), so its easy to understand why that console failed. The Jaguar debuted at $249.99 which was a reasonable price, but probably what killed that was the fact it was cartridge based and the Atari name had a very bad reputation at that point. Also, the Jaguar controller is considered one of the worst controllers of all time. But in any case, my point is that they died more because of rejection from consumers rather than rejection from developers. Ultimately developers rejected them too after their games didn't sell, but initially the support was there.