Messages

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: January 17, 2014, 12:41:03 PM »

It was far from the best overall console of 2013, unless you're only including "next-gen" consoles, in which case it's hardly a fair comparison.  People don't purchase consoles just for the existing games - they need to see strong potential for years of enjoyment out of a system.  This is all the more important if they can only purchase one.  Nintendo's fundamental problem is that the market can tell their system's potential is severely limited - you're going to get basically zero third party titles (or shoddy downports), and Nintendo and its second party developers seem to put out software at a snail's pace.

I'm going to be pretty disappointed if Nintendo has to go third party because of this gross miscalculation by their leaders.  It's so frustrating when the problems are so apparent from the outside and yet they seem so completely ignorant.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Reggie dropping a bomb at VGX Awards, what could it be?

« on: December 07, 2013, 07:57:11 AM »

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/12/06/game-informer-clarifies-that-nintendo-will-show-a-previously-announced-game-at-vgx/

Oh Nintendo - you're so good at building up excitement and then letting everyone down!  lol

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo... WAKE UP! the deku tree has bad news for you

« on: November 03, 2013, 05:00:35 PM »

I don't think that anyone truly believed Pikmin 3 would set the world on fire.  Nintendo interlaces games that are more tailored towards core Nintendo gamers between their heavyweights (Mario Platformers).


I don't know whether you Played Mario U or not, but I found it to be the best NSMB game yet, even though I'd generally agree the series is getting a little stale.  But I'll also mention they've sold roughly 2 million, which it isn't bad to have a 50% attach rate to your console.


I don't know what to tell you about the  Wind Waker remake & the new Donkey Kong game.  I think they're meant to fill the gap in Nintendo's release schedule while they work on the heavy hitters (Smash Bros, namely). 


I also find it interesting you omit one of the most intriguing games Nintendo's shown in a while, Super Mario 3D World, a game it seems the developers went bananas with coming up with new gameplay ideas & mechanics.  Your rant is more that Nintendo's not doing what YOU want them to do, not that they're failing from a business standpoint.

NSMBU was fine - but it felt too similar to the others which I also played.  3D Land was great, but I'm not dying to get another one so soon after.  You know what I wouldn't mind?  Pretty much any game that won't give me deja vu from another title they already put out.

And let's be absolutely clear - Nintendo is only profitable (and barely profitable based on their most recent earnings) because of the 3DS.  The Wii U is far and away the worst console launch (outside of the Virtual Boy, of course) that Nintendo has ever had.  Iwata has presided over 2 terrible launches in a row now, and a big part of the reason the 3DS was able to recover so well is because it has no meaningful competition, which clearly isn't the case with the Wii U.  They've completely squandered a year head start...you almost have to admire that level of incompetence.

[they want to release games that'll make the Wii U more appealing to the mass market.]

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo... WAKE UP! the deku tree has bad news for you

« on: November 03, 2013, 12:30:21 PM »

A new IP every 18 months?  That seems a bit ambitious for any game developer, never mind one that is as conservative as Nintendo. 


It seems like based on your post that you're more miffed that Nintendo hasn't released the updates to franchises YOU want (Metroid, F-Zero).  Like it or not, those games aren't big financial winners for them, and given the struggles with the Wii U they've had, they want to release games that'll make the Wii U more appealing to the mass market.


You probably won't see a Metroid game until 2015 at the earliest, and I don't know when we can expect another F-Zero game, given that the game didn't really set the world on fire. 

The problem is they're clearly failing at that - they seem to have no clue what will appeal to the mass market these days.  Pikmin 3 was clearly a dud (and anyone could have predicted as much, given that the previous 2 didn't exactly set the world on fire and 3 was more of the same), New Super Mario U was an uninspired update to a tired series, Wind Waker HD was a painfully overpriced HD remake with no meaningful additions (aside from making some of the crappy parts of the original slightly less crappy).  I'm sure the next Donkey Kong Country will be the huge financial success they need though, right.....?

Iwata needs to go.

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TalkBack / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD Took 6 Months to Develop

« on: October 12, 2013, 11:04:23 AM »

Makes the $50 price tag all the more frustrating...

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: NWR Forums Top 10 Zelda Games

« on: October 07, 2013, 12:00:16 AM »

Totally agree with MetalMario - it was actually enough to keep me from finishing the game - super annoying.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: NWR Forums Top 10 Zelda Games

« on: October 04, 2013, 01:16:19 PM »

I'll never understand why certain people cling to the illusion that games can be judged and compared objectively. Every top 10 list is subjective. In this particular case the list represents the opinions of the NWR staff collectively. If a game can be somebody's favourite in a given series, why can't it be a site's favourite? What is a video game site if not a collection of people with their own tastes and opinions?

Most people would answer the following 2 questions differently: 

(1) What are your 5 favorite games? 
(2)  What are the top 5 games of all time?

For the latter question, most people will take into account things like lasting influence, overall public reception, etc., which wouldn't necessarily be considered for the former question.  I would put Fallout 3 in my list of my top 5 favorite games of all time, and I wouldn't put Tetris in there - but if I were trying to create a list of the top 5 games of all time, Tetris would probably make the cut and Fallout 3 certainly wouldn't.

Obviously every top 10 list is subjective, but when you're creating a top 10 list for an entire site or community, you should consider broader questions than just your own personal tastes.  I was just saying that when you consider some of these broader questions, I don't think Wind Waker can make the #1 position.  People complained about aspects of the game when it came out and continue to do so today, and it had nowhere near the lasting influence that a game like OoT had.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: NWR Forums Top 10 Zelda Games

« on: September 30, 2013, 11:41:43 PM »

I just can't comprehend why they would put Wind Waker at the top of the list.  Everyone complained about the sailing and the end-game fetch nonsense when the game came out, and they continue to complain about the latter in the new version.  What did everyone complain about when A Link to the Past came out?  I certainly don't recall anything...  What about Ocarina of Time?  Maybe the difficulty of the Water Temple, but aside from that it was universally considered to be a masterpiece.  I can understand Wind Waker being your personal favorite - I cannot understand putting it at the top of a Nintendo site's top ten list.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Is the lack of Wii U sales exactly what Nintendo fans need?

« on: August 03, 2013, 08:45:22 PM »

Only in Japan but in the West the Vita is selling worse and its upcoming lineup is a disaster.  Nintendo at least has their big hitters coming this Fall, while Sony isn't even trying to help the Vita out.  Outside of some niche Japanese games, Vita has nothing to boast sales in the West and will probably be dropped from most stores by the end of 2014.

The Wii U will at least have a future worldwide because of Nintendo's own software, while the Vita is looking to be Japan only after next year.

If the PS4 is a big success (and all signs point to it doing well), and they cut the Vita's price (which seems all but inevitable), then the remote play feature could be a big boon to Vita sales.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What Nintendo could have done for year one (but can still implement!)

« on: July 23, 2013, 01:05:37 PM »

I actually think the whole achievement thing is a West vs Japan culture type of deal.  Note that Sony didn't have achievements until it was clear that was something the West wanted and the West was where the market is.  Nintendo is still a very Japan-centric company.

Just more evidence of how out of touch Nintendo is - ignoring trends in the largest part of your market is generally not wise.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U in Review (News & Rumor Consolidation)

« on: July 22, 2013, 05:30:17 PM »

If Nintendo were to buy Atlus then the same games they release on the Playstation would be released on Nintendo systems.  Unless you're a Sony fanboy who refuses to buy Nintendo consoles, there isn't a single reason why Nintendo buying Atlus would be a bad thing because you'd get the same games, except now all on Nintendo systems.

There isn't a single reason?  What if you want sequels to Atlus' PS3 titles and you actually want them to be next-generation titles?  If you can't see any benefits of publishers putting out games on PS4/XBone instead of strictly on Nintendo's consoles, then YOU are the fanboy my friend.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What Nintendo could have done for year one (but can still implement!)

« on: July 21, 2013, 10:44:33 PM »

2)  Release ALL of the VC games that were on Wii to the Wii U e-shop immediately (there is no acceptable reason why this hasn't been done already)

They have. Pay $2 to do so.

What I meant was that someone who purchases a Wii U should be able to go to the one place and purchase any VC game that was released for the Wii or Wii U, and play them without having to go to the awkward Wii channel interface.  If you have 2 different online stores with different account structures and payment options on your console, you have failed.

Nintendo is worried about the safety of the Wii U from hacking, and considering how easy it is to hack the original Wii they were right to cut off the weakest link, the last thing we need right now is some developers getting worried about piracy, Nintendo has to isolate the wii from the wii u in order to prevent the wii's exploits from following into the current generation.

I'm not talking about playing Wii games at all, I don't care about Wii backward compatibility and I don't think many consumers do either.  I'm talking about the Virtual Console.  Nintendo should have converted all of the VC games from the Wii VC to the Wii U and had that ready to go in the store at launch.  They could have left out off-TV play and added that over time, but the games themselves should have been there for purchase.  Not through the clunky Wii Channel -> Wii Shop, but through the Wii U store.  They should add Dreamcast support, and they should market the hell out of the VC.

As it stands today, they couldn't possibly market the VC for the Wii U because it's terrible - there are barely any games in the Wii U shop, and they obviously can't communicate to the average user how to go to the Wii Channel and use a totally different store with a different payment system to find the vast majority of the games.  They have bungled this potentially killer feature in such fantastic fashion I can't even believe it.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What Nintendo could have done for year one (but can still implement!)

« on: July 21, 2013, 11:34:16 AM »

2)  Release ALL of the VC games that were on Wii to the Wii U e-shop immediately (there is no acceptable reason why this hasn't been done already)

They have. Pay $2 to do so.

What I meant was that someone who purchases a Wii U should be able to go to the one place and purchase any VC game that was released for the Wii or Wii U, and play them without having to go to the awkward Wii channel interface.  If you have 2 different online stores with different account structures and payment options on your console, you have failed.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: What Nintendo could have done for year one (but can still implement!)

« on: July 21, 2013, 12:33:58 AM »

I think if they did these 4 things ASAP they could stimulate some sales and at least shift some more units in the short term:


1)  Cut the price $50 - they have to do this, it's a no brainer
2)  Release ALL of the VC games that were on Wii to the Wii U e-shop immediately (there is no acceptable reason why this hasn't been done already)
3)  Add Dreamcast to the VC library with a nice handful of games available on day one
4)  Advertise the Wii U as THE console for legally playing classic games, and throw in a $25 credit to the e-shop with the deluxe console

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TalkBack / Re: Iwata Acknowledges Third Party Wii U Challenges, Get-Well Plan

« on: July 08, 2013, 11:44:07 PM »

One: All of the Wii VC games ARE on the Wii U. If you mean on the Wii U eShop, there isn't a "switch" to just release them. They have to be optimized to have higher resolution, Miiverse support, Wii U GamePad/Pro Controller support. Those cost money and require humans to do.

If a user has to go to the Wii channel, then to the Wii Shop, where they have to use different points and a totally different account setup to purchase the games, they are effectively not on the Wii U.  No average user would ever find those games, nor would they jump through the hoops necessary to purchase and play them.  The entire virtual console debacle on Wii U is just another example of Nintendo not knowing what the hell they're doing.  It should be practically as simple as flicking a switch - you update the emulators to output the right resolution and you upload the ROMs - done.  If they want to go back and add gamepad support and miiverse support then they can always incrementally update the games after the fact, but to launch the virtual console on Wii U and start back at zero slowly trickling out games like they did for the Wii is a sad joke.

Two: The Wii U is off to a slow start and you think Iwata should be fired? Nevermind the fact that Wii had record success and the DS was the most successful system of all time (and the 3DS is doing great as well, and dominating in both Japan and North America). Calling for him to be fired because of one bad year is short sighted and foolish. It's like a sports team firing a coach that won them 3 straight championships just because they had one bad season.

Iwata should be fired because he has now botched two consecutive console launches in a row.  This is not about one bad year - the 3DS launch was an embarrassment, to the point where Iwata had to publicly apologize to gamers who bought it while slashing the price due to poor sales.  In the lead up to the Wii U launch, he was asked how it would differ from the 3DS launch and he said they needed more solid titles to help sell the system - I guess he was just talking about what they needed to do, not what they actually would do...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/125859/Iwata_Nintendo_3DS_Launch_Software_Wasnt_Strong.php

Three: A $100 price drop within a year of release would be a desperation move and make it look like the system is dead and trying to clear it out. At MOST, they might do a $50 cut this holiday season, and that will be enough.

They can't afford to continue doing nothing until the other consoles launch - they need to try and salvage any small advantage to their early launch that they can muster.  Cutting the price now might generate a little bit of interest before the big 2 hit, and a decent VC experience could help as well.

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TalkBack / Re: Iwata Acknowledges Third Party Wii U Challenges, Get-Well Plan

« on: July 08, 2013, 06:36:22 PM »

Ian Sane nailed it - and I think incompetence is the only explanation.  Recently Miyamoto was quoted as saying they had underestimated how much more costly developing HD games would be and that was why the Wii U titles had faced such terrible delays.  This hurdle had been faced and overcome by every other game development studio in the world over half a decade ago, and they were still unable to see this coming?  Iwata says that 3rd party offerings aren't selling because they came out later than their counterparts on other platforms - Hey Iwata, how will they sell when they come out at the same time but they're running on hardware that's a generation behind?  Oh ya...we saw this already with the Wii...they won't sell at all.


I really don't see any way for them to turn things around for the Wii U at this point, at least not without drastic changes.  A few good first steps would be:  fire Iwata, drop the price $50 and another $50 in November, and release all of the Wii VC games immediately.  The VC could be a gold mine and enough reason to own the console if they knew what they were doing - add Dreamcast support, add Gamecube, hold weekly sales specials, etc

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 31, 2013, 05:39:51 PM »

A price cut and a decent amount of new software will do the system well. The problem is that Nintendo put a ton of 3DS software into the pipeline while knowing the Wii U was probably going to suffer the same problem. It didn't help for various reasons launch windows software got pushed back for whatever reasons. So far to be released
New Super Luigi U June 20th
Game and Wario June 23rd
Wii Party U TBA summer
Wii Fit U TBA
Pikmin 3 August 4th
The Wonderful 101 September 15th
 
That's a good summer line up but a few of those game should have been out earlier. I think now they need to focus on the their titles on the fall and invest in more internal developed eshop games.
 

I don't see any of those titles driving hardware purchases, and once Fall hits no one is going to pay attention to the Wii U.  Nintendo better hope both Sony and Microsoft have terrible launch lineups and/or hardware shortages this holiday season...

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 27, 2013, 07:38:59 PM »

what can Nintendo do you ask? They can release a Legend of Zelda game, then Wii U sales will go through the roof. Just sayin'

Was that a joke?  I recall hearing that Skyward Sword didn't sell all that well - certainly didn't do anywhere near the numbers that New Super Mario Bros. did on Wii.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 25, 2013, 01:27:34 AM »

Only to a very small extent, I still would not use them for any numbers. Part of it is because Nintendo only reports sales numbers for a game that sells at least 250K copies in a quarter. So a game can sell 200K copies and Nintendo will not include it in their financial reports.

Again, if you look at the link I posted and my comment, I wasn't referring at all to game sales figures.  I was only referencing platform hardware sales totals, and I'm sure they have roughly accurate numbers for total sales of the NES, SNES, N64, GC, etc., although if you have a source that greatly differs from their totals I'd be interested to see it.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 24, 2013, 01:37:50 PM »

I thought VGChartz was notorious for having shady stats. Best not to cite them as a source.

The weekly stats are certainly questionable, but the old overall platform lifetime totals are probably close to accurate.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 23, 2013, 11:11:29 AM »

Those are concerns, but at the same time a lot of that could be said about every Nintendo console since the N64. Nintendo has never had the best version of sports games, and has only once had the best FPS games. Their absence hurts, but it's not as huge of a deal as it might seem.

True - but this generation is different in that they have 2 extremely capable competitors and they don't have any gimmicks that resonate with consumers like the Wii had.  Check out the overall platform stats:  http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/

Nintendo had extremely low sales for the Gamecube, and if they have another generation like that with the steadily rising cost of game development it puts them in a very bad position indeed.  If I were a Nintendo investor, after watching 2 botched console launches and what looks to be a terrible miscalculation for the Wii U on technical specs, features and marketing, I would be calling for Iwata to step down immediately.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 23, 2013, 11:06:08 AM »

GTA IV in 7th grade? Geez, that makes me feel old. I was in 7th grade in 1998/99, 3 years before GTA even became popular.

And this is why more parents should be responsible, there is no way in hell I would let my 12 year old kid play something as violent as GTA; and I would not let willingly let them hang out with kids whose parents would let them.

I think you're forgetting what it was like to be a kid, or you lived a far more sheltered childhood than most of us did.  I am older than you, but I can remember playing Mortal Kombat on the Genesis as a kid and knowing that it was the better version because the SNES didn't have blood.  My friends and I also played the heck out of the 90s NHL games on Genesis, so sports games definitely resonate with a lot of kids as well.  The point I was making is having a diverse library is important, because the user base you are targeting is diverse.  Also, having M rated games, even if the kid can't get them, will make the console seem 'cool'; and being 'cool' is of utmost importance around that age.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 22, 2013, 06:34:39 PM »

And what makes Microsoft and Sony any different

That's just it - they don't need to be different, because they have a bunch of 3rd party western developers that ARE different and that are hungry to develop games for their platforms.  If Microsoft puts out a great Halo game, then that's awesome - but if they only put out crap, XBox One owners can still count on Bethesda and Bioware and other creative powerhouses to deliver their best work on the system.  With the Wii U, it's looking more and more like owners will be completely dependent on Nintendo (or Sega *shudder*) to satiate their gaming desires, which is impossible given the varied tastes of gamers.

Think about trying to appeal to the next generation of young gamers (which every new console generation obviously needs to do) - how many 7-14 year olds are going to forego all sports and more mature games in order to play Mario, Sonic and Zelda, and how many of them have parents who would be willing to buy a Wii U in addition to one of the other expensive next-gen consoles?  Those characters don't have the nostalgic appeal for younger gamers that they have for us old farts - and all the 'cool kids' are going to want to play the latest Madden or Call of Duty.  Nintendo is in big trouble - big trouble indeed.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii U and next Gen: What can Nintendo do?

« on: May 18, 2013, 09:00:20 PM »

ShyGuy:  Yes, we all know Nintendo needs that killer hit.  But Pikmin 3 is not that hit.  I believe that hit will be whatever Retro is working on...

I don't know if I'd pin my hopes on Retro at this point.  Haven't most of the people responsible for the excellent Prime games already jumped ship?  DKCR is a decent game, but that and a couple of Mario Kart 7 levels don't exactly establish Retro in its current state as a powerhouse studio in my mind.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Super Mario Bros. U

« on: December 06, 2012, 07:03:34 PM »

I think it just wastes the user's time forcing us to search all levels for secret exits and artificially pad the game length.

You think searching for secret exits is a waste of time? The whole point of Mario games is to explore the levels to find secrets. It's what makes the games enjoyable.

I see what you're saying, but for me looking for secret exits is a level above the normal poking around for star coins/hidden 1-Ups.  I want the secret exits to be hard to find/get to, not because they're hidden among any of the dozens of levels available to me, but because they're well designed and challenging to find even when I know which levels have them.  In my opinion, secret exits should be shown on the map, while hidden warps or secrets like that should not.  This was especially frustrating in the original NSMB, where you would miss whole worlds if you didn't find the secret exits - and they often weren't even cleverly hidden, but were just 'make it through the level with this stupid mini mario powerup' in nature.  Anyway...it's just my preference...I feel like Super Mario World nailed these things and Nintendo has unnecessarily tinkered with them to the detriment of the series.