Topic: Nintendo Reveals Two New Titles and Upcoming Release Schedule

[Caliban]

Uh Pikmin wiimake doesn't count kthnxbye! I do agree that there are enough games coming out to keep most of us busy. Heck if you own other systems then it is sure thing that there are enough games out there. What I'm trying to say is that while the Zelda, Mario games don't come out I can enjoy other games.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Yes, S&P 2 and DQX slipped my mind. However, I thought I made it pretty clear in my post that I do believe Nintendo's internal teams (which is what I'm really complaining about regarding a lack of info here, GP) are working on something or things that are big. I'm expressing annoyance at Nintendo's recent PR attitude because, first and foremost, I care about Nintendo-developed games.

Nintendo's PR attitude has drastically changed over the last several years--that is not an exaggeration. Yes, I am smart enough to understand the concept of trying to avoid inaccurate release dates. That isn't a new idea, and it does not fully explain Nintendo's new stance of minimal opportunities for previews, screens, etc. Calling me a "fool" or "the king of" "whining" is not appreciated and I consider it a personal attack.

[NWR_Lindy]

Yeah GP, tone it down a bit.  TYP wasn't making any crazy statements.

[Nick DiMola]

Actually, GP, this Stafy 5 doesn't come out until July in Japan, so it is new.

Nope, this one came out last July, so it's just a localization.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Oh poo. Am I playing knifey/spooney old-year/new-year again? Sometimes when I see "2008" my brain still registers "this year." Sorry, everyone.

[Mop it up]

I still haven't picked up Excite Truck yet so now I'm wondering if I should just skip it and wait for the sequel. As Ian Sane pointed out though there are some pretty scary words in the description...

I'm glad to see that Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is being released in North America. It looks kind of interesting, I might check it out, especially if it is $30.

Sometimes I want companies to just stop releasing games for a couple of years so that I can get caught up on everything I've missed so far. And then I think to myself "Dear mop, I've become quite the megalomaniac if I expect them to do something like that for little old me. Not that I'm not awesome enough for that, but still... it'd be unfair to everyone else."

[TJ Spyke]

The best part of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is playing with the DK Bongo controllers. Wasn't it someone here at NWR who said they played the Japanese version and thought it didn't play as good (I listen to a lot of different game podcasts and sometimes I forgot who said what)? I still own the GameCube version with the bongos, so I will skip it (even though I know there will be new stuff). I will get the Pikmin and Mario Power Tennis re-makes though.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

I don't think anyone at NWR has played the Japanese Wii DKJB. I think at one point I said I couldn't imagine it being as fun without the bongos, but I haven't played it yet. It's possible it feels and is balanced totally differently but is good. Kohler played and wrote about it in his blog, I think.

[Jonnyboy117]

Regarding Excitebots, I read the word "family" as "multiplayer", an area of focus sorely lacking in Excite Truck.  The mini-games scare me a bit, but I have really high hopes for this game.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Calling me a "fool" or "the king of" "whining" is not appreciated and I consider it a personal attack.

For the record the king of whining statement was directed at Ian, not you. and I stand 100% by it because that is all he is doing lately. It gets extremely tiresome, especially when some people stick up for him. Regardless, where exactly would that statement make sense in regards to you? I blame myself partially because I should have quoted his message as well. Also you completely misread my fool statement, unless you truly think Nintendo isn't working on a new "big" game. It was called a generality that if you don't believe Nintendo isn't working on big games you are being foolish, it is common sense they are. My other comments centered around your statement that you need more then faith and I illustrated how that is an exaggeration because there are plenty of known games coming out that require little faith. Nintendo is not the only developer for Wii. Heck it is kind of funny they get a lot of grief for their game lineups but they internally developed more games last year then either Sony or MS.

You are a fool if you don't believe Nintendo is coming out with big games still in the future, plain and simple.

My quote. Does that include you? It doesn't sound like it based on your statements. It was a freaken generality, it wasn't directed at anyone unless they truly believed that!

In regards to this PR, thing, explain to me how it hurts you or even Nintendo? It doesn't seem to be hurting them so far. Releasing teasers months and months in advance does not always equate great sales. What matters is day 1 (and beyond with Wii's amazing ability to have games that sell for months after release) and the month or so that leads up to it, beyond that matters little in the grand scheme of things.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Please try not to take everything so personally, GP. I will try to do the same. You are correct, I misread your statement of generality. But you should be more careful to use transitions when you move from a response to an individual to generalities. When statements are juxtaposed without a transition, a relationship is implied.

You have to remember that you're talking to people like me who tracked games like Twilight Princess and Super Mario Sunshine for years before release. It's what video game journalists, and most enthusiasts, are used to. Not getting that is naturally unsatisfying for me, regardless of whether being tight-lipped is the smart thing for Nintendo to do from a business perspective. You can criticize and try to break apart this sort of mentality, but sometimes emotions/deeply ingrained expectations just don't appeal to logic.

I'm not sure this is an example of Nintendo being tight-lipped about upcoming releases, but I can think of at least one game where not showing has hurt them: Wario Land Shake It at E3. I understand every publisher had tragically limited space constraints last year, but there's no reason why Wario shouldn't have had a single station on the showroom floor. Almost no one saw or played it because it was restricted to private, scheduled sessions. As a result, negative/incorrect assumptions surrounded the this fantastic title and surely tainted some reviews.

[NovaQ]

With Nintendo's uber tight lippedness about some games, it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It appears that they didn't think Wario Land Shake was going to be very popular, so they didn't bring it to much of anyone's attention. It's all speculation now, but maybe it would've done better if Nintendo had talked about and showed it a little more to the press (and public) before its release. Is it possible that the costs of promoting it more would've counteracted the possible gains in sales? The same speculation could work for Metroid Prime 3, too (and be just as useless, I guess...).

[Nick DiMola]

Ignorance is bliss.

With Nintendo keeping their mouth shut, I am ignorant to what they are really working on. With this, I can concentrate on what's here rather than what's years away. Waiting for <insert Zelda game here> was excruciating, and I'm glad Nintendo doesn't make me wait like that any more.

When announcements like this come up, it makes them all the more sweeter for me. It's kind of like how Apple does Macworld events. They announce a product and then tell you, "Hey, you can get this in our stores or on our website tomorrow."

While the time period here is a bit longer, everything Nintendo reveals is in close range of release. More Excite? Give it a month and a half. Starfy in America? Give it just three months.

EDIT: Also wanted to share a little Starfy video with you to show why I want this game so badly.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Yes, it's two sides of the same coin. I think it's really a matter of personality and preference. Nick's position is a great one to have. Heck, that's where I was before I discovered the Internets, when I didn't know about a game until I saw its commercial or at a friend's house, or simply received it as a present.

But the simple truth is that after 8 years at PGC/NWR, I'm not used to that any more. My expectations are totally different. Can I go back to a wait-and-see attitude? Maybe. But I'm not sure I truly can unless I detach myself from video game journalism (writing OR reading). To me, anticipating upcoming releases is the part of the nature of that beast. (Obviously, reviewing what is out now is also important )

[GoldenPhoenix]

Wario Land appears to be having good legs. I'll give a counter, BWii. We knew about that for quite awhile, and it (sadly) bombed.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

What the ****, Nintendo.

[vudu]

Also wanted to share a little Starfy video with you to show why I want this game so badly.

Looks really good!  It's so much like a Kirby game TOSE would probably get sued if the property weren't co-owned by Nintendo.

[UltimatePartyBear]

He's an expressive little bugger.  Now I see why he's got such a barely there character design.  He's pretty much all mouth and eyes, like an emoticon.  It's just fun watching him freak out.

[NWR_pap64]

This is what I said on another forum regarding a similar topic (the flow of information):

The way I see it companies can be either very informative or very secretive about their products. Both have their pros and cons and it depends on what kind of product we are talking about.

If you are very informative people will have knowledge of your product, be interested, create hype and pass the word around. But you run the risk of letting people know too much, enough to form an opinion of the product before its even released, possibly affecting sales and creating standards so high it might never reach them.

If you are secretive, only leaking info when its needed, it will keep people in suspense and create realistic expectations since there is no hype to follow. But you run the character of losing impatient customers because no info was given.

The way I see it, Nintendo is doing both. Nintendo is secretive about games already being in development, and will talk about them when they are done and ready to be shown off. I think it has worked out for them in some ways.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Nintendo has always been a strange company, so I tend not to read too much in their actions! They'll virtually bury information on a game like Wario Land, yet let us know about Battalion Wars 2 months and months in advance.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Yeah, they told us about BWii, but somehow they half-assed its preview impact by showcasing the in-progress title only in Europe?  Or was it another victim alongside MP3 during Nintendo's marketing resources transition of 2007?  Nintendo used to be fairly informative with game-specific websites for delivering preview info, before and after the game release.  Now it's like "if the game is not Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it doesn't get a website at all."  Nintendo.com and Wii.com pages aren't very helpful, either.

Nintendo itself was caught off guard, and didn't expect the Wii to be so successful, while long ago they really did plan some titles to be sent to die without considerable PR building cuz the extra money just wasn't there at the time.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Nintendo, along with other 3rd parties, are still not sure how to deal with this new market. It isn't like the GC or N64 market where the system owners were made up mostly of core gamers. Now they need to be careful in regards to marketing vs revenue from a game. If you can, let's say, release a game like Metroid Prime 3 and still sell 1.5 million with minimal marketing, that is a GOOD thing. Because the more marketing dollars you put into a product means you need to rely on X number of extra sales to justify the profitability of a game. It would interesting to find out how profitable each Metroid Prime game was! I don't know how much Wario Land Shake it cost, but my guess is that it s close to being a profitable game. Though on the flip side I don't think BWii was.

Like i said though Nintendo has always been a strange and super secretive company (like Square), so while things may be a bit different in how they now present their games, it doesn't shock me as being a 180.

[Ian Sane]

For the record the king of whining statement was directed at Ian, not you.

Well that's not a personal attack on TYP but wouldn't it be a personal attack on me?

I notice a change in Nintendo's attitude with releasing information.  TYP also notices it and pointed it out before I did.  Two people notice it.  Now you may not think there's a change or it may not concern you.  But it does concern me.  I want to be more informed of what Nintendo is working on.  I'm allowed to want that.  I'm allowed to have that opinion without being jumped on.  You don't care or you think this is a better way for Nintendo to do things?  Fine.  You're allowed to that opinion, too.

[NWR_pap64]

Nintendo has always been a strange company, so I tend not to read too much in their actions! They'll virtually bury information on a game like Wario Land, yet let us know about Battalion Wars 2 months and months in advance.

I think Brawl was, and will be, the only exception to the rule.

The only reason we got so much info on Brawl a year before release is because Sakurai wanted to shower us with info. Since the agreement was that he wanted freedom to do whatever he wanted I take it Nintendo allowed him to make a blog about the game and its features.

[TJ Spyke]

Is anyone surprised about Nintendo's attitude? Didn't they actually come out and say that they were gonna start announcing games only a few months before releasing them? I don't like the idea, although part of it is I don't have a job and thus my resources are limited (I would like more time to set aside money for a game I want at launch, otherwise I will wait for a price drop).