Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: broodwars on April 04, 2013, 12:32:01 PM
Any internet article that cites Sean Malstrom not just once, but TWICE isn't worth anyone's time. There may be some good points in there, but the moment you bring that nutcase up to support your argument, you lose all credibility.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Enner on April 04, 2013, 02:26:16 PM
I was thinking of posting this yesterday. Beaten to the punch!
Reading from only the gathered Iwata and Miyamoto quotes, Nintendo has made a lot of broken promises, pleas to understand, and apologies under Iwata's tenure as CEO of the company since 2002. It is a sight to see the quotes over the years condensed in a single article. Granted, if any one's speech is recorded over several years, there are bound to be instances of contradiction.
There are some things I find disagreeable or odd with the article. Is hubris the right word to use for Iwata's shortcomings? Now that I think about it, there is a passive pride in how Nintendo has carried itself. There is certainly some sort of stubbornness. Second, Off-TV play might be more valuable in practicality. While many households have multiple televisions, there is probably only one big HD TV in a given household. It is not desirable to shuffle consoles between TVs or to have a console connected to the lesser TV of the household. This is where Off-TV play is a convenient feature.
EDIT: The article raises questions: Do you think Iwata is doing a good job as CEO of Nintendo? Do you think he should be replaced or allowed to continue?
It is unfair to ask such questions since the Wii U's fate has yet to be set in stone, but it can't be denied that it has under performed. I can't bring myself to dislike or sack a man that wears a Luigi hat and shows me experiences I want to buy in the future. But the string of broken promises makes me wonder if a different person could have done a better job.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 04, 2013, 02:55:06 PM
I didn't think "hubris" was the right word either. Maybe "inconsistent" would be better.
The quotes in that article are relevant to the time when they were spoken. It sounds woefully contradictory out of context. Nintendo isn't saying, "Traditional controllers are too complicated, here's the Wii Remote. J/K here's the GamePad." The Wii Remote was carried over to Wii U because Nintendo still believes traditional controls are too complicated for some people. Additionally, they aren't telling those people to use all the buttons on the GamePad. They're telling those people to ignore the buttons and use the touchscreen (for games that use it, of course) or use the Wii Remote. For core games, the GamePad takes nothing away from while providing more options.
The contradiction here may be that Nintendo is now offering a controller that looks daunting when they previously said buttons confuse people. That's one way of looking at it. Another is just an evolving strategy. The GamePad is Nintendo admitting, in a way, that people won't immediately dismiss an entire product because it has buttons so long as they're shown what else can be done with it (use that giant screen).
Anyway, I don't believe Iwata is doing a bad job. He could, like many others, be doing a better job. I agree with the part of the article that suggests Reggie shoulders a lot of blame that should rightly be placed on Iwata. While people were moaning about Reggie's reluctance to bring the Rainfall games over, NCL gave Reggie three games in genres that aren't popular in the west and almost nothing else. "Here's some sand and a handful of Q-Tips. MacGyver us some sales, Reggie." Be upset that Reggie was holding onto completed games, but also be upset that Iwata and co planned the end of Wii's life so poorly.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 04, 2013, 03:13:08 PM
My beef with Iwata stems pretty much entirely for the fact that Nintendo has changed from being what I considered the best videogame company in the world into something that doesn't really connect with me at all and seems to have abandoned the very things I felt made them great in the first place. This change coincides with Iwata tenure and that makes sense. A company will often change with their leadership.
Iwata looked to who was not buying videogames and wanted to get them on board. He sees videogame as something for everyone and I strongly disagree with him on that. Videogames are not a passive activity like watching TV or listening to music. By their nature they require interaction from the player and anything that involves interaction requires some barrier of entry. To make games more accessible and lower the barrier of entry you have to remove some of the key elements that make them interesting to the existing players in the first place. So he didn't make something for everyone, he made something dumbed down for a different audience. If you make a game easy it turns off people who want a challenge. If you make a game simple it turns off people who want depth and complexity. You do not expand your demographics my lowering the barrier of entry, you merely cut off the top to bring in the bottom. Now if the bottom is bigger you'll sell more product, but you're not making something for everybody.
But the new audience he attracted has no loyality because you will never get loyal or dedicated customers from appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's the nature of fads. So now his new audience has switched to smartphones and his old audience is gone and he can't give Wii Us away.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Luigi Dude on April 04, 2013, 06:14:14 PM
But the new audience he attracted has no loyality because you will never get loyal or dedicated customers from appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's the nature of fads. So now his new audience has switched to smartphones and his old audience is gone and he can't give Wii Us away.
People like you said the same thing when the 3DS did poorly it's early months, but once again were proven wrong when the price dropped and big games came out which is why the 3DS is doing fine now. Once the Wii U drops it's price and the big titles like Mario Kart come out, it'll do just fine as well.
Until smartphones start getting Nintendo games, Nintendo aint losing their main audience anytime soon. If people want to play the newest Mario Kart, they'll have to buy a Wii U this Fall since it wont be playable on any smartphones. The argument that people won't buy Nintendo consoles anymore for the Nintendo series they love just because they can play Angry Bird on their phone is so flawed you just make yourself look very foolish by mentioning it.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: shingi_70 on April 04, 2013, 07:36:23 PM
I don't think the market is gone but its going to be harder to push some software and hardware. I don't see why Wii Fit U with its pedometer is innovative and going to be appealing. Ina post Nike+/Fit Bit? Jaw bone up world I can't see Wii Fit U doing as well as its predecessors. You could picm up the Nike+ Kinect gamet hat syncs with the Nike+ program. WIth both Nike+ and Fitbit planning to open up their api's to third party developers to use.
That and I think Wii Fit should have been launched either before new years or last month before spring started, But yeah Iwata has bungled third party relations. To start NOA should be given more free reign and have more input. At this point controlling everything from Japan is becoming detrimental and is what happned to sony during the PS3 launch. I want to say that they should have a developer in more important positions like sony/Microsoft but than I realize Iwata is the fucking President.
Maybe more input from non Miyamoto developers would help. Have the hardware division work in the same space as Monolith or what ever the hell Sakurai is doing these days. \ Alonside building up more studios in all different regions. Creating a studio for literally one game and than shuttering them just seems to be the makings of a bad business man.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 04, 2013, 07:42:02 PM
Until smartphones start getting Nintendo games, Nintendo aint losing their main audience anytime soon. If people want to play the newest Mario Kart, they'll have to buy a Wii U this Fall since it wont be playable on any smartphones. The argument that people won't buy Nintendo consoles anymore for the Nintendo series they love just because they can play Angry Bird on their phone is so flawed you just make yourself look very foolish by mentioning it.
When the hell did I ever make that argument? Nintendo nuts that eat up every Mario game will buy the system no matter what. I'm talking about the casuals that ate up Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The new audience Nintendo risked everything on has gone to smartphones. The general pre-Wii videogame audience that like Nintendo games along with videogames in general but were losing interest more and more with each Nintendo console since the N64 were turned off by the Wii as Nintendo seemingly told them to take a hike. Outside of Nintendo specific forums like these, Nintendo is completely irrelevant outside of handhelds in gaming culture.
The Wii U currently appeals to diehard Nintendo nuts and Nintendo is the only developer that seemingly gives the slightest **** about it. That's Iwata's legacy. He turned off the existing gaming industry and customerbase for three years of mainstream fad sales.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Oblivion on April 04, 2013, 08:04:58 PM
Ian, why do you go to this site?
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 04, 2013, 09:01:46 PM
Iwata is just, to an extent, out of touch... the article mainly points at standard corporate shinanigans but the issue is simply where the DS and Wii separate,
Iwata looked to who was not buying videogames and wanted to get them on board. He sees videogame as something for everyone and I strongly disagree with him on that. Videogames are not a passive activity like watching TV or listening to music. By their nature they require interaction from the player and anything that involves interaction requires some barrier of entry.
i am in high school atm and that is how gaming is being treated, it is normal for people to be scammed into the newest madden or to be excited for the next Call of Duty,
Quote
To make games more accessible and lower the barrier of entry you have to remove some of the key elements that make them interesting to the existing players in the first place. If you make a game simple it turns off people who want depth and complexity. You do not expand your demographics my lowering the barrier of entry, you merely cut off the top to bring in the bottom.
so close minded here, the pokemon metagame would like to talk. Brawl also is very simple to learn how to play and yet, as much as melee fans like to bitch and moan, offers a great metagame as well
i think the New Super Mario Bros. series debunks that completely, The only thing 'dumbed down' there is the presentation (although tbh the visuals are for the most part a natural evolution from world with a touch of sunshine although that music....)
Quote
But the new audience he attracted has no loyality because you will never get loyal or dedicated customers from appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's the nature of fads. So now his new audience has switched to smartphones and his old audience is gone and he can't give Wii Us away.
no argument here except this, I first owned a nintendo console when he was in office, am i part of the problem...
the biggest change has been how conservative nintendo has been with him in office, we have seen no major new IP's since he came in and expirimentation in games(sunshine) has died as well...
what iwata(and Ian apparently) needs to realize is that it isn't 1996 anymore, everyone in the major market has played video games be it farmville or madden. if they want to expand their audience they need to target the dormant gamer, that person who played games back in the day and now, maybe pulls out angry birds on their phone once in a while...
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Oblivion on April 04, 2013, 09:35:35 PM
no argument here except this, I first owned a nintendo console when he was in office, am i part of the problem...
May God bless and keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous May you grow up to be true May you always know the truth And see the lights surrounding you May you always be courageous Stand upright and be strong May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.
May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful And may your song always be sung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young.
i'm sorry... it was too good, i had to
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Caterkiller on April 05, 2013, 12:51:36 AM
I'm pretty cool with Iwata, the way the company works most of the time and even cool with long waits between releases.
What are the options though to filling up the release schedule? I mean all of us including Nintendo, I'm sure thought we would have at least one exclusive in February with Rayman. But with Nintendo's general philosophy towards games, we will never get a spread out schedule. They finish until they think its complete and as bug free as possible. Either they release the first completed Luigi's Mansion which might have been good or they release the great LM that we have now. Of course that rule of more fun with more time doesn't always apply but at least we know the games won't be a buggy mess. Though this doesn't make games come out faster I really wish Nintendo wouldn't put multiple big name releases in a single month. It rarely happens but if one of those games was delayed a month it seems that would help sells for both and make it appear like a fuller schedule. Of course if they have a lot of games that they want out for that big holiday rush there is no way they would push around everything else.
Sometimes I honestly think that Nintendo believes the 3rd parties who show initial interest in their systems at launch will fill in those first few months.
As for the drought promises, I remember that promise every generation since GameCube. I remember hearing how game development would get faster and never noticed it once. There are things that all companies say that I just take at face value now. What I do know is, I eventually always got my Pokemon, my awesome Marios with great star dragging and Yoshi tongue pointer controls, my Zelda with great(not perfect) motion controls and 2 outrageously amazing DK titles to name a few. So I'm cool, but I hardly represent any kind of majority.
Back to my question... How can Nintendo get 3rd parties to fill in the blanks?
1 - Money Hats - Is that what's going on with Platinum and Lego City? Not going to happen much that's for sure. 2 - Make a more powerful machine? GameCube, DS, 3DS, say no. It would help but by how much.
I am completely of the opinion that people are people no matter what. By that I mean they have grudges, agendas and everything is only escalated to rich levels with developers. Some of you talk about power or the dollar being the bottom line, but its clear as a bell to me that even of Nintendo released a machine totally capable of PS4 visuals(what ever those are) right out the gate Nintendo would be in the exact same position except less UE4 mockery.
3 - They could start buying more development houses but of course what happens if people just up an leave?
4 - they just do everything that is considered industry standard? Then what? I wouldn't have my Wii Mote or Upad and I love those things to death. And if they were there we'd still get the same excuses as we do now, controller is too unique.
Posting from an Epsom salt bath.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: SixthAngel on April 05, 2013, 01:13:24 AM
the biggest change has been how conservative nintendo has been with him in office, we have seen no major new IP's since he came in and expirimentation in games(sunshine) has died as well...
It drives me absolutely crazy every time someone says anything like this. Every single part of this is wrong.
Iwata presided over probably the riskiest years Nintendo has ever had. The Wii and the DS were both huge risks. Just because they are successful doesn't make them anywhere in the ballpark of conservative. Not only that but the games that started it all for both of these behemoths were new IPs. Experimentation in games dieing with Sunshine? Have you played any of Nintendo's games for the Wii? I'm not going to make some kind of huge list but the Wii was the console for experimental games and games that did something new.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Sarail on April 05, 2013, 01:17:54 AM
The same reason that I do - because he loves and has a passion for Nintendo games.
Cater, it's crazy reading your posts now and putting your voice to your written words. Just thought I'd say that. Hah.
But yeah, I agree with you completely. I see it everyday, and also when I'm with my core group of friends, that there is this general "Nintendo is irrelevant" mentality amongst everyone. It saddens me, and it all began with the N64 fiasco of going with cartridges instead of CDs - a Yamauchi decision, mind you. I've said this before on the forums, but I wonder how different the game industry would have been had Nintendo decided to go with disc-based media instead of carts. I know Nintendo had a somewhat bossy attitude during the beginning years of the N64 and before...so, I don't really know how to place them according to how third parties would have felt about them leading up to now - if they had gone with CDs then.
It's kind of crazy to think things could be very different.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 05, 2013, 01:37:07 AM
the biggest change has been how conservative nintendo has been with him in office, we have seen no major new IP's since he came in and expirimentation in games(sunshine) has died as well...
It drives me absolutely crazy every time someone says anything like this. Every single part of this is wrong.
Iwata presided over probably the riskiest years Nintendo has ever had. The Wii and the DS were both huge risks. Just because they are successful doesn't make them anywhere in the ballpark of conservative. Not only that but the games that started it all for both of these behemoths were new IPs. Experimentation in games dieing with Sunshine? Have you played any of Nintendo's games for the Wii? I'm not going to make some kind of huge list but the Wii was the console for experimental games and games that did something new.
Yes I have, waggle waggle, that is so experimental, and I mean ips that appeal to a more serious gamer... galaxy was a very safe type of expirimentation.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Oblivion on April 05, 2013, 01:43:12 AM
Yes I have, waggle waggle, that is so experimental, and I mean ips that appeal to a more serious gamer... galaxy was a very safe type of expirimentation.
Legend of Starfy Drill Dozer Rhythm Heaven Band Brothers Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents Another Code Magical Starsign Hotel Dusk ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat Soma Bringer Fossil Fighters Geist Chibi-Robo Odama Captain Rainbow Disaster: Day of Crisis Tact of Magic Zangeki no Reginleiv Xenoblade The Last Story Pandora's Tower Steel Diver Pushmo Sakura Samurai Dillon's Rolling Western Fluidity HarmoKnight The Wonderful 101 X
Yeah, no new IP's that appeal to serious gamers under Iwata alright. ::) Yeah some of them might not have come to America but that's an argument about how NOA needs to be handled better then Iwata being too conservative with the games Nintendo develops. Doesn't change the fact Iwata spent money to create a **** load of new IP's since he's been president and the majority have appealed to Nintendo's longtime traditional audience.
And before anyone starts saying they need to be major, tell me what the **** constitutes major then? Xenoblade's budget was probably bigger then every Wii Sports, Fit, Music and Party combined, and yet people act like Xenoblade doesn't count as major. Which is funny when these same people say Pikmin was the last major new IP, when the original Pikmin was a low budget game that was very short, no different then most of the new IP's in the list I post that they say don't count under Iwata. Games like Xenoblade, The Last Story and the upcoming X are much risker then Pikmin ever was since the size of their games and budgets are much bigger, and yet people still act like Pikmin was the last time Nintendo took a risk.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: NWR_insanolord on April 05, 2013, 03:04:02 AM
I'm not sure why everyone's so down on Iwata and nostalgic for the days of Yamauchi when it's Yamauchi's policies that put us in this mess to begin with. The way he treated third parties is the reason they jumped ship, and while Iwata's done a lot to bring them back, he couldn't undo that damage. People talk of IPs, but Nintendo was never that concerned with creating new IPs regardless of who was in charge.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Stogi on April 05, 2013, 03:10:26 AM
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: broodwars on April 05, 2013, 03:19:52 AM
There are some 3rd party games on that list (most notably 2 out of the 3 Operation Rainfall games), which I consider an attempt to unnecessarily make your list more impressive than it actually is considering Nintendo didn't actually develop them. As for what people consider "major" IPs, my first thought would be "anything released on physical media, preferably with an actual marketing budget" (i.e. not digital-only games like HarmoKnight). Until Nintendo has more of a presence in the realm of digital games, I have a hard time calling anything they dump on their eShops "major titles", at least compared to the Shadow Complexes or Walking Deads of the competition's digital services.
As for the topic at hand, I can't say I'm fond of Iwata. Under his leadership, I feel like Nintendo's 1st party titles have largely declined. I have a very hard time now getting excited for one of them these days, because I know exactly what to expect (with some exceptions, of course). Perhaps it's an artifact of being exposed to so many other experiences on other platforms over the past generation, but so much of what Nintendo makes these days feels very "safe" and bland to me.
My problem with the people calling for his ouster, though, is simple: who would you have in his stead? I can't think of another notable person at Nintendo I'd rather have running the company than making games, and given Japan's business culture an outsider will never run that company. A lot of the problems many of us have with Nintendo wouldn't go away with someone new at the helm, as many of those problems can be traced back to the decline of the Japanese game industry in general (and many more to trends in the global game industry).
Nintendo of America, though, is a different story. IMO, Reggie's needed to go for a long time now, and unlike Nintendo corporate his successor could be drawn from outside the company (and thus bring new perspective and ideas). Perhaps a stronger NoA rejuvenated by fresh blood with a new vision and mission could bring Nintendo in general back in line.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: NWR_insanolord on April 05, 2013, 04:00:37 AM
Bill Trinen for NOA NCL President.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 05, 2013, 07:41:51 AM
I'm not sure why everyone's so down on Iwata and nostalgic for the days of Yamauchi when it's Yamauchi's policies that put us in this mess to begin with. The way he treated third parties is the reason they jumped ship, and while Iwata's done a lot to bring them back, he couldn't undo that damage. People talk of IPs, but Nintendo was never that concerned with creating new IPs regardless of who was in charge.
Seriously. Nintendo only made new IPs one after another because they had to. They didn't have Mario or Zelda so they made Mario and Zelda. Additionally, what is strange to me is people seem to want new IPs simply because they're new, ignoring the fact that "new" doesn't automatically make it "good" and "old" doesn't automatically mean you can't bring new ideas to it. Would Skyward Sword be a better game if Nintendo replaced all the Zelda references and you played as a female character? They can and are doing new things with old IPs (cue someone bringing up New Super Mario Bros.). Perhaps not every time, but people act like it never happens.
Honestly, I don't want the Yamauchi days back. His policies were ****. Iwata is doing a better job than people give him credit for. He could be doing some things better, but the difference is his competition. Yamauchi got away with bullying third parties because his competition was so weak. It wasn't until Sony came along that it became clear that his success relied so much on his competitors' failures. Not entirely, but he was completely out of touch with an evolving gaming culture.
Iwata is up against Sony and Microsoft, two companies who only seem as strong as they do if you ignore how much money they've lost to get where they are. The ships aren't sailing as smooth as they seem. People talk about Nintendo going third party while ignoring that Sony's and Microsoft's way of doing things is terribly unstable and many third parties have bit the dust siding with them. It's easy to pick apart Iwata's performance wearing rose colored glasses, but it's really not as simple as people are making it.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 05, 2013, 10:02:22 AM
I do have to agree that Iwata has a lot more stiff competition then Yamauchi did.
1. Smartphones. Mobile was Gameboy back in the day because it was really all you had. Now not so much. 2. Sony. PS2 was big boon and Sony can and will use a lost leading strategy to get a foot hold. In a ways its impressive how the PS3 has turned around from that train wreck of a beginning. 3. Microsoft. To be fair Yamauchi had to deal with them in his day as well but, not the console power house they are now. With gaming going back to its Western roots more a Western player is very powerful. Add in yet again the ability to just lose money on the devision to get a foothold its a really tough spot to be.
Amist all that competition throw in a Global economic crisis of Iwata's own to through into the mix. Bad relationship with 3rd parties he inherited. Social Revolution. It's not been an easy Presidency for Iwata in any stretch of the imagination.
I will admit they made some bad hardware decisions on the WiiU, non-standard USB ports and whatever is making the load times terrible. It will be interesting to see how it will work out. Though Nintendo doesn't need to be THE system you own. They need to be A system you own. Also botched the great potential of TVii and the remote function.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 05, 2013, 10:14:21 AM
What do you mean by "non-standard USB ports?" I thought they were standard, just 2.0 instead of 3.0. Were you referring to 3.0 being today's standard?
And I thought the load times were slow due the code lacked optimization. The April update is supposed to speed things up quite a bit.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Oblivion on April 05, 2013, 10:56:02 AM
2.0 is perfectly fine for the Wii U, but the load times come from what Adrock said.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 05, 2013, 11:39:56 AM
Um, Yeah Adrock and Oblivion they are not providing the same level of Power as a Standard USB 2.0 port. If they were you would NEVER need a Y Cable to provide power to drives that were meant to work off of 1 USB 2.0 port with no External Power. I'm sorry. Non-Standard Implementation.
I've seen the video of the "Sped Up" UI and I have to say if the CORE OS features are that slow to load STILL then its hardware choices. More then likely they really cheaped out on the onboard flash. My computer Literally loads from a completely dead state Windows 8 to Web Browser running faster then even the new menu transitions.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: KeyBilly on April 05, 2013, 11:44:00 AM
I like Iwata and he has an amazing background in video game production that helps guide his decisions. However, I have been a Nintendo fan long enough to know that he says whatever people want to hear. The GCN and Wii were supposed to have amazing online infrastructures. He said the same thing about Wii U, and I was surprised how many people were disappointed and surprised when they used it. Nintendo always says that they have "learned [their] lesson," but they just do what they want to and are unwilling to give up enough control to work with companies that could help them. Similarly, they always talk up how they will not make the same mistake with a lack of games after launch. There are many messages or themes that they create in their communications that are purely manipulative (normal people think graphics on Wii are the same as the 360, etc.).
Iwata is the primary voice of a major company, and like any other large business he promotes whatever message will provide a positive image, whether it is based in truth or not. I don't know if that qualifies as hubris or just a lack of morality in keeping with standard corporate practices.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Kairon on April 05, 2013, 11:45:53 AM
I have a difficult time imagining a better leader than Iwata to preserve the "Nintendo DNA" and lead the company through this dynamic and rapidly changing market. Nintendo is a very unique beast in the gaming world and corporate world, they are both conservative and innovative, and do things on principle for the long term while being perfectly willing to take dynamic risks in the heat of the moment. I think there are many ways that Nintendo, and Iwata himself, do not live up to the western preconception of what a tech company, an industry-leading company, or a CEO should be. That's probably why so often Iwata finds it necessary to apologize for not being the person everyone expects him to be. There's no other way to say it: he's isn't what we'd expect, and Nintendo doesn't fit the mold.
But it's sort of a non-apology too. Iwata isn't going to change that essential Nintendo-ness that under his command has made the company a philosophical dissenting "other" in our modern hyper-charged industry. He's sorry we don't like that, but he's not going to change his ways just to please us. Nor is Miyamoto.
This is the mindset that creates the Nintendo difference, and will keep the company zigging instead of zagging, playing to our hearts but never our expectations. They are intensely focused on preserving their ability to make the games and experiences they want to make, whether that be Wii Music or Zelda, and if that makes them play outside the rules that society thinks they need to live within, then Iwata is sorry, but definitely not repentant.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Evan_B on April 05, 2013, 12:28:34 PM
I believe that Nintendo's image hasn't really changed much under Iwata, in fact, I think it's matured into something a lot more respectable than it used to be. Sure, Nintendo used to have some pretty stellar RPG support, but post-SNES the company did take a turn for the worse- the N64 was a very selfish and off-putting move that dug a very deep hole for the company.
Now, I see Nintendo creating unique, accessible content that looks, feels, and plays like a toy- something to be picked up and shaken around without fear of breaking. The NES, SNES, N64, and even Gamecube reflected this same image- aesthetically pleasing, toylike machines that people HAVE FUN on. The Wii pushed that concept further and allowed a casual audience.
If anything, the "return to the core" is something I find a bit silly, but I also think that the Wii U is a fantastic piece of hardware that will excel once it has all of its kinks worked out within the launch year. It offers something uniquely "Nintendo" to its userbase and I think that's extremely respectable. It appeals to a large audience and it does so in a controlled manner- I think that kids are definitely an important part of video games and the Wii U allows them limited forum accessibility as well as internet access in addition to their games.
Now, as for these quotes, I can't say much. I wish Nintendo did learn from their mistakes, but I also know that they're an extremely business-savvy company, especially since they've been competing pretty intensely with more larger competitors. So I trust them, for now... but if I don't see the Wii U take a turn for the better post-2013, I'm going to be a bit concerned.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: broodwars on April 05, 2013, 12:34:16 PM
If anything, the "return to the core" is something I find a bit silly, but I also think that the Wii U is a fantastic piece of hardware that will excel once it has all of its kinks worked out within the launch year. It offers something uniquely "Nintendo" to its userbase and I think that's extremely respectable. It appeals to a large audience and it does so in a controlled manner...
I think the sales numbers would pretty thoroughly disprove that statement. :P:
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: marty on April 05, 2013, 12:47:34 PM
ad hominem arguments aside, Iwata is aware that the GCN, Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U have suffered from droughts (and so did the N64, for sure, not that I'm blaming Iwata for it). Yeah, Reggie is to blame for some of NOA's drought problems but, collectively, the droughts are a Nintendo problem. PERIOD. Nintendo posted its first loss ever to the tune of $500+ million for FY 2011 (with losses reported for the first half of 2012, too). That's not something caused by a few fanboys not getting every game they want or some huge, expensive gamble not paying off. Nintendo didn't post losses when the N64 and GCN, which combined didn't have the install base of the Wii, were quietly failing.
So why does Nintendo keep causing droughts? I felt like Nintendo abandoned the Wii after 2009 (2010 financials were weaker than 2009) right on the heels of the ultra successful NSMB Wii and Wii Sports Resort as well as the widespread adoption of WM+ (which ended up being virtually unused and unnecessary by every developer). It's debatable when the Wii support dried up but, considering the weak 3DS and Wii U launches, I can't see where Nintendo's spending their money.
Where I can see Nintendo spending their money seems like a bad idea --because Nintendo seems to love making mini-games. Mini-games are exactly the kind of thing smaller developers can churn out for very little money and release on smart-phones/tablets for free or $1. It's exactly the kind of thing Nintendo shouldn't be releasing for retail or using as a pack-in since the market is saturated with them--they're sales are incidental; they're not driving the market and they never have. The history of video-game sales shows that consumers treat the video game market as a distinctive service, not as an incidental purchase that they make to compliment other goods. The demand for more video-games has always driven games and hardware sales.
Didn't Sony's PSP/Smart-phone fail hard? (Didn't the N-Gage fail hard, Sony?) As long as dedicated consoles/handhelds have the most profitable games, they're not endangered--especially when you consider that the smartphone market has produced such little demand for actual games despite the ease of distribution/potential market size/ease of development. People might play games on their phone but what kind of market is there if people aren't buying anything?I don't know anyone spending even $20 a year on smartphone games--most everyone just seems to download a time-waster and never pay a cent for it. The smartphone market is all supply and no demand=no money=no interest from talent/investors=little in the way of good games that would cause a market demand to rise et cetera.
Nintendo has a pipeline problem. 3rd parties, for whatever reason, have shown that they aren't going to fix this problem for Nintendo (keeping in mind how bad 3rd party developers are doing). New hardware isn't fixing this problem. Nintendo isn't selling enough games to grow the market and they're not releasing enough games to keep their customers. Bad sales nor good sales have fixed this problem. It seemed like there were going to be changes made starting with the Wii but the problem persisted--it may have even gotten worse. Iwata isn't fixing this problem. I have to wonder: why not?
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: NWR_insanolord on April 05, 2013, 01:11:04 PM
Nintendo can't stop the droughts all by themselves. They don't have the resources to have enough teams working to fill an entire release schedule all on their own. The fact that they can even come close to sustaining a console all on their own is a testament to the quality of their software development, but without third party support the droughts are never going to go away completely. As I've said, Iwata's taken steps to try and encourage third party support, but Yamauchi poisoned that well so badly that there may not be a way to fully recover.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Kairon on April 05, 2013, 01:51:40 PM
I don't think it's fair to lay it all at Yamauchi's feet. Third parties have a plethora of platforms to choose from, and Nintendo is just one choice out of many. Add that to Nintendo's sense of individuality (or non-conformity, if you will), and the gaming landscape is simply different now from when Yamauchi ran things.
But as for droughts in general, it's been a problem for Nintendo ever since the N64, and maybe ever since the GameBoy too. I think it's got a lot to do not just with Nintendo's quirkiness, but also with a philosophy that supports game delays in the name of quality, thereby implicitly prioritizing a game's final quality over a game's fitting into a schedule.
That may be difficult for Nintendo if they were trying to dominate the entire market and start a new Nintendo-Ruled Dynasty, but I think I benefit more as a consumer and fan if they prioritize making quality games for me to play.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: marty on April 05, 2013, 02:15:59 PM
Nintendo can't stop the droughts all by themselves. They don't have the resources to have enough teams working to fill an entire release schedule all on their own. The fact that they can even come close to sustaining a console all on their own is a testament to the quality of their software development, but without third party support the droughts are never going to go away completely. As I've said, Iwata's taken steps to try and encourage third party support, but Yamauchi poisoned that well so badly that there may not be a way to fully recover.
3rd party support, across the board on all systems, is a mess. Developers and publishers are in for a lot of pain if they keep operating how they have been. Graphics aren't profitable, they're a huge expenditure. Middleware is a crutch--worse, it's a trojan horse that allows inexperienced developers the facade of talent without forcing them to develop the skills necessary to display that talent. A lot of the uniqueness of individual developers is gone leading to all games starting to feel the same--especially considering the way separate features are adopted and absorbed--rpg elements, open world, regenerating health, puzzles, quicktime events, collectables--regardless of how well they serve the game. The modern "AAA" game is such an unfocused mess--of course sales are suffering year after year.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 05, 2013, 05:12:20 PM
I'm not sure why everyone's so down on Iwata and nostalgic for the days of Yamauchi when it's Yamauchi's policies that put us in this mess to begin with. The way he treated third parties is the reason they jumped ship, and while Iwata's done a lot to bring them back, he couldn't undo that damage. People talk of IPs, but Nintendo was never that concerned with creating new IPs regardless of who was in charge.
I don't particularly like Yamauchi, but I just like Nintendo's output from when he was in charge far more than that of Iwata's reign. Nintendo's best games came out when Yamauchi was in charge. Maybe that's just a coincidence because that was when Nintendo was new to videogames so all their ideas were fresh. I see Yamauchi-era Nintendo as much more creative as the cookie-cutter sequels become more prominent under Iwata. But then I used to think Miyamoto was the man and I've since found out that he INSISTS that every Mario game has the same tired plot. All the years he came across like a creative genius might have just been him refining his formula until he could find something to milk. Or maybe he just became a conservative boardroom exec as he got older.
The casual focus is something I really don't like and that started under Iwata. What I really don't like about it is the loosey-goosey gimmick controls. Yamauchi-era Nintendo had incredibly TIGHT controls. The fact that the controls would be intuitive and responsive was one of the key things I associated with Nintendo. Other companies would make games with **** controls but not Nintendo. Now I associate Nintendo specifically with shitty controls. The idea of designing the controller for marketing purposes over functionality started with Iwata (except for R.O.B., but that wasn't the standard controller). The concept of having glorified last gen specs for a console is also an Iwata-era "innovation". All the previous Nintendo consoles were had cutting edge hardware for their time (even without CDs) and were a clear step up from the previous gen.
Yamauchi was a notorious hard ass and that attitude really turned third parties against Nintendo and I cannot defend that and the N64 cartridge thing was embarassingly stupid. The Virtual Boy was also under Yamauchi's watch.
Here are the things I associated as a key part of Nintendo's identity when I became a fan during the Yamauchi era: 1. Nintendo does not make poor games. Every game has high QA and strives to be great. Controls are tight and responsive, bugs are rare, graphics and presentation are impressive by the current standards of console games at the time of release. 2. Nintendo does not rest on its laurels. Each game strives to be essential. Sequels expand on what was already there and introduce new ideas. Creativity is highly valued as Nintendo games are ambitious and try to introduce new ideas and concepts and push the industry forward. Nintendo games lead, not follow.
Essentially you bought damn near every Nintendo game because you knew Nintendo was working hard to make sure it was awesome and that it fucking mattered and set the new standard for its genre. Like a new Mario platformer was going to be the new standard that all other platformers would be compared to. Now with stuff like Lost Levels and most of their Game Boy stuff and all the Pokemon spinoffs this wasn't quite followed 100% but typically Nintendo appeared to follow this methodology.
In the Iwata era I don't get this. We'll get generic sequels that are still enjoyable but nothing essential. We'll have wonky controls and simplistic and borderline lazy graphics and presentation (hell the HARDWARE doesn't even allow for this aspect to even follow industry standards). The casual games are intentionally unambitious. Some outright JUNK like DK Barrel Blast has gotten released under Iwata's watch.
Maybe it's just a luck of the timing of Yamauchi's reign landing when Nintendo pretty much had to be more creative. But then the NSMB games are following a blue print from Super Mario World in 1991. Oddly enough it was not until Iwata took over that Nintendo started to make generic 2D Mario games on a regular basis. They had all these years where they could have done it but instead gave us Yoshi's Island and moved Mario into 3D with Super Mario 64. NSMB came out 15 years after SMW. If they were always planning on milking the formula once they perfected it, why wouldn't they have started on the SNES? Every other company would have rushed to get OoT Part 2 out but Nintendo instead made Majora's Mask, which has this incredibly creative three day time cycle. Hell, they re-used models from OoT to get this game out on time but still decided to be creative. They could have just made a quick 'n' dirty follow-up to OoT and it would have sold like gangbusters but they didn't.
I remember when Super Mario Sunshine came out and it wasn't that great because the waterpack felt forced. Why did they bother to force something into Mario that didn't seem to fit when they could have easily made Super Mario 64 2 with improved graphics? But this game was greenlit under Yamauchi (the Japanese release came out about a month after Iwata took over). It clearly makes an attempt to introduce new concepts to 3D Mario platforming. It doesn't succeed but the intention is there. Same with Wind Waker which also started development under Yamauchi. The ocean, the wind, the cartoon graphics - all attempts to do something unique with Zelda instead of just more of the same. I felt that's actually a trend on the Cube as Nintendo tried to be creative with their sequels and often struggled to do so (maybe that's why they've become more cookie cutter; it's harder to come up with new ideas). Anyway, the only reason I can see them doing that is if it was part of their company's culture. In Yamauchi-era Nintendo you do NOT make some cookie cutter sequel, you come up with some new ideas to incorporate into the formula. Iwata-era is all "hey how about another side scrolling Mario game and can we recycle Wuhu Island into that Pilotwings game and hand off some of our IPs to some nondescript third party?"
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Caterkiller on April 05, 2013, 05:15:41 PM
Ok so a tweet that was posted on Nepgaf talked about how more and more reports are coming in that Nintendo is giving away free Wii U development kits to developers. It's unclear if these are indie guys or just any 3rd party. What ever the case that certainly seems like a step in the right direction.
(http://i.imgur.com/uxSSGcU.png)
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 05, 2013, 06:08:25 PM
indies likely
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Louieturkey on April 08, 2013, 02:45:27 PM
I could see it where they give away the first one free. If they want more, they can pay for the additional dev kits if they are needed.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: alegoicoe on April 09, 2013, 02:09:48 AM
I found myself agreeing a lot with this article, although I love the guy is a time to recognize that his time is over and replaced by new blood ready to tackle a ruthless market in route to destruction.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 09, 2013, 09:41:11 AM
I'm curious what all the Iwata-should-step-down and Reggie-should-be-fired people think their replacements should do rectify Nintendo's woes. I haven't heard any good ones. People suggest "Get better third party support" except that's an instruction, not a strategy. Nintendo has made several plays to turn that ship around when it comes to third parties. Gamecube from a hardware standpoint was the anti-N64, a disc based, easy-to-develop-for console. Wii was the anti-Playstation, a console with an entirely different philosophy. If third parties didn't want to support a console that went head to head with Sony (because they can just support Sony and be content), maybe they'll support a console very different from it.
See, Nintendo has tried; their strategies just haven't worked. They weren't bad ideas, but Nintendo, unfortunately got stonewalled anyway. I don't think that's necessarily Iwata's fault. Would someone else have been able to do better? Maybe, maybe not. I'm leaning toward "not" because if you look back, Nintendo's problems go all the way back to the NES and SNES. They got support begrudgingly. Nintendo was building bad will generation after generation and it's hard to come back from that.
Since Nintendo doesn't have a time machine to prevent those rifts with third parties before they happen, it seems like their main issue right now is the lack of their own software because it's rather difficult to make money without things to sell. That is partially Iwata's fault, but I'd rather Nintendo continue withholding games until they're finished than trotting out poorly made garbage just to have something out. That's a possible reality with someone else in charge. That's even shorter sighted thinking than we're used to from Nintendo. Replacing Iwata doesn't sound like such a fantastic idea in that case, does it?
When Iwata succeeded Yamauchi, it was planned and they had a strategy in place which, again, didn't work, but at least the transition was smooth. If someone replaced Iwata, they're "stuck" with the Wii U for the next few years. It's quite a bit more complicated for a hardware company like Nintendo. "Hi, I'm new. Make games for us, plz?"
Ultimately, I think Nintendo will be okay after this rocky start once their games start coming out. Listening to third parties' faulty reasoning for not supporting Wii U, they weren't going to support Wii U with or without better hardware, so I'm content with what Nintendo released because $350 was pushing it, any more would have been an immediate no sale.
Still, that only takes care of one of Nintendo's issues and the others need to be addressed. Restructuring their hardware divisions was an important and underrated move as well as a good start. It's a shame how far apart Nintendo's consoles and handhelds are and have been. I'm surprised this took so long. There have been minor efforts to get them to work together, but really, they barely connect and that was wasteful.
As far as third parties go, Nintendo should spend the next 2-3 years interviewing and reinterviewing every publisher, developer, and middleware provider separately (which is important because they'll all give different answers) and ask what they want from the next handheld and console for say, a 2016 launch for both. That cuts the Wii U lifespan a bit shorter than their other consoles, but that may be for the best and it's not without precedent. Microsoft replaced Xbox in four years and Nintendo themselves effectively replaced GBA in three and a half. Nintendo won't fill every request, but they should get the basics right as many will ask for the same things. This is something Iwata can do, but if someone else is tasked with it, they really should start now.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: NWR_insanolord on April 09, 2013, 09:52:52 AM
I'm not sure what more Nintendo could do. They listened to third parties in the design of the hardware, made it cheaper and easier to develop for and gave third parties a greater share of the revenue. Short of outright buying support, I don't think they can do much more than they already have. No matter who's in charge, unless they have some kind of mind control powers it doesn't seem like it'll make much difference.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Oblivion on April 09, 2013, 10:02:40 AM
According to the mindless commenters on various gaming websites, they think Nintendo should have Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc. at launch, and until then, the Wii U is a piece of ****. It's like they don't even care about third party games on the system.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: alegoicoe on April 09, 2013, 01:56:14 PM
I don't think it's fair to lay it all at Yamauchi's feet. Third parties have a plethora of platforms to choose from, and Nintendo is just one choice out of many. Add that to Nintendo's sense of individuality (or non-conformity, if you will), and the gaming landscape is simply different now from when Yamauchi ran things.
But as for droughts in general, it's been a problem for Nintendo ever since the N64, and maybe ever since the GameBoy too. I think it's got a lot to do not just with Nintendo's quirkiness, but also with a philosophy that supports game delays in the name of quality, thereby implicitly prioritizing a game's final quality over a game's fitting into a schedule.
That may be difficult for Nintendo if they were trying to dominate the entire market and start a new Nintendo-Ruled Dynasty, but I think I benefit more as a consumer and fan if they prioritize making quality games for me to play.
And having to dust off the WiiU every so often, come on. Nintendo needs to get their **** together if they want to improve the sales of the system. I don't mean get in bed with every Western developer, but surely try to make more effort with third parties and unload some that Wii cash. Why the hell didn't Tomb Raider make it to WiiU, who knows, but there is no excuse why that game is absent from the WiiU game library as well as Bioshock Infinite to give another example. Nintendo needs to start making some deals pronto, especially with Japanese third parties, for example, Bring Metal Gear 5 to Wii U damn it!!!
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 09, 2013, 02:38:33 PM
Quote
I'm curious what all the Iwata-should-step-down and Reggie-should-be-fired people think their replacements should do rectify Nintendo's woes.
Well I think Nintendo has been too isolated from the rest of the industry and as a result they make incredibly dumb mistakes that anyone with the slightest familiarity with the general videogame industry spots a mile away. They're consistently behind the standards of online play and internal storage and really obvious stuff like that. They don't even have accounts and tie stuff into the physical hardware. Who the hell releases a product like that in 2012? Nintendo either is so isolated that they had no idea there was a different way to do it or their corporate culture is such that if someone spoke up about it, he was ignored. Iwata's successor should change that. Not everything has to be re-invented in some Nintendo way. That approach is good for creating innovative gameplay ideas but it is not appropriate for much beyond that. No one wants some new approach to saving games or connecting online with their friends.
I would also want Iwata's successor to restore what I consider essential parts of Nintendo's character that made them great in the first place. First of all controls need to be tight and responsive and designed for what works best for the game, not what will market well to casuals. They can keep gimmicks but traditional controls should also be available as a standard (not some extra optional controller) and traditional control options should be available when applicable. The top priority should be to make a great game and great games don't have wonky controls as the only option.
Second of all Nintendo games should strive to be essential, innovative and ambitious. Cookie cutter sequels do not cut it and even from a sales perspective, you don't sell consoles on the same gameplay as last gen. No one HAS to buy a Wii U for NSMB U's gameplay experience because it is not distinct enough from similar games on the DS and Wii. Nintendo should do it first or do it best. Anything else is just a filler title and that development can be done doing something else. I think the Nintendo name is what should be the truly valuable brand instead of Mario or Zelda or Pokemon. That way Nintendo can get people to pay attention to damn near anything they release and can slowly replace any existing IP that the market loses interest in.
I think the casual market was a fad and should be focused on less in favour of the market that can be counted on to continue to buy games on a regular basis. At the very least Iwata's successor should understand that "everyone" games are not for everyone and that teenagers and young adults have little interest in playing the same games as children and middle-aged adults. The library can be for "everyone" in that it covers multiple genres and demographics. The individual games cannot be and attempts to make such games just alienate the demographics outside the lowest common denominator. The Wii alienated a section of the customerbase because of its perceived casual focus. Iwata's successor should be well aware of this. Nintendo shouldn't be seen as making kids games or casual games but just videogames PERIOD. Only then will they be the "everyone" company they want to be.
In regards to third party support, I think the Wii U as a console is incapable of attracting support because the hardware is not designed to be comparable to the next generation and its Wii style branding associates it with the Wii which was not popular with third parties. Nintendo has to offer the same type of hardware as the rest of the industry because multiplatform development is what third parties want. The Wii U is comparable to the OLD consoles that are about to be replaced so it does not work for multiplatform development. If Nintendo wants to have unique functionality to set it apart, that's not a bad idea but it need to be an "AND" feature, not an "OR". The Wii gave devs motion control INSTEAD of better hardware and no one wanted that, partially because it didn't allow for multiplatform development and partially because it pigeonholes development towards only certain types of games. The console should be a big sandbox for devs to play around in, including ways Nintendo did not necessarily plan to do themselves.
I don't know what to do with the Wii U though, because I don't think it can be fixed and it is not future proof at all. Iwata's successor can accomplish little if handcuffed by a the Wii U. So he'll either have to do what he can to hang on for this generation or he should kill the damn thing off ASAP (with a small userbase it will piss off less customers) and get something out around a similar time frame as the Xbox 360 successor that will actually compare to the other consoles in terms of hardware power. If Nintendo could get away with a blatant DOA ripoff like the DSi, maybe they can get away with a two year lifespanned Wii U (or maybe three years for a 2015 release). The Wii U's only chance is if the market rejects the next generation and forces Sony and MS to stick with the PS3 and Xbox 360. As hardware improves, development takes longer and Nintendo cannot create games at a quick enough pace to fill a healthy release schedule. The market will probably dictate if they can make it through the Wii U years of if the console gets replaced early.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: alegoicoe on April 09, 2013, 02:55:31 PM
I'm curious what all the Iwata-should-step-down and Reggie-should-be-fired people think their replacements should do rectify Nintendo's woes.
I don't know what to do with the Wii U though, because I don't think it can be fixed and it is not future proof at all. Iwata's successor can accomplish little if handcuffed by a the Wii U. So he'll either have to do what he can to hang on for this generation or he should kill the damn thing off ASAP (with a small userbase it will piss off less customers) and get something out around a similar time frame as the Xbox 360 successor that will actually compare to the other consoles in terms of hardware power. If Nintendo could get away with a blatant DOA ripoff like the DSi, maybe they can get away with a two year lifespanned Wii U (or maybe three years for a 2015 release). The Wii U's only chance is if the market rejects the next generation and forces Sony and MS to stick with the PS3 and Xbox 360. As hardware improves, development takes longer and Nintendo cannot create games at a quick enough pace to fill a healthy release schedule. The market will probably dictate if they can make it through the Wii U years of if the console gets replaced early.
I think Nintendo can ride out the WiiU if things turn sour, I mean there is still two years before we really start seeing the power of the so called next generation, so Nintendo at least has some time to impress at least with their own games. I don't think Wii U will have as bad as Gamecube did, but unless Nintendo takes a proactive approach and start moving the right pieces its gonna be close.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 09, 2013, 03:05:58 PM
1. Did anyone ever wonder if third parties are merely tolerating Sony and Microsoft like they tolerated Nintendo in the 1980s and 1990s? What if they're playing nice and keeping their mouths shut because they don't have real alternatives? Both of them have some really stupid policies as well...
2. I wish your Internet privileges were revoked for a week every time you fail to acknowledge that the GamePad is a standard, traditional controller with a screen on it or claim it's this dumb-dumb marketing tool for ignorant casual gamer folk. It's literally a Pro Controller with extra functionality.
3. Nintendo is guilty of cookie cutter sequels far less frequently than other companies. It's sad and unfair that Nintendo is given **** for this, but other companies are not. God of War is essentially the same game six times over. This is coming from a God of War fan. If every other company gets to release safe sequels, Nintendo deserves that right as well especially since they do make an effort to innovate more often.
4. People used to say video games were a fad. It would have stayed that way if not for Nintendo. Funny how people forget that when they throw that word "fad" around.
5. You keeping saying that about the hardware, but kindly explain the GameCube which was better hardware than PS2. Nintendo already tried competing on hardware and it didn't work. PS3/360 are NOT getting replaced for another couple of years because their successors are apparently launching at $500. **** that noise. Blaming the hardware is a total cop out. Great games can still be made on PS3/360 and Wii U is more capable. Anyone claiming otherwise is full of ****.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: broodwars on April 09, 2013, 03:30:13 PM
1. Did anyone ever wonder if third parties are merely tolerating Sony and Microsoft like they tolerated Nintendo in the 1980s and 1990s? What if they're playing nice and keeping their mouths shut because they don't have real alternatives? Both of them have some really stupid policies as well...
If that was the case, you'd have heard about it by now. The Indie developers in particular haven't been the least bit shy about dishing out the dirt on Microsoft's bad policies, while meanwhile we've heard little but praise about Sony's. Sony's truly bad policies were in the PS1 days, just as Nintendo's were in the NES/SNES days.
2. I wish your Internet privileges were revoked for a week every time you fail to acknowledge that the GamePad is a standard, traditional controller with a screen on it or claim it's this dumb-dumb marketing tool for ignorant casual gamer folk. It's literally a Pro Controller with extra functionality.
Well, IMO the sheer bulk of the GamePad along with the non-standard placement of the twin sticks makes the GamePad not a standard, traditional controller, "just with a screen on it." It's just not a controller I want to use, especially since you can't turn that screen off while the controller's in use. The Pro Controller is better through the removal of the screen and the subsequent smaller size/mass of the controller, but the placement of the sticks has always bothered me.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: TJ Spyke on April 09, 2013, 03:33:28 PM
Sony's policies may have gotten better, but their bad reputation comes from making hardware that is overly-difficult to develop for.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Kairon on April 09, 2013, 03:41:51 PM
In regards to third party support, I think the Wii U as a console is incapable of attracting support because the hardware is not designed to be comparable to the next generation and its Wii style branding associates it with the Wii which was not popular with third parties. Nintendo has to offer the same type of hardware as the rest of the industry because multiplatform development is what third parties want. The Wii U is comparable to the OLD consoles that are about to be replaced so it does not work for multiplatform development. If Nintendo wants to have unique functionality to set it apart, that's not a bad idea but it need to be an "AND" feature, not an "OR". The Wii gave devs motion control INSTEAD of better hardware and no one wanted that, partially because it didn't allow for multiplatform development and partially because it pigeonholes development towards only certain types of games. The console should be a big sandbox for devs to play around in, including ways Nintendo did not necessarily plan to do themselves.
I don't think creating bleeding edge, future-proof hardware at high cost to all parties involved (consumers, developers, and platform holders) is at all a part of Nintendo's prevailing philosophy/culture. See: Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_with_Withered_Technology).
I'm not saying you don't have a point, but I think you're talking about changing one of the core tenets of what's made Nintendo "Nintendo."
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 09, 2013, 03:44:51 PM
Well, IMO the sheer bulk of the GamePad along with the non-standard placement of the twin sticks makes the GamePad not a standard, traditional controller, "just with a screen on it." It's just not a controller I want to use, especially since you can't turn that screen off while the controller's in use. The Pro Controller is better through the removal of the screen and the subsequent smaller size/mass of the controller, but the placement of the sticks has always bothered me.
Bulk of the GamePad? Consider hitting the gym?
I meant, standard, traditional controller in that it has all the buttons and analog sticks, things the Wii Remote even with the Nunchuk didn't have. If you're problem is the analog stick placement itself, either Microsoft or Sony is doing it wrong because their analog stick placement are different... unless you're only referring to the right analog stick which would be ridiculous.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: TJ Spyke on April 09, 2013, 03:52:25 PM
brood, you think the GamePad is heavy? I finally got to hold it at a Best Buy, and I was shocked at how light it is, and it fit my hands fine.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 09, 2013, 03:58:20 PM
brood, you think the GamePad is heavy? I finally got to hold it at a Best Buy, and I was shocked at how light it is, and it fit my hands fine.
He is. We've had this discussion on NFR before. What it really amounts to is somehow Broodwars and I hold are controllers different then each other. This seems to directly affect whether you think the Gamepad is heavy or not among other things.
I've logged well over 80 hours with the the Gamepad this month time period alone, the PS3 controller the months before, and the PS3 controller with the analog sticks like the 360 controller. I still notice the PS3 placement as feeling a little different then the whole Gamepad. Which to be honest I thought the right stick placement feel different in a heavy camera tweak game but it doesn't for me. Though I do worry about accidentally twisting the GamePad in Half like last night when I was frustrated about being referred to yet another doctor and I got my first Monster Hunter hard lock in the middle of a Goldenbeard Ceadus.
Not heavy: "bulky." It has a large center of mass and a frame that's WAY too big, which makes it difficult to hold and access all buttons and triggers. I have to completely reorient my hands to use the L and R or LZ and RZ trigger sets. That is not a problem on the Pro Controller.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 09, 2013, 04:37:32 PM
So the Gamepads is officially: "It is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and weighs approximately 1.1 pounds (500 g)."(http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/features/tech-specs/ (http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/features/tech-specs/))
Dual Shock 3 from what I'm looking through is 210 Grams. 360 Controller is 300 grams iPhone 5 112 grams iPad Mini 308 grams iPad 652 grams
So in the end the controller is heavier then the competition but lighter then an iPad.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 09, 2013, 06:06:08 PM
I see the controller as gimmicky in the sense that Nintendo is trying to sell a console with glorified last gen specs on the controller, which is the same approach as the Wii. This puts tremendous pressure on the Gamepad to deliver and I don't think it's up to it. Shingi hit the nail on the head in that the Wii U appears to be designed to compete against the current consoles that are due to start getting replaced this year. Nintendo is asking me to take the Gamepad INSTEAD of next gen hardware.
And this idea of Nintendo using old ass hardware being a core ethos of them is complete revisionist history. The Wii was the FIRST console they ever released that did have cutting edge hardware upon release. When the NES came out console hardware up to that point was like the Atari 2600 and the Colecovision. The NES runs circles around those things. The SNES, N64 were arguably the most powerful console ever made upon release and the Cube was only beaten slightly by the Xbox's week earlier release (and clearly Nintendo didn't aim for that; they intended on being better than the PS2). The Wii is the oddball weirdo that started a new trend.
I also don't believe for a second that the Gamecube losing to the PS2 "proved" that Nintendo could not beat Sony with comparable hardware. No one even considered such an idea until Nintendo filled their heads with that crap. The Gamecube lost because it made no effort whatsoever to demonstrate that Nintendo learned from the mistakes of the N64. Nintendo played right into the negative image that their detractors had of them. To me the whole thing was Nintendo showing up for the race with their shoelaces tied together and then acting like the race was hopeless from the beginning. Nintendo's effort with the Cube was incredibly half-assed and lazy and I would not consider the end result as a true benchmark of how things would go if Nintendo truly put in a full competent effort. They say "well we tried and it was hopeless" because that denies responsiblility and means they don't have to improve or fix things. And they'll have some spin if the Wii U underperforms as well. Hell the Wii U isn't selling being "people don't get the Gamepad" (ie: customer's fault) not because of anything that's Nintendo's responsibility.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 09, 2013, 10:34:12 PM
1. If you insist on paying $500 to "replace" a console you already own that's still getting most, if not all, of the major games, that's your own damn problem.
2. Nintendo never used cutting edge technology and that's not revisionist history. For example, Nintendo released a non-color Gameboy in a time when color LCD screens were available. In consoles, there was always better hardware available (e.g. arcades). The Wii is the odd duck because it was the first time Nintendo did not do a significant spec bump, but that entire generation was weird. While Nintendo basically repurposed the Gamecube's hardware, Sony and Microsoft leapfrogged where consoles probably should have been spec-wise and that's why PS3/360 were so expensive while Sony and Microsoft ate hundreds in losses per unit. Wii certainly could have stood to be more powerful, but there was no way Nintendo could have planned to compete there at an HD level without expecting to take massive losses. Yes, in hindsight, Nintendo may have gotten away with matching PS3/360 in specs due to Wii becoming a pop culture phenomenon, but no one saw that coming. Transitioning from the last place GameCube, it's really not that difficult to see why Nintendo wouldn't be eager to take major losses per unit.
3. You used the word "proved" not me. I said Nintendo tried competing on specs and it didn't work. If something didn't work, why the hell would they try that again? And Nintendo isn't up against Atari or Sega like generations past. They're up against companies much larger than them with revenue streams other than videogames. Sony has taken such a beating in losses, I'm surprised they're still in it. You demand better hardware, but look at the cost of the technology you want. To put it in perspective, Wii U is selling at a loss with the hardware it has and it's not the GamePad driving the cost up. What Wii U is selling at is just what it costs to have hardware that powerful in today's market. Sony and Microsoft are going to take losses again on hardware that will be outmatched by PCs in a matter of months. If Nintendo followed suit, how do you expect them to shoulder that financial burden?
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 09, 2013, 10:50:08 PM
I see the controller as gimmicky in the sense that Nintendo is trying to sell a console with glorified last gen specs on the controller,
you mean like sony is trying to sell the ps4 on glorified cellphone hardware with a share button and the cloud
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Nintendo is asking me to take the Gamepad INSTEAD of next gen hardware.
tell me something... WHAT IS NEXT GEN HARDWARE... because... (http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTIBiUMFguJC0nDY-dShBfur-omhhMWx0KINc5WKVWSvTErlKBRqIme_g)
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Soren on April 09, 2013, 11:32:37 PM
I think it's disingenuous to say the Wii U's hardware isn't next Gen just because it might not reach a graphical plateau that may or may not occur with PS4/Durango. While the folks at Gaf haven't fully figured out what the Wii U's gpu is made of, we know there are certain things it can do that current Gen systems can't. Even the experts at chipworks acknowledge that it's an impressive piece of hardware.
But yeah, because it's all about 'Teh Graficsz' we have to jump to conclusions on a machine that is barely half a year old and has yet to see games that use it for its full potential. And we have talks about replacing Iwata without having a clear picture of what to do next.
You used the word "proved" not me. I said Nintendo tried competing on specs and it didn't work. If something didn't work, why the hell would they try that again?
If you fucked a bunch of stuff up in your attempt and it didn't work, why not try again? Your screw up invalidated the attempt. You have no idea if another attempt would fail. Do you use this logic in decisions in your own life? If you try something and it fails and you know that you flubbed this or that do you write off the whole thing and declare it hopeless or do you accept responsibility for the failure and try to do better next time? Nintendo's reaction to the Gamecube seemed to be "Boo hoo, we lost. I guess the whole thing is futile!" which is a good way to deny fault. "I didn't fail, the whole situation was rigged against me." The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting different results, but Nintendo wasn't going to do the exact same thing unless they were complete idiots. They were to learn what they screwed up on the Cube and avoid making the same mistakes again and use that knowledge and experience to be better at avoiding new mistakes. Nintendo had never launched a console from a weak position prior to the Gamecube and should have learned that they could not take the same approach to it that one would from a position of strength. They could have done it but either didn't want to admit fault or are too blind to see their mistakes so they essentially gave up and tried to target a new market.
And while Nintendo wasn't shoving Amiga hardware into the NES or anything like that, they were releasing cutting edge technology BY CONSOLES STANDARDS prior to the Wii. They never held back on a console in any way that the rest of the industry wasn't also doing until the Wii. The Wii is the break from tradition. Nintendo never had any tradition of releasing consoles that were effectively a whole generation behind the other consoles it was competing against. That's a relatively new thing. And that's not fighting with specs that's just following the conventions of the industry. Like the NES successor had to compete with the Genesis and PC-Engine so it also was 16 bit and had comparable graphics and sound. A Wii equivalent of the time would have been a slighty spiffed up NES with a gimmick controller.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 10, 2013, 01:45:53 PM
And while Nintendo wasn't shoving Amiga hardware into the NES or anything like that, they were releasing cutting edge technology BY CONSOLES STANDARDS prior to the Wii. They never held back on a console in any way that the rest of the industry wasn't also doing until the Wii. The Wii is the break from tradition. Nintendo never had any tradition of releasing consoles that were effectively a whole generation behind the other consoles it was competing against. That's a relatively new thing. And that's not fighting with specs that's just following the conventions of the industry. Like the NES successor had to compete with the Genesis and PC-Engine so it also was 16 bit and had comparable graphics and sound. A Wii equivalent of the time would have been a slighty spiffed up NES with a gimmick controller.
As Adrock already said, in previous gens the competition never jumped as high as Microsoft and Sony did last gen. The gap in power between the PS2 and PS3 would have been like Sega going from the Master System straight to the Saturn. That is what Microsoft and Sony both did last gen. This whole industry standard bullshit you keep spouting has to stop because this is a whole different industry then what it was years ago.
Once again, the power of the 360 and PS3 ended up losing both companies billions of dollars their first few years because of how expensive the systems were to produce. The Gamecube which was Nintendo's worst selling system at 22 million, still made Nintendo money. In comparison, when the PS3 and 360 had userbases of 20 million both systems were still billions in the hole.
Seriously, it's been over 6 years now and you still don't seem to understand. If Nintendo had released a system as powerful as the 360/PS3 and it only sold as well as the Gamecube or even worse, Nintendo would have lost billions of dollars because of how expensive such a machine would have been to make. Yes the Wii ended up being popular enough that Nintendo could have taken such a risk, but nobody back in 2005 had any idea such a thing was going to happen. To still complain about how the Wii should have been as powerful as the 360/PS3 is to basically complain that Nintendo should have also made a Time Machine as well because that's the only way they could have known how popular the system would have become.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Stogi on April 10, 2013, 05:01:42 PM
The reason the wii was so popular was its controller first and its price second. If it had been an HD system and cost 350-400 bucks I truly doubt it would have been as successful (although the shortages clearly identified how much a few people where willing to pay).
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 10, 2013, 05:12:16 PM
If you try something and it fails and you know that you flubbed this or that do you write off the whole thing and declare it hopeless or do you accept responsibility for the failure and try to do better next time?
Are you really incapable of seeing this any other way?
Nintendo has beaten and has been beaten by competitors with better specs in the handheld and home console space. However, nothing hurt Nintendo more than their own bad reputation. All of the things Nintendo "flubbed up" were in addition to being dicks to everyone for over a decade. The specs of Nintendo's machines never saved nor condemned them (though I'm sure you'll claim that specs condemned Wii). You seem to be coming from the school of thought that if the specs don't matter either way, they might as well have amazing specs, but THAT is flawed thinking. You demand high-end hardware, but without the responsibility of having to pay for it. You want Nintendo to shoulder that burden which is a wholly unrealistic expectation to have from any company let alone one whose entire philosophy on hardware is "Lateral thinking with withered technology."
Nintendo was able to compete on specs when their competitors weren't willing or able to absorb massive losses. You can keep ignoring how important that is to this discussion, but it's not going away just because you won't acknowledge it. The only way Nintendo could have competed hardware-wise was to follow suit and lose billions. Not really worth it, not even to consumers in the long run because that could have crippled Nintendo which is only a video game company.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 11, 2013, 01:47:40 PM
If Sony and MS went so high up with their specs then what would a more conventional upgrade have been? I ask this legitimately. The Wii seemed no different from the PS2/Cube/Xbox gen except for its controller. PS360 games look noticeably different from the games of the generation before them. You can say "this couldn't have been done on the previous gen". What is the hardware upgrade that should have been done by the entire industry?
Nintendo basically sold me Gamecube games with waggle control and called it a new console. The rumour is that the original plan was for motion control to be a peripheral for the Gamecube but Nintendo instead decided to make it a whole new system to start fresh as the Cube was seen as a lost cause. You can't say we plateaued and can't go any further because we did and the results were noticeable. If Sony or MS did a mere Wii-level upgrade no one would have felt their new systems had any value at all as they would have been too similar to the previous gen.
If you took away the controller, who would have cared about the Wii? On a purely hardware stance the system does not present itself as a noticeable improvement over the Gamecube. That's just weird. You figure Nintendo could have at least made something that was a clear step up from the Gamecube, even if it didn't match the Xbox 360 or PS3. The Wii U doesn't look like it will stack up to the new consoles but it presents a clear step up from the Wii hardware wise. It isn't like they just relied entirely on the Gamepad to establish it as different from its predecessor. There is a clear hardware boost.
That's why I consider it an exception, because they didn't present any real hardware improvement over the console's predecessor or at least not enough one to make it a selling point - and that was a selling point for every other Nintendo console prior to that.
Even if you feel Nintendo couldn't afford to match the other guys, that has nothing to do with the Gamecube. The Gamecube didn't fail because Nintendo couldn't compete with conventional specs, particularly since they still made a profit on it so it wasn't some spending race like you suggest this last generation would have been.
All I expect is that Nintendo offer something comparible to the standard console conventions of the time. If they're using CDs, you use CDs. If everyone is going online, you go online. If they set a certain benchmark for hardware specs, you meet it. Buying any videogame console should not feel to the consumer like he is making some major trade-of or is missing out on what everyone else is getting. Besides, with an even playing field first party titles make the big difference and Nintendo is the best at that. Ironically this plays into their strengths but they instead do some trade-of that costs them third party support and then it becomes first party vs. third party.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 11, 2013, 03:36:20 PM
If Sony and MS went so high up with their specs then what would a more conventional upgrade have been? I ask this legitimately. The Wii seemed no different from the PS2/Cube/Xbox gen except for its controller. PS360 games look noticeably different from the games of the generation before them. You can say "this couldn't have been done on the previous gen". What is the hardware upgrade that should have been done by the entire industry?
Nintendo basically sold me Gamecube games with waggle control and called it a new console. The rumour is that the original plan was for motion control to be a peripheral for the Gamecube but Nintendo instead decided to make it a whole new system to start fresh as the Cube was seen as a lost cause. You can't say we plateaued and can't go any further because we did and the results were noticeable. If Sony or MS did a mere Wii-level upgrade no one would have felt their new systems had any value at all as they would have been too similar to the previous gen.
If you took away the controller, who would have cared about the Wii? On a purely hardware stance the system does not present itself as a noticeable improvement over the Gamecube. That's just weird. You figure Nintendo could have at least made something that was a clear step up from the Gamecube, even if it didn't match the Xbox 360 or PS3. The Wii U doesn't look like it will stack up to the new consoles but it presents a clear step up from the Wii hardware wise. It isn't like they just relied entirely on the Gamepad to establish it as different from its predecessor. There is a clear hardware boost.
That's why I consider it an exception, because they didn't present any real hardware improvement over the console's predecessor or at least not enough one to make it a selling point - and that was a selling point for every other Nintendo console prior to that.
Even if you feel Nintendo couldn't afford to match the other guys, that has nothing to do with the Gamecube. The Gamecube didn't fail because Nintendo couldn't compete with conventional specs, particularly since they still made a profit on it so it wasn't some spending race like you suggest this last generation would have been.
this last generation WAS a spending race... sony was taking a loss on the PS3 from the start and wound up burning through every cent of profit on their previoussystems while Microsoft(while making systems at much less of a loss) wound up paying millions on the RROD... so many developers(and now publishers) have gone bankrupt this gen. we are seeing more and more annuallization of sequels, ever wonder why? because it costs millions to make the kind of blockbuster game people expect.
in the past year alone, THQ is DEAD, Atari is DEAD (again), Square Enix has fallen to desperation,(tomb raider will sell 6 million units HA!!) Sega more then WILL be DEAD at this rate. recently a former sony employee revealed that Sony and Microsoft made a combined loss of 8billion total on the 360/PS3... i do not think nintendo could afford a 4 billion dollar loss then, and even with all the money from the wii i don't think nintendo could take something like that now... RFN is right, the industry is in a huge mess right now
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All I expect is that Nintendo offer something comparible to the standard console conventions of the time. If they're using CDs, you use CDs. If everyone is going online, you go online. If they set a certain benchmark for hardware specs, you meet it. Buying any videogame console should not feel to the consumer like he is making some major trade-of or is missing out on what everyone else is getting.
so your saying if your friend jumps off a bridge you should too... thank you
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Louieturkey on April 11, 2013, 04:32:30 PM
The problem, Ian, is that philosophy is different between Nintendo and the other two console makers. MS and Sony both have the philosophy to make as big and powerful system as you can and make up the losses on it in game sales. Nintendo, being only a game company, looks at it where you make a system as good as it can be up to a certain price point you think you can sell it at and then stop spending. They take little to no loss on their hardware because they have no other revenue streams that can make up for big losses on the hardware. MS & Sony can make a $700 system and sell it at $500 and still do okay because they can take the $200 hit per system initially. Do you really think Nintendo can do the same? I don't think so. Do you want Nintendo to sell at $500 system? If they did that, they'd be selling a $500 system against two $700 systems, so they'd still be behind. People would see all three systems selling at $500 and Nintendo's would look inferior. To compete directly, they'd have to sell their system at $700 and then again they'd be at a disadvantage because people would see the three systems and see they can buy the other two for $200 less and that $200 is not worth Nintendo first party games.
They can't compete directly, so they can't do anything "conventional" because they can't afford what the other two players are spending. So they think outside the box and go with the "lateral thinking with withered technology" idea, which they've been using for many years against many competitors.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 11, 2013, 04:43:51 PM
so your saying if your friend jumps off a bridge you should too... thank you
No I'm saying as a consumer I expect your product to match the general conventions of competing products. The Wii wasn't even a conventional successor console by Nintendo standards. So you sell me a new console that is practically the same as your previous console only it has a new controller and the only reason I have to pay the full price of a new console instead of just the price of a new controller is because you arbitrarily made it so. To me it was like if Nintendo decided at some point that they were not going to make NES games anymore and I had to switch to a new system, but the system was just another NES but with a new cartridge shape so that the new games wouldn't fit in the old machine. The Wii was like Nintendo asking me to pay for a new console to merely extend the Gamecube experience for another six years. And a lot of games merely mapped button presses to Wiimote shakes so a lot of them didn't even need the new controller that was the whole reason that this was a new console in the first place. I felt the justification for making me have to upgrade was largely phony, making the product a borderline scam. Hell one of the launch titles for the Wii was LITERALLY a Gamecube game where they conveniently delayed the Cube release to be after the Wii launch so as to scam the ignorant and grab the fanatics without the self control to wait a few more weeks.
I expect a new console to be an actual new console and not effectively a re-release of an old one. You shouldn't be able to pass of a port of game from the previous gen and have it not look old or out-of-date next to the new games. At least the Wii U isn't just a Wii with a tablet. It actually has some justification to be a new console.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 11, 2013, 08:16:16 PM
so your saying if your friend jumps off a bridge you should too... thank you
No I'm saying as a consumer I expect your product to match the general conventions of competing products. The Wii wasn't even a conventional successor console by Nintendo standards. So you sell me a new console that is practically the same as your previous console only it has a new controller and the only reason I have to pay the full price of a new console instead of just the price of a new controller is because you arbitrarily made it so. To me it was like if Nintendo decided at some point that they were not going to make NES games anymore and I had to switch to a new system, but the system was just another NES but with a new cartridge shape so that the new games wouldn't fit in the old machine. The Wii was like Nintendo asking me to pay for a new console to merely extend the Gamecube experience for another six years. And a lot of games merely mapped button presses to Wiimote shakes so a lot of them didn't even need the new controller that was the whole reason that this was a new console in the first place. I felt the justification for making me have to upgrade was largely phony, making the product a borderline scam. Hell one of the launch titles for the Wii was LITERALLY a Gamecube game where they conveniently delayed the Cube release to be after the Wii launch so as to scam the ignorant and grab the fanatics without the self control to wait a few more weeks.
I expect a new console to be an actual new console and not effectively a re-release of an old one. You shouldn't be able to pass of a port of game from the previous gen and have it not look old or out-of-date next to the new games. At least the Wii U isn't just a Wii with a tablet. It actually has some justification to be a new console.
and i'm saying nintendo couldn't have, did you even read the first part... and there was a difference in technology between the two systems... Honestly, people like you are part of the reason the industry is in a rut... the average cost to make a gamecube era console game was $3-$5 million. even now on the 360 and PS3 we are looking at $15 million dollars on average... you may think that having that brand new Super Quad Core HyperX Omega over 9000ghz Processor is a good idea but i dont think we should go any farther then steady native 1080p... Nintendo offered an alternative and this time I think more third parties might be willing to take it... the industry has changed in more ways then either of us realize... I dont think it's in sony's or microsoft's best interests(or the interests of the industry) to try and make much more of a jump then what the Wii U made over the PS3/360... and i think the PS4 and 720 will be alot more like the wii then you think... the Wii U isn't the console the market wants, it's the console the market needs...
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Stogi on April 12, 2013, 04:07:44 AM
Ians argument: But is it the console the market will buy?
Valid point.
Playing console games will never be as niche as it once was, but if the cost of entry keeps increasing, it will be a luxury only enthusiasts enjoy.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Pixelated Pixies on April 12, 2013, 07:23:52 AM
I finally got around to reading the article today. Honestly? I can't really disagree with any of her conclusions.
I don't feel like she took any of Iwata's quotes out of context. The article merely charts Iwata's course as CEO and questions whether or not he has learnt from his lessons. I think a pretty convincing case can be made that he hasn't. I thought her assessment of Iwata's approach to western markets was particularly damning. I feel as if the success of the Wii and DS have ultimately had a detrimental impact on Nintendo, as those years of success set an expectation within Nintendo that they could sell hardware in western territories without really fulfilling the wants of western gamers or the needs of western developers. It's absolutely true, for instance, that while NCL have seemingly beat down doors to get at games like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter, the western divisions of the company have been given very little free reign to do the same.
Ultimately, for anyone who has been following the history of Nintendo none of this is particularly revelatory, but I think the article makes a good case for much of the blame for Nintendo's recent woes to be laid at Iwata's feet.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 12, 2013, 01:03:14 PM
Nintendo can say "this is the console that has to be for the industry to sustain itself" but the others consoles exist and there are games on them that I want to play. In the case of the Wii, the industry survived and Nintendo's console got almost nothing but shovelware junk from third parties. I'm to put up with lousy third party support and games that come across as a generation behind because that's what we "need". The other guys don't restrict me like that.
That's why you have to match because the market just sees the product. How can Nintendo possibly tell us "no, you don't get that" and have us accept it? If the PS4 and Xbox 720 totally crash and burn, okay, the Wii U will do alright, but how do you sell someone on console, and thus videogame experience, that comes across as out-of-date? As a consumer my instinctive feeling is "find a way". Plus if it was unsustainable how did all the companies that survived make it? The PS360 didn't crash and burn and the Wii died with a whimper. Hindsight is 20/20 but I didn't buy their doom and gloom then and today THEY are the ones struggling to sell their "last gen hardware/controller gimmick" model. You can sell "you get this inferior thing because its good for you" to casual rubes that don't know better but core gamers aren't going to put up with it if they don't want to.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 12, 2013, 06:27:14 PM
Nintendo can say "this is the console that has to be for the industry to sustain itself" but the others consoles exist and there are games on them that I want to play. In the case of the Wii, the industry survived and Nintendo's console got almost nothing but shovelware junk from third parties. I'm to put up with lousy third party support and games that come across as a generation behind because that's what we "need". The other guys don't restrict me like that.
That's why you have to match because the market just sees the product. How can Nintendo possibly tell us "no, you don't get that" and have us accept it? If the PS4 and Xbox 720 totally crash and burn, okay, the Wii U will do alright, but how do you sell someone on console, and thus videogame experience, that comes across as out-of-date? As a consumer my instinctive feeling is "find a way". Plus if it was unsustainable how did all the companies that survived make it? The PS360 didn't crash and burn and the Wii died with a whimper. Hindsight is 20/20 but I didn't buy their doom and gloom then and today THEY are the ones struggling to sell their "last gen hardware/controller gimmick" model. You can sell "you get this inferior thing because its good for you" to casual rubes that don't know better but core gamers aren't going to put up with it if they don't want to.
do you honestly think nintendo in 2006 could afford to pay a 4billion dollar loss on the wii and then pay 15million dollars to make each game... if you HONESTLY think that, then you are an idiot...
the fact remains that the industry is facing a huge problem right now... the console market isn't growing at the rate that development costs are.
this is when you have to realize this isn't about Nintendo anymore... EVERYBODY IS INVOLVED WITH THIS MESS. Sony and Microsoft honestly have no reason not to make a marginal upgrade over their current consoles and try to hide behind the 'smoke and mirrors' of things like 8gb of ram(which will likely only have 4gb available to actual games), and an eight core processor originally designed for mobile devices. The PS4 and 720 in terms of in game preformance will likely not be a huge upgrade from the Wii U, because the industry cannot take it...
and this time there is nothing to match atm so :p
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 12, 2013, 09:51:42 PM
What is the hardware upgrade that should have been done by the entire industry?
I'm not an expert on hardware, but we can start with no HD. Think of this way, if Sony replaced the Blu Ray drive with a regular DVD drive, they still would have taken a loss on a $600 console. Hardware at $300 breaking even or taking a small loss is probably where we should have been in 2006.
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Even if you feel Nintendo couldn't afford to match the other guys, that has nothing to do with the Gamecube. The Gamecube didn't fail because Nintendo couldn't compete with conventional specs, particularly since they still made a profit on it so it wasn't some spending race like you suggest this last generation would have been.
How are you still not getting this? First, Gamecube's failings are primarily the result of 15+ years (at the time) of straight-up douchebaggery. If Nintendo wasn't so hard-assed back in the day, they would have flat-out fucking destroyed Sony. There would have been no reason for third-parties to migrate. Yes, some of it was needed when the industry was recovering from the crash, but Nintendo just kept pushing and pushing. Have you read about some of the **** they did? Once third parties had a viable and powerful enough alternative, they bolted. Rightfully so. No one wants to be friends with a bully.
Second, Wii was necessary BECAUSE of those past failings. They couldn't just offer a spec bump and another "Sorry, we were assholes for so long" card. It was too late for that. If Sony released Gamecube with all of its oddball choices, third parties would have dealt with it. The problem wasn't really Gamecube. The problem was that third parties just didn't want to deal with Nintendo. Why would they? Sony was market leader and Microsoft threw money at them. Where does Nintendo fit in there? One is a much better friend and another is trying to buy your friendship. Nintendo had to try something else. They had to find another way to reach consumers in a crowded market where their competitors were largely offering the same thing along with convincing third parties to make games for it. And it almost worked and I think it would have if third parties didn't have to devote so many resources to HD development. It's easy to say it didn't work in 2013, but it wasn't a bad strategy in 2006.
Third, no one is saying that Nintendo didn't gimp out on Wii hardware. You keep bringing that up like it's this really important thing and it would have been had Sony and Microsoft NOT forced the HD era. Even if Nintendo made the expected hardware jump, they would have been outclassed. If Nintendo jumped into the HD era along with Sony and Microsoft, they would be in a lot of trouble financially today. Maybe less so than Sony and Microsoft if Wii still became an international megahit. Now, if all three hardware manufacturers made that expected non-HD jump, Nintendo probably would have come out looking golden. They would have their Blue Ocean AND core gamers because third parties would just port games over, not wanting to miss out on the Wii boat.
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Plus if it was unsustainable how did all the companies that survived make it?
Is this a serious question? Holy shitsnacks, man: SONY AND MICROSOFT ARE SEVERAL TIMES LARGER THAN NINTENDO AND THEY HAVE OTHER REVENUE STREAMS. PS3/360 look really super successful until you realize how much money Sony and Microsoft lost. Seriously, look at their videogame divisions and compare them to Nintendo. Yes, Nintendo crawled through 2012. No one is denying that. However, Wii was very successful for them and if Nintendo launched Wii U level hardware in 2006, there is no Nintendo today. That's the difference here. You may not like what Nintendo is making these days, but you don't matter. No offense. I'd rather there be a Nintendo today than a Nintendo that tried to sell a $600 console, failed, and was forced to sell off all their assets and close down.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Soren on April 12, 2013, 10:48:15 PM
Plus if it was unsustainable how did all the companies that survived make it?
You do realize that not all companies have to die off in order for a business model to become unsustainable, right? It's like trying to deny the dot-com bubble burst happened just because companies like Amazon survived it.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: MagicCow64 on April 13, 2013, 01:01:45 AM
"And it almost worked and I think it would have if third parties didn't have to devote so many resources to HD development. It's easy to say it didn't work in 2013, but it wasn't a bad strategy in 2006."
This is a really interesting point. It's taken for granted that the Wii got left in the parking lot as third parties peeled out in their HD hot rods, but given the ongoing turmoil in the industry, it's not clear that those third parties made the right call in the long run. How many studios might still be open if they'd tried to capitalize on the Wii userbase in its prime with quality mid-budget software instead of chasing top-spec glory?
I think Nintendo's strategy to reel in a new permanent consumer base could have worked, but the Western dev world made emotional/hobbyist decisions that I fear will drag everyone down in the long run. I remain highly skeptical that PS4/Durango are going to reverse any of the rotten industry trends. Gamespot, for once, has a very on-point editorial on the subject: http://www.gamespot.com/features/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-destroyer-6406923/
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: alegoicoe on April 13, 2013, 04:12:26 AM
"And it almost worked and I think it would have if third parties didn't have to devote so many resources to HD development. It's easy to say it didn't work in 2013, but it wasn't a bad strategy in 2006."
This is a really interesting point. It's taken for granted that the Wii got left in the parking lot as third parties peeled out in their HD hot rods, but given the ongoing turmoil in the industry, it's not clear that those third parties made the right call in the long run. How many studios might still be open if they'd tried to capitalize on the Wii userbase in its prime with quality mid-budget software instead of chasing top-spec glory?
I think Nintendo's strategy to reel in a new permanent consumer base could have worked, but the Western dev world made emotional/hobbyist decisions that I fear will drag everyone down in the long run. I remain highly skeptical that PS4/Durango are going to reverse any of the rotten industry trends. Gamespot, for once, has a very on-point editorial on the subject: http://www.gamespot.com/features/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-destroyer-6406923/ (http://www.gamespot.com/features/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-destroyer-6406923/)
Good article, but I sense that the majority of gamers don't get that the industry is going down a massive down whirl spiral, but with good graphics :cool;
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 13, 2013, 08:39:26 AM
This is a really interesting point. It's taken for granted that the Wii got left in the parking lot as third parties peeled out in their HD hot rods, but given the ongoing turmoil in the industry, it's not clear that those third parties made the right call in the long run. How many studios might still be open if they'd tried to capitalize on the Wii userbase in its prime with quality mid-budget software instead of chasing top-spec glory?
I don't feel like gameplay has advanced as much as graphics have. Instead of playing on the strengths of gaming (e.g. interactivity), most third parties are just trying to make everything look shiny and fancy. That's a problem. I enjoy great graphics as much as the next person, but if it's going to force companies to close down for failing to meet a ridiculous sales goal, I don't think it's worth it.
What people who keep grasping for better and better hardware don't seem to understand is that someone has to pay for all of it. Either developers make less graphically impressive games on smaller budgets (which makes the push for the best hardware moot) or gamers spend $100 per game to compensate for the increased cost of development. I don't see consumers shouldering that responsibility (I sure as hell wouldn't) so it has to start on the third party side.
I look at games like Tomb Raider, Halo 4, and The Last of Us and I am blown the hell away. That's all possible on hardware over seven years old. Games can look better, but do they really need to? What are we racing towards? What is the rush? Better hardware should be brought to market when current technology can't support the ability to make games play better. That's the way it was before. I really don't think developers' ability to create good games are limited by the hardware presently on the market. We don't have the same technological jumps (e.g. sprites to polygons) nor the same restrictions we had before. I love buying new hardware, but I don't like spending money on it. Do I want to spend $500 on a PS4 to play games I know could play the same except look slightly worse (yet still great) on a console I already own? Absolutely not.
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I think Nintendo's strategy to reel in a new permanent consumer base could have worked, but the Western dev world made emotional/hobbyist decisions that I fear will drag everyone down in the long run. I remain highly skeptical that PS4/Durango are going to reverse any of the rotten industry trends.
I think Nintendo's goal is still to have casual gamers continue to come back. They won't play as frequently as core gamers, but they can still pick up the next casual game. And that's fine. Those games don't take nearly as much time or resources to make. It gives Nintendo some extra sales and there are, in fact, core gamers who buy them. And what Nintendo won't admit is that these casual games are suppose to be gateway drugs.
Still, I think Nintendo's strategy all along was to convince core gamers to also buy Wii through original content not found anywhere else. This also meant convincing third parties to support them which wasn't easy given Nintendo's rocky past with them. For example, Nintendo wasn't trying to get Soulcalibur IV (yet). Instead Nintendo wanted Soulcalibur Legends and once fans were hooked, they could convince Namco to develop a version of IV (like Broken Destiny on PSP). Unfortunately, Legends was 10 kinds of awful, but it could have been awesome. I think Namco did themselves a great disservice by not taking the project as seriously as they took the mainline games. Spin-offs get a bad rap for all the times they're done poorly, but think of how many times Nintendo, for example, has done them well. Yoshi and Wario are both spinoff characters that are highly successful on their own.
That was the strategy's downfall. It only works if the games were worth it. Again, it's easy to say it didn't work. However, it's just as easy to see how it could have worked. Instead of asking consumers to pick one of three versions of the same game, Nintendo let them pick one of two (since if they got a version, it would probably sell the worst anyway), but hoped to still have something for fans of those series. Another gateway drug strategy.
I appreciate the effort even if it didn't pan out. Nintendo has a responsibility to itself and I can see where they're coming from. They're still a company today because they protected themselves and didn't continually take losses. Wii was risky; Wii with HD graphics in 2006 would have been suicide. I am worried about the direction of the industry. It's odd seeing all of these companies shut down and other companies failing to see the writing on the wall.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: NWR_insanolord on April 13, 2013, 09:06:29 AM
For better or worse, Nintendo takes their loyal fans for granted, and assumes, rightfully so, that their hardware will be a lot of people's second console due only to their own software. Just like there were people who bought a Wii just for Wii Sports, there were a lot of people who bought one just for Super Mario Galaxy, or Metroid Prime 3, or Zelda. Nintendo's complacent because I think they believe there isn't all that much they can do to change the outcome with core gamers, and I honestly think they're right.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 13, 2013, 09:28:09 AM
I disagree. I don't think Nintendo takes their fans for granted for the simple fact that they still try to develop good and interesting games. Some series are admittedly stagnant. I may scream if we get another New Super Mario Bros. (NSMBU was fun; I'm just done with the series), but we still get gems like Super Mario 3D Land. For comparison's sake, think of the beating Sonic has taken over the past decade and how so many other Sega IPs are either MIA or have been treated equally as carelessly. It's like they have no idea what artistic integrity is anymore.
I also have to give Nintendo credit for trying new things to get support from third parties, despite still getting some really simple things wrong (no universal chat, really?). They're trying, but the damage was done long ago. Nintendo can't erase the sins of the past and it's something I think they'll always have to answer for. Either Sony and Microsoft have to really screw up (yes, both) and Nintendo swoops in for the save or Nintendo is going to have to partner up with another company who can help level the playing field and what are their options? Google? Apple? Yeah... They're better off on their own. They just need to keep trying something different.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 13, 2013, 10:01:36 AM
I wouldn't hold Super Mario Galaxy 3D Land up as innovation personally.
I do see the point that it was easy to see the potential for 3rd parties on Wii in 2006.
But Graphics allow for hype that front loads game sales. Besides Nintendo and argueably Blizzard most companies aren't looking for Evergreen games but games good for a quarter or maybe a year.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 13, 2013, 12:01:33 PM
I wouldn't hold Super Mario Galaxy 3D Land up as innovation personally.
I didn't mention innovation once in that post. I said "good and interesting" then called it a gem. I credit Super Mario 3D Land's level design for this which is decidedly different than other 3D Mario games.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: MagicCow64 on April 14, 2013, 12:24:28 AM
What people who keep grasping for better and better hardware don't seem to understand is that someone has to pay for all of it. Either developers make less graphically impressive games on smaller budgets (which makes the push for the best hardware moot) or gamers spend $100 per game to compensate for the increased cost of development. I don't see consumers shouldering that responsibility (I sure as hell wouldn't) so it has to start on the third party side.
I'm trying to think of what games I've played on the 360 (that I liked) that couldn't have been pulled off in SD form on Wii-level hardware. Red Dead Redemption for sure. Vanquish probably. Coming up kinda dry otherwise.
People would likely argue that there are a lot of FPSes and GOW-type games with AI too strong, but I maintain that most AI is still pathetic anyway.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ian Sane on April 15, 2013, 01:08:37 PM
I think Nintendo very much takes their fans for granted. The vibe I always got from the Wii was that Nintendo that the whole thing was primarily designed to attract the casual non-gamer market and that the Nintendo fanbase would just come along anyway as long as you threw them a couple bones. Essentialy they re-released the Gamecube with a new controller and sold it to an audience that didn't know what a Gamecube was. If the old fans came along, great, but I honestly didn't think they gave a **** if we didn't.
For better or worse, Nintendo takes their loyal fans for granted, and assumes, rightfully so, that their hardware will be a lot of people's second console due only to their own software. Just like there were people who bought a Wii just for Wii Sports, there were a lot of people who bought one just for Super Mario Galaxy, or Metroid Prime 3, or Zelda. Nintendo's complacent because I think they believe there isn't all that much they can do to change the outcome with core gamers, and I honestly think they're right.
If Nintendo is going to have that attitude then it would be in our best interest if they just went third party. Why the hell should I have to buy a seperate console just to get Nintendo games? The NES and SNES did a damn fine job as one's sole console and with the N64 and Gamecube it felt like being your only console was Nintendo's intention, even if it didn't quite work out. Nintendo handhelds are the only handheld you need. That's something else I didn't like on the Wii. I would complain about the lack of third party games and get "well just buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 for those" from people on this forum as if dropping another several hundred dollars is a completely reasonable suggestion. Complain about the PS3 price all you want but if Nintendo EXPECTS to be your second console they're effectively asking you to pay a lot to get a proper console experience. A Nintendo console should either strive to be the only console you need to own or it shouldn't exist at all. There is no reason for Nintendo to have some special box just for them.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Ceric on April 15, 2013, 01:15:54 PM
I wouldn't hold Super Mario Galaxy 3D Land up as innovation personally.
I didn't mention innovation once in that post. I said "good and interesting" then called it a gem. I credit Super Mario 3D Land's level design for this which is decidedly different than other 3D Mario games.
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Some series are admittedly stagnant.
THen you mention Super Mario 3D Land. I assume if your not Stagnant then you would be Innovating. Sorry for the confusion.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 15, 2013, 02:02:12 PM
I think Nintendo very much takes their fans for granted. The vibe I always got from the Wii was that Nintendo that the whole thing was primarily designed to attract the casual non-gamer market and that the Nintendo fanbase would just come along anyway as long as you threw them a couple bones. Essentialy they re-released the Gamecube with a new controller and sold it to an audience that didn't know what a Gamecube was. If the old fans came along, great, but I honestly didn't think they gave a **** if we didn't.
For better or worse, Nintendo takes their loyal fans for granted, and assumes, rightfully so, that their hardware will be a lot of people's second console due only to their own software. Just like there were people who bought a Wii just for Wii Sports, there were a lot of people who bought one just for Super Mario Galaxy, or Metroid Prime 3, or Zelda. Nintendo's complacent because I think they believe there isn't all that much they can do to change the outcome with core gamers, and I honestly think they're right.
If Nintendo is going to have that attitude then it would be in our best interest if they just went third party.
You mean like Sega? http://www.gamesthirst.com/2012/03/30/sega-to-post-severe-loss-plans-massive-restructuring/ (http://www.gamesthirst.com/2012/03/30/sega-to-post-severe-loss-plans-massive-restructuring/)
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Why the hell should I have to buy a seperate console just to get Nintendo games? The NES and SNES did a damn fine job as one's sole console and with the N64 and Gamecube it felt like being your only console was Nintendo's intention, even if it didn't quite work out.
May I ask what you felt was different? What did nintendo do differently other then wii sports type stuff as opposed to mario party every year
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Nintendo handhelds are the only handheld you need. That's something else I didn't like on the Wii. I would complain about the lack of third party games and get "well just buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 for those" from people on this forum as if dropping another several hundred dollars is a completely reasonable suggestion.
Considering the number of people who own all three apparently it is reasonable :D
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Complain about the PS3 price all you want but if Nintendo EXPECTS to be your second console they're effectively asking you to pay a lot to get a proper console experience. A Nintendo console should either strive to be the only console you need to own or it shouldn't exist at all. There is no reason for Nintendo to have some special box just for them.
Why not? the fact is that this isn't the SNES days, multiconsole owners are pretty common now, -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Also if you want to enter a debate with me may i respectfully ask that you respond to ALL of my points instead of just cherrypicking which one you like...
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: nickmitch on April 15, 2013, 09:07:54 PM
Implying that Sega is losing money because they went third party is more than a tad inaccurate.
Also, it's still not cheap to own three consoles. You either have to space out the purchases, buy used, or just simply have money like that. I own all three, but I got a Wii at launch, a deal on a new 360 that was still better than the following price drop, and a black Friday. All spaced out over a series of years, and I only recently began buying PS3 games.
Not cheap.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 15, 2013, 09:09:40 PM
Implying that Sega is losing money because they went third party is more than a tad inaccurate.
but it proves that it isn't a universally amazing solution to everything ever.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: nickmitch on April 15, 2013, 09:13:41 PM
I'm pretty sure that's over-exaggerating his point. "If Nintendo doesn't want to be you're only console, then they shouldn't be in the console business." I think is more inline with what he was saying, and he has a point. That second console crap isn't gonna work if you aren't as distinct of a price leader.
Also, one example never proves anything.
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: pokepal148 on April 15, 2013, 09:55:51 PM
I'm pretty sure that's over-exaggerating his point. "If Nintendo doesn't want to be you're only console, then they shouldn't be in the console business." I think is more inline with what he was saying, and he has a point. That second console crap isn't gonna work if you aren't as distinct of a price leader.
Also, one example never proves anything.
can i see the PS4/720 Price tags, you can't make a comparison about anything unless every variable is in position on the field
there is Atari also to prove that going 3rd party is a great idea, SNK had a bit of fun themselves also,
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: Adrock on April 15, 2013, 10:37:48 PM
Why the hell should I have to buy a seperate console just to get Nintendo games?
This can be said about every console ever, just replace Nintendo with Sega, Sony, or Microsoft etc. What you really want is Denis Dyack's universal gaming console. It's silly to fault Nintendo for this.
And what's especially confusing about this is that all you do is complain about how bad Nintendo games are nowadays then complain that you have to buy a separate console for their games. Your problem really isn't one at all. If you don't like their games and you don't want to buy a separate console for their games, it's pretty obvious what you should do. Don't buy Nintendo consoles anymore. And I know you didn't buy a Wii U so what is the problem? How do you still have things to say in every topic? See, this isn't an issue for most people. You keep pushing this idea that your opinion represents everyone, but really, you're in the minority.
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The NES and SNES did a damn fine job as one's sole console and with the N64 and Gamecube it felt like being your only console was Nintendo's intention, even if it didn't quite work out.
Again with this... I've addressed this too many times. You're not going to get it.
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I would complain about the lack of third party games and get "well just buy a PS3 or Xbox 360 for those" from people on this forum as if dropping another several hundred dollars is a completely reasonable suggestion.
It is because it's not as exclusive as you're making it out to be. Every console has content not available on other consoles. You keep insisting that this is a Nintendo problem. This is something that has persisted for over 30 years. You're pushing blatant consumerism which I can understand because I, myself, am cheap as hell. I don't agree with you because the difference is that you're so unreasonable about it. "I want X without having to buy Y." First, that's everyone. We all want more for less. Second, regardless of whether you think something should be a certain way, it isn't so why complain about it? Most people just deal with it like adults. "Hmph, I don't want to buy more than one console." Okay, sorry? What answer do you want from us?
Title: Re: Satoru Iwata: Hubris versus Western Culture
Post by: SixthAngel on April 16, 2013, 01:09:12 AM
Classic Ian.
Nintendo takes its fans for granted despite reviving dead franchises only they care about like PUNCH OUT and Kid fucking Icarus. They funded a new Sin and Punishment for god's sake. If you are a longtime Nintendo fan they have done all kinds of things to cater YOU. Even though NSMB became an insane seller do you honestly think that was revived despite long time fans? They may have come out with a bunch the games recently its something long time fans should actually enjoy since 2D mario was dead for 2 generations.
The problem is this: It's either be blamed for not making something new or be blamed for making something too new.
Nintendo makes a game fans have been asking for- stop rehashing games we haven't seen in years, I want something new Nintendo makes a new game- beg for games like Nintendo's current franchises, ignore new game because it uses motion controls/is a downloadable game so it doesn't get a marketing push(notice quality isn't even mentioned, just marketing)
Frankly, as a long time Nintendo fan I am sick of being told Nintendo's new games aren't for me. Because you don't like Wii Sports doesn't mean that most Nintendo fan's don't.
