"If you don't like the Wii U yet, it's because you are dumb and not because of an actual reason like a shortage of games."

People will buy the WiiU when it starts having good games, the same as 3ds, of course a price cut would hurt either.

That picture scares me.

I don't think people think that the DS was good because of the second screen, or that the 3DS is because of the 3D.  It's all about the games.

That's not what Miyamoto is saying. It's not that games are good because of the second screen; it's that games can be better with it. That's what "I can't do everything I want to do if I don't have a second screen" means. He has a point. Ocarina of Time is a good game without a touchscreen, but it's a far better game with one.

Not every game is or needs to show off the GamePad. It's there to be used and experimented with if developers want. Some games stand to really benefit because of it. Zelda is one of them since Link carries 487362 things. A Secret of Mana sequel would be the bomb dot com with the GamePad. Can Nintendo and Square Enix set that up, please? Have 1-UP Studio (formerly Brownie Brown) handle development.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm very familiar with touch screen interfaces (as I'm sure most people are at this point) and dual screens, but I don't believe there have been many game experiences which have been made measurably better by the addition of a second screen.

To use the 3DS as an example, some of my favourite games for that system are Super Mario 3D Land, Luigi's Mansion 2, Fallblox, Mario 3D Kart, and Spin Cycle, none of which use the lower screen for anything more meaningful than showing a map or providing virtual buttons.

It's true that the Wii U offers more multiplayer possibilities purely because the two screens can be independent from one another. However, after spending many hours with Nintendoland (arguably the showcase for why a second screen was deemed necessary) I'm still not convinced that the Gamepad offers something that I want. I am familiar with the Gamepad. I understand the Gamepad. I just don't necessarily feel the Gamepad makes gaming better.

If anyone can change my opinion of the system though it's probably Miyamoto. Pikmin 3 might be a good start.

The DS seemed to really get its shit together when third parties started acting like the touchscreen didn't even exist and just made great games.  The initial titles came across as incredibly forced.  Unfortunately Nintendo continued to force its usage and ruined two Zelda games with it.

The DS had the advantage that even without the touchscreen it was a damn good follow-up to the GBA.  Without the touchscreen it still would have had a significant enough hardware boost to effectively have the same time of jump that the GBA had from the GBC.  The DS was the N64 to the GBA's SNES and the 3DS works well as the Gamecube to the DS's N64 even without the 3D.  Take away the gimmicks and you still have a solid conventional successor.

The Wii couldn't just settle down and stop forcing its gimmick because that was all it had to distinguish itself.  Take away the motion control and you pretty just have a Gamecube game.  What does the Wii U had that distinguishes itself beyond the Gamepad?  It does have an obvious hardware jump from the Wii, but it's a hardware jump from the Wii, which makes it about a generation behind.  The improvement is only for Wii owners who did not buy another console.  No Xbox 360 owner would be impressed by its conventional improvements.

But I think the big problem with the Gamepad is that it is not a new idea!  It is essentially the DS touchscreen making its way to consoles and if Nintendo had all these awesome ideas for it surely they would have released them on the DS.  Why would they have great ideas for the concept and just sit on them for years and years while fumbling around with wonky Zelda controls?  If the ideas were there, they would have used them.  If having a second touchscreen was truly inspirational it would have inspired them on the DS.

I think the Wii's gimmick controller truly caused its success but I'd say the gimmicks had minimal effect on the DS or 3DS since neither system really went anywhere until they stopped relying on the gimmick to sell the system and instead provided games for people to play.  The Gamepad comes across as Nintendo struggling to come up with some new control scheme that will recreate the Wii's success, only the Wii was a once-in-a-lifetime gimmick that fulfilled what had been the dream game of tons of people.  No one dreamed about the Wii Gamepad but they sure as hell dreamed about swinging a baseball bat and having the game do the same thing.  The idea that the Wii U will take off once people "get" the Gamepad is absurd.  The Wii took off on DAY ONE.  EVERYONE immediately got it.  The Wii U will only start selling once it has some games.

I'm sure most of the Gamepad's usefulness will be seen in user interface with certain games. It's gonna be reeeeeeally nice if I don't have to pause/unpause/pause/unpause to get sunken treasure in Wind Waker HD. I assume SMT X FE will be turn-based, so it'll be nice to have the battle options on the touch screen.


That alone makes it a worthwhile investment, both for nintendo and gamers. However, it's a worthwhile investment in the same way that the extra face buttons and shoulder buttons of the SNES were a worthwhile investment. It's a nice evolution of game and interface design, but hardly a revolution. The only problem is, like the 3DS' 3D, the way Nintendo markets it. They're pushing something as a system seller, when it's just a nice little bonus. The only thing that can sell the system is games.

You say that as if putting a useful map on the second screen is not extremely useful and wonderful (see: Castlevania, Metroid, Luigi's Mansion, etc.)

Following up on that, I was pretty frequently irritated in Assassin's Creed II/Brotherhood/Revelations and in Arkham City by having to constantly pause to check the map. Did anyone who has played those series on the WiiU find having a constant map to be a significant improvement? If so, and if I had a WiiU, I'd get the next game in those series on it.

I didn't say it wasn't useful, I said it didn't offer anything particularly meaningful. As for it being 'wonderful'? All I can say is that I disagree. For me it's actually rather mundane. Viewing the map in Super Metroid wasn't such a chore for me that having it on a second screen is revelatory. Is it useful? Sure. Do I care? Not really.

My point is, I really hope that developers embrace the potential of the Gamepad. I'm not yet sold on the Gamepad, but I'm open to the possibility that cool things might be done with it. I'm just not seeing many novel uses for it right now (which given the precarious position of the Wii U recently, perhaps it isn't surprising that developers aren't flocking in droves to design games around the Gamepad; it's much easier and cheaper to release ports from several years ago).

Fire Emblem Awakening says hi

I actualy like pausing to view a map because it lets me concentrate on the map without worrying about some enemy kicking my ass.  Too often games that let you see the map without having to pause don't let you pause to do it.  Same with games that let you cycle through menus on the fly; that "convenience" usually means I can't do it while paused.  No second screen means that developers CAN'T put the map on its own screen and expect you to read it while the game is still going on around you, which I actually prefer.  A good developer would just allow either option but it doesn't seem we can rely on that.

Hell Nintendo made me touch the second screen in NSMB to access my stored power-up despite the game requiring no stylus usage otherwise.  On what planet is pulling out a stylus in the middle of Mario to click on some icon more convenient than the select button method used in Super Mario World that literally no person ever complained about?  When you get to that kind of nonsense, you're not making the game better for me, you're just trying to shoehorn in your stupid gimmick.  Selling the gimmick takes priority over having a logical control scheme.  While such usage is probably done to try to "prove" the validity of the gimmick, it has the opposite effect on me.  If you have to force it, it just confirms in my mind  that your extra controller doohickey is worthless.  If it was worthwhile you wouldn't HAVE to force it as its worth would be immediately demonstrated like the analog stick was with Super Mario 64.  You also would have enough confidence in it that you would have no problem providing options or not using it at all in some games.  When the Wii version of Twilight Princess did not have the normal controls as an option my immediate assumption was that Nintendo didn't want to provide the direct comparison so that their new control scheme would not look inferior.  It would look bad if people didn't pick the motion control option.  If it was truly worthwhile they could provide the option and feel confident that the new controls would be the preferred choice.

I wish it would.

DAAAMMMNN YOU NOE!

use your thumb

Horrible argument. Don't pull out the stylus, just use your thumb. Moving your thumb to the icon is the same as moving your thumb to the select button. In fact there might even be a smaller distance between ABXY and the icon than there is between the d-pad and the select button (there's definitely a smaller distance if you use the circle pad in NSMB, but who does that?). And the icon is big and easy to press without looking down. That is actually a very good use of the touch screen and doesn't help prove your point at all.


Your point about the map was a little better. Yes, it's not a good idea to glance down at your map while you're doing something active, and if the game requires looking at a map while doing something active (like driving in GTA) then you would want one on the main screen. So in some games it doesn't have value, but in others it does. In Luigi's Mansion 2 it has plenty of use. The game has a slow pace, you know you can look at the map without being ambushed, and the interface is faster and easier than using buttons.

I knock the screen with the tip of the joint in the middle of my index finger (it doesn't leave a finger print behind on the screen), personally, but I think his point still stands. Nintendo made the same stupid design decision in Luigi's Mansion 2 with E.Gad's DS calls, and it makes even less sense there because the game is STOPPED every time he calls and you can't do anything else besides answer him.  Why not use a button there instead of tapping the stupid touch screen?

"That's not what Miyamoto is saying. It's not that games are good because of the second screen; it's that games can be better with it. That's what "I can't do everything I want to do if I don't have a second screen" means. He has a point. Ocarina of Time is a good game without a touchscreen, but it's a far better game with one."

I agree that is has been used well in a few cases, but as a whole, the second screen on the DS was not a leap forward ("It feels like going back in time to play without it!").  Unlike other innovations from Nintendo, nobody was rushing to copy it.  I would have been fine with one big touchscreen on the 3DS, though I do like how clean the clamshell design keeps things.  Having two screens might be more useful with the Wii U, since it adds an additional interface type (touch).

I do as well, however some games actually benefit from the opposite(survival horror, and any game that goes online should never let you pause)

Would his highness like me to throw rose pedals wherever he walks the earth?
What if the game benefits from having you unable to do those things in a pause menu... a good developer should stand by his guns right?

Nobody forced you to pull that powerup out of reserve. you decided to do so yourself... nintendo gave a different method, just like moving mario with an analog stick instead of the d-pad.

The one where you are playing it on a 3DS, especially the original
to be fair the DS's had pretty lousy touch screens, the 3DS one actually seems to recognize thumb input

I agree in certain cases but not that one. i have played pokemon since gold and silver and when i played Diamond

what about spinning the control stick in mario 64, that one sure seems a bit forced... therefore analog sticks are a bunch of worthless extra controller doohickey

I picked up 64 on the VC(through club nintendo) and you know... that D-pad sure seems to do a fat load of nothing... i am forced to use the analog stick meaning they didn't have that level of confidence and the entire N64 was sold on gimmicks(its a 64bit system even though all of the games for it were 32bit and the only thing 64bit about it is its processor

They provided an option not to use the motion controls and just use buttons on the wii remote and nunchuck, there is your choice.

Did they? It's been so long since I played that game. My recollection was that you had to swing the Wii remote to slash your sword. Was there an alternative scheme?

I think people understand the Wii U perfectly. See, everyone but Nintendo themselves have written it off as a casual system for moms to keep their bratty kids busy. And even then it's got a year or so before it's already debatable hardware is obsolete.

Let's also not forget that the bulk of major third parties have also abandoned Nintendo- and if not abandoned then they've certainly got little love for the Wii U. Big games like Borderlands 2 and UT4 aren't going to be jumping on it, and the few AAA 360/PS3 games that have been ported thus far were sloppy copy/paste jobs that the developers weren't even assed enough to re-tweak. Arkham City is a very prolific example of this.

But don't worry, there's lots of third party games coming for the Wii U still. Too bad 90% of them are the same flood of shovelware that buried the Wii.

The more things change...

Yeah, I don't remember an alternative control scheme in the Wii version, either.  :confused;

it may have been only for pointer stuff but it was there

It's called the Gamecube version, isn't it?

Don't use the stylus!  Just smudge the screen to all fuck with your thumbprints!  I maintain that the whole execution of that was completely idiotic since Super Mario World did it over ten years earlier with a button and no one complained.  And if they really wanted to have it on the screen they could have it work with either a click OR a button press.  All the menus in that game support the touchscreen but you can still move around them with the d-pad and such.

No one wants to have controls that already worked like a charm mapped to something new.  No one is excited about waggle or moving a button to the touchscreen.  That isn't the selling point.  They only do it because they can't think of enough worthwhile ideas and feel the need to force usage so they don't look like fools or con artists by having all their marketing revolve around the gimmicks and then having them barely get used.

The Gamepad is expensive and they force you to buy it.  If it only got used when it made sense to it wouldn't get used enough to justify the mandatory purchase and that would make the whole thing look like a rip off.  When Microsoft forces you to buy Kinect with their next system they'll probably force it into everything as well for the same reason.

Is it just me, or does Ian do nothing but bitch and complain about Nintendo? It's like that is the only thing he posts about. Nintendo could find a way to let u play every single game ever made, for free, and he would still find something about it to complain about.

1. You can, in fact, clean a screen. It's supposed to be touched.

2. The GamePad is not expensive. Nintendo just wants people to think it's worth $170 and a kidney for replacements and those sold separately. The most expensive part is the screen which can't be more than $30 (if that) which is then paired with less than $10 of other pieces. All controllers are sold with ridiculous profit margins. Do you really think an Xbox 360 controller costs Microsoft anywhere near MSRP in 2013? Peripherals sold separately are a gold mine, especially the primary one you need to operate a console with. You're probably not getting swindled on a controller that comes with a console sold at a loss. You're paying less than the manufacturer did. Why does this continually need to be explained to you?

Sigh, I keep taking the bait. Ten lashings for me.

Ian's been doing nothing but relentlessly and irrationally complaining about Nintendo since before you joined the forums, since before I joined the forums, and most likely since before there were forums.

no there is a thing in the options menu to turn off at least the pointer
but you still cant use the cube controller so :/

You can maintain whatever you want, but you're still being illogical and unreasonable. There's no negative to moving something like that to the touchscreen. It's just as easy, you have to move your thumb the same amount of distance, and it takes less than 3 seconds to understand it and get used to it. And it's not a negative to touch a touchscreen. That's what it's there for. Especially when it's a secondary screen, and you're not getting smudges on your main screen. If it still bothers you that much you could always take another 3 seconds out of your day to wipe the smudges off.

Besides, why even waste your time complaining about one of the least intrusive implementations of touch control when games like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are staring you right in the face saying, "Use us! We'll actually HELP your argument, rather than hurt it!"

You're spouting so much blind hate that you must be trolling. I'm outta here.

He mentioned the 2 Zelda DS games earlier in this topic. Or at least I think he did. We have at least 3 different major threads right now more or less about the same subject, so it's easy to get those multiple page-long rants confused but I remember him mentioning Nintendo "ruining 2 DS Zelda games" somewhere recently.  :-\

Those games sucked anyway (although ironically phantom hourglass was my first zelda game)
it doesn't help that he is a complete hypocrite with it.... i have had so much fun countering one example of his with another example of his it's not even funny

I've been meaning to give Spirit Tracks a try for a while now (if only for completion's sake), but I've just never gotten to it.  While I also didn't care for the touchscreen-only controls in in Phantom Hourglass, that wasn't what killed that game for me.  What made me stop playing were the frequent trips into that damn Temple of the Ocean King.

Ah, you're right, he did. I guess I didn't notice because he mentioned them in passing, while fixating on the more illogical complaints. That's my bad, but my overall point still stands. Don't blame the touchscreen, blame the devs. It's a good addition that just needs to be utilized correctly, which plenty of people have done.

I wouldn't bother. You do the same annoying temple visits on top of the horrible controls. I couldn't even finish the game.

I thought the dungeons in Spirit Tracks were fantastic. I wasn't as hot on the overworld and train stuff, but it was still a really fun game.

Ian lacks imagination.

There is a whole thread dedicated to new game ideas and it covers the mundane to the ambitious. I suggest you read it.

Now does that solve the issue of developers being less than creative with the DS, 3DS, and Wii U? No. The potential is still there, however.

I've only talked more about NSMB because that's what people started getting on my ass about.  I mentioned the Zelda games and no one said anything about them but everyone jumped on my NSMB example so I responded.  And I stand by my point that it's a good example of forced touchscreen usage as the rest of the game just uses the standard controls but this one little part REQUIRES the touchscreen despite the very same functionality being available in an old Super Nintendo game where it just used a button.  It doesn't ruin the whole game or anything but the obvious design was that they had not used the touchscreen and felt compelled to use it in some way.  They weren't confident enough in the concept to just leave it out of the game completely but could not come up with any worthwhile use of it in that game either.

I actually was quite enthusiastic about Nintendo as the Gamecube was due to come out but lost patience with them over time.  The infamous Pac-Man Vs. E3 where we found out that Nintendo's "plans" for online play was effectively an outright lie was a major turning point as it betrayed any trust I had in them.  I really hate the Wii so that's a whole videogame generation of me not liking Nintendo's direction and waiting to see if they right the ship next gen, which I'm not particularly optimistic about but the Wii U is still too new to write it off completely.  I like Nintendo a lot when they're delivering the goods and am frustrated when they don't because I know they are capable of better.

To be fair, Pac-Man Vs. is better than literally every online game I've ever played.

last i checked the Super Nintendo version didn't have 3 items and i don't see 3 select buttons, do you?

Oh Noes! Smudgie Wudgies!
Yeah, you lost me right there.

I agree with him, actually. Whenever I have ideas for games I defaultly imagine them with a touch screen and often wish games had a touch screen. I drool over the idea of games like Skyrim or Banjo-Kazooie having touch screens!

Touching is Good

I think the GamePad's fantastic and i wih every game I play could have a second screen. The game I've spent by far the most time with on my Wii U is FIFA 13, and I would really hate to have to go back to playing it on another system without the great functionality the GamePad provides. I think if Nintendo markets it properly they can get people to understand how great the GamePad can be b

I don't even really play games online myself but it was the principle of it, where they used this feature as a marketing bullet point, probably made some sales specifically on the promise of online play, and then effectively cancelled it in a way that made it clear that there was never any intention of using the feature in the first place.  They lied to us and it's hard to maintain a positive attitude towards a company you feel is trying to screw you.  I also didn't like it because it played to the criticism of Nintendo being behind-the-times with technology.  They didn't go online when the rest of the industry did just like how they didn't go with optical discs when the rest of the industry did.  Nintendo had confirmed in the minds of gamers that they were overly conservative luddites and I knew at that point that the Gamecube was going to finish in last place.

the only way to do so was through sony and phillips, sony was not easy to get along with and phillips... i think we were better off with cartridges. i suspect that as a result of one of those deals nintendo couldn't use disc based media on the n64 given all the effort they made to do so...

the online thing is another story however

Maybe at the time we weren't better off with CDs, but in retrospect, how many of those cartridges have stood the test of time?