Topic: Nintendo's current state

Disclaimer: This is not an actual letter to Nintendo

Dear Nintendo

As a supporter from the time The Wind Waker was the hottest thing on the GameCube, and Pokemon Ruby was taking the world by storm on the Game Boy Advance, to Twilight Princess on Wii and Pokemon Y & X on the DS we as a community has some concerns. In these days we are enjoying Wii U and the new 3DS and all the joy that comes with it. We love the direction you have taken gaming and has shown us innovation and quality over years and generations of consoles.

During the best days of the GameCube (even though it was a struggeling time for all of us) we could look forward to (sometimes) dozens of new releases every month. Now I can count the upcoming games for the new generation console coming this spring on one hand. It might be a different time, and quality over quantity by all means. If we look on the other side of the fence the Playstation 4 has got over 50 games coming the spring. This is much because of the way you made the Wii U with GamePad, backward combatibility and lighter hardware. There are a lot of good arguments for this, but there are some downsides as well, like less 3rd part games.

All progress occur because people dare to be different. But there are always a thin line between standing out too much and originality. You have made some risky decisions in the past like cartridge on Nintendo 64, mini discs on GameCube and no High Definition gaming for Wii. It has worked so far, but look at where Sega are today, a shell of it’s former self.

I would like to state that I get my moneys worth. The Wii U costs maybe 150 dollars less then a Playstation 4 and still gives at least just as good gaming experience. Keep up the good work!

The purpose for this "letter" is to show how we as a community can discuss what we expect for the future and maybe come up with constructive ideas for our favorite game developer

What do you think about Nintendo and what should they change?

"Joined 16 minutes ago."

This is not Nintendo, and the weaker hardware is not the only reason why 3rd Parties aren't making Wii U games (mainly it is the sales of the 3rd Party games that tried)

The GameCube has about 650 games. The Wii U as of now; around 450. Third party games and shovelware have been replaced by third party indie games and indie shovelware; it really makes no difference.

In a few years, I'll definitely have more Wii U games than GameCube games. And in the end, I still play high quality games, and there's plenty of them every year, so there's virtually no difference for me.

Thank you!

I know this is not the official Nintendo forum as there is none (except tech).

I would rather say 56 games, 163 virtual console games and 121 indie games.
I’m not sure it’s a complete list though.

My point is there is a lot of games we’re missing out on the console.

A) That is because times have changed

B) There are a lot of games that the other consoles are missing out on that are on Wii U

I'd recommend you to choose a better title or else you'll get this a lot.

According to NLs database, there are currently 97 retail titles released for the EU region. The number of available indie games seems to be about right for the EU, with about 50 more for the US region (but those additional titles are mostly not that interesting).

I have 25 retail Wii U games, and I'm preeeetty sure I don't own half the Wii U library. What list are you using?

As said in my original post: " It might be a different time, and quality over quantity by all means"

But I would still like to see games like DmC, Final Fantasy, Tales of Zestiria, Dark Souls II, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and Metal Gear Solid V for Wii U.

I don't think it's going to be healthy for the company in the long run to exclude 3rd parties and do everything on their own.
There are a lot of indie game developers making games for the Wii U and that is great!
Still, it's the big names that carry the marketing for the console and it's the smaller names consumers never really hear about. Also if you only own a Wii U, you will be missing out on games the rest of the gaming community have excess to. Those who own a Xbox, Ps4 or a PC will have the same games while Nintendo sits in the dark.

I love the Nintendo exclusives, and I wouldn't trade my Wii U for any other console.
But then again I have a PS3 and PC I can play on as well.

5/6 of these would bomb hard on Wii U. Final Fantasy might do OK. We'll have to wait and see how Xenoblade does.

97 sounds more right. I was watching the list on my countries official Nintendo site. Might have less available titles in my country then the rest of Europe. Still some of the titles aren't really spectacular.

That may be, still I'm sure it's more people then me who would like this to happen. It wouldn't hurt to make Wii U more attractive for 3rd parties and have other then core Nintendo fans to buy the console.

Nintendo cannot make the Wii U more attractive to 3rd party, what's done is done. They released an underpowered console which developers have moved on from and are not willing to compromise their games so that they'll work on it. Even the PS4/XBO struggle running some newer games at high frame rates and resolutions, the time it would take to make these games work on Wii U would be a waste of their time given the size of the user base.

Ever since the N64 came out, you've needed two consoles - one for Nintendo, one for everything else. It's a shame that it's worked out that way and it would be great if you could get all the cream of console gaming on one platform like you could, arguably, with the SNES and the NES but that's the way it is and probably always will be. Nintendo's business model does not allow direct competition with the other consoles. Instead, they offer something different.

Which is sad really. Nintendo has actually remade the DS as a home console. I remember when everyone was stoked on the new dual screen future when DS was announced. That was a big turning point for Nintendo and 3rd parties came running like moths to a flame.

What Nintendo wanted was to change the way we played forever. Maybe the revolution has run it's course.
Now that the Wii U is here it seems developers are focusing on making visual eye candy, rather then innovative gameplay.
Nintendo might have to go back to power instead of innovation or maybe they will make another revolution with the next system.

God knows what they have in store for us next.

Because the time someone joins the site is directly relevant to the discussions and ideas they have.

Washington

"Having more 3rd party games is Nintendo's solution to not having more 3rd party games."

This is a really good point! Why should developers choose to make games for a console that can't handle it? For this to happen Nintendo have to meet half way with the standards of today's game developers.
But on the other side, being different is probably what keeps Nintendo alive at this point. If Nintendo would make a console just as powerful as Sony, I don't think Nintendo would won that console war.
Nintendo can't keep playing solo if they want to survive. It's one thing that some games just doesn't fit for the Wii U, but developers don't even take time to make exclusives that supports Wii U unique futures.

Maybe grapichs is the most important part in games today and Nintendo will have to deal with it next generation.

No, making it easy to develop games for the console and have hardware that match todays standard would probably get more 3rd party games. But as I said, that's not how Nintendo deals with it.