Topic: Good news for the Wii U? Iwata says Nintendo needs to pay better attention to foreign trends / stop being so Japan centric.

I hope they don't engage on a "me too" plan when it comes to games. That would be sad. I would like to see Nintendo usual whismical magic with more "edge" (or attitude) a la Sega in its heyday but still welcoming.

Something like a tagline that goes like: "Are U In?"

I was watching Pachter's show, He believes Iwata should have been fired a really long time ago but he really likes Reggie. He says Reggie is an amazing businessman with a great work ethic who manages to do a lot with the very little that Nintendo gives him. He says that most people in his position would not be able to pull that off. He pretty much explained that Reggie has no power and that Nintendo runs the show from Japan.

@awesome0 Having features like that would also bring in one heck of a costly licensing deal. Like stated before, nintendo probably doesnt get the content ID system of Youtube as it is (like many other companys dont).
Also, openly linking it so social media sites would also bring in more problems than it would be worth it. Remember the fact, that nintendo tries to still be kid friendly as one of the only companies ? Exchanging the Miiverse for other social media sites would leave nintendo without any controll over it. Also, these are ones of the less used features hat got implemented on the 360. I have no idea why people insist on something like a social network integration on anything but their toaster...and then theres instagram -.-
Maybe its because i never got into that stuff, but my life continues even without being on such sites, and i havent missed anything by not sharing every minute of my personal life or gaming moment with the rest of this world.
The only thing i have to agree on is the general online presence. Although im a big supporter of local multiplayer as the only true way to enjoy multiplayer games (playing with total strangers is the worst kind of experience you can have most of the time), the masses have a different opinion and there is simply no way around it.
But seing how the Wii did it with the online management channel for Mario Kart Wii, i guess we can expect something similar for the WiiU.
My guess is, that we are getting a seperate community management tool to organize said communitys, events etc, which could end up providing a better online experience than what people are asking for.
Regarding the video chat: Have you ever used it ? Have you ever used the WiiU video chat with a stranger you found via MiiVerse ? Or did you really enjoy the camera shots in NintendoLand ? Personally, that is the first thing i turn off, also the microfone in online play. These are things that i use exclusivly for sessions with close friends, and mostly i play with them when they are around, so no need for it.
Like i said, its heavily based on opinion and taste, sure, but such features arent a necessaty per se. An overall good online infrastructure on the other hand is, i have to agree.

On the social media sharing thing... well it does kinda exist already. You can share screenshots from both 3DS and Wii U on the console itself without having to do anything complicated. Go the browser, point to the right page and post. Not that hard really. Their web version of MiiVerse even has social media sharing under each post if you feel like sharing content that way.

The fact that people who don't use social media don't get the appeal of it shouldn't be too surprising. The fact that people who do use social media think it's something they want to do should be more surprising. If you have been using social media for any length of time the one thing you would understand is that nobody likes a life spammer. You follow and friend all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, you don't want to see photos of their food or whatever. Game screenshots and gameplay vids are the same IMO and just as annoying as posts from apps and other automated things.

That's why MiiVerse is great. You go to MiiVerse to read game related content or post game related content. So everyone is on the same page. Sharing game data or gameplay clips would be fantastic and I would like to see it but if they are to do it it should be tied to MiiVerse and not some external service. Those services are cluttered enough as it is. What social media is great for is pooling contacts and IDs for multiple people across multiple services. Also keeping up with news, events, novel stories and just the old IM stuffs. A smart company would understand what to use social media for and what not to use it for.... Nintendo has got the latter worked out just fine so far

I still think the n64 had the best advertising (in the U.S.). Americans really respond to the whole "get n or get out" type of advertising. They don't want to be left behind, you know?

"What are U waiting for?"

I would like to see how this turns out, I think it is a good move. However, I do not know how tolerant shareholders are with Iwata and management at the moment.

Amen to that.

They still have a good market here in North America but it's only going to continue to shrink if NoA doesn't get an over haul and go back to being as aggressive as they were in the 90's. It's crazy to think that kids born in the 2000's have never experienced Nintendo like my and my parents' generation did. It's like they didn't expect to have a new generation that would need it's own "Get N or get out" to identify with. I can see them trying to channel that attitude in their 3DS commercials-- the one where they have all the kids playing on their 3DS's and the boy turns to the camera and asks "What are you playing?". Why not change that into a "What are U playing?", add some catchy, heartpumping music, fast cut clips of the games, and all that western attitude that makes the kids think "Cool!" then make that into the Wii U campaign? Certainly rolls off the tongue better than "How will U play next?" even if that phrase admittedly makes more sense when applied to this particular system. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how they missed the easiest North American mass marketing opportunity on the planet with "Wii Fit U". It should have been a bundle and then had a commercial shoved on every heavily watched daytime network, it should have sold to millions of moms looking for yet another weight loss plan, it should have been an absolute no brainer! The fact that my mom wants to re-purchase a Wii just for the original Wii Fit (and which I then informed her there was actually a new one out) is just a firsthand example of how they utterly squandered that opportunity. There definitely needs to be some major changes in how they market to the west because they genuinely don't seem to have a clue.

I want more of Nintendo not understanding how to advertise to western markets not less. Frankly I'm sick of all of the "western" ads on Australian TV for games, I'm just not that sort of gamer. If I was in charge I would copy/paste this ad for Mario Kart 8 and put it on Australian TV.

"Are U ready to play?"

BOOM

• clip of Bayonetta denying physics and disobeying all moral *
  • chain whip *

"Pain is magical! Ah-Hahahahahaha" - Bayonetta

-End of commercial -

All I know is people who are really into xbox and PS4 record themselves playing (sometimes through complicated methods and share it on youtube. Heck people have subscriptions where they have followers watching them play levels or in competitive matches.

I think sharing screenshots misses what people really would want to share, like a perfectly done level, or an impressive lap or victory. The highlight should be feasible (HTC has created ZOE's on the HTC one which do the samething for really movies/photographs).

Yeah people don't like life spammers, but that's also why people have facebook groups.

Nintendo should be focusing on finding the line between "being an acceptable 3rd place" and "being left behind" and not to go near the latter one when it comes to online. They're getting there but there's still unquestionably some issues they need to work on. But I truly believe trying to be as advanced with online features while still being free would burn a ton of Nintendo's money, bad idea. Also too much of it would take focus off of local multiplayer which is a terrible idea for the console. But yeah, more focus on it and continued improvements are very much recommend on it, thank god for Mario Kart and X btw. I'd be surprised if the unified accounts aren't a thing this year.

@kkslider5552000
That's what I'm saying. If/when Nintendo gets better communication features and an account system that rivals the other consoles, and it's free, things are really gonna hit the fan.

Talking to your friends could be as easy as clicking on your friends list, in the home menu, while doing so creates a group within Miiverse. If you want to join a friend or friends in a chatroom, that chatroom would exist in Miiverse. If Nintendo is genius, they'll make it so that every player's current gaming will show up through a video stream next to their name, so you can see what they're doing.

The Wii U is hardly doing anything on those fronts and it could literally be exponentially better.

In terms of software, Wii U is a beast. On the OS side of things, Wii U isn't even close to what it could be doing.

I've very much wanted to agree on people's frustrations, since I was kinda furious at both their late Wii "support" and 3DS launch but I just greatly prefer what Nintendo is doing in the long term with Wii U. Even as someone who was harsh on Nintendo for quite some time, Wii U is for the most part (basically anything that wasn't their bad ideas for its launch and anything that affected) cool with me as long as they keep improving at the direction they are going at the rate they are going.

My only worry is that even if it's awesome, it might not appeal to the West, which would make me genuinely sad. Not just for Nintendo or my love of both local multiplayer/free online/japanese game support (the fact that Nintendo clearly learned something from the Xenoblade incident is ignored too frequently) or my love for Nintendo. But, the console wars would feel lifeless and boring to me without them as real competition. I'm finding it more and more true that the other two consoles are just too samey to their previous iterations (and to each other) and make me want to get a gaming PC instead. Even ignoring that Wii U's games just interest me more now. Honestly, I'm one of the few people who wasn't...at least AS angry about the original Xbox One, because that was at least a thing! It got people talking. But PS4 wins with PR instead of games anyone will remember next year and Xbox One succeeds despite barely existing. Top 10 games list didn't help my opinion of popular gaming being too boring at times. It's not even about being good or not, it's how relevant games that everyone was talking about like Bioshock Infinite and the Last of Us get so easily outsold by COD and the (admittedly better than Revelations or 3) AC: Black Flag. I mean, I don't care about the Last of Us just from everything I know about it (not my type of game, and Walking Dead has my sad zombie apocalypse story fix) but it at least mattered. I mean I can at least understand games I like aren't always popular but I really don't think it's too much to hope for games that gamers care about to be the best sellers? I dunno, that just annoys me. I mean those games did way better than basically anything on Wii U still so whatever I guess?

I'm still confident Wii U will do fine at least thanks to Mario Kart and Smash Bros. And I'm hopeful X becomes something beyond a moderately successful release.

@awesome0
I think reserving the lets-players and game sharing stuffs in that way to people who bother to invest in capture devices is actually a good thing. I mean just look at what was the first thing to come out of the PS4's streaming capabilities.... actually please, please don't look because it'll be NSFW and unsuitable for sharing on this forum. I don't think Nintendo wants to be taking a hands off approach to this and I think that's probably for the best.

In MiiVerse itself I think that they could expand the sort of content that is shared. They have already confirmed a sort of video sharing functionality for Mario Kart 8 which I assume is probably something along the lines of sharing ghost data. So basically what you were suggesting anyway just locked inside of the walls of MiiVerse. Which IMO is the best of both worlds.

Yeah, we don't need more bad Let's Players on Youtube. We've got enough, thank you very much.

Honestly we don't need more gamers on Youtube, I think Youtube is literally nothing but gaming and cats now.

Nintendo's problem isn't being Japan-centric. Nintendo's problem is being Nintendo-centric. They're living in a bubble.

I love how Nintendo designs their games. I love how much effort they put into a great local multiplayer experience. I love how hands-on they are in production with their first and second party studios. I love how innovative their machines have been with motion controls and second screen gaming. And if that was all I cared about in a console, I would have nothing to complain about. Problem is that's all Nintendo seemed to care about, and they didn't consider other things.

A console being a multimedia device is very important to many gamers. It was the defining thing about the PS3 last generation. This generation, both PS4 and XBO have adopted it as a standard. Your console should be able to play games, music, movies, and TV. It should have a built in hard drive to store all of that. It should have On Demand services, optional subscription services, competitive price point for digital sales, and great online infrastructure to offer a great online multiplayer experience.

And not taking the stage at E3 2013 was a big mistake for Nintendo. Iwata seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that the only people who watch Nintendo Direct are people who already own a Nintendo system. E3 is the single hugest advertisement for the product of the year and Nintendo decided to direct it at people who already bought the console.

But yes, it is very important for Nintendo to not suck so hard at getting multiplats. To do this, their infrastructure must be easier to port to and they need to have better business relationships with 3rd party developers. It's too late for them to do that this generation though. For a company that calls themselves "Japan-centric," they seem to not be aware that most of the 3rd party Japanese developers focus their big titles on Sony platforms.

I agree that it's a bad idea but not for why you said it was. All the gaming sites covered the Nintendo Direct like it was an E3 conference anyway so I don't think that's the problem. The problem is that Microsoft and Sony were exciting and Nintendo just wasn't. It had my 2 most anticipated games in all their glory but as a whole Nintendo wasn't exciting. I want to be excited about games and that Direct seemed to exist to do the opposite. Bad idea for E3. Honestly I think the Direct from last month was more exciting than that one!

I think crowd hype is a big part of it. E3 going apesh-- over Jack Tretton dropping all of those bombs about not forcing online connectivity or DRM was a crushing victory for Sony. Even for those watching at home, you hear a crowd roar about whatever announcement, you get hyped too. Nintendo revealed a few gems at their E3 Direct, but it was by stuffy businessmen with no live audience.

Despite the E3 Nintendo Direct, I think the gaming press took it as “are sales for the Wii U suck, we are going to be overshadowed by Microsoft / Sony, so let’s hide our heads in the sand”. Obviously that was not Kyoto’s intention, but that’s how it came across….