Topic: Is Nintendo making the games they want to make a bad idea these days?

When developing games, Nintendo doesn't develop for, or chase after any particular demographic, they just make the kinds of games they think are fun, which is why their software has such broad appeal. But in this day and age, is this an outdated practice? Most AAA publishers develop games with the 18-34 year old demographic in mind. This mean realism, violence, sofisticated storytelling, mature themes, an M rating, and online features.

In fact Insomniac's Overstrike, was changed to the much more serious looking FUSE because the focus group they tested with though Overstrike was too cartoony. Hell, even 12 year olds thought it was a game for their little brother. I'm seeing similar complaints with Splatoon, people who claimed to want a new Nintendo IP wanted something realistic and mature as opposed to Splatoon and to a lesser extent, Codename S.T.E.A.M.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think Nintendo can benefit from some fan input in terms of online features and hardware, and I do think they should try and get more "mature" games oon the Wii U to appeal to older gamers, but as far as their own games are concerned, should they continue to just release they kinds of games they feel like releasing, or should they becomes slaves to market research and focus groups and try and make what they think the average gamer wants?

Should they continue to just release they kinds of games they feel like releasing, or should they becomes slaves to market research and focus groups and try and make what they think the average gamer wants?

Wow, that wasn't a loaded question at all. This is what we call a circlejerk.

Honestly though, from what standpoint? Business? If their games are selling well why should they stop making the kinds of games they want? If they suddenly start losing significant sales then yes, they should look at what consumers are actually interested in buying.

Perhaps if they want to be successful in the short-run. I do feel that it makes for more consistantly quality products, which can bolster a long-standing reputation among their fanbase, which in-turn can lead to a steady stream of income. It's all about balance. They don't necessarily have to be the biggest company, just big enough to maintain steady growth and a health bottom line.

Sadly, "Big enough" is a very difficult concept for investors to swallow...

18-34 year olds don't need realism.
13-20 year olds need realism so they can convince themselves and their peer group they're mature. 30 year olds don't give a damn.

I always thought that basically Miyamoto can greenlight or do whatever he wants.

For anybody else especially if they are younger getting it allowed is extremely difficult.

(Might well be totally wrong on this. But I think Pikmin was allowed because Miyamoto wanted to do that somebody else wouldn't get the same treatment).

And Fuse was a failure, so that should tell you about hitching yourself to closely to focus group opinions. Also, AAA development is largely untenable due to the significant cost associated with making those type sod games (Nintendo probably has extensive budgets for their games and likely could afford these, but it still is a concern). Capcom and Square have had multi-million selling AAA titles that were considered profit failures due to the exorbitant costs. Also, most AAA titles have a short shelf life and do not support an evergreen approach to sales which Nintendo relies on (this might be a problem of other publishers rather than the titles worth). Annualization and extreme focus on online play are a big problem for many AAA titles and requires a big buy in in the first month or so of sales.

Now, nintendo could diversify their lineups and contribute more mature themes (not just M rating as that sometimes has nothing to due with maturity) in certain games. That is just smart business sense for their blue ocean strategy. They also are woefully lacking in the online arena, but that has nothing to do with mature or AAA titles. It is largely a cultural divide that they can't seem to work through (or are unwilling to in the name of protecting the kids). Personally, I chose nintendo for the general quality over a large number of games and the fact that I will get a diverse lineup and unique experiences. Nintendo isn't wrong in what they are doing from a development standpoint (see the multimillion sellers on a console with low ownership). The problem is perception and lack of comparable hardware that allows easy porting of just released titles to fill in those gaps.

This is very true. Seems to be a cultural issue. i hate to say it, but some of the old guard at Nintendo need to move on and let young developers create the games. Splatoon is a good step, but they need to allow new ideas more often. They also could allow NOA and NOE to contribute some ideas, but they are mostly marketing arms of NOJ directives.

Hmm.

I feel that there's already enough people making the sort of AAA games that western console gamers enjoy. Nintendo hopping on the train and saying 'me too!' and releasing a cinematic TPS or a sports sim or open world crime game or whatever may benefit them short term, but they would completely lose their identity long term. Why would anyone buy a Wii U to play the Nintendo shooter when they can just buy CoD on the system they already have? At least by making games that nobody else is making, Nintendo has an audience. It's a smaller audience in need of expansion, but it's there. They should work on cultivating and expanding that market, not dropping it and going for one that's already quite saturated.

But there are certainly cues they should be taking from the competition. Online services is one. Does Iwata have an Xbox or a Playstation? He should buy one and get a Live/PS+ subscription. Maybe he just doesn't know what the other guys are offering and that's why Nintendo's online is about 10 years behind the competition. Better yet, he should get a Steam subscription.

Well, back in the N64 days, he really didn't get the right to do that. He actually wanted it to be first person OOT the be first person, and he got a flat out no when he presented it. He also wanted Mario to have a horse in M64, and you know how that ended.

Overall, now a days Nintendo really lets him do anything, and that ended up with Sticker Stars. I wished they didn't change that way, although Miyamoto is a great man with great ideas, sometimes NIntendo should just give him a straight up no.

You're attacking a straw man.

Besides, they create new IPs quite often; they just barely sell. W101 is a good example, and I'd like to see how STEAM turns out, because there doesn't seem to be a lot of hype for that game. Everybody asks for new IPs, when they deliver, nobody buys them. I think there's a good reason why they're so keen on releasing the next Mario, Zelda or Smash, rather than creating a new IP.

Some of the reason that Sticker Star wasn't the best was due to club nintendo surveys. They saw that 98% (!?!?!?!) of people thought the story int he previous game added nothing, so they went about changing things. Another cause where user feedback was wrong and influenced a game in a negative direction.

[quote=Barely_Able]

Not really. Dan Adelman said as much, and he worked for them for years. i think a guy on the inside would know what the problems are.

Why should Nintendo give up on what they're obviously good at. Besides, there needs to be games aimed at the family and kids anyway. Besides, if every game was aimed the dude bro crowed, it would get boring really quick.
There needs to be a diverse range of games, it's better for the industry that way.

To answer the actual thread title I think anybody making a game they don't want to make would be a bad idea.

I don't need 3 of the same consoles. I like how it is now. I got two real competitors and one solo flyer who tries to innovate more than it tries to keep up with the other kids.

Nintendo has deep pockets and can take a hit every now and then when trying to be different. Just because they are behind the other consoles doesn't mean they should rapidly change course. That is what could truly spell disaster and something Nintendo does not do.

Sure I wish they would follow some conventions, like internet play, cloud saves and account systems, but really, at the end of the day its about the games.

I don't think people should look at it as, there are so many games I don't get to play because they are not being developed for the Wii U and more like, look at all I get to play on my Wii U that will never be anywhere but here. If your that much of a gamer, you at least need 2 systems to experience a true breadth of gaming. I have an Xbox One and a PS4 and they are great systems, but the Wii U is just different and I like that about it.

Lets also not forget that Nintendo comes up with some great ideas that others are copying too. For instance the communities per game that are on the Wii U, where you can chat and whatnot about that game just became a thing on the X1. Each game now has a HUB. You can't tell me Microsoft didn't look at what Nintendo was doing here and think we should do that.

In any case. I don't see a need for any drastic measures out of Nintendo. I may not agree with every direction they go in, but I sure do love the games that come out of it. Isn't that what its all about?

Except that was a suggestion, not a demand.

It's not bad at all Nintendo are making games they want to make. It's a shame they make their consoles with their games in mind, but don't incorporate what the third party devs want (which from my observation seems to be just raw power!). I buy a Nintendo console for their games, but like the SNES days, I wish their console was snazzy enough to attract everyone else to it. Third parties must like to take the path of least resistance. So if the Wii U was as powerful as the Xbone and PS4 it would atleast make it easier for them.

I get the feeling that Nintendo isn't going to hold back as much next gen now that we've seen with the 3DS. It's one thing when just 3rd-parties are having problems with not enough power, but now it seems even Nintendo is hitting their limits more often prior to a device's end-of-life. The release of the N3DS is a clear indication that they are needing to start a generation with more power. Games like Smash utilized the extra RAM so it didn't have to swap the entire OS to give more space to the game, and the quad core CPU bumped up from the dual-core only gave games (that were designed for it) an extra core, as the 4th is for head-tracking (a feature that retroactively works with all games, not just N3DS ones. Having that extra core was the difference between having Xenoblade Chronicles in handheld for this gen and not having it. There are other improvements that go way beyond the improvements that the DSi granted when coming from the DS.

I hope you are right. If there next console is just another Wii U on a force feedback space hopper, and they insist all games use it, then I will give up lol!

Nintendo doesn't particularly make the kinds of games they want to make. Sure every console tries to do something different but at the end of the day they will always produce a mario kart, a zelda, a mario, and maybe an entry in another franchise or 2. Whilst these sequels and occasionally spin offs do something different and/or mix up the formula a bit they will almost never be alien in their approach to base design. The Wii titled games and Splatoon might be games that Nintendo truly wanted to make for the sake of doing something new or different, but Nintendo for the most part hardly ever deviates from their tried and true franchises and formulas in truly different ways. This can be a good thing in terms of the subtle changes in each new game, but for the most part it's also bad because as we've heard from Anouma himself that he doesn't particularly want to keep making Zelda because he's been doing it for so long. Nintendo is most certainly going to begin development on a new entry for new hardware as soon as its reveal or shortly after its launch. It's quite amazing, in fact, that we haven't had new entries in the F-Zero, Star Fox, or Metroid series for years. Their business model does know to some extent how to hold back, but for the most part Nintendo is only doing what makers sense for their business (even that is contradictory when looking at the Wii U though). In the end I suppose Nintendo is just one big mystery altogether but we can only help they don't get stale. As for whether or not they should produce mature games I would definitely say no. Why? Because their dev teams aren't built with that creative direction in mind.