Topic: Buy Any NPC Games? Stop It!

What Moai said; not to mention the fact that I'm sure they've held some announcements for E3 (it's been implied as much in interviews recently), so with the year only 1/3rd over I think it's a bit early to get excited and the NPC titles that are coming have already been completed, so it's a bit late to complain about them and since they aren't targeted at people who bought Gamecubes I don't understand the point anyway...

I do hope Captain Rainbow gets localised however...

Wikipedia? lol

We both know a a good few of those games will never see the light of day outside of Japan, others have been "confirmed" for years, others have been announced with no release date.

That list is basically everything that Nintendo is probably working on, not the list of games definitely coming out this year.

The list from 2008 are games we actually got. Not games that could have come out, which is what you gave me for 09.

So far North America is supposed to be getting the four new games I listed. Last year, North America already had four new games before May.

Great.
Then run a little advertisement explaining to Wii owners they can also play Gamecube games.

And the reason for complaining about it now, is so we don't get a whole new line up of NPC games. Taken from this thread though, people wouldn't care.
What was the point of backwards compatibility if Nintendo fans want every Gamecube game to be a NPC game on the Wii?
With these doing well and Nintendo fans perfectly content, they might as well make a NPC F-Zero GX, instead of making a new one.
Why would they make a new one when that one will sell fine and Nintendo fans don't care anymore?

We could easily see this carry over to other franchises that were on the Gamecube.

Everything on that list (with the exception of Kirby which wasn't at their press conference and I doubt will ever be released) is coming out in in 2009. Nintendo play their cards close to their chests, so if they've announced these games for release in 2009, they'll be there. Whether they all make it to North America, or even leave Japan, is irrelevant. All of these games will be Nintendo-published and, like I said, were announced last year, so there's still eight months for Nintendo to announce any number of titles. Furthermore, there's a slightly higher ratio of new IP in the 2009 list, so not only are you getting more new games, you're getting more original content too. That's IN ADDITION to the NPC stuff. What's the issue?

It's relevant because all the games in my list did.
So yeah, there's that..

And then there's not much I can do if you truly believe Nintendo plans on releasing two new games in the first half of the year, and then releasing several in the second half of the year.

North America saw eight new games in 2008, Europe saw 10.
The first half is already confirmed with Excitebots and Punch Out. You're telling me Nintendo will release six new games from July to the end of the year?
As in one new game every month?

Please.

There's no need for that. No one else is insulting anyone here.

Hey, hey! That's three.

Also, about that long list someone posted earlier, I don't understand why S&P2 keeps getting listed as a Nintendo game. It's a Treasure game. Nintendo publishes it, yes, but that is the extent of their involvement, and some of those others I don't think are first-party titles either. What Nintendo does with its NPC lineup does not affect 3rd parties, fortunately. The unfortunate side to this is that, since they are releasing all these old titles, they can't release as many of their own titles around the same time or they'll be competing with themselves.

And this is going solely from what the media has said so far, but Punch Out doesn't seem like much of a "new" game. Of course, I plan to rent it and find out for myself, so I'm not casting final judgment on it just yet. The graphics rule, at least.

Why not? Take that cross-section you used and then extend it to the period between April and October - how many Nintendo-published titles were there then? Nintendo isn't under any obligation to release a certain amount of games by a certain date and neither is any other publisher. They release them once they're done and ready to be released, which is why it's stupid to arbitrarily compare release schedules between periods without context.

Trying to suggest that the NPC titles are somehow taking resources from other "new" games is illogical. It's not as if Shiggy himself hand-codes every port, or that the Zelda team had to take time out of their schedule to reconfigure Mario Tennis. This stuff gets farmed off to anonymous developers, it happens all the time. Heavy-hitters like Mario Kart and Brawl all showed up at the same time because they all went into development at the same time; Nintendo aren't known for spitting out their big-name franchises more than once a generation, so while it might sppear that they've gone into some sort of development lull, it's more co-incidence than anything else. That being said, they've gone on record saying that new Mario, Zelda and Pikmin titles are coming. Who's to say they couldn't necessarily be done by holiday season?

There are plenty of reasons to dislike the NPC games, but they have no real bearing on Nintendo's release schedule. They've been in the can for months and took relatively little resources to produce. Calm down.

I'm in favour of the additional content and new controls in the Metroid Prime games, but beyond that, I couldn't care less about the New Play Controls games. I'd much rather have a Zelda on the Wii, or a new 2D Metroid.

You make some good points AlexSays. Although I would like to try some of the NPC Wii-makes, I also do not want less "new" games released. I really hope that this is not Nintendo's intention.

It's not as if Shiggy hand codes anything anymore, the lazy sellout.

It always amuses me when people say that as if the opposing argument is necessarily uncalm.

Hey Alex, at least they aren't remaking Orcarina of Time, eh?
Aha ha that was a crazy thread .

Oh yeah and i do think that they should pump out alot more new games. I mean like Sin & Punishment 2 is great, ExciteBots is interesting, Wii Sports Resort seem demoey for Wii motion plus, and im nervous about Punch Out!!

I don't expect them to release as many games as 2007/2008, but heres for a better E3!!!

Can't be proved otherwise.
There is evidence these NPC titles have prevented Nintendo from releasing new games though.
Heck this very site even said this in an article...

NPC titles meaning no new titles?
Someone else said this?
Alex isn't so crazy after all. lol

It's true, I just went outside and kicked my neighbor's cat.

Oh I'm glad that was a joke because I would have gone nuts. lol

And yeah I'm not expecting anything huge but I am expecting them to announce a fall game, like they did last year with Animal Crossing.
Having the same year as last year though is out of the question. We're already too far behind.

Whether or not the NPC titles are affecting the release of other titles can only be speculated... Unless of course you have a source who works for Nintendo and has knowledge of the release decisions and why they were made.

I agree that the NPC games are most likely place holders to generate more revenue while they work on their next big release, but with so many big name franchises releasing recently, that means that many of their development teams for those franchises are now only starting on a new game. And if other titles that were originally scheduled for release this spring or summer and got bumped back and had NPC titles thrown in their place, I would assume it was more because Nintendo didn't think the game was ready for release and decided it was better to delay than ship an unfinished product.

Personally, I will be buying the Pikmin and Metroid NPC titles, While I do have GCN controllers and memory cards, and thus could for the most part get those titles used on the cheap, I think both series benefit from the pointer functionality and would be a better experience because of it.

That's not evidence, though, that's merely an assumption on the part of one individual. I'm not saying that it's not easy to see a connection between the two things, but if you take the time to rationalise the situation you'll see that it's more about coincidence than anything else. Nintendo blew their stack relatively early in the game as far as big-name releases go, so what else do you expect in the interim? Direct sequels take years to develop and Nintendo tend to shy away from them to begin with. Nintendo's release schedule wouldn't suddenly fill with new sequels if the NPC games were to disappear.

It's a fair point and frankly I don't feel the need for a new F-Zero game, but then I never played the originals so if they do a New Play Control! version of the Gamecube game to me it's a new title so I'm not holding its past against it.

Something you keep forgetting is that some of these Gamecube games (notably Pikmin 2) are quite difficult to obtain, and I don't know about where you live but I can think of one or two shops were I could find any Gamecube games at all and they certainly won't have the biggest, most popular releases. Finally if I'm given a choice between game that uses Gamecube controller and one that doesn't I'll do the latter.

I'm sure we're going to see more new content from Nintendo and I think they've learned a marketing lesson from next year's E3 so that performance won't be repeated (though I personally didn't see what the fuss was about...). A little patience might be in order!

I have taken the message of this thread to heart, and instead of buying every Play Control game besides that POS Mario Tennis (Which was as such even just on the GC), I will now SMUGLY buy them. Maybe follow up with sarcastically bragging to the internet that "I am an unholy destroyer of the righteous art that is gaming" or something like that. And maybe two copies of Pikmin 2 instead of just one since it's such an awesome game, give the other to a friend.

The fuss came from people who have never heard of the concept of perspective in their lives. Really, let's think about this. Rumors are flying high that Microsoft and even perhaps Sony are planning to full on strike at Nintendo and try to steal the widening audience Nintendo is pushing for. And really, no one would blame them, it would've been all they could do to keep from fading into irrelevancy in the bigger picture.

So Nintendo announces something that obviously was nowhere near ready to be revealed (The motion+) RIGHT before the Microsoft conference that would've taken the wind out of any motion sensing controller's announcement, then their conference focused primarily on WiiMusic and Animal Crossing, both wide-audience games, and contained many lines clearly created with the expectation of having to wage war over their newfound customers.

Neither MIcrosoft or Sony follow through, so what happens a couple months later? Nintendo holds a conference announcing a bunch of new IPs and sequels. What, did they only just develop this over a couple months? No this is obviously what E3 would've been if they weren't expecting Sony or Microsoft to finally take up arms and break outside their shrinking box. There's no reason for E3 to go the same direction again.

Not that I would care if they did, because watching geeks have a raging conniption on internet forums brings me more entertainment than games ever would.

Kururin I think would make a cooler WiiWare game (It's simple, has a simple clean art style, wouldn't be hard to make one with tons of levels), but oh man, I would buy so many copies of Doshin if it ever actually got a Play Control release here. I'd buy straight into the 'puppy kicking' level of 'Dark Lord of Play Control supporting' evilness.

I planned from the start to buy all 7 NPC games, even though I own 6 of them on GC. That bothers me actually...I need to get my hands on GC Chibi-Robo and then I'll have a complete set! No wait, I need to prepare myself in case this happens again...here I come Four Swords Adventures and Odama!

I'm actually hoping they make a second set (which again, I'll obsessively buy), mostly to see if they'll give second winds to games like Doshin and Kuru Kuru Kururin....or would that be third wind for Doshin? It'd be great to at least get GC that were never released here before right?

Wow, I just don't understand that, paying for 14 games only to get 7, and not selling the 7 originals? If you have that much money to waste, why not share?

You're insane!

It would be cool to see NPC versions of Japan-only games though.

I really don't think NPC titles are affecting release dates for major games since they are so easy to produce. I think, if anything, they are being used to drum up a market FOR franchise sequels among all the new Nintendo fans that have recently bought wiis. Major franchise games take years to develop, and we haven't seen too many sequels to major franchise games in one console's lifetime since Super NES really. The NPC allows Ninty to get their franchises that aren't as big name as Mario (like metroid and pikman) known in the marketplace beyond Nintendo fanboys for the purpose of increasing their sequel's success.

Of course, they make some basically free money off of them, but it gives people something to play during the lag time between sequels. Also, since 3rd party games seem to have had trouble competing against 1st party titles, limiting the number of new 1st party games this year will hopefully encourage great 3rd party game development. Hopefully good games will be released this year and will sell well because they aren't competing with Mario Galaxy 2, and this will beget more great 3rd party games throughout the console's lifespan. People who probably won't buy more than 9 games a year dominate the wii console, so that makes it more difficult for 3rd party producers when there are so many new 1st party games. If 3rd parties aren't encouraged, we won't get much of a variety. We'll get only shovelware that's cheap to produce, because nobody will want to put the time, money, and effort into an excellent game that just won't sell well. That's bad for everyone. This has been a problem with the wii so far, so hopefully reducing the number of big name new titles will help. New gamers can buy NPC's. Older gamers who have them all will have cash freed up for 3rd party games.

I plan on buying Metriod Prime and Pikman at some point, since I heard they were both good, and I didn't have them on Gamecube. I wouldn't buy an NPC I already owned, but if it's better than the Gamecube version, why not buy it if you don't have it?

Wha? You're taking applications again? Cool! But I'm way to busy with my news organization to really devote time to another one. Maybe if things calm down I could... and I don't see that happening anytime soon... Also video is more my thing, http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A201DBD0ADE8028D

But back on subject! Yes, I do believe that these NPC's are just quick ways for Nintendo to cash in on their new casual gaming crowd, and unfortunately, they'll eat this all up because they think its new. The NPC version of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat showed up in my "Intend to Buy" thing for a while, but I never picked it or anything.