I still think crap marketing and the name itself are the main causes for the whole confusion.

Mainly marketing.

It ain't so bad. At least Nintendo lets you buy cheap, cheap, did I mention cheap SD cards.

Meanwhile over in Vita land, 32GB cards still cost 100 bucks. SMART!

Neat..but...Wouldn't a 3DS make more sense? lol

They said this about the DSiWare eshop and I called BS on them then, and I'll call BS on them now.

While it's more accurate then the flat out lie when they said it about the DSi shop (Nintendo being the worst offended for shovelware then), the 3DSWare eshop is still flooded with crap, it's just the gold nuggets float to the top this time around so their easier to see.

I find there's no different in quality between IOS games and eshop best games.

To eshops defense the it isn't flooded with garbage games that micro-transaction you to homelessness, which is incredibly nice.

Of course Nintendo doesn't have an account based system. That would've made sense about 5-6 years ago.

Nintendo has to do things in a "unique" way, even if it means being a complete inconvenience to the consumer.

Wii. Yeah the line up is slow, we learned our lesson.

3DS. Yeah the line up is slow, we learned our lesson.

Wii U. Yeah the line up is slow, we learned our lesson.

With Nintendo's system?
No. I never will touch retail games with Nintendo's digital download service until they fix their awful awful "locked to a system" purchases to the more common "account-based" purchases.

@SanderEvers Emulators are not illegal (at least in North America). Having them won't get you in trouble. It's the ROMs that are illegal, and even if you have the physical copy of the game, it's a legal grey area since consumer rights kind of went out the window with the digital era.

@fluggy minus playing actual game cards and the whole HDMI upscalling thing, as well as using original controllers.

Just saying.

It's fine to criticize Nintendo and its games/hardware, however, if you say it in a way that makes you come off as a massive d***, what do you expect?

I criticize Nintendo all the time, and I know very well that you need to be clear on what you don't like cause if you don't say things like "my opinion" "I think" "personally", or clearly explain your critique then you'll sound like an knob and get a ton of backlash. ESPECIALLY if you're part of the industry.

Of course this isn't the first time this guy sounded like a tool. Clearly he's not good at public speaking, or speaking in general. lol

Multiplayer would be cool I'm sure, but I could care less, as long as the single player portion is amazing.

"We're doing the best we can." ROFL
Did he just say that? About Aliens CM?

Well i guess it's at least present tense, cause if it was past tense it would certainly be a flat out lie, though a lie wouldn't be shocking coming from that guy.

Good. This is nothing but a cash grab by Nintendo. It's an extremely gimped Wii sold WAY overpriced.
If the system was $50-$75 US then maybe, but $100 is insulting when you can get a black Wii with Mario Bros and WAY more features for $150 or less with sales.

I'm glad consumers are THIS stupid, also 34k sold in Canada isn't that great, we have a population of 30+ million.

Regardless of how much it costs to make, I do think the current retail MSRP is too high for most people. It needs a price drop.

Software is fine, but with a lot of people knowing a new xbox and playstation on the horizen, a lot of people are probably holding on to their money.

In the long run, whatever they do, they'll make money. They always do. lol

@rjejr I was gonna say the exact same thing.
They admit they have a problem conveying the system, yet their kiosks sucks SOOOOOOO much.

Having actually played the Wii U, it's a pretty fun system, but those kiosks definitely suck something hard in comparison.

Until Nintendo switches to an account base system instead of their stupid system bases purchases, I'll never buy Nintendo's digital wares.

As for other systems, PC I'm pretty much all digital, PS3 I mix it up. I prefer retail though.

Wow. Small drops for hardware sales, but pretty big drops in software sales expectations.

I guess they learned what will happened from the Wii. People buy Nintendo hardware for Nintendo games.

I don't know why they just don't say
"It's not in the budget. Game budgets are planned at the initial stages of development, and we didn't have knowledge of the Wii U hardware at the time, thus couldn't budget for a port for it."

Why do they have to keep making up excuses. lol

Pretty obviously why. The IOS market is absolutely flooded with games. Eshop on the other hand is a barren dessert in comparison.
It would take a high profile IP, or a lot of marketing push to get noticed in IOS now.
Eshop on the other hand relases software at a snails pace, with usually less than a handful of games a week.
ALSO while there are thousands of free or .99 apps on IOS, cheap 3DSWare games are few, especially actual 3D games.

So it's not surprising actually.
What IS surprising is how Android is selling more, since everyone assumes people pirate more on that, as well as it's market being almost as bad as IOS's in terms of how many apps have flooded it.

Clearly the price is too high for many people.
I imagine in this type of economy, only Apple can (for some stupid reason) get away with charging so much.

I bet even the new Sony and MS systems will sell slowly unless the price is reasonable, or do that 2 year contract thing MS tried.

$40 for Pilotwings? I've seen it as low as $20 CAN at some retailers. Pffft!

@FyreeTSG If you look at their site, you'll find a bunch of PSP and Vita looking knockoffs.

So no, it's not just Nintendo that people copy, or at least this company copies. lol

@Nintenzo lol no Kidding.
I still want a Wii U, but this and/or that Archos gamepad thing don't sound half bad.

Too bad we'll never see this one over here.

So basically you NEED an external HDD just to use the system.
Not for downloads, but for game patches, DLC etc.

The 32, or 20GB model should survive for a few months, but the 4GB model won't at all.

Those are both pathetic options, it's like the Vita models, you just don't have enough space so you had to realistically add 50-80 bucks to the price for external storage.

Also, I HAAAAATE when companies advertise storage space that isn't even remotely close to what consumers can actually use. There should be laws against this. They should have to post USABLE data, it's simply misleading to consumers.
It's like the "UP TO" speeds ISPs like to use in ads, which I hate even more.

@mumof2kids82 Never said it doesn't work. I'm just saying it's convoluted and designed that way to be unappealing to people while still being able to up sell the system because of it.

It's just that there's better ways to do it, and to me, and I'm sure many people, see this as a typical business practice by Nintendo.
I'm personally not impressed with this system, but I'm sure many will be.
I just don't want people think they are getting something for free or Nintendo is doing US a favour, cause they aren't.

And as a consumer, I don't care if they are selling the system at a loss. That's not my problem, I'm not gonna feel sorry for them. It's still my money.

Again, not just bashing Nintendo. I've never been a fan of these kind of business practices to begin with. Either direct discounts or instant rebates, none of this hoops garbage. It's sleazy.
How many people would've preferred just a direct 10% discount. I would have at least.

People need to stop thinking this is free money.
You're dropping almost $300 for the system and paying a premium for this "discount". It's be no means free.

And while the method isn't hard, it is convoluted and it could've been better, it's all done through Nintendo, they could've just done it all on the Wii itself, instead of making people go through loops.

I personally find it just pathetic and no different than mail-in rebates. You have to jump through hoops and wait, while they still get to slap the discount on their ads.
I expect better treatment with a company I'm giving my money too. Some maybe be fine with that, and that's cool, but I'm not.

Other companies are just as bad as this stuff CoughAppleCough, but this doesn't make this any less sad.

Sell it digitally on the eshop for 20-30.
Port it to Vita, Android and iOS.

Then I'm sure it'll sell better.

The controversies for Pokemon show just how stupid western culture can be.

I'm not saying Japan is better, their culture is all sorts of messed up but differently. Just that many people seem to think western culture is the morally better culture when we're just as screwed up as everyone else.

My guess is, since Nintendo likes saving money, the mic for the gamepad is cheap as hell and would probably sound like one of those old fashioned drive through speakers at restaurants.

Is it stupid? I think so. I mean they are probably paying pennies for the mic they have no, and spending a dollar wouldn't break them to make their device more consumer friendly.

But this is NIntendo and they've NEVER put money into the additional features of their hardware. The cameras for their handhelds all suck, and also why the gamepad screen is resistive, not capacitive.

However, not having a chat feature built right into the system for all games to use is completely moronic. We've all seen how supported "not-built in" features were on the Wii. i.e. Not at all.

Just another step back in the dozen steps back they taken with their one or two steps forward.

@irken004 Really makes you worry don't it? When the engineers don't even know what's being put in the system.

@MrDanger88 Is that a joke? You do realize that these children were being threatened by both the work place, schools and parents to do this "internship" or be kicked out of school.

It wasn't a job like working a Mcdonalds, it was forced child larbour so they can get an education.

While that might not be a bad idea in say the Canada or EU where child and labour laws are pretty good, China...ehhh not so much.
It's just trying to justify child labour, that's it that's all.

They are probably showing emulators because if you read comments when it was first announced, people were talking about how amazing this would be for emulators.
They did the same with the Xperia play, but this one has more promise, with the price if anything.

I think it's fine and considering the price, for an Android 4.0 tablet, it's very tempting.

@WiiLovePeace That's my guess considering their past and present online offerings.

That or they still have no clue what they are doing.

@SkywardLink98 Yes, but it's a matter of when and if.
Nintendo says they'll do a lot of things, but they don't always do them.

@HarmoKnight It's not the issue of redownloading that I have, it's how your games are organized. Having to go through a bunch of pages with loading times each time is just unnecessary in my eyes. There's much better ways of having your purchases organized to me.

Obviously some people may be fine with it, and I understand that, but I personally think it's horribly set up.
Downloading itself works fine, though I would like multi-downloads instead of one at a time aside from the "download later" option.

Until Nintendo fixes (ACTUALLY fixes, not say they will fix) it's horrendous UI (yes, even the 3DS has a horrible UI, just try and find a game to re-download if you have 20+ games) and until they switch from the "since the beginning it's been moronic" system based purchases to an account one (it could be 1 account per system for all I care) I will never claim Nintendo is taking a "step" forward at anything online.

Putting games up there means nothing when everything around it is crap.

I disagree with their pricing strategy as well but that's a different issue.

So I agree with the articles issues, but I will not give Nintendo any credit for anything else. The car may have nice paint, but it still needs wheels and an engine.

@steamhare no, since you can just plug in any HDD or an SD card up to 32(64?)GB the storage isn't a big deal.

If the basic one it suppose to appeal to core audiences then it would be black and come with the online discount.

Ultimately a core catered bundles would've been black, 32GB, the online premium discount, a pro controller and possibly get a third party game in there like ACIII or COD.

This sounds like they just want to move the basic bundle more since I'm sure next to no one is trying to get that one.

Considering the restrictions of Nintendo's digital service, I'm really not surprised.

It's the worst service by far, especially when looking at the restrictions (lock to system, when you transfer purchase saves don't transfer, full retail cost, no discount, etc).

I've heard of digital prices staying after after TIME and when things go on sale, but being higher then physical copy AT launch.

That must be a first.
Nintendo, always trying to do things different, even if it's not at all better.

50 extra coins to but a digital game that's full price, can't be shared, has no trade-in value, and more importantly locked to a system and not an account making it hard to put on another system and if said sysem is broken or lost you're sol by losing the game too or having Nintendo fix it for around 100 bucks.
For 50 extra coins...

A 4GB Xbox 360 costs $199.
A 120GB PS3 costs $249.

A new Nintendo system with similar specs, no built id hand drive and a touchscreen controller BETTER cost $249 or I think most people just won't bother.
We will obviously.

My prediction is that they will make it $299, include the system, 1 gamepad, Nintendoland.

My other prediction is that half the stuff they say will be ready at launch, won't be, and they won't show up until 3 months down with little to no communication explaining what's going on and when stuff will be released.

I also predict they will have a horrible marketing push that will confuse consumers as to what exactly the Wii U is, and media will compare it to Apple TV and an Ipad, which I personally think it's warranted, though silly as an Ipad/tv cost almost a grand, but then again it's Apple and they sarcasm can do no wrong /sarcasm

I think he explained it poorly.It comes down to money.Right now the Wii gets next to no third party games because the Wii needs special attention due to it's graphical differences. Attention costs money and no third party wants to spend that extra amount vs what they think they will make back.

The Wii U is on par with the 360 and PS3, so now it won't take much effort at all to port (especially if they skip the Pad controller for the traditional one) so it'll cost next to nothing to slap over a port, maximizing profit for the company.

Now what he mentions is down the line with the new Sony and MS systems come out, they'll be a difference again, and if that difference is too big, it'll again be in a position where it needs extra attention that third parties don't want to pay for.

Graphics aren't everything, but everything is about money.

No.
Not because it wouldn't work, but because Nintendo would most likely sell these episodes at full price because it's Zelda.

Competitive digital prices PERIOD would be nice, not just special bundles.

Purchases still locked to a system and not an easily transferable account?
Still no digital sales of any kind?
The scarcity of demos?

I'm going to point in the direction of NO, they are absolutely not getting it.
They are getting there, but they still look like they are a generation behind again with digital infrastructure.

Not saying MS is any better, but I think PSN and Steam are the best examples. Steam especially. Oh and GOG (Good Old Gaming). That's probably the best example actually.

I love the folders, but the fact you can't pick an image, make an image with the camera or even have the first app/game in the folder be an image on the 3D folder is kind of dumb.

Why they chose to have it the first symbol/letter/number on the name is beyond my understanding.

It's like Nintendo can't do ANYTHING without doing at least one little thing that makes some people scratch their heads.

I don't think AR will ever be good with the 3DS because, frankly, the cameras suck.
I'm not saying a 12MP camera, but something that isn't grainy as heck would definitely help.

Course then again, I don't know if AR will ever be good unless it's some sort of headset that covers your whole vision.

Hard to believe there are still people willing to blindly defend Nintendo on this, and attack a developer for being a "baby" and "whiner" when he's quoted saying his dev house screwed up too.
I love when someone said both said sucks, but people say "No just YOU suck."

I remember when people yelled at me and other people for saying WiiWare and Nintendo's digital service was crap within the first year of the Wii. Saying that it was amazing.
A lot of opinions finally caught up with reality, but I guess there's some who haven't accepted it yet.

WiiWare was a disaster, and any good game released on it was overshadowed by just how bad the service and infrastructure was, which is a complete shame considering some of the games.
DSiWare was even worse, if you could believe that (especially when Reggie was quoted saying that DSiWare is about QUALITY not QUANTITY, when in fact it was neither and Nintendo was one of the worst offenders for it too), and while I think 3DS is vastly improved, it's still VERY bad compared to things like Steam, GOG and PSN.
That's just from the consumer view, I have no idea how bad or good it is from a developer, some say it's good, some say it's horrible, some are in the middle. All I know is that the game makers should get a cut day one of the release, no some minimum sale to get money crap. This isn't the shopping channel.
If any other digital service has this (even ones I've mentioned) then I'll hate them too.

Nintendo still has a long way to go before I will personally find their digital service/infrastructure acceptable. The Wii Us RELEASE (not details) will probably change or cement my view, but yeah, Nintendo has a long way to go.

Tip: Sales help Nintendo.