Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

To me, it just kinda feels like watching a 40 year old teacher trying to sass back to the 12 year olds.

@NEStalgia I don't remember Yamauchi from a business perspective honestly as growing up I would not have cared about how Nintendo worked, so long as I had game to play. So I can't comment on that. I do think you are being a bit unfair to Iwata-denka though, as he in many ways function the way many Japanese businessmen did, in so much as the focus was Japan and if the rest of the world happened to like it, that was great too. However at the same time I think he worked very hard to be more transparent than the average CEO, and he went to bat for a number of games (Smash for instance) that we likely would not have gotten without him. I don't hold him responsible for marketing campaigns or naming conventions (Nintendo has a history of changing up its consoles each iteration and for good or for ill that can't be hung on one person's shoulders) I hold him responsible for keeping Nintendo in good standing even during turbulent times; which he did. And for keeping a coherent company vision; which he did. (half the time I don't know what MS and Sony ...MS more than Sony..are tying to be as companies. Nintendo has always been pretty plain.) I suppose he could be faulted for not trying to bully his way through partnerships but that did Nintendo no favors in the end anyway. I think he took risks in investing in new IPs, (sure he didn't bring back the vocal minority darlings but that was a sound financial decision) and I think he kept employee morale even when consumer morale is low. I don't blame a CEO/President if a product doesn't catch on, I blame marketing, and we saw the difference between Wii marketing, WiiU marketing and Switch marketing and consumer response followed. Having a good product doesn't cut it anymore, you have to beat consumers over the head with it to keep mindshare. I think that Iwata-denka had a "if you build it" mentality which as a programmer/dev by nature ....that makes sense. The naming convention worked for both the Wii and even the WiiU to the Japanese, but the marketing to show HOW the products were different didn't work too much of anywhere. The rest was partnerships imo (which only so much you can do with that without emptying the coffers and if you have to beg for a product you likely won't get a good one anyway. IE EA support), Considering all the focus on VC, the sequels to popular franchises such as Pikmin, new ips that had a more "core gamer" (still a stupid term) feel such as splatoon or entries such as Xenoblade Chronicles X I think that Nintendo tried very hard to cater to both camps. In fact I felt like the family was left behind in terms of marketing until about year 2 and a half. The problem is at this point "Nintendo" games (games that are for everyone but the challenge makes them core appealing) doesn't sit well with the mainstream gamer set in their teens and for the old people they either want sequels in to infinity of games that don't sell, old games to be darn near free, and for Nintendo to churn out 2-3 games a month (I'm coalescing complaints I saw during the WiiU era here) to make up for the lack of 3rd party support. I would say the other thing that Iwata-denka stood by but I don't think is his fault is that Nintendo views consoles as entertainment devices (Read toys) and they try to keep a certain price point for ROI, hence the "gimmicks" so we don't have 3 boxes and PC that are all alike. I think that was a fair reaction after the gamecube was second in terms of power but didn't do that well and never removed the Nintendo is for kids line that I still don't get (gaming is a pastime you do since childhood, it is not inherently adult even though there are games with content for adults/or really kids because who measures your maturity by seeing blood or naked women? I don't.) and after the wii took off (despite being more powerful than the Gamecube and so on and so forth as each new system came out) I don't think Nintendo had a reason to change that. They are still an Entertainment Company. They aren't trying to be bleeding edge and have to limp their way to profits hoping that a greedy consumer base will be obsessed with one uping their friends and buying the most expensive thing they can. So I don't think that will change even now. I do think Nintendo underestimates how quickly the tech cycle has increased (I blame Apple for that) when before they could have an generation/era and keep a certain viewpoint. So for instance waiting to see how online takes off, not a bad strategy if gaming remained in a semi holding pattern the way it used to, but as gaming became more social and fell into the annual franchise, push for more graphics/AAA movie games that strategy doesn't work. Yet it is hard to quick change when you have hardware/manufacturing in place already.

I don't see Sony as being particularly "western" or in touch. They just spent the money on the marketing.

Also did you refer to me as a PC gamer? I consider myself a console gamer first and foremost. Most of the games I play are multiplat...barring RTS games I play games on pc because they look the best, or have a better interface.

Sorry for the derail yall. I thought I hit post before I left for the day.

Also, QFT.

@bimmy-lee "nosedive" is polite. It had seriously become a trash rag to the point that I actually legit switched to Kotaku for gaming news for a while there. I mean it was that bad. The only way it could have gotten worse if if I had to switch to the Wall Street Journal for gaming news....

"45% of a journalism degree" well, at least you have 45% of something to wipe yourself with....

I've never even visited Kotaku

@gcunit A agree with your assessment of the site, though the affiliate link articles and such started in TWs time as well. I always suspected that's part of why he left was a general focus change while the site struggled to transition from "quaint family Nintendo fans site" to something a bit more mainstream like PushSquare when Switch came out. PS and NL have VEEERY different feels to them. But the problem is the PS forumla still didn't work for NL because where Sony and 3rd party has tons of continuous news, Nintendo's sphere still has blackouts.

Every 1st party Nintendo game gets tons of pre-hype, that's the whole point of a platform fan site, and advertising probably wasn't directly purchased by Nintendo, but was fed in by the ad engine as relevant ads (for good reason.) It's not like when IGN has a full-page wallpaper for a game they're reviewing on every page....

A lot of us including myself and you are skeptical of a lot of the articles like you mentioned. But Obvious Troll (OT) in that thread was doing something very different than that, and it was pretty clear in that first post, and the speed at which that post was posted. The follow-ups just kind of confirmed it. Not to mention for that specific game, the idea that a good review isn't to be believed makes no sense considering the pre-release hype of the game has been positive from all corners, and we've seen it ourselves at Treehouse that it's a very high quality looking game with a lot of depth from a known good studio in a game that plays to that studio's strength. From what was already available to us to make our own decisions I think it's clear that a score that wasn't high would have been a stunning and unexpected disappointment to a game that we all had every reason to believe was going to be either "very good for it's genre" or "amazing cult classic." And it was one of the most exciting surprises last E3 as well. So when one of the first posts to the review on that is basically "I don't trust this review, I think it's false" along with "I dislike this genre, and also dislike other very highly acclaimed games of the same genre" ....it's kinda obvious what's going on.

I mean that's one notch below "Talking Point: Why NSO Is Terrible."

This is a game that, is a high profile 2nd party exclusive from a beloved studio in their core genre, in a new IP with an expanded scope versus their prior games, that had huge press hype and E3 hype with fan and media availability across 2 E3s going into it, a high review was the expected default for every outlet (except IGN and Kotaku because Nintendo reasons), and giving it a middling score would have been the trashy click-bait option. Site posts a high score and a very lengthy text review, and within 5 minutes, someone posts "I think this review is false."

Obvious troll is obvious.

I agree that the back and forth made it look unprofessional on the staff's part, but that's only because they're so open and forgiving. Most other sites would have issued stern words, a TOS posting about staff interactions via PM and a ban warning on rebuttal #2, and by rebuttal #3 the user would have been banned.

@StableInvadeel Keep it that way. You'll live longer.

Kotaku is fine. They might occasionally try to stir the pot with an opinion piece, but, honestly, NL has done the same thing for years as well. They're no better or worse than the majority of mainstream gaming news outlets.

I mainly come to NL for the forums, since you can keep track of pretty much everything news-wise between Nintendo Everything and Siliconera.

With that said, I do like the openness, and how the writers and staff will actually just talk to you instead of threatening to ban you for posting a dissenting opinion. Is it unprofessional? Maybe, I don't know. I just know that I prefer communities where the people with the badges don't abuse their authority.

@Ryu_Niiyama Paragraphs, Ryu. Paragraphs.

Don't get me wrong, I love Iwata, I loved the Iwata era, and I terribly miss the Asks and "real " |DIRECT|s. At the same time, he got a lot of things wrong. The focus on Japan may be common for most Japanese CEOs, but Nintendo's not "most Japanese companies." They technically did more business in NA than Japan, by revenue, not by accident, but because that was Yamauchi's intent, and he leaned heavily on Arakawa for keeping a pulse on that. Arakawa doesn't get the respect he deserves, he really had a strong finger on the pulse of the NA business, and pushing back on Japan (and was the only man that could actually get away with doing so considering Yamauchi...) The Wii and DS era still had Yamauchi helming the board directly. Iwata gets a lot of credit, but he still had the sensei watching over his shoulder. Much as I love Iwata, and much as he was an essential figure for the Nintendo we love (and truthfully I'd probably have learned to hate Yamauchi's Nintendo...it was pretty nasty in the 80's...a better EA than EA.), you can see the trajectory of him struggling to find solid footing the more Yamauchi's influence diminished and then was lost. I think together they were solid leadership, but Yamauchi was still an anchor for the "business imperatives" side of Nintendo into the late Wii era. Arakawa leaving NoA to Kimishima, the "traditional" businessman, didn't really help either.

"If you build it" isn't inherently a bad strategy even today. The problem was few wanted what the WiiU was, it was a rough product that they seemed uncertain of even internally (a year before launch it still had a prototype gamepad, they forgot to show the console) and seemed really unsure what they actually wanted it to be. I don't think WiiU is a product they "wanted to build." I think they got caught flat footed that Switch wasn't possible yet, Wii was mismanaged and in free-fall, and 3DS wasn't picking up DS's torch. They needed something and had to run with it. I also think what they wanted it to be wasn't really sellable anymore because cheap tablets arrived just prior. I do think Iwata had faith in the WiiU as a product. I'm not convinced anyone else at all did. Everything good about it he made good. But I'm not sure even Miyamoto was too excited about it.

MS was directionless until Spencer. It was a bunch of corporate suits trying to figure out how to tap markets and synergize company priorities. But Spencer has a clear vision, and lives gaming. Don't rule him out. I see him as the Western Iwata. It's a rare treat to have two gaming leaders like that in one lifetime.

Sony OTOH just goes whatever way the winds are blowing, then tries to buy the wind. If they can't, they try to sue it out of existence.

There's like 10 other topics we could spend hours on in the rest so I'll have to restrain myself here

But the point is, I agree with most of your points about Iwata in terms of what I like about him. But I also think he kind of reverted to too local a focus versus Yamauchi's very Western focus (from the very start) and that, more than anything, set Nintendo back in the western market, and overall. I like the Nintendo approach as much as you, but one can't deny that not following the industry hurt their home consoles (every single console dropped in sales excluding Wii....not sure if Switch really counts since it rolls in their handheld business.) From a business point of view, it was clear that whatever they were doing wasn't working. And Wii may have been a huge success, commercially, but it was actually a total failure for their objectives. The goal was to "create new gamers" (Iwata's words) - and it failed catastrophically, it did nothing of the sort, except for maybe creating the phone gaming business. It hit huge numbers as a fad. That was very good for giving Nintendo the money it needed to endure....it didn't actually fulfill business objectives for building out their future market, thus another part of WiiU's result. Switch on the other hand, didn't aim to rebuild a new market but to re-attract their old market, pre-Wii. And that's been very successful.

@Ralizah Kotaku exists solely to forge new pots to stir. It drifts from hot button issue to hot button issue and bolts gaming onto it.

Would one expect anything else from the Gawker family? The entire thing exists as a trashy tabloid, mostly stoking hot button issues for clicks.

@RedderRugfish - I don’t know, it wasn’t a one and done comment. It was at least a big side conversation under the biggest piece of journalism NL has put out since the FE review (written by a tenured writer) before Ant chimed in. I personally think it had to be done, but I acknowledge that ignoring it would be have also been a feasible option. I understand what you and others are saying, but it’s not the way I would have handled it.

@NEStalgia - The final form was an English degree. I’ve already flushed it. It cost me an extra year to make the switch, but I read some reeeeeally good literature.

On the journalistic integrity: I agree with most of the opinions in this thread on that. I also like how the site's staff are more willing to interact with normal users in the comments and otherwise. That said, I do agree that they probably went a bit far by catering to the troll. On the other hand, I totally understand the instinct to defend one's work.

I don't use Kotaku for game news - I probably only visit the site once a week on average - but they occasionally have a decent nostalgic piece that interests me. There have been some articles where I think they're making controversy out of almost nothing, but they're by far not the only source out there who does that.

@ThanosReXXX Sounds like my kind of setting! It's been a bit since I've watched a decent horror flick. Plus, I'm a sucker for Victorian settings. Thanks for the recommendation!

@gcunit No argument there, which is also why I explicitly said: "Ant and Damo were well within their rights to defend their points and article, even though I do on the other hand feel that they maybe should not have let it get the better of them."

Basically, it all turned sour within the space of four back and forth comments, and everything that followed after that only made things worse, especially when other members started to gang up on the culprit. Oh, well. It's all water under the bridge now, and I'm glad that I was able to restrain myself from joining in the fray.

@Ryu_Niiyama I'll forgive you for the (far as I'm concerned non-existent) derail, but I'll happily take an apology for not spacing out your comment, making it one, dense text wall, which is far less easy on the eyes and less enjoyable to read than when it would have been divided in bite-sized sections/paragraphs...

(ah, damn. @NEStalgia beat me to it... )

But an interesting post nonetheless, and I fully agree with it as well. Good luck getting @NEStalgia on board with that, though. Iwata-hater...

@RedderRugfish But was he really polite, though? Or was he expertly trolling, like for example @NEStalgia suspected? He certainly did some weird flip-flopping across the entire thread, so I'm probably gonna have to go with needless insulting and then pseudo-backpedaling. And the timing of the initial comment was indeed very suspicious, to say the least. And when called out on that, all he could say was "I'm a fast reader".

The staff should have perhaps reacted a bit more tactful and maybe even a bit more adult, but the sentiment was certainly understandable, and whatever else he was, that guy sure acted like a tool, far as I'm concerned.

@Tyranexx You're welcome. Let me know your verdict, once you've had a chance to watch it.

@Tyranexx Also watch A Cure for Wellness. It has Shutter Island pacing.

Also, I got a $600 bonus for stepping in to do all this agency reporting.

That’s all for now, back to the coffee pot.

Talking about coffee, I've continued my coffee experiments, I've been adding dash of cinnamon powder or a bit of honey to the milk while I froth it. So it comes out tasting pretty nice.

Also I bought a light bulb that has a bluetooth speaker on it, it's like my room has background music!

I have to agree that I also don't like Kotaku. I used to follow them back when I still was in the cesspool that we call social media and even before I finally bailed on Facebook and Twitter entirely, I had stopped following Kotaku about a year prior. I found many of their articles extremely biased, a lot of the writers and comments to be condescending too. I was also not fond of the way they treated a lot of Japanese culture and media. It quickly became clear that it was mostly second or third hand info, or worse.

@HobbitGamer - Nice bonus, well done. That should cover your Switch expenses in September, unless you need caffeine rehab after this of course.

@Heavyarms55 Social media a cesspool? Why, I have no idea why anyone would think that! No toxicity at all. Everyone is totally tolerable of other opinions and can discuss it in a rational manner. Everyone also completely waits for all sides of a story before passing judgement. /S x 100

The only reason I still bother with Facebook, other than as the only way to keep in contact with some people and talk with my mom should she be at home (Usually no cell reception at my parents' house until you walk to the end of the 100 ft driveway), is because a couple of groups I'm in use it as their communication and event tool. One made the jump to Discord, but the long-established messaging channel still has some stubborn users and is borderline essential to have.

The other is LinkedIn, which I wouldn't have even bothered with had I not been searching for a new job on and off until a few months ago.

I don't bother with anything else. People have tried to get me to join things like Twitter and Snapchat, but I'm not interested.

@ThanosReXXX Will do!

@HobbitGamer I'll look into that one as well. Thanks!

Glad that you're getting some compensation for all your trouble.

@Tyranexx and check out Dream House. It’s a good slow burn build.
@bimmy-lee Thanks y’all. It’s honestly been a nightmare. I took over the project from a behavioral health director and the IT director.
But somehow a summary line of data got skewed. I’m hoping to fix it tomorrow quickly. Then I apparently have to help the crisis stabilization unit with their measurements as well.

I may treat myself to Astral. If I have a brain left.