Topic: Why people aren't respecting Nintendo?

Nintendo have asked for this by being about as daring with Wii U software as EA are with Madden or FIFA and backing up their efforts with no marketing. Nintendo made a new controller to enhance the way we play games and the only first party games to successfully do that are mini-game collections that have too many bad games within them, holding back the good ones. 3rd parties have been fantastic by comparison. ZombiU, ME3, FIFA13, Rayman Legends and Deus Ex use the gamepad like it was intended. Even CoD and AC enhanced their games sensibly with the gamepad. On the other hand, Nintendo have almost gone out of their way to make the Wii U look bad and to make it look like it's designed purely for gullible fanboys.

Most games on N64 were designed to use the 3D graphics and analog controls. Many games on Gamecube used the new features like pressure sensitive triggers and the c-stick. Nearly every Wii game used some kind of motion or pointer controls. Now for the Wii U we have games that are meant to be major 1st party releases that are sequels that literally bring nothing new and haven't even considered the gamepad.

• Kingdom Hearts 3D
• Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies
• Resident Evil: Revelations
• Tales of the Abyss
• Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D
• Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy
• Senran Kagura Burst
• Shin Megami Tensei IV
• Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate
• Code of Princess
• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoners: Soul Hackers
• Etrian Odyssey IV
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate
• Yumi's Odd Odyssey
• Etrian Odyssey Untold: the Millennium Girl
• Samurai Warriors: Chronicles
• Dead or Alive: Dimensions
• Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition
• Disney Magical World
• Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
• Tekken 3D Prime Edition
• Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions
• Rune Factory 4
• Sonic Generations
• Unchained Blades
• Cave Story 3D
• Sonic Lost World
• Hometown Story
• Theatrhythm Final Fantasy
• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked
• Rhythm Thief & the Emporer's Treasure
• Bravely Default
• Professor Layton & the Miracle Mask
• Professor Layton & the Azran Legacy
• Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D

Sure not everything on this list is for everyone (and I'm even missing a few things), but if you don't think 3DS has good 3rd party support, you aren't looking hard enough (scratch that, you haven't looked at all).

And this patent trolling.......Why is it that Nintendo's the one who ends up getting sued instead of Sony or Microsoft when it comes to the gaming consoles??????

I think your sarcasm detector needs a tune-up there buddy.

Nintendo's an easier target than Microsoft and sony since both of them being actual tech companies probably have strong patent portfolios and the best lawyers money can buy

Whoa...perhaps the wheel turns again? Well, not with any notable market impact - yet.
Let me explain:

Beyond "generational" issues there are cyclical issues and trends to look at as well. Things change very quickly, and what is popular with one age group can change to the next when they become a few years older. Nintendo may be uncool today, but the backlash and negativity might make the next group of teens coming up embrace the hipness of Nintendo's lack of hipness for lack of a better term.

Shooters may become the played out thing that the teens of tomorrow reject in the way that teens of 2010s are rejecting Mario and Sonic. Just like how the teens of the early 90s rejected the spandex and hair metal of the late 80s for darker, more serious grunge...or how the popularity of nu metal and rock waned by the mid 2000s in favor of "dirty south" party jams and auto-tune club music...which is already being replaced by bearded indie rockers and disco/funk/hip-pop. (I may end up sounding even less cool then I think I am with that analysis)

I think it's awesome that you and your friends enjoy Nintendo games and consoles, but the "market" tells us that you are the minority within that important target demographic of tech savvy male teens. I guess we'll see how the market moves from here on out.

@Action51
That's a good point. It's also worth mentioning, that not everyone has played Nintendo's old games, and definitely not their new games, so that group of people is always more likely to find something they like. People are like "DK, Mario, etc. is boring", because we've played the games before them. Lots of people who haven't played Mario & Luigi, are doing so now. Alot of younger kids(5-15) years old, haven't played all the games we have. Those kids are playing Super Mario Bros. for NES for the first time, on their Wii U, just like kids did in '85.

Not really sure what you mean by respecting (buying a wii u???), but, well in the end the're a company making money, sure they saved the North-American gaming market, but that was in '85, and i doubt most people remember that. They've done good things for sure, heck, they've made gaming popular with the general public. But the've done many things that you should disrespect too, like region locking, stabbing Sony in the back with Philips , The sudden 3DS price drop and so on. so i hope you dont think Nintendo is the holy saint of gaming,

Haven't really though about it but I think your onto something. Most of us grew up or at least got into gaming when Nintendo and SEGA were gaming, they were the be all end all and chances are if you got a console it was one of theirs. Many of us also kinda grew up with Sony but its mainly the younger generation that grew up with either Sony or Microsoft, not Nintendo or SEGA, so they don't really know anything else. For many their experience with Nintendo is through word of mouth, how do you get into something thats typically seen as 'uncool' amoungst your peers?

I'm sure a lot of the "its all the same" talk is from older players, and a lot of it is probably due to appearance or lack of obvious fundamental changes. I say obvious because even Pokemon is in that boat, and its a series that has continually changed through time. Most of it is probably because Nintendo's games are rather simplistic, especially their platformers, so they're assumed to be shallow. The kiddie image doesn't help at all, thats Pokemon's main problem in being taken seriously, its 'kiddie' so it can't possibly have any complexity or deeper aspects to it. People outright dismiss the competitive scene "cause its Pokemon".

@Zombie_Barioth
I don't even understand how people could think Nintendo is "kiddie" anyway. Kids are saying Nintendo is "kiddie", when they're under 10 years old. I don't even get how that works. That's how it was during DS days, vs. the PSP. Everyone just associated PSPs higher polygon count, with being mature. It had GTA on launch IIRC, too, but that game f***ing sucked.

My cousins always had the PS consoles, but I thought they weren't that great. PS1/PS2 had more games, but less polygons, and N64/GCN had less games, and more polygons. The perspective on graphics seems like it has flipped, throughout the history of gaming.

it doesn't matter if people are right or wrong on calling Nintendo games kiddie, the point is that there are lots of people out there who do not find them appealing... different people like different types of games.... Nintendo needs to try to cater to all audiences, either by getting third party support like other consoles or by diversifying their first party portfolio to include games that appeal to different audiences...... not everybody likes games with cartoony graphics, just like not everybody like games with realistic graphics, some people want story on their games and other people just want arcade style gameplay and in my opinion, most people like different types of games at different times depending on their mood..... the idea is that you should not be forcing people to choose you need to offer a console that have games of all kinds.......

@SCAR392
Its not just kids, adults too, even self-confessed former fanboys. Its mostly the art style, the bright colors, cartoony graphics, and that sort of thing. A lot of their games sharing that style is why Nintendo as a whole is 'kiddie'. The funny thing is how thats used as an insult, as if being cartoony or brightly colored is bad. Games like Borderlands get a pass for being 'serious'.

Sony has their share of 'kiddie' games too, though I've never heard Crash or Spyro called that, or Rachet & Clank, or Little Big Planet. Nintendo's family friendly reputation is apart of it, and just their reputation in general coming from an era where gaming was a children's pastime. A lot of their marketing involves children playing their games and still does.

@ferthepoet
Choosing what you want to play is a right. That's not even up for debate. However, who's to say the only type of games people want to play, is "mature", or has good graphics? After playing 6 CoD titles, won't those people want to play Pac-Man: Ghostly Adventures 2 or something?

@Zombie_Barioth
I get what you're saying, but that's where people born after that, show up. I was playing NES until 1999, when I got an N64 DK64 bundle. If I would have gotten PS1, first, I probably would have been all over that, but my parents saw how how much I liked NES, so they got a console from the same brand. PS1 games generally had more archaic 3D graphics, especially during a time when everyone was trying to rush out a full 3D machine. All those companies were basically requiring 3D games, in order to show the new graphics. See, I used to think graphics were really important, too, but after GCN and Xbox got beat out PS2, I didn't really look at graphics the same.

The way I saw it, Mario on GCN had better graphics and gameplay than Jak and Daxter on PS2. There wasn't a "mature" equivalent of games like these: http://www.ign.com/articles/2001/07/06/the-must-have-ps2-game... , on GCN, unless you want to count REmake, which came out fairly early in the life cycle.

There isn't even a specified game line-up for GCN 2001, as far as I know. http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/03/16/the-top-25-gamecube-ga...

@SCAR392
Thats what I was saying in my last post, not everyone had a previous experience with Nintendo to build on. Some people might have gotten a N64 due to Nintendo still being popular, but most likely got a PS1 and never played a Nintendo game, they didn't develop a taste for those kind of games. I pretty much grew up on both, not at the same time but I did start with Nintendo and SEGA. I played games like Digimon World, Spyro, or Tomba, thats why the 'kiddie' argument is so ridiculous to me.

@Ferthepoet
Thats absolutely true, it only becomes a problem when those preferences become more than just differences in taste and 'kiddie' becomes an insult more than a descriptor.

@SCAR392 my point is that if Nintendo wants the console to be successful it needs game of all types and that it presently has a problem because its first party output its not diverse enough to cover all bases and don't have the third party support needed to cover the gaps....

The 'kiddie' association is fair, imo.

Though, if i was to call a Nintendo game childish today, it would have more to do with their sheer lack of difficulty/required skill than anything else. Just compare the latest entries of any (long running) Nintendo series, to one that released prior the Wii/DS. You'll understand what i mean.

Before, their sequels used to get bigger and more complex than the previous, but now the opposite is true. Nintendo trying to dumb down their audience in-order to obtain more sales with less effort, warrants no respect.

@ferthepoet
I completely agree that Nintendo should mix up their lineup, but the same goes for 3rd parties, Sony, and possibly Microsoft. Nintendo has more "mature" IPs, like Metroid, F-Zero, and Starfox. I know some might not consider those mature, but really, they're basically borderline rated M, kind of like Uncharted. 3rd parties need more "kiddie" games. I know Activision has Skylanders, but I tend to look at that as more of a cash grab, which is why I steer clear. EA will probably put out another Sims game, always has the sports games, but they might need something more. 2K made Carnival Games on Wii. I don't even know how that happened... My point is that Nintendo has too many "kiddie" games(I guess), and the other guys have an abundance of M titles. There has to be a balance. I agree that there can't be too much of one or the other, so we have to be fair and call out too much CoD.

Microsoft has Kinect Sports and Banjo, but there's got to be something else they can throw out, besides Halo and Gears. I think Lost Odyssey was a step in the right direction, for RPG fans, but I think it was a failure. I feel like Sony messed up, by letting Spyro and Crash to get away. They have a few "kiddie" games, but even Ape Escape is basically dead.

@Zombie_Barioth
I was mainly just adding to your point.

Starfox has guns and Metroid has alien guts. I guess F-Zero isn't really mature, but it does have a more realistic graphic style than Maraio Kart, and you can fly off course and explode. If they added blood tp Starfox or Metroid, those would probably make the jump to rated M.

And if Princess Peach wore a thong and was topless in SM3DW it would be rated 'AO'.

@SCAR392
cool, gotcha.

I wouldn't say any of Nintendo's IP are borderline M-rated. You'd be surprised what passes for T or below. Its mostly the seriousness of tone that determines rating I think, a little blood or gore wouldn't hurt much but in a setting like Metroid Prime it could be enough for a higher rating. Heck, Harvest Moon used to feature an actual bar, and in HM64 they had real drinks and everything, yet still passed with an E. The only one that earned a higher rating was A Wonderful Life, with a T, due to the more realistic style.