-DEMISE-

@rjejr Weird.

@RCMADIAX Umm no offense, but if I were you I wouldn't antagonize this site's staff. They treat you and your games with significantly more respect and courtesy than is probably warranted, and certainly more than everyone else that plays them or is even mildly aware of them.

@rjejr I'm legitimately curious- do you go out of your way to intentionally misspell "Nintendo" every single time you type the word, or is it just a case of not wanting to bother with proofreading?

Also, what you're saying about amiibo being overly expensive as it relates to unlockable content in Smash Bros. is only correct if the only game you use a particular amiibo figure with is Smash Bros., and if you regard the companion character and the playable character as part of the same package, which they aren't. They're two different pieces of content with two different costs. You can buy the playable character without ever having to own the amiibo figure, which is a good thing considering how hard it can be to find certain characters.

The value of amiibo figures is only low if you buy a figure for Smash Bros. and never use it for anything else. But considering the fact that most amiibo figures work with several different games, the value of the figure increases and the cost per use decreases with every new game you use the figure with. Buying an amiibo is like buying a key that will unlock dlc in multiple games, and the more of those games you own, the more valuable that key becomes, and the cheaper the unlockable content becomes. And if Nintendo continues to add compatible content in future games, that trend can theoretically continue indefinitely. That's not true at all for any of the other toys-to-life lines, where the figures only work with one game in most cases. And I can't think of another single game where you can pay one price upfront for dlc, and then have it unlock dlc in other games in perpetuity. The closest thing I can think of is a season pass, but even then you're usually paying a lot more for a season pass in most games than you would for an amiibo, and it still only unlocks content in that one single game.

@ECM Yaayyyy, I know stuff!

@Moon Um, no. Amiibo has been extremely profitable for Nintendo. The reason Infinity isn't making enough money isn't because of the cost of producing figures, it's because Infinity is itself a massive video game that costs significant amounts of money to develop, and then update, and then develop more updates, and maintain the servers, etc. Amiibo costs Nintendo practically nothing because the platform doesn't rely on one massively-expensive single video game to justify buying all the figures. Nintendo throws in little bits of amiibo interactivity in a bunch of different games that are already being developed as stand-alone games, and it's all basically handled similarly to paid DLC, so there's very little cost in the software side of amiibo. Nintendo's greatest expense is just producing the figures, which they obviously sell at a healthy mark-up. Disney Infinity and amiibo are similar in the technology that makes the figures work, but they're very different platforms.

I don't think the issue lies in the review scores themselves, but rather in the inability of people who read them to fully recognize that a review is nothing more than the subjective views of one person. A score is just an opinion, but people treat them like points of fact and allow themselves to be swayed entirely by the reviews and scores they come across. If people would go out of their way to read multiple reviews for a given game and remain open to the idea that they are allowed to disagree with a critic, and that it's not the end of the world when a critic doesn't like a game that the reader does like, then this wouldn't even be a discussion.

As much as I love Retro's work with Metroid and DK, and as much as I personally want them to make more games in those series, I think they've definitely earned the right to build something from the ground up. They've shown time and again that they can produce high-quality games, so it would behoove Nintendo to put some trust in the studio and see what they can do with more creative freedom.

@Yorumi That's possibly true, but you started off by assuming that I said things that I didn't actually say or even imply, and then replied by outright saying that my whole comment was wrong, and then listed a bunch of different examples as to why it's wrong. It seems appropriate for me to be at least a little defensive in light of that. Anyway, I'm ready to move on now.

To be honest, I think one of the most important things Nintendo needs to focus on with NX is how they brand it and how they market it. They got very complacent in those areas with Wii U. NX needs to A: have a name and an identity that actually appeals to people that aren't already die-hard Nintendo fans (so, something that doesn't have "Wii" in the name and doesn't look like a Fisher Price toy), and B: actually receive some marketing attention from Nintendo so that people are aware that it even exists.

@Yorumi I'm biting YOUR head off? Okay, I apologize for that, but I get really tired of people arguing with everything I post on this site, so hopefully you can see why that would bother me.

@Yorumi No. To summarize my first post, I said that launching with a strong library AND making sure that there's a consistent release schedule of good games is more important than just launching during the Holiday season at all costs. I never said that there aren't other contributing factors in a console's success, or that the launch library is a make-or-break factor by itself. Everything you've said since then has essentially just supported my original point, but you're framing it as an argument because you're just a habitually disagreeable person, apparently, and you seem to look for disagreement where there is none.

I'm perfectly fine with people replying to my comments, but it's beyond annoying to me that if I don't make sure to cover every possible angle of an issue, it means that I have to fire off a dozen extra comments clarifying what I meant because someone will invariably jump to a thousand conclusions if I leave anything out of my original post.

@Yorumi Ugh. Dude, I know all that. I never said that a console's success is ONLY determined by software, or that it's ONLY determined by launch date. The absence of a specific point is not an implication that I was stating the opposite of that point.

@Yorumi Correct. That is precisely my point; there are multiple factors that go into a console's success or failure, and it's not necessarily determined by launch date. I guess I should have been much more specific so that I could avoid having the argument-addicts on this site latch onto me.

@Yorumi Aaaaaand your point?

Wii U launched during the holiday season, and look how it turned out. He's absolutely right that a robust launch library and consistent release schedule over time are more important than launching at the end of year.

I'm honestly starting to wonder if this game was just vaporware all along. Just a very elaborate scam that went as far as making a playable demo to fool people. I'm sure that's not it and the studio is just a sh*tshow that can't get their act together, but this is just insane regardless of the explanation.

@Spiders I think you're somehow not understanding the meaning of the term 'relative' in this context. I don't think a single person with even a cursory knowledge of the Wii U's history and library would say that Nintendo has failed to support the system in proportion to the anemic sales of the system. They've done just about everything they could to give Wii U a compelling collection of first and second-party software and keep the thing alive for more than three years, which is about three years longer than a lot of companies would have supported a stillborn console like Wii U.

@AVahne No, they definitely don't NEED the money. But they also don't need a baseball team, and since their core business is video games, it makes more sense to pocket a billion dollars and get out from under the headache of managing an MLB team as a mere side-project.

Ah. I wondered if that was how it worked, but I haven't taken the time to actually try it.

@DAMO Did the "invincibility mode" that everyone freaked out about get cut from this game, or am I just too dumb to figure out how to use it? I was curious to see how it worked, but I can't seem to find it in the game.

@Spiders Is that really the main thing you got from my comment? Weird. Anyway, Wii U is not Nintendo's only system, hence my using the plural term "systems". Between Wii U and 3DS there are still a handful of games coming, including a new Paper Mario and a new Pokemon. And even if the pipeline looks bleak right now, it's safe to assume that Nintendo will show at least a few new games for both systems during or around E3. The fact that Zelda will be their main focus doesn't mean that they won't be showing anything else, either through a pre-recorded E3 video, or through a Nintendo Direct around that time.

So yeah, the fact that Nintendo is still releasing ANY games for their outgoing systems, especially for a failure like Wii U, instead of just killing them off right now and launching a new system as soon as possible, shows that they are doing everything they can to support their systems in the absence of third-party support. But I wasn't talking about just this year anyway. I was specifically talking about the amount of first-party software Wii U will have received over a 4+-year lifespan in proportion to how badly the system has sold, which has been pretty admirable, as is the fact that they're honoring their promise to bring Zelda to Wii U instead of just shifting it completely over to NX, like they've obviously done with almost everything else they were working on for Wii U.

But really, that was about the least significant part of my comment, bro.

Honestly I think it would have been stupid to release NX this holiday season. It would have just fallen in the middle of the VR/PSNEO craze and gotten crowded out. Releasing next March lets them give Wii U just over a four-year lifespan and show they have a commitment to their systems even when they're failing, and it gives them a solitary window to build hype without outside competition. It also gives them a few months to position the NX for E3 2017, which can now be focused entirely on NX games that can still technically be considered launch-window games, and hopefully the extra wait means that they'll be nearly completed and ready to launch by then, as opposed to showing them off at E3 this year and then having to wait until well into next year for them to release.

Holy crap, a babymetal costume?! That's super weird and I like it.

Even if you guys goofed on the date, you might as well have just stuck with the error, because we'll be lucky if this game actually releases before December. Or just releases, period.

@Ryu_Niiyama Thanks for sharing all that! I'm 32, the youngest of five kids. I was born into a family that had a couple of gaming systems already, and we got the NES when I was five. So gaming and my love of Nintendo are equally natural to me. But the pressure to fit in, and I guess probably even my own tastes during that time, drove me to seek out what I perceived to be more "serious" games during my teenage years. It wasn't a really long phase, fortunately. My love for Nintendo couldn't be suppressed forever!

But I think that a lot of boys and men really do make their pop culture choices based on how masculine or "cool" they seem, gaming included. I'm really lucky in that my wife loves Nintendo as much as I do, and she doesn't care that I'm a nerd, so we both have someone to share the Nintendo passion with and kind of support each other in our devotion to the brand.

That said, I do own some non-Nintendo systems, and I still play a lot of the more graphic, adult-oriented games. But I'm no longer concerned about walking into a GameStop and asking for a copy of a game like Kirby's Epic Yarn and having people think I'm immature or something.

@Ryu_Niiyama I don't know where you live, but in the US and a lot of other western countries, there's a certain level of masculinity that a lot of boys/men feel they have to maintain. I'm not saying I agree with it or care about it, just trying to answer your questions.

@Ryu_Niiyama For the GameCube specifically, it was the fact that it was a tiny purple box with a handle. It looked like it was something you'd carry Hello Kitty dolls around in, and the discs looked like something a toddler would stick into a toy computer. Personally, I'm not insecure enough to be deterred by "kiddie" aesthetics in my games or gaming devices, but there are clearly many male gamers who simply can't bring themselves to walk into a store and say "yes, I'll take one of those consoles that looks like a Fisher Price toy, and a copy of that game starring a cute dinosaur made of yarn."

I know this because I used to be one of those male gamers. I was 17 when GameCube released, and I missed that entire generation from Nintendo because I didn't want my friends to think I was lame for playing anything other than Doom and Duke Nukem. Fortunately, I grew up and came to my senses, and I couldn't care less about the ridicule my gaming choices bring my way. But practically none of my male friends, co-workers, or relatives who still play games ever came back around to accepting Nintendo as a legitimate producer of quality video games. They play things like Call of Duty and GTA pretty much exclusively, and most of them willingly admit that they just think Nintendo is for children only, even though they haven't played a single game from Nintendo in almost twenty years.

@WiiUPS4Gamer No phone gaming? Without Tetris and Clash Royale, my time on the toilet would be incredibly boring.

Funny anecdote, I predicted in my mind that this article would begin with the word "prolific" before I clicked on it, and GUESS WHAT. It does.

Haha. That gave me a good, quality chuckle. It's even funnier to imagine Champ from Anchorman as the voice of Peppy. BARREL ROLL!! WHAHAHAAAAAAMMMYYY!!

Man, I get so excited every time I see a story about this game! And then I read the headline and it's just about another staff addition, and then I get sad. I need an actual update on this thing, man! Man.

@tuckera78 hahaha, yup you got me! I changed my name to try to hide my tracks! Not like you can change your name every 90 days and your history follows you regardless of how many times you change it. Yeah, the shame of my past comments thing. That's why I did it.

Way to edit your comment to add that part in three days after the fact, smart guy. But hey, you apparently joined this site specifically to reply to my comments on this one article and nothing more, so I guess there's no limit to the bizarre crap you'll do.

"I'm not that other guy! I swear! I don't even go to the library! I just randomly created this account and only replied to your comments totally at random! Please believe me!"

-tuckera78 aka kevlarwhateverthef

@ToniK I love DKC: TF. I feel like it was somewhat dismissed by people when it came out because it wasn't Metroid, but it's a great game.

@SuperToe holy cow.

@Detective_TeeJay Well that made sense.

/not

@Detective_TeeJay Because watching someone flawlessly tear through Super Mario Bros. in less than five minutes might be at least somewhat interesting to people on a site with "Nintendo" in the name? Just a guess.

@japongt Oh my holy freaking f, are people serious with this crap? NO ONE is saying that the New 3DS is "some sort of major leap in technology". NO. ONE. IS. SAYING. THAT. Is there something in the user agreement for this site that says 9 out of 10 users must be incapable of processing abstract statements?

As I've already explained to another of this site's denizens, the New 3DS is a hardware revision. It is not a new generation of hardware. These are the clear and obvious facts that encapsulate this conversation. Not one single person is operating under the belief that New 3DS is an all-new generation of hardware. In this context, the New 3DS is a significant improvement over the old 3DS. That is the extremest extent of mine and anyone else's statements on the New 3DS' technological enhancements. How hard is it for you to get your head around that? Did you fall down some stairs or something? Man.

@japongt Your age is relevant in that you're calling me "son" and yet your answer for people that express different opinions from your own is to shoot them. You seem immature and also just kind of dumb, and you should definitely avoid calling people "son" in light of those things.

"A good justification when? A decade ago? Back in the GameBoy era?"

Just google "screen resolution and viewing distance" or "screen resolution and screen size" and read about why things like resolution, viewing distance, and screen size are important. If you don't already know these things, then don't comment on them until you do.

@japongt "Tiny" as in it's a handheld and not, like, you know... a television? That is and always has been the number one justification for the lower resolutions of smaller displays on devices ranging from handheld video game consoles to smartphones and tablets. Also, the 3DS is a VERY cheap device, and one of the ways they achieve that is with less expensive screens. Don't compare it to the screen of something like an iPhone or an iPad, which cost several times the price of a 3DS. And you do know that we're talking about raw processing power and not the display resolution, right? Because the resolution of the screen has nothing to do with actual capabilities of the system. And don't call me son. What are you, like, 12? You must be either very young or very stupid since you're telling people they should be shot for thinking a video game system is more powerful than some other video game system.

@MC808 I personally prefer the XL, but I honestly don't get why the XL can't have the colored buttons and swappable face plates like the smaller model. I would frickin' love it if it did. I mean, I already do love it, but I would love it EVEN MORE.

@japongt I suppose the resolution is "bad" but since it's a handheld and the screen is tiny, I don't personally care that much about it.

@tuckera78 Lolz "everyone hating" me? There was one single guy that disagreed with me, and he spent a couple days overkilling his argument, and then he just gave up or fell off the face of the earth or something. Based on how bizarre your comments are, and the fact that this article was posted two weeks ago, I'm legitimately wondering if you aren't that same person.

Anyway, I'm not going to debate f**king libraries with you anymore. I sincerely couldn't care less. This is weird. Have a nice life. The end.

@tuckera78 Six days old? This article was posted on March 31. I have zero interest in rehashing this. I regret that I replied to you the first time.

@skywake I mean, sure. I was never under the impression that we were framing this conversation in any other way than a hardware revision. The upgrades amount to a lot more than just "less bottlenecks," though. But since less bottlenecks means that the system is now significantly better at doing its main job of playing games, then that alone is a big improvement.

@skywake No one is even remotely claiming that the differences between 3DS and New 3DS amount to an actual leap to next-generation hardware. This conversation isn't even about that. It's about whether or not the new 3DS is a significant same-generation hardware REVISION, not as a next-gen hardware REPLACEMENT.

The Game Boy to GBA leap felt like going from NES to SNES because that is precisely what it was. Game Boy Advance was no more a Game Boy than the SNES was an NES, or than the Wii U was a Wii. Those machines represented a jump to an entirely new generation, so of course the differences were more pronounced. New 3DS is not that. It's not an attempt to replace last-gen hardware with next-gen hardware, it's a hardware revision. And in that very specific context, it is a significant upgrade.

@skywake Just in case you don't feel like reading the Eurogamer's article, here are a couple of key quotes:

• "the New 3DS represents a significant leap forward."
• "a clearly substantial revamp of the hardware.."

Of course it comes down to semantics, but I'm inclined to agree with the opinion that the New 3DS is a significant upgrade.

@MitchVogel Yeah, I agree with that. Personally though, as a kid that grew up with the original Game Boy, that brightly colored screen on the Color was a revelation!

@skywake I'll just leave this here for you to read through. There's nothing I can say to prove to you that I'm anything other than a random nobody on the internet, but Eurogamer's technical prowess is beyond dispute, so if you don't trust them as a source then I just can't take you seriously.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nintendo-3ds-vs-new-3ds-face-off

@MC808 I honestly think it makes a huge difference. The 3D effect just broke too easily on the old model, in my opinion. The slightest deviation from the ideal viewing angle and I'd lose it. It's an entirely different story for me on the new model.

@skywake Ummmmmm I never said it was "4x more powerful." I said the cpu is "like four times faster" which, even if I weren't exaggerating my point a little, is not the same as "the entire system is 4x more powerful."

The original 3DS cpu maxed out at around 400mhz, but that was its extreme limit, and it didn't hit that very often. The new 3DS has a quad-core processor that can easily reach over 800mhz. And with more than twice the ram of the original 3DS, it blows the old model out of the water. The gpu is pretty much the same, so it's not as great of an increase in raw power as it could be, but yeah, the New 3DS is just significantly faster and more powerful than the original 3DS. Sorry if that makes you feel bad in some way or offends you on some strange personal level, but I'm not inventing this information.