Bankai

@rjejr Sheep meat is called "mutton." Baby sheep are lambs, so guess what you're eating when you eat "lamb?"

This game is well beyond a free/ $0.99 game. While I agree it would have been better off as a $20 eShop download, the game is better value than this review makes it out to be. It's very replayable and even if you only play each map once (ignoring the challenges), you're going to get 15-20 hours of play time out of the game.

@Roynerer Very well, my apologies then. I assumed that you didn't have the game because, looking at MiiVerse, almost everyone that has this game actually enjoys it.

As to your other point, thought, I don't see how you can possibly say there are not as many great games now as there were back in the 80s.

It's a simple matter of numbers. The reason there are more good-to-great games now is because the games industry is about 10 times the size it was back in the 80s and 90s. When there's $100 billion in the industry of course there's going to be more games than when the size of the industry was $10 billion.

It's also easier to be a game developer now thanks to mobile platforms and engines like Unity.

Putting aside the rose-tinted glasses, I can possibly name 100 games that I truly loved from the early PC/ Commodore 64 through to Nintendo 64 era. I've played more than 100 games that I truly loved in just the last year.

$50 says Roynerer hasn't got this game.

$50 also says Roynerer has forgotten all the bad games of the 80s and 90s. It's the way it works. People forget the average games. The only ones they remember is the really good ones or really bad ones.

The trolling that this game has seen pretty much confirms for me that MiiVerse is not going to be a pleasant place unless you're into the mainstream games.

For the record I disagree with this review somewhat. It's a simple but very charming and pleasant game and really has the 'one more hour' addiction feel to it. No classic, but I scored it 3.5/5

@Dambuster - you're not a psychiatrist, please don't try and act like you are an authority on child behaviour. The impact of media on a child's psyche is far more subtle than "making them go an shoot someone" and is widely debated by qualified professionals.

Also, censorship is entirely different to what is happening here. Nintendo is not telling anyone they can't download Zombie U. In fact, Nintendo is not stopping a parent from buying it for their 5 year old child if they so wish.

This is parental control, not censorship. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.

Hey sweet. I've got a nice discount already because I bought Tekken on Wii U.

@Dambuster Perhaps not. But let's say that a parent in the UK realises that little Johnny has bought this game called "Zombi U" on the eShop (credit card statement etc). And she sees him playing it. She's horrified.

She rings up Sun Newspaper to complain.

BAM! Reputational damage. The English tabloids do like to gun after Nintendo and the damage it's doing to the kiddies. Things get even worse if something bad happens (like little Johnny is messed up before playing the game, but during school sports whacks a kid over the head with a cricket bat). Nintendo ends up getting sued by the parent who couldn't be bothered being a good parent, but it's Nintendo's fault, never the parent's.

Sued + reputational damage. Double whammy.

It's a lovely thought to say "it's up to me to say what my kids can play or watch." But while you might be the perfect parent and monitor what your kids do, not everyone is like you. There are some truly horrible parents out there. Blame them for your inconveniences, because they're the ones that make trouble for companies like Nintendo when things go wrong.

@edhe I would be happy for Nintendo to leave it to the parents if the parents could be trusted to be responsible. Unfortunately they can't, and it's the unresponsible parents that are first to sue when something goes wrong. I personally don't want to see Nintendo sued, and frankly I care more about Nintendo's future than your inconvenience.

@madgear you misunderstood what I said entirely. Nintendo in Europe may have decided that they were at risk in letting the 12 year old kiddies download Zombie U because of the way the European cultures respond when a kiddie takes a cricket bat to school. Nintendo in America have obviously decided that that's not a problem for now, so they're letting it slide.

The point is that these very smart business people that run companies of hundreds of people have made a decision. And the decision they make in one part of the world may well be different to the decision a different group of executives on the other side of the world make for the same company. Either way, they have access to better data to make better decisions than you, and so I firmly believe that Nintendo of Europe has decided the risks involved in letting the kiddies download Zombie U outweigh the losses from revenue/ pissing off the third party developers making adult games, and those decisions were made from a position of knowledge.

Feel free to change the policy when you become CEO of Nintendo in Europe.

Different business unit, different region of the world, meaning different cultural environment.

Ie Nintendo of Europe saw risk there, Nintendo of America didn't. These businesses are run by different people and so make independent decisions on these things.

No. Nintendo is doing this to protect itself from reputarional damage. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also, of Nintendo was doin this because of law/ regulation, the others would have as well. The law doesn't say to one company "do this" and then make exceptions for other companies. Even if one of the companies has a reputation for being 'family friendly,' the law would not enforce that.

@rayword - I argued against the banning of the Binding of Isaac game, absolutely. This isn't banning games, though. This is restricting access to them for kids with irresponsible parents. I have no problem whatsoever with Nintendo protectin itself against the possibility that a messed up kid with uninterested parents downloading Zombie U and then taking a cricket bat to school.

Seems like a fair initiative of Nintendo's part. The reputational damage that Nintendo would face if it didn't police the eShop is substantial, considering there are so many terrible parents that would rather blame/ sue the corporations than accept responsibility for their children's actions.

Yes good parents didn't need the eShop controls. Yes responsible adults don't need the controls. Rather than blame Nintendo for the controls, blame the parents that buy Call of Duty games for their 12-year-olds. Blame the parents that sue Blizzard when their child dies from a 72-hour World of Warcraft marathon. Blame the problem that made Nintendo act this way, don't blame the company for covering its own backside because there are bad parents out there.

@ThePillowGolem - my thoughts there are that overwhelmingly, surely, people who buy games new don't care about online passes. People who buy games second hand are the ones that care whether a game has an online pass or not. Publishers could not care less about consumers that buy games second hand.

You might me right, but if so, I would be surprised by that rationale by publishers. I can't imagine how online passes would impact on people buying games new.

@Chunky_Droid - there are no online passes at all on the Wii U at the moment.

Is this really because every publisher decided to forgo the revenue opportunity, or is it because Nintendo has a "no online pass" policy? I honestly don't know, but generally speaking, if no one does something it's because they can't (especially when there's revenue involved)

@SCAR392 I'm not sure that Nintendo has met the needs of developers, actually. Certainly Nintendo has improved, but consider this for a second - none of the Wii U launch titles support online passes. Already that would have cost third parties a chunk of revenue - critical revenue.

It's just one example, but from what I've seen and read it seems that Nintendo has indeed improved, without offering third parties a superior system to what Sony and Microsoft support.

Analysts do support the industry. There are two sides to the games industry - the consumer stuff, and the business side of it. Businesses need analysts to succeed.

@SCAR392 I'm also a little surprised when he exaggerates. For an analyst I would have thought he would be more committed to being accurate than that.

However, with regards to whether he plays the games or not. He's a market analyst, not a critic. He's not even criticising Nintendo. He's commenting on the broader market which will head in such a direction that Nintendo might find the coming years challenging.

@SCAR392 Japan alone won't be enough to hit the kind of numbers that Nintendo investors will expect for the Wii U.

The games industry in general is down in Japan at the moment thanks to broader national economic challenges, which means disposable income for the Japanese is limited. The 3DS is performing will, and that might just hurt the Wii U, ironically. One console is a luxury at the moment for the Japanese. A second is a difficult sell.

Anyway, back on topic, here's the reason Pachter has a point:

The big publishers with the big games will support the big communities. The reality is that there is way too much money involved in making AAA-games as a third party to take any risks for a game that has a lesser market penetration rate.

What we can expect to happen then is for third parties to trial inexpensive ports, in the hopes that the Wii U game will add a little margin to the substantial PS3 and Xbox 360 userbases. The problem is that, aside from the Wii U-exclusive console owners, players won't preference an inferior port. If the sales on the Wii U platform aren't all that robust, third parties will pull back even further.

It doesn't help that Nintendo doesn't have a great track record in supporting third parties, especially the western ones. You've got Sony and Microsoft throwing money at Activision and EA to get exclusives and the like Nintendo's answer is to form a close working relationship with the likes of Tecmo Koei. That works in Japan - and Nintendo should have healthy support in that market as a result. It doesn't help in the west, and a lot of the Japanese third party Wii U exclusives will get limited releases at best outside of Japan.

So the danger is that by the time the next gen consoles roll around, the third parties have all-but given up on the Wii U.

What needs to happen for Nintendo is for some third party cross-platform releases to outperform on the Wii U. If the third parties don't see positive signs from the console in the first year, than you can expect the third parties to treat the Wii U like they did the Wii.

On the plus side for Nintendo, they've kept their own first party releases small scale to start with. As nice as a new 2D Super Mario Brothers is, it's B-grade by Nintendo's standards, so at least they're trying to give the likes of Rayman Legends, Assassin's Creed 3 and Darksiders 2 a chance.

Either way, it's far too early to be betting real money on the Wii U being a long term success. Just like Pachter I wouldn't recommend investors hedge bets with it just yet. We'll be able to reassess in six months.

@OnionOverlord Again, do you understand the job on an analyst? It's to make predications based on what is likely to happen. That's the information the clients want, and it's useful information, whether it is proven "right" or "wrong" eventually.

I'm more than happy to provide my credentials. I have an undergraduate degree in media and a masters in commerce. I have edited two different publications as a journalist/ editor. One was IT, the other is a games publication. I have also worked on a freelance basis with two different analyst firms to write reports on the consumer electronics business. I am also a regular keynote speaker at industry events - including the games business. My current role is in conference production, where I meet, interview and prepare content for the CEO and CIOs of major banks throughout Asia Pacific.

And you?

@OnionOverlord I asked you to prove that Pachter was wrong. You're right, that was my bad. I should have asked you to prove that Pachter was doing a bad job, since that's really what determines when someone is someone to be dismissed or not.

My apologies for not making that clearer - I was working on that implication when everyone started dismissing Pachter as being "wrong". But I will say this: Pachter is never wrong at the time where he makes his comment. There is a strong market and economic argument to support every one of Pachter's predications. That's his job.

And yes, I'm a qualified analyst. The rest of the discussion gets a little silly, but one particular point - no, why should Damien take the article down? He's a reporter, and he's reporting.

@TysonQ7 - I think the games press can do a better job in explaining where Pachter's analysis is coming from. See, the thing is, very few games journalists have a background in business or analysis. It's unreasonable to expect them to therefore understand business or markets.

But when it comes to the trade press - Gamasutra or Gamesindustry.biz, for instance, they're doing a terrible job of writing about the business side of the industry at the moment. I don't know if it's just they they're recruiting inexperienced journalists or whatever, but when you've got a guy like Pachter talking, and no one is taking his comments in context, you end up with fanboy wars.

If Gamasutra and Gamesindustry could start hiring business journalists like they're meant to, the reporting of comments from people like Pachter would be better, and then the consumer games press could in turn leverage quality reporting for their own coverage.

I am very, very disappointed in the games industry trade press at the moment. We really need a gaming-focused Bloomberg.

Good for you, ogo79. Your point is what, exactly?

@OnionOverlord I love how I become a "Pachter fan" as though that's a dirty word simply because I ask you to be accountable for your own actions.

I'm not a fan of Pachter, and I'm not emotionally involved in this discussion in any way. What I care about is accuracy.

Here's the thing: not a single article there is proof of anything. Pachter's job is to observe market trends, sales data, the broader economic environment and then provide guidance about the health of companies and the industry they exist within.

Companies don't always perform as expected. That doesn't invalidate the assessments that Pachter makes for the customers he works for (investors). His job is to advise on what he expects to happen next. Whether his predictions actually come "true" or not is largely irrelevant to his job.

Since you don't seem to understand what the job of an analyst actually is (or understand that Pachter's comments are not really there for your benefit, unless you're a market investor), then, again, you're not qualified to comment on whether Pachter is good at his job or not.

@fortius54 His portfolio includes Facebook and Apple. The guy has an intimate knowledge of the games industry.

@OnionOverlord Can you prove that 90% of Pachters analysis and predictions are wrong?

Nah, of course not. To you all Pachter does is once every couple of months say something "Anti Nintendo."

I would love to have Pachter's job. Apparently all he does is one or two hours of work a week.

And BTW, my point had more to do with this: if you're not an expert yourself how the heck can you criticise the experts? I sincerely doubt that you understand how markets work, and therefore I sincerely doubt you understand why Pachter is making the predictions he is making. If you don't understand what Pachter is doing, why do you think you can criticise him on the basis of a single sentence that he said?

That's right. To be an analyst it's not like you have to do years of tertiary education and then work for years before you'll be given a portfolio to look after. And then it's not like you have to be an expert in financial markets and business to get a job at a firm with the kind of prestige that Wedbush Securities has.

Nah. You just need to use common sense. Why, given how much money an analyst at a Securities firm earns, I'm going to go be one RIGHT NOW

BTW - generally armchair experts use that "common sense" excuse because they don't understand enough about what they're criticising to properly demonstrate their point.

I look forward to you proving to me that you're not an armchair expert by offering extensive research and data that demonstrates that Pachter's predictions for the Wii U are incorrect. It'll be expensive for you - the kind of data that Pachter has access to is going to cost you thousands if not millions

NintendoLife has an amazing number of analysts that visit it, who know more about markets and investment than Michael Pachter, who works for one of the most successful Securities firms in the world.

That or it has a lot of armchair experts. Not sure which.

Actually, that's a lie. I know which.

Sean, there is a Samurai Warriors 3 HD... On the PS3

You do realise that Sony developed two social networks (PSN messaging and Home) years and years ago, when Nintendo still though a 40MB download limit was a good idea, right?

As Damien pointed out here, it's kind of his job to be familiar with competitive products.

I've spoken with Sony management in the past, and everyone respects all the rival companies as business competitors, not personal rivals.

It's only the kids on the Internet that imagine that Sony hates Nintendo, or vice versa, and whenever an executive makes a statement to that effect, he's either grandstanding (marketing), or misquoted.

Is it really that hard to imagine that people take their jobs that personally to actually hate the competition? Do MacDonalds workers hate Hungry Jacks/ Burger King? Does a trade worker hate anyone that works for a different business to him? Of course not, so why do fanboys insist on sticking such silly labels on professional business men and women?

The PS2 controller is by far the most comfortable and well-designed controller ever built.

So this is a good thing.

If it is Nintendo refusing to allow online passes, then I look forward to the third-party retail support for the Wii U to plummet.

Publishers would rather publish games where they get revenue, not just the retailer. Good on Sony and Microsoft for actually supporting the industry.

So, just what exactly qualifies you to judge who is and isn't a prestigious game developer?

Lemme guess - it's some variation of 'my opinion.' Most of the actually qualified people in the games industry realise that Molyneux has a very deep understanding of both the business and creative side of games development.

I didn't realise that NintendoLife attracted such a prestigious group of game developers to comment on its stories. All these people that know more about the games industry than Peter Molyneux himself!

Or it's just a bunch of armchair experts. Hm I wonder!

@The_Other_M And I shall respond there.

Given that NintendoLife measures success by 1) 'fan' interest (fanboys are actually anything but fans, but that's a debate for another day) and 2) hits, then I have a recommendation for you: "the best boobs in Nintendo games/ conventions/ Cosplay: a photo gallery." That will deliver a whole lot of traffic, guaranteed.

Microsoft Marketing guy wants people to buy Microsoft products.

This is news now?

BTW Campbell's Soup would like people to buy some Soup Cans this Christmas. Just a news tip

@59 and Nintendo would never have been able to convince those people to buy a console. So at lease then Nintendo would have made $0.99 from that customer.

And, importantly, kept the investors happy. The investors give Nintendo more money than you or I could ever do.

Harmoknight - games can be a form of advertising. Nintendo could leverage its brands like Mario and DK as mini games to promote those brands to non-gaming consumers with iPhones.

As I said before - look up concepts like 'gamification.' there is no reason for Nintendo to not use the mass audience for phones and tablets to further promote its brands and, in turn, sell extra consoles.

@HarmoKnight. I didn't contradict myself in the slightest, and frankly, when I comment I really couldn't care less what you think or want.

Dr_Monk: Here's a suggestion for you then; try downloading a smart phone or tablet game that costs more than $10.

@Usagi-san He didn't. He did, however, say that Nintendo will use phones for marketing, and if you look up the concept of "gamification," there are a whole load of ways that Nintendo could creatively entertain, while also informing, its audience. Using games is proven to be one of the most effective ways of advertising now.

I see no reason whatsoever that Nintendo should not acquire a digital agency for gamification purposes.

@HarmoKnight that's because you rarely read what I actually say, and just react to what I say.

From the start I've said that the best approach to mobile for Nintendo is as an advertising forum. If Nintendo were to acquire a small mobile development studio - 20-30 people or so, and set them the task of creating branded apps and, yes, minigames featuring Nintendo's characters, not only would those apps be profitable in their own right, but they would encourage smart phone and tablet owners to consider buying consoles for the big-budget Nintendo games.

That's about the point in my argument where "fans" have a cry and assume that minigame development would result in Mario Galaxy 3 being developed on the iPad. Now that Nintendo itself has said this kind of approach is a good idea, though, I fully look forward to every fanboy backflipping and acting like this is the greatest idea ever.

It's awesome to see Nintendo take a full two years to actually do what I've been saying all along.

So progressive.

@Wheels - I know Mark well. Great bloke.

@Ken - I think that's my problem - this is a very fine line, but to read people's opinions, it's overwhelmingly one-sided, and I am less than empressed by the way the Blogger community has behaved.

This is a good piece though. Well done Nintendolife.

@Ken surely it is libellous to say 'this person is dodgy' without a single shred of quantifiable evidence?

Libel law (in Aus anyway) is really simple: it has to be true and in the public interest or it is libel. While this is certainly in the public interest, a journalist's interpretation of a couple of quotes (which may have been said with implicit knowledge that they were not for public discourse) does not qualify as proof of being true.

According to who, Ken, an why not? To the best of my understanding, anyway, there would be a case in Australia, and obviously that is my point of reference for media ethics anyway, but I would like to understand why it is not a problem in the UK

I'm more concerned with journalist learning how to report accurately and without sensationalism in this industry. It's one area where games journalism lags very far behind.

But then again I know how 99% of professional journalists work and I know what goes on behind the scenes so I know how much of a non-event the armchair experts are turning into an event.

Incitently the Eurogamer article, which so many kids are worshipping as shedding light on the 'behind the scenes' evils I. This industry is itself entirely unethical. No one seems to report that (going back to my point about accurate reporting in this industry). That's why it was edited. It broke media law.

Just like all those analysts that are telling people not to buy stocks in European banks "badly want to see all the banks fail."

Analysts find it funny when people lose their jobs and fortunes, see.

Pachter: <Statement about the gaming market>
Nintendo Fan: "WELL I PERSONALLY DON'T MATCH WHAT PACHTER SAYS SO CLEARLY HE IS WRONG.

Sounds legit.