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I am honestly more worried about writers from Kotaku contibuting stuff to NintendoLife!

I got my 3DS at launch and I was curious what the press thought about it. So I was quite surprised to see that the 3DS was being showered with criticism from lots of press outlets (including Nintendo Life).

I was new to the Nintendo reporting scene, and I was not yet aware that most new Nintendo products tend to be received like that.

Anyway - Happy Birthday 3DS!

I love reading these articles on Nintendo Life.

The popular view today is that there are basically two kinds of profitable video games: casual mobile games and cinematic first person shooters. So he can't back Nintendo's choices 100%, since they don't correspond to his view on how the video games marked should evolve.

Also, let's not forget that he was an associate of Microsoft for a longtime.

His tactic would of course be to laud Nintendo as a company, but subtly point out shortcomings of their consoles.

Thank you Damien for another great feature!

I first heard of Julian Gollop from a video clip released by Ubisoft, where he presented the concepts behind Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars by playing a bit of the game. It sold me on the game - and it made me interested in this type of games, that wasn't on my radar before!

I love these features in NintendoLife.com.

Judging after the huge amount of fun that I'm having with Unepic at the moment, this is another mandatory purchase for me.

I finished the 3DS game and it was a wonderful experience. One of the best eShop games, for me. I also played some of it together with my girlfriend, taking turns on my 3DS, and it was a blast.

I'm very happy to hear about the Wii U version. This will be fun to play with my girlfriend.

"The audience changed: a lot of people don't "get" tough games like TT2 anymore, they simply want a quick bite that is easily consumable. Not something that requires a lot of effort of their grey mass and patience."

Perhaps some complained about the difficulty, and surely many gave up before getting hooked. My personal opinion is that the general audience prefers games that have some action component: some adrenaline rush to mask the fact that they got stuck somewhere. I personally love games that allow you to take things at your own pace. But I am in the minority. After all, even the brilliant game "The Curse of Monkey Island" sold very badly (and that was more than fifteen years ago).

@FineLerv, you wrote exactly what I wanted to write here.

Cool video, it made me smile!

I find the puzzles in this game much more fun than those from the (somehow similar) games "Crush3d" and "Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move".

I'm so sorry that it got delayed...

All these articles that seem to praise Nintendo are just trolling on Sony and Microsoft fans, I'm afraid.

Do get this if you have any interest in art or history (and especially if you plan on visiting the Louvre at some point). The Louvre is full with artworks and items that are relevant for mankind's cultural history. Besides the obvious masterpieces, you have stuff such as the 3700 years-old Babylonian stone inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest records of laws governing civilized society. And many, many other interesting things.

This program is best used at home, in my opinion. There's a lot of information on the screen that you won't use when you are actually in front of the artwork, as you won't really bother to rotate in 3D a model of the statue when you can just move around the real exhibit. But when you're at home, then you can take you time to do just that.

The commentary is very good, because it doesn't just give you some historical background, but it also tells you how to look at a work of art and why it is worth anything.

It's cool that you can take your 3DS to the Louvre and start using it as a guide. It costs 5 euros to rent a guide there anyway.

One of the brilliant features is that you can choose the works that you want to see, and then the program will calculate a route through the museum. This is a fantastic idea. However, we lost more than an hour getting lost through the Louvre the first time when we went there. The on-screen indications are very unclear. The icons on the map are quite confusing - you simply can't tell where you are. And if you get lost, then the device will recalculate your position and will not tell you that you are going in the opposite direction (or that you are even in the wrong wing).

So, to sum up, great content but the automatic map has some unresolved issues.

I read the NYT article, and it was another article written by one who doesn't really like videogames (but writes about them).

The internet is full of these people - regardless of their hobby, they once played a lot, but now they just talk and write on the Internet about the hobby, generally being critical of new releases.

"The game-breaking troubles continue for Nintendo"... "Only weeks after the glitch in..."

That sort of writing can be found in tabloids and the free newspapers in the metro. Weak, unnecessary, and detracts from the contents of the actual article.

Please do not use this writing on our favourite website!

"Go into almost any place that sells games and most of the people working there will have a hate on for Nintendo. They'll virtually never point you at a Nintendo console if you are unsure which to buy."

This I can attest that is true of more than one local GameStop here!

"There was nothing that you could put in front of everybody that said, 'This is what the experience is.' "

That affirmation is very strange. Everybody that I've shown the Wii U got the idea immediately - it's a controller with a touch screen, and it communicates wirelessly with a small console that sits hidden somewhere near the TV.

I only read online that people don't "get" the Wii U. In real life, everybody gets it right away.

I also preordered this game, back in June. I'm very happy that it is arriving, and at a decent price too!

@JaxonH:

"A console's ability to "sell", is almost always determined by an impressive aggregate of titles on the system, not one game that magically makes everyone in the world suddenly want the console. To reach that point, it sometimes takes 2 or more years, after which, enough remarkable titles are available that the public begins to take notice."

That is a brilliant observation.

The same happened with the Nintendo 3DS. For two years, all you could read on the web was how the 3DS has "no games". Then, suddenly, the 3DS had "all these great games". Almost every new release would sell amazingly well: "Luigi's Mansion 2" and "Animal Crossing" were big hits.

In the first two years of the system, there were virtually no system sellers for the 3DS. Not even StarFox and Ocarina of Time. But those games were important additions to create this library that would finally entice people to buy the console.

As you observed, these days the "system seller" games tend to happen only after there are enough games out there to cover a wide range of play styles and interests.

It's likely that the same will happen for the Wii U. The "no games" moaning will continue well into the next year. Games will be released and will fail to make a significant impact. After a certain point, games like Zelda Wind Waker, Lego City, Wonderful 101, Wii Fit U and the rest will accumulate into this critical mass... and then most new releases will launch as straight hits.

So "Pikmin 3" and "Wonderful 101" will never sell more copies than in the first week after their release. But these games are "out there" now, and they are crucial.

The new users in 2014 will buy the console and think - "one day, I'll get to play Wind Walker, Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101". In reality, they will only purchase the new releases that make the news. But the library needs to be there before the new releases will start to sell really well.

This must indeed be a sad day for many people at Nintendo.

If I understand well, he was still advising the people at Nintendo, even if he wasn't running the company. And he probably had many friends there too.

He was a man of vision and he changed the games industry in many ways.

I would buy it on the Wii U immediately.

I am very happy that Andy Robertson is writing for Nintendo Life. I find his features very informative.

This is great news, because one of the main reasons I got a Wii U was that it had the potential to better involve the spectators in my games.

I have the game and it's great!

I played the demo four times now. In my first few minutes, I felt a bit disoriented, as there are definitely lots of new things to figure out. But I am glad that I persisted. The controls are actually quite simple, and the action soon starts to make sense.

What I like about the game is that it's very replayable. You don't get bored playing the same mission again, because you get better and better at it. There are lots of secrets too.

Remember to gather your scattered men after a failed attack, and you'll have lots of fun.

For some reason, Amazon.co.uk has removed the free delivery for preorders on WiiU games. Maybe it's just for my own country - I don't know. I talked to the Amazon.co.uk support team on their live chat, and they say it's an internal error that needs to be fixed. They encouraged me to preorder the game and have removed the delivery charges from my order. Maybe this info helps some of you guys...

I'm excited about this game. I have no clue how it plays or how it would feel or control - but everything so far sounds very promising.

I'm pleasantly surprised by this ad.

It is great to see others who like the GameCube (its games and its hardware design) as much as I do!

That site is the videogames equivalent of a tabloid. It lives for "controversy", be it real or not.

Of course, this being a Danish game, it will not appeal to those who live their life in a very serious way.

I am really surprised about the price - at this price, it's a must for me.

Very enjoyable read. Thomas, you do have a talent for finding the essence of things...

I don't understand the complainers. I personally feel that I don't have enough time to play all these great games!

Lovely - WayForward make extremely polished and fun games. I hope it sells enough to justify the release of the Mickey Mouse game...

I got all four when they were released in the EU and love them. I think that Warrior's Way is the least strategic, but the other three are great. Even the gardening one - your 3DS, and the others you pass, pollenize and get you seeds of new flowers, very clever and fun.

Zombi U is a very fun and unique game - nice writing, awesome atmosphere and lots of gameplay, both for novice and advanced players. And I'm not even a fan of shooter games.

I had my eyes on Kokuga for almost two years now, since I first saw some 3D screenshots of the Japanese version.

Thanks Damien for bringing some common sense into the discussion. By the way, your other article about Starfox (recently published on a certain website) was a great read.

Great idea, must try at a party!

This article was embarrassing. NintendoLife, you are better than this!

I got all for of them and I'm happy with my purchase.

A nice thing about this game is that you can often change your play style during the level, depending how much challenge you want.

For example, you can just raise all alarms and then eliminate all enemies one by one with the guns. That's fun enough, and maybe like that you can finish the game in seven hours.

Or, you can sneak up on soldiers... use your binoculars to notice how they act... mark them on the map... try to eliminate silently as many as you can... then place some traps and lure the others in the landmines... or maybe snipe some explosive gas barrels near them to do lots of damage. That is harder to do and requires lots of thinking and restarting (luckily it doesn't reload the entire level, so there is no waiting). It will take you longer to finish the game, playing it like that.

You get points for each skillful kill. After you finish a level, you almost always feel like you could have done better. There's a lot of potential to replay a level: from discovering a position from where you can snipe two soldiers with only one bullet... to placing some dynamite in a square and then sniping it from a rooftop.. or just setting up an clever network of landmines and tripmines.

I normally don't like shooters, but I like this game and Zombi U, because they require lots of thinking and you can play them at your own pace.

Cool, thanks for the report!

This seems like a very fun and polished game. I'm inclined to be distrustful of this article. Especially since its author tries too hard to be artful.

This game looks like the CGI sequences that were used to promote the Gamecube Mario Kart game (and even better).

The console will sell, but then EA will still complain that the Wii U audience is not in the market for their products. And they're right, because the new customers will buy the Wii U to play colorful, family-friendly platform games - not gray, sadistic shooters.

This article was hard to follow. I suggest that the author focuses more on the clarity of his ideas and less on trying to write artful prose.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Bayonetta 2!

Looks awesome. And she's cute with short hair too!