Ernest_The_Crab

@Yorumi It's entirely possible there "may" be a lack of creativity at Nintendo (there seems to be a lot of Yes Men at HQ as of late, especially at Intelligent Systems). Then again there could be completely different problems at HQ at the moment.

It's just a sneaking suspicion I have, but I feel that Nintendo as a whole might not be very good at handling pressure. This combined with their inexperience in HD development and the extreme demands of their shareholders (we've all seen what those people are like) is probably stretching them very thin.

Let's think about this shall we? They came up with a lot of creative games during the early years of the wii. But when sales starting falling for the console what did they start doing? We saw development of games like NSMB. At the time there was considerable pressure from the shareholders for them to "rush" to do something about sales.

Then we had the 3ds...same problem. When it was doing poorly we ended up getting ports and more NSMB like games. The difference was they did end up making some better games later on for it, most likely due to them managing to get it to sell somewhat decently. The pressure was alleviated somewhat as it started to sell properly.

And then we have the Wii U. We got a bunch of decent games for it like Pikmin 3 and Splatoon but those were already well in development by the time the console was released and those released somewhere in the middle of its life span. Most games we've seen for the console recently (and upcoming games actually) appear to be stuff that would have been "relatively" easy to make quickly.

I obviously don't have any "proof" at the moment, but it seems like a fairly reasonable hypothesis based on the timing and information we've had available to us.

Well I guess a good way to tell, would be to see what the NX's Nintendo developed release window games and up to halfway of its life span are like.

@Thomas This isn't really a first party game. Camelot is an independent 3rd party developer that just so happens to do games based on Nintendo licences. Square Enix has a done the same thing with Mario Sports Mix and Fortune Street neither of which I would consider 1st party developed games. Just by looking at the comments I can see that part of the review has already caused confusion and inaccurate statements to be made.

It's like how Philips had a contract to make games based on Nintendo IPs but I guarantee if you actually ask anyone, no one in their right mind would say those games were 1st party.

I don't really have any issues with the actual content of the review, as Camelot has shown that their most recent offerings have been lacking in substance. It's just that 1st party statement is extremely inaccurate even by loose definitions.

@rjejr Another issue is that the mobile version of the game is quite different from the pad z part of the bundle (not to mention the Mario side). Pad Z is more of a traditional RPG ( except the combat match 3 stuff). You can explore and there's some kind of story involved.

Also the lack of a stamina bar most likely hurts it in this case. Without that you can quickly feel the effects of grinding (tedium) and experience all of the content in a short period of time. The mobile version has that aspect (stamina) helping it since it also constantly gets new modes and dungeons. By the time most of the main content has been completed new stuff would have arrived.

This is one of those cases where I feel a retail iteration wouldn't be as effective as a mobile version.

@DarthNocturnal Steam does have regional restrictions like Nintendo. For the same reason too, apparently.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/196079-valve-enables-region-locking-in-steam-to-stop-you-buying-cheap-games-from-russia

@rjejr Yeah, you'll probably want to find something close to your store credit amount to purchase if you want to use it, otherwise you'll just be stuck with a tiny balance. I'm one of those people where seeing a tiny unusable balance bothers me.

Was it a promotional balance? It probably has an expiry date if it is. Otherwise, I don't think credits expire if you get them from a gift card or purchase through other monetary means.

@rjejr Actually, about that, Play Store on Android has issues too. If I have Google Play credit and it's lower than the item I'm trying to buy, I have to pay completely with a different payment method. Odd to say the least. Not sure if that problem is on iOS as well since I don't own an iOS device.

@TheDavyStar No, Nintendo doesn't own the Picross license. It's mostly no one else has really tried to capitalize on electronic versions of the game and had success with it.

@PixlBitStudios How colourful do the designs get for the pictures? Kind of curious about that since the pictures here and on Steam don't show too much variation.

@ThomasBW84 Thomas do you think you could put up the Canadian prices as well? I was had a little bit of a shock when I saw Binding of Isaac's price on the eShop today. There's about a $5 difference in price (it's showing for $19.99 at the moment).

@Kaze_Memaryu Well at the same time the hunters are already superhuman when you think about it. These people are jumping off of huge cliffs and landing on their faces without taking any damage, taking body breaking roars from Tigrex without being instantly killed (actually come to think of it, pretty much anything you get hit by should instantly kill you).

I'm more surprised that their moves aren't causing minor earthquakes.

That's quite easy for such a big company to say. Frankly, what supplier is going to dare to make demands of Disney?

@tlegg One of the issues is that some of the games in the bundle are not even available yet outside of NA on their own. That's hardly an issue with Nintendo alone.

People in the EU would still complain as that would require restricting the bundle to only games released in that area. In fact, it might cause an even greater outrage in that scenario as people would be complaining they're being charged more for less.

@VIIIAxel The additional games are usually at least slightly related to whatever the theme of the current bundle is (well some bundles I've seen have no theme). Most likely they'd be some other high profile indies on the Nintendo eShop going by the games in the bundle (so The Letter for example won't show up, well hopefully anyways).

@Quorthon That however does not change the fact that their PR was repulsive in nature. Any company that mistreats people that badly in any other industry gets burned pretty badly (barring those in a monopoly or oligopoly).

@Quorthon So you would support a developer that's that much lacking in integrity? All of their communications with the community would easily fall into any definition of lying, deceit, and deception.

They should have "set the record straight" a longgggggggggg time ago.

Then again this is why I don't trust crowdfunding.

@Quorthon It's more likely that everyone is bored out of their minds in regards to doom and gloom articles related to Nintendo. Most of the gamer population has heard doom and gloom articles since the release of the Wii U so it wouldn't be too surprising if everyone is simply too desensitized or too bored to care anymore about Nintendo related doom and gloom articles.

Sort of like if you eat the same food too much you get bored of it.

@rdrunner1178 From what I remember, most of the key members of Rare left to form their own companies. That's probably why they didn't keep the studio.

@kobashi100 It depends on the type of dungeon. For PAD on mobile devices there are a lot of dungeons where monsters can 1 shot you (usually event dungeons like "Descends" or end game dungeons). It can also happen when you first start playing PAD, if you just try to rush through earlier dungeons without leveling your creatures.

@Kaze_Memaryu The whole aspect of "not getting what they want" is pretty much the core thought process of the Nintendo fanbase when you think about it...Why isn't it a new Mario, F-Zero, Zelda, Starfix or Metroid. Now, why isn't it a new IP.

A good portion of people seem to think they're entitled to everything.

@pinoswine I think the tutorial quests explained that actually. That's how I learned to use an Insect Glaive. Before 4 I mained Switchaxes and Greatswords.

I believe they are listed under the 1 star quests in the caravan.

@leo13 And even if you had to grind, there were EXP gems you could use to make grinding faster.

@Quorthon Pretty much anyone that's produced Metroid has done a better job storywise than Sakamoto. They just need to find someone that isn't Sakamoto to do the writing again.

@Quorthon The thing is Apple's brand would not be a good comparison in terms of brand strength.

Apple's brand is so strong at the moment, it eclipses both the second and third place brand values (Microsoft and Google). To give you an idea of how strong that is, Sony and Nintendo both don't show up the top 100 highest valued brands. With Apple I wouldn't even bother using "fans" as the descriptor anymore, it would be closer to "fanatic." Frankly, their brand is so strong that I'm slightly afraid that if they entered the home console market NOW it'd probably spell the end of at least 2 of the big 3 (at least in that market).

That means out of the 3 existing competitors in the market only one of them has a brand that is remotely close to Apple's. I seriously doubt it's going to play as big of a factor as you make it out to be (it's still big just not enough I think to surpass the PS2's or the Wii's sales).

We also have to factor in that the current generation's consoles are capped at a certain sales growth pattern due to the fact that none of them would be considered a "radical" innovation in the gaming market. They are all incremental.

The PS2 had a number of different factors to compensate for it (more than the current generation). It had brand coming off of the PS1, it had the trust of the 3rd party developers (Nintendo screwed up horribly before), it wasn't space restricted (at the time) due to its format, and quite frankly it didn't have any real competitors in that generation when it first came out (and really no real competition after as well due to it being Microsoft's first foray into the market). This includes the Sony marketing campaign that ultimately ended Sega's run in the console market. Also, the Japanese market at the time wasn't dead console market-wise.

It makes me wonder what the Wii's sales would have been if they actually had better marketing, as it would have been classified as a radical innovation at the time of its release.

Anyways, there seems to be too many factors involved that would skew the end results. I'm not going to make that assumption with such shaky ground to stand on.

EDIT: Some grammatical errors were bugging me

@Yorumi I'm not making that assumption as the data itself seems like it's skewed. All of the hijinxes during the launch e3 and the respective marketing blitzes from both Sony and Microsoft to steal market share from each other makes me suspect that this generation will be extremely front heavy, more so than previous generations. I believe there will be a very noticeable decrease in sales either this year or early next year.

That's providing the sales numbers stay like that. This seems a little early to call it either way yet. Also, another problem that needs to be factored in is essentially the death of the Japanese console market. That market was still relevant back during the ps2 era. That will definitely hurt the numbers.

@Quorthon I feel this generation will sell less hardware overall than the previous generation. The market share is now smaller without the many casual gamers in the last generation. Software numbers will most likely be higher though as most of the console gamers this time around will be dedicated gamers.

It really doesn't look good on the console makers if the market gets smaller as it simply means any sales this time around were mostly made from taking them from another competitor. At the end of the day this isn't sustainable so hopefully someone actually does something to expand the market again.

Did anything important come out for the 3ds recently? Cause I find it slightly odd if there wasn't and the 3ds still manages to outsell the vita.

My only concern is the name of the new console. I have played MapleStory in North America for at least a couple years. Anyone else that also has, probably already realize why I don't like the name =P.

@Ragnarok10 I read somewhere that it is a spiritual successor so it might not be a direct sequel. Possibly another story involving an xenoblade of sort, cause otherwise it would be strange to keep the name.

I can see this working pretty well actually. One of the annoyances I had with New Leaf was placement of objects and Town Hall projects. They might do a huge revamp of the customisation aspect of the game since the Gamepad could potentially make things a lot more user friendly.

They could also expand the multiplayer aspect, especially on the local multiplayer as the console allows for multiple inputs.

At the same time they wouldn't be limited edition now would they? The whole point is to generate a demand so the systems don't simply sit on a store shelf unsold. If there is plenty of stock chances are the sales would be lower than if there wasn't enough stock, as people would just wait for sales or feel there's no urgency and not buy it at all.

Maybe Retro will try something new and do a F-Zero or a horror game. They've already done platforming and shooter genres.

@Quorthon Fusion was mixed for me. I certainly wasn't a fan of the sexism (same with Other M) but I did like the direction they went in for making her part Metroid. It would be interesting to see the repercussions of becoming a hybrid for Samus.

@Sonicman They mentioned in the trailer that they were bringing in a famous comic book writer (manga) to write the story so maybe they had some influence on the character design as well.

@Caryslan They do need to be careful that they don't dilute the brand though. Releasing too many games in a short period (especially if they are average to bad games) could be quite damaging to their image.

@Punished_Boss_84 Except we don't call those "sales" on the cellphone as the game itself is free. Those are download numbers.

@Hero-of-WiiU Since he's Yoshi's voice actor I guess technically he did?

A tournament at Jump Fiesta? Chances are it'll be like a tournament at Anime North for Smash; open to the public and no professional players (then again my little brother did mention a professional Canadian Starcraft II player showed up for an Anime North tournament the last time he went).

@erv He will ask the Captain to show him his moves!

@RainbowGazelle Nintendo has some pretty rabid shareholders and their overall size (compared to their competitors) doesn't help. The others can subsidize any losses they have with other divisions/product lines. If Iwata did not cut expenses, chances are that he could have been replaced with someone that ONLY cared about the business side of the industry. That could very well end up as a slippery slope to the complete disappearance of Nintendo.

@Quorthon Not all conspiracy theories are wrong, here are some examples: http://listverse.com/2013/05/02/10-nefarious-conspiracies-proven-true/

It would not be a wise idea to write off something until it is proven false. Not to say that this particular conspiracy claim isn't ridiculous but it does have some possible merit to it when people are clamouring for the company to go completely 3rd party.

The marketing is problematic, but then again Nintendo doesn't have the bankroll to put out absurd marketing campaigns like their competitors. Super Bowl ads aren't exactly cheap.

It's not that they are more awful than they were in the past. It's actually the other way around, their competitors are much better at doing it than they are and have much bigger budgets. For example, Microsoft pretty much destroyed the Xbox One's image when they first showed and talked about it. Now how are they doing? After a marketing blitz and a quite substantial price cut they seem to be selling extremely well. Neither one of those are options for a company that is as small (comparatively) as Nintendo and whom is also in deep trouble with their shareholders (read the shareholder meeting minutes, it gives you a very good idea what their investors are like).

Before anyone mentions the Wii...successful blue oceans generally market themselves in the majority of cases. Word of mouth is the strongest factor in those extremely rare cases.

@xInsomniax Probably cause even the editors seem to not know that and are passing along this lack of knowledge to their readers.

@FragRed It is difficult to manufacture something like this. Nintendo outsources their hardware production to another company (just like everyone else in this industry). Unfortunately, this company (Foxconn) has A LOT of power since Nintendo isn't the only one they deal with. Some much bigger companies include Apple, Microsoft and Sony.

It means if Foxconn doesn't feel like shifting production quickly for a product, they don't have to. Even after all of the suicide reports coming out about the company, the MOST Apple could do about it was get them to set up safety nets, and they were arguably the most powerful hardware company out of the group (due to iPhones, iPads and iPods, etc).

It seems that not many people realize that Nintendo isn't the one pulling the strings when it comes to hardware and are often quite quick to blame Nintendo for the production problems.

Before anyone asks why not switch suppliers, Foxconn is by far the cheapest option for the high production capabilities they provide. Until something changes, most of these companies will be sticking with them.

@rjejr I'd say the issue is really market confusion at this point. They didn't attempt to point out the differences between the Wii U and the Wii at the start of its life and as such many potential buyers were misinformed that the tablet controller was an add-on rather than it being part of the new console. These customers probably skipped over it afterwards and never looked back.

No marketing is almost as bad as bad marketing (ie Microsoft's first reveals and discussions about the Xbox One, which they had to do A LOT to fix).

@Kirk If that were really the case I doubt they would have even bothered thinking about appealing the case in the UK or announced it at all.

Sounds more like both companies were stepping on each others' toes.

@Tasuki Nintendo does not do manufacturing. They outsource their manufacturing process for hardware just like their competitors. Considering how powerful Foxconn is (they make most of the more popular hardware devices out there including Apple devices) they have ALOT of power as a supplier. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't feel like adjusting their processes quickly for mass production of the adapter for one company, especially one as small as Nintendo (compared to the other customers of Foxconn.

Not surprised. Both Smash Bros Wii U and Melee have scored lower than Brawl. Funny thing is, the lack of an "adventure mode" has not been enough for the Wii U version of the game to be off by more than 1% point from Brawl.

Also, the original Smash Bros has a score of 79 in case anyone wants to make the argument that it is impossible for a Smash Bros game to score below an 80.

I wouldn't be surprised if we get an actual adventure mode. Though chances are if we do it'll probably be a DLC.

Hm...finally a theme for everyone's favourite cannon fodder, the Goomba.

@rjejr See that's up to the developer in this case though. EAD is an internal dev team and were in charge of Mario Kart 8.

Sakurai is a contractor and frankly Namco is 3rd party. Considering the ill will between Iwata and Sakurai caused by the surprise Smash Bros announcement during E3 and considering that Sakurai is a pretty famous game designer, I'm pretty sure Nintendo is being very careful not to aggravate him.

Sakurai is most likely not the one whom would be losing out if the contract isn't renewed. Considering how Nintendo's competitors haven't really been able to do a cross over game with the same recognition level or following as Smash Bros, chances are he would be swiftly picked up for his Smash Bros. work alone.

@rjejr I'm not sure why you'd need to "hope" they aren't charging for those things. Pretty sure all of those aspects are just delayed. Considering how heavy of an emphasis they want to put on tournament play this time around (and the fact they are hosting tournaments themselves) that mode will most likely be free, well unless Sakurai wants to not follow the precedent Nintendo has set for that kind of thing in Mario Kart 8. Same thing with sharing.

The stage on the other hand is most likely going to be free as Sakurai showed it before talking about paid DLC AND didn't mention anything about restricted distribution like he did with Mewtwo. That doesn't mean that it might not end up being paid DLC but chances are very low with the given evidence so far.

@dumedum That would be more of an issue if it was Amazon as a whole. Nintendo doesn't have any problems with Amazon outside of the American branch of the company. The last time I checked, the Americans aren't as big about buying online as their UK compatriots.

Sure it would translate to some sales lost, but it would be doubtful that it would amount to "millions of sales" unless you mean in terms of pure revenues and not actual units sold.

Also, the dispute had something to do with the 3DS when it first came out. The portable wasn't originally doing well and Amazon wanted a bulk discount comparable to Walmart's when buying 3DSs from Nintendo. When Nintendo refused (kind of understandable when you're already in a bad spot with your investors), Amazon sent back huge amounts of 3DSs back for "screen scratching" problems. Apparently, these were warehouse stored 3DSs so it appeared rather suspicious and hence Nintendo got real annoyed at them. To give you more context with this, Amazon seems to have the occasional problem with keeping Sony and Microsoft consoles in an undamaged state while in their warehouses as well.

@rjejr At the same time the preorder cards are probably dependent on the retailer and not Nintendo itself. I'm pretty sure I've seen them at other retailers like Best Buy and EB Games.

Unless you mean the download preorder cards which seem pretty rare here in Canada.

@Turbo857 I suggest you look at the other comments about that video.

His proportions would be off regardless of how you do it.

@Dipper723 There's a twitter message from Nintendo UK that seems to suggest that he'll be purchasable separately.

https://twitter.com/NintendoUK/status/525415360242393088

There is a promotional period for getting him for "free" if you have both versions of the game (if you were going to buy both games anyways).

Ignore my first comment, I'm confusing myself with something a buddy was talking about. He told me that Nintendo would be giving out Mewtwo codes early to double dippers in November for some kind of beta test.

@Dipper723 Uh where did you get the comment that it's paid DLC. Pretty sure it's free and you get it EARLIER if you have both versions of the game. You're essentially paying to get the DLC early rather than waiting until later.