The NX reveal will likely happen in March or April. I would guess April so it's after the end of the fiscal year as, no matter what, these announcements tend to be met with a drastic drop in share prices and they're not going to want to end the fiscal year on that. E3 will then be used to show off the system, in much the way Microsoft revealed XBO a couple years ago.
I deliberately kept what I did unmentioned on here so as to not confuse my attitudes as a gamer with my hope for some level of success as a developer. We averaged around a 7/10 for the game initially. No Steam reviews yet. We did a soft release to make sure we could address any bugs. One Achievement may still be buggy.
But, I haven't been around here much, so it's likely many forgot past conversations.
Busy, I suppose. I had a very rough year for most of 2015, and meandered elsewhere. I have two primary hobbies--gaming and Transformers, and they tend to go in cycles. I'm a bit more focused on the robots lately. A bad break-up soured my 3DS use as she and I did that a lot together, and things have been pretty light on the Nintendo front overall. Blah blah blah.
Also, after releasing our game on Wii U to no sales (despite positive reviews), we got approved for PS4 development. In the process of starting another game focused on PS4 (also for Wii U), the unexpected happened, and we passed Steam Greenlight, so we got sidetracked yet again modifying our game for Steam. There was a lot going on. That released just before the Steam holiday sales, and we outsold the Wii U version almost instantly, sans reviews or attention.
A lot going on, as it were. Life was all curve balls and knuckle balls and change-ups over 2015.
Based on what I've seen so far, two of my predictions will be coming true: Wii U will not outsell GC, and will top off at 12~15 million units total, and NX will indeed launch this year--exactly as I've been saying for the last year.
The more they bank on remasters, the less reason I have to buy new hardware from them. I don't buy new hardware just to play old games. Leave that crap with the near-death Virtual Console.
Also, it's actually rather sad that Nintendo has sold more plastic toys than Wii U consoles. At this point, anyone considering the Wii U anything other than a failure is delusional, sorry to say.
At this point, the only way Nintendo can reverse it's fortunes is to give up on making game consoles. Maybe stick it out with a portable for another generation, but the downward trend of the company continues unabated. Even the fluke high sales of the Wii did not prevent the Wii U from continuing a 30-year downward trend, where Nintendo peaked in console sales with the NES.
It's time to go third party. There are a lot of people who would love to have Zelda and Mario on PS4 and/or Steam, but increasingly, people are unwilling to pay for otherwise useless consoles just for a couple Nintendo games.
Many do, and Nintendo fans just get their panties in a bind over it. The sad truth remains unchanged--with rare exception, Nintendo fans do not support 3rd parties. Nintendo's platforms do not have longevity anymore (not since the SNES and original Game Boy line).
Looking over the comments here, as usual, I see a lot of excuses tossed about about "why" Nintendo fans didn't support the games. Oh, they're too hard. Oh, they didn't promote them enough. Oh, blah blah.
Nintendo platforms are only good for Nintendo games and they aren't really good for much else. It's the single best argument for the company to go third party. They can't seem to offer a strong, sustainable platform for 3rd parties, and their first party efforts are overwhelmingly lacking in growth.
The Nintendo fanboy butthurt is strong with this one.
What's Fallout like on the Wii U again?
Oh, and per this article, it's nice to see these game revived. I loved the hell out of them back in the day on the SNES, even with their wildly unbalanced difficulty curve and frequently awkward combat. Seeing the Star Wars logo and story crawl appear on-screen like the movies, but for a video game--that made teen-aged me pretty damn giddy.
I was excited to get the Wii U on launch day--and then spent 4 hours setting it up and transferring data. I defended the console for a long time, thoroughly enjoyed Zombi U, felt Nintendo Land was okay, and New Super Mario U was banal. Experimenting with the console as I do all new hardware, the Wii U became my first regular experience with Call of Duty when I picked up Black Ops II, and later Ghosts. My ex and I spent quite a bit of time online gunning down and being gunned down on those titles. I bought Advanced Warfare on the PS4, but my Call of Duty enjoyment had largely run it's course.
The Wii U is now a husk. It sits on my shelf, a 1TB harddrive attached to it, accomplishing nothing and never being played. I watched with dismay as each new release was crudely ignored by Nintendo fans and the third parties moved away faster than usual. I watched with further dismay as the once highly-touted eShop became a trash bin of the worst kinds of amateur-hour bullcrap. (Disclaimer: I have a game on the eShop, we reviewed fairly well, and put in a lot of effort, but to poor sales anyway, because unless Mario, Link, or Pikachu is on the cover, Nintendo fans don't give a crap.)
Then I switched sides. The X360 was my primary console for the last generation, even as I continued to enjoy the Wii. I bought a PS4 last year, and have enjoyed that console a thousand times more than the Wii U. The PS4 is on every day. The Wii U gets fired up maybe once a month. I went from looking forward to the promises of the console and GamePad to resenting the whole endeavor.
Nintendo simply did too many things wrong, and they failed. The Wii U continues a grand downward-trend of consoles sales for Nintendo, broken only briefly by the temporary fad of the Wii. I don't regret the purchase. I've enjoyed it quite often. But it's flame never burned bright, and it still went out early. It languished on shelves for three years, and only recently finally outsold the Dreamcast--which was canned in literally half the time on store shelves. It has yet to outsell the Vita--a system frequently touted as a failure by the Nintendo faithful.
And that is the ultimate image of the Wii U. Normally, the brightest flames burn quickest, the biggest stars blink out the fastest. Nintendo broke the analogy--their dim star burned out fast. After Xenoblade Chronicles X, I will probably not be buying anything else for the console. NX is on the horizon. My Nintendo fandom is irreparably damaged.
The same view can be applied to the 3DS, which has also sold the worst of Nintendo's portables, and saw mass 3rd party exodus. Nintendo should not be making hardware anymore. They don't know how to make it, how to sell it, how to market it, and how to appeal to third parties. They only know how to sell Mario, Link, and Pikachu to their blind fanboys. And that is more obvious than ever.
I like the fanboy hypocrisy that, when Nintendo does it, it's "adding more content." If EA or Activision does it, it's "releasing an incomplete product."
When I say I like this, that's sarcasm. All fanboy nonsense is equally annoying.
It's sad how many commenters here seem to think their isolated personal anecdotes, based around their small and specific social circles, are qualifiable sample sizes, but a survey of nearly 2000 people, somehow is not.
Your personal anecdotes do not refute broad data. That you have chosen a circle of all-male friends who game on PC or console only does not mean women are not buying video games.
I've known many women who are gamers and/or many who own their own devices. That includes my son's mother, my ex-girlfriend, two women I dated over the summer, and my own mother. As it turns out, my social circle involves a wide variety of people. Not just white males in their teens or early 20's.
At the end of this, more women playing video games is nothing but good news. I guess those whelps that can't "find the gamer girl they want" for dating may finally have to own up to their own horrifying personality flaws.
Samus is really tall, which is why Charlize Theron would make a better choice, overall.
But why anyone would choose Jessica "shoehorned into Mass Effect 3 for no reason" Chobot is beyond me. She's not an actress, she looks nothing like Samus, and she doesn't carry the "strong woman" ideal that Samus exemplifies.
Again with the blatant Nintendo fan(boy) blaming of third parties. No, they didn't release the games on the Wii for PRACTICAL REASONS, not simply because they didn't think they'd sell (which would be accurate given the Nintendo fanboy history of hating 3rd parties for any issue, real or perceived). Namely, the most popular engine of the last generation was Unreal 3--an engine that DID NOT RUN on the Wii. It would have been a waste of resources to attempt to cobble together inferior versions for a platform wherein the biggest supporters (Nintendo fans) have a history of the very sh*tty attitude you express towards 3rd parties.
For instance, you want to "blame EA" for wanting something extra to work on the N64? Wouldn't you want some incentive to work on a system that was more expensive to develop for, harder to develop for, limited with cartridges, where third parties struggle for sales, and also had lower hardware sales than the competition? OF COURSE YOU WOULD. Sony didn't have to do this for EA, because it was obvious that the Playstation would bring them huge dividends and success, which it did. The N64 was a tough sell for a huge variety of reasons.
For all intents and purposes, Nintendo doesn't have any meaningful 3rd party support. They got a lot of bad indies on-board early on, and are even losing them now. My team, for instance, did not make back the money we spent on the Wii U, and our game reviewed generally positively (aside from two rubbish reviews that clearly were unfamiliar with the very genre). But, we did get approved for Sony development, and we just passed Steam Greenlight, and we feel much more confident about these two platforms. It didn't help that by the time we released, crap like Rcmadiax's throwaway garbage and travesties like The Letter and Meme Run had started turning the Wii U eShop into a dumping ground for trash. But still, disappointing. Unless the game has Mario, Link, or Pikachu in it, or is occasionally a blatant retro throw-back to an era when Nintendo has some real influence, Nintendo fans ignore it. And it has been like this for generations, and that's not changing now.
The Wii and DS did not attract the "normal PS1 and PS2 audiences." Those audiences went to the X360 and PS3. The difference is that instead of Sony having almost all of them, they were split largely evenly between the X360 and PS3 . Xbox + PS2 sales equaled roughly 170 million, X360 + PS3 sales equaled roughly 175 million. Sony seems to be back on track for the PS4 to bring many of those gamers back under the Sony roof. The Wii and DS attracted a very temporary new audience that has since moved onto mobile, PC, Facebook, Xbox, Playstation, or just burned out from the fad. Those people were clearly not long-term investors in the Nintendo brand of entertainment, or they'd still be here, and the Wii U wouldn't be a failure.
Further evidence that the Wii and DS were flukes is that they didn't have staying power. While the DS did respectably last quite a while, the Wii started dying off early and took a three-year nosedive in sales and support after it peaked in 2009. An actual successful console like the PS2 continued to sell strongly even a year or two after it's successor was out. And for all the championing of sales that Nintendo fans like to throw around for the Wii--it only got that way based on a temporary gimmick that most peopled tired of in short time. The PS3 and X360 managed almost the same sales (together grossly dwarfing the Wii) without a heavy reliance on gimmickry. According to Wikipedia, the final tally for the PS3 is around 87 million, and 84 million for the X360. The Wii is at 101 million. That's less than the PS2 (145 million) and PS1 (102 million), and those systems sold that without gimmicks.
The Wii was a fluke, sorry, but that's the reality. And Nintendo had no clear plan on how to capitalize or continue after it--which is slightly less troubling than the realization that they had little plan in place to even maintain the Wii or give it long-lasting value. The Wii was dead months before the Wii U launched. The X360 and PS3 are still relevant. Because those machines had staying power and longevity, and their makers planned for long-term success.
Nintendo cares about whatever fad will bring in your dollars now from selling hardware and plastic. Look as how much effort they've put into shoehorning Amiibo use into games instead of actually making more games.
I'm not sure where you're getting your fantasy numbers for that post, aside from pulling them directly from your behind, but even notoriously shaky VGChartz lists Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing as selling better on the X360 and PS3. According to them, Rayman Legends sold better on PS3 and PS4. Overall, according to them, Disney Infinity 1 sold well on the original Wii, and then collectively did way better on X360 and PS3. This franchise makes sense to be selling better on older systems (X360 and PS3 over XBO and PS4) since parents of the kids getting these are unlikely early adopters of new hardware. They're already spending a mint on these figures anyway.
The only games that sell "best on Wii U" are the ones made by Nintendo and exclusive to it. If it's third party, it does better elsewhere.
Again, the Wii was a fluke. Third parties found some success on the platform for a while--but only in targeting the kids and casuals market, never in high-profile releases, and this matters. On top of this, even this support dropped off sharply in the final years while it picked up for X360 and PS3. Almost every sequel released on the Wii sold considerably worse than the predecessor, including Red Steel and No More Heroes and Disney Infinity. OH WAIT. Disney Infinity 2 didn't even see release on the Wii. Funny, you'd think since the first sold so well, the second would be a shoe-in. I guess Disney felt otherwise. The sequel sold way better on the X360 and PS3 than the Wii U.
Simply put: If the NX is another fluke (and there is no indication that it will be, as the hype for it is borderline non-existent compared to the Wii or DS), it will only lead to the same problems that Nintendo still has to deal with. The Wii and DS were indeed flukes, statistical anomalies--outside the norm for the company. And after they were gone and the dust settled, it was clear that Nintendo hadn't fixed any of their real problems, as they came back to bite them in the ass again for the Wii U and 3DS.
Naive would be to think the Wii and DS were somehow major turn-around points for Nintendo. They weren't. Indeed, there was more Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon plugging on those machines than any before--they didn't change their focus or become more confident in other franchises. Their relationships with third parties didn't magically improve or turn around, and they worsened drastically over the generation, leading into dismal starts for the Wii U and 3DS.
Naive would be to dismiss years of data and an obvious downward trend because the Wii and DS did well in the short term. That is both naive and cherry-picking data so that you can feel good about it. For that matter, the Wii, despite it's sales, lost incredible momentum after 2009, right around when the X360 and PS3 found new momentum and the sales trends for these consoles completely reversed, with the Wii dropping off sharply over the next three years while the X360 and PS3 remained steady for the next four. The X360 and PS3 also each have over 1000 more games released for them than the Wii, which meant that even when Nintendo had hardware sales, the games sold better elsewhere, and were made elsewhere in higher numbers.
If you want to say "screw 'em" to third parties, then you might as well say "screw it" to the NX as well. Basically, you want the NX to start from an even worse losing position than it will be facing already--as it launches at the time the PS4 and XBO reach their generational peak in terms of sales and momentum.
I will also remind everyone that Nintendo's problems are further bigger than just the ill-selling Wii U.
The Wii U and 3DS are both following a steady downward trend of Nintendo consoles, each of which has sold worse than the previous generation--with the sole exceptions being the Wii and DS, which only sold as well as they did by capitalizing on a brief casual market.
After the Wii and DS, the downward trend continued unabated, with the 3DS and Wii U selling worse than not only the DS and Wii, but also selling worse than the GBA and GameCube. Which sold worse than the GB-GB Color and the N64, which sold worse than the SNES, which sold worse than the NES.
This is a generations-long downward trend. The Wii and DS were fads, flukes, and temporary reprieves. As soon as they were gone, the trend continued as if the Wii and DS didn't even exist.
This article addresses problems on the surface. There are far deeper problems affecting this company, and they've been lingering for generations.
Third party exclusives are a dying breed--hopefully this will help us move toward a unified platform sooner rather than later, where competition can be amongst games, rather than hardware and logo-boxes (i.e., defending the console with the Nintendo logo over the one with the Microsoft or, say, Samsung logo).
However, the NX needs 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party exclusives. And on the 1st party front, they need to stop making so many Mario-Zelda-Pokemon games and start making an equal number of new franchises and lesser-used titles. Look at the dismal treatment Nintendo has crapped onto Fatal Frame franchises, with NOA effectively doing what they can to murder it off in the West. This kind of crap has to end if NX is to impress anyone at all. Zelda is not a system seller--never really has been. Works on the already-converted, who are more than happy to barf up more money for a 3rd 3DS because more Zelda paint has been slathered on it. This is Nintendo's classic over-reliance on nostalgia and pre-existing fans, which is both cruel to their biggest fans and a total failure in reaching new audiences and fence-sitters.
Nintendo also needs to get better third party support all around, and if they can muster some real exclusives, they should do it. However, they aren't likely to do the latter with NX. Too many bridges have been too badly burned with Wii U and, let's be honest, the 3DS as well--despite high hardware sales, it's been equally dead on the retail front for the better part of a year. Same as Wii U.
Nintendo's third party relationships are arguably at their lowest ever--worse than during the NES and N64 eras. And while a lot of Nintendo fans are blind to how important third parties are (as too many users on this site have too long illustrated), the fact is, without third party, the NX doesn't matter. It's a Nintendo box, and as far as most gamers are concerned, Nintendo should just got third party already. They'll buy Zelda on the PS4, but it's not worth the entry fee to buy a Wii U or NX just for that.
Unfortunately, Nintendo needs to do a lot more than just 5 measly things to make NX a success. Not only do they need to get third parties back, they need to find a way to make them successful on the system AND they need to find a way to appeal to legions of gamers who have no nostalgia for anything Nintendo. You might note that nostalgia has been the one thing Nintendo has over-whelmingly banked on for almost three generations. Once the casual money was spent, it was all a focus on NOSTALGIA, NOSTALGIA, NOSTALGIA. There are millions upon millions of gamers who have no nostalgia for Nintendo. It's wasted effort. Preaching to an ever-shrinking core of gamers.
Public perception is still that the company is for kids, and lo and behold, censoring Fatal Frame is not going to help that image.
They need major exclusives that don't feature Mario, Link, or Pikachu for once. But they focus way too much on those to their detriment, and it makes anyone not obsessed with those franchises yawn and presume (accurately) that the company isn't doing anything new.
They need to have more confidence in other franchises.
They need to give Miyamoto a nice retirement ceremony.
They need Reggie to step down.
They need to start understanding how the modern world plays video games now, because it's not the same as it was 30 years ago.
This list is a nice start--but it's way too short. It assumes Nintendo only has a couple issues to deal with. In reality, they have well over a dozen problems to deal with, maybe far more than that. And that's where they're getting screwed, and that's why NX is facing a worse launch situation than the Wii U. If the odds were merely stacked against the Wii U, they aren't even on the table for NX.
Those days have been gone since the mid-90's when "Playstation" became synonymous with "video game."
Then over the last generation, "Xbox" became synonymous with "video game." Time will tell if Playstation returns to that point, but "Nintendo" likely will not.
Appreciate it, man. Like I said, it was lowest of lows this year, but I'm climbing on out of there now. Every couple of days, a few more things get checked off my list of bullcrap, and the stress drops a little more. Granted, the new girlfriend makes it all easier, ha ha.
And yeah, thus far, I like what I hear about Kimishima. Time will tell if he sticks around or affects real change. Sounds like, with the 1-year-term, he might be an interim president. We'll have to see.
Ha, hey! I lost patience for a lot of Nintendo arguing (and games in general) and a lot of other stuff over the past few months. I came here to see if there was any more news on the new guy. My summer has been total crap what with a bad break-up, death in the family, roommate drama, my moving sale, oh, and having to move, and about 50 other issues. So, in light of the crushing depression I was "enjoying," I simply didn't have it in me to meander over here. Suffice to say, I spent several nights drinking away anxiety.
But, summer's over and as it happens, things are back on track again. Getting a new place for just my son and me, our game was suddenly approved for Greenlight (we gave up on it like 2.5 years ago), and I have a great new girlfriend. But the summer of 2015 can still go suck it.
I have to agree with you on the Nintendo Directs. They were basically just selling products to an audience that already bought them, and became a source of negative memes, like the one you posted.
If Kimishima really foresaw the Wii U failure, then maybe he's got his head in the right place. I stood by the console as long as I could, but the writing was on the walls in no time. It was never going to be a great success. I'm also thrilled to see him being open to leadership from outside the company. Nintendo badly needs someone to bring them into the modern era of gaming--and I simply don't think anyone molded from within, under old leadership, is going to be able to do that.
I don't see any reason for this to exist. My phone can already handle a bunch of this stuff by itself, and I can go through the painful process of typing in my weight myself over attempting to utilize the battery-eating balance board.
This looks totally unnecessary, and I don't see why anyone would care. If Nintendo wants to get in on fitness or life quality or something like that, they need to think way outside the box, as in, away from stuff that just looks like a cell-phone dock from 2002. Their competition will be the likes of Fitbit, and I see nothing here to compel consumers away from that juggernaut.
The title of this article is pure, ignorant, fanboy hyperbole, and that is what makes this site so bloody hard to read all too frequently.
Let's all be blind, crybaby fanboys and blame the 3rd parties for "failures" on a system where they were given almost no chance to succeed.
First off, Nintendo did not build a positive or powerful platform for them to use. They delivered an Xbox 360 with extra RAM, 7 years after the Xbox 360 launched, with a controller most people revile. The Wii U cannot handle modern engines like Unreal 4 (contrary to what this site foolishly claimed previously, Wii U can and has used Unreal 3). Adding to this, developers would have to do extra work to port a game from XBO/PS4 to the Wii U, in a desperate bid to appeal to a far smaller audience which, once again, has a fanbase with a clear history of not supporting 3rd party games, totally regardless of quality.
There are three levels of blame to the problems of third party support on Nintendo's consoles:
1. Nintendo - Way out in front, the biggest hurdle to third parties finding success. Gimmicky features and controllers and limited technology under the hood only further burden this.
2. Nintendo fans - This is a fanbase that not only has a history of not supporting 3rd party games, but is also frequently adversarial and hostiel towards third parties just because they're third parties.Hell, the very title of this article is evidence to this point, third parties are blamed right off the bat with no logic or reality applied.
3. Third parties - At a distant third, these companies sometimes make decisions that affect their games on Nintendo systems. First off, they want and need a platform with sales. Secondly, they want and need a platform with sufficient power. Thirdly, they want and need a platform with a fanbase that supports them. All of these are against them on the Wii U, so it becomes an anxious guessing game of trying to figure out what Nintendo fans will actually buy, which is usually anything with Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon on the cover and little else.
Again, this is a group of fans, many of whom call anything 3rd party "low quality crap" and magically assume everything from Nintendo is amazing and nearly perfect, despite several years where Nintendo was not the top scoring publisher in the world (check annual Metacritic Top Publisher lists), and was frequently topped by third party companies, like EA, 2K, and I believe once, Ubisoft. Last year Nintendo came out on top. That was the first time they did so.
There is something else to consider here as well, and that is the 3DS, which despite sales of the hardware being past 50 million (though still well below the GBA), third parties have also walked away from there, by and large. This ultimately highlights that the biggest problems for third parties on Nintendo systems is Nintendo and the fans who only buy a few select titles. Because when even a platform with 50 million in hardware sales is falling so far behind in 3rd party support, the problems are far bigger than a pathetic fanboy rant of "all third parties are bad."
Whoever takes the company third party faster. That's what they need. They're halfway their with their mobile strategy. They just need to step over the line and go full 3rd party on MS and Sony machines, and Steam.
Totally agree. Miyamoto would be a very problematic CEO. He thinks every game should be Mario themed. He's become the George Lucas of the company--lots of ideas, many of them terrible (and he clearly doesn't understand how the industry has changed over his time), but everyone is afraid to tell him "no" on anything.
I think the game probably was running well on the Wii U at one time, before they focused more on the XBO, PS4, and PC version, which advanced well beyond what the Wii U could do. And when they came back to the Wii U, the hardware was no longer capable of all that had changed.
That you are throwing out the tired and pathetic "all third party games are low quality compared to Nintendo games" argument is a massive red flag. That you frankly just assume third party games are low quality is a Nintendo fanboy trait, and counter to the number of high-rated 3rd party games the Wii U received, including enhanced versions of Arkham City, Ninja Gaiden 3, Deus Ex, Need for Speed, Mass Effect 3, Tekken Tag 2, etc. Those are all "low quality" to Nintendo fanboys because they're third party, and it's an attitude that has haunted Nintendo since the N64 era. But at least you have high quality games like Nintendo Land, Game & Wario, Pokemon Rumble U, Steel Diver, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Flingsmash, Wii Party, Wii Play, etc.
If you want to make the charge of me cherry-picking low-quality titles to make a point, at least recognize the gross hypocrisy in your statement first, because that is exactly how you approached third party games and you have completely demonstrated why this game should never come to Wii U.
It's not a false promise if the situation changes, and way, way, way more people supported the game to be released on other platforms. Nintendo fanboys just skewed any and every poll on the game because of sites like this talking it up unrealistically. Look at how many absurd articles appear on this very site about games that "might come to Wii U." They even threw one out there for Shenmue III before bothering to learn that Sony had a heavy hand in bringing the game back. You guys suck up this media and shut off your brain in the process.
It's unfortunate that the few supporters on Kickstarter who wanted the Wii U version aren't getting it, but then again, out of all these articles on this site about this game, I don't think I can recall one person here actually stating they supported it. But lots of claims that people did.
This is just typical Nintendo fan butthurt being levied against a 3rd party because they had to retract a Nintendo version to protect their bottom line.
You still kinda didn't say anything to me. There is some incoherence in your post. No, I don't blame the developers for this. The early version of the game that ran well on the Wii U may well have been an extension of the cancelled X360/PS3 version, and as development rapidly progressed on higher-end platforms, the Wii U version struggled. This is not hard to understand.
Essentially, they'd have to spend extra time trying to make a very high-end game run on a single piece of out-dated hardware while the good version of the game run on three platforms with far less difficulty, and guaranteed higher sales. The Wii U version was likely put on the backburner, due to the vastly weaker hardware, so they could finish the game for XBO, PS4, and PC, and after that, they realized it had changed so much, the Wii U could no longer handle it.
This is not a difficult concept to understand. At all.
They'd have two perfectly good reasons to put the Wii U version on the side: Weak hardware and poor sales of the hardware (and to extension, notably poor sales of anything 3rd party on that hardware).
"They need to do something revolutionary on the online social side of gaming in my view with NX, similar to how Nintendo sent the industry in a new direction with the Wiimote."
This comment misses a very large problem. The Wiimote was a fad, a temporary, quickly dropped fad. Consumers liked the gimmick for a couple years, and then everyone was burned out on the Wii and went to the X360, PS3, mobile, and PC in droves. The Wiimote did not really change things. It was a brief upset, heavily overshadowed by the plethora of quality games that dominated traditionally controlled games elsewhere.
What this guy is saying, essentially, is that Nintendo should throw out another half-assed gimmick machine and aim for temporary profits instead of long-term success.
Nintendo fans need to learn to stop being personally offended by developers making decisions to protect their bottom line. Nintendo fans seem to think that 3rd party developers and publishers should continue to put games on Nintendo hardware when they have no intention of ever supporting the 3rd party games. Essentially, they seem to want 3rd parties to lose money, waste time, and damage their bottom line just to put games on Nintendo systems where they will not be supported by the audience. Just because.
If you're whining about "this is why Kickstarter is bad" or complaining that they should've known all along the game wouldn't work, or any of this crybaby nonsense, you're demonstrating staggering ignorance to how development often works. Unfortunately, between when they announced the game and hoped to bring it to Wii U and when it released, the Wii U failed hard, proved to be a waste of time for 3rd parties, and failed to outsell the Dreamcast despite being out for quite a bit longer. Besides those problems, the Wii U was built with Nintendo's lazy attitude, which filled the console with generation-old innards that couldn't handle the game.
It sucks, but most of you were never going to support the game anyway, and too many others very obviously do not understand how game development works and focus can change over time.
Pretty much all remakes are pointless. I'm glad you're finally catching up. They are largely a waste of time and resources that could be better spent making something new. Particularly since Nintendo--specifically--resells the same old games over and over again as often as possible. For instance, the original Metroid is available on NES, GBA, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and playable on the GC. The remake was totally unncessary, and it added nothing to the franchise since it was largely turned into a watered-down Super Metroid.
Your argument in defense of the lame-ass coddling and watering-down of difficulty of Fusion holds no merit in the face of the huge number of gamers who actively seek and crave these experiences. Fusion, by the way, sold fewer copies than Prime, and Prime was very much that ultra-challenging, non-hand-holding game you seem to think needs to be done.
So now, everything Nintendo makes is watered-down, anyone-can-do-it nonsense, and nothing targets more serious gamers looking for strict challenges or those types of games. Where is Nintendo's Bloodborne or Dark Souls? That should've been Metroid. And if this watering-down "so more people will buy it" is such a great idea, then why are sales of those watered-down Metroid games getting lower with each entry? Fusion sold below Prime, Zero sold below Fusion, Other M sold below Zero.
Clearly, watering down Metroid games "for the kiddies" is the wrong way to go about making Metroid games.
Metroid, like any franchise, needs to modernize to deliver experiences modern gamers expect. Failure to do so would be like releasing an online multiplayer game without voice chat or extremely limited content in this day and age. But in modernizing, Metroid should not have to sacrifice what defines the franchise--the stern exploration, the freedom, the joy of discovery, the challenge that comes with that freedom, the player-driven narrative.
In an era when games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne are celebrated for their challenge and depth, it's absurd to think Metroid could only succeed by watering down that very same formula for the kids.
Metroid II's bit of linearity was at least not forced or stifling. In Fusion, areas were stupidly locked after you exited them, and you were forced to "follow the arrows to the next point." Metroid II still allowed ample access to everything and opened up a much larger world of exploration as you advanced. There was merit in revisiting old areas. So I wouldn't necessarily call that one linear--not like Fusion or Other M.
Prime didn't lock the camera movement to 2D, it locked targeting and strafing, but you still had freedom of 3D movement and activity.
I'll frequently make the point that even Other M's 3D segments were 2-D in design--locking movement completely, and in the rare 3D environments, movement was extremely rigid, and aiming was automatic, removing any depth from the gameplay.
I hate that game so much. Not just for the insane levels of sexism and how they ruined Samus as a character, but even almost every design element was annoying, over-simplified, or broken. It is literally the only game I ever finished, and I just sat there, like a little kid, arms crossed, fuming with anger at what I'd just witnessed and played. I see it as a game with almost no redeeming features at all, barring the generally enjoyable Metroid Queen battle. Everything else was crap.
I think it's monstrously stupid to dumb-down any game (movie, TV show, etc) just to get more people interested. Bloodborne certainly doesn't hold anyone's hand, and it's celebrated for it. This is why it's such a blatant error on the part of Fusion. As a Metroid fan, I wasn't looking for a coddling. I wanted a real Metroid experience--freedom, player-driven exploration and exposition. At the time, I was in the camp of "Metroid in 3D? No way! 2D forever!" But then, Prime ended up being the superior Metroid experience, and Fusion was just a disappointment.
This was a case of Nintendo--as usual--being so afraid of alienating people, that they alienated people.
Zero Mission was just unnecessary. Remaking Metroid 1 is one thing, but they basically remade it to be Super Metroid. A solid game, but jeez, what the hell was the point? Particularly since the actual original NES Metroid was also re-released on the GBA. The original Metroid is still very rough around the edges, but Zero Mission was still unnecessary.
If there is one Metroid game deserving of a remake, it's Metroid II, as at least that one is less likely to be just another Super clone in the end, as it was a big difference from the other 2D titles, and the technology behind it was extremely primitive by comparison. As one of the first GB games, it's also pretty ugly and the environments all look the same.
Have you played any of the Prime trilogy? Because the exploration bit that you enjoyed in Other M was done infinitely better in those games. Prime had you scanning an environment, examining it, studying it. It required as much cunning and knowledge of the right tools for the job as it did a sharp eye and understanding of the environment.
I was disappointed by Other M's lazy method of "kill all enemies, map magically shows you where missile and energy upgrades are." It didn't feel as though I accomplished anything. Almost all of those were found in more of a "oh, right. Sigh" manner. In the Prime games, almost literally every single upgrade and add-on delivered a sense of pride and accomplishment. As a gamer, you simply felt smarter, more clever for solving the riddles and puzzles and analyzing the environment properly. Finding things in Other M felt hollow to me. Pointless. Without reward or challenge. And geez, one missile every time.
Finding things in the Prime trilogy put a s**t-eating grin on my face, a shake to my head, and a welling of chest-beating pride. Sure, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but making discoveries, even just one more missile pack (of 5 missiles, not one) was just so damn rewarding.
Yes, this is a personal anecdote, but I doubt I'm the only one with this view of the exploration of these games.
And yes, your point of "just shoot walls, hope to find stuff" from the 2D games is not particularly engrossing as a point of exploration. Super introduced the X-Ray visor, which created an actual sense of exploration. But no 2-D game expanded upon this.
They would also have to retcon Fusion. Which, by the way, I am perfectly happy with. I know Fusion has it's fans, but I seriously doubt those people were playing Metroid before then, and don't properly understand how neutered the game is, or how unoriginal it is across the board.
To be fair, I don't think the Metroid franchise should even make any more "Prime" games, only that the franchise should continue in Prime's (and Super's) footsteps--pushing the technological barrier to create an ever more advanced, ever more immersive experience. I don't care if the next game is first- or third-person, so long as it's a technological move forward, and maintains what defines the franchise--solitude, exploration, atmosphere, mood, isolation, a light horror element, player-driven narrative, a strong and independent protagonist, etc.
My point about "room for growth" is more that Nintendo clearly has no idea how to advance in 2D, as they have been plugging Super Metroid into every 2D game since then. Nintendo might also lack the necessary creativity to evolve the franchise in 3D as well, but overall, there is ample room for growth. I tend to look at the 2D side and shrug because, well, even if Nintendo comes up with something new for Metroid, someone else will likely have come up with it already elsewhere, as this is a very popular subgenre of the platformer.
Zero Mission and Fusion are not on the same level as Super because they are largely copies of Super, but with more forced linear gameplay (especially in Fusion), which is the opposite of what defined the franchise in every other Metroid game up to that point. Linearity, unfortunately, seems to be turning into the norm for the franchise, unfortunately.
Saying Zero Mission and Fusion are "on the same level" as Super is like saying a lazy modern Hollywood remake of a classic film is "on the same level," even though it's a lame remake that completely misses much of what made the original so strong. Like Total Recall, or Robocop.
Other M's approach to upgrades was completely idiotic. They just "locked them away" for the dumbest plot point ever devised, and instead of players earning the upgrades, they just walked into a new area and Samus' Sugar Daddy gave her "permission" to use them. It was insultingly moronic. It completely removed any sense of accomplishment from the game.
It's literally the difference between earning a gold medal, and walking into a room and having someone just hand you one.THAT IS LITERALLY HOW OTHER M DID UPGRADES. The only way one could find fun in that would be if Other M was the first game they'd ever played, so every concept was super brand new to them.
And no, Nintendo has gone to great lengths to show that they have no idea how to further advance the franchise in 2D, because if they did, then the post-Super games would be more than just endless call-backs and half-remakes of Super Metroid, which is exactly what they are. It's sad to hear that Metroid Dread was essentially little more than "Fusion on DS." Freakin' pathetic.
To be fair, I'm a huge Metroid fan, and Fusion was where my problems with the direction started. There, it was less obvious how bad the storytelling was, but what really hurt it was the forced linear gameplay, which just got worse with everything Sakamoto touched after it.
The 2-D games wasted ample time trying to remake Super Metroid to some degree over and over--Fusion, Zero, and Other M all use literally the exact same weapons and items and most of the same enemies, while gradually becoming more and more linear (Metroid games were never linear before Fusion).
The Prime games, however, changed dramatically while continuing to evolve naturally. There is ample room for growth in this regard as not a single one of them was wasted trying to clone any other. Including Hunters. There is ample room for growth.
And here's a shocker, I am still playing through the best Metroid game since Prime 3. Believe it or not, it's Bloodborne. The only thing different is the way the leveling works. But Bloodborne is a true Metroid game in every sense of the franchise (mine even has a female protagonist, ha ha). You are dropped into a world, and the only thing you have are you wits and your drive to explore. It's isolating, moody, atmospheric, and driven entirely by careful and often brave exploration. Each step forward opens the world to you, and at the same time, leads back around in a circle--it is absolutely rife with shortcuts, secrets, hidden passages, and the like. The gothic Victorian setting aside (as opposed to alien landscapes of deep science fiction), Bloodborne is a best Metroid game Nintendo refuses to make.
This game alone is evidence of how much further the franchise has to evolve in 3D. Even the story in Bloodborne is told through crafty exploration and exposition, same with the Prime trilogy.
I cannot suggest this enough, if you are craving a great Metroid-like experience, you'll find it in Bloodborne. Right down to the point where revisiting earlier areas suddenly reveals surprising new discoveries and areas.
Comments 2,916
Re: Macronix Will Be Providing Memory Products for the NX
@rjejr
The NX reveal will likely happen in March or April. I would guess April so it's after the end of the fiscal year as, no matter what, these announcements tend to be met with a drastic drop in share prices and they're not going to want to end the fiscal year on that. E3 will then be used to show off the system, in much the way Microsoft revealed XBO a couple years ago.
Re: Analysis: Assessing Why NX Needs to Take Over From Both the Wii U and 3DS
@Sceptic
I deliberately kept what I did unmentioned on here so as to not confuse my attitudes as a gamer with my hope for some level of success as a developer. We averaged around a 7/10 for the game initially. No Steam reviews yet. We did a soft release to make sure we could address any bugs. One Achievement may still be buggy.
But, I haven't been around here much, so it's likely many forgot past conversations.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/403300/
Re: Analysis: Assessing Why NX Needs to Take Over From Both the Wii U and 3DS
@Cyberbotv2
Busy, I suppose. I had a very rough year for most of 2015, and meandered elsewhere. I have two primary hobbies--gaming and Transformers, and they tend to go in cycles. I'm a bit more focused on the robots lately. A bad break-up soured my 3DS use as she and I did that a lot together, and things have been pretty light on the Nintendo front overall. Blah blah blah.
Also, after releasing our game on Wii U to no sales (despite positive reviews), we got approved for PS4 development. In the process of starting another game focused on PS4 (also for Wii U), the unexpected happened, and we passed Steam Greenlight, so we got sidetracked yet again modifying our game for Steam. There was a lot going on. That released just before the Steam holiday sales, and we outsold the Wii U version almost instantly, sans reviews or attention.
A lot going on, as it were. Life was all curve balls and knuckle balls and change-ups over 2015.
Re: Analysis: Assessing Why NX Needs to Take Over From Both the Wii U and 3DS
I also expect NX to be technically weaker hardware than the PS4.
Re: Analysis: Assessing Why NX Needs to Take Over From Both the Wii U and 3DS
Based on what I've seen so far, two of my predictions will be coming true: Wii U will not outsell GC, and will top off at 12~15 million units total, and NX will indeed launch this year--exactly as I've been saying for the last year.
Re: Talking Point: Nintendo Can Exploit Its Rich History With More Remasters
The more they bank on remasters, the less reason I have to buy new hardware from them. I don't buy new hardware just to play old games. Leave that crap with the near-death Virtual Console.
Re: Feature: Five Star Wars Games, on Nintendo, That Are Strong in the Force
Nothing shows off better what Nintendo is currently lacking like looking back at what it had and pretending things are fine now.
This just highlights that Star Wars has really vanished from the company's platforms.
Re: The November NPD Results are in, Nintendo Exclusives Fail to Crack the Top Ten
Also, it's actually rather sad that Nintendo has sold more plastic toys than Wii U consoles. At this point, anyone considering the Wii U anything other than a failure is delusional, sorry to say.
Re: The November NPD Results are in, Nintendo Exclusives Fail to Crack the Top Ten
At this point, the only way Nintendo can reverse it's fortunes is to give up on making game consoles. Maybe stick it out with a portable for another generation, but the downward trend of the company continues unabated. Even the fluke high sales of the Wii did not prevent the Wii U from continuing a 30-year downward trend, where Nintendo peaked in console sales with the NES.
It's time to go third party. There are a lot of people who would love to have Zelda and Mario on PS4 and/or Steam, but increasingly, people are unwilling to pay for otherwise useless consoles just for a couple Nintendo games.
Re: Jools Watsham Explains Why his Latest Game Didn't Release on Nintendo Platforms
@TeeJay
Many do, and Nintendo fans just get their panties in a bind over it. The sad truth remains unchanged--with rare exception, Nintendo fans do not support 3rd parties. Nintendo's platforms do not have longevity anymore (not since the SNES and original Game Boy line).
Looking over the comments here, as usual, I see a lot of excuses tossed about about "why" Nintendo fans didn't support the games. Oh, they're too hard. Oh, they didn't promote them enough. Oh, blah blah.
Nintendo platforms are only good for Nintendo games and they aren't really good for much else. It's the single best argument for the company to go third party. They can't seem to offer a strong, sustainable platform for 3rd parties, and their first party efforts are overwhelmingly lacking in growth.
Re: SNES Title Super Star Wars Coming to PS4 and Vita
@TwilightAngel
The Nintendo fanboy butthurt is strong with this one.
What's Fallout like on the Wii U again?
Oh, and per this article, it's nice to see these game revived. I loved the hell out of them back in the day on the SNES, even with their wildly unbalanced difficulty curve and frequently awkward combat. Seeing the Star Wars logo and story crawl appear on-screen like the movies, but for a video game--that made teen-aged me pretty damn giddy.
Re: Feature: Reflecting On Three Years With The Wii U - Part One
Since others are throwing their opinions on this:
I was excited to get the Wii U on launch day--and then spent 4 hours setting it up and transferring data. I defended the console for a long time, thoroughly enjoyed Zombi U, felt Nintendo Land was okay, and New Super Mario U was banal. Experimenting with the console as I do all new hardware, the Wii U became my first regular experience with Call of Duty when I picked up Black Ops II, and later Ghosts. My ex and I spent quite a bit of time online gunning down and being gunned down on those titles. I bought Advanced Warfare on the PS4, but my Call of Duty enjoyment had largely run it's course.
The Wii U is now a husk. It sits on my shelf, a 1TB harddrive attached to it, accomplishing nothing and never being played. I watched with dismay as each new release was crudely ignored by Nintendo fans and the third parties moved away faster than usual. I watched with further dismay as the once highly-touted eShop became a trash bin of the worst kinds of amateur-hour bullcrap. (Disclaimer: I have a game on the eShop, we reviewed fairly well, and put in a lot of effort, but to poor sales anyway, because unless Mario, Link, or Pikachu is on the cover, Nintendo fans don't give a crap.)
Then I switched sides. The X360 was my primary console for the last generation, even as I continued to enjoy the Wii. I bought a PS4 last year, and have enjoyed that console a thousand times more than the Wii U. The PS4 is on every day. The Wii U gets fired up maybe once a month. I went from looking forward to the promises of the console and GamePad to resenting the whole endeavor.
Nintendo simply did too many things wrong, and they failed. The Wii U continues a grand downward-trend of consoles sales for Nintendo, broken only briefly by the temporary fad of the Wii. I don't regret the purchase. I've enjoyed it quite often. But it's flame never burned bright, and it still went out early. It languished on shelves for three years, and only recently finally outsold the Dreamcast--which was canned in literally half the time on store shelves. It has yet to outsell the Vita--a system frequently touted as a failure by the Nintendo faithful.
And that is the ultimate image of the Wii U. Normally, the brightest flames burn quickest, the biggest stars blink out the fastest. Nintendo broke the analogy--their dim star burned out fast. After Xenoblade Chronicles X, I will probably not be buying anything else for the console. NX is on the horizon. My Nintendo fandom is irreparably damaged.
The same view can be applied to the 3DS, which has also sold the worst of Nintendo's portables, and saw mass 3rd party exodus. Nintendo should not be making hardware anymore. They don't know how to make it, how to sell it, how to market it, and how to appeal to third parties. They only know how to sell Mario, Link, and Pikachu to their blind fanboys. And that is more obvious than ever.
Re: RCMADIAX Announces Avoider, Due Out on the Wii U eShop in 2016
I thought this hack gave up on the Wii U?
Re: Talking Point: Super Mario Maker's Update Continues Nintendo's Focus on Major Games as Services
I like the fanboy hypocrisy that, when Nintendo does it, it's "adding more content." If EA or Activision does it, it's "releasing an incomplete product."
When I say I like this, that's sarcasm. All fanboy nonsense is equally annoying.
Re: More North American Women Own A Games Console Than Men
It's sad how many commenters here seem to think their isolated personal anecdotes, based around their small and specific social circles, are qualifiable sample sizes, but a survey of nearly 2000 people, somehow is not.
Your personal anecdotes do not refute broad data. That you have chosen a circle of all-male friends who game on PC or console only does not mean women are not buying video games.
I've known many women who are gamers and/or many who own their own devices. That includes my son's mother, my ex-girlfriend, two women I dated over the summer, and my own mother. As it turns out, my social circle involves a wide variety of people. Not just white males in their teens or early 20's.
At the end of this, more women playing video games is nothing but good news. I guess those whelps that can't "find the gamer girl they want" for dating may finally have to own up to their own horrifying personality flaws.
Re: More North American Women Own A Games Console Than Men
"ownership is higher among ethnic groups"
This is true by default because everyone is part of some ethnic group.
Re: Video: Jessica Chobot Is Samus Aran In This Lavish Fan-Made Metroid Short
@dres
Samus is really tall, which is why Charlize Theron would make a better choice, overall.
But why anyone would choose Jessica "shoehorned into Mass Effect 3 for no reason" Chobot is beyond me. She's not an actress, she looks nothing like Samus, and she doesn't carry the "strong woman" ideal that Samus exemplifies.
Charlize is a tall, tough woman. That's Samus.
Re: Weirdness: Miyamoto Wanted A Murder-Free GoldenEye Where You Made Friends With Enemies At The End
Killing people in Bond is bad.
Blowing them up with bombs as a child in Zelda is okay, though.
Re: Talking Point: Five Key Challenges Nintendo Faces with the NX
@Xenocity
Again with the blatant Nintendo fan(boy) blaming of third parties. No, they didn't release the games on the Wii for PRACTICAL REASONS, not simply because they didn't think they'd sell (which would be accurate given the Nintendo fanboy history of hating 3rd parties for any issue, real or perceived). Namely, the most popular engine of the last generation was Unreal 3--an engine that DID NOT RUN on the Wii. It would have been a waste of resources to attempt to cobble together inferior versions for a platform wherein the biggest supporters (Nintendo fans) have a history of the very sh*tty attitude you express towards 3rd parties.
For instance, you want to "blame EA" for wanting something extra to work on the N64? Wouldn't you want some incentive to work on a system that was more expensive to develop for, harder to develop for, limited with cartridges, where third parties struggle for sales, and also had lower hardware sales than the competition? OF COURSE YOU WOULD. Sony didn't have to do this for EA, because it was obvious that the Playstation would bring them huge dividends and success, which it did. The N64 was a tough sell for a huge variety of reasons.
For all intents and purposes, Nintendo doesn't have any meaningful 3rd party support. They got a lot of bad indies on-board early on, and are even losing them now. My team, for instance, did not make back the money we spent on the Wii U, and our game reviewed generally positively (aside from two rubbish reviews that clearly were unfamiliar with the very genre). But, we did get approved for Sony development, and we just passed Steam Greenlight, and we feel much more confident about these two platforms. It didn't help that by the time we released, crap like Rcmadiax's throwaway garbage and travesties like The Letter and Meme Run had started turning the Wii U eShop into a dumping ground for trash. But still, disappointing. Unless the game has Mario, Link, or Pikachu in it, or is occasionally a blatant retro throw-back to an era when Nintendo has some real influence, Nintendo fans ignore it. And it has been like this for generations, and that's not changing now.
The Wii and DS did not attract the "normal PS1 and PS2 audiences." Those audiences went to the X360 and PS3. The difference is that instead of Sony having almost all of them, they were split largely evenly between the X360 and PS3 . Xbox + PS2 sales equaled roughly 170 million, X360 + PS3 sales equaled roughly 175 million. Sony seems to be back on track for the PS4 to bring many of those gamers back under the Sony roof. The Wii and DS attracted a very temporary new audience that has since moved onto mobile, PC, Facebook, Xbox, Playstation, or just burned out from the fad. Those people were clearly not long-term investors in the Nintendo brand of entertainment, or they'd still be here, and the Wii U wouldn't be a failure.
Further evidence that the Wii and DS were flukes is that they didn't have staying power. While the DS did respectably last quite a while, the Wii started dying off early and took a three-year nosedive in sales and support after it peaked in 2009. An actual successful console like the PS2 continued to sell strongly even a year or two after it's successor was out. And for all the championing of sales that Nintendo fans like to throw around for the Wii--it only got that way based on a temporary gimmick that most peopled tired of in short time. The PS3 and X360 managed almost the same sales (together grossly dwarfing the Wii) without a heavy reliance on gimmickry. According to Wikipedia, the final tally for the PS3 is around 87 million, and 84 million for the X360. The Wii is at 101 million. That's less than the PS2 (145 million) and PS1 (102 million), and those systems sold that without gimmicks.
The Wii was a fluke, sorry, but that's the reality. And Nintendo had no clear plan on how to capitalize or continue after it--which is slightly less troubling than the realization that they had little plan in place to even maintain the Wii or give it long-lasting value. The Wii was dead months before the Wii U launched. The X360 and PS3 are still relevant. Because those machines had staying power and longevity, and their makers planned for long-term success.
Nintendo cares about whatever fad will bring in your dollars now from selling hardware and plastic. Look as how much effort they've put into shoehorning Amiibo use into games instead of actually making more games.
I'm not sure where you're getting your fantasy numbers for that post, aside from pulling them directly from your behind, but even notoriously shaky VGChartz lists Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing as selling better on the X360 and PS3. According to them, Rayman Legends sold better on PS3 and PS4. Overall, according to them, Disney Infinity 1 sold well on the original Wii, and then collectively did way better on X360 and PS3. This franchise makes sense to be selling better on older systems (X360 and PS3 over XBO and PS4) since parents of the kids getting these are unlikely early adopters of new hardware. They're already spending a mint on these figures anyway.
The only games that sell "best on Wii U" are the ones made by Nintendo and exclusive to it. If it's third party, it does better elsewhere.
Again, the Wii was a fluke. Third parties found some success on the platform for a while--but only in targeting the kids and casuals market, never in high-profile releases, and this matters. On top of this, even this support dropped off sharply in the final years while it picked up for X360 and PS3. Almost every sequel released on the Wii sold considerably worse than the predecessor, including Red Steel and No More Heroes and Disney Infinity. OH WAIT. Disney Infinity 2 didn't even see release on the Wii. Funny, you'd think since the first sold so well, the second would be a shoe-in. I guess Disney felt otherwise. The sequel sold way better on the X360 and PS3 than the Wii U.
Re: Talking Point: Five Key Challenges Nintendo Faces with the NX
@Kage_88
Simply put: If the NX is another fluke (and there is no indication that it will be, as the hype for it is borderline non-existent compared to the Wii or DS), it will only lead to the same problems that Nintendo still has to deal with. The Wii and DS were indeed flukes, statistical anomalies--outside the norm for the company. And after they were gone and the dust settled, it was clear that Nintendo hadn't fixed any of their real problems, as they came back to bite them in the ass again for the Wii U and 3DS.
Naive would be to think the Wii and DS were somehow major turn-around points for Nintendo. They weren't. Indeed, there was more Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon plugging on those machines than any before--they didn't change their focus or become more confident in other franchises. Their relationships with third parties didn't magically improve or turn around, and they worsened drastically over the generation, leading into dismal starts for the Wii U and 3DS.
Naive would be to dismiss years of data and an obvious downward trend because the Wii and DS did well in the short term. That is both naive and cherry-picking data so that you can feel good about it. For that matter, the Wii, despite it's sales, lost incredible momentum after 2009, right around when the X360 and PS3 found new momentum and the sales trends for these consoles completely reversed, with the Wii dropping off sharply over the next three years while the X360 and PS3 remained steady for the next four. The X360 and PS3 also each have over 1000 more games released for them than the Wii, which meant that even when Nintendo had hardware sales, the games sold better elsewhere, and were made elsewhere in higher numbers.
If you want to say "screw 'em" to third parties, then you might as well say "screw it" to the NX as well. Basically, you want the NX to start from an even worse losing position than it will be facing already--as it launches at the time the PS4 and XBO reach their generational peak in terms of sales and momentum.
Re: Talking Point: Five Key Challenges Nintendo Faces with the NX
I will also remind everyone that Nintendo's problems are further bigger than just the ill-selling Wii U.
The Wii U and 3DS are both following a steady downward trend of Nintendo consoles, each of which has sold worse than the previous generation--with the sole exceptions being the Wii and DS, which only sold as well as they did by capitalizing on a brief casual market.
After the Wii and DS, the downward trend continued unabated, with the 3DS and Wii U selling worse than not only the DS and Wii, but also selling worse than the GBA and GameCube. Which sold worse than the GB-GB Color and the N64, which sold worse than the SNES, which sold worse than the NES.
This is a generations-long downward trend. The Wii and DS were fads, flukes, and temporary reprieves. As soon as they were gone, the trend continued as if the Wii and DS didn't even exist.
This article addresses problems on the surface. There are far deeper problems affecting this company, and they've been lingering for generations.
Re: Talking Point: Five Key Challenges Nintendo Faces with the NX
@Captain_Gonru
Third party exclusives are a dying breed--hopefully this will help us move toward a unified platform sooner rather than later, where competition can be amongst games, rather than hardware and logo-boxes (i.e., defending the console with the Nintendo logo over the one with the Microsoft or, say, Samsung logo).
However, the NX needs 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party exclusives. And on the 1st party front, they need to stop making so many Mario-Zelda-Pokemon games and start making an equal number of new franchises and lesser-used titles. Look at the dismal treatment Nintendo has crapped onto Fatal Frame franchises, with NOA effectively doing what they can to murder it off in the West. This kind of crap has to end if NX is to impress anyone at all. Zelda is not a system seller--never really has been. Works on the already-converted, who are more than happy to barf up more money for a 3rd 3DS because more Zelda paint has been slathered on it. This is Nintendo's classic over-reliance on nostalgia and pre-existing fans, which is both cruel to their biggest fans and a total failure in reaching new audiences and fence-sitters.
Nintendo also needs to get better third party support all around, and if they can muster some real exclusives, they should do it. However, they aren't likely to do the latter with NX. Too many bridges have been too badly burned with Wii U and, let's be honest, the 3DS as well--despite high hardware sales, it's been equally dead on the retail front for the better part of a year. Same as Wii U.
Nintendo's third party relationships are arguably at their lowest ever--worse than during the NES and N64 eras. And while a lot of Nintendo fans are blind to how important third parties are (as too many users on this site have too long illustrated), the fact is, without third party, the NX doesn't matter. It's a Nintendo box, and as far as most gamers are concerned, Nintendo should just got third party already. They'll buy Zelda on the PS4, but it's not worth the entry fee to buy a Wii U or NX just for that.
Re: Talking Point: Five Key Challenges Nintendo Faces with the NX
Unfortunately, Nintendo needs to do a lot more than just 5 measly things to make NX a success. Not only do they need to get third parties back, they need to find a way to make them successful on the system AND they need to find a way to appeal to legions of gamers who have no nostalgia for anything Nintendo. You might note that nostalgia has been the one thing Nintendo has over-whelmingly banked on for almost three generations. Once the casual money was spent, it was all a focus on NOSTALGIA, NOSTALGIA, NOSTALGIA. There are millions upon millions of gamers who have no nostalgia for Nintendo. It's wasted effort. Preaching to an ever-shrinking core of gamers.
Public perception is still that the company is for kids, and lo and behold, censoring Fatal Frame is not going to help that image.
They need major exclusives that don't feature Mario, Link, or Pikachu for once. But they focus way too much on those to their detriment, and it makes anyone not obsessed with those franchises yawn and presume (accurately) that the company isn't doing anything new.
They need to have more confidence in other franchises.
They need to give Miyamoto a nice retirement ceremony.
They need Reggie to step down.
They need to start understanding how the modern world plays video games now, because it's not the same as it was 30 years ago.
This list is a nice start--but it's way too short. It assumes Nintendo only has a couple issues to deal with. In reality, they have well over a dozen problems to deal with, maybe far more than that. And that's where they're getting screwed, and that's why NX is facing a worse launch situation than the Wii U. If the odds were merely stacked against the Wii U, they aren't even on the table for NX.
Re: Nintendo Drops Out of Interbrand 'Best Global Brands' Top 100
@BinaryFragger
Those days have been gone since the mid-90's when "Playstation" became synonymous with "video game."
Then over the last generation, "Xbox" became synonymous with "video game." Time will tell if Playstation returns to that point, but "Nintendo" likely will not.
Re: Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima to Stick With Smart Device and IP Plans, Previously Predicted Wii U Troubles
@MoonKnight7
Appreciate it, man. Like I said, it was lowest of lows this year, but I'm climbing on out of there now. Every couple of days, a few more things get checked off my list of bullcrap, and the stress drops a little more. Granted, the new girlfriend makes it all easier, ha ha.
And yeah, thus far, I like what I hear about Kimishima. Time will tell if he sticks around or affects real change. Sounds like, with the 1-year-term, he might be an interim president. We'll have to see.
Re: Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima to Stick With Smart Device and IP Plans, Previously Predicted Wii U Troubles
@MoonKnight7
Ha, hey! I lost patience for a lot of Nintendo arguing (and games in general) and a lot of other stuff over the past few months. I came here to see if there was any more news on the new guy. My summer has been total crap what with a bad break-up, death in the family, roommate drama, my moving sale, oh, and having to move, and about 50 other issues. So, in light of the crushing depression I was "enjoying," I simply didn't have it in me to meander over here. Suffice to say, I spent several nights drinking away anxiety.
But, summer's over and as it happens, things are back on track again. Getting a new place for just my son and me, our game was suddenly approved for Greenlight (we gave up on it like 2.5 years ago), and I have a great new girlfriend. But the summer of 2015 can still go suck it.
TL;DR of TMI, I'm sure.
Re: Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima to Stick With Smart Device and IP Plans, Previously Predicted Wii U Troubles
@rjejr
I have to agree with you on the Nintendo Directs. They were basically just selling products to an audience that already bought them, and became a source of negative memes, like the one you posted.
If Kimishima really foresaw the Wii U failure, then maybe he's got his head in the right place. I stood by the console as long as I could, but the writing was on the walls in no time. It was never going to be a great success. I'm also thrilled to see him being open to leadership from outside the company. Nintendo badly needs someone to bring them into the modern era of gaming--and I simply don't think anyone molded from within, under old leadership, is going to be able to do that.
Re: Nintendo Quality Of Life Patent Applications Appear Online
I don't see any reason for this to exist. My phone can already handle a bunch of this stuff by itself, and I can go through the painful process of typing in my weight myself over attempting to utilize the battery-eating balance board.
This looks totally unnecessary, and I don't see why anyone would care. If Nintendo wants to get in on fitness or life quality or something like that, they need to think way outside the box, as in, away from stuff that just looks like a cell-phone dock from 2002. Their competition will be the likes of Fitbit, and I see nothing here to compel consumers away from that juggernaut.
Re: Talking Point: Wii U Gamers Have Been Treated Poorly By The Third-Party Retail Scene, But The System Still Brings Joy
The title of this article is pure, ignorant, fanboy hyperbole, and that is what makes this site so bloody hard to read all too frequently.
Let's all be blind, crybaby fanboys and blame the 3rd parties for "failures" on a system where they were given almost no chance to succeed.
First off, Nintendo did not build a positive or powerful platform for them to use. They delivered an Xbox 360 with extra RAM, 7 years after the Xbox 360 launched, with a controller most people revile. The Wii U cannot handle modern engines like Unreal 4 (contrary to what this site foolishly claimed previously, Wii U can and has used Unreal 3). Adding to this, developers would have to do extra work to port a game from XBO/PS4 to the Wii U, in a desperate bid to appeal to a far smaller audience which, once again, has a fanbase with a clear history of not supporting 3rd party games, totally regardless of quality.
There are three levels of blame to the problems of third party support on Nintendo's consoles:
1. Nintendo - Way out in front, the biggest hurdle to third parties finding success. Gimmicky features and controllers and limited technology under the hood only further burden this.
2. Nintendo fans - This is a fanbase that not only has a history of not supporting 3rd party games, but is also frequently adversarial and hostiel towards third parties just because they're third parties. Hell, the very title of this article is evidence to this point, third parties are blamed right off the bat with no logic or reality applied.
3. Third parties - At a distant third, these companies sometimes make decisions that affect their games on Nintendo systems. First off, they want and need a platform with sales. Secondly, they want and need a platform with sufficient power. Thirdly, they want and need a platform with a fanbase that supports them. All of these are against them on the Wii U, so it becomes an anxious guessing game of trying to figure out what Nintendo fans will actually buy, which is usually anything with Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon on the cover and little else.
Again, this is a group of fans, many of whom call anything 3rd party "low quality crap" and magically assume everything from Nintendo is amazing and nearly perfect, despite several years where Nintendo was not the top scoring publisher in the world (check annual Metacritic Top Publisher lists), and was frequently topped by third party companies, like EA, 2K, and I believe once, Ubisoft. Last year Nintendo came out on top. That was the first time they did so.
There is something else to consider here as well, and that is the 3DS, which despite sales of the hardware being past 50 million (though still well below the GBA), third parties have also walked away from there, by and large. This ultimately highlights that the biggest problems for third parties on Nintendo systems is Nintendo and the fans who only buy a few select titles. Because when even a platform with 50 million in hardware sales is falling so far behind in 3rd party support, the problems are far bigger than a pathetic fanboy rant of "all third parties are bad."
Re: Genyo Takeda The Likely Choice For Nintendo President, Analysts Claim
Whoever takes the company third party faster. That's what they need. They're halfway their with their mobile strategy. They just need to step over the line and go full 3rd party on MS and Sony machines, and Steam.
Re: Industry Analysts Speculate On Nintendo's Future And Satoru Iwata's Possible Successor
@ikki5
Totally agree. Miyamoto would be a very problematic CEO. He thinks every game should be Mario themed. He's become the George Lucas of the company--lots of ideas, many of them terrible (and he clearly doesn't understand how the industry has changed over his time), but everyone is afraid to tell him "no" on anything.
They need a CEO that will reign in Miyamoto.
Re: Exclusive: Project CARS "Simply Too Much For Wii U", Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware
@BinaryFragger
I think the game probably was running well on the Wii U at one time, before they focused more on the XBO, PS4, and PC version, which advanced well beyond what the Wii U could do. And when they came back to the Wii U, the hardware was no longer capable of all that had changed.
Re: Exclusive: Project CARS "Simply Too Much For Wii U", Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware
@Kifa
That you are throwing out the tired and pathetic "all third party games are low quality compared to Nintendo games" argument is a massive red flag. That you frankly just assume third party games are low quality is a Nintendo fanboy trait, and counter to the number of high-rated 3rd party games the Wii U received, including enhanced versions of Arkham City, Ninja Gaiden 3, Deus Ex, Need for Speed, Mass Effect 3, Tekken Tag 2, etc. Those are all "low quality" to Nintendo fanboys because they're third party, and it's an attitude that has haunted Nintendo since the N64 era. But at least you have high quality games like Nintendo Land, Game & Wario, Pokemon Rumble U, Steel Diver, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Flingsmash, Wii Party, Wii Play, etc.
If you want to make the charge of me cherry-picking low-quality titles to make a point, at least recognize the gross hypocrisy in your statement first, because that is exactly how you approached third party games and you have completely demonstrated why this game should never come to Wii U.
Re: Exclusive: Project CARS "Simply Too Much For Wii U", Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware
@derek_combatir
It's not a false promise if the situation changes, and way, way, way more people supported the game to be released on other platforms. Nintendo fanboys just skewed any and every poll on the game because of sites like this talking it up unrealistically. Look at how many absurd articles appear on this very site about games that "might come to Wii U." They even threw one out there for Shenmue III before bothering to learn that Sony had a heavy hand in bringing the game back. You guys suck up this media and shut off your brain in the process.
It's unfortunate that the few supporters on Kickstarter who wanted the Wii U version aren't getting it, but then again, out of all these articles on this site about this game, I don't think I can recall one person here actually stating they supported it. But lots of claims that people did.
This is just typical Nintendo fan butthurt being levied against a 3rd party because they had to retract a Nintendo version to protect their bottom line.
Re: Exclusive: Project CARS "Simply Too Much For Wii U", Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware
@TwilightAngel
You still kinda didn't say anything to me. There is some incoherence in your post. No, I don't blame the developers for this. The early version of the game that ran well on the Wii U may well have been an extension of the cancelled X360/PS3 version, and as development rapidly progressed on higher-end platforms, the Wii U version struggled. This is not hard to understand.
Essentially, they'd have to spend extra time trying to make a very high-end game run on a single piece of out-dated hardware while the good version of the game run on three platforms with far less difficulty, and guaranteed higher sales. The Wii U version was likely put on the backburner, due to the vastly weaker hardware, so they could finish the game for XBO, PS4, and PC, and after that, they realized it had changed so much, the Wii U could no longer handle it.
This is not a difficult concept to understand. At all.
They'd have two perfectly good reasons to put the Wii U version on the side: Weak hardware and poor sales of the hardware (and to extension, notably poor sales of anything 3rd party on that hardware).
Re: Industry Analysts Speculate On Nintendo's Future And Satoru Iwata's Possible Successor
"They need to do something revolutionary on the online social side of gaming in my view with NX, similar to how Nintendo sent the industry in a new direction with the Wiimote."
This comment misses a very large problem. The Wiimote was a fad, a temporary, quickly dropped fad. Consumers liked the gimmick for a couple years, and then everyone was burned out on the Wii and went to the X360, PS3, mobile, and PC in droves. The Wiimote did not really change things. It was a brief upset, heavily overshadowed by the plethora of quality games that dominated traditionally controlled games elsewhere.
What this guy is saying, essentially, is that Nintendo should throw out another half-assed gimmick machine and aim for temporary profits instead of long-term success.
Re: Exclusive: Project CARS "Simply Too Much For Wii U", Developer Now Waiting On New Nintendo Hardware
Nintendo fans need to learn to stop being personally offended by developers making decisions to protect their bottom line. Nintendo fans seem to think that 3rd party developers and publishers should continue to put games on Nintendo hardware when they have no intention of ever supporting the 3rd party games. Essentially, they seem to want 3rd parties to lose money, waste time, and damage their bottom line just to put games on Nintendo systems where they will not be supported by the audience. Just because.
If you're whining about "this is why Kickstarter is bad" or complaining that they should've known all along the game wouldn't work, or any of this crybaby nonsense, you're demonstrating staggering ignorance to how development often works. Unfortunately, between when they announced the game and hoped to bring it to Wii U and when it released, the Wii U failed hard, proved to be a waste of time for 3rd parties, and failed to outsell the Dreamcast despite being out for quite a bit longer. Besides those problems, the Wii U was built with Nintendo's lazy attitude, which filled the console with generation-old innards that couldn't handle the game.
It sucks, but most of you were never going to support the game anyway, and too many others very obviously do not understand how game development works and focus can change over time.
Re: Devil's Third is Being Published by Nintendo of America in Q4, Also Coming to PC as 'Free-to-Start' Title
@MarioPhD
Unreal 3 is officially supported by Wii U. Unreal 4 is not.
There is a difference. A very big difference. The article on this site that made that claim was wrong.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@Chaoz
Pretty much all remakes are pointless. I'm glad you're finally catching up. They are largely a waste of time and resources that could be better spent making something new. Particularly since Nintendo--specifically--resells the same old games over and over again as often as possible. For instance, the original Metroid is available on NES, GBA, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and playable on the GC. The remake was totally unncessary, and it added nothing to the franchise since it was largely turned into a watered-down Super Metroid.
Your argument in defense of the lame-ass coddling and watering-down of difficulty of Fusion holds no merit in the face of the huge number of gamers who actively seek and crave these experiences. Fusion, by the way, sold fewer copies than Prime, and Prime was very much that ultra-challenging, non-hand-holding game you seem to think needs to be done.
So now, everything Nintendo makes is watered-down, anyone-can-do-it nonsense, and nothing targets more serious gamers looking for strict challenges or those types of games. Where is Nintendo's Bloodborne or Dark Souls? That should've been Metroid. And if this watering-down "so more people will buy it" is such a great idea, then why are sales of those watered-down Metroid games getting lower with each entry? Fusion sold below Prime, Zero sold below Fusion, Other M sold below Zero.
Clearly, watering down Metroid games "for the kiddies" is the wrong way to go about making Metroid games.
Metroid, like any franchise, needs to modernize to deliver experiences modern gamers expect. Failure to do so would be like releasing an online multiplayer game without voice chat or extremely limited content in this day and age. But in modernizing, Metroid should not have to sacrifice what defines the franchise--the stern exploration, the freedom, the joy of discovery, the challenge that comes with that freedom, the player-driven narrative.
In an era when games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne are celebrated for their challenge and depth, it's absurd to think Metroid could only succeed by watering down that very same formula for the kids.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@Bolt_Strike
Metroid II's bit of linearity was at least not forced or stifling. In Fusion, areas were stupidly locked after you exited them, and you were forced to "follow the arrows to the next point." Metroid II still allowed ample access to everything and opened up a much larger world of exploration as you advanced. There was merit in revisiting old areas. So I wouldn't necessarily call that one linear--not like Fusion or Other M.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@HyperSonicEXE
Prime didn't lock the camera movement to 2D, it locked targeting and strafing, but you still had freedom of 3D movement and activity.
I'll frequently make the point that even Other M's 3D segments were 2-D in design--locking movement completely, and in the rare 3D environments, movement was extremely rigid, and aiming was automatic, removing any depth from the gameplay.
I hate that game so much. Not just for the insane levels of sexism and how they ruined Samus as a character, but even almost every design element was annoying, over-simplified, or broken. It is literally the only game I ever finished, and I just sat there, like a little kid, arms crossed, fuming with anger at what I'd just witnessed and played. I see it as a game with almost no redeeming features at all, barring the generally enjoyable Metroid Queen battle. Everything else was crap.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@Chaoz
I think it's monstrously stupid to dumb-down any game (movie, TV show, etc) just to get more people interested. Bloodborne certainly doesn't hold anyone's hand, and it's celebrated for it. This is why it's such a blatant error on the part of Fusion. As a Metroid fan, I wasn't looking for a coddling. I wanted a real Metroid experience--freedom, player-driven exploration and exposition. At the time, I was in the camp of "Metroid in 3D? No way! 2D forever!" But then, Prime ended up being the superior Metroid experience, and Fusion was just a disappointment.
This was a case of Nintendo--as usual--being so afraid of alienating people, that they alienated people.
Zero Mission was just unnecessary. Remaking Metroid 1 is one thing, but they basically remade it to be Super Metroid. A solid game, but jeez, what the hell was the point? Particularly since the actual original NES Metroid was also re-released on the GBA. The original Metroid is still very rough around the edges, but Zero Mission was still unnecessary.
If there is one Metroid game deserving of a remake, it's Metroid II, as at least that one is less likely to be just another Super clone in the end, as it was a big difference from the other 2D titles, and the technology behind it was extremely primitive by comparison. As one of the first GB games, it's also pretty ugly and the environments all look the same.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@HyperSonicEXE
Have you played any of the Prime trilogy? Because the exploration bit that you enjoyed in Other M was done infinitely better in those games. Prime had you scanning an environment, examining it, studying it. It required as much cunning and knowledge of the right tools for the job as it did a sharp eye and understanding of the environment.
I was disappointed by Other M's lazy method of "kill all enemies, map magically shows you where missile and energy upgrades are." It didn't feel as though I accomplished anything. Almost all of those were found in more of a "oh, right. Sigh" manner. In the Prime games, almost literally every single upgrade and add-on delivered a sense of pride and accomplishment. As a gamer, you simply felt smarter, more clever for solving the riddles and puzzles and analyzing the environment properly. Finding things in Other M felt hollow to me. Pointless. Without reward or challenge. And geez, one missile every time.
Finding things in the Prime trilogy put a s**t-eating grin on my face, a shake to my head, and a welling of chest-beating pride. Sure, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but making discoveries, even just one more missile pack (of 5 missiles, not one) was just so damn rewarding.
Yes, this is a personal anecdote, but I doubt I'm the only one with this view of the exploration of these games.
And yes, your point of "just shoot walls, hope to find stuff" from the 2D games is not particularly engrossing as a point of exploration. Super introduced the X-Ray visor, which created an actual sense of exploration. But no 2-D game expanded upon this.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@IceClimbers
I think the word gets over-used way too much these days, but VR Metroid Prime would indeed be quite epic.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@AJ_Lethal
They would also have to retcon Fusion. Which, by the way, I am perfectly happy with. I know Fusion has it's fans, but I seriously doubt those people were playing Metroid before then, and don't properly understand how neutered the game is, or how unoriginal it is across the board.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@IceClimbers
To be fair, I don't think the Metroid franchise should even make any more "Prime" games, only that the franchise should continue in Prime's (and Super's) footsteps--pushing the technological barrier to create an ever more advanced, ever more immersive experience. I don't care if the next game is first- or third-person, so long as it's a technological move forward, and maintains what defines the franchise--solitude, exploration, atmosphere, mood, isolation, a light horror element, player-driven narrative, a strong and independent protagonist, etc.
My point about "room for growth" is more that Nintendo clearly has no idea how to advance in 2D, as they have been plugging Super Metroid into every 2D game since then. Nintendo might also lack the necessary creativity to evolve the franchise in 3D as well, but overall, there is ample room for growth. I tend to look at the 2D side and shrug because, well, even if Nintendo comes up with something new for Metroid, someone else will likely have come up with it already elsewhere, as this is a very popular subgenre of the platformer.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@Chaoz
Zero Mission and Fusion are not on the same level as Super because they are largely copies of Super, but with more forced linear gameplay (especially in Fusion), which is the opposite of what defined the franchise in every other Metroid game up to that point. Linearity, unfortunately, seems to be turning into the norm for the franchise, unfortunately.
Saying Zero Mission and Fusion are "on the same level" as Super is like saying a lazy modern Hollywood remake of a classic film is "on the same level," even though it's a lame remake that completely misses much of what made the original so strong. Like Total Recall, or Robocop.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@HyperSonicEXE
Other M's approach to upgrades was completely idiotic. They just "locked them away" for the dumbest plot point ever devised, and instead of players earning the upgrades, they just walked into a new area and Samus' Sugar Daddy gave her "permission" to use them. It was insultingly moronic. It completely removed any sense of accomplishment from the game.
It's literally the difference between earning a gold medal, and walking into a room and having someone just hand you one. THAT IS LITERALLY HOW OTHER M DID UPGRADES. The only way one could find fun in that would be if Other M was the first game they'd ever played, so every concept was super brand new to them.
And no, Nintendo has gone to great lengths to show that they have no idea how to further advance the franchise in 2D, because if they did, then the post-Super games would be more than just endless call-backs and half-remakes of Super Metroid, which is exactly what they are. It's sad to hear that Metroid Dread was essentially little more than "Fusion on DS." Freakin' pathetic.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@Aromaiden
To be fair, I'm a huge Metroid fan, and Fusion was where my problems with the direction started. There, it was less obvious how bad the storytelling was, but what really hurt it was the forced linear gameplay, which just got worse with everything Sakamoto touched after it.
He is very much the George Lucas of Nintendo.
Re: Unseen64 Digs Up Development Insights Into Metroid Prime: Hunters, Dread and Federation Force
@IceClimbers
Very strongly disagree.
The 2-D games wasted ample time trying to remake Super Metroid to some degree over and over--Fusion, Zero, and Other M all use literally the exact same weapons and items and most of the same enemies, while gradually becoming more and more linear (Metroid games were never linear before Fusion).
The Prime games, however, changed dramatically while continuing to evolve naturally. There is ample room for growth in this regard as not a single one of them was wasted trying to clone any other. Including Hunters. There is ample room for growth.
And here's a shocker, I am still playing through the best Metroid game since Prime 3. Believe it or not, it's Bloodborne. The only thing different is the way the leveling works. But Bloodborne is a true Metroid game in every sense of the franchise (mine even has a female protagonist, ha ha). You are dropped into a world, and the only thing you have are you wits and your drive to explore. It's isolating, moody, atmospheric, and driven entirely by careful and often brave exploration. Each step forward opens the world to you, and at the same time, leads back around in a circle--it is absolutely rife with shortcuts, secrets, hidden passages, and the like. The gothic Victorian setting aside (as opposed to alien landscapes of deep science fiction), Bloodborne is a best Metroid game Nintendo refuses to make.
This game alone is evidence of how much further the franchise has to evolve in 3D. Even the story in Bloodborne is told through crafty exploration and exposition, same with the Prime trilogy.
I cannot suggest this enough, if you are craving a great Metroid-like experience, you'll find it in Bloodborne. Right down to the point where revisiting earlier areas suddenly reveals surprising new discoveries and areas.