You don't seem to have any concept or understanding of what it means to be "Android powered." Android is an Operating System, not hardware. Android could be the OS powering a game console or a computer or pretty much anything else if configured to do so. It was designed for phones and tablets, however. But it is open and easy to use, which is why it's popular.
The PS4 could operate on an Android operating system and still be just as powerful. Being Android-based in the interface has absolutely nothing to do with hardware power or capabilities. To that point, we are likely to a level where the majority of Android-powered devices blow the 3DS out of the water in terms of visuals and power, and edge in on the Wii U. My phone is Android-powered and handily puts the 3DS to shame--and is full HD.
So when you say "Android-powered," you are illustrating that you don't understand even the most basic concepts of computing hardware. For instance, the Wii U is powered by AMD, IBM and Renesas. The operating system (which is what Android is), is just software made to run on this hardware.
The Wii U won't have a three-year or less lifecycle. With NX launching in November 2016, the Wii U will have had 4 years. Four years isn't necessarily good, but that's plenty for a console failing as badly as the Wii U. Four largely terrible years. There is no logic in sitting on this dead duck beyond 2016. Even Smash and Mario Kart failed to move units or reverse fortunes. That's telling that the console was not going to turn around.
And yes, we can totally make the "assumption" that Nintendo has nothing to fill out 2016 or go into 2017 or they would've shown us something at E3 this year. You know, like literally every other publisher did. They don't have anything else to continue to pad the console out beyond 2016. At this point, though, I expect StarFox to delay into early 2016 to let XCX support the console over December and January.
You believe that Nintendo has more games in development--I do too, just not for Wii U. Or they would've shown them to us, and that they are for NX is simply more logical at this point and perfectly in line with how they've dealt with consoles in the past. Once the GC, Wii, and Wii U were announced, there was an obvious and sharp decline in game announcements and releases for the then-current console. We're already seeing this decline for Wii U.
Nintendo is not making any major new Wii U games. Anything "new" we see from this point on will have already been in production for a very long time, and Nintendo has stretched production and releases for the Wii U longer than any console ever. XCX was revealed two years ago, and won't actually be out in the US until it's nearly been three years. They have been spacing out releases--as was once noted on this site by another user--in a sense of running back and forth putting out fires. There is a major drought between every release because there isn't a quantity of releases to fill the time. They are spacing these out to fake longevity of the hardware while they are clearly working on other projects behind the scenes.
That there was no major new announcement at E3 is extremely telling of this.
Your other point about the dwindling fanbase is a wider issue unrelated to the Wii U or NX specifically. Nintendo has been dwindling since the NES, and the Wii was a casual fad that found a new audience the way any other fad does. It was Nintendo's Macarena or Tomodatchi in that regard. A flash in the pan with no longevity. Outside of that fad, every Nintendo console has sold worse than the one before--they are simply fading from relevance, and have been for over 20 years.
The point is, those of you who have multiple 3DS systems "because moar Zelda" are going to buy NX no matter when it releases, how much it is, or when it comes out. Nintendo has no fear of pissing off these fanboys. The bigger problem is finding a way to actually, legitimately appeal to those of us who are gamers first and Nintendo fans second, and frankly, they have been failing at that a little more with each successive generation.
It doesn't matter if Nintendo angers a few core fanboys with this new release. It's more important that they try to get back the fans they've lost over the past 25 years, or to appeal to the much larger audience of new gamers. And that, unfortunately for them, may well be impossible.
The biggest hurdle most gamers and consumers now have is, quite simply, the Nintendo hardware itself. People find it increasingly difficult to justify purchasing the hardware just for a couple games they might not even finish. If Nintendo really wants to reach large audiences, the way to do it is to drop the hardware, and go third party. Nintendo fanboys constantly whine and moan about this, but as a gamer and a Nintendo fan, I'd prefer if their games were both A) easier to obtain by being on other hardware and B) actually found the audiences they deserve, which is only going to be possible by them being third party.
Their mobile strategy is a good first step, and it will illustrate this beautifully. Of this, I am quite confident. It's their first step to seeing how profitable and powerful they will be as a third party.
This belief that Nintendo is going to sit for a year with no hardware sales in order to kindly wait until 2017 to appease a grumpy fanbase who buys anything with their logo on it anyway is just absurd and silly. As I said in the other article, for the people that would be "most upset" about Wii U being replaced "early," they'll forgive Nintendo immediately once they see another Mario or Zelda for the new system. They won't care. They bought multiple 3DS systems already. They love buying hardware with Nintendo's logo emblazoned into it.
Nintendo has no fear of upsetting these fanboys. They have a much bigger fear of wasting a year over 2016~2017 where they garner no profits--which would be the case if they "depended" on Wii U over that time.
Nintendo is already going third party, genius. Or do you think they're making their own phones and tablets that will only play their games?
No, their games will be on Android and iOS. They are already making steps into 3rd party territory.
And frankly, if they went on failing as long as you magically think they could, they wouldn't go third party. They'd go bankrupt and be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey to anyone willing to buy up the franchises from the corpse of the company. The same as when THQ went under.
Keep in mind, the longer a company fails, the harder it is to crawl out of that hole, and the more money and debt they have to incur to get out. Sony is still crawling out of a 10-year downward spiral, and they'll be crawling out of it for another year or two. Nintendo can just fail for 20 years, huh? You have no idea what you're talking about.
Every console launches with ports, and it's been this way since the Dreamcast at the very least. It's an easy way to get games to the new platform, make a bit of money to fund the next projects, and to familiarize with the platform. If NX is on solid footing to allow for some easy ports of PS4/XBO games, then that's something positive.
Gamers need to stop being such bloody crybabies about first-year ports on consoles. The first year is never the best, and always features ports and remakes. If you don't want 'em, don't buy 'em, but they serve an important purpose to keep the industry moving forward.
The smart thing to do would be to understand this very simple concept--and that goes for all of us.
Nintendo fans have shown that they really don't care what Nintendo does because it's always okay because Nintendo does it. Besides, the Wii U still has lower sales than the Dreamcast. From a corporate point of view, they aren't going to be upsetting all that many people by canning it early.
Again, I will remind you that the GBA was replaced in the same timeframe, and no one cared.
What you're saying is that it's "smarter" for Nintendo to waste time and money on a lingering console no one wants just to make a few core fanboys happy who aren't buying games anyway, because if they were, there'd be a lot more 3rd party support on the thing. The Wii U is a money vortex, and every time Nintendo has found "profitability" in the past year has been through exchange rates and crafty number crunching--never because of improved sales.
Is this really smart business? Hell f**king no. Who's going to be hurt by the NX coming out soon? The Nintendo fanboys who forgive the company of literally any transgression? Or the legions of gamers who never even bought into the thing in the first place?
Keeping the Wii U out longer without the NX replacing it is a losing proposition no matter how you slice it. Sure, there will be some upset fans, but for a corporation like Nintendo, that's a risk they will be willing to take if they can sell way more of the new hardware to someone else. And besides, those fanboys will come around again anyway. Just show them another Zelda or a Mario and they won't care anymore that the new hardware is out. How many suckers bought yet another 3DS just because of Majora's Mask?
Yeah, I think they're perfectly safe releasing NX early.
Now, I agree that Nintendo should have worked to repair the Wii U, the way Sony did with the PS3. In large part because this repair of the PS3's woes helped make the PS4 stronger. But Nintendo didn't, and now not only is it way too late, it's extremely clear they have moved on behind the scenes, as E3 painfully illustrated.
The first thing that strikes me as outlandish about this is the July 2016 targeted release date. I'd believe that for production to start, maybe, but actually releasing the machine? November 2016. And 20 million units is beyond laughable.
All evidence we have indicates a 2016 release date, but unless the NX is supposed to be taken outdoors with you for some reason, it won't be released in July. It'll be released in November, as is typical of Nintendo with new consoles.
At the same token, Nintendo tends not to wait longer than 18 months between announcing a new console and releasing it, as I've illustrated before, with the Wii being potentially the only exception of the last three generations. For instance, the Wii U was announced in April 2011, and released November 2012. This is perfectly in line with NX.
Nintendo has not given us a launch date for NX, but we have some pretty damning evidence. Most notably, as I've said, the utter lack of games announced at E3 to carry their hardware through 2016. We know about a whole bunch of 2016, and even some 2017 games for other platforms. Nintendo also did not reveal that they were working on any major new titles across either the Wii U or 3DS, which strongly indicates that their major teams are hard at work on something else they didn't want to show.
On top of this, Iwata told investors he expected to be "back in Nintendo-like profits" in the fiscal year ending March 2017. The way to make good on that? Release a new console November 2016 and take the gamble there. The Wii U and 3DS are both selling worse than not only the Wii and DS, but also the GameCube and GBA. They are slipping bad, and neither platform has longevity beyond 2016, and this much is obvious.
No matter what, Nintendo is going to end up releasing as stop-gap, mid-generation console that is doomed from the start simply due to when it's coming out, as early/late/mid-gen console releases have a history of failure.
The absolute best Nintendo can hope for right now is another flash-in-the-pan fluke like the Wii and DS. They are not going to return to industry dominance with consoles, and while the Wii itself had sales, it still paled in comparison to it's contemporaries in games, support, libraries, and longevity.
That all noted, Nintendo's best bet is to push out NX sooner rather than later, and to wash their hands of the Wii U immediately and try for that flash-in-the-pan, which is most likely to be their last hurrah on the home console side. They will find money in mobile and being a third party. They are not going to find it in making home consoles, and outside of the fluke of the Wii, they have been on a steady decline since the NES.
The apologetics for Nintendo in here is overwhelming. So much "Nintendo can do no wrong" in this article, it's dizzying. This is a company that built their reputation on the ease of getting into a game and understanding it. Now, their fans are defending them for doing the exact opposite--evidently creating a complicated, notably confusing control system just to justify the existence of a controller no one asked for. But it's okay, because Nintendo. It's automatically going to be awesome, because StarFox. It hurts no one to be skeptical of what they're doing with this game. But no one benefits from blind gullibility. Oh well.
This E3 PROVED that Nintendo is not working on Wii U and 3DS as anything resembling a priority. They have NO GAMES to carry the Wii U through 2017.
NX will be launching next year, to be revealed earlier in the year, get a full boost at or around E3, and then released in the fall. There is no good reason to think the NX is going to remain absent until 2017. For that to be true, we'd have to think Nintendo is stupid enough to attempt to support the Wii U for a full year and a half (2016-2017) or so with fewer than 4 games.
No, NX is coming in 2016. Nintendo can't afford for it to come any later.
The fakest thing is the 2017 date. The NX will be out in 2016. This E3 was a pretty clear indication of that with it's total lack of major new announcements or newly announced AAA-level games, and total lack of attendance by major Nintendo developers, specifically Retro.
This is the exact opposite way that Nintendo used to do things, which also happened to be the kind of thinking that originally made them such a strong game company.
In my view amiibo and NFC toys are meant to do the opposite and help expand full gaming experiences; in these two games Nintendo seems to be doing the opposite, simplifying concepts to suit amiibo.
This caught my attention, in particular. This is just an extension of Nintendo's post-SNES operating standards--create some new gimmick, force games to be redesigned around this frequently asinine new gimmick. Granted, it worked on the N64 (analog stick), but the gimmicky button layout of the GameCube controller (with the awkward Z-button, squishy shoulder buttons, and unfriendly-to-many-genres button layout) was a harbinger of things to come. The Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U have all been gimmick-driven. Sometimes creating fun new concepts, most commonly being unnecessary changes (Super Mario Galaxy did not benefit from Wii Waggle), and occasionally being utter fiascos.
The Wii U is a full-blown gimmick machine. The GamePad, the still-incorporated Wii Remotes, the NFC features, the asymmetric gameplay, etc.
I predicted late last year after Amiibo launched that we'd be seeing increasing amounts of content locked away behind amiibo paywalls, and that it would start affecting how games are made. And indeed, here we are. More and more content in more games is being locked behind Amiibo paywalls, and it's affecting game design. Nintendo is trying to sell gimmicky games based on gimmicks, and the designs overall are struggling.
I'm done with Amiibos, and I'm done with Nintendo's fan-abusing gimmicks. At this point, the only thing that will sell me the NX is a full-blown new Eternal Darkness from Retro, but as of now, I'm fully expecting another damn gimmick box and that will help keep me away.
I fully agree at this point. Nintendo as a third party developer and publisher would be far stronger, and I'm willing to bet that when their mobile games launch, they'll be raking in the dough, and they'll start seeing this as well.
Nintendo has shown that their games will sell if the hardware is popular enough--as the gimmicky Wii and DS sold on fads and hot at-the-time trends. Nintendo's games sold. But outside of those obvious flukes, people do not want Nintendo's hardware. They want the games, and if they can't have the games elsewhere, then they just aren't going to bother. And that is precisely what we're seeing now.
No matter what, Zelda U would sell better if it was on XBO and PS4 (or even just PS4) than if it ends up only on Wii U. But given Nintendo's history and the increasing rate at which they are putting the same games on multiple pieces of hardware, Zelda U is practically guaranteed to be a multi-platform game--as in, it'll also appear on NX, if not move there completely.
I think it's because of Nintendo's long-standing problem that they simply have no idea how to sell or promote M-rated games, so they basically doom each and every one of them prior to and after launch. Same with Geist, Eternal Darkness, Bayonetta 2, etc. They have no idea how to promote these and are clearly afraid that they'll sully their kiddie image if they do. So they talk about them for a bit--like they did with Bayonetta 2--show them off a bit, and then when it comes time to release them or moving closer to release, they just flat-out drop the ball.
They could've had a much stronger holiday season last year if Bayonetta 2 had been a pack-in. If they had bothered to promote it once it was released.
Nintendo is too concerned about the kids and not concerned enough about actually selling their wares. They aren't smart enough to cover both bases.
And why wouldn't EA deliver their own yarn game? The chances of it outselling Yoshi are pretty damn good, considering it will actually be multi-platform. Who cares if EA has their own yarn game?
Most of those things are gimmicks. In gaming, gimmicks are defined as temporary, fads, and trends, but having no longevity and offering no long-lasting change or improvement in anything. The Wii Motion controls inspired other gimmicks, that all died. The GamePad inspired nothing. These are, by definition, gimmicks. A cheap device to get quick attention, and that's exactly what Nintendo went for with the Wii Remote, GamePad, 3D (yet again), and Amiibo. Gimmicks to sell plastic. This is how modern Nintendo works. And then shoehorn that plastic into as many games as possible.
gim·mick
ˈɡimik/
noun
a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business.
synonyms: publicity stunt, contrivance, scheme, stratagem, ploy; informalshtick
"the trivia contest was a gimmick to sell more newspapers"
They were throw-away concepts to sell a lot of hardware for a short period of time. The Wii Remote worked in this capacity, but it was still a gimmick.
So no, it's now "how you see a gimmick," it's whether or not you understand the accepted definition of words.
In gaming, innovation leads to expansion.
I find the staggering hypocrisy here amusing that so many Nintendo fans are quick to call VR a gimmick we're not ready for, while defending actual failed gimmicks and concepts from Nintendo. That is fanboyism defined.
VR's time may very well have come. More time has been spent on developing these technologies than Nintendo put into the GamePad, and nearly all early press has been very positive.
No doubt, if Nintendo was doing VR instead of Sony or Oculus/Facebook, the tone here would be drastically different.
Pizza Hut was immediately before he joined Nintendo. No, it doesn't mean he's not a gamer, but he didn't grow in his status as a gamer or an industry insider. It was a similar problem with Don Mattrick before he finally left Microsoft.
Look at the people running things over at MS and Sony. They're gamers, they come off as gamers, and they talk like gamers. Even Iwata just talks like a corporate stooge most of the time.
CEO's may change companies now and then, but I think industries is quite a bit rarer. After all, who would you rather have in charge of your toy company? A guy who worked at a different toy company, or a guy who was in charge of toothpaste previously? While some corporate strategies may transfer over, it's a completely different industry, and understanding any specific industry is as much an art as it is a science as it is a bit of a gut intuition.
Miyamoto had this intuition back in the 80's and early 90's. He clearly does not have it now. I don't think Reggie ever had that intuition concerning video games.
Ha ha ha, if Nintendo fans were known for taking bigger risks in their purchases, Nintendo likely would not be in the situation that has plagued them for generations as the place where 3rd parties go to lose money.
No doubt, Nintendo fans will be angry about this and rattle off long lists of excuses for why they refuse to support any game that doesn't come straight from Nintendo's tanooki bag of surprises. And then they complain when those developers jump ship to actually go somewhere they can make money.
It seems to me that you don't actually understand the gaming industry as a whole. Frankly, the "gritty experiences made quickly" comment is woefully ignorant of how this industry actually works. Even Call of Duty has now moved to a rotating 3-year development cycle. There's nothing "quick" about that. There are three studios working on Call of Duty games now, alternating releases. Ubisoft spent years working on Watch Dogs and The Division. "Quick" is what we saw take up most of Nintendo's dismal E3 showcase--small, simple, throw-away games to be churned out quickly, slap the Zelda or Metroid or Animal Crossing name on the front, and feed it to the fanboys. Barring the word "gritty," you described Nintendo, not the rest of the industry.
People scream to innovate? Nintendo innovates? Nintendo makes gimmicks and banks on them. Actual innovations improve things and are adopted by the wider public and industry. Like the Analog stick, or better yet, the modernized dual-analog sticks as innovated and improved by Sony and Microsoft. You know how you know the clickable modern analog sticks were an innovation? Even Nintendo adopted them.
But the Wii Remote? The GamePad? These didn't add to gaming. These didn't improve things or make older things better. They were gimmicks--passing fads. Hell, the GamePad didn't even reach "fad" level. It's just a failed gimmick that never caught on while changing and improving nothing.
If anything, Pitchford's comments highlight the problem Nintendo has in reaching anyone with their own hardware. Going completely third party, as they are starting to step into that role with their mobile games, would allow them to finally reach the wider audience so many of their games deserve. The big problem--and the one that has plagued them for a long time--is that people are no longer interested in wasting money on Nintendo's hardware. But if those games were on other consoles, they would more likely sell far better.
I find an incredible irony/hypocrisy in Nintendo fans calling something else a "gimmick." Gimmicks have been the backbone of this company for far too long.
I don't know why anybody expects Reggie to talk like a gamer. He was the CEO of Pizza Hut before Nintendo hired him. He's a corporate stooge, not a gamer.
Can't tell if trolling or serious. Comparing the GamePad to something like Oculus or Morpheus isn't just comparing apples and oranges, it's comparing apples the International Space Station. The GamePad is the apple. It's not even close to actual VR.
And GameIndustry.biz demonstrates it's seriousness with the ".biz" in the address and that, even rudimentary searching through the site indicates a very strong connection to the gaming industry as a whole. I can't help but wonder if you're "kid in a basement" comment is based around the numerous articles that sprung up criticizing Nintendo over what is arguably the worst E3 in their history.
Oh cripes. This is as stupid as his comment from last fall that "the Wii U is a better value" than two consoles with about 8 times the power and capabilities for about the same price.
Sony's Press Conference is where the social aspect of VR was demonstrated, as they made it clear that multiple Morpheus sets could be used on a single PS4 for large social gaming, and they promoted multiplayer games for the device.
I guess Nintendo has completely forgotten about they were once the tech innovators in the industry. Now they sit on the sidelines, innovating nothing, and criticizing those that do. Here's the thing, VR will never get to it's promised uses and integration if not for the kind of experimenting and innovation that is happening now with Oculus, Morpheus, and Hololens.
Reggie is basically saying, "the luxury car isn't there yet, and we're not going to make any car at all until luxury cars are built first." You have to build the Model T first, genius.
This also reminds me of the "Twitch isn't fun" statement he made a year ago, around the time millions were finding tons of fun in Twitch.
If I were to say, "I want a hamburger" and someone gives me a hamburger equally filled with feces and uncooked rotten meat served up on a bun more resembling a mushroom farm, I shouldn't complain? Because I "got" a hamburger?
Just because people want something doesn't mean they should have to accept a completely unacceptable version of it. No doubt, if you went into a restaurant and your food was terrible, you wouldn't sit there with your thumbs up your ass and say "well, they technically gave me what I ordered" regardless of quality, and just accept it.
Nintendo fans have wanted a new AAA-level StarFox for a long time. Look at the comparison pictures I posted--this is not what they're getting. Just because you're happy with Nintendo's lazy, half-hearted attempt at another StarFox game doesn't mean everyone else should be.
The Wii U hardware isn't exactly "too different," but "too dated" and pointless. Captain Toad didn't impress me with it's GamePad use. All it did was show that Captain Toad should've been on a platform where you're always looking at the touch-screen. What's funny is that Captain Toad would be the perfect game to usher in Nintendo's mobile era. But to sell the GamePad? Hardly. It didn't do anything so drastically different that it couldn't be done on any other touch-screen platform or on any other platform with a controller, where you use buttons to activate controls otherwise used in touch.
And again, the dated hardware. The Wii U launched unable to easily handle Unreal 4, and even if Unreal 4 is recobbled to work on the system for the not-Castlevania game (keep forgetting the title), that doesn't mean companies are going to care to bring their abundant U4 games to the console.
Nintendo fans are fond of ad hominem attacks against developers and publishers, calling them lazy for not wasting millions of dollars rebuilding engines just for Nintendo's hardware where 3rd party games don't sell anyway. These are corporations, and they need to consider their bottom line and weigh the cost versus profit of doing all this work. And frankly, it's bad business to spend more money developing on Nintendo systems, where they are almost always guarenteed lower sales than on PC, Xbox, or Playstation, utterly regardless of quality.
Arguably the biggest problem with the Wii U is that, at the end of the day, it's utterly pointless. It changed nothing, it improved nothing, the GamePad features were not more immersive and did not create truly better gameplay. The Wii U was a bad stop-gap machine to fill space between Wii and when Nintendo makes an actual console for this generation, which, by the time it launches, may be too late.
While I completely agree that they definitely need to do a better job advertising and promoting themselves and their games, I don't think it'll necessarily work if they're sticking to their security blanket games. I think a big part of what helped Splatoon was that it's something fresh and different. It stands out. Nintendo pretty heavily promoted Mario 3D World and Mario Kart, and I don't think it affected the sales there at all. It's pretty obvious that, outside of "core" Nintendo fans/fanboys, nobody gives a crap about Mario these days.
I think that, regardless of advertising, most gamers are just plain tired of Nintendo's over-use of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games.
As I've long noted, a new Zelda used to be a huge deal--the entire industry paid attention, like with Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. But since Ocarina of Time, Nintendo has been increasingly working towards releasing any kind of Zelda game as frequently as possible, and while it's not specifically an annual franchise (like Madden or Call of Duty, which launch in the same period every year), Zelda games still find their way to retail almost every single year since Ocarina of Time launched, missing only about 3 or 4 years since then. The last time we had a year without a Zelda, that year was literally bookended by years with 2 Zeldas each.
The difference between Zelda and Call of Duty (besides launch dates) is that Nintendo is obviously all-too-content to treat the franchise like a filler, all too happy to shove "Zelda" to retail with side-games, off-shoots, spin-offs, and seemingly endless remakes and ports. Both 2015 and 2016 are now slated to see two Zelda releases each year.
To Nintendo, it doesn't matter. Just get something on store shelves every year year in the Zelda universe. Sadly, it now seems like they are applying this annoying concept to Metroid as well.
Actually, as was once pointed out to me on this site, Nintendo owns Wonderful 101.
I'm also pretty sure Nintendo owns Dillon's Rolling Western. They did act as publisher on those games. That some games were developed by a third party does not mean they are owned by said third party. For instance, Eternal Darkness was made by Silicon Knights (when they mattered), but the game is owned by Nintendo.
I would dare argue that Nintendo fans need to face this disappointment. This is a fanbase that has allowed this company to take advantage of them for far too long with things like constant flip-flopping on issues, information, and goals; releasing endless waves of limited edition 3DS systems to be resold to the same people over and over, and the destructive nature of how they address things like Amiibo.
Nintendo fans have been too apologetic, too forgiving, and too eager to be pleased (as opposed to Nintendo being eager to do the pleasing) for far too long. This attitude is not helping the company grow or evolve in meaningful ways. They know they can continue to take advantage of the goodwill of their dedicated fans.
For everyone's own good here, Nintendo needs to know they failed, and Nintendo fans need to have their fantasy image of the company shattered. Too many people too willing to live with pretty lies. That benefits no one.
It's time to accept a harsh reality, and unfortunately, I think articles like this, rather than damage control, maintain the lie.
This E3 was a telling disaster for Nintendo. We should be learning from it. Not pretending everything is okay.
Sorry to rant. But I don't criticize this company because I hate Nintendo. I criticize because I'm tired of seeing them continue down this destructive path.
My initial red flag on that list was Projects Guard and Giant Robot appearing as "upcoming games" when nothing like that was even stated at last year's E3, and Miyamoto had spent time talking about how they might become part of StarFox. Indeed, the only things said about those "titles" was that they were tech demos to show off the GamePad. That was it. That was the whole reason they were created.
Coming from someone or somewhere else, it made sense that they would just throw any old announcement in there to pad it. What I didn't expect was that Nintendo would be the ones to so half-assedly pad the list. Which only serves to make last year's E3 look worse.
And here we are. Not only have neither of these "games" been shown in any other form, but one of them is supposed to be out already.
A very good point. Iwata dropped the ball four launches in a row, so it's likely they will again with NX.
My outside hope was that Wii U is doing bad enough that they may have actually learned a serious lesson and are working to fix these issues next time. But, Nintendo is a creature of habit, so I suspect your point is all too valid. Without games or third parties, NX will limp out of the gate worse than Wii U.
Splatoon is only one game, that launched well after serious damage was done to the Wii U, and is unable to fix that damage alone. Nintendo immediately turned around for this E3 delving deeper into their "fan sellers" catalog with three games featuring Mario, two more Zelda announcements, and two titles with Metroid slapped in the title.
Essentially, Nintendo did one right thing with Splatoon, and immediately turned around and hid under their Mario-Zelda-Pokemon security blanket, just without the extra Pokemon this year.
It's more than just about graphics. Don't be so petty. However, the graphics are indicative of the problems with Star Fox--it's dated all around. It's an afterthought instead of a serious effort.
Look at the example I posted. Do you really not see a problem here? Even just looking at the graphics, it's pretty clear that Nintendo simply doesn't care. That doesn't even address reused audio from the N64 game, the piss-poor controls, which, sure maybe we'll have another option, but we don't know how that other option even works yet--or if it does.
Outstanding posts. You share the sentiments I've long had with both Nintendo and their overwhelmingly apologetic fanboys. The fans forgive almost everything, and make paranoid conspiracy theorist-style accusations to against the rest of the industry for everything else. Blame third parties. Blame MS and Sony. Blame everyone except Nintendo and their own buying habits which, for 4 generations, have increasingly told third parties that they'll never garner sales on Nintendo hardware. Pretend everything is fine, justify the bad decisions.
Nintendo has been taking advantage of their biggest fans for years, and it seems that--at long last--the fans have finally realized this.
I never said it was a fake graphic, I questioned it's feasibility and it didn't seem to come from Nintendo themselves, and no, it was not accurate. Which... you should have noticed.
Yoshi's Woolly World: 1st Half 2015 - wrong
Mario Maker: 1st Half 2015 - wrong
Project Giant Robot: 1st Half 2015 - wrong. Missing in action.
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: 2015 - I'm amazed as you they got it in that 12-month window.
Project Guard: 2015 - Missing in action.
Zelda: 2015 - Super wrong.
StarFox: 2015 - We'll see. I put up comparison pictures of it in the Mixed Feelings article, and it totally looks like a Wii game, and sounds woefully incomplete. At this point, I would not be surprised at all if it slipped into 2016--as literally every other Nintendo title but the launch games has been delayed, gratuitously delayed, or appeared well after expected release dates.
It turns out this graphic did come from Nintendo, but I was overwhelmingly right to call it's goals into question. Almost everything for 2015 has been wrong, except for Splatoon and the stupidly vague "Kirby and the Rainbow Curse" which may as well have been listed as "will appear on a day ending in Y."
Nintendo is essentially guaranteeing low sales of Devil's Third and Fatal Frame, and that will not help them with 3rd parties moving forward. Outside of XCX, their showing was the most "kiddie" ever.
In other circumstances, I'd side with you on the "we're judging it while it's still in development" point, but StarFox has maybe 3 or 4 more months of development time left on it's plate, and large parts of that will be for streamlining and bug fixing. Essentially, it's a little too late to be suddenly redoing or finishing textures. Most of that stuff should be done. Hopefully they'll fill out the levels some more, as they looked clean, but also barren.
@Yorumi has has good points here in that StarFox Zero looks like a GameCube game. But to truly see how far it's falling short, maybe we should compare it to something of similar power:
Star Fox Zero
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (X360/PS3)
No matter what, Star Fox Zero looks painfully dated. Remember, those Ace Combat screens are from a game that's about 3~5 years old, running on somewhat weaker hardware.
After looking at this post now, Star Fox Zero looks like crap. It's pretty clearly still a Wii game, just being rendered in HD.
Oh, is that a NEWLY REVEALED GAME? I didn't realize Xenoblade Chronicles X, a game we've known about for three years, IS A NEWLY REVEALED GAME. Probably because that is impossible.
Hell no. Pay attention next time, because I very distinctly stated that Nintendo showed "no new AAA games." Something we've known about for 3 years can only be considered "new" if you only just crawled out of a cave. In which you have lived for at least 4 years.
Valhalla may be screwed concerning Devil's Third, depending on how much Nintendo funded it. That may prevent them from releasing on XBO and PS4 and reaching the sales or audience the game might deserve.
I think the reason they're putting so much effort behind XCX is because that game clearly cost a fortune to make. That is a $50,000,000+ game, pretty easily, and had been in development for 3~4 years at least.
What tweet are you referring to?
As a side note, I'd like to add that when we do apologetic aerobics about this E3 by saying "hey, there are still fun games coming," we risk ignoring why it was arguably Nintendo's biggest E3 failure ever.
They are clearly no longer interested in trying to right the Wii U (which I think is impossible anyway, but some effort should at least be made for the sake of consumers) or the 3DS for that matter. I can understand wanting to hold off on NX talk--but only if they also had something to show for the 3DS and Wii U. But since they had nothing else new or impressive to show, then they really should have steered this E3 to the future with NX talk, mobile talk, and discussions on the Club Nintendo replacement.
Yeah, there are some cool games coming, depending on your taste (at this point, I'm down to XCX and Fatal Frame), but that doesn't change the notion that this was an atrocious E3 for a company that once owned these shows, even when they were supporting lesser-selling consoles like the N64 and GameCube. Nintendo's biggest mistake was to even pretend there is still any steam left in the current platforms. They should have just talked about NX and did 3DS and Wii U stuff as secondary features.
Comments 2,916
Re: Nintendo Aims to Avoid 'Notorious' Smart Device Business Models With Its Releases
You mean they want to avoid the business practice they already implemented in that Pokemon game on the 3DS?
Re: Rumour: Nintendo NX Shipping This Time Next Year, 20 Million Sales Targeted In First 12 Months
@napalmninja
You don't seem to have any concept or understanding of what it means to be "Android powered." Android is an Operating System, not hardware. Android could be the OS powering a game console or a computer or pretty much anything else if configured to do so. It was designed for phones and tablets, however. But it is open and easy to use, which is why it's popular.
The PS4 could operate on an Android operating system and still be just as powerful. Being Android-based in the interface has absolutely nothing to do with hardware power or capabilities. To that point, we are likely to a level where the majority of Android-powered devices blow the 3DS out of the water in terms of visuals and power, and edge in on the Wii U. My phone is Android-powered and handily puts the 3DS to shame--and is full HD.
So when you say "Android-powered," you are illustrating that you don't understand even the most basic concepts of computing hardware. For instance, the Wii U is powered by AMD, IBM and Renesas. The operating system (which is what Android is), is just software made to run on this hardware.
Re: Rumour: Nintendo NX Shipping This Time Next Year, 20 Million Sales Targeted In First 12 Months
@Kirk
The Wii U won't have a three-year or less lifecycle. With NX launching in November 2016, the Wii U will have had 4 years. Four years isn't necessarily good, but that's plenty for a console failing as badly as the Wii U. Four largely terrible years. There is no logic in sitting on this dead duck beyond 2016. Even Smash and Mario Kart failed to move units or reverse fortunes. That's telling that the console was not going to turn around.
And yes, we can totally make the "assumption" that Nintendo has nothing to fill out 2016 or go into 2017 or they would've shown us something at E3 this year. You know, like literally every other publisher did. They don't have anything else to continue to pad the console out beyond 2016. At this point, though, I expect StarFox to delay into early 2016 to let XCX support the console over December and January.
You believe that Nintendo has more games in development--I do too, just not for Wii U. Or they would've shown them to us, and that they are for NX is simply more logical at this point and perfectly in line with how they've dealt with consoles in the past. Once the GC, Wii, and Wii U were announced, there was an obvious and sharp decline in game announcements and releases for the then-current console. We're already seeing this decline for Wii U.
Nintendo is not making any major new Wii U games. Anything "new" we see from this point on will have already been in production for a very long time, and Nintendo has stretched production and releases for the Wii U longer than any console ever. XCX was revealed two years ago, and won't actually be out in the US until it's nearly been three years. They have been spacing out releases--as was once noted on this site by another user--in a sense of running back and forth putting out fires. There is a major drought between every release because there isn't a quantity of releases to fill the time. They are spacing these out to fake longevity of the hardware while they are clearly working on other projects behind the scenes.
That there was no major new announcement at E3 is extremely telling of this.
Your other point about the dwindling fanbase is a wider issue unrelated to the Wii U or NX specifically. Nintendo has been dwindling since the NES, and the Wii was a casual fad that found a new audience the way any other fad does. It was Nintendo's Macarena or Tomodatchi in that regard. A flash in the pan with no longevity. Outside of that fad, every Nintendo console has sold worse than the one before--they are simply fading from relevance, and have been for over 20 years.
The point is, those of you who have multiple 3DS systems "because moar Zelda" are going to buy NX no matter when it releases, how much it is, or when it comes out. Nintendo has no fear of pissing off these fanboys. The bigger problem is finding a way to actually, legitimately appeal to those of us who are gamers first and Nintendo fans second, and frankly, they have been failing at that a little more with each successive generation.
It doesn't matter if Nintendo angers a few core fanboys with this new release. It's more important that they try to get back the fans they've lost over the past 25 years, or to appeal to the much larger audience of new gamers. And that, unfortunately for them, may well be impossible.
The biggest hurdle most gamers and consumers now have is, quite simply, the Nintendo hardware itself. People find it increasingly difficult to justify purchasing the hardware just for a couple games they might not even finish. If Nintendo really wants to reach large audiences, the way to do it is to drop the hardware, and go third party. Nintendo fanboys constantly whine and moan about this, but as a gamer and a Nintendo fan, I'd prefer if their games were both A) easier to obtain by being on other hardware and B) actually found the audiences they deserve, which is only going to be possible by them being third party.
Their mobile strategy is a good first step, and it will illustrate this beautifully. Of this, I am quite confident. It's their first step to seeing how profitable and powerful they will be as a third party.
Re: Rumour: Nintendo NX Shipping This Time Next Year, 20 Million Sales Targeted In First 12 Months
@Kirk
This belief that Nintendo is going to sit for a year with no hardware sales in order to kindly wait until 2017 to appease a grumpy fanbase who buys anything with their logo on it anyway is just absurd and silly. As I said in the other article, for the people that would be "most upset" about Wii U being replaced "early," they'll forgive Nintendo immediately once they see another Mario or Zelda for the new system. They won't care. They bought multiple 3DS systems already. They love buying hardware with Nintendo's logo emblazoned into it.
Nintendo has no fear of upsetting these fanboys. They have a much bigger fear of wasting a year over 2016~2017 where they garner no profits--which would be the case if they "depended" on Wii U over that time.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@westman98
Nintendo is already going third party, genius. Or do you think they're making their own phones and tablets that will only play their games?
No, their games will be on Android and iOS. They are already making steps into 3rd party territory.
And frankly, if they went on failing as long as you magically think they could, they wouldn't go third party. They'd go bankrupt and be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey to anyone willing to buy up the franchises from the corpse of the company. The same as when THQ went under.
Keep in mind, the longer a company fails, the harder it is to crawl out of that hole, and the more money and debt they have to incur to get out. Sony is still crawling out of a 10-year downward spiral, and they'll be crawling out of it for another year or two. Nintendo can just fail for 20 years, huh? You have no idea what you're talking about.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@IceClimbers
Every console launches with ports, and it's been this way since the Dreamcast at the very least. It's an easy way to get games to the new platform, make a bit of money to fund the next projects, and to familiarize with the platform. If NX is on solid footing to allow for some easy ports of PS4/XBO games, then that's something positive.
Gamers need to stop being such bloody crybabies about first-year ports on consoles. The first year is never the best, and always features ports and remakes. If you don't want 'em, don't buy 'em, but they serve an important purpose to keep the industry moving forward.
The smart thing to do would be to understand this very simple concept--and that goes for all of us.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@Kirk
Nintendo fans have shown that they really don't care what Nintendo does because it's always okay because Nintendo does it. Besides, the Wii U still has lower sales than the Dreamcast. From a corporate point of view, they aren't going to be upsetting all that many people by canning it early.
Again, I will remind you that the GBA was replaced in the same timeframe, and no one cared.
What you're saying is that it's "smarter" for Nintendo to waste time and money on a lingering console no one wants just to make a few core fanboys happy who aren't buying games anyway, because if they were, there'd be a lot more 3rd party support on the thing. The Wii U is a money vortex, and every time Nintendo has found "profitability" in the past year has been through exchange rates and crafty number crunching--never because of improved sales.
Is this really smart business? Hell f**king no. Who's going to be hurt by the NX coming out soon? The Nintendo fanboys who forgive the company of literally any transgression? Or the legions of gamers who never even bought into the thing in the first place?
Keeping the Wii U out longer without the NX replacing it is a losing proposition no matter how you slice it. Sure, there will be some upset fans, but for a corporation like Nintendo, that's a risk they will be willing to take if they can sell way more of the new hardware to someone else. And besides, those fanboys will come around again anyway. Just show them another Zelda or a Mario and they won't care anymore that the new hardware is out. How many suckers bought yet another 3DS just because of Majora's Mask?
Yeah, I think they're perfectly safe releasing NX early.
Now, I agree that Nintendo should have worked to repair the Wii U, the way Sony did with the PS3. In large part because this repair of the PS3's woes helped make the PS4 stronger. But Nintendo didn't, and now not only is it way too late, it's extremely clear they have moved on behind the scenes, as E3 painfully illustrated.
Re: The Smart Boy Is Real, Will Let You Play Original Game Boy Carts On Your Smartphone
They need to make it compatible with Galaxy phones, and then my interest will be there.
Re: Rumour: Nintendo NX Shipping This Time Next Year, 20 Million Sales Targeted In First 12 Months
The first thing that strikes me as outlandish about this is the July 2016 targeted release date. I'd believe that for production to start, maybe, but actually releasing the machine? November 2016. And 20 million units is beyond laughable.
All evidence we have indicates a 2016 release date, but unless the NX is supposed to be taken outdoors with you for some reason, it won't be released in July. It'll be released in November, as is typical of Nintendo with new consoles.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@TheRealThanos
At the same token, Nintendo tends not to wait longer than 18 months between announcing a new console and releasing it, as I've illustrated before, with the Wii being potentially the only exception of the last three generations. For instance, the Wii U was announced in April 2011, and released November 2012. This is perfectly in line with NX.
Nintendo has not given us a launch date for NX, but we have some pretty damning evidence. Most notably, as I've said, the utter lack of games announced at E3 to carry their hardware through 2016. We know about a whole bunch of 2016, and even some 2017 games for other platforms. Nintendo also did not reveal that they were working on any major new titles across either the Wii U or 3DS, which strongly indicates that their major teams are hard at work on something else they didn't want to show.
On top of this, Iwata told investors he expected to be "back in Nintendo-like profits" in the fiscal year ending March 2017. The way to make good on that? Release a new console November 2016 and take the gamble there. The Wii U and 3DS are both selling worse than not only the Wii and DS, but also the GameCube and GBA. They are slipping bad, and neither platform has longevity beyond 2016, and this much is obvious.
No matter what, Nintendo is going to end up releasing as stop-gap, mid-generation console that is doomed from the start simply due to when it's coming out, as early/late/mid-gen console releases have a history of failure.
The absolute best Nintendo can hope for right now is another flash-in-the-pan fluke like the Wii and DS. They are not going to return to industry dominance with consoles, and while the Wii itself had sales, it still paled in comparison to it's contemporaries in games, support, libraries, and longevity.
That all noted, Nintendo's best bet is to push out NX sooner rather than later, and to wash their hands of the Wii U immediately and try for that flash-in-the-pan, which is most likely to be their last hurrah on the home console side. They will find money in mobile and being a third party. They are not going to find it in making home consoles, and outside of the fluke of the Wii, they have been on a steady decline since the NES.
Re: Shigeru Miyamoto Defends Star Fox Zero's Controls
The apologetics for Nintendo in here is overwhelming. So much "Nintendo can do no wrong" in this article, it's dizzying. This is a company that built their reputation on the ease of getting into a game and understanding it. Now, their fans are defending them for doing the exact opposite--evidently creating a complicated, notably confusing control system just to justify the existence of a controller no one asked for. But it's okay, because Nintendo. It's automatically going to be awesome, because StarFox. It hurts no one to be skeptical of what they're doing with this game. But no one benefits from blind gullibility. Oh well.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@jpfan1989
Yeah, that was a pretty funny red flag.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
@Kirk
This E3 PROVED that Nintendo is not working on Wii U and 3DS as anything resembling a priority. They have NO GAMES to carry the Wii U through 2017.
NX will be launching next year, to be revealed earlier in the year, get a full boost at or around E3, and then released in the fall. There is no good reason to think the NX is going to remain absent until 2017. For that to be true, we'd have to think Nintendo is stupid enough to attempt to support the Wii U for a full year and a half (2016-2017) or so with fewer than 4 games.
No, NX is coming in 2016. Nintendo can't afford for it to come any later.
Re: Weirdness: In Some Parallel Dimension, This Nintendo Cross Presentation Might Actually Be Real
The fakest thing is the 2017 date. The NX will be out in 2016. This E3 was a pretty clear indication of that with it's total lack of major new announcements or newly announced AAA-level games, and total lack of attendance by major Nintendo developers, specifically Retro.
Re: Shigeru Miyamoto Defends Star Fox Zero's Controls
This is the exact opposite way that Nintendo used to do things, which also happened to be the kind of thinking that originally made them such a strong game company.
Re: Editorial: Nintendo's Approach to amiibo is Increasingly Frustrating
In my view amiibo and NFC toys are meant to do the opposite and help expand full gaming experiences; in these two games Nintendo seems to be doing the opposite, simplifying concepts to suit amiibo.
This caught my attention, in particular. This is just an extension of Nintendo's post-SNES operating standards--create some new gimmick, force games to be redesigned around this frequently asinine new gimmick. Granted, it worked on the N64 (analog stick), but the gimmicky button layout of the GameCube controller (with the awkward Z-button, squishy shoulder buttons, and unfriendly-to-many-genres button layout) was a harbinger of things to come. The Wii, DS, 3DS, and Wii U have all been gimmick-driven. Sometimes creating fun new concepts, most commonly being unnecessary changes (Super Mario Galaxy did not benefit from Wii Waggle), and occasionally being utter fiascos.
The Wii U is a full-blown gimmick machine. The GamePad, the still-incorporated Wii Remotes, the NFC features, the asymmetric gameplay, etc.
I predicted late last year after Amiibo launched that we'd be seeing increasing amounts of content locked away behind amiibo paywalls, and that it would start affecting how games are made. And indeed, here we are. More and more content in more games is being locked behind Amiibo paywalls, and it's affecting game design. Nintendo is trying to sell gimmicky games based on gimmicks, and the designs overall are struggling.
I'm done with Amiibos, and I'm done with Nintendo's fan-abusing gimmicks. At this point, the only thing that will sell me the NX is a full-blown new Eternal Darkness from Retro, but as of now, I'm fully expecting another damn gimmick box and that will help keep me away.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@FlaygletheBagel
I fully agree at this point. Nintendo as a third party developer and publisher would be far stronger, and I'm willing to bet that when their mobile games launch, they'll be raking in the dough, and they'll start seeing this as well.
Nintendo has shown that their games will sell if the hardware is popular enough--as the gimmicky Wii and DS sold on fads and hot at-the-time trends. Nintendo's games sold. But outside of those obvious flukes, people do not want Nintendo's hardware. They want the games, and if they can't have the games elsewhere, then they just aren't going to bother. And that is precisely what we're seeing now.
No matter what, Zelda U would sell better if it was on XBO and PS4 (or even just PS4) than if it ends up only on Wii U. But given Nintendo's history and the increasing rate at which they are putting the same games on multiple pieces of hardware, Zelda U is practically guaranteed to be a multi-platform game--as in, it'll also appear on NX, if not move there completely.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@mike_intv
I think it's because of Nintendo's long-standing problem that they simply have no idea how to sell or promote M-rated games, so they basically doom each and every one of them prior to and after launch. Same with Geist, Eternal Darkness, Bayonetta 2, etc. They have no idea how to promote these and are clearly afraid that they'll sully their kiddie image if they do. So they talk about them for a bit--like they did with Bayonetta 2--show them off a bit, and then when it comes time to release them or moving closer to release, they just flat-out drop the ball.
They could've had a much stronger holiday season last year if Bayonetta 2 had been a pack-in. If they had bothered to promote it once it was released.
Nintendo is too concerned about the kids and not concerned enough about actually selling their wares. They aren't smart enough to cover both bases.
And why wouldn't EA deliver their own yarn game? The chances of it outselling Yoshi are pretty damn good, considering it will actually be multi-platform. Who cares if EA has their own yarn game?
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
@Goginho
Most of those things are gimmicks. In gaming, gimmicks are defined as temporary, fads, and trends, but having no longevity and offering no long-lasting change or improvement in anything. The Wii Motion controls inspired other gimmicks, that all died. The GamePad inspired nothing. These are, by definition, gimmicks. A cheap device to get quick attention, and that's exactly what Nintendo went for with the Wii Remote, GamePad, 3D (yet again), and Amiibo. Gimmicks to sell plastic. This is how modern Nintendo works. And then shoehorn that plastic into as many games as possible.
gim·mick
ˈɡimik/
noun
a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business.
synonyms: publicity stunt, contrivance, scheme, stratagem, ploy; informalshtick
"the trivia contest was a gimmick to sell more newspapers"
They were throw-away concepts to sell a lot of hardware for a short period of time. The Wii Remote worked in this capacity, but it was still a gimmick.
So no, it's now "how you see a gimmick," it's whether or not you understand the accepted definition of words.
In gaming, innovation leads to expansion.
I find the staggering hypocrisy here amusing that so many Nintendo fans are quick to call VR a gimmick we're not ready for, while defending actual failed gimmicks and concepts from Nintendo. That is fanboyism defined.
VR's time may very well have come. More time has been spent on developing these technologies than Nintendo put into the GamePad, and nearly all early press has been very positive.
No doubt, if Nintendo was doing VR instead of Sony or Oculus/Facebook, the tone here would be drastically different.
Re: Feature: Five Key Moments from Nintendo's E3
Seems odd to even mention the first two things since they actually occurred before and outside of E3.
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
@arrmixer
Pizza Hut was immediately before he joined Nintendo. No, it doesn't mean he's not a gamer, but he didn't grow in his status as a gamer or an industry insider. It was a similar problem with Don Mattrick before he finally left Microsoft.
Look at the people running things over at MS and Sony. They're gamers, they come off as gamers, and they talk like gamers. Even Iwata just talks like a corporate stooge most of the time.
CEO's may change companies now and then, but I think industries is quite a bit rarer. After all, who would you rather have in charge of your toy company? A guy who worked at a different toy company, or a guy who was in charge of toothpaste previously? While some corporate strategies may transfer over, it's a completely different industry, and understanding any specific industry is as much an art as it is a science as it is a bit of a gut intuition.
Miyamoto had this intuition back in the 80's and early 90's. He clearly does not have it now. I don't think Reggie ever had that intuition concerning video games.
Re: Take More Risks With Your eShop Purchases, Pleads Nintendo's Damon Baker
@Spoony
Yeah, because Urban Champion and Donkey Kong Jr. Math are the epitome of quality and nostalgia.
Ha, he was bound to be right at least once:
Re: Take More Risks With Your eShop Purchases, Pleads Nintendo's Damon Baker
Ha ha ha, if Nintendo fans were known for taking bigger risks in their purchases, Nintendo likely would not be in the situation that has plagued them for generations as the place where 3rd parties go to lose money.
No doubt, Nintendo fans will be angry about this and rattle off long lists of excuses for why they refuse to support any game that doesn't come straight from Nintendo's tanooki bag of surprises. And then they complain when those developers jump ship to actually go somewhere they can make money.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@Ryu_Niiyama
It seems to me that you don't actually understand the gaming industry as a whole. Frankly, the "gritty experiences made quickly" comment is woefully ignorant of how this industry actually works. Even Call of Duty has now moved to a rotating 3-year development cycle. There's nothing "quick" about that. There are three studios working on Call of Duty games now, alternating releases. Ubisoft spent years working on Watch Dogs and The Division. "Quick" is what we saw take up most of Nintendo's dismal E3 showcase--small, simple, throw-away games to be churned out quickly, slap the Zelda or Metroid or Animal Crossing name on the front, and feed it to the fanboys. Barring the word "gritty," you described Nintendo, not the rest of the industry.
People scream to innovate? Nintendo innovates? Nintendo makes gimmicks and banks on them. Actual innovations improve things and are adopted by the wider public and industry. Like the Analog stick, or better yet, the modernized dual-analog sticks as innovated and improved by Sony and Microsoft. You know how you know the clickable modern analog sticks were an innovation? Even Nintendo adopted them.
But the Wii Remote? The GamePad? These didn't add to gaming. These didn't improve things or make older things better. They were gimmicks--passing fads. Hell, the GamePad didn't even reach "fad" level. It's just a failed gimmick that never caught on while changing and improving nothing.
If anything, Pitchford's comments highlight the problem Nintendo has in reaching anyone with their own hardware. Going completely third party, as they are starting to step into that role with their mobile games, would allow them to finally reach the wider audience so many of their games deserve. The big problem--and the one that has plagued them for a long time--is that people are no longer interested in wasting money on Nintendo's hardware. But if those games were on other consoles, they would more likely sell far better.
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
@Goginho
I find an incredible irony/hypocrisy in Nintendo fans calling something else a "gimmick." Gimmicks have been the backbone of this company for far too long.
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
@Peach64
I don't know why anybody expects Reggie to talk like a gamer. He was the CEO of Pizza Hut before Nintendo hired him. He's a corporate stooge, not a gamer.
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
@rjejr
Can't tell if trolling or serious. Comparing the GamePad to something like Oculus or Morpheus isn't just comparing apples and oranges, it's comparing apples the International Space Station. The GamePad is the apple. It's not even close to actual VR.
And GameIndustry.biz demonstrates it's seriousness with the ".biz" in the address and that, even rudimentary searching through the site indicates a very strong connection to the gaming industry as a whole. I can't help but wonder if you're "kid in a basement" comment is based around the numerous articles that sprung up criticizing Nintendo over what is arguably the worst E3 in their history.
Re: The Current State Of Virtual Reality Just Isn't Fun, Says Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime
Oh cripes. This is as stupid as his comment from last fall that "the Wii U is a better value" than two consoles with about 8 times the power and capabilities for about the same price.
Sony's Press Conference is where the social aspect of VR was demonstrated, as they made it clear that multiple Morpheus sets could be used on a single PS4 for large social gaming, and they promoted multiplayer games for the device.
I guess Nintendo has completely forgotten about they were once the tech innovators in the industry. Now they sit on the sidelines, innovating nothing, and criticizing those that do. Here's the thing, VR will never get to it's promised uses and integration if not for the kind of experimenting and innovation that is happening now with Oculus, Morpheus, and Hololens.
Reggie is basically saying, "the luxury car isn't there yet, and we're not going to make any car at all until luxury cars are built first." You have to build the Model T first, genius.
This also reminds me of the "Twitch isn't fun" statement he made a year ago, around the time millions were finding tons of fun in Twitch.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@Nintendofan83
I flat-out stopped pre-ordering games unless it's actually something I think will be hard to find--like the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy edition.
StarFox won't be even remotely hard to find. I'm of the mindset that all this pre-ordering nonsense is actually damaging to the industry as a whole.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@Chaoz
So, taking the logic behind your post.
If I were to say, "I want a hamburger" and someone gives me a hamburger equally filled with feces and uncooked rotten meat served up on a bun more resembling a mushroom farm, I shouldn't complain? Because I "got" a hamburger?
Just because people want something doesn't mean they should have to accept a completely unacceptable version of it. No doubt, if you went into a restaurant and your food was terrible, you wouldn't sit there with your thumbs up your ass and say "well, they technically gave me what I ordered" regardless of quality, and just accept it.
Nintendo fans have wanted a new AAA-level StarFox for a long time. Look at the comparison pictures I posted--this is not what they're getting. Just because you're happy with Nintendo's lazy, half-hearted attempt at another StarFox game doesn't mean everyone else should be.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@FLUX_CAPACITOR
Nothing would make your points valid. They're ad hominems.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@bluedogrulez
The Wii U hardware isn't exactly "too different," but "too dated" and pointless. Captain Toad didn't impress me with it's GamePad use. All it did was show that Captain Toad should've been on a platform where you're always looking at the touch-screen. What's funny is that Captain Toad would be the perfect game to usher in Nintendo's mobile era. But to sell the GamePad? Hardly. It didn't do anything so drastically different that it couldn't be done on any other touch-screen platform or on any other platform with a controller, where you use buttons to activate controls otherwise used in touch.
And again, the dated hardware. The Wii U launched unable to easily handle Unreal 4, and even if Unreal 4 is recobbled to work on the system for the not-Castlevania game (keep forgetting the title), that doesn't mean companies are going to care to bring their abundant U4 games to the console.
Nintendo fans are fond of ad hominem attacks against developers and publishers, calling them lazy for not wasting millions of dollars rebuilding engines just for Nintendo's hardware where 3rd party games don't sell anyway. These are corporations, and they need to consider their bottom line and weigh the cost versus profit of doing all this work. And frankly, it's bad business to spend more money developing on Nintendo systems, where they are almost always guarenteed lower sales than on PC, Xbox, or Playstation, utterly regardless of quality.
Arguably the biggest problem with the Wii U is that, at the end of the day, it's utterly pointless. It changed nothing, it improved nothing, the GamePad features were not more immersive and did not create truly better gameplay. The Wii U was a bad stop-gap machine to fill space between Wii and when Nintendo makes an actual console for this generation, which, by the time it launches, may be too late.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@Yorumi
While I completely agree that they definitely need to do a better job advertising and promoting themselves and their games, I don't think it'll necessarily work if they're sticking to their security blanket games. I think a big part of what helped Splatoon was that it's something fresh and different. It stands out. Nintendo pretty heavily promoted Mario 3D World and Mario Kart, and I don't think it affected the sales there at all. It's pretty obvious that, outside of "core" Nintendo fans/fanboys, nobody gives a crap about Mario these days.
I think that, regardless of advertising, most gamers are just plain tired of Nintendo's over-use of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon games.
As I've long noted, a new Zelda used to be a huge deal--the entire industry paid attention, like with Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. But since Ocarina of Time, Nintendo has been increasingly working towards releasing any kind of Zelda game as frequently as possible, and while it's not specifically an annual franchise (like Madden or Call of Duty, which launch in the same period every year), Zelda games still find their way to retail almost every single year since Ocarina of Time launched, missing only about 3 or 4 years since then. The last time we had a year without a Zelda, that year was literally bookended by years with 2 Zeldas each.
The difference between Zelda and Call of Duty (besides launch dates) is that Nintendo is obviously all-too-content to treat the franchise like a filler, all too happy to shove "Zelda" to retail with side-games, off-shoots, spin-offs, and seemingly endless remakes and ports. Both 2015 and 2016 are now slated to see two Zelda releases each year.
To Nintendo, it doesn't matter. Just get something on store shelves every year year in the Zelda universe. Sadly, it now seems like they are applying this annoying concept to Metroid as well.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@S-Miyahon
Actually, as was once pointed out to me on this site, Nintendo owns Wonderful 101.
I'm also pretty sure Nintendo owns Dillon's Rolling Western. They did act as publisher on those games. That some games were developed by a third party does not mean they are owned by said third party. For instance, Eternal Darkness was made by Silicon Knights (when they mattered), but the game is owned by Nintendo.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@ThomasBW84
I would dare argue that Nintendo fans need to face this disappointment. This is a fanbase that has allowed this company to take advantage of them for far too long with things like constant flip-flopping on issues, information, and goals; releasing endless waves of limited edition 3DS systems to be resold to the same people over and over, and the destructive nature of how they address things like Amiibo.
Nintendo fans have been too apologetic, too forgiving, and too eager to be pleased (as opposed to Nintendo being eager to do the pleasing) for far too long. This attitude is not helping the company grow or evolve in meaningful ways. They know they can continue to take advantage of the goodwill of their dedicated fans.
For everyone's own good here, Nintendo needs to know they failed, and Nintendo fans need to have their fantasy image of the company shattered. Too many people too willing to live with pretty lies. That benefits no one.
It's time to accept a harsh reality, and unfortunately, I think articles like this, rather than damage control, maintain the lie.
This E3 was a telling disaster for Nintendo. We should be learning from it. Not pretending everything is okay.
Sorry to rant. But I don't criticize this company because I hate Nintendo. I criticize because I'm tired of seeing them continue down this destructive path.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@rjejr
Eh, maybe. Semantics.
My initial red flag on that list was Projects Guard and Giant Robot appearing as "upcoming games" when nothing like that was even stated at last year's E3, and Miyamoto had spent time talking about how they might become part of StarFox. Indeed, the only things said about those "titles" was that they were tech demos to show off the GamePad. That was it. That was the whole reason they were created.
Coming from someone or somewhere else, it made sense that they would just throw any old announcement in there to pad it. What I didn't expect was that Nintendo would be the ones to so half-assedly pad the list. Which only serves to make last year's E3 look worse.
And here we are. Not only have neither of these "games" been shown in any other form, but one of them is supposed to be out already.
Re: Next Metroid Prime Home Console Title "Would Likely Now be on NX"
@Yorumi
A very good point. Iwata dropped the ball four launches in a row, so it's likely they will again with NX.
My outside hope was that Wii U is doing bad enough that they may have actually learned a serious lesson and are working to fix these issues next time. But, Nintendo is a creature of habit, so I suspect your point is all too valid. Without games or third parties, NX will limp out of the gate worse than Wii U.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@luke88
Your lengthy list of daring new concepts certainly wins over the criticisms. Who knew 1 was such a big number?
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@SparkOfSpirit
That's a childish ad hominem attack that does not actually address Pitchford's comments or argument. They are completely unrelated.
Re: Nintendo Is A Slave To Its Past Success, Says Gearbox President Randy Pitchford
@NintyMan
Splatoon is only one game, that launched well after serious damage was done to the Wii U, and is unable to fix that damage alone. Nintendo immediately turned around for this E3 delving deeper into their "fan sellers" catalog with three games featuring Mario, two more Zelda announcements, and two titles with Metroid slapped in the title.
Essentially, Nintendo did one right thing with Splatoon, and immediately turned around and hid under their Mario-Zelda-Pokemon security blanket, just without the extra Pokemon this year.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@blujay1524
It's more than just about graphics. Don't be so petty. However, the graphics are indicative of the problems with Star Fox--it's dated all around. It's an afterthought instead of a serious effort.
Look at the example I posted. Do you really not see a problem here? Even just looking at the graphics, it's pretty clear that Nintendo simply doesn't care. That doesn't even address reused audio from the N64 game, the piss-poor controls, which, sure maybe we'll have another option, but we don't know how that other option even works yet--or if it does.
Re: Satoru Iwata Didn't Apologise For Nintendo's E3 Digital Event, Says Reggie Fils-Aime
@Caryslan, @Monkeh
Outstanding posts. You share the sentiments I've long had with both Nintendo and their overwhelmingly apologetic fanboys. The fans forgive almost everything, and make paranoid conspiracy theorist-style accusations to against the rest of the industry for everything else. Blame third parties. Blame MS and Sony. Blame everyone except Nintendo and their own buying habits which, for 4 generations, have increasingly told third parties that they'll never garner sales on Nintendo hardware. Pretend everything is fine, justify the bad decisions.
Nintendo has been taking advantage of their biggest fans for years, and it seems that--at long last--the fans have finally realized this.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@rjejr
I never said it was a fake graphic, I questioned it's feasibility and it didn't seem to come from Nintendo themselves, and no, it was not accurate. Which... you should have noticed.
Yoshi's Woolly World: 1st Half 2015 - wrong
Mario Maker: 1st Half 2015 - wrong
Project Giant Robot: 1st Half 2015 - wrong. Missing in action.
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: 2015 - I'm amazed as you they got it in that 12-month window.
Project Guard: 2015 - Missing in action.
Zelda: 2015 - Super wrong.
StarFox: 2015 - We'll see. I put up comparison pictures of it in the Mixed Feelings article, and it totally looks like a Wii game, and sounds woefully incomplete. At this point, I would not be surprised at all if it slipped into 2016--as literally every other Nintendo title but the launch games has been delayed, gratuitously delayed, or appeared well after expected release dates.
It turns out this graphic did come from Nintendo, but I was overwhelmingly right to call it's goals into question. Almost everything for 2015 has been wrong, except for Splatoon and the stupidly vague "Kirby and the Rainbow Curse" which may as well have been listed as "will appear on a day ending in Y."
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@ericwithcheese2
Nintendo is essentially guaranteeing low sales of Devil's Third and Fatal Frame, and that will not help them with 3rd parties moving forward. Outside of XCX, their showing was the most "kiddie" ever.
Re: Nintendo's E3 'Roadmap' Infographic Shows Off Upcoming Releases on Wii U and 3DS
According to this, Fatal Frame and Devil's Third do not exist.
Re: Satoru Iwata Didn't Apologise For Nintendo's E3 Digital Event, Says Reggie Fils-Aime
They wouldn't have to be trying to do all this damage control if the E3 showing had been any good to begin with.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@exDeveloper
In other circumstances, I'd side with you on the "we're judging it while it's still in development" point, but StarFox has maybe 3 or 4 more months of development time left on it's plate, and large parts of that will be for streamlining and bug fixing. Essentially, it's a little too late to be suddenly redoing or finishing textures. Most of that stuff should be done. Hopefully they'll fill out the levels some more, as they looked clean, but also barren.
@Yorumi has has good points here in that StarFox Zero looks like a GameCube game. But to truly see how far it's falling short, maybe we should compare it to something of similar power:
Star Fox Zero
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (X360/PS3)
No matter what, Star Fox Zero looks painfully dated. Remember, those Ace Combat screens are from a game that's about 3~5 years old, running on somewhat weaker hardware.
After looking at this post now, Star Fox Zero looks like crap. It's pretty clearly still a Wii game, just being rendered in HD.
Re: First Impressions: Our Maiden Flight In Star Fox Zero Prompts Mixed Emotions
@Neko_Rukiafan
Oh, is that a NEWLY REVEALED GAME? I didn't realize Xenoblade Chronicles X, a game we've known about for three years, IS A NEWLY REVEALED GAME. Probably because that is impossible.
Hell no. Pay attention next time, because I very distinctly stated that Nintendo showed "no new AAA games." Something we've known about for 3 years can only be considered "new" if you only just crawled out of a cave. In which you have lived for at least 4 years.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@HawkeyeWii
Valhalla may be screwed concerning Devil's Third, depending on how much Nintendo funded it. That may prevent them from releasing on XBO and PS4 and reaching the sales or audience the game might deserve.
Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way
@rjejr
I think the reason they're putting so much effort behind XCX is because that game clearly cost a fortune to make. That is a $50,000,000+ game, pretty easily, and had been in development for 3~4 years at least.
What tweet are you referring to?
As a side note, I'd like to add that when we do apologetic aerobics about this E3 by saying "hey, there are still fun games coming," we risk ignoring why it was arguably Nintendo's biggest E3 failure ever.
They are clearly no longer interested in trying to right the Wii U (which I think is impossible anyway, but some effort should at least be made for the sake of consumers) or the 3DS for that matter. I can understand wanting to hold off on NX talk--but only if they also had something to show for the 3DS and Wii U. But since they had nothing else new or impressive to show, then they really should have steered this E3 to the future with NX talk, mobile talk, and discussions on the Club Nintendo replacement.
Yeah, there are some cool games coming, depending on your taste (at this point, I'm down to XCX and Fatal Frame), but that doesn't change the notion that this was an atrocious E3 for a company that once owned these shows, even when they were supporting lesser-selling consoles like the N64 and GameCube. Nintendo's biggest mistake was to even pretend there is still any steam left in the current platforms. They should have just talked about NX and did 3DS and Wii U stuff as secondary features.