Sceptic

Way to ruin your IP, Nintendo. You just turned a strong brand into a billboard.

Is this live stream cleared with NintenDon't?

Thanks for sticking it to the man.

@IceClimbers: yes, in fact. Like every gadget that doesn't keep up with the trends. It's only a matter of time.

I guess that MK8 video sharing feature was just a ploy to harvest a bit more cash off their fans? Well played, Nintendo.

They sure don't leave out any single chance to shoot themselves in the foot. It's like a Laurel and Hardy strip, lol

The tragedy of their failure is that the way they are acting, they don't deserve to succeed. So now they want royalties for sharing your enthusiasm for their games. Now? While nobody at all is buying their stuff and they need every little shred of publicity? I mean what ingorant jerks, really.

It's just a few traders getting ready to dump some cheap shares on the fools that will read about MK8's "amazing" launch success and conclude that buying Nintendo is a sound investment.

Gosh, believe it or not I didn't know the gamepad wasn't being used for local multiplayer. Way to make that compelling case for the gamepad Nintendo. Seems to indicate though that the WiiU just can't handle it.

@Bass_X0: At that price it better not be incomplete. Even the rumor of paid DLC for one of the few and rare games on this console would be a publicity nightmare. In fact, I think even this article is bad publicity in how it sows confusion over where the speculation comes from and whether or not Mario 8 is 'as complete as they can make it', or if they will pull a surprise DLC 'add-on' in a few months just so they can claim "another release" for this year.

The SB figurines rumor comes to mind. The way things are going for nintendo, they need to start some serious giving before they can expect to receive.

I'm absolutely certain it would have single-handedly saved the WiiU early on, because it would have demonstrated the value of the gamepad at a time when people still cared. And with a game that was ubiquitous in the media.

At this point though, it won't make much of a direct difference in hardware sales. But with so few games out or even coming, and a mere fraction of those really putting the gamepad to any particular use, Nintendo should consider it a matter of pride to bring a game that would be such a perfect fit to WiiU. It maybe would not sell more hardware, but it would make a very strong case for the gamepad, certainly much more so than anything Nintendo has managed so far (or conceivably will, sadly, unless they have had some genius game designer locked away that they only just let out).

Chasing Aurora is an eShop Pick now? lol, ok...

lol, I totally see some non-wearable tech there.

And is "an object of an exemplary embodiment" sort of like QOL?

I don't think it will significantly impact sales. At this point it's perfectly clear what to expect from the WiiU and nobody in their right mind would buy one anymore at this point. The game itself will do OK though because we lot haven't got much choice. But hey, we'll see.

I don't have a clue why anybody would buy any of this on WiiU. It epitomizes everything that is wrong with how Nintendo is treating the WiiU: "Look, the game that sold so well half a decade ago! Again!!"

@Action51 I'm not entirely sure I understand how what you're saying is a reply to my post. What you describe is the dilemma any device faces with the game pad: either you make it a part of the core experience and lose off-tv capability (because you need the separate game pad screen to play) or you use it in a more limited way so the game can be played off-tv. By design, you simply can't have both, because the game pad, on its own, is a single screen.

@Mr_Video Yeah, Nintendoland and ZombiU are the only ones that use it creatively. Let's face it, off-tv is great but mostly because the games were playing that way are very simple. Basically, off-tv only works if the game itself doesn't make much use of the Gamepad otherwise.

Asymmetrical local multiplayer is what makes the most convincing case for the Gamepad IMO. There, again, ZombiU and Nintendoland (especially the Ghost Hunter game) seem the only ones really using it.

I just don't know where all those devs went that worked on Nintendoland. There are so many great little ideas there that would need expanding, but it's not happening. There's not even a spark of that playful approach to the Gamepad in later games. It's mostly just ignored, or then there's some Rayman-like generic use of it.

@Action51: We have no indication that they are actually trying something. All we've got is a lot of talk that suspiciously lacks even the least bit of focus but instead tries to push every buzzword button imaginable while actually remaining totally non-committal as what is really going to materialize (or when).

So far it's just talk (again). Look at all the babble since their numbers crashed. There's seemingly a buzzword for everybody but no tangible product in sight. "QOL! ", "redefine the definition! " (my favorite, lol), "NFC! ", "collectibles!" - Every single even moderately successful concept of the last five years has been named, but how credible is that from a multi-billion company that so utterly failed in their core competence and market (all the while sweet talking their fans into believing it was totally going to be ok)? They had one job. Now they claim they can handle ten?

Besides, going by their track record it will be years until they can give us a meaningful game that uses this, much less "several". By that time, indeed, the whole Skylanders concept will look like the decade-old tech it will be.

And by assuming they will give us a "meaningful" game I'm being very optimistic. Most likely it will be some shallow backward-facing implementation of what the original Skylanders did. Going by the comments here the handful if die hard fans would love that, but as for the market, it will be the WiiU game pad all over again.

Besides, with every day they chant in denial from the pit of their failure, they slip farther into oblivion. Kids in the street already can only name about three Nintendo characters these days. It is, again, too little, too vague and way too late.

@Mahe: Spot on. The damage to their public image may well be irreparable. It's not the failure of the WiiU per se, but Nintendo's inability to make it look even the least bit undeserved.

It wasn't a fluke of nature. In the survival of the fittest they were (and continue to be) the least fit.

I love their names, lol.

Thank God for Skylanders. They keep our WiiU from gathering too much dust.

If this is the fabled WiiU 'light' (minus the game pad and hence cheaper) this may be the smartest move ever by Nintendo. Push your failing numbers with a cheaper console that runs the same software. But my feeling is that's not the plan.

Too bad you can't sell games nobody wants for a console nobody has by adding figurines. Nice 2012 pitch.

You can of course milk your loyal fans some more though and they will thank you for it.

@Hy8ogen: What the WiiU needs now is a bullet to the back of the head. Nintendo is obviously incapable of providing the quality and inspiration the WiiU needs to succeed and the window of opportunity has passed. Ask anybody to name a current console. Most don't even think of the WiiU anymore. Heck, even I have to remind myself that there was a time when the WiiU was named in one sentence with the XBONE and the PS4. It seems surreal now, looking at games like Titanfall or Last of Us.

There might be some hope if they ridiculously slashed prices (like by another $100) and offered a trade-in for Wii-owners for an insanely low price (like trade in your Wii and pay $150). That would give them market penetration, and wipe out those old Wii owners, then they could sell those numbers to third-parties.

But Nintendo apparently still can't see they're bleeding out and hence see no need for any drastic measures whatsoever. Show us the value of the gamepad? I'm not holding my breath.

@RedYoshi999: What I want is some inspired, all-in effort from Nintendo instead of this stream of blah-blah and rip-deals that rightfully bring them nothing but failure. Their arrogance and ignorance is a sight to behold. Their numbers are free falling and yet they lecture us on region lock and the superior value or their supposed 'content', all while stalling on unified accounts and other industry standard customer experiences. The numbers speak for themselves.

As predicted, they didn't even meet their revised sales projections of 2.8 million. Plus an operating loss that is approximately $100 or 30% higher than projected. This, children, is what epic failure looks like.

And now through some miracle they expect to sell one million more WiiU units than last year? No really. Give up already. This is almost comical.

Good article, but I don't think Nintendo have the talent or the vision to pull anything close to that off at this point. They simply have nothing to offer over the competition but their rapidly fading IP and they're too conservative/ignorant/greedy/stingy to really pull all the stops to try an 'Apple' on the market.

But meanwhile, cheap and dirty doesn't cut it anymore in a world of unified accounts, gorilla-glass, mini-hdmi and brushed aluminum. And yeah, shiny, super-responsive capacitive touchscreens. You guys can't be serious.

My bet is they're going to milk this generation of consumers under the 'classic' label for what they can (plenty of takers here) and then sell/rent off the game division under some 'partnership' in six or seven years or so. "Non-wearable QOL" all the way.

The man is clearly completely insane. I can't believe they will let this lunatic run their company into the ground. He needs to be removed before he does even more damage.

There is no 'master plan' and no strategy. If there was, he could give us more insight by now. Instead, he keeps saying these seemingly cryptic things because people infer great meaning, but there is none. They're just ramblings. This guy runs an international corporation, not a youtube channel.

@Yasume: Indeed. That 3D World had the broadest appeal of anything in their catalog. What hasn't happened already with SM 3D World simply is not going happen.

@unrandomsam: Amen to that. But some people live in Iwata-Land. There's no decent mobile games there of course. And it's all region locked. For the greater good. Please understand.

Brilliant strategy. Now come autumn they can spin all the other delays as part of the top-secret master plan to focus on MK8.

The only worthless numbers are the ones Nintendo feeds us.

They report units shipped not units sold? That really says it all. That's how they will make their revised sales projections too, even if it means Iwata has to drive, er, 'ship' a few hundred thousand WiiU units to the landfill himself.

I love how out of touch some people are here.

The point of the article is that indies don't need Nintendo, because they have other platforms where they get everything they want and then some. Nintendo however does need the indies, but fails to do what it takes to get them.

He's not saying "I want XY or else", he's saying "I'm getting XY everywhere else except from Nintendo, but Nintendo would need me most. Why is that?". But some people here turn that right around just so they can call him names. The indies are developing in scores, but mostly not for Nintendo. He's trying to explain why. It's called competition and Nintendo is losing big time on all fronts.

Nintendo will be the Amiga of this generation. Our kids' kids will have to look them up on Wikipedia.

They need to make quality games again first. Iwata was certainly right in that their stuff usually doesn't offer enough variety or depth to allow them to hold anything back, because it would immediately impact your gaming experience.

Also, since we're talking 'DLC', they also need a functional, user-friendly and current-gen unified account system first. The general public will not buy DLC that is tied to a specific device and I would wager many that did so far were unaware of this restriction (family friendly, yeah right).

Don't worry, I just don't buy them at those fantasy prices. Yes, I feel a dollar or two would be more in line with the actual value they provide and add more value to the whole VC concept from a consumer perspective, but nintendo is all about the milking these days.

They'd rather rip off a hundred people real good than sell it to ten thousand at a decent price. That's their loss IMO, but I guess this way they can go back to their board meetings and talk about how priceless their IP still is. Certainly not in revenue, but in valuation.

@Einherjar: Yeah, I should probably stop whining and accept the alternate reality that nintendo prices their stuff in.

bs free Nintendo said that about the resolution, in a lucid moment, I presume. But I don't really care, I just found the quip about 720p somewhat ironic given the circumstances.

"nintendo are a bs free zone in the industry" is certainly a good one though. Iwata kind of redefined the term this last year.

€7 for F-Zero. That's absolutely hilarious.

@arkady77: Rather, you should double check the native resolutions of 'brand new' games like Donkey Kong: Tropial Freeze. (psst, it's 720p upscaled.)

But as a true fan of course you don't care as long as it's published by Nintendo, which is why they love to screw us over. (But you would curse any third party dev as "lazy" and "inept" for the same thing and refuse to buy it.)

I'm glad Ninteno stayed true to themselves and didn't let their own incompetence stand in the way of other people's well deserved success. But Nintendo wouldn't recognize a business opportunity if it trashed their board room table. They're too busy reskinning the 90s in 720p for us.

Minecraft, where we're all building a huge family railroad network together (great times!) and Hawken once the kids are in bed. WiiU only gets used for watching YouTube videos these days.

@WillhamBoyGeniu: Arguably that's precisely why they do. Take me for example. I expect those first-party titles to be more bland, overpriced rehashes of games I played half a decade or more ago. A demo may show me something different, but until then, 'Sochi' was all I needed to convince me that what good was coming to the WiiU wasn't going to be coming from Nintendo.

Please tell me you can turn those overlay HP sprites off. Why do they deface such an obviously fantastic looking game like that? Seems to be a japanese thing. They make a beautiful game, then clutter the screen with overlays to the point where you can barely see it.

Other than that, this looks very promising.

@Chi: I admire your faith. I wish I could see what you're basing it on.

@Chi: I'm referring for example to the claim that (I'm sure you can dig up the quote) 'great things' were just around the corner. Nothing came. Not 'less than great things', but just nothing.

But yeah, maybe "lies" is a bit harsh. Let's call it 'fantasy'. Like their sales projections.

@bizcuthammer: Very true.

@Chi: The Nintendo faithful finally took being screwed over and lied to over and over again a little personally. That has become the new indelible mark of Nintendo. If there's humor anywhere then the laugh is obviously on us.

I mean just look at their efforts to restore consumer confidence after that catastrophic hit it took when they had to renege on the lies they'd been feeding us for the last year: Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Because that is all they have right now.

Of course they're not doomed, but if nothing else, then the last weeks have made it quite clear that we, the stupid suckers that already gave them our money, are very last on their priority list.

Spin the Bottle is actually a great family game. I bought it on a whim due to the sale and we surprisingly spent almost two hours with it.

Certainly isn't much else these days. Way to keep the faith alive, Nintendo.

It's barely worth $40. It's very generic and a confusing menu and control system: Half gamepad/half wiimote. Some need the gamepad, some require a wiimote, even for the gamepad player. Very lame.

The family actually hated pretty much all of it. Warned me off buying anything similar for the future.

I admit I only played the WiiU demo, but I just couldn't get into it. I had been playing Skyrim for half a year or so and the primitive visuals and cramped maps totally turned me off, while the mechanics seemed an odd combination of crude AI and convoluted mechanics.

I can see the satisfaction in mastering something hard and I usually love that, but MH3U just didn't make me want to bother. When the european eShop gets a comparable discount to NA I'll be getting it and giving it another try. I hear so much good about the game, I just didn't see even a hint of it when I tried it.

@XFsWorld: Yeah but so what. Build your install base, then expand on that with quality games. Right now they're trying to do both at the same time, all the while maintaining their huge profit margins, and achieving neither, meaning it's all just on paper.

lol, that's some list. It's like they're sounding for WiiU rock bottom.

"Nope, not quite yet."

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

So now after the 3D World wasn't exactly a system seller they're all-in on Mario Kart and Smash Bros. to sell their console for them? And it will work because they'll "encourage players to invite others"? Wow. Just, wow.

And their supposed focusing on the gamepad as a unique value proposition? Like they just discovered the gamepad or something? I mean, what we've seen so far is - or so I certainly hope - their best effort. How will the same clowns come up with new tricks when new tricks is precisely where they have failed consistently?

Iwata needs to go because his leadership is an epic failure. Miamoto needs to go because creatively they've been dead in the water all through the WiiU development and release and it certainly look like 2014 will be more of the same.

No really, it's hopeless with these guys.