Comments 1,654

Re: Satoru Iwata Announces a "Quality of Life" Platform Business of "Non-Wearable" Technology

element187

@daggdroppen not once did they say they are shifting away from video games. It's time to be realistic, they won't be around forever in just only the video game market, they need to find new revenue streams. Even if the Wii U was sales tracking the xbox360 the margins wouldn't be enough to survive long term.

You should support their decision to branch out. We don't have to buy the product/service but any additional income they can make is a good thing for the company long term and our interactive entertainment.

Re: Satoru Iwata Announces a "Quality of Life" Platform Business of "Non-Wearable" Technology

element187

@MuchoMochi I don't think you understand the situation. Being a video game maker isn't enough. No matter what they do this year or next they won't make the kind of money they need to survive long term.... In the short to medium time they are fine, but they have to start making moves to provide stability down the road. The margin in video games is so tiny, you almost have to have a hit every time to remain successful.

The number one way to make money in business is to solve a problem. The more people who have this problem, the more money you make. They identified a problem and now they are going to figure out how to solve it. You and I might love their games but we need to recognize our entertainment dollars is just isn't enough to keep Nintendo operating long term.

Re: Satoru Iwata Announces a "Quality of Life" Platform Business of "Non-Wearable" Technology

element187

@Csaw well, Nintendo is pretty good at making activities fun. If they can solve the problem of most people giving up on a exercise program after a few days they will print money.

Wii Fit is fun at first but some of the activities get stale quickly, so they would have to anticipate users getting bored with their activities and keep evolving this service/product. I hope they can achieve that goal of keeping people motivated and on track as it would help the obesity epidemic

Re: Satoru Iwata Announces a "Quality of Life" Platform Business of "Non-Wearable" Technology

element187

@TwilightV well apparently gamers seem to think "if it's not video games, Nintendo shouldn't do it"

Nintendo is only reacting to the market. If gamers don't want to buy their console, Nintendo needs to move beyond gaming to survive long term(past 20/30 years). We spoke with our wallets that we don't like Nintendo consoles (Im speaking as consumers as a whole, I love my Wii U), so Nintendo thinks they can wow the world... They done it many times, I bet they can do it again.

I have a different opinion than most gamers. I think Nintendo should do whatever they wish to make money. Even branching to outside of the gaming market. In the end if they are successful, it means we will still get more Nintendo games.

Iwata's comments show he isn't going to sit around waiting for Wii U to make a comeback, so while the strategy of flooding the Wii U with exclusives over the next few years will continue, they are already looking at new lines of business..

If Nintendo can figure out how to keep people engaged in exercise long term where every exercise company has failed, they will print money.... Most exercise products has people sticking with it for a few days before giving up, only a small minority will stick to it..... I'm intrigued, can't wait to hear more about it.

Re: Mario Kart 8 Drifting In For a May Release

element187

@rjejr May makes good business sense. They are writing off this fiscal year as a loss, so they will move everything into the next fiscal year to try to pad it.

Just hope they have more software planned from March through April... Only DK? The lack of software hurt them in the first half of 2013, I really hope they aren't planning for another game drought this year... It's time for Iwata to go shopping for some exclusive content from third parties to pad out the schedule

Re: Satoru Iwata Admits The "Wii U Isn't In Good Shape" Ahead of Investor Briefing

element187

@brandonbwii no, they would never do that unless they never want to make another console ever again.... The only people who own a Wii U right now are the die hard Nintendo fans, if Nintendo throws them under the bus, how many would buy their next console? When you launch a console you need the support of those die hard fans in the beginning or else it will fail.

Wii U's problems are fixable. They need to get that software pipeline operating and stat. I bet they thought they would have enough 3rd party support to help fill in the gaps, now that's not the case they need to dump some serious coin on getting titles developed by 1st/2nd party and pay for as many 3rd party exclusives as they can. The drip drip drip of titles isn't going to work.

Re: Nintendo Confirms Plans To Acquire Up To Ten Million Of Its Own Shares

element187

@kirk how would Nintendo buy back all of its shares? It would obliterate its war chest they amassed in the Wii and DS years.. And for what? To keep doing what they are doing today? It would be nice if they could just do what they want without shareholders screaming for someone's head on a pike, but the cost right now would be tremendous, they need that money to invest in new games/advertising/R&D

If they want to buy back all of their shares they need to do it when the price collapses, not when it stabilizes or goes up.

Re: Nintendo Q3 Results Bring Net Profit, But Warnings of Projected Losses Remain

element187

@Emblem thank you for your level headed post... If Nintendo was just staying pat last year with all the software currently in development they would have made a profit. But realizing current Wii U sales weren't good enough they are investing a ton of money in getting more titles developed advertising and R&D.

This is a good sign. This shows Nintendo is doing something behind the scenes that they are not revealing publically (I always knew this was the case, but people on message boards were in full lament meltdown mode "why isn't Nintendo developing more Wii U games, why isn't Nintendo advertising, not hearing anything means they are not doing anything, wahhhh")

Re: Talking Point: Is There A Future For The Wii U Without The GamePad?

element187

Holy smokes to all the misinformation in this thread.,.. The xBone and ps4 aren't some mighty god of hardware specs, they are low end gaming devices and they aren't light years ahead of the Wii U. The Wii U is processing dynamic light like a system pushing 300-400 gigaflops. How powerful is that mighty god xBone? 900 gigaflops at the most (most likely less with how many issues it has with 1080p)... The ps4 is barely over the 1 teraflop point. It performs like a system struggling to hit 1.5 teraflops...

The power difference between Wii U and xBone is like comparing the OG Xbox and the PS2, it's not very large at all. There is absolutely nothing the Wii U can't run in 720p that the xBone will do in 1080p, my point proven by how many titles are 900p on the xBone

Re: Talking Point: Is There A Future For The Wii U Without The GamePad?

element187

"Third parties won't have to invest additional resource to add GamePad streaming or optimise their existing code to run on the system."

Can we stop with this nonsense? It's not even difficult to stream to the gamepad. It's one simple system call to output a picture to the gamepad. The hardware, device drivers and the OS handle all of that. All the devs have to do is point the pixels they are drawing at display0 or display1 depending if they want to output to TV or gamepad.

If any dev has trouble with the concept maybe they should go back to answering phones, as it's a trivial thing to implement.

Re: The Nikkei Reports Potential Nintendo Smartphone Strategy, to be Announced This Week

element187

@xevious they are not releasing full games on smart devices. The point isn't to make money on the apps but to drive eyeballs to their software on their own hardware.

Think about minis on the move being ported to smart devices that advertises the 3DS and Wii U after every level completed. Or Pushmo. They don't need something with a lot of depth, just small bite sized games to drag in people's attention so they can sell them hardware.

Re: Video: The 10 Biggest Wii U Games Of 2014

element187

@SparkOfSpirit what we saw of yarn yoshi so far looked great... Keyword, looked great. But if it had the non existent difficulty of Kirby Epic Yarn, I will probably skip it. As cute as epic yarn was, it was something I could only play with my nephews, trying it one player was epic yawn inducing.

I don't mind if the first 50% of a platformer is easy, just as long as the difficulty ramps up to the point I want to throw my controller across the room, then I'll enjoy it.... My biggest beef with Rayman Legends is the easy difficulty never ramped up.

Re: Video: The 10 Biggest Wii U Games Of 2014

element187

@unrandomsam if you buy 10 retail games per month, you must have a crazy gaming budget. I try to limit myself to just one per month.

This is a list of the top 10 games, not all games coming to the Wii U in 2014.

I personally don't know why scram kitty is on the list but not QUBE or Forgotten Memories. Both seem to be a hecka more creative and original.... Different floating boats and all.

Re: Dakko Dakko's Rhodri Broadbent Emphasizes The Value of Unique Consoles

element187

"We'll be much poorer off as gamers if cross-platform homogeny sets the agenda for platform holders. "

This is what terrifies me about Nintendo "fans" when they plead for Nintendo to release a beefier console or release the console without the gamepad. They are basically telling Nintendo to be like Sony and Microsoft, stop being Nintendo, stop differentiating themselves.

The biggest reason for purchasing Nintendo hardware aside from their amazing first party games is the library looks nothing like Xbox or playstation. I already have a 2 yr old PC that runs circles around the PS4, the libraries overlap about 90%, so there really is no draw with Sony/Microsoft, yet Nintendo "fans" are calling on Nintendo to make their console a boring cookie cutter console identical to the other two all because they want the system to have an identical library. It's almost like they can't even hear themselves speak and realize how asinine this is.

Just enjoy Nintendo for what they are, because when you finally get your wish of Nintendo being the same, I can promise you you won't be happy one bit.

Re: Mass Market Price And Mario Kart 8 Will Reverse The Wii U's Fortunes, Say UK Retailers

element187

@JaxonH welcome to Nintendo "fans". Where double standards are the norm.

Your point about the vita is interesting. There isn't much talk about it. But if Nintendo 3DS was still flopping it would be front page news along with the Wii U..... It's certainly hypocritical. The difference is Sony won't show off all of their muscle behind saving the Vita (read:: push out a lot of software)... Nintendo on the other hand is going to flood the Wii U with first/second party software over the next several years like they did with the 3DS..

Truth is, no single game will "save" the Wii U... A steady flow of top notch software will as the price gradually lowers

Re: Nintendo Was Dead To Us Very Quickly, States EA Source

element187

@Slapshot no, the Wii U has the same feature set (both systems use OpenGL 4.3 it is a DX11 equivalent) as the PS4. The power difference will be fleshed out in the resolution disparity. The Wii U was designed to be a full 720p console, it will handle anything devs can throw at it in 720p.

The PS4 was designed to be a full 1080p console (I would argue it is struggling to hold that title, my guess is the crappy CPU steals too many cycles from the GPU so it is failing to reach the 1.8tf performance that Sony claimed in Feb. 2013)

Re: Nintendo Was Dead To Us Very Quickly, States EA Source

element187

@Slapshot its tongue in cheek but has a huge element of truth... These games are made for casuals and children... They need health regeneration, unlimited continues where you died, QTE press A to Awesome, auto aiming assistance. They aren't the most talented of gamers, but they are the largest demographic of video game purchasers.

Put a JRPG in front of them and watch them give up in the first 5 minutes, not enough gore or action to hold their short attention spans. Put any game with "Donkey Kong" in the title and watch them give up as it doesn't have enough hand holding.... The super player will mock their terrible gaming skills after they die 5 times.

Would you rather me refer to dudebro gamers as casual gamers? Definition fits both ways.

Re: Nintendo Was Dead To Us Very Quickly, States EA Source

element187

"we don't really make games for kids."

Battlefield would like a word with you....EA makes 99% dudebro games! more kids play dudebro games than Mario or Zelda. Just listen to the voice chat of any console game, it's all children screaming obscenities. Not exactly what I would call mature

Re: UK Retailer Argos Drops Wii U Premium to £179.99

element187

@readyletsgo @XCWarrior

If your talking about the dudebro or core gamer you are absolutely correct, the price doesn't matter to them, but Nintendo's biggest demographic will not spend $300 on a console for little Johnny.

Smartphones are subsidized, and tablets are far more versatile and useful than a PS4 or any games machine, so comparing the two is a bit fruitless.

Nintendo consoles always performed better at a lower price point because the demographic is completely different than the demo who buys a ps4/xBone. I keep seeing people posting that Nintendo needs to make this change or that change to go after the demographic that buys playstation or Xbox. That demographic isn't going to buy any Nintendo system in large enough numbers. Ever. Especially not enough to off set the value/budget console gamer they would lose going after the "core" gamer

What people need to get out of there head is Nintendo will never sell very many consoles to the type of gamer that wants to play shooters, even if they had a million shooters on the system. Go take a look at a place like NeoGAF, 90 to 10 would never buy a Nintendo console, even if it had third party parity and more power.

So why should Nintendo throw their biggest demographic out the window to chase a smaller pool? Their biggest demographic lies with the parents and the adults that have always bought Nintendo hardware. It needs to be priced in the impulse zone as soon as they possibly can.

Re: UK Retailer Argos Drops Wii U Premium to £179.99

element187

@XCWarrior Interesting idea that I have been thinking about a lot lately... Nintendo would probably save a ton of money if they just sold their console online only in the UK/Europe. I mean why throw all of this money at physical displays, shelf space if you're only going to sell a handful of systems. It's obvious the market isn't very big there for Nintendo. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of their operating losses came from that region.

Allow UK gamers to import the NA Wii U and games. I mean 200k systems in the UK after a full year on the market??, Nintendo is going to have to look long and hard about how they go about the EU region. Even localization would save money if they just used the NA version of games. They obviously can't keep operating in the region like they have been doing.

I know I'll get dog piled for agreeing with you because of the large European readership here, the reality doesn't lie when it comes to the EU and Nintendo. It's like the Xbox in Japan, it's probably not worth having a full presence in the region as it's going to lead to more losses.

Just concentrate on your top two markets, Japan and NA

Re: UK Retailer Argos Drops Wii U Premium to £179.99

element187

@turnmebackwards I don't understand this "miles ahead" comments (I'm not picking on you, I really do want to know)

The xBone is only 3x more powerful than the Wii U, but we have been hearing that the Wii U is only on par with the ps360, but the Wii U is 2x-3x more powerful than the subhd twins. Is it that double standard that only exists when it comes to Nintendo? Because the logic does not compute. Is there a point where only 2x the power is only on par but 3x becomes "miles ahead"? Or are people really overstating the power of the sub-Nextgen twins?

AC4 runs at 1080p/60fps on a 1.5 teraflop PC. Sony claims the PS4 is 1.8 teraflops yet it struggles to hold AC4 at 1080p/30fps. Either the s****y CPU in the PS4 is stealing lots of cycles from the GPU(welcome to GPGPU) or Sony flat out lied about the processing power of their new console(wouldn't be the first time, remember when they said the ps3 was 1 teraflop?)

Wii U - estimated 300-400 gigaflops. based on its ability to power through lots of dynamic lighting, even at 60fps without dropping a frame, almost all games are a full 720p (sub hd twins choked on even a little bit of dynamic lighting)
XBone - 900-1000 gigaflops closer to 900(based on COD shipping at 720p wtf, and most games at 900p/30fps)
PS4 - 1.100-1.2 teraflops based on how it can't even keep up with my 1.5 teraflop PC. It seems to be able handle 1080p in most cases but absolutely chokes on reaching 60fps (where all gaming should reside) on fairly easy games to render

I'd really would like to know what is going on with the two sub-Nextgen boxes and why they are grossly underperforming. I have a suspicion that the GPU has extra strain because of the lackluster tablet CPU's that need basic floating point processing pushed off to the GPU stealing precious cycles games need to run at their full potential.

Re: Mario And Zelda On Mobile Could Bring New Players To Nintendo Consoles, Suggest Industry Analysts

element187

@Kirk VC is a great bullet point for selling consoles, so releasing them on smartphones *wouldn't be a good idea, perhaps just the lower rated games like Golf, Tennis, Ice Hockey and the original Mario Bros. putting the NES Remix game on smartphones would be a good idea... Give people a small bite sized taste of Retro Nintendo games, if they want to play them in their entirety, they need to buy a Ninty device.

Re: $1.2 Billion Wiped Off Nintendo's Market Value As Share Prices Plummet

element187

@Technosphile never going to happen.

You'll see sony franchises on iOS and android before Nintendo drops out of the console business.... Nintendo releasing big installments of their franchises on hardware they don't make will be the total and utter collapse of Nintendo. The hardware business would fail utterly and they would become risk adverse as a software developer so the quality of their software would drop to that of EA, Ubisoft, Avtivision, Sony and Microsoft., and they would turn their franchises into annual installments, killing the company further.

Sony goes the way of Sega before Nintendo bows out.

Re: $1.2 Billion Wiped Off Nintendo's Market Value As Share Prices Plummet

element187

@Artwark it means its a good time to buy Nintendo stock.... You buy when stocks fall if you think it will rebound later.

Hard to say when it will rebound, but it will eventually. Could be this year if they start to sell more Wii U's than expected. If they sell more 3DS than expected, if they sell more software than expected the share price will rise.

Stocks are about growth and beating expectations, when a company can only meet its expectations or fall short, the stock comes down.