The Future Of Nintendo

GoldfishX wrote:

Datschge wrote:

We need more companies approaching the market with Nintendo's philosophy, not less.

I'd say Sony and Microsoft did a pretty good job ripping off their motion-sensing idea. Now we have all 3 consoles flooding the market with useless gimmicky junk, instead of just 1. But hey, whatever sells, I guess.

Yeah, I have to admit I was surprised how well Sony and Microsoft did there. I figured people wouldn't go for it and see it for what it was. I was wrong there.

Datschge wrote:

Me-too-ishm is just a short term copycat success, that's not what I'd call Nintendo's philosophy. Sony is still bleeding money. Microsoft is still essentially only successful in one region. The industry is still heavily struggling with excessive expenses.

I agree and we can all see how Wii's casual gamer success is drying up. I think Nintendo and Wii U will be fine if they make a steady string of high quality exclusive "must-have" games that are played normally (read: without wiggling a stupid controller) as well as stuff that references their past (since no one else has access to it). It's when they start prodding people towards certain ideas they have that I get annoyed with them. I would have felt the same about the Phillips CD system or the DD if either had become relevant, as I do with the whole Wiimote setup or the GBA connectivity.

I'm just speaking for me personally, since I guess I'm not the target audience of stuff like Wii Fit and graphical prowess means next to nothing to me.

Ashley Winchester wrote:

GoldfishX wrote:

I agree and we can all see how Wii's casual gamer success is drying up. I think Nintendo and Wii U will be fine if they make a steady string of high quality exclusive "must-have" games that are played normally (read: without wiggling a stupid controller) as well as stuff that references their past (since no one else has access to it).

I don't know about this. If the "high quality exclusive 'must have' games" are the same franchises they've been every console cycle (Mario, Zelda, Metroid blah blah blee blah yeah, yeah they're good no shit) Nintendo is never going to gain me back as a customer - but then that would probably never happen anyway given my passive interest in gaming anymore. Still, after a while you just get so jaded with seeing any given franchise all the time and for the life of me I can't even remember when the last time I actually wanted a to buy a (current) Mario game.... maybe Mario 64? But no, Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII put a quick end to that.

Let me rephrase that: I don't want to see Wii Fit, Wii Sports or whatever stupid mini-game fest of the month branded as "high quality exclusive 'must have' games" (and no, I don't care if they come with a free controller or not. *cough*), nor do I want to see another 2D console Mario where I have to wiggle the controller to get basic movement out of my onscreen avatar.

Whether the games themselves are good or bad is up to the player. But I don't want to see any kind of controller wiggling in the followup Smash Brothers game, for example. It will be my bad luck that Nintendo revives Kid Icarus (on console) or Balloon Fight and it turns out to be some kind of strange wiggle-fest instead of a high quality game.

Datschge wrote:

Nintendo understood how to expand the more casual audience of the DS to include much of the audience that made the PSP a late success over there.

i.e. Announce Monster Hunter games.

That would be terrible for Nintendo. Going third party would hurt the quality of games as they'd end up doing multi-platform support instead of console exclusive (and if Microsoft or Sony did buy Nintendo for exclusives they would kill off their rival and we'd end up with a monopoly). Exclusives tend to be better as they focus resources all on one product (no porting process) and on harnessing one particular consoles strength. Nintendo would have a harder time learning how to use Sony and Microsoft's hardware and would have to go through that awkward developer stage.

This also wouldn't allow them to implement new ideas beneficial to the industry through hardware (i.e. pressure sensitive trigger buttons). Both Sony and Microsoft designed their hardware to stop working on people to get money, so I wouldn't want them to have divided control over the console wars. Then you have to factor in that both companies are in a much better position ripping off Nintendo (Playstation controller = SNES controller, analog stick invention = N64, D-pad invention = Nintendo, etc). Microsoft and Sony also get to watch Nintendo and improve to more ergonomically superior product designs (XBOX original controller versus Gamecube controller) or new features (Gamecube Wavebird Wireless being the first first-party wireless controller).

The Wii U is damned to draw comparison to Apple's iPad by the press. (The name is strategic to in copying this U fad: AT&T U-Verse, iTunes U, ...) Hopefully Nintendo will use this as an opportunity to pickup Angry Birds and be more friendly to users to develop apps or whatever for WiiU. They won't get into a war fighting over crap indie games or other cellphone games. I wouldn't mind seeing them bring back Electroplankton for this console.

Last edited by vert1 (Jan 18, 2012)