They should do like Marvel did with their "Max" imprint.
Have mature games under an explicitly stated banner. Make it clear its for adults only.
Have mature games under an explicitly stated banner. Make it clear its for adults only.
Should Nintendo make a mature platform (Uncharted-type) for the next gen (9th)?
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They used to do that on the spines of Gamecube games (little coloured triangle at the bottom had different colours depending on the age brackets), but now that the ESRB's ratings are prominently displayed on the game boxes there's really no point.
EDIT: Oh, you mean like a sub-series! Sorry, I completely misunderstood you there.
While I do agree that they tried that with the WiiU, it's one machine trying to cater to all, but it's not working (clearly, as sales have shown). And to keep it simple for developers, just treat them as two completely different systems that don't play eachother's games. Simple as that. Nintendo would just need two separate dev teams, or just rely on hiring 3rd party support for the "gamer" machine, and keep the Nintendo devs for the "family" machine.
I think that if they released one system gimped and made explicitly for kids and another one that's far more capable, the smart shopper would always go for the better, more all-encompassing version - that's the problem those low-cost versions of consoles always face.
If you mean that they should release two completely different systems with different line-ups, third party would only cater to the one that sells better and Nintendo wouldn't keep up with making games for three systems instead of just the usual two. We're seeing the exact opposite trend - cross-platform development is becoming a thing and in the near future, if the gods of technology look upon us gamers favourably, our home consoles and portable consoles (provided portable consoles won't become obsoleted by smartphones by the end of this generation) will run the same software, which is far better for developers and customers alike.
In other words, they've never made an M game themselves, only published some games on terms unfavourable for the actual developers. I'm sure Eternal Darkness 2 and Geist 2 are on their way to the Wii U (not).
Not exactly. While Silicon Knights was the primary developer for Eternal Darkness, and N-Space was the primary developer for Geist, both developers received constant feedback from Nintendo throughout the development process.
Development of Eternal Darkness created to a strong relationship with Nintendo that resulted in Nintendo personally recommending Silicon Knights to Kojima as the developers to take on Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. Around this time, Silicon Knights considered themselves to be an extension of Nintendo. The relationship between them only broke down when news of the Wii broke and Dyack wanted moar powar to create Too Human, which he had started and cancelled in the previous two generations. Without Nintendo by their side anymore, though, the game wound up killing the company. Supposedly Silicon Knights were in the process of getting back together with Nintendo to make Eternal Darkness 2, but then it got shut down after the Epic Games lawsuit revolving around Too Human finished them off.
As for Geist, it was a game that didn't quite live up to expectations. I wouldn't mind a remake/reboot/sequel in the future with a stronger vision and more freedom in spooking people. Personally, though, I'd rather Nintendo publish another horror game from N-Space: Winter. They had a demo/trailer for it some years back as a Wii game and it looked promising, but were unable to find a publisher for it.
So while I'm not big on Nintendo internally focusing on M rated games, I do like the idea of them taking developers under their wing and providing guidance and publishing their games.
The only problem I'm having is cell phones becoming the mobile gaming platform with stupid games like flappy bird... If more devs than just EA and SquareEnix would jump aboard Android and iOS, I think mobile gaming would be better off, but I still want Nintendo's and Sony's handhelds to stick around. I wonder if Microsoft will ever jump aboard the portable bandwagon any time soon. What better way to show off everything Live games have to offer?
With a coat of paint and some story-telling, Zelda could easily be a more mature audience driven game (IMO). I would also love to seem some of their 30 some dead IPs that died with the SNES come back as adult games.
Microsoft should fund a console that Sony creates the specs for and Nintendo produces. That would be the best use of all their abilities. Microsoft with the money, Sony, with the design and Nintendo with the production since their stuff never breaks. Microsoft should also handle the online since PlayStation Network is down way too much and Nintendo doesn't really care about online much.
That would be the greatest thing that could happen in games right now.
That would be the greatest thing that could happen in games right now.
I don't think you people understand. If you think Nintendo's "kiddy image" is dragging them down, you're wrong. Nintendo doesn't make "mature" games (which I guess means more blood, sex, and violence?). That's not the company they are. That's like saying, "Hey, what if Chef Boyardee started making televisions?". Nintendo is dragged down by the lack of mature interest, okay, fine, but that doesn't mean Nintendo abandons what they've done so well for the past 30 years and cater to the 20+ year old men who bitch about Zelda not having enough guns and blood.
Maybe nintendo could make the odd eternal darkness sequel, but they shouldn't focus on brown pseudo-shooters with diluted gameplay, no. There are already too many of those. And by desparetaly copying those, they won't ever be able to make them as good as some other developers who specialized in those for 10 years now.
That would lead to an oversaturation of the "FOR MATURE GAMERS" videogames and a lack of colored for-everyone games. Nobody would want to buy a console for "nintendo mature game targeted at 14 year olds" because there will be better versions out there, from quite a lot of big name developers with massive marketing power. Nintendo should simply accept the fact that demand for their design philosophy has not been in the majority for years, since people want games to be more like bloated hollywood movies, and start lowering down their production values and costs. Make smaller projects and do not invest billions on your games/systems. Do not make your games looking at 6 millions sales figures. I think that is best.
The demand is there, it's just that it shrinked. But they should still cater to that demand, because almost nobody else in the console business does that particular thing well, or at all. They pretty much have monopoly on that niche.
Nintendo focusing on mature games would look to me like yet another developer making a WoW clone. Essentially, a guaranteed failure already at the announcement.
That would lead to an oversaturation of the "FOR MATURE GAMERS" videogames and a lack of colored for-everyone games. Nobody would want to buy a console for "nintendo mature game targeted at 14 year olds" because there will be better versions out there, from quite a lot of big name developers with massive marketing power. Nintendo should simply accept the fact that demand for their design philosophy has not been in the majority for years, since people want games to be more like bloated hollywood movies, and start lowering down their production values and costs. Make smaller projects and do not invest billions on your games/systems. Do not make your games looking at 6 millions sales figures. I think that is best.
The demand is there, it's just that it shrinked. But they should still cater to that demand, because almost nobody else in the console business does that particular thing well, or at all. They pretty much have monopoly on that niche.
Nintendo focusing on mature games would look to me like yet another developer making a WoW clone. Essentially, a guaranteed failure already at the announcement.
Not really, then the only competition in gaming would be PC. When there's a lot of competition in an industry, they generally compete by trying to make their product the superior product. When they work together with no competition, then it creates an oligopoly. Oligopolies are very anti-consumer. The more competition there is, the better it is for consumers, as there's more options and companies are making sacrifices and improvements to catch your interest.
Yeah, but there would be competition. It would be competition amongst themselves for consumer dollars. Console vs. PC, console vs. mobile, console vs. movies, etc.
Yeah, there would be some lazy companies but most would see the opportunity before them. Suddenly, games that sell 2-3 million on Xbox and 2-3 million on PlayStation could play with each other.
I'm willing to bet that most game companies would make better games because the competition would be so big that they would have to, or they'd get left behind.
The "no competition" thing is nothing but a boogeyman people throw out there because they look at it the wrong way. Look at TV shows, you don't need a special TV to watch certain shows. You don't need a special DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch certain movies. Look at sports. There's no competition for the NFL, NBA, etc and they do well.
It's true that some companies would fall by the wayside, but it would be their own fault.
When you open the floodgates like this, and it becomes a free-for-all, the consumer wins. The oligopoly you speak of is a result of 1 company being in charge. In this scenario, at least 3 companies are in charge. You could even add bigger companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and anyone else to this "board of directors", if you will. They would be like the owners in the sports leagues I mentioned before. The way to make this work is to focus the competition among the publishers.
Will this ever happen? No. Should it? Heck yeah.
Yeah, there would be some lazy companies but most would see the opportunity before them. Suddenly, games that sell 2-3 million on Xbox and 2-3 million on PlayStation could play with each other.
I'm willing to bet that most game companies would make better games because the competition would be so big that they would have to, or they'd get left behind.
The "no competition" thing is nothing but a boogeyman people throw out there because they look at it the wrong way. Look at TV shows, you don't need a special TV to watch certain shows. You don't need a special DVD or Blu-Ray player to watch certain movies. Look at sports. There's no competition for the NFL, NBA, etc and they do well.
It's true that some companies would fall by the wayside, but it would be their own fault.
When you open the floodgates like this, and it becomes a free-for-all, the consumer wins. The oligopoly you speak of is a result of 1 company being in charge. In this scenario, at least 3 companies are in charge. You could even add bigger companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft, and anyone else to this "board of directors", if you will. They would be like the owners in the sports leagues I mentioned before. The way to make this work is to focus the competition among the publishers.
Will this ever happen? No. Should it? Heck yeah.
It would only work like that if any company could make a console that those games to be played on. That's not how it would work, though, as I'm sure those three companies will patent anything they can. I'm not saying the oligopoly would be the game publishers, instead it would be the creators of the platform. They could make the console as expensive as they wanted as well as the licensing fees for putting games on the platform, as the only competition for the platform would be PC. Now if Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony just became publishers and games were made just for an open platform like PC, it would probably be closer to what you were talking about.
Patent issues usually get worked around by forming a working group. See video and audio codecs if you want some stuff there*, Microsoft and Sony at least are (and in some cases were) already leading lights of several of those (not just members, not just board members but actual they can veto things in some cases levels of power).
*they take a cut/payment for decoders, paid for encoders, paid for encodings, pressings of discs.... though in some cases if you have a properly paid encoder you may be then allowed to use it, likewise if I buy decoder chips then the chips may come with a licence to use the format).
Likewise "as expensive as they wanted" tends to wilt in the face of competition (in this case I would imagine the PC and android providing the bulk of the alternatives here). Games drive a fair bit and nobody sensible would ignore them but they are still just games so the PC maker is not going to up prices when business (which these days does often really want/need graphics performance, all the other "gaming musts" were in business for some time before all but the most bleeding edge gaming types got their hands on them) will make them shrink back down in a heartbeat.
*they take a cut/payment for decoders, paid for encoders, paid for encodings, pressings of discs.... though in some cases if you have a properly paid encoder you may be then allowed to use it, likewise if I buy decoder chips then the chips may come with a licence to use the format).
Likewise "as expensive as they wanted" tends to wilt in the face of competition (in this case I would imagine the PC and android providing the bulk of the alternatives here). Games drive a fair bit and nobody sensible would ignore them but they are still just games so the PC maker is not going to up prices when business (which these days does often really want/need graphics performance, all the other "gaming musts" were in business for some time before all but the most bleeding edge gaming types got their hands on them) will make them shrink back down in a heartbeat.
...No, that metaphor doesn't work. You're taking one company and saying they're going into a completely different business. This is more like if Chef Boyardee started making a spicy version of their ravioli.
The issue is the games get pretty goddamn stale and not everyone wants to have the same art style they grew up with. Nostalgia goggles aren't present for everyone.
Well, it wouldn't have to be an open platform, just one with many heads. Essentially each of the companies would be a member of the board of directors. That's why I mentioned Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. also being on this board. The easiest way to think about is like the NFL (or any other sports league). There's 32 owners in the NFL (I know that technically the Packers are a special case, but bear with me) each with their own vested interests, but they work together for the greater good of the league itself. They're a monopoly, although I guess college football has it's own fans, but there's no shortage of competition within the league itself. Ubisoft isn't going to start making crap games because there's only 1 platform. They would start losing money that way, because the companies would be competing with each other. It doesn't have to be an open platform (although that would be better for us gamers), it just has to be unified.
It would take tremendous foresight for any of these companies to be willing to get on board with this idea, but the benefits are almost innumerable. This applies both to the publishers and developers themselves, as well as consumers. A unified system would sell like crazy because you'd be able to play God of War, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, Mario, and Zelda all on one platform. It would open up these untapped audiences for these franchises as well.
Like I said, though, this will never happen so I guess I shouldn't waste my time thinking about it.
Well, it wouldn't have to be an open platform, just one with many heads. Essentially each of the companies would be a member of the board of directors. That's why I mentioned Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. also being on this board. The easiest way to think about is like the NFL (or any other sports league). There's 32 owners in the NFL (I know that technically the Packers are a special case, but bear with me) each with their own vested interests, but they work together for the greater good of the league itself. They're a monopoly, although I guess college football has it's own fans, but there's no shortage of competition within the league itself. Ubisoft isn't going to start making crap games because there's only 1 platform. They would start losing money that way, because the companies would be competing with each other. It doesn't have to be an open platform (although that would be better for us gamers), it just has to be unified.
It would take tremendous foresight for any of these companies to be willing to get on board with this idea, but the benefits are almost innumerable. This applies both to the publishers and developers themselves, as well as consumers. A unified system would sell like crazy because you'd be able to play God of War, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, Mario, and Zelda all on one platform. It would open up these untapped audiences for these franchises as well.
Like I said, though, this will never happen so I guess I shouldn't waste my time thinking about it.
I know nothing about sports other than what I had to tolerate growing up in schools. It could work, but I don't trust companies beyond that they'll do whatever they can to make money. Yeah, there's not real point to this discussion, but it's interesting to throw ideas around. That's one of the great things about the internet.
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