# Shower Thoughts About Nintendo's Paradigm Shift



## Ryukouki (Mar 3, 2015)

Just a few days ago, I made polite "small talk" about some personal observations regarding Nintendo's recent business decisions that caused upsets to their audiences. Lately, Nintendo has been on my mind as a concern, that makes me wonder what would happen if Nintendo decided to actually listen to their core audience and face the problems that they've been staring at. Those thoughts are below.

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I'm very fond of Nintendo. They were the first "real" group out there _for me _when I got my first game console all the way back in the 90's, a beautifully boxy Nintendo Entertainment System. Sadly I wasn't raised in the more retro era, so I can't make remarks about that. The 80's and 90's were apparently a very solid time for Nintendo, whose presence in the video gaming industry was incredibly solid - about $5 billion in sales (after adjusting for inflation, it'll be $9 billion) and 90% of that was Nintendo's money. When I look at something like that, it feels very absolute - you were either with Nintendo or against Nintendo. Looking on, about twenty or so odd years later, things changed quite drastically. We saw the rise of Sony and Microsoft as an accomplished and viable gaming platform, the rise of PC gaming, and the budding of independent gaming developers trying to make a name for themselves. I was looking at this piece written from Games Industry and they noted that in 2013, the Garter Group forecasted that the industry had brought in $93 billion dollars, with Nintendo having only sunk in a total of $9.3 billion. Their presence went from dominating to... relatively quiet in terms of those earnings. At the same time, they generated almost ten billion dollars, so I'm not going to balk at that.

But lately, things just feel kind of iffy. Nintendo announced that they would make a "quality of life system" that is more geared towards improving human health (with an initial release of a camera that monitors sleeping patterns...) but they've also made statements that they want to stick by gaming. It feels like kind of a weird strategy when I look at it, because Nintendo has been a gaming company from the start, so when I saw this quality of life thing come up, it felt kind of odd to say the least. Their business patterns, which at this point are just a minor quibble to say the least in the long run, felt damaging to their audiences in the short term. What felt like a few grains of sand turned into a huge sea of problems. Games being too easy and too kid centric (some of you may have read GBAtemp Contributor Tom Bombadildo's tepid review of _Kirby and the Rainbow Curse_), the limited edition failure in execution with the New Nintendo 3DS XLs and Amiibo, the poor online infrastructure, a refusal to modernize, and embrace the fact that the internet really exists (instead choosing to remain in a closed ecosystem of sorts that has more locks than my brain during a midterm exam...), and the fact that their products just don't have that wow factor anymore as they did in the old days. The list goes on and on. We've seen them plenty of times by now. So, why are they not changing?

I actually caught wind of a fascinating interview that took place with a guy named Dan Adelman, who worked as an executive for Nintendo. He was interviewed and gave some feedback on why Nintendo is so bent on staying in the past. That interview is here in the event that you are interested, but he noted that Nintendo's practice was very Japanese. Like, _Japanese_ Japanese. I never really thought much about the term, so I talked with my father about it some time ago, who had spent time in Tokyo on business trips, and he told me interesting tales about how different their work ethic is over there, when compared to the American business practice. Both my dad and Mr. Adelman made similar remarks - Japan is extremely hierarchy based and very slow to implement changes. Adelman brings up some interesting remarks about how getting things done is akin to being careful to not step on the toes of the executives, because according to him, stepping on toes and getting a single "no" is about as good as a guarantee that the proposal would die.



> Even Mr. Iwata is often loathe to make a decision that will alienate one of the executives in Japan, so to get anything done, it requires laying a lot of groundwork: talking to the different groups, securing their buy-in, and using that buy-in to get others on board...The biggest risk is that at any step in that process, if someone flat out says no, the proposal is as good as dead. So in general, bolder ideas don't get through the process unless they originate at the top.


 
For those that seem to think that Nintendo doesn't want to change (I won't even deny it and say that they are static), this interview made it pretty clear that it wasn't quite the fault of Satoru Iwata, but the board of executives who refused to really make such groundbreaking changes. Please understand. The board of executives was described as being very "ancient" and out of touch with their idea of gaming - things that are apparent everywhere nowadays, like friends lists, online, etc., are all things that this board just didn't understand because they were more familiar with the era when things like this didn't happen - the era of NES and SNES.

It's a very interesting view on something that I had been pondering for a while. Their thought process and decision making chain makes a lot more sense, and goes together with the remarks that my father made about the Japanese business operations. Things that don't quite make it to the top over in Japan have little real chance of spreading to the lower regions. But at the same time, come on! Some of these changes are so prevalent nowadays that at this point it doesn't seem like it would hurt them to try it. Don't get me wrong, they make interesting things that can be more gimmicky than not that somehow end up selling pretty well, but I have to admire the pride that they give about their products and maybe it's why I continue to, for some reason, stick by them, even though my thoughts are pretty clear that I'm a bit bored with their current trends.

But even so, what would happen if Nintendo actually started _listening _and facing the problems? What would happen in the event that all of the problems that we observed lately about them actually started getting rectified? In a more video gaming related aspect, what would happen if their games started actually becoming better than what we're seeing? Nintendo is still one of the three big contenders out there, but is it too late for them to get their core audience back? Regardless the circumstances, they're still going to make money and all, but they'll more than likely make more than they're making now if their decisions actually were right side up and not all over the place! What kind of foothold do you guys predict is upcoming for them? Do they still have a place? Have at it in the discussion below.


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## endoverend (Mar 3, 2015)

Japan is really interesting in that people seem to think it's a technology wonderland, yet in reality it is _frightfully_ low-tech. It's surprising how many official documents are still done with pen and ink. Nintendo of America has no input on Nintendo's decisions (see the numerous protests and fan outcries that made no change at all) and function only as a PR and translation group. It's hard for Nintendo to listen to their fans with such a huge language barrier. And while Nintendo of America may have the opinion that listening to fans and changing their ways is better, Nintendo of Japan isn't going to have that same spirit of innovation.


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## Ryukouki (Mar 3, 2015)

endoverend said:


> Japan is really interesting in that people seem to think it's a technology wonderland, yet in reality it is _frightfully_ low-tech. It's surprising how many official documents are still done with pen and ink. Nintendo of America has no input on Nintendo's decisions (see the numerous protests and fan outcries that made no change at all) and function only as a PR and translation group. It's hard for Nintendo to listen to their fans with such a huge language barrier. And while Nintendo of America may have the opinion that listening to fans and changing their ways is better, Nintendo of Japan isn't going to have that same spirit of innovation.
> 
> Also, that pic you uploaded is frightfully low-res and impossible to read


 

I'm actually surprised at how simplistic their life style is. Their technology is quite dated from what I was told, so it's definitely interesting to see how they mange to do all of these things.


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## LegendAssassinF (Mar 3, 2015)

Sadly I don't see Nintendo getting up to date anytime soon since it would be incredibly hard to pull people out from Sony and Microsoft's family of home consoles. Say Nintendo made the most powerful console next generation they wouldn't know what to do with it.... Nintendo would need to buy out big budget games to secure 3rd party support. Sadly even when they do this and bring in amazing games like Bayonetta 2 people are unwilling to give it a try or buy the console for that game. That leaves Nintendo with producing a AAA 3rd party game and not getting the sales to match it.


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## ferofax (Mar 3, 2015)

To get stuff going, some really big stuff, you need a unanimous decision up top. The difficulty is translating those changes from a video game perspective which execs and stockholders don't really get to a business perspective which execs and stockholders understand better.


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## Herobroski (Mar 3, 2015)

If nintendo dies, theyll become a legend. But honestly I dont think nintendo will die. The fan base is big to keep Nintendo on its toes. Also I think that since there is still a healthy variable fanbase supporting nintendo and still growing, I believe that Nintendo will do well. Also, I believe that in future time, much of the children and future generations will adore Nintendo more. I feel like people will actually move away from gore-like games, not particularly shooting-based, but in general, a gore-like or bloody, or M-rated game. My prediction. I just feel like people will come to appreciate Nintendo more.
Edit: Well, then again... Gateway, a 3ds flashcart, has and will probably leech a fifth of their 3ds sales... nvm. gg. Hacks are too op.


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## thorasgar (Mar 3, 2015)

After a couple of lean years we were able to buy our boys a WII U and a new 55" HDTV this Christmas.  They had been begging and begging and begging.  An Aunt bought them some Game stop gift cards and Rainbow Curse was it, took them on release day and they were so proud with their first purchase they mad on their own by pooling the cards.

 After about 20 minutes of game play the screams started waffling up from the basement.  "stop!, Stop!, No fair! I quit!" I roll my eyes and go investigate and discover being a second player kind of sucks and is really boring.  Furthermore I am watching my 9 year old staring at the Gamepad the whole time.  Looks beautiful up on that big screen, look over his shoulder and see this old crappy SD display his eyes are glued on.  "Look at big gorgeous screen you have there, it looks great", "I can't Dad!"  " What? Why not?"  "I just can't, it doesn't work that way". OK, I think, "Maybe we should have purchased the 3DS version, I bet it would look even better on the new super stable 3D.  "Dad, are you stupid?  They don't make it for the DS!"  

I look at him and then back up at that big screen and start wondering WTF did I buy?


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## purupuru (Mar 3, 2015)

Just Google Japan and fax machine and you'll get an idea why Nintendo is so backward. The last fax I sent out was three years ago and I was kind of blown away. It's like Japanese businesses are stuck in the 80's just like the old people who run them.


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## Ryukouki (Mar 3, 2015)

thorasgar said:


> After a couple of lean years we were able to buy our boys a WII U and a new 55" HDTV this Christmas. They had been begging and begging and begging. An Aunt bought them some Game stop gift cards and Rainbow Curse was it, took them on release day and they were so proud with their first purchase they mad on their own by pooling the cards.
> 
> After about 20 minutes of game play the screams started waffling up from the basement. "stop!, Stop!, No fair! I quit!" I roll my eyes and go investigate and discover being a second player kind of sucks and is really boring. Furthermore I am watching my 9 year old staring at the Gamepad the whole time. Looks beautiful up on that big screen, look over his shoulder and see this old crappy SD display his eyes are glued on. "Look at big gorgeous screen you have there, it looks great", "I can't Dad!" " What? Why not?" "I just can't, it doesn't work that way". OK, I think, "Maybe we should have purchased the 3DS version, I bet it would look even better on the new super stable 3D. "Dad, are you stupid? They don't make it for the DS!"
> 
> I look at him and then back up at that big screen and start wondering WTF did I buy?


 

That's actually one of the more interesting questions that caused a lot of disconnect for me as well. I played through games like Captain toad: Treasure Tracker, and my colleague through Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and the games are extremely game pad heavy. There's no reason to be looking up at the big screen because you're forced to look at the smaller one, and it KILLS the experience. The whole thing with multiplayer nowadays kind of blows two, having to play a completely hollow character with no real fleshed out personality - in Kirby you play as a Waddle Dee thing apparently. :/ Kind of sucks and that disconnect is going to harm them in the long run.


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## cephalopoid (Mar 3, 2015)

I've been rooting for Nintendo to stop making consoles for some time now.

No. Wait. Hear me out.

I remember the Wii was supoosed to change how we interacted with games, and there were a few shining games that did that, but the bulk of games didn't really innovate. Waggle became what the Wii was known for.

But even before that, I always saw Nintendo being a great game publisher/developer, and when the Xbox came on the scene, I felt the console race was too crowded.

And look what happened to Sega. Sega games are now enjoyed cross platform.

Imagine if Nintendo did the same thing? The could be a multiplatform gaming company. Instead, most of their games are trapped on a mediocre console (3DS aside).


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## Herobroski (Mar 3, 2015)

True... If Nintendo could open up, in whatever way, geez it would help them a lot.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 3, 2015)

At first I was kind of sceptical, as any thread starting with a "what would happen if Nintendo decided to actually listen to their core audience?" question usually translates to "here's what _I_ want nintendo to do" kind of thing.

But the talk of the difference in culture is interesting to say the least.  Overall, business really is done differently than in the US, which I don't think is much of a surprise. And while I can agree that it's not helping them at this point, I think it is but a factor of their situation (after all, sony is also based in Japan).
_EDIT: have to scratch the sony comparison, as Kyoto is apparently 'more Japanese' than Japan in itself._

I'll get back to this after reading that interview fully and thinking about it. But for now, I doubt this 'core audience' is as easy to listen to as you'd think. The only thing everyone really seems to agree on is more nintendo franchised games need to be made (which they certainly are).

thorasgar: just out of curiosity: did you knew in advance that Kirby game has you drawing on the gamepad the whole time?


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## thorasgar (Mar 3, 2015)

I knew you drew on the Gamepad, yes. I did not know the the TV was totally useless except for spectators or the rather useless multiplayer in the game.  

Not that it would have made any difference, it was the boys that wanted the game and knowing the Gamepad exclusivity would not have altered their desire for it.  

I thought the purpose of the game pad was to enchance or extend gameplay, not dominate it.

I agree Nintendo is having difficulty listening to its core audience.  They speak Nintendo doesn't listen.

I may be totally wrong but I will start a list of issues I doubt there is little disagreement over.

Region locking
GameCube adapter
Technical limitations in implementation of Amiibo
Online account/content ownership/NNID/sytem transfer
"New" 3DS name (have they never heard of Apple in Japan?)
WII U name (Pii U)
XL exclusive in NA only
Complex architecture driving 3rd party developers away.
Gamepad Battery
External HD puts WII U on par price wise as the other systems.


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## Herobroski (Mar 3, 2015)

thorasgar said:


> I knew you drew on the Gamepad, yes. I did not know the the TV was totally useless except for spectators or the rather useless multiplayer in the game.
> 
> Not that it would have made any difference, it was the boys that wanted the game and knowing the Gamepad exclusivity would not have altered their desire for it.
> 
> I thought the purpose of the game pad was to enchance or extend gameplay, not dominate it.


AT this rate, in order to make your money's worth, I would buy smash bros and Zelda U, when it comes out. And then teach your son to get into the Zelda series.


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## SolarisHeights (Mar 3, 2015)

imo the state of nintendo/sony wii u and handheld portable device such as vita is as good as it can be atm. i juast think many people are just not interested in this devices and rly not much u can do abt that.


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## thorasgar (Mar 3, 2015)

Herobroski said:


> AT this rate, in order to make your money's worth, I would buy smash bros and Zelda U, when it comes out. And then teach your son to get into the Zelda series.


Done.  I have collected about 23 disks in the past 3 months all but 5 used in excellent condition.  Patience with glyde.com. 

Just received the Mayflash adapter and 3 GC controllers this week.  

3 "New" 3DSs, and have all the newer Zelda titles, except 4 Swords.  They need to teach me.    Right now they are teaching me Smash.(I think I am to old)

My boys sleep with Mario plushies and the family has been M&L, Toad and Peach for the past 3 Halloweens.


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## Jayro (Mar 3, 2015)

endoverend said:


> Japan is really interesting in that people seem to think it's a technology wonderland, yet in reality it is _frightfully_ low-tech. It's surprising how many official documents are still done with pen and ink. Nintendo of America has no input on Nintendo's decisions (see the numerous protests and fan outcries that made no change at all) and function only as a PR and translation group. It's hard for Nintendo to listen to their fans with such a huge language barrier. And while Nintendo of America may have the opinion that listening to fans and changing their ways is better, Nintendo of Japan isn't going to have that same spirit of innovation.


 
I hear MiniDisc is still the platform of choice for music distribution, and that they still rely on MO discs... I wonder how that still holds up in todays world of flash devices.


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## CathyRina (Mar 3, 2015)

Nintendo should try to finally catch up.
They can't implement features that Sony had figured out way earlier. region locking their systems because programming multiple E-shop support is too difficult, Friendlists that still require friendcodes, friend lists limited to 200, digital purchases that are not bound to an account, no messaging system at all, No achievements, no media Server support, no screenshot support, poor resolutions on handhelds.
Like, come on! It's 2015! You guys had enough time to decide how to modernize your systems.
Nintendo is a company that started doing DLC in a good way and slaps the triple A industry by offering good gameplay and not some "cinematic" bollocks or season passes or Preorders that give different content from different retailers. Yet still, their consoles aren't the most enjoyable to play on.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 3, 2015)

Back with some more thoughts...

Let's first start with my vote in the poll: 'no'. Of course it's not too late. If for nothing else, they've got way too much financial reserves to be 'too late' to change, even if every wiiu and 3DS in the world suddenly exploded.

But as to their decisions lately...I sort of wonder how bad those decisions would actually be if sony and microsoft didn't do consoles. In that case, they still had some questionable decisions, but all in all, not as bad as it's made out to be. A lot of the "they should do this, and this and THIS" kind of blaming seems to be based solely under "because the competition does it".
Take the demo situation, for example. As Adelman points out, it was conventional wisdom at a certain point that demo's should always be available (and in feedback, a wide audience is pretty much the definition of 'conventional wisdom'). Nintendo didn't. And in the end they were right with their idea that too many demos actually hurt sales (though for a different reason).
And yeah...they're certainly slow to mature their online infrastructure. They're making small steps where the main competition has pretty much ran the race. I'd argue that at least that way they are avoiding those mistakes they made...but it actually doesn't seem that way (ouch!).

So being conservative isn't without disadvantages, but doesn't exactly help them much either. And that latter is but a minor example of not looking enough at their competition. Their relationship with third party developers is worrying. Correction: their CONTINUED BAD relationship with third party developers is worrying. It's one thing to not give in to EA's business practices, but their relationships with indie devs really isn't up to snuff compared to sony and MS (who are more than willing to help, especially if exclusivity is involved).


The strangest thing in this article, though, is that this conservatism "one 'no' from higher up kills an idea outright"-kind of thought somehow greenlights that sleeping pattern monitor. Perhaps I'm looking into things too much (after all, it's not like MS and sony don't do weird shit), but it doesn't make sense to me. At all.

Another interesting/worrying thought is that nintendo can't keep breeding on nostalgia. Right now, nostalgics are their second cash cow (the first one being kids). They'll soon get tired of rebuying Mario Bros or Ice climbers over and over again. I wonder which percentage of those VC gets sold to people born in the 21st century. Probably not much. That isn't to say those games aren't great...but that those who grew up with it now have the age to make these sorts of games themselves (newer SMBW, anyone?). Yet on the top of ninty's food chain, they hardly bother to do anything. For every splatoon, there's 2 NES remixes. For every...erm...*looks at Bayonetta 2, monster hunter, X, fatal frame and devil's third* ... erm...let's say I doubt they will be timeless.


Speaking of the newer wiiu games...I had thoughts to create a thread about how a lot of them seem to serve the Oriental market quite a lot. It's almost as if they want to get rid of the 'kiddy' image and go for a 'weeaboo' image instead. I know this is sort of racist and not really having anything to do with culture...if it didn't illustrate how the top decides and the rest has to follow.


Okay...enough Japan-bashing for now (gomen'nasai to those guys).

As to how to deal with the issues...it may not work out that bad. For one, Iwata's loan is still halved, right? I doubt he'll simply allow everyone else to just "stay the course". Sure, some changes hurt (why yes, your 55" television is USELESS for Kirby). But how to know in advance? Those amiibo's somehow manage popularity. And do we really want nintendo to clone MS and sony? (note: you guys DO know that this'd mean abandoning the wiiu asap, right?).


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## DarkWrath669 (Mar 3, 2015)

I do love Nintendo, I can be called a fanboy and I do have a large Nintendo collection.

Starting to notice them getting the bad habits from other game developers. Some of it's okay, their form of DLC isn't stuff that was cut content and the price to content ratio is pretty fair, just hope it doesn't go downhill in the same fashion it did over the years for other devs.

It's great to see them push for 60FPS in a lot of games too. More so than the newer consoles.

I'd be happy for them to take the good habits that gave other consoles some benefit. I like the idea of twitch integration, but glad there isn't 3rd party social media integration for example. 

I don't want the next Nintendo console to be another clone of the PS4 and Xbone, which seem to be primarily a media center.
I really like the Wii U and the content they can get out of it is great. I feel they do a good job of pushing it to it's limit with 1st party titles and you can tell a lot of effort is put into optimization which isn't done so much on other consoles.
But having the ability to read Bluray and DVDs would have been nice, on board gigabit ethernet, USB 3 etc. to make the most of the latest technologies without that great of a cost increase. Even a little bit better resolution on the gamepad.

I guess these features were not deemed necessary by Nintendo.
Personally, I probably spend an hour watching Youtube and an hour gaming on my Wii U each day.
I know this probably makes me sound very contradicting.
As long as it's mainly a game console first and an entertainment system second.  It's a good ethos.


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## finkmac (Mar 3, 2015)

Jayro said:


> I hear MiniDisc is still the platform of choice for music distribution, and that they still rely on MO discs... I wonder how that still holds up in todays world of flash devices.


 
Magneto-Optical is quite possibly the best format for archiving stuff, since it's not vulnerable to magnetic fields. 
If you don't mind the smaller capacities compared to tape, it's much better.

It might be longer-lasting in terms of writes, too. That said, writing isn't exactly fast.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Mar 3, 2015)

Oh oh wait I have a post for this...


Tom Bombadildo said:


> ITT Ryu finally grows up and realizes Nin10doh is actually bad ;O;O;O;


The biggest problem, IMO, is that Nintendo _only_ listens to their fans. They keep doing what they're doing because practically every Nintendo fanboy on the planet is sitting there, wanking over Nintendo's failures and mistakes "BCUZ NINTENDO IS DA BEST DEY HAF OXUUUUSIVES ONLICK $SONER N MACREE$SUFT HAHAHA".
Someone says "Well the Wii U has a terrible selection of games", a fanboy will scream and cry "NO HZ MURIO DER4 UR RONG". Someone says "Well Mario Kart just isn't that fun when they don't add jack shit to the game", a fanboy cries "NO UR RONG MURIO FART HZ NW CHRCTRS N CORSES DER4 UR RONG", someone says "Well Nintendo's online infrastructure is utter garbage, how can people be ok with this?", a fanboy cries "AT LST NINTENDO TRING DER4 UR RONG".*

And what does Nintendo do? They sit there and listen to the fanboys cry rather than other people with legitimate complaints, and then everyone else is confused when they continue to be shit at practically everything they do. 
I can't count how many times I always see rationalizations like "well Nintendo is different! They go against the norm! They're unique, therefore better than those MicroSony Sheeple!"...when they fail to realize "unique" =! better. It's great that Nintendo is different. It's great they're still trying to stick to their roots, where they focus on like 3 quality games a year. It's great their games are still wonderfully made. It's not great they lack what are now essential services and features. It's not great they alienate almost every third party dev, making those 3 quality games released in a year almost the _only_ quality games released in a year. And it's appalling that people are ok with settling for mediocrity.
And I'm sure I'll just be called a Nintendo hater, like lots of people seem to assume, even though I loved Nintendo games as a kid, despite my harsh criticisms I still enjoy their occasional new releases when they deserve it (Ryu mentioned my review of Kirby in the OP, and I honestly can't understand at all how any publication could give the game such high reviews), even though regardless of all the Nin10doh's and Nin10yearolds I throw out I still bought a Wii U, I'm still looking forward to the new Zelda game, I'm still hoping for a good Metroid game in the future, I still buy pogymanz games on their release despite always calling them shit all the time, I still want to play Mario Party even though I think not including online is retarded. But nope, I'm just a hater  


*Note: Obvious exaggeration. Please don't cry like a child.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 3, 2015)

Tom Bombadildo:

Sigh...nice going there. Thanks to your post, I can't even reply without you assuming I'm a fanboy who can't spell. And no, I don't assume you hate nintendo either. This forum should be about exchanging ideas and views, not about belittling each other.

I'll try nonetheless...

nintendo is different. Yes. They've been different since...well...always, actually. It's just that before the wii and their blue ocean thingy (which was more a reaction to the world changing differently than ninty would like), it wasn't really obvious. Before consoles had internet access, it wasn't an issue that nintendo was shit at it.

If there's any critic I take from critics like Yahtzee or Angry Joe, it's that "nintendo, bla, bla, evil, bla, bla, kiddy, bla, bla...but at least they make consoles rather than media centers with a 'console' sticker on it".
The thing with the fanboys is that they buy their console to game on. I would think that is pretty obvious, but it's actually pretty weird. Take DarkWrath669's post, in which he pretty much says "I don't want the wiiu to be a media center. I want the wiiu to be a media center". Yeah...
Nintendo sucks at online stuff. Their technology isn't up to par. And so on. I get it. You call those essential services and features. I beg to differ. It's like a radio player and gps in a car. Does it add to the experience? Hell, yes. Is it essential? No.

Aldeman already brought up the situation with 3rd parties. Unfortunately, nintendo royally screwed up on that one to a degree it's probably not fixable if they tried. The ones with the real complaints got another console (assuming they wiiu'd in the first place), leaving ninty 'just' with the fans. It doesn't do much good to listen to anybody else right now, as they won't attract large other gamers anymore (those already got themselves a PS4/xbone), and they won't attract those devs either because these guys's audience is elsewhere.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Mar 3, 2015)

Ryukouki said:


> That's actually one of the more interesting questions that caused a lot of disconnect for me as well. I played through games like Captain toad: Treasure Tracker, and my colleague through Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and the games are extremely game pad heavy. There's no reason to be looking up at the big screen because you're forced to look at the smaller one, and it KILLS the experience. The whole thing with multiplayer nowadays kind of blows two, having to play a completely hollow character with no real fleshed out personality - in Kirby you play as a Waddle Dee thing apparently. :/ Kind of sucks and that disconnect is going to harm them in the long run.


Captain Toad at least lets you play on the TV without locking your eye balls to that average SD screen the GamePad has so it feels more of a home console game than Kirby and the Rainbow Curse or Mario Vs. Donkey: Tipping Star... The fuck! These two games (Kirby + MvDK) should've been on the 3DS because they're meant to be handheld (you do all of it on the GamePad).

I'm sure MvDK will do fine on the 3DS but who the hell's gonna play it on the Wii U? Beats me.


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## Steena (Mar 3, 2015)

In my opinion, gimmicks need to go. They are risky, luck-based, and they can kill your system if you made the wrong guess, because there is a cost to both the manufacturer and the consumer, which ends up being useless. About half of the WiiU cost goes for the gamepad, which adds nothing of value for the quality of games themselves, and the remote function should be an optional that people who want it should go out of their way and buy it separately, instead of increasing the pricepoint for everyone. Now imagine if the WiiU had shipped at half the release price back in 2012 ($150). I'm sure a lot more people would have bought it, establishing a bigger early userbase and getting the ball rolling on more third party titles.

On top of that, architectures and devkits need to be the easiest / most common you can have, to make developers' life easy. More multiplatforms, more support, more releases, better performance, and so on. I have a friend who works on Crytek and a few years back he told me they considered dropping PS3 support exclusively because sony devkit's manual/dev support and console architecture were shit, and they were concerned they would spend more money trying to learn how to release the games than the profits said games would make. When it gets to that point, where third party developers are turned off from making games on your system, that's pretty fucking bad. According to anonymous developer reports, the WiiU devkits are/were pretty bad, too. That certaintly contributed to the issues.

As for the handheld market, the 3DS is massively underpowered and its display resolution is embarassing. I believe nintendo is doing well here solely because of the legacy, it's the go-to choice for the ignorant consumer as far as dedicated handhelds goes, so people "just buy it". Here again, the 3D gimmick, on top of being worthless, contributed to the 3DS having 240p display resolution. I don't think I will ever find anyone sane who would rather have 240p 3D versus 480p non-3D, at the same pricepoint.

Of course, being an enthusiast myself, I don't personally need multiplatforms on the WiiU (or any other console). There is a PC for those, which will always outperform any other system at a much higher price/performance/utility ratio. But the reality of the situation is that casual consumers are the vast majority, and they apparently like to play most of their games on one system only. So, the WiiU's library is very lackluster to them, compared to someone who owns all the systems. Nintendo should understand this fact and get up to date on this front.


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## Herobroski (Mar 3, 2015)

thorasgar said:


> Done. I have collected about 23 disks in the past 3 months all but 5 used in excellent condition. Patience with glyde.com.
> 
> Just received the Mayflash adapter and 3 GC controllers this week.
> 
> ...


Hahaha  I dont think anyone is too old to play videogames!


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## Veho (Mar 3, 2015)

Steena said:


> In my opinion, gimmicks need to go. They are risky, luck-based, and they can kill your system if you made the wrong guess, because there is a cost to both the manufacturer and the consumer, which ends up being useless.


The problem with that outlook is that the main difference between a "gimmick" and "revolutionary new feature" is whether you like it or not.


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## regnad (Mar 3, 2015)

Jayro said:


> I hear MiniDisc is still the platform of choice for music distribution, and that they still rely on MO discs... I wonder how that still holds up in todays world of flash devices.



No true. When I first moved to Japan about nine years ago a few people were still using MDs. I never ever see them now, and even then they were rare. There are still CD stores here, both used and new. Everyone here uses a smartphone for their music though.


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## war2thegrave (Mar 3, 2015)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> Oh oh wait I have a post for this...
> 
> The biggest problem, IMO, is that Nintendo _only_ listens to their fans. They keep doing what they're doing because practically every Nintendo fanboy on the planet is sitting there, wanking over Nintendo's failures and mistakes "BCUZ NINTENDO IS DA BEST DEY HAF OXUUUUSIVES ONLICK $SONER N MACREE$SUFT HAHAHA".
> Someone says "Well the Wii U has a terrible selection of games", a fanboy will scream and cry "NO HZ MURIO DER4 UR RONG". Someone says "Well Mario Kart just isn't that fun when they don't add jack shit to the game", a fanboy cries "NO UR RONG MURIO FART HZ NW CHRCTRS N CORSES DER4 UR RONG", someone says "Well Nintendo's online infrastructure is utter garbage, how can people be ok with this?", a fanboy cries "AT LST NINTENDO TRING DER4 UR RONG".*
> ...


 
That is so fucking true!

It doesn't matter what Nintendo does.
They will always have a legion of drones who will suffer through
anything for a small taste of the corporation's former glory.
Kind of like Apple and Metallica fans.


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## the_randomizer (Mar 3, 2015)

Veho Lol why was my post removed? Was my opinion that worthless? I'll take that to heart that it wasn't worth remembering lol.


edit: Never mind


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## Steena (Mar 4, 2015)

Veho said:


> The problem with that outlook is that the main difference between a "gimmick" and "revolutionary new feature" is whether you like it or not.


To me that difference would be about if it's actually useful to make truly different games, games you couldn't physicallly make/translate/port without it. Games that wouldn't work at a conceptual level without that specific feature.

None of the nintendo "revolutionary new features" (or videogame industry's in general) have ever been essential. Nothing still beats a standard button configuration, nothing cannot be ported, and made better, on standard inputs. Nothing requires 3D mode, nor justifies having half the rendered space (something actually useful in every single game) because of a fashion filter. Having the option to play your home console game without a TV does not justify slapping a standard $140 controller onto every system, that's something the few who ever make a use of it should buy as an extra. Touch controls are inherently less reliable than quality buttons, and they are generally used because a system doesn't have enough buttons (which is a case of "offering an inferior solution to a problem you are responsible for in the first place", like selling exp boosters to skip the boring parts of your own game, instead of actually making your game engaging). Connecting your GBA to your gamecube for extra content was literally only marketing to encourage people to buy both systems, it's not a feature, that taken by itself, actually ever had a NEED to exist.

Perhaps when we will have motion controls with auto-adjusting, real-time force feedback, dynamic weight emulation and insane amounts of tracking precision, then motion controls will qualify as something that could have THE POTENTIAL to not be a gimmick, something that would become more impractical to navigate with standard controls. And that would also require a complexity in hitboxes/collisions that's beyond anything that's ever been done in a real game, so the games themselves would also need to take it up several notches. So even if we ever had the appropriate tech I doubt we would ever have a single developer with such a strong "quality before everything" philosophy to make use of it (assuming modern developer standards, which is "ship an okayish, rushed game so you can get onto the new okayish game because it's more efficient for us this way").

So, I think that overall it's pretty fair to call them "gimmicks", or why people in general have a habit of calling any new feature a "gimmick". It's because they have historically been optional, useless or detrimental. I'd be more than welcome to be proven wrong by a manufacturer.


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## Mr_Pichu (Mar 4, 2015)

It is getting more and more expensive to be in the video game hardware business, with all the investment required a flop or two is all it takes to be out of business.  If Nintendo decides the risk is too high, they should move on to what they think is the next big thing.  I think the video game business is in a bad state, so it might be time for Nintendo to sit things out for a while and see who is left standing.  Look towards Apple becoming the trillion dollar elephant in the room really soon.  Nintendo has to go where the money is, ultimately that is their bottom line.


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## grossaffe (Mar 4, 2015)

Steena said:


> To me that difference would be about if it's actually useful to make truly different games, games you couldn't physicallly make/translate/port without it. Games that wouldn't work at a conceptual level without that specific feature.
> 
> None of the nintendo "revolutionary new features" (or videogame industry's in general) have ever been essential. Nothing still beats a standard button configuration, nothing cannot be ported, and made better, on standard inputs. Nothing requires 3D mode, nor justifies having half the rendered space (something actually useful in every single game) because of a fashion filter. Having the option to play your home console game without a TV does not justify slapping a standard $140 controller onto every system, that's something the few who ever make a use of it should buy as an extra. Touch controls are inherently less reliable than quality buttons, and they are generally used because a system doesn't have enough buttons (which is a case of "offering an inferior solution to a problem you are responsible for in the first place", like selling exp boosters to skip the boring parts of your own game, instead of actually making your game engaging). Connecting your GBA to your gamecube for extra content was literally only marketing to encourage people to buy both systems, it's not a feature, that taken by itself, actually ever had a NEED to exist.
> 
> ...


Do you not realize everything you just stated is purely opinion (at best)?


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## Trevor Belmont (Mar 4, 2015)

endoverend said:


> Japan is really interesting in that people seem to think it's a technology wonderland, yet in reality it is _frightfully_ low-tech. It's surprising how many official documents are still done with pen and ink. Nintendo of America has no input on Nintendo's decisions (see the numerous protests and fan outcries that made no change at all) and function only as a PR and translation group. It's hard for Nintendo to listen to their fans with such a huge language barrier. And while Nintendo of America may have the opinion that listening to fans and changing their ways is better, Nintendo of Japan isn't going to have that same spirit of innovation.


 

Not "low tech", more "old school" or "Traditional" really.
It stems from their culture's old ways.
Ways that worked and worked well.

They are very founded in tradition.
Read about the Samurai or watch any good, accurate movie based on them and you'll understand better.

Let's not be disrespectful of things we don't understand.
Particularly of other cultures we don't understand.


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## Jayro (Mar 4, 2015)

regnad said:


> No true. When I first moved to Japan about nine years ago a few people were still using MDs. I never ever see them now, and even then they were rare. There are still CD stores here, both used and new. Everyone here uses a smartphone for their music though.


 
Thanks for confirming this information for me.


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## Pluupy (Mar 4, 2015)

Welp it took America to go to Japan and whisk it out of isolation in 1853. We gotta do it again so they can get with the times.


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## Steena (Mar 4, 2015)

grossaffe said:


> Do you not realize everything you just stated is purely opinion (at best)?


That's usually the case when I start a post with "to me", yeah. As for the feature pros versus cons part of my post, you are more than welcome to weight in with a different view on the matter.

Do you often go around internet discussion boards pointing out people are speaking their personal opinion/preference on an opinion-oriented thread?


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## Veho (Mar 4, 2015)

Steena said:


> To me that difference would be about if it's actually useful to make truly different games, games you couldn't physically make/translate/port without it. Games that wouldn't work at a conceptual level without that specific feature.
> [...]
> So, I think that overall it's pretty fair to call them "gimmicks", or why people in general have a habit of calling any new feature a "gimmick". It's because they have historically been optional, useless or detrimental. I'd be more than welcome to be proven wrong by a manufacturer.


But that's the thing, what's useless and what's the best thing since sliced bread is a matter of opinion. The Kinect has a ton of truly different games, that can't exist with any other controller, and still it's considered a "gimmick". The Wii, despite the initial mockery and the unpolished technology and the fact the majority of the games used the motion controls where buttons would have been better, sold a gorillion consoles and pioneered the most recent motion control craze. Again, the only difference between a "gimmick" and "innovation" is whether people like it, not any objective or conceptual quality.


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## grossaffe (Mar 4, 2015)

Steena said:


> That's usually the case when I start a post with "to me", yeah. As for the feature pros versus cons part of my post, you are more than welcome to weight in with a different view on the matter.
> 
> Do you often go around internet discussion boards pointing out people are speaking their personal opinion/preference on an opinion-oriented thread?


The context of the conversation was that Veho had mentioned that what is a gimmick versus a feature comes down to whether one likes something or not, and you disagreed with him and then went on to about how they are gimmicks due to your opinion of them.


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## Steena (Mar 4, 2015)

Veho said:


> But that's the thing, what's useless and what's the best thing since sliced bread is a matter of opinion. The Kinect has a ton of truly different games, that can't exist with any other controller, and still it's considered a "gimmick". The Wii, despite the initial mockery and the unpolished technology and the fact the majority of the games used the motion controls where buttons would have been better, sold a gorillion consoles and pioneered the most recent motion control craze. Again, the only difference between a "gimmick" and "innovation" is whether people like it, not any objective or conceptual quality.


I suppose there's something to say about fully exploiting the new features and making a quality videogame out of it. Also, as a consumer, I don't really care if a feature was influential or how many units it moved. All I care about is that the imprecise controls drastically reduced the slim chance we may have had to see a truly great and focused motion control game, and that's assuming developers would still have made one that fully utilized them well.

You can argue opinions or preferences, but I'd have a hard time thinking you would believe that motion controls are as established and efficient as standard buttons right now, on a purely technical (for the hardware) and design (for the games themselves) standpoint. If only for the fact that we went through decades of classic buttons revisions (both hardware and game design), whereas motion controls are still new, underutilized and experimental thing.

But regardless of all that. Maybe I just dont get motion controls and other "gimmicks", maybe someone else recognized that motion controls are already superior/justifiable to have their own focused games, perhaps there already are said games. My original point may still apply where banking it all on new, fresh features is still a risky thing to do, and if it turns out people are not interested this time around, a big chunk of the product's value instantly drops.


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## Steena (Mar 4, 2015)

grossaffe said:


> The context of the conversation was that Veho had mentioned that what is a gimmick versus a feature comes down to whether one likes something or not, and you disagreed with him and then went on to about how they are gimmicks due to your opinion of them.


I didn't disagree at all, I only explained what my metrics for calling them "gimmicks" instead of "features" were. In that case, I claimed how I find that something that is not as well optimized/established as another system, I consider a gimmick.


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## grossaffe (Mar 4, 2015)

Steena said:


> I didn't disagree at all, I only explained what my metrics for calling them "gimmicks" instead of "features" were. In that case, I claimed how I find that something that is not as well optimized/established as another system, I consider a gimmick.


Very well.  I will respond to your post in that context when I have some free time.


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## endoverend (Mar 5, 2015)

Trevor Belmont said:


> Not "low tech", more "old school" or "Traditional" really.
> It stems from their culture's old ways.
> Ways that worked and worked well.
> 
> ...


 
Of course I didn't mean any disrespect. I am aware of the traditional aspects of the society, but it is also true that while just saying "low-tech" may be an overstatement the fact of the matter is that the technology they use in official matters is very old-school.


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## Trevor Belmont (Mar 5, 2015)

Oh, okay then. Sorry


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## naxil (Mar 5, 2015)

For my opinion Nintendo have make some time mistake..  Before Wii , Nintendo have the powerfull console , but for strange    reason can make a new idea with old hw . I try to adjust time line 
Gcmote instead wiimote, wiiu instead Wii ( wiiu its a littlebit more powerful of ps360). Same situation for nin games,  for sure lot of today 3ds games its born for Wii etc... Idk if I have explain my opinions...


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## Veho (Mar 6, 2015)

Steena said:


> My original point may still apply where banking it all on new, fresh features is still a risky thing to do, and if it turns out people are not interested this time around, a big chunk of the product's value instantly drops.


But if it does appeal to the buyers it pays off handsomely. Their previous two gimmicks-slash-revolutionary-concepts (depending on who you ask) were hugely successful. 

To be fair, it didn't seem like that much of a gamble in the first place. A second, touch sensitive screen has proved popular on the DS, and there were games that used it to good effect. It didn't seem like some new and experimental invention, it was already tried and tested. And outside the screen the console had a standard dual analog control scheme available, so that should have appeased the part of the public that had demanded it on the Wii, and what is more it was something to fall back on, they didn't force the developer and players to use the screen. So there was nothing really new or risky about the _concept_ itself. 

What brought the WiiU down wasn't any gimmick, it was the fact it was underpowered and had next to zero 3rd party support.


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## Steena (Mar 6, 2015)

Veho said:


> But if it does appeal to the buyers it pays off handsomely. Their previous two gimmicks-slash-revolutionary-concepts (depending on who you ask) were hugely successful.
> 
> To be fair, it didn't seem like that much of a gamble in the first place. A second, touch sensitive screen has proved popular on the DS, and there were games that used it to good effect. It didn't seem like some new and experimental invention, it was already tried and tested.
> 
> What brought the WiiU down wasn't any gimmick, it was the fact it was underpowered and had next to zero 3rd party support.


I get nintendo thought of combining the gimmick and the buttons for the WiiU, since that was a big complaint from the core audience that the Wiimote was underwhelming on that front. However, I think this served as a double-edged weapon. I heard several intances of casual consumers, or their families, who would previously enjoy using the wiimote for its simplicity, but could not really find the appeal of the gamepad, infact they were turned off by it, the same way they would be turned off by a standard controller. Here I'm talking about people who literally have never played a videogame before, of course. Who were those that made the Wii huge in the first place.

As for the risky part of the controller, you forget the pricepoint, which is always important. The WiiU ended up costing nearly as much as a PS4 despite not being nearly powerful enough to have its games. That's gotta be largely attributed to the gamepad cost.

Another factor is that motion controls were actually new in 2006, whereas everyone and their mother has a real tablet or a touch smartphone which has a inifnitely higher price/performance ratio and features than the wiiu gamepad. It just cannot have the same effect on people. Yet another point is that the WiiU's specific setup could allow for some UNIQUE 3-versus-one local multiplayer games (where one player controls something that cannot be seen by the other 3), like a dungeonmaster type of game. Where are those games? Why isn't nintendo making them? What's really the point of having the tablet if all it's gonna have is basic touch controls applied to a standard game? You can play plenty local strategy games, card games, roleplaying games, dungeonmaster games, social games, using existing tablet apps.

At the end of the day, nintendo has released an underisable product for either "stereotype" of consumers. Those few of us who own a WiiU are almost exclusively those who want to exclusively play core nintendo games. We would have done the same with or without the gamepad. It's not like people bought a WiiU because they were attracted by the controller first, then maybe discovered the games later, like it happened on the Wii.

And this is an example of investing on risky features which ended up alienating both sides. Anything you add that is not needed, is still detrimental because the cost has to come from somewhere, either making a trade-off with something you wanted, or increasing the price to add something you didn't need in the first place.

The 3DS has a very similar problem of trading abysmal internal resolution for 3D, which is way worse a trade-off than the WiiU tablet if you ask me, however handhelds+smartphones are not nearly as homogenized, so multiplatforms are not as important as they are for home systems, so it didn't matter in the end.

The thing is manufacturing a system is not as simple as making a game. You can make 15 games per generation, so you can allow yourself to be more risky with them. Making a console is a huge cost, which generally is designed to be recouped in 2-5 years of its lifetime. If you get it wrong, you're pretty much forced to keep going with that one for the entire generation because you've invested way too much on it, the best choice is almost always to keep selling it and hope you turn even at the end of the generation, in case it's not doing well.

So, slapping in a random thing for the sake of having to try to be different is not advisable, for an 8-years-lasting machine, in my opinion. I think nintendo didn't have a rational plan for the WiiU. Motion controls were new, 3D on a videogame is new - wether they would work out or not, at least there is a purpose behind them - bringing the novelty to attract different people. Nothing the WiiU tablet could ever hope to do because the thing is neither new nor technically competitive to other tablets.


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## Subtle Demise (Mar 9, 2015)

People keep bringing up 3rd party support, but has Nintendo really had much after the snes? I believe they lost most of it during the n64 era when they stubbornly stuck with a cartridge based system, although the manufacturing costs of cartridges did prevent a lot of cheap crap from invading their system.


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## grossaffe (Mar 9, 2015)

Steena said:


> None of the nintendo "revolutionary new features" (or videogame industry's in general) have ever been essential. Nothing still beats a standard button configuration, nothing cannot be ported, and made better, on standard inputs.


Not true.


> Nothing requires 3D mode, nor justifies having half the rendered space (something actually useful in every single game) because of a fashion filter.


Nothing requires 1080p 60 FPS, either, but that doesn't mean it can't enhance the experience.



> Having the option to play your home console game without a TV does not justify slapping a standard $140 controller onto every system, that's something the few who ever make a use of it should buy as an extra.


Off-TV play is not the only feature of the tablet; it's actually quite a minor feature.


> Touch controls are inherently less reliable than quality buttons, and they are generally used because a system doesn't have enough buttons (which is a case of "offering an inferior solution to a problem you are responsible for in the first place", like selling exp boosters to skip the boring parts of your own game, instead of actually making your game engaging).


Touch controls and buttons can be used for very different things. In Okami, a button is not gonna control the celestial brush, but touch controls make perfect sense.


> Connecting your GBA to your gamecube for extra content was literally only marketing to encourage people to buy both systems, it's not a feature, that taken by itself, actually ever had a NEED to exist.


Except that the GBA did bring functionality that was otherwise impossible. In 4-swords adventure, it allowed players to go off into separate areas and be able to continue playing on their own screen. In Pacman Vs., it allowed for asymmetric gameplay (as we have seen a lot more of with the Wii U with Nintendoland) where three players control ghosts with a limited view of the map on the TV while another plays as Pacman on the GBA with a full view of the map as if they were playing the arcade game. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory added the ability to monitor your sticky cams from the GBA while you continued playing on the 'cube. These all brought added value you would not get without the connectivity.



> Perhaps when we will have motion controls with auto-adjusting, real-time force feedback, dynamic weight emulation and insane amounts of tracking precision, then motion controls will qualify as something that could have THE POTENTIAL to not be a gimmick, something that would become more impractical to navigate with standard controls. And that would also require a complexity in hitboxes/collisions that's beyond anything that's ever been done in a real game, so the games themselves would also need to take it up several notches. So even if we ever had the appropriate tech I doubt we would ever have a single developer with such a strong "quality before everything" philosophy to make use of it (assuming modern developer standards, which is "ship an okayish, rushed game so you can get onto the new okayish game because it's more efficient for us this way").


Skyward Sword's motion controls proved to be not a gimmick. The 1:1 sword play was excellent, and motion controls for aiming and shooting a bow and arrow was precise and immersive. I'll gladly state that them forcing motion controls into Twilight Princess was gimmicky as the game was built around button-based controls and then they tacked on the motion controls with the release of the Wii, but Skyward Sword was built from the ground up around the motion controls and pulled it off brilliantly.



> So, I think that overall it's pretty fair to call them "gimmicks", or why people in general have a habit of calling any new feature a "gimmick". It's because they have historically been optional, useless or detrimental. I'd be more than welcome to be proven wrong by a manufacturer.


As Veho said, it's only a gimmick if you personally don't like it. Apparently you don't like any of what Nintendo's done (though I am curious as to how much you've actually used these things you label as gimmicks)


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## Clydefrosch (Mar 9, 2015)

thorasgar said:


> After a couple of lean years we were able to buy our boys a WII U and a new 55" HDTV this Christmas. They had been begging and begging and begging. An Aunt bought them some Game stop gift cards and Rainbow Curse was it, took them on release day and they were so proud with their first purchase they mad on their own by pooling the cards.
> 
> After about 20 minutes of game play the screams started waffling up from the basement. "stop!, Stop!, No fair! I quit!" I roll my eyes and go investigate and discover being a second player kind of sucks and is really boring. Furthermore I am watching my 9 year old staring at the Gamepad the whole time. Looks beautiful up on that big screen, look over his shoulder and see this old crappy SD display his eyes are glued on. "Look at big gorgeous screen you have there, it looks great", "I can't Dad!" " What? Why not?" "I just can't, it doesn't work that way". OK, I think, "Maybe we should have purchased the 3DS version, I bet it would look even better on the new super stable 3D. "Dad, are you stupid? They don't make it for the DS!"
> 
> I look at him and then back up at that big screen and start wondering WTF did I buy?


 
so you buy a pad heavy game and are outraged about it using mainly the pad? and that theres not much to do for the second player in kirbys rainbow course?
buy them mario kart or super mario 3d world then


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## Social_Outlaw (Mar 9, 2015)

With all that happened with the Sony online hack, Cell processor, and Microsoft YLOD, What would be the fate of Nintendo if they ever got out of this hole? For one company, they got out of the hole quick, while the other took some time to get the money back. If Nintendo were to ever get out this hole, It would take a few years (Possibly longer than Sony) just because Nintendo isn't mainstream with their ideas. For once, they didn't promote the "Hey, we got everything you need this year" Idea like the other two, which makes it hard as hell to fix. For the second reason, we know Nintendo isn't leaving their fans back, and I know they don't want to make mature games. It's clash after clash with Nintendo, yeah sure make all this money, but stay in the past, and we'll see what happens. I don't even think is it to late for Nintendo is the question, It's more like is Nintendo Benjamin Button? Nintendo stay going backwards.


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## Steena (Mar 10, 2015)

> Skyward Sword's motion controls proved to be not a gimmick. The 1:1 sword play was excellent,


1:1 swordplay? That's only what Link's animations showed you, actual hitboxes registered only in 3 angles (vertical, horizontal, 45°) because the Wii plus cannot infact handle "1:1 swordplay", not even close. The motion controls are so hilariously gimmicky to the point where fighting enemies become a puzzle game in itself where you have to use one of the three to damage them, and any other type of swing you make, will get approximated and registered into one of the aforementioned 3.
Also, I needed to do the quick re-calibration every single time I needed to use a pointer-based item after a sword fight (bow, etc), as the pointer would spazz into impossible directions, possibly getting messed up due to the previous motion mechanics. Which was in NO WAY immersive for me.
SS sword swinging does not infact need motion controls at all, you could have 3 swing buttons replacing the sword motion controls and the game would function exactly the same.


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## grossaffe (Mar 10, 2015)

Steena said:


> 1:1 swordplay? That's only what Link's animations showed you, actual hitboxes registered only in 3 angles (vertical, horizontal, 45°) because the Wii plus cannot infact handle "1:1 swordplay", not even close. The motion controls are so hilariously gimmicky to the point where fighting enemies become a puzzle game in itself where you have to use one of the three to damage them, and any other type of swing you make, will get approximated and registered into one of the aforementioned 3.
> Also, I needed to do the quick re-calibration every single time I needed to use a pointer-based item after a sword fight (bow, etc), as the pointer would spazz into impossible directions, possibly getting messed up due to the previous motion mechanics. Which was in NO WAY immersive for me.
> SS sword swinging does not infact need motion controls at all, you could have 3 swing buttons replacing the sword motion controls and the game would function exactly the same.


if by "3 angles", you mean "9 angles":  0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, 135 degrees, 180 degrees, 225 degrees, 270 degrees, 315 degrees, and forward thrust.  I don't know what kind of calibration issues you experienced after a fight, but the worst I ever had was that I just had to press a button to re-center the pointer.

You also conveniently left out all the games that made use of the gameboy connectivity and gamepad that I mentioned would have been impossible otherwise.


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## Steena (Mar 10, 2015)

grossaffe said:


> if by "3 angles", you mean "9 angles": 0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, 135 degrees, 180 degrees, 225 degrees, 270 degrees, 315 degrees, and forward thrust. I don't know what kind of calibration issues you experienced after a fight, but the worst I ever had was that I just had to press a button to re-center the pointer.
> 
> You also conveniently left out all the games that made use of the gameboy connectivity and gamepad that I mentioned would have been impossible otherwise.


I left out everything except the SS bit. Yes, the angles go in either direction, but this can (and already has, for decades) be assigned to a directional modifier. So if you press the hypothetical diagonal swing button, you either press left or right to determine the direction. Which, by the way, I doubt even matters in SS; I think everything in the game registers either swing entrypoint direction, so it sees 45° the exact same as 225° (talking about the real collisions here, not the fraudulent link animations). If, in some RARE cases, this matters and I forgot about it, you could use the directional input to combo the swing direction as mentioned anyway.

And yes, I had to use the re-calibration button+pointing the wiimote in the correct "reset" direction, except I had to use it every time I used items after any sword swing. Which was damn frequently, so it ended up doing more harm than good. If I were given the option to manually aim, I'd have taken it. The non-sword related everything in SS was forced down your throat as far as motion controls went. The game reportedly had wild calibration issues for different users; having the nifty auto-calibration feature is not good enough when you have to do that thing every 10 seconds anyway.

As for the other games you mentioned:
- four sword didn't ALLOW you to go into different zones thanks to the gba connectivity. The developers arbitrarily imposed the limitation that the main screen would not be dynamically split. They made it a "mandatory feature" by their own choice.
- I played Chaos Theory on PC, so I don't know exactly how the cam implementation worked, all I'm reading is reports that the port of the game is overall worse (for reasons other than the gba connectivity), and the information on the GBA is frustrating to read, making it pointless. I don't believe I missed the best version of the game, but I never tried it myself.
- The pac-man example is valid, even though I don't know about the game itself, your description looks like it actually has a reason to use the feature. How many games have competitive asimmetry like that on the GC, though? Just that one? That being said, this is still different than the WiiU case; my main complaint on the WiiU front is that the gamepad was included as the default controller, not that these features exist. The GBA connectivity is an external purchase, like it should be. You rarely would use it, and so it makes sense to not include it into the GC package. Imagine if the GameCube included a GBA+cable because a few games used the feature in a smart way (adding to the price accordingly). And imagine if that bundle was the only option to buy the gamecube. Would you say it'd have been more or less beneficial to nintendo? I say the latter.
- I've played Okami on the PS2 only. Every single person I heard from who played both versions, said that the Wii controls is just another configuration for the game, it doesn't add neither detract anything. They are just there because the Wii did not have a proper controller (by default), so the port HAD to be different.

As for the WiiU gamepad:
It has the second display, which has been deemed "generally" detrimental by the general public, because watching two screens at once that are far apart is frustrating to people (as opposed to the jointed DS/3DS screens), or, like in recent examples, it takes you away from the more beautiful 1080p display on the TV (kirby).
It has touch controls, which I only view as a flavor gimmick that gets implemented just because they are there; I am convinced every game that gets designed today can do away with the touch controls and do something else for the same effect. The only exceptions would be games that completely revolve around them, like say, trauma center. Where are those games? All I've played on the system is optional menu-clicking or minor assist mechanics (rayman) that aren't core to the experience in the first place. I haven't played one WiiU game whose touch controls were actually required. Kirby is universally considered a game that would have been better off on the 3DS, otherwise that would have counted.
It has Amiibo-related tech inside. Well, that one is probably the most useless feature of them all so far; it will never do anything of value to the games themselves, except being figurine-buying bait. Anything that comes from a figurine, could come from the base game itself in the first place, it's just an excuse to make people buy the figurines. Don't care, this is objectively a gimmick.

Anything the WiiU gamepad can do that I am missing? Other than the low-quality yellowish screen, the fact that you cannot recharge it by plugging it on the console for some ungodly reason, and the 3 hours battery life (the deadly combo, these last two), all it does is sucking additional power from the main system (which itself is slightly underpowered), and this is why I think will never be properly exploited with most titles. Also, again, it pumped up the price of the system for optional/secondary features.



> Nothing requires 1080p 60 FPS, either, but that doesn't mean it can't enhance the experience.


Anything can enhance the experience, but whereas 3D is entirely optional and does not directly affect how games are designed, system specs do, and it's always a direct improvement having every game running at 60fps against 30. Any game, even a turn based RPG. Any game directly benefits from better stability. You don't "optionally" turn off a higher fps count or higher internal resolution, it's something you'd always want if you had access to it. People do turn off 3D, therefore, it's less useful and effecient to improve the quality of games. The problem is that everything costs money to implement, and so it's just more efficient to have better specs over a visual filter. That doesn't mean the 3D is USELESS, just that it's nowhere as useful as what the 3DS could have had instead.
Also, the 3DS specs (mostly the resolution) forced a lot of its titles to adopt "chibi" visuals. This is evident with the port/remake of atelier, for example. (It's not a matter of them being better or worse aesthetics, it's about being pressured to use a specific style because the system is too underpowered to render anything else as effectively, which ultimately brings less to the table in terms of variety)



> Not true.


I believe it's actually true; anything out up until now could be changed to fit another existing control scheme and maintain the core experience intact. The fact that developers worked on limited control schemes doesn't retroactively make a game "require" the related feature in terms of enhancing gameplay - it just means the devs had no other choice but only include that one control scheme. The first time this would not be the case is proably VR, we'll see how that one develops.


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## grossaffe (Mar 10, 2015)

Steena said:


> I left out everything except the SS bit. Yes, the angles go in either direction, but this can (and already has, for decades) be assigned to a directional modifier. So if you press the hypothetical diagonal swing button, you either press left or right to determine the direction. Which, by the way, I doubt even matters in SS; I think everything in the game registers either swing entrypoint direction, so it sees 45° the exact same as 225° (talking about the real collisions here, not the fraudulent link animations). If, in some RARE cases, this matters and I forgot about it, you could use the directional input to combo the swing direction as mentioned anyway.


It depended on the enemy you were fighting. The Stalfos would defend entry points, so when it was defending at the top and the right, a vertical swing from bottom to top or a horizontal swing from left to right would hit, but a vertical swing top to bottom or horizontal swing right to left would be blocked. Every angle was unique, but that is not to say there weren't many hitboxes that cared not about the entry point.



> And yes, I had to use the re-calibration button+pointing the wiimote in the correct "reset" direction, except I had to use it every time I used items after any sword swing. Which was damn frequently, so it ended up doing more harm than good. If I were given the option to manually aim, I'd have taken it. The non-sword related everything in SS was forced down your throat as far as motion controls went. The game reportedly had wild calibration issues for different users; having the nifty auto-calibration feature is not good enough when you have to do that thing every 10 seconds anyway.


I have heard that some people experienced worse calibration issues than others. I'm curious what controller you were using. Was it a Wiimote+, a Wiimote with Motion+, or was it 3rd party? I used the official Skyward Sword controller and, as I mentioned, it worked pretty flawlessly for me.



> As for the other games you mentioned:
> - four sword didn't ALLOW you to go into different zones thanks to the gba connectivity. The developers arbitrarily imposed the limitation that the main screen would not be dynamically split. They made it a "mandatory feature" by their own choice.


Yes, I suppose split-screen could have been done.


> - I played Chaos Theory on PC, so I don't know exactly how the cam implementation worked, all I'm reading is reports that the port of the game is overall worse (for reasons other than the gba connectivity), and the information on the GBA is frustrating to read, making it pointless. I don't believe I missed the best version of the game, but I never tried it myself.


I believe the PC and XBOX versions were a little bit different from the Gamecube/PS2 versions, although they were mostly the same. I will say the frame-rate for the sticky cam on the GBA was pretty low, but it was still a really neat feature that I'm glad I had available to me as it could really help making 100% runs on levels to see what's on the cam while you slink around. I imagine it could've been incredible with the Wii U's gamepad.


> - The pac-man example is valid, even though I don't know about the game itself, your description looks like it actually has a reason to use the feature. How many games have competitive asimmetry like that on the GC, though? Just that one? That being said, this is still different than the WiiU case; my main complaint on the WiiU front is that the gamepad was included as the default controller, not that these features exist. The GBA connectivity is an external purchase, like it should be. You rarely would use it, and so it makes sense to not include it into the GC package. Imagine if the GameCube included a GBA+cable because a few games used the feature in a smart way (adding to the price accordingly). And imagine if that bundle was the only option to buy the gamecube. Would you say it'd have been more or less beneficial to nintendo? I say the latter.


The GBA connectivity was very primitive compared to the gamepad and there was much less possible for it. Consider it to be an early test of concepts later brought to full realization with the gamepad.  Combined with the fact that developers had no guarantee that Gamecube owners were also GBA owners and GC<->GBA connectivity cable owners, there's not going to be much development for it. It was important that the Wii U include the gamepad because that was an integral part of their vision for the system, and it is a guarantee to developers that every Wii U owner has the gamepad and they can develop their games safe in that knowledge. As a result, the Wii U has more of these games with the concept of asymmetric gameplay, as well as games making use of a secondary screen.


> - I've played Okami on the PS2 only. Every single person I heard from who played both versions, said that the Wii controls is just another configuration for the game, it doesn't add neither detract anything. They are just there because the Wii did not have a proper controller (by default), so the port HAD to be different.


I won't lie, I had my own disagreements with the Wii's controls for Okami. The problem I had was that they shoe-horned in waggle controls for combat much in the same way it was done for Twilight Princess. But when it comes to the Celestial Brush, I can't imagine how anyone would prefer a joystick over IR or touchscreen controls.



> As for the WiiU gamepad:
> It has the second display, which has been deemed "generally" detrimental by the general public, because watching two screens at once that are far apart is frustrating to people (as opposed to the jointed DS/3DS screens), or, like in recent examples, it takes you away from the more beautiful 1080p display on the TV (kirby).
> It has touch controls, which I only view as a flavor gimmick that gets implemented just because they are there; I am convinced every game that gets designed today can do away with the touch controls and do something else for the same effect. The only exceptions would be games that completely revolve around them, like say, trauma center. Where are those games? All I've played on the system is optional menu-clicking or minor assist mechanics (rayman) that aren't core to the experience in the first place. I haven't played one WiiU game whose touch controls were actually required. Kirby is universally considered a game that would have been better off on the 3DS, otherwise that would have counted.


I have not played the new Kirby, but I can certainly see where the complaint comes from.  I can see building a game around touch controls for the Wii U not being the best idea, but I think they can add nicely as a secondary thing if something like Okami were to come along, or to create waypoints on a map, select an item without a pause menu, and various other secondary tasks.  It could also be useful in more of a touchpad kind of way with swiping motions where you are not required to focus on the screen itself.


> It has Amiibo-related tech inside. Well, that one is probably the most useless feature of them all so far; it will never do anything of value to the games themselves, except being figurine-buying bait. Anything that comes from a figurine, could come from the base game itself in the first place, it's just an excuse to make people buy the figurines. Don't care, this is objectively a gimmick.


Yeah, amiibos are a bit of a gimmick, but I can't lie, I like 'em.  I'm a bit of a whore for some collectibles. 



> Anything the WiiU gamepad can do that I am missing? Other than the low-quality yellowish screen, the fact that you cannot recharge it by plugging it on the console for some ungodly reason, and the 3 hours battery life (the deadly combo, these last two), all it does is sucking additional power from the main system (which itself is slightly underpowered), and this is why I think will never be properly exploited with most titles. Also, again, it pumped up the price of the system for optional/secondary features.


It also has built-in motion and position tracking.  Combined with the screen on the controller, it allows you to look around in 3D space.  Star Fox will be making use of this feature having the TV display a 3rd person camera while the gamepad will be a cockpit view that allows you to look around.



> Anything can enhance the experience, but whereas 3D is entirely optional and does not directly affect how games are designed, system specs do, and it's always a direct improvement having every game running at 60fps against 30. Any game, even a turn based RPG. Any game directly benefits from better stability. You don't "optionally" turn off a higher fps count or higher internal resolution, it's something you'd always want if you had access to it. People do turn off 3D, therefore, it's less useful and effecient to improve the quality of games. The problem is that everything costs money to implement, and so it's just more efficient to have better specs over a visual filter. That doesn't mean the 3D is USELESS, just that it's nowhere as useful as what the 3DS could have had instead.


Yes, games do benefit from stability.  Why do they not benefit from having true stereoscopic depth so you can place in-game objects in a 3D space as you would in the real world?


> Also, the 3DS specs (mostly the resolution) forced a lot of its titles to adopt "chibi" visuals. This is evident with the port/remake of atelier, for example. (It's not a matter of them being better or worse aesthetics, it's about being pressured to use a specific style because the system is too underpowered to render anything else as effectively, which ultimately brings less to the table in terms of variety)


I don't see how chibi visuals are forced by the hardware.  Monster Hunter 4 seemed to manage just fine without going Chibi (although I now kinda want to see what that would look like)



> I believe it's actually true; anything out up until now could be changed to fit another existing control scheme and maintain the core experience intact. The fact that developers worked on limited control schemes doesn't retroactively make a game "require" the related feature in terms of enhancing gameplay - it just means the devs had no other choice but only include that one control scheme. The first time this would not be the case is proably VR, we'll see how that one develops.


There is no way that Skyward Sword would maintain it's core experience without the motion controls.  They may be able to cobble something together to make it playable, but the experience greatly altered and lose its primary appeal.  Wii bowling with a regular controller?  I think not.  Nintendoland without the gamepad?  Not happening.


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## Deleted User (Mar 11, 2015)

As I said in another thread. Nintendo apparently saw the lack of success of the N64 and GameCube as a failure, so with the Wii they decided to take a different direction (no I'm not referring to the motion controls, I seem to be part of a minority who wish for more/better Wii Remote implimentation).
The Wii, which came out around a time when Project 64 and YouTube were hitting the mainstream, was a lot more successful but as a Wii owner myself, I was disappointed that the games were substantially worse than the GameCube games I watched on YouTube and N64 games I played on emulator.

Now the Wii U is continuing the Wii's style of games and it is not selling as well. While people are demanding digital N64 and GC releases and even complaining about the digital Wii releases.
I was an early adopter of the Wii U as pre release info said Nintendo would be trying to recapture it's core audience, sadly they are still only targeting the same audience they targeted with the Wii. Myself and other Wii U owners find ourselves using the Wii U almost exclusively to bitch about the current state of gaming on Miiverse.

It is apparent that I'm not the only one who bought a Wii after seeing how terrific it's predecessors were and then being disappointed with Nintendo's change of direction on the Wii.

Meanwhile, instead of listening to fan demand, Iwata and Miyamoto are playing the blame game.

If today's social networks existed in the late 90s no doubt the N64 and GameCube would be a lot more successful as people would be more aware of them before the end of their life cycle.
Additionally, a lot of 3rd parties who neglect the Wii U do so because traditionally, Nintendo owners were few and only aware of the first party games. However, nowadays with Miiverse, every time a game comes out on a Nintendo system it gets a new Miiverse community and everyone becomes aware of it and new communities often stay on the front page of the communities list for at least a month. By ignoring this fact 3rd parties are missing a great opportunity to sell a game on a console where everyone is instantly aware of new releases and for a while.

Oh and don't get me started on how much thought goes into Oceania localization (hint: an imported US console works better in Oceania than an Australian console)


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## alphaomegacode (Mar 12, 2015)

Don't get me wrong, I love Nintendo and will buy every console they put out.  Hoping that the next one is as badass as the Super Nintendo.  However, I think I would rather just have them open up their entire catalog and give me one hell of an emulation machine.  Save everyone some time ; )   Oh, and let your purchases carry over to new systems without having to pay an additional charge.


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## Ericss (Mar 12, 2015)

So outdated Japanese practices and this board of executives are the reasons Nintendo has been living in the past ever since the N64 days? Well, damn.


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## Deleted User (Mar 12, 2015)

Ericss said:


> So outdated Japanese practices and this board of executives are the reasons Nintendo has been living in the past ever since the N64 days? Well, damn.


I wish the N64 days could come back. Nintendo made good things then.


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## Steena (Mar 12, 2015)

> I have heard that some people experienced worse calibration issues than others. I'm curious what controller you were using. Was it a Wiimote+, a Wiimote with Motion+, or was it 3rd party? I used the official Skyward Sword controller and, as I mentioned, it worked pretty flawlessly for me.


I had the old Wiimote coming with the system, purchased around 2007; I then bought the official Wii Motion Plus addon when SS came out.



> The GBA connectivity was very primitive compared to the gamepad and there was much less possible for it. Consider it to be an early test of concepts later brought to full realization with the gamepad. Combined with the fact that developers had no guarantee that Gamecube owners were also GBA owners and GC<->GBA connectivity cable owners, there's not going to be much development for it. It was important that the Wii U include the gamepad because that was an integral part of their vision for the system, and it is a guarantee to developers that every Wii U owner has the gamepad and they can develop their games safe in that knowledge.


But this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you make developers statistically more prone to design their games around a feature; on the other hand, you know the vast majority of third party devs won't still use them well, while the price goes up for everybody. I think the best compromise is still to have it optional, so only developers who GENUINELY had an amazing vision would implement it; perhaps make a bundle to include the accessory, like capcom did with MHtri back on the Wii.



> Yeah, amiibos are a bit of a gimmick, but I can't lie, I like 'em. I'm a bit of a whore for some collectibles


Ironically enough this looks like the most profitable part of the controller for nintendo, and I bet the majority doesn't even purchase them to use with the controller. Perhaps that is why it worked well in the first place.



> It also has built-in motion and position tracking. Combined with the screen on the controller, it allows you to look around in 3D space. Star Fox will be making use of this feature having the TV display a 3rd person camera while the gamepad will be a cockpit view that allows you to look around.


Oh, right, starfox. Perhaps the game will contribute to changing my view on the usefulness of the WiiU gimmicks.



> Yes, games do benefit from stability. Why do they not benefit from having true stereoscopic depth so you can place in-game objects in a 3D space as you would in the real world?


You mean like the puzzle that was sometimes used in 3D Land's special rooms, where activating the 3D would "reveal" that a platform of blocks is actually blocks placed at different heights? That's everything I've experienced on 3DS that "affected" game design, and even then, that situation itself was mostly visual because you could just check yourself by moving around without penalty. It was more of a 5 seconds "woah cool" moment, it didn't really impact gameplay at all. People said ALBW used smart 3D, but I never turned it on and breezed through the game without a single issue, so I believe that one also kept it visual. Perhaps 3D allows for amazing games, but it's not games we're seeing. Which is my general complaint with the gimmicks. You need developers exploiting them to the fullest for them to be impactful.

Also, 3D effectively doubles the amount of rendering. That is A HUGE tradeoff for just stereoscopic depth, no matter what system it's on. So unless you have a multitude of games revolving around it, I'll take rendering double the amount over it.



> I don't see how chibi visuals are forced by the hardware. Monster Hunter 4 seemed to manage just fine without going Chibi (although I now kinda want to see what that would look like)


MH on 3DS looks considerably worse than, say, fantasy life, despite the latter being dramatically less demanding on the graphical side of things. Chibi is an aesthetic that is more efficient when you have tiny space to work with, the same way giant-headed cartoonish characters was the preferred way to stylize things in the NES/SNES era. It worked better at delivering a stylized concept because there was no room for actual details. Visuals, too, are generally always influenced by hardware. People don't give hardware specs the credit they deserve - they actively determine many elements besides pure graphical prowess.




> There is no way that Skyward Sword would maintain it's core experience without the motion controls. They may be able to cobble something together to make it playable, but the experience greatly altered and lose its primary appeal. Wii bowling with a regular controller? I think not. Nintendoland without the gamepad? Not happening.


 
True about Wii sports and nintendoland, but I'd like to have dozens and dozens of titles like those, on a system that makes space for those features. Having a couple games that showcase them is not enough to justify designing your system around them, IMO.
As for SS, I don't agree at all. There are games with directional swings and hitboxes (severance, rune, dark messiah), in those you can even freely move while swinging, controlling both your positioning and your aim. You can easily dedicate 3-4 swing buttons for all the required "puzzle-like" enemies, and controlling every other pointing item with the standard analog. I don't think the core experience of SS is motion controlled swordfighting, because as I mentioned it was heavily approximated in the first place. Sure, it was cool being given the illusion to control your swings manually, up until you realized the game dilutes them into 4(times two, for the directions) valid swings total.
I think that, for what SS tried to deliver, you really need first-person view if you want to make a precise motion-controlled swordsman game. And then you also need to not approximate the swings at all. If you miss by one degree, you should miss by one degree (or have a different result than what you would have had otherwise). Otherwise what's the point.


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## Deleted User (Mar 13, 2015)

I absolutely will not play a rerelease of Skyward Sword if there was no Wii control option.
I'm also pretty disappointed by the lack of Wii Remote support on Wii U besides party games I don't care about and Nintendo Land (IMO the best Wii U game by a mile, unfortunately I need local humans to really enjoy the good parts).
I hope Star Fox U will have an option to fit a Wii Remote into a base and use it like a flightstick. I've been saying since the original Wii came out that this would be a great use for the Wii Remote. If Nintendo made such a peripheral then they would create a good market for flight sim games.
I actually hate Miyamoto's GamePad utilization for Star Fox U and I'm glad he announced later that it will be optional/ Hopefully the stupid helicopter idea will be dropped aswell otherwise there will be broken/no multiplayer.

Also, I don't see the problem with the Game Pad. It's just a pro controller with a screen so even if devs are forced to use it they could just ignore the screen and make it play like a pro controller exclusive. Nintendo has already done that with DKCTF.

As I said before, the only real issue for is not the hardware but the lack of quality software. Shooters (N64 shooters like PD in particular) would be amazing with Wii Remotes. It's a shame all we got was a crappy CoD port or 2, a crappy James Bond branded CoD clone, some Hudson Soft shooter (forgot the name) with a crappy campaign mode but had better controls than MP3 and deserved a multiplayer mode but unfortunately HS hates competitive shooters, Metroid Prime and Metroid Blast (MP and MB were amazing though, if only Nintendo Land had online play).
Pokémon gen 6 would also' greatly benefit from a new Pokémon Stadium sequel (and I mean actual Stadium where all the attack animations, sounds and commentary were epic and had good integration with the GameBoy games. Not that PBR crap with it's goofy announcer and weirdass thunderbolt and rocks looking like brown playdough wrapped in gladwrap)

We also need a new F-Zero game. Miyamoto claims the problem is he can't think of any innovative features for it. Didn't stop him making GX though did it?
And here's an idea, why not make a GTAish game where instead of playing a scumsucking lowlife you play as a custom created good guy (with a custom vehicle aswell) and fight scumsucking lowlifes alongside Captain Falcon (who will use his gun and actually be a bounty hunter like his bio for once) with a focus on GTA sandbox gameplay around Port Town, Mute City and other locations AND F-Zero racing. And have 32 player online races (really the only thing GX and X are lacking). I've always wanted to play a game like GTA but I'm put off by the protagonists and story in GTA and it's clones, if "Grand Theft Zero" were a thing I would finally get to enjoy a GTA clone and I'm sure it would attract many other GTA clone, F-Zero and Sci Fi fans.
It could also tie the F-Zero franchise into the Metroid franchise with the Galactic Federation making an appearance and a Samus cameo. (I believe the two franchises are highly compatible and by merging them it would give an insight on the non military aspects of the Metroid universe)


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## grossaffe (Mar 13, 2015)

Steena said:


> I had the old Wiimote coming with the system, purchased around 2007; I then bought the official Wii Motion Plus addon when SS came out.


I've read a number of people who say their original Wiimotes with a Motion Plus had more trouble with Skyward Sword in accuracy and had longer calibration times compared to the Wiimote+.




> But this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you make developers statistically more prone to design their games around a feature; on the other hand, you know the vast majority of third party devs won't still use them well, while the price goes up for everybody. I think the best compromise is still to have it optional, so only developers who GENUINELY had an amazing vision would implement it; perhaps make a bundle to include the accessory, like capcom did with MHtri back on the Wii.


Convincing developers to use your features is exactly the point.  Then developers will have the freedom to do what they think makes for the best game and not worry about the sales they'll lose because people don't have the necessary peripheral.  Also, the classic controller pro is really cheap to produce and doesn't add much cost to the game.  If Monster Hunter Tri came bundled with the Wii U gamepad that people otherwise did not own and the bundle cost $230, _nobody_ would buy it.  See: Steel Battalion




> You mean like the puzzle that was sometimes used in 3D Land's special rooms, where activating the 3D would "reveal" that a platform of blocks is actually blocks placed at different heights? That's everything I've experienced on 3DS that "affected" game design, and even then, that situation itself was mostly visual because you could just check yourself by moving around without penalty. It was more of a 5 seconds "woah cool" moment, it didn't really impact gameplay at all. People said ALBW used smart 3D, but I never turned it on and breezed through the game without a single issue, so I believe that one also kept it visual. Perhaps 3D allows for amazing games, but it's not games we're seeing. Which is my general complaint with the gimmicks. You need developers exploiting them to the fullest for them to be impactful.
> 
> Also, 3D effectively doubles the amount of rendering. That is A HUGE tradeoff for just stereoscopic depth, no matter what system it's on. So unless you have a multitude of games revolving around it, I'll take rendering double the amount over it.


No, I mean in that we see in stereoscopic 3D in the real world, and being able to look at a game world with your eyes and focus on true 3D objects adds to the immersion of the world you do not otherwise get.  Yes, stereoscopy has tradeoff, but that does not mean it brings nothing to the table.  Would you sacrifice one of your eyes if it meant that your remaining eye was sharper?



> MH on 3DS looks considerably worse than, say, fantasy life, despite the latter being dramatically less demanding on the graphical side of things. Chibi is an aesthetic that is more efficient when you have tiny space to work with, the same way giant-headed cartoonish characters was the preferred way to stylize things in the NES/SNES era. It worked better at delivering a stylized concept because there was no room for actual details. Visuals, too, are generally always influenced by hardware. People don't give hardware specs the credit they deserve - they actively determine many elements besides pure graphical prowess.


The trade-off between realism and stylistic beauty has always existed.  Yes, stylistic things can look better than realistic things on the same hardware, which is always true regardless of the hardware, and Monster Hunter shows that the more realistic approach can still be done if the developers wish it.  Besides, its a handheld!  Handhelds have never been about power.  Game and watch were as simple as they come.  Gameboy was far less powerful than the gamegear, but which one swept the market?  Sony tried to beat them out last generation by introducing the PSP, but again, the less powerful DS was the victor.  This generation you have the more powerful Vita versus the 3DS, but which one has the market?  It's been shown time and time again that power does not dominate the handheld market.




> As for SS, I don't agree at all. There are games with directional swings and hitboxes (severance, rune, dark messiah), in those you can even freely move while swinging, controlling both your positioning and your aim. You can easily dedicate 3-4 swing buttons for all the required "puzzle-like" enemies, and controlling every other pointing item with the standard analog. I don't think the core experience of SS is motion controlled swordfighting, because as I mentioned it was heavily approximated in the first place. Sure, it was cool being given the illusion to control your swings manually, up until you realized the game dilutes them into 4(times two, for the directions) valid swings total
> I think that, for what SS tried to deliver, you really need first-person view if you want to make a precise motion-controlled swordsman game. And then you also need to not approximate the swings at all. If you miss by one degree, you should miss by one degree (or have a different result than what you would have had otherwise). Otherwise what's the point.


Well this is all completely up to personal taste.  All I can say is that I vehemently disagree with you on this.  The immersion of the swordplay and archery was integral to the experience for me.


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## Blueie (Mar 13, 2015)

I'm not so sure you could say Iwata is blameless. He was the one who made the infamous "Our users don't want online" (or something like that) claim.


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## Sakitoshi (Mar 13, 2015)

Blueie said:


> I'm not so sure you could say Iwata is blameless. He was the one who made the infamous "Our users don't want online" (or something like that) claim.


 
Of course Iwata has some blame, but isn't the Hitler of Nintendo as everyone sees him. I think the people of the directory and investors of the company are the ones who say no to every idea of innovation, and Iwata can't do anything else he will have no investors to fund the projects.
Now, is the job of the mediator(Iwata in this case) to convince the directory and investors to throw money at the projects no matter what, and he is failing at that.


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## alphaomegacode (Mar 14, 2015)

As for the handhelds, I think Nintendo just knows how to make fun games.  Period.  I love my PSP and my Vita, but the games are just not as memorable as my Nintendo products.  Not a fanboy, just more nostalgia.


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