what i learned from NDS releases.

I agree to most of that, +1

- I have still yet to hear a satisfactory definition of casual and whatever else one of the various shades of game there might be. Still you can learn to ignore things- you probably do it already for film, TV and music.

- Have you ever tried learning Kanji?

- Might need to elaborate there. I agree they have some interesting ideas though.

- "own versions"- I take it you have not seen the joke that most reality shows the US gets are ideas pilfered from foreign TV stations?

- That is the fun of splitting your company up into divisions.

- Your point? See also the reply to 1)

- Everybody plays games- the trick as far as getting the companies are concerned is getting them to play more electronic games. I agree there are a great many "princess pretty pink rainbow pony" games but there are a bunch of less overt games not to mention games with dual appeal if indeed you can consider gender lines as a viable division when it comes to sales (Edward Bernays pretty much kicked that in the head decades ago).

-See concept known as return on investment

-See reply above

-I truly hate to use the term but "meh".

RIP Nintendo. 18something - 2004.

[quote name='superspudz2000' post='3611796' date='Apr 26 2011, 10:45 AM']-UK will continue to produce games for aging systems years after american executives have given up. chronos twin for example.[/quote]
bad example?
chronos twins is a 2007 DS game.
the 2 2010 releases are a wii and DSi port of that same DS game.

Most of this I agree with but your a bit off on most of your statements as well.

I agree with you.
I hate easy games and shovelware.

Just ignore the bad and stay off to the side in the 'good' section of the releases.

But I can agree with you that the Imagine series is quite bad. The only reason it sells at all is because parents go to Walmart to get their little girl a Nintendo DS game and think that a game where you pretend to be a doctor or a babysitter is a perfect game. Nowadays, I think there should be some sort of website for parents that reviews games in terms of fun and playability (for those rare cases when a game is extremely bad and not worth it or there's a chance the kid won't like it).

Now, with shovelware, there are a rare few that I'll actually like, in contrast to the horrible rain of random haters. Case in point being the Rabbids ports (at least the minigame ones. Not that Incredible Machine one) or Solitaire Overload Plus, both for the DS. I love those games. Most don't. So I consider trying shovelware games too, no matter how much hate they get. Only until I see gameplay videos will I choose whether or not to try them.

Wow, I think I may have gotten horribly off track.

-sigh- This was the very same rant I did the other day...I shit you not I was sitting on my boyfriend's laptop ranting my ass off about how the video game market has gone to hell. As well as being a Nintendo fan of America, we get the shit end of the stick when it comes down to Wii games.

I'm not sure if most of the comments are really fair but let's look at a few of them.

- There being French only games is not surprising. Ubisoft is a huge publisher and thus can afford to fund these types of games. Considering many US TV shows are rip offs of UK/Japanese TV shows I'm not really seeing the point there.

- The education space is pretty big outside of America. There are lots of Educational games even in the European market. America seems to be the outlier here. Could be because the culture of its population not commuting via train as much as in other countries that plays into this.

- There are lots of games that are American only as well. Games such as Retro Game Challenge (which itself is based on an obscure TV show) are made in the Japanese market, then are assessed as to whether a translation is worth it. It's obvious the 1st one did not sell well enough to warrant a translation. This has been echoed in the current state of Ace Attorney 2 not being scheduled for translation. It's a money issue for what amounts to not enough sales in the American market.

- NDS games are relatively cheap to develop for, compared to say the PS3/X360/Wii. Thus despite your thoughts of 'who buys Imagine' or some other series, they don't need to sell as many games to be profitable. Just as long as enough are sold then it's worth continuing to produce as long as production costs are low.

- Movie tie-ins are made as part of a broader marketing scheme. Remember games are REALLY CHEAP to make compared to most movies. To the production company, the game is basically a really cheap marketing tool for other profitable enterprises (dvd sales, toys, etc). If I make an NDS game for say 2-3 million, spend 1 million on marketing, that's actually cheaper than the marketing campign for most AAA movies anyways. This is why movie tie-ins are made. A game company has to assess whether the sales of the game, plus marketing costs are worth it. If it's not, then they can't release it.

- Not sure what's your last point is about. Every platform has it's easy games, and it's brutal ones(Ninja Gaiden, Demon Souls, etc). This isn't a 'Nintendo' problem.

Did you say RETRO GAME CHALLENGE 2 ? Where ? When ? Has it been dumped ? I totally missed it, maybe it has a Japanese name ? Which one ? Please help, I really liked the first one, I'd like to play the second, even in Japanese !

EDIT

Found it :

Game Center CX: Arino no Chousenjou 2

I totally missed it, I had no idea of the Japanese name......sorry gotta go now !
Cheers

[quote name='Arm73' post='3612419' date='Apr 26 2011, 12:06 PM']Did you say RETRO GAME CHALLENGE 2 ? Where ? When ? Has it been dumped ? I totally missed it, maybe it has a Japanese name ? Which one ? Please help, I really liked the first one, I'd like to play the second, even in Japanese ![/quote]

http://gbatemp.net/t137074-ds-3431-game-ce...usenjou-2-japan?

It was dumped a long time ago. I think there are some fan translation patches avaialble too.

http://rgc2.overfold.net/index.html

Though nothing seems to have come out of it just yet.

[quote name='FAST6191' post='3611902' date='Apr 26 2011, 11:31 AM']- I have still yet to hear a satisfactory definition of casual and whatever else one of the various shades of game there might be.[/quote]

I've started playing Angry Birds recently, something which is almost seen as the Holy Grail of casual gaming and it utterly uqibuitous in terms of being played on the bus by non-gamers. What struck me was that it feels very much like the kind of game that might have been a hit on the Amiga along with games like Lemmings. Seems strange to hear people going on about the 'good old days' when many modern games which are scorned as being casual often seem to have more in common with classic gaming from 80s and 90s bedrooms than new, trendy gaming in today's family living rooms.

Square has bothered me since they changed japans FinalFantasy 5 to usa FinalFantasy 3 on SNES, and then changed it again for the remakes.

1. DQM:Joker is horribly censored, you cant even name a monster frog or hun ter, or poo

2. SaGa series remains un-localized. along with DQM:joker 2, blood of Bahamut, Front Mission 2089, shiren the wanderer 2. but those gay ass mickey mouse rpgs keep coming.


also, i dont buy the excuse that "the first game dident sell enough in USA".
in my local Walmart, Retro Game Challenge sold out in a few weeks!. i checked 2 more walmarts in another city and they were sold out of RGC as well. What, did everybody just return them??

your telling me they cannot even make enough money to hire a programmer and a translator and pay their meager salary? People are translating games for FREE, in their spare time! its costs like 50cents to pump out a cartridge and they sell it for freakin $40, how much profit do they need?

Seriously, there are still people ranting and ranting and ranting and ranting and... Ok, I'll stop now...


[quote name='superspudz2000' post='3611796' date='Apr 26 2011, 04:45 PM']-Casual gamers have ruined the gaming industry. how many bubble pop/jewel break games does there need to exist?
You know humans are given this choice called "flippin' ignore it whiner". Oh, and don't go all "I'm a hardcore gamer" on me, coz you ain't. I think I said this before: so-called "hardcore" gamers are self-important immature assholes who think the games they play are better than everyone else's. You ain't "harcdore" unless you're a pro, k?

-japan has an obscene amount of Educational games. every second release is math training/kanji training. what are they planning?
Uh-huh... Right... You do know that in the history of human civilization, toys and games have always been made to help teach kids (and the random idiot or two) right? I mean, I'm sure some of our tempers remember having those little blocks with shapes and shit among a plethora of other educational toys. It just so happened that they're modernized now. What's so wrong with learning a little?

-Square Enix are astards
What? Huh???

-there are a crazy amount of Japan only RPGs. even series that had a GBA release remain untranslated commercially on DS. why Retro Game Challenge 2 remains untranslated is a mystery to me.
Boo-freakin-hoo. Ain't you the only one who wants to play them games... Well, tell you what, it's their games, it's their decision, sad for us.

-France culture is odd. there are almost as many french only games as there are Japanese games now. its like they live in a bubble, completely rejecting hollywood. they even have their own versions of survivor, amazing race, & cash cab games while America has no such games.
Oh, and american/Canadian culture doesn't have it's odd quirks here and there. They're unique, get over it.

-UK will continue to produce games for aging systems years after american executives have given up. chronos twin for example.
Again: Their games, their decision. Ignore it if you want, but stop whining.


-Nintendo of America will Green light Anything. for every 1 good DS game there has to be 20 Crappy games.
Well, complain to them, not us. Goodness knows the forum's full of whining noobs already.

-Girls play games? when did this happen? my 4 sisters refused to play NES, SNES or N64 games back when. now every second game is marketed towards girls. do women really like "princess pretty pink rainbow pony" type games. dont they insult their intelligence? its like executives have no idea what girls would like, so they just pump out every stereotypical nonsence they can think of.
Some do, some don't. Personally, I would pity your sisters, kinda hard to play "princessy" games with a dude who screams out at "casual" games breathing down their necks.

-who the hell keeps buying the "IMAGINE" series games. "imagine dentist", "imagine librarian", "imagine accountant", Good grief!
Yeah, they're crap, but then again, so what? A lot of crappier things I've seen have been trying to make it look like they're better than the packaging suggests. Stop whining about it.

-the only ones dumber than kids are parents. the amount of inane garbage that are marketed towards kids is staggering. a Movie tie-in will sell millions, but they wont release an RPG because its too risky.
I thought this was about parents? What do parents have to do with which RPG gets released?

-the old adage "nintendo hard" from the NES days has been replaced with "Nintendo annoyance", as DS games are either childishly easy and short, or "throw at a wall" impossible.
LOL, I've never seen a DS game that was impossible. Different people play games differently, in case you don't know that. Just coz you don't like how hard or easy a game is doesn't mean we care.
[/quote]


So in the end, my point is: can people stop whining already? It doesn't do anyone any good, and Tempers have better things to do, anyway (except me, LOL).

[quote name='superspudz2000' post='3611796' date='Apr 26 2011, 10:45 AM']-Girls play games? when did this happen?[/quote]
That pretty much cancels your whole post.

[quote name='superspudz2000' post='3611796' date='Apr 26 2011, 03:45 AM']-Girls play games? when did this happen? my 4 sisters refused to play NES, SNES or N64 games back when. now every second game is marketed towards girls. do women really like "princess pretty pink rainbow pony" type games. dont they insult their intelligence? its like executives have no idea what girls would like, so they just pump out every stereotypical nonsence they can think of.[/quote]

Really? because I have a girlfriend who apparently is a man (which she is not, for those who can't detect sarcasm) because girls don't play games, right?

You know when I was working at Gamestop plenty of girls came in to buy themselves games? Maybe you should get with the times. My girlfriend apparently beat Super Mario 64 back in the day before I did. >_>

[quote name='superspudz2000' post='3611796' date='Apr 26 2011, 03:45 AM']-Girls play games? when did this happen? my 4 sisters refused to play NES, SNES or N64 games back when. now every second game is marketed towards girls. do women really like "princess pretty pink rainbow pony" type games. dont they insult their intelligence? its like executives have no idea what girls would like, so they just pump out every stereotypical nonsence they can think of.[/quote]

The first part of this sounds really sexist. Actually, there are a lot of girl gamers out there. I'm one of them, and most of my friends are also female gamers. I grew up playing SNES and N64 as well as PS1, PS2, Gamecube, GBC, GBA, etc. Personally I never liked the stereotypical girly sort of game (and neither did any of my friends), but those are very obviously aimed at young girls that don't typically play video games. Just because your sisters didn't play video games doesn't mean that all girls don't.

I find it funny that people think that what they call 'casual gaming' is a new concept.
Clearly you never played Arcade games, or Tetris or Bust a Move or something like that.

[quote name='twiztidsinz' post='3614402' date='Apr 27 2011, 01:20 PM']I find it funny that people think that what they call 'casual gaming' is a new concept.
Clearly you never played Arcade games, or Tetris or Bust a Move or something like that.[/quote]

So true. I don't where people think these genres "sprang up" recently.

I guess they just aren't real old school gamers.

I'd imagine the people who moan about things like gem matching or diner dash games being a new and casual concept were still in their dad's scrotum when I was playing Columns, Klax and Tapper in seedy seafront arcades.