Shower Thoughts About Nintendo's Paradigm Shift

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.

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 :rolleyes:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hahaha

I dont think anyone is too old to play videogames!

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.

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.

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".*

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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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