Are Nintendo Holding to Their Ideals Too Strongly?

[Spirit]

Perhaps this thread is an oxymoron, Nintendo are Japanese, they're disciplined so of course they'd hold fast to their ideals regardless...

But is their stance to create new and interesting gameplay experiences beginning to become a hindrance to their progress?

In my eyes it seems that Nintendo have a 'progress be damned' notion to go with their ideals and seem to be now intentionally ignoring gamers' demands.

Most gamers want huge games that look and play great, not games they've seen before that they can play differently with in game mechanics or hardware gimmicks or both. This has been apparent in Zelda for a long time, ever since hardware started playing a larger role in the game making progress (SS's M+, WW's Tingle Tuner, DS's touch control etc) and now it has spread to mario on the wiiU with his new game being little more than a sequel to his 3DS game with added multiplayer and gamepad functions in the name of 'new experiences' rather than a wholly new game.

So what are your thoughts on this, are nintendo's ideals beginning to get in their way of true progression in gaming?

 

[Salem]

That depends by what do you mean by "progression"

 

[Spirit]

That depends by what do you mean by "progression"

Woops, looks like i stumbled upon an unanswerable gaming theology question, hah good luck everyone.

 

[Kaynil]

That's the thing it is all opinions really.

For me Nintendo is doing all right. I think they are smart and they do take gamers more in account that what we give them credit for. Also, the fact that they keep certain consistency is very important in gaming, even if we at times wished to see bolder moves we are quick to forget that tWW was a bold move in its time and so SS a few years ago. Mario galaxy was a bold move too, yet each of them no doubt were carefully studied before going through it and have been all but flops. They know their territory.

When I think Mario, Zelda etc I know more or less what to expect and that is great. Even if slowly the franchise has been growing and overall i am happy with the direction it is taking.
The new 3DS Zelda is a great wink to the older Zelda fans.

 

[Ventus]

The only thing I have a problem with really is their Zelda stuff. in Zelda, they focus a lot less on progression and more on innovation. Innovation is all well and good...but only when it truly needs to come along. If we're just playing FPSes all day, then yes I'd love to see a JRPG. However, we've been playing buttons for years - no one really asked for touch screen controls or motion. Now, silly innovation could easily be forgiven if the experiences felt right and had some real advancement going on, but with Zelda we get what's effectively the same game but merely changed HOW we play it. That isn't wortwhile imo. In that respect, Nintendo is holding too fast to their ideals...but that doesn't mean a thing because Zelda still sells decently and it is a niche fanqurl complaining about one or two games.

On another topic, in the OP it said something about huge games and great graphics or whatever...but the Wii evidenced that Nintendo simply doesn't care. ;p Now huge games are great - and I argue we should be getting huge games for that $60USD price tag - but great graphics don't matter. It's all about style for Nintendo and style really can alleviate a game's not having the best graphix ever. And really, I'm sick of people talking about new engines and physics; Battlefield 4 is just another generic shooter with nice graphics. It's ****e really and I'm tired of that kinda stuff. :I

 

[DarkestLink]

Well think of it this way, if Nintendo didn't have standards and ideals, what would stop them from being just as greedy and money grubbing as the others?

 

[Hanyou]

To be completely honest, I don't entirely understand the topic. Are you saying the gameplay experiences are too different, or not different enough?

Nintendo's often chided by gamers for being too gimmicky or "rehashing," but these words mean nothing. I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, and I think, point for point, if you stack up the most important things about the gameplay experiences of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, they come out looking pretty similar. Nintendo has a number of franchises that only see one or two releases per console, so their studios don't rehash more than any other developer.

As for "gimmicks," while gamers may still think of the Wii remote as one, how many still say that about the DS? If anything, the DS was ahead of its time, and the Wii U has followed suit with a very similar idea.

I also like that they let developers pretty much do what they want. I had hoped Retro was working on Starfox, so I was a bit disappointed when I heard they were making another Donkey Kong Country Returns game...until I heard that they wanted to work on it. I think Nintendo does what it wants because simply delivering what gamers want isn't always the best thing. Twilight Princess--their most transparent pandering yet--was exceptionally weak, while The Wind Waker, which was developed with their interests in mind. That's one of the best examples I can think of, but even if you disagree with the relative quality of those games, you have to agree that Nintendo wouldn't be what it is, and probably wouldn't have made so many great leaps, without doing its own thing.

Nintendo is fine.

Well think of it this way, if Nintendo didn't have standards and ideals, what would stop them from being just as greedy and money grubbing as the others?

They are just as greedy and money grubbing as the others, it's just that (fortunately, for Nintendo fans like me), they've found a business model that works and a market that's responsive.