Do You Like Nintendo's Recent Actions?

[Ganondork]

This is a self-explanatory thread; do you like the recent actions that Nintendo has done? There are a number of things that I don't particularly like about what Nintendo has been doing lately, and I feel myself almost hoping that Nintendo will fail with the Wii U. I in some ways feel that Nintendo has had its time in the limelight, and it's time for a new company to make a console.

My first gripe would be the remakes. It was fine when they made Ocarina of Time 3D, but since then, it's been remake after remake. I find it ridiculous that New Super Mario Bros. U is getting copious amounts of attention, when it's a remake of countless remakes already.

The fact that Nintendo thinks they can get away with that is terrible. People criticize Microsoft and Sony for doing anything to make money, but look at Nintendo. These aren't original ideas. They're just putting better graphics into the game and trying to fix the mistakes they made in the previous installment.

Let's continue on to the ridiculously weak launch of the Wii U. Aside from New Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U, the only games I know that are going to be released on the Wii U this year are Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, and Assassin's Creed III. Only two of those games has not been out on other consoles for weeks now.

Then you have Nintendo's terrible record with third-parties. Nintendo had done with the Wii exactly what Japan did earlier in history; cut off connections with outside countries - gaming companies in this case - and killed off the ones that were there. How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly. If they don't fix this with the Wii U, I may just get an emulator for the Wii U to play Zelda U.

So what do you think about Nintendo's actions and decisions?

 

[Azure Sage]

I honestly don't really know what to think of their recent actions. I haven't been paying attention to them very much. I'm not a gamer; I'm a Zelda fan. Therefore, the only thing involving Nintendo that I'm going to pay attention to is Zelda. The only reason I plan to buy a Wii U is so I can get Zelda Wii U. With that in mind, I can't really say I have a right to have an opinion on their actions because I don't really care. To be honest, I don't really care what Nintendo does, as long as I get to play Zelda. I guess that's a little selfish of me, though. But I really don't care about the Wii U's line up or the amount of remakes. Just as long as I get the Zelda games, I'll be happy.

 

[Spirit]

How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly.

And Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon which is a life changing game that no one will ever play, i'm thankful for the wii for existing just so i could play that game. (I also own Madworld. =])
On to what you said though:

I wouldn't call NSMBWU a remake, but it doesnt look any different from the DS, 3DS and Wii versions which is a damn shame... i remember when 2D Mario games were varied...
As far as NSMBWU goes, it is just a rush job to have a Mario game at launch, like you said, it was a weak launch but the wii is dead, deader than dead and SS wasn't enough to shift anymore consoles to warrant holding on to the wii for a couple more of years while nintendo actually made a worthwhile flagship title for the WiiU's launch. I hate that there is no must have game that i can't get on the 360 on the WiiU. The WiiU needs to survive now until Nintendo pump out a money ***** like a 3D Mario or Zelda.
(as much as i dislike the NSMB series though i see it as nintnedo's version of doing what other franchises are doing, just look at Assassin's Creed and CoD...)

Overall i think Nintendo should have concentrated on the WiiU earlier as far as software goes. they should have Zelda or Mario at launch to sell some copies because nintendo are going to have the weakest console of the generation again (as is the danger of going first in a new gen) and it wont matter that it will ahve a bigger library than the Nextbox and PS4 because no doubt it'll remain a port machine until developers start making bigger and better games for consoles that don't act like a black whole for money.

On a hardware note i dont like that with every DS there is seemingly the upgrade counterpart like the XL and no doubt 3DSi will surface etc etc until the HDS arrives and then the cycle repeats, and just like with Microsoft i can see the WiiU having upgraded versions in the future so its best to wait for the limited edition Zelda package WiiU and just start saving now, if it'll even be worth it is another thing entirely though.

 

[JuicieJ]

I'm gonna have to break this down into sections. I don't mean to be rude, but this entire post was one giant logical fallacy.

My first gripe would be the remakes. It was fine when they made Ocarina of Time 3D, but since then, it's been remake after remake. I find it ridiculous that New Super Mario Bros. U is getting copious amounts of attention, when it's a remake of countless remakes already.

Star Fox 64 3D is the only other remake to be released as of late. Exactly what do you mean by "remake after remake"? You also seem to be forgetting that Sony has done much worse by milking every franchise they can with HD bundles. If you're going to point fingers at anyone, do so at them.

Let's continue on to the ridiculously weak launch of the Wii U. Aside from New Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U, the only games I know that are going to be released on the Wii U this year are Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, and Assassin's Creed III. Only two of those games has not been out on other consoles for weeks now.

1) Name me one console that started out with a plethora of amazing games. Console launches are never pretty. Greatness doesn't happen overnight. You gotta give the Wii U some time.

2) If the Wii U were released last year, it would have gotten these titles at the same time the other systems did. They're multiplatform titles. Sure, they're not going to sell as well as they did due to being released much later, but does that really matter? Most people buying a console at launch are not hardcore gamers. They're either people buying it to play the party games or to give it to someone for Christmas or their birthday or whatever.

Then you have Nintendo's terrible record with third-parties. Nintendo had done with the Wii exactly what Japan did earlier in history; cut off connections with outside countries - gaming companies in this case - and killed off the ones that were there. How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly. If they don't fix this with the Wii U, I may just get an emulator for the Wii U to play Zelda U.

Yeah, the Wii had a pretty tough time with third parties, but that was due to the Wii Remote and the Wii's limited hardware. It was extremely hard to make ports of HD games for the Wii because developers didn't know how to properly utilize the Wii Remote. That and multiplatform games had to be downgraded so much that they were basically another game entirely. The Wii U doesn't have this problem. It has all the standard features of a modern controller and the power to play in native 1080p. There's no reason for third parties to have trouble with this system. "But what about the GamePad's specific features?" Developers can use as little or as much of that as they want, so there's no need to even bring that up. It also has proper online functionality, so...

Overall, you're being way too judgmental about Nintendo and not paying proper attention to the Wii U's features. Yes, it's possible for the console to fail, but it's in no way set up to do so. I'm not worried in the slightest about it or Nintendo's future. So, yes, I do like Nintendo's recent actions.

 

[Ventus]

Keef I'm gonna be real with you and break this down piece by piece.

My first gripe would be the remakes. It was fine when they made Ocarina of Time 3D, but since then, it's been remake after remake. I find it ridiculous that New Super Mario Bros. U is getting copious amounts of attention, when it's a remake of countless remakes already. The fact that Nintendo thinks they can get away with that is terrible. People criticize Microsoft and Sony for doing anything to make money, but look at Nintendo. These aren't original ideas. They're just putting better graphics into the game and trying to fix the mistakes they made in the previous installment.

I disagree with the notion that remaking a game from the past is a bad thing. Nintendo is a company; it is their job to sustain themselves through whatever method. I don't care what other companies do to generate their funds; this is solely about Nintendo. Ninty does not have the benefit of DLC. So, they can't make half-done games like Capcom does to make money. Nintendo doesn't have a staff that can push out a great game every year; take a gander at the majority of Mario spin offs and you'll see what I mean. Nintendo simply doesn't have the resources, time or capabilities to make a brand new game or supplement a crappy game piece by piece. So what can they do? Make remakes. A respectable choice, since its their goal to make money, not please the fans.

Let's continue on to the ridiculously weak launch of the Wii U. Aside from New Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U, the only games I know that are going to be released on the Wii U this year are Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, and Assassin's Creed III. Only two of those games have not been out on other consoles for weeks now.

I agree with this. Nintendo should've done more aside from re-release old games. The Wii U launch is largely weak. Think about it, why would I pay $300 or $350 plus tax, in addition to $60 to play Assassin's Creed 3 when I can just pay $60 plus tax for my 360/PS3 (for a base 360 if you don't have one, it would roughly be $200 plus tax, and a base PS3 would roughly be $250-300 plus tax) many weeks prior? Put months on Mass Effect 3 and Darksiders II. The Wii U launch was also plagued with freezing issues, bricking on day one, and also a police-state for an online social network. Nintendo could have done infinitely better than this; at least give us a decent 3D Mario game instead of the same old 2D stuff they've been reliving since the days of New Super Mario Bros for the DS.

Then you have Nintendo's terrible record with third-parties. Nintendo had done with the Wii exactly what Japan did earlier in history; cut off connections with outside countries - gaming companies in this case - and killed off the ones that were there. How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly. If they don't fix this with the Wii U, I may just get an emulator for the Wii U to play Zelda U.

Firstly, what does Nintendo's track record prior to the Wii U have to do with the Wii U? If anything, Nintendo bolstered third party support to the forefront for their first few weeks, with all sorts of third party releases (Darksiders II from THQ, Mass Effect 3 from EA, Batman Arkham City from WB, Call of Duty Black Ops II from Activision, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 from Namco). Reinforcing third party =/= bad thing.

Secondly, good luck on finding an emulator for the Wii U. PCs aren't even capable of the Xbox 360 yet.

---

My biggest problem with Nintendo recently is their lack of appeal to the core player. Everything they're doing on the first party front is casual this, casual that. The 3DS screams casual games for first party. When will the greatest company ever return to their former position, I wonder.

 

[Lord Death]

Sure, I think Nintendo has had some missteps throughout these past years, but none so extreme as to say that I hope the Wii U fails or that Nintendo should stop making consoles all together. My personal gripes with Nintendo are about small things, which admittedly makes me upset since they're such stupid stumbles, but I'll name a few of those later. Pertaining to what you said...

My first gripe would be the remakes. It was fine when they made Ocarina of Time 3D, but since then, it's been remake after remake. I find it ridiculous that New Super Mario Bros. U is getting copious amounts of attention, when it's a remake of countless remakes already.

Like JJ said, StarFox 64 is the only other remake I can think of. But if you want to throw some punches at NSMBU, I'm down with that. Yes, it is waaayyy too similar to past "New" titles that it almost seems exactly the same. The looks, the music, the bosses, the story: it's all copied and pasted. Yes, I know it's not suppose to have a super complex story, but maybe the Koopalings don't have to be the bosses of each world! Maybe Bowser doesn't have to grow double in size for the final battle! These are the little things that I talked about earlier. How Nintendo gets away with this particular example of games is beyond me, but as far as remakes go, there aren't that many.

Let's continue on to the ridiculously weak launch of the Wii U. Aside from New Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U, the only games I know that are going to be released on the Wii U this year are Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, and Assassin's Creed III. Only two of those games has not been out on other consoles for weeks now.

1) Name me one console that started out with a plethora of amazing games. Console launches are never pretty. Greatness doesn't happen overnight. You gotta give the Wii U some time.

^ Exactly.

And I'm also going to go out on a ledge here and say that the Wii U may be the most promising console to invest in. Why? Well the way I see it, Microsoft is making some very wrong turns. The 720 will most definitely provide some great graphics for gaming, but these of course will come at a heavy price. MS, not wanting to scare consumers away with a $600+ price point will probably opt for a decrease in graphical output. Plus, as graphics improve, the differences between them become less and less noticable. And Microsoft is moving away from gaming, something that Nintendo is not doing. The Xbox 720 will be heavily Kinect 2 based and will focus A LOT more on incorporating Windows 8 and Hulu and Netflix and so forth. PlayStation, on the otherhand, is in a bad financial situation. The PS4 probably won't push the hardware limits to the extreme. They could go for 2K res, but the prices for the console and the TV would be off the charts. Sony literally can't afford to mess up and will play it save as well.

So Nintendo looks good this gen, from what I can tell. Keith you may just want to buy a Wii U, but that's my opinion and neither here nor there.

Then you have Nintendo's terrible record with third-parties. Nintendo had done with the Wii exactly what Japan did earlier in history; cut off connections with outside countries - gaming companies in this case - and killed off the ones that were there. How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly. If they don't fix this with the Wii U, I may just get an emulator for the Wii U to play Zelda U.

Wii was terrible in the third-party category, yes. And this is somewhat, if not mostly, Nintendo's fault. Their console was too far behind tech-wise for companies to port their games to it. Therefore the Wii got many exclusives, some good and some bad. So will this be the case with Wii U? Probably not, but I can't say for sure. Judging from what I stated about MS and Sony above, I don't think companies will have problems supporting all platforms. But time will tell.

So you had some decent points, Keith. Here's what I personally like and dislike about the big N now:

Pros:

Moving into the online world of gaming (Miiverse seems excellent)
Have a pretty powerful system now
Seem to have gotten quite a few developers on board with the Wii U
Had a decent Wii U launch lineup (considering launches are never great)
Staying true to franchises (even with NSMBU, it's still a genuine Mario game, even if it's been done the same way before. They have yet to ruin a major franchise IMO)

Cons:

Copy and paste some series (particularly New Super Mario Bros.)
Appealing too much to the casual gamer
Showing some signs of weakness (co-developing Smash Bros. with Namco - what's up with that?)
Lack the artistic style they once had (still waiting for a Zelda that feels as magical as OoT and MM with music and atmosphere and such)

 

[Hanyou]

So what do you think about Nintendo's actions and decisions?

I'll lead with this. I loved the DS, and it pretty much pwned all of your points. I love my 3DS as well. So this is less about Nitnendo's actions and more about their console strategy.

My first gripe would be the remakes. It was fine when they made Ocarina of Time 3D, but since then, it's been remake after remake. I find it ridiculous that New Super Mario Bros. U is getting copious amounts of attention, when it's a remake of countless remakes already.

Remakes are good. I like them. That said, we've had maybe two recently: Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64. Both games are legendary, and given the lack of new SF games, I think a remake is worthwhile.

Has there been an unusual amount of activity on the remake front other than that?

The New Super Mario Bros games aren't remakes, bro.

The fact that Nintendo thinks they can get away with that is terrible. People criticize Microsoft and Sony for doing anything to make money, but look at Nintendo. These aren't original ideas. They're just putting better graphics into the game and trying to fix the mistakes they made in the previous installment.

All companies have remakes and rereleases. Rereleases are the norm. There's nothing wrong with it.

Let's continue on to the ridiculously weak launch of the Wii U. Aside from New Super Mario Bros. U and Zombi U, the only games I know that are going to be released on the Wii U this year are Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, and Assassin's Creed III. Only two of those games has not been out on other consoles for weeks now.

Yeah, the launch is kind of terrible. They should have launched with a game changer like Super Mario 64. That said, the last game changer of that magnitude was...well...Super Mario 64. In its absence, I'll happily wait for something better.

Then you have Nintendo's terrible record with third-parties. Nintendo had done with the Wii exactly what Japan did earlier in history; cut off connections with outside countries - gaming companies in this case - and killed off the ones that were there. How many of you have heard of Madworld? Few of you. How many of you know about Super Mario Galaxy? Exactly. If they don't fix this with the Wii U, I may just get an emulator for the Wii U to play Zelda U.

Well, first of all, Super Mario Galaxy is probably worlds better than MadWorld, judging by what I've seen. I doubt they're even in the same league.

But what's wrong with buying Nintendo consoles for the first-party exclusives? Sure, I'd like another Square or better yet, Rare, to release games exclusively on Nintendo platforms, but output is still pretty good otherwise. There are still more Wii exclusives available than I could ever afford, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case for the WiiU as well.

 

[DarkestLink]

I couldn't care less for Third Party support. I very very rarely buy third party games. Most of the time, I see them as a waste of money.

Haven't played the New Super Mario Brothers game or the new Paper Mario game. So ignoring those, I have been upset lately with Mario. Especially SMG and SMG2. I cannot believe how linear those levels are. It's ridiculous. SPM was OK in its own right, but it wasn't a Paper Mario game. I'm not hearing good things about the new one...hopefully they're wrong. Haven't gotten Mario Kart 7 because...well...nobody I know owns a 3DS for me to play with. But Mario Kart Wii was a disaster. Especially battle mode.

 

[A Link In Time]

I'm generally satisfied with the direction Nintendo is taking. Yes, I've had minor gripes with the company but ultimately Nintendo delivers a refreshing experience with each system. It's unlikely the Big N will drop out of the videogame race anytime soon. I've stated that I dislike the Wii but I was very fond of it for the first few years. Then the 2009 drought year came and swept my interest away from the little box that could. With the power of HD graphics and online connectivity finally leveraged, the Wii U has no reason not to succeed in the third party climate. I expect support third party support around Gamecube levels.

Handhelds are an entirely different front. I loved my GBC, my GBA, my DS, and now 3DS. Nintendo has always been #1 in the portable videogame arena. With the Wii, Nintendo discovered the benefits of strong brand name, innovation, and legacy franchises. The company is now trying to bridge the best of Gamecube and Wii with the Wii U and if early indicators serve as pointers, this generation will be nothing like the last but rather comparable to the sixth generation when all three companies garnered significant third party support.

A major starting point is the variety of controller outputs. Wii Remotes largely inhibited the possibility of porting more traditional titles to the system. This is not the case with the Wii U. Motion control fans are still appeased with Wii Remote compatibility whereas gamers accustomed to the dual analog scheme may opt in for the Pro Controller with the Game Pad providing a mix of both motion and analog control with limited touch functionality sprinkled in.

Additionally, Miiverse is the online system Nintendo should have created years ago. There are a plethora of avenues to explore. Mingle with people in gaming communities,chatting about games you own or asking others whether a purchase is worthwhile. Friend requesting people requires a touch of a button and every broadband feature can be accessed via the home menu pausing your game progress. This includes Miiverse, the Web Browser, Nintendo TVii, and the eShop.

The Wii U's launch lineup maybe be lackluster but it's better than what most platforms offer from the get-go even if most software is available on competing systems. The Wii U's exclusives, however, are powerhouses in their own right. Nintendo Land may not be as revolutionary as Wii Sports but it does a great job of helping players understand the potential of the Game Pad with foreshadowing of what's to come from Ninty's powerhouses; New Super Mario Bros. U reincorporates the connected world map of Super Mario World with intriguing Miiverse connectivity to post your own thoughts about specific levels, assist others, and ask for help when needed; ZombiU is arguably the best zombie title among the recent deluge; it conjures the fright of the original Resident Evil titles mixed in with the difficulty of Dark Souls.

Fans continue to rave about Nintendo's launches and as the causal foundation for Wii and DS heads to phones and social games, the Kyoto based company has realized it needs to act rapidly to retain a portion of its new user base while catering to those who made Ninty number one after the great videogame crash. One the next Xbox and PS4 are announced, this is one videogame struggle you're not going to want ot miss.