I'm not exactly sure what people expect form third party developers. What exactly, do people expect Nintendo to do? Offer them money? And if Nintendo offer developers money, exactly what do you expect they'll get in return? I can tell you. A port. Nothing special. I've seen these discussions happen time and time again. I've been there. The publisher wants money to port to a platform, but all they'll do is port. They won't want to add anything special - hell it's getting to the point where a publisher doesn't even want to do any real porting work aside from "making it run". Forget making effort to get it running at anything close to 60fps. So Nintendo give money and all they get is a port. Of a game that has already been sold on other platforms. That the core audience for that game already purchased. Where is the incentive for people to buy this port? What exactly does this give Nintendo? And I can tell you that reality because that is exactly what happened with the ports that made it to the Wii U - Need For Speed as an example. It performs better on the Wii U than it does on the 360 - they can use higher res textures and they had to do very little work to get it to run at 60fps. But it sold like crap. Not because the game was bad, but because it came out a long time after the other platforms and so the people who wanted that game, had already bought it. And as for the extended audience - so what of they're playing stuff on iPhone? So what if they "left the Wii" for their phones? Why shouldn't Nintendo go after that market again? Because of some messed up sense of entitlement that leeds to some bitter, twisted feeling of betrayal? If Nintendo can offer that audience something different, it does't matter if they have changing tastes - they key is to keep that audience engaged and to give them a reason to keep on coming back. Relying on some stagnant, unchanging demographic yields nothing but ever diminishing returns on larger and larger investments as hardware advances ramp up the engineering and art costs. It's no guarantee for success. I'll admit that just because Nintendo goes after the larger audience, doesn't mean they'll get it. But still, they can afford to take that risk, and it's a far better business case than going hunting in red waters where there are already two established big sharks.
Hah! Good point. Although, that's a second party deal more than anything else. I don't think Bayonetta 2 was ever meant to be anything but a reward for the existing Wii U fans. I think the console has pretty much been on life support after its first year. The same goes for many other titles as well.
I don't blame nintendo for not showing all at E3, there's too much chance for things to be overlooked. If they show the NX in a direct it'll drum up a ton of hype and they can take all the time they need. Also, their appearances have been rather disappointing the past few years, we're a spoilt gaming generation unfortunately. I'll also throw in that I own a a ps4 and a wii u, and my wii u library and the games I've completed is staggering compared to the PS4. In fact I'm having trouble what I actually own on the console right now :/ But yeah, wii u- 90% of the games I've bought have been absolute gems. People here seem to be suggesting they should cater to the 3rd party market, but if they get the console right and shift enough units, the 3rd parties will develop for it no matter what. I've also seen people say the NX is already really easy to develop for because it uses some form of android IOS? is that true or just a rumor?
It's true about it being the Droid IOS. One thing to keep in mind is the state of gaming in Japan. Consoles have taken a massive beating to mobile gaming, and the NX seems to be a response to this. A system that you can play at home or on the go ala mobile gaming. How this will work is still not known, however.
The directs are only watched by Nintendo fans. Last year most site didn't even cover the Nintendo e3 direct and it wasn't on the tv broadcast. Nintendo needs a live show to launch the NX to raise hype not a direct no one who is not a Nintendo fan will watch! Nintendo needs to show the nx to NON Nintendo fans. The wii U is a bomb and Nintendo is dead last. The need all the hype they can and E3 is a huge LIVE show they can do it at. Even CNN has news on e3 every year for crying out load. A direct won't cut it and Nintendo needs to wake up and get out of 1996. Unless this is all a trick and Nintendo will show the NX as a surprise. Is Nintendo really so stupid not to show the NX so late before launch? The last system that did that was the sega Saturn. How did that work out for sega?
I agree, but they've had the same bad experience I think 3 e3's on the run now? The directs are watched by more people than just straight up nintendo fans, I think as long as they announced a month before hand a direct all about the NX people would watch regardless just because theres a lot of unnecessary hate targeted towards them for other gamers, they just need to bring their A game and show them what they've got. Won't change their minds right away, but it's a plan at least. Honestly they don't need any hype. They have their core fan base who I'm sure are eager for the NX after not buying a wii u, they have the fans who'll buy whatever they put out, they have the handheld market locked- this console seems to be made to bridge that gap, from what I've read and understand. What was that thing- nintendo could fail 15+ generations and still have money or something? EDIT: it's not the article I'm referring to, but; Nintendo has enough cash in the bank to run a deficit for 38 years | Wii U I honestly dont want a second PS4 or Xbone to play mario on, I want them to do what they do and do it well, if they get a home run like they did with the Wii, good for them. I've always liked the term "second console" for the wii and wii u. It's affordable, compatible with stuff you bought on the wii (the amount of people I know with 4 wii remotes who don't even play games is amazing), and the wii u actually has a solid library.
They need more then just core fans. They need new fans or they will stay dead last. Plus a lot of their core fans has been kind of annoyed or angry at them over this no NX at E3 and only one game, Delaying Zelda again, plus the Paper Mario is sticker star 2, No real wii u animal crossing, metriod FF, Mario party is in a car again, no account system and no cross buy, no hard drive two systems in a roll, and all the changes to the us versions to cut out things some fans are getting really annoyed at Nintendo. The NX needs to be a great system. If not Nintendo may just end up with handheld systems only because fans will only put up with so many failure systems in a roll. Again look at sega.
sure can! mario 3D world pikmin 3 Wonderful 101 Bayo 2 Rayman Legends (it's multiplatform but made for this system, and it shows) DK: tropical freeze Mario/Luigi U Mario Maker Splatoon Smash 4 Cap Toad (never smiled this much playing a game) Yoshi's wooly world Mario kart 8 they're just off the top of my head, i'll add later if I remember
Just to make this shorter and simpler, since we mostly agree. I think when a console that's made for games manages to produce prettier and more impressive looking games, than their competition, it's more powerful. The trouble with the GameCube was that Sony made gaming mainstream with the original PlayStation, since not only did they market the crap out of it, and sold it as a machine for adults, they also made it play CDs. The feature of it being able to play your music CDs at a time were dedicated CD players were expensive was actually a neat bonus. Same went for the PS2 and the DVDs, it was actually a mayor part in how we managed to persuade our parents to get that console, since we could use it as a DVD player, it was more than just a toy for us, it was a piece of tech my parents could also use. So the GameCube came at a time where consoles were seen in the public eye as being multimedia entertainment machines on top of being games machines. It came late to the party, after the PlayStation 2 had already weaselled itself into so many homes due to functioning as a DVD player, a CD player and a games console. So the only ones that were left were people like me who cared more about the games side, and the Nintendo fans. To everyone else it seamed inferior. That means a lower install base and thus less interest by developers who need to make as much money as possible. The restriction of the GC's discs was not disk capacity, they were after all tiny DVDs as you said, the problem was that they cost more to produce than normal DVDs. So while the PS2 and the XBox used DVDs that cost them next to nothing to produce in high quantities and thus meant it was cheaper for developers to stick their games on them, on top of the lower licencing fees they asked, less and less companies cared for the GC, causing it to lose games and thus even more customers. After all, what good is a console, when you can only play a small handful of games and you can't even use it for something else? The DVD variant of the GC that was only sold in Japan for a short time, that sold like hotcakes. Had that been the standard version the GC would have been bigger than it was. Nintendo has to find that perfect balance of power, marketing and pleasing the customers again, otherwise they will lose out, they are primarily a games company, if the PlayStation fails, Sony will just kill it and do something else, Microsoft will do the same. If people stop supporting Nintendo consoles, Nintendo is stuck in deep shit. Sure, they have enough money and they do more than just games, but the games are still their primary business which advertises their other products as well.
The incentive is to grow their customer base by having a large variety of games available. The problem was that the Wii U came out far too late, it was designed to compete with the PS3 and XB360, which were already getting shut down in preparation for the next generation. And seeing how you describe ports as just being old ports of games already released shows me that you have no idea. Normally 3rd Party games are multiplatform games, meaning that they come out on every system at the same time. The ports you're talking about were goodwill ports by developers to test the waters, they were also special editions to entice returning customers. But Nintendo blew it with how they marketed the console and it coming out too late in the game. No, those are not the kind of people you want to go after, they do not care about consoles. They bought the original Wii, because it was marketed as a fun, cheap way of keeping fit, not as a console to play games. Nintendo made the Wii U to be a serious game console again, but they tried to chase the same customers they had with the Wii, but those people did not care, they already had their toy fitness machine. I worked at GameStop for a bit, and every day I had 5 people coming in utterly confused about the Wii U game they bought not working in their Wii, or why the new Wii addon cost so much. And they got really angry when I explained to them that the Wii U was its own new console and that in order to play the new games they had to buy it. Nintendo chasing those customers is exactly why the Wii U failed. Instead of marketing it at people who are interested in gaming, they tried to chase those who do not care about them. And now they cater exclusively to the smallest self contained customer base there is, diehard Nintendo fans. That is not a market that can grow, only shrink.
Ironically that's still the best exclusive line up this gen has so far, especially if your into games that are unapologetic about being games instead of wanting to be more like movies. I'm not expecting PS4 to catch up before they've made up the year head start the Wii U had and I wouldn't be surprised if the Bone takes another year on top of that.
The Wii U failed because they didn't market to anybody. You're right that they're doubling down on the core Nintendo diehards. But if they're chasing after anyone besides that with Wii U, it's mostly been the niche hardcore gamers (the ones that aren't hung up on CoD or interactive movies). That's who Bayonetta 2 and Hyrule Warriors were for. That's who they've been tweaking the Zelda formula for. Even the "two screens" approach was something a lot of core gamers online said Nintendo should have done instead of the remote, back when the Wii first came out. Nintendo is sort of fucked, no matter what they do. If they go after core gamers, they can literally do no right and nothing is good enough. If they go after casuals, those are fickle and won't stay. If they go after their diehard base with existing IP, it's too small of a base, and the brands are labeled stale by others. If they introduce great new IP for everyone, nobody pays attention because it's not their classic IP. Now what?
I actually haven't bought it yet! I keep forgetting to pick it up. Exactly, the wii u's failures I believe is due to the name "Wii". The wii was in every household but the gimmick worn thin and people just expected more of the same with the Wii U. In a perfect world, the Wii U would have ditched the Wii part of the name, and marketed the console with the pro controller as well as the touch controller, marketing games to siblings of a higher gaming skill to use the pro while the younger helps out with the touch one. Pikmin 3 is fantastic. Beautiful game in every aspect. I left Wind Waker and Twilight Princess off my list because I don't own TP and they're remakes, but Wind Waker looks incredible on the Wii U and plays amazingly, well worth a revisit.
The only reason they're doubling down on the Nintendo diehards now is because they failed at gaining a bigger audience. The console was too weak for when it came out and too slow. I hated using it so much, and I was exited when it was first announced - finally Nintendo made an actual console again instead of a crappy toy. So I was disappointed when it first came out. None of Nintendo's excellent IPs for launch, barely anything new I cared about, the majority of games they had were things I already owned on PS3 and now signs of stuff in the pipeline. So when I did get it, using it was a chore due to how slow the system's OS was, the GamePad's battery was too weak, so I could barely get used to it before I had to stop playing. The Pro Controller was great though, in a perfect world every console would have that controller. By the time they started releasing stuff I was interested in, the PS4 was marketing the crap out of itself and everyone jumped ship. So when that came out, the experience was so much nicer, plus the controller was so familiar, that I just stuck to that an forgot about my Wii U gathering dust. The GamePad's battery was too weak, so I could barely get used to it before I had to stop playing. The Pro Controller was great though, in a perfect world every console would have that controller. They should really have called it something like Nintendo Ultra or something. The reason Core Gamers stayed away from the Wii U, was that it was labelled as a Wii, and was trying to gain their attention as being as powerful as the consoles they were getting sick of and ready to replace with more powerful ones.
