General Nintendo sales/business discussion topic (previously: The Wii U Thread)

[Patticus]

How about they get to make a new ip with full creative freedom, then six months from release Nintendo shoves in the furries and rebrands the game?

 

Sounds legit to me.

When did that happen?

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

When did that happen?

Rare with Dinosaur Planet turning into Starfox adventure

[Patticus]

Rare with Dinosaur Planet turning into Starfox adventure

Oh, right. Was that a great loss as an original IP? I've never played it.

[Carbo]

Oh, right. Was that a great loss as an original IP? I've never played it.

For one it shoehorned Star Fox characters into a setting that has absolutely nothing to do with Star Fox and turns it into a Zelda clone, which is not what that series needed. It was also a bad Zelda clone. Characters like Krystal were also wasted as she was a main character in Dinosaur Planet while in Star Fox Adventures she's locked away in a cupboard for 3/4s of the game and is basically a trophy.

Star Fox is a dull series because of it being wasted on a bunch of bullshit no one asked for. Star Fox 64 was the absolute pinnacle. It had everything one could ask from the genre with infinite replayability, multiple paths with different objectives, memorable characters and the innovative rumble feature. This kind of set up desperately needs a comeback in full force, and although I'd love Retro to do this kind of game, I think Star Fox is more suited for the likes of Platinum Games who excel in the "score attack" action genre.

Hell, Kamiya has said that the one Nintendo IP he wants to make a game for is Star Fox. Let those Nintendo relations flourish with Bayonetta 2 and TW101, then get them to make Star Fox for the Wii U, complete with the cheesy writing that Platinum are awesome with, and the high speed sci-fi action that diverges into a multitude of possibilities.

[Patticus]

Thank you for explaining that whole situation.

 

As much as I might have preferences for what games Retro might make, truth be told I really have no idea what could be going on over there. They were making original IPs, then they focused on Metroid for a long time, now we just don't know. Zelda? F-Zero? StarFox? New things? God knows. I just hope that it's pleasing, and that they reveal it at E3.

[SuperLink]

They cancelled all their other projects and concentrated on making Nintendogs x Majora's Mask.

[Candescence]

For the record, the whole mess around how Star Fox Adventures came to be is very unclear, and it may very well have simply been a suggestion or a joke from Miyamoto that Rare thought was actually a good idea. Depends on how cynical a view you take from the whole situation. Though, all things considering, I think Adventures' faults lie with Rare rather than Nintendo (with the exception of the whole final boss thing due to limited dev time, which was likely forced by Rare's sale to Microsoft), SFA wasn't a terrible game by any stretch (I quite enjoyed it), but it's obvious that there were some rather shoddy design decisions (such as relegating Krystal to the damsel role, and considering Nintendo wasn't adverse to multiple playable characters with Star Fox as the beta of Star Fox 2 showed, I don't think that was an executive decision).

 

Whatever Retro's new project is, I only expect good things, especially now that they're working with a HD system.

[Detective Shadzter]

Iwata discusses how Nintendo will handle Wii U's challenges
http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=201528
 
Analyzing Nintendo's Difficult Path Forward
http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=201549

Hackers claim to have completely hacked the Wii U
http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=201536

[Cortez]

Is there a chance Retro's next game could be the next main series Mario? By the sounds of things they've been working on this game *forever* and it certainly would have taken some years to come up with a successor to the Galaxy series.

[SuperLink]

More WiiU VC games have been confirmed for Europe, I imagine these will be out within the next month or so;

 

• Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
• Super Mario Bros.
• Pac-Man
• Donkey Kong*
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• Mega Man
• Xevious
• Kirby's Adventure*
• Balloon Fight
• Street Fighter II
• Super Metroid*
• Yoshi*

Hardly great, some of those were on the way via the 30 promotion thing too, but yeah there's that. I wonder if games like SFII will have added online, I know that one of the SFII VC releases on Wii did so it'd make sense to do it again.

 

Is there a chance Retro's next game could be the next main series Mario? By the sounds of things they've been working on this game *forever* and it certainly would have taken some years to come up with a successor to the Galaxy series.

Highly doubt it, I imagine Miyamoto is way too protective and wants the Mario series on a tight leash :/

[Soniman]

Nintendo hope to introduce Retro's new Wii U game in 'not so distant future'

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/49137/nintendo-hope-to-introduce-retros-new-wii-u-game-in-not-so-distant-future/

  So not E3 then..?

[Gabz Girl]

Does anyone even like Pokémon Rumble objectively as more than a "silly fun thing that'd be good for £1".

 

It's better than Pokemon Battle Revolution. That wasn't even a proper game.

[Carbo]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/403883/nintendo-explains-wii-u-game-delays-says-projects-were-understaffed/

"We originally planned to release a few first-party titles for Wii U during the first half of this year, but no big titles are scheduled for release before Pikmin 3 in July [in Japan] because we decided to take time to add the final touches to ensure that consumers fully feel that they are valuable titles. The brand of a franchise would be completely degraded without customer satisfaction.

"The reason for the delayed release of our first-party titles was the fact that completing the games released at the same time as the launch of Wii U required more development resources than expected, so some staff members from development teams working on other titles had to help complete them. In short, the development teams of Pikmin 3 and other future games were understaffed during that period."

Iwata also said that software development is becoming more challenging as consumers are being more selective about purchases.

"It is true that it is becoming increasingly challenging to meet the expectations of consumers who are willing to pay $50-$60 for a game, and it is difficult to break even unless a huge number of units is sold all over the world, so it cannot be denied that software development is becoming more challenging.

"Among such packaged software, however, the sales of popular games are much larger than in the past. Therefore, if we create more hit games, the software development business can still be very profitable. All games break even if they sell millions of copies worldwide, so we will continue to do our best to develop games which have high sales potential."

[Gabz Girl]

I really hope this strategy of theirs will work. I don't want Iwata-san to be ashamed and then end up leaving his position as CEO. ;-;

 

Oh and about Retro's game, whatever it is it must be something really special because we haven't seen or heard anything about it. I just hope they can show it at the E3 this year!

[Patticus]

This is coming to the eShop next year:

 

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/04/exclusive_tengami_confirmed_for_wii_u_release

 

Quite the interesting art style. David Wise of ex-Rare fame is doing the music, and there are a few other ex-Rare folk at the studio too. Should be good.

[SuperLink]

Just read Carbo's quote.

That was a little depressing to read.

[Patticus]

Just read Carbo's quote.

That was a little depressing to read.

 

It reads like a year's head-start on the opposition has been squandered, but I honestly don't know what they could have done differently (if they were even aware of alternate strategies in the boardroom meetings it must have been brought up in). Seems like a badly timed spell of ill fortune, to me.

[Carbo]

Very excited for Tengami.

This is coming to eShop too, both for 3DS and Wii U.

[SuperLink]

Tengami would be perfect for 3DS (even if it's a little demanding for 3DS in its current state), the paper n stuff?

 

It reads like a year's head-start on the opposition has been squandered, but I honestly don't know what they could have done differently (if they were even aware of alternate strategies in the boardroom meetings it must have been brought up in). Seems like a badly timed spell of ill fortune, to me.

I was more saddened about the whole "expectations of HD games are too high/too expensive/we don't really get to make what we want to make anymore" vibe it gave off.

[Patticus]

AVGN Adventures looks like trash. What's the point of doing a retro-style game when the art style doesn't know if it wants to be 8- or 16-bit? Combine that with special effects that weren't possible on either old system. So retro.

[Autosaver]

I wish there wasn't blood. Seems like they just want it to be Rated M or something.

[Soniman]

AVGN Adventures looks like trash. What's the point of doing a retro-style game when the art style doesn't know if it wants to be 8- or 16-bit? Combine that with special effects that weren't possible on either old system. So retro.

 

My guess it takes the Shovel Knight route, giving retro feels but not full on committing to it.

[Conando]

So what I'm getting from that is, the current state of the game industry and its consumer base has made the developers at Nintendo think they need to try even harder than they did before. I can see why, considering the fact that there are people out there that seem to want everything. I hope they're not going the way of all these so-called AAA developers, though. That would be the worst possible thing. Nintendo is the only company that seems to do what they want to do anymore, and it would be more than a shame if the fickle market got to them.

[Carbo]

My guess it takes the Shovel Knight route, giving retro feels but not full on committing to it.

Shovel Knight is actually trying to fully commit to it though.

[Soniman]

Shovel Knight is actually trying to fully commit to it though.

 

By that I mean like.....neither of the games are taking the Mega Man 9 route where they're actually trying to commit to the limitations on the original NES (complete with a sprite flickering option.) Shovel Knight and AVGN are NES/Retro-Esque, but they're still doing some stuff that would not be capable of the original systems, which isn't a bad thing, it's just something to note.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Soniman