Mummelmann said: PART 3:
“Mummelmann: Me: Ah, Metallicube. I already adressed this in my other rebuttal. I know this guy and his ways, him, Neos, NJ5 and a select few others were slightly below the likes of Avinash, yourself and Rol when it came to gloating, insane predictions and massive amounts of hyperbole in the 7th gen. He was anything but cynical towards Nintendo and had full-on tunnel vision in all things pertaining to them and was quite unpleasant towards Playstation fans in particular. There is also some recent and fairly recent damage control showing a very real need to belittle the competition, or at the very least disarm them, all the while still being very forgiving towards Nintendo. He’s not entirely changed and wasn’t really ever in that bottomless pit of despair you seem to portray him in: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=172640&page=-1#1 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=160659&page=-1#1 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=152726&page=-1#1 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=5903370 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=5275437 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=5191649 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4979196 http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4894537
You can't dance around that. It's not made-up. He's right there. Talk to him. No need, I know who he is and what he stands for, this could probably be an efficient argument against a fresh member but I’ve been here for a long time and have probably spent a lot more time in here than even you have.
That’s so easy to say in hindsight though; what strikes me is that you never wrote it up like you did the loving bits; it would make sense for you post and muse around real doubts revolving around your favorite company and their products (look at Malstrom having at it today). I have a really hard time taking this seriously; it all seems more like a ticket to spin a heartwarming conversion story to me and there is apparently no way to disprove that notion. Again; how do I know all this is true? I could easily say that “I used to think Valve was a pretty bad company that only caused a hurt on the industry but they convinced me in an amazing turn of events!” These are words from an anonymous person on an internet forum and this doesn’t really prove anything due to the fact that there is no way to verify whether you’re fabricating most or all of this; I see people all the time pretending to own consoles so they have an excuse and an alibi when they bash them, it’s a very common practice online.
Your stance on Sony, their policies, business, games and future outlook all but dismisses this statement; you quite clearly have an agenda against the Playstation brand and its father. You also take it so far as to portray Playstation owners and customers as mindless consumers and go into how you managed to steer clear of becoming such a drone to Sony’s offerings. “Honestly, I really did want a Playstation at one point but then I regained my senses and didn’t fall for the same as the other morons who were swayed” is more or less how I interpret that section. Feel free to correct me or clarify this bit. I look at your signature & how you have not changed it. Going down with the ship, John, going down with the ship. I made a stupid call and underestimated the impact the Wii U’s lack of appeal due to the attempt at forced market convergence would have and assumed it would take actual competition to expose it as a bad and poorly aimed design for the modern market. I was wrong.
Yes, and I freely admit that it was ridiculous and this number has actually taught me something while you cling to your old beliefs.
I put no stock in it and simply kept it because I never change my sig predictions through the year, I’m not so much holding it as I am showcasing it to myself as a sign of how bad things actually turned out for the Wii U .
I don’t think you will ever experience that, not only because these people would never “champion” the Wii U but mostly because it will never become a force to be reckoned with on the market. Absolutely all signs point towards it having a pretty miserable life with low sales.
And I predict that; A: No, because your fever dream scenario won’t play out, reality will be light-years removed from it. B: You won’t stick around for me and you to discuss the matter on any level.
No, the main reason I’m bothering with this is that your notions of knowing the “truth” and passing off wild speculation as facts irritate me a great deal. I’ve even moderated myself heavily in this very post because I want to show that you’re being silly without resorting to spicing it up with insult and pot shots.
I have said that I enjoy debating and that’s true; it energizes me, writing this post was amazing for me, making it even more on point and free of personal slight made it a lot more savory as well. And video games and markets is something I find intriguing and fascinating and something I’ve studied intently for many years now and I feel that I have learned a lot.
I’m not the one employing the theatrics and swollen lingo and I’m not messaging a bunch of people to have an audience. I’m not trying to put on a show; I’m trying to decipher yours. Just like many crowed doom & gloom for the 3DS & then changed their tune as the library built up, the same will happen for the Wii U. The Wii U won’t experience a 3DS turn. And even if it did; the 3DS is not in the position you seem to think it is; it is very heavily down from the DS despite Sony bringing no contest this time around and is set to peak at PS3 level yearly sales when all is said and done. And all this is with developer support the Wii U can only dream of.
Sticking by your word indefinitely is silly, I hope you understand that. Where would science, society and the human race be if this were the case?
Needless to say; I strongly disagree. What they’re doing with the Wii U is setting themselves up for another premature launch for the 9th generation.
“Mummelmann: Me: It was needlessly elaborate and strangely personal, the fact that you felt like sharing this on an internet forum seems strange to me and this ties into my perception of you as someone who really craves attention.
“For the readers” almost makes it sound like you’re a journalist or professional analyst of some sort, this is yet more grounds for me to believe that you’re doing all this out of a desire for some sort of stardom; you’re not here to debate and make sense, you’re here to gain fans and get praise. I also love getting praise but nearly on this level.
For me, distractions like vgchartz are what get me through tough times and stress, just like video games and writing and socializing. I still find it strange that you found no time at all to visit and write on your favorite forum, especially the timing of it all. However; whatever.
If it was earnest and truly made you feel better, good for you.
I have become a terrific dealer with situations (I assume hardship and trying times is what you’re getting at here) through my own childhood, adolescence and even adulthood and have gone through more feces than most. I don’t think it’s very interesting for others on a gaming forum though, so I won’t elaborate further. Unless, that is, you’d like me to over PM or something. Constructing a caricature was wrong, there are ways of pointing out flaws without resorting to painting someone a clown. I can debate perfectly well on a civil level and will do so from now on, my view on your arguments being ridiculous and your lack of insight have not and will not change, however, but that’s doesn’t mean I need to cover the posts in blood red dye, so I won’t.
“Mummelmann: Me: That’s just not true, failure to follow in Nintendo’s footsteps is not the cause of recent industry trouble; massive changes through branching, convergence, hardware and developer transitions and a looming financial crisis is. A lot of developers are to blame for their own demise but these are simply overreaching on their production ambition rather than being murdered by smothering overall development costs. There are measures to be taken, many didn’t take them and these measures do not revolve around Nintendo; I’ve already covered the 3rd parties in several other posts, no need to bloat this thing further.
They designed their platform and philosophy, the industry at large is very much a separate entity today, you’re even making it a point yourself how different most of it is from Nintendo and how they need to come into their philosophy, but they’re all pretty much opting for “Nontendo” (hilarious, I know).
If the vast majority of a market does things a certain way; this is the standard, that’s what the entire term entails.
There are a lot of standards that had and has nothing to do with Nintendo, most of them even.
This is simply not true and Nintendo themselves have leaned rather heavily on other standards and taken cues from other markets and manufacturers and developers lately; the recent obsession with touch interfaces, their online whose mold MS more or less created by themselves and the increased focus on online gaming, the integration and focus on social networks, the slow and gradual move towards a more realistic looking Zelda franchise, the embrace of digital distribution, the focus on streaming services and a better internet browser, trying to secure a very PS3/360-esque 2nd party title in Bayonetta 2, multi-purpose hardware (TV remote) inspired by smartphone and tablet solutions and possibly features like Bravia integration, and many more. Like I’ve already established several times; no. That's why Sony changed their Walkman for 21st Century approach for the PSP into Long Live Game with Kevin Butler. This shift in focus was in the most part due to their increased focus on rekindling their phone division after the ugly break-up with Ericsson, modern phones has and had a very people and philosophy oriented marketing structure and it made sense to apply this ploy to a dedicated handheld console. They also slowly implemented this into the PS3 marketing to decent effect, especially among the more hardcore fan base.
This was merely and embarrassing footnote in the MS and Xbox saga, this was never any standard of any kind; Kinect remained and remains an extremely obscure device in traditional gaming and there is little to indicate that Kinect 2.0 will do much to alleviate the situation. Making Kinect mandatory was a huge mistake, an attempt at market convergence that will inevitably fail and I believe that Kinect will be an option on future One SKU’s. Gaming on Xbox consoles is very much the same as it has always been and Kinect is not the standard, not even close.
It isn’t pushing a new format because that would be ridiculous at this point; digital and streaming is taking over more and more marketshare, Blu-ray is still highly relevant, making a lot of money and netting Sony vital influence and is certainly sufficient and there was no HD transition this time around to warrant a fresh format. Besides; you berate Sony and MS for spending too much money on hardware and now you’re saying that they are somehow being backwards for not wasting billions on developing new formats and causing a massive rise in hardware cost on top? This just doesn’t make any sense. There is no need for a new format.
Except no, Kinect is/was not the primary gaming device on the One, that is still very much a traditional controller. In fact; Kinect isn’t really much of a gaming device at all, it is an interface addition currently sharing a lot more similarity with the likes of “Siri” in its current application than the Wii-mote. And, like I said; Kinect integration is a huge mistake in my opinion, so it is hardly proof for Nintendo like behavior and focus being particularly clever even if you were somehow right.
Like I’ve mentioned before; there are a handful of games that are shameless rip-off’s but overall, the entire gaming industry is very far removed from Nintendo standards, once again I feel like pointing out that this is actually one of your main arguments and you’re setting yourself up for a fairly heavy contradiction here.
Controllers are no doubt heavily influenced by Nintendo, which makes perfect sense since they’re the only remaining console manufacturer from the 80’s assembly and they drove the development of controllers a great deal. Shoulder buttons, analog stick, rumble and button configuration. I used to think that either Sony or Nintendo were first to implement a memory card on consoles too but it turns out that that was SNK on the Neo Geo way back in 1990 or 1991. Ironically, Sony and MS are actually following the older Nintendo standard for controllers more than Nintendo themselves. I do find it odd that Nintendo pushed for motion gaming in the 7th gen and then jumped back into a semi-analogue stick controller in the 8th, kind of bipolar design choice in my opinion.
Sure, they have had influence, denying that is beneath me, it cannot be argued. To what extent is highly questionable though; there really isn’t all that much taking a cue from Nintendo overall in the industry today and this is clear as crystal when we see Nintendo being forced onto the ice by competing in areas where they have no pedigree and very few allies but have become central and integral parts of the industry and gaming, some of them I have mentioned farther up. They will have to change their traditions a great deal to stay relevant and they need to accept that they are not in a position to make demands of the market, they simply must read, interpret and adhere to the demands of the market lest they fall behind.
“Mummelmann: Me: I know, I make that exact point in my post(s) on 3rd parties directed at impertinence. There are many options and measures for developers to take; Nintendo is not the solution and the only way out of a bind. They don’t even have to be a factor at all in these measures. The only thing Nintendo's losing is time. They underestimated the time of development which is costing them in the short term. But as the games come out it corrects itself. This kind of ties into my point in an earlier part of the post about Nintendo not focusing on tech and only adopting it after it has caught on. The others already had a set structure and routine for HD development, Nintendo did not. You see Nintendo as the smartest in no small part due to their conservative nature and hesitation to jump into technology, yet shouldn’t we also praise those willing to move forward and take the risk on behalf of the industry? Pioneering the techland wilderness and opening a path for all to thread? Where would formats, hardware, integration, alternatives to retail and programming be today without the likes of Valve, Sony, Intel, AMD, Philips and others? I think Nintendo are missing out on the opportunity to make their already great games even greater; as I’ve mentioned, there are very few people indeed who disagree that HD quality images and a high and stable frame rate does not become them. There is room for remaining unique, I hope they never start behaving like Activison but I do hope that they will take some chances, tread some new land, push their creative capacity and strive for even more immersive experiences and I hope that they (and you) one day recognize that technology can help you along the way without removing your unique flair and touch. Kind of like in my post to zod95 where I talk about how tech actually drove gaming experience in total in the 90’s and early 2000’s on the PC and some consoles. Like when Nintendo made their first 3D Mario, imagine if they discovered and unleashed something of that magnitude again, not to mention several times? They need to learn how to compromise and they need to stop being so timid and reliant on ancient tradition and hinging their entire relevance upon a handful of franchises. I want a new and even better Nintendo but they want to remain the same, at all costs, it seems.
It’s on par with or somewhat above the PS3/360 in development cost, so as you can see, the danger to the industry was never as massive as you claimed. And this fabled “leap” in production cost for the 8th gen is a myth, nothing more. The difference is marginal and easily overcome.
And you seem to forget that you had this fire and brimstone on the subject of middleware only a couple of weeks ago; “Enough of this repetitive middleware garbage. That's why many of today's games are so samey samey all the time. Besides, this is also available on PS3, 360, iOS, Android, Browsers, OS X, Flash and Win Phone 8. For free, of course. And it is coming to PS4 and One as well. So, no I didn’t forget about it, I firstly didn’t think it was a big deal seeing as how everyone else in the world has the same offers and secondly; I made it a huge point in my posts on 3rd parties that Middleware was a great cost reducing agent, time saver and tool for scaling to hardware specs.
There really is no difference in the raw output cost, the difference lies in the willingness to forego production value (i.e; scaling budgets like I’ve said) to reduce cost. The lowered wattage of chipsets has one purpose; decreased levels of heat generation. Lower wattage = less heat generated = less cooling required, saving yet more power on fans and sinks = more effective hardware setup in terms of room and logistics, with the added bonus of securing a longer life since chipsets that heat up more also die more quickly. Convenience, not a measure to reduce your power bill or anything to influence development cost. Nintendo waiting to adopt HD until components were cheaper has no effect on development cost either, and they still managed to sell at a loss from the start anyway. This is technical stuff, which once again has proven to go over your head. Oh here's word from a major publisher/developer. Some company out of France, you might have heard of them. You'd think becoming the leading third party publisher for Nintendo's Wii U console would be expensive, but according to Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot, the company has not invested much money in R&D for it. Speaking to investors, Guillemot revealed just how cheap - relatively - it is to develop new games for the console. Console ports are even less, he added. "Out of seven games we are planning to launch, five games are ports, so those are games for which there is quite small reinvestments to do," Guillemot told investors (via NeoGAF). Guillemot did note that the two original Wii U titles, ZombiU and Rayman Legends, are the most expensive to develop, but that the investment is still significantly less than that of some of their other multiplatform franchises, like Assassin's Creed - which also happens to be one of the titles being ported to the Wii U. Rather than big production value, Guillemot shared Ubisoft's strategy for innovation with the Wii U. "Because as we've always said when there is such an innovation the need is not to have big production value but to concentrate on the innovation. This is what we are trying on Rayman and ZombiU." "For the other five games, you are talking about small budget, I'd say of less than a million euro to make some of the ports, I'd estimate," he concluded. "So together I don't think we have a huge investment on the Wii U." ...Anything else you would like to add, Mummelmann?” Yes, quite a bit, actually. Thanks for asking! “cheap – relatively” is one key here, this has a lot to do with the surprising fact that development costs between the 7th and 8th gen were/are truly miniscule compared to the 6th and 7th gen. The switch to the HD paradigm and age was costly, no doubt, but not only has this cost settled; with experience and development tools having been made and implemented for over 8-9 years, the HD development process has become quicker, more streamlined and less costly relative to the hardware output and over time. The Wii U is currently enjoying the 7th/8th gen transition, it has ports coming in, directly from the PowerPC environment of the PS3/360, porting is simple and cheap because it is more or less completely translated and compatible with the hardware. As this period ends and development focus shifts more heavily towards the PS4/One/PC, the x86 coding focus will become apparent and, subsequently, the Wii U’s PowerPC die will cause trouble for Nintendo and developers of multiplatform titles. This is the same reason that the PS4 and One aren’t backwards compatible; entirely different chipset structure, the CPU die is of another kind. I’ve already covered this in my biggest rebuttal though. The Wii U also suffers from “tiny hard drive syndrome” or THDS; this is a real issue with digital distribution being a big factor that will only keep on getting bigger. Not only will programmers need to re-fit the code to PowerPC die, they will also need to spend time and money compressing the data compilation to fit that one platform’s lacking specs or forego digital versions entirely, even the mandatory installs that have followed us from the 7th gen will cause trouble after a very short time with such a small amount of built-in storage. One could argue that “you can buy additional storage yourself” but that’s hardly fair, the Wii U simply lacks fundamental capacity out of the box that will hamper Nintendo’s support even more. Their “well-planned design” is starting to look highly improvised, cumbersome and short-lived. Zombi U and Rayman Legends were less expensive than Assassin’s Creed, a franchise that focuses very heavily on production value? No way! The ports were cheap and easy due the enormous convenience of stemming from the PS3/360 hardware era, this is not a luxury any developer (including the Nintendo fans champion; Ubisoft) will have during cross multiplatform work on PS4/One/Wii U/PC and thus it is irrelevant in the long term. The Wii U’s hardware does not offer a cost incentive; it poses considerable hindrance in multiplatform development and also sports a main control scheme that is hard to justify for most mainstream gaming, with the additional hassle of the coding, limited storage and lacking distribution channels it’s a tough sell to have developers also come up with a worthwhile and intuitive use for the ill-conceived Gamepad, it has a huge chance of ending up as either a bypassed cucumber (99% water) of a controller or a tired gimmick. “Rather than big production value, Guillemot shared Ubisoft's strategy for innovation with the Wii U.” Again, this plays into my point of ambition vs cost for 3rd parties and the scaling of budgets accomplished by taking various measures. The Wii U doesn’t have an advantage anywhere here. It’s a re-run of the Wii; they have purposefully made it different and will have to face the consequences. To make matters worse; Nintendo platforms have proven to be terrific at selling Nintendo software but not very good at selling most other software. The lack of incentive is staggering from where I’m sitting. Sony screwed developers by developing and implementing the ridiculous Cell processor and attempted to screw consumers by launching at an insane price: consequences were suffered, loss of marketshare, massive loss on R&D and hardware and loss of exclusive support to MS. MS attempted to screw consumers with crazy DRM and made a console with horrible hardware failure rates: consequences were greatly reduced consumer trust, bad press and a terrible monetary loss on warranties. Nintendo chose, once again, to design and release a console that forces the developers to deal with a divide in the industry and refuses to compromise time and time again: consequences are lack of support. Why is it so unfair that Nintendo suffer the consequences of their own, often poor choices? Their developer relations are a result of their own political play over a very long period of time.
“Mummelmann: Me: Like I’ve argued, and you yourself have pointed out several times, in this very thread at that; the vast majority of game design is very far removed from Nintendo today. Or are you saying that Nintendo’s influence has caused gaming to enter this decrepit state? As for console design in general; no, other consoles are doing their thing and Nintendo are doing their thing. Again, you have yourself talked about how unique Nintendo hardware is. It’s not apples and oranges, it’s apples and whiskey.
Wavebird; yep, innovative, influental and ever so slightly revolutionary. 4 controllers per console; I’ll give them that but this is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things since local multiplayer is slowly dying and being replaced by online multiplayer (sadly, because I love local multiplayer). 3D-space gaming was a lot more revolutionized by the likes of Monster Maze and Alone in the Dark, 3D space gaming with actual good controls, however, that’s surely much to Nintendo’s credit. Wolfenstein on SNES and later Goldeneye on N64 were no doubt instrumental in the FPS becoming even a factor on consoles. Ironically, FPS games are no longer a factor on Nintendo consoles though. Analog stick and rumble; yeah, like I mentioned earlier, impossible to deny. And I am thankful for every single one of these things, despite what you may think.
Almost all mobile games are a copy of something; there are hundreds of games inspired by games and concepts that have nothing to do with Zelda or other Nintendo games and even some original concepts.
The reality is that Nintendo is not the major source of influence they used to be, they have become less and less relevant and the industry as whole has moved further and further away from them, again; a point you make yourself. I don’t have to deal with it since it’s not detrimental to my life, any of this; it’s a debate on an internet forum. I accept the parts that Nintendo fathered or evolved, I’m a gamer. There is no reason for me not to accept it. Atari, Magnavox, Fairchild and others are the root of the industry. Nintendo is a part of the trunk though, no doubt, but the tree has grown, the trunk is under heavy strain and the branches are reaching ever upwards and outwards, drinking most of the sustenance the root and trunk used to savor in majesty. New times, old wood. Tradition can be their undoing or it can become the bedrock on which to develop and evolve a new and even more exciting Nintendo. I really, really, honestly do hope so.
And you are the conveyor, facilitator of and direct source to the truth? You’re privy to a part of it, sure, like most everyone else, but for all your entertainment value for some and your ability to fill a post with a massive amount of words, you are very far from seeing the whole picture; you’re mostly conjuring an image of a canvas splotched with the colors and shapes you would most like to see and imposing it as inescapable future reality. (I am once again musing over Adam Savage’s famous quote).
This guy goes on & on with nonsense so I'm gonna just cut it off right here & deal with his full rebuttal in the new year. Looking forward to it, I’m hoping you can adjust the scope and format somewhat, these giant mounds of words are becoming tiring, there is a proper debate to be had but we’re wasting an awful lot of time on filler here. This post was decently arranged though, certainly miles ahead of the Great Wall of John Lucas Reminiscing and Deftly Dodging from last time. If we keep it this way, it might even be somewhat productive for all parties involved.
On January 27, 2013, on my wall is a post from Mummelmann himself saying the following. You should have a comeback, the forums miss you. I might not have agreed with a lot of things you said but thoroughly enjoyed your long and articulate posts, those kind of things are few and far inbetween in here now, we had some good times in '08 and '09. Come back, man! All I can say to that is be careful what you wish for. Welcome back, don’t go anywhere this time, see it through. Happy New Year everybody! Happy new year.
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Thats some impressive Circle Jerk in here Mummelman but I just need to say.
The standards nintendo set allow for a much healthier, much more long term minded process of steady growth for the industry.
The problems in this industry started when PC like sensibilities and incongruencey in design decided to start messing with the console in Gen 6.
Several industry problems started in the 6th gen and the 7th gen only grew and exacerbated these problems
I mean heck several of Nintendo's own franchises grew more with the 3DS than with the DS despite its numbers and the roads into new audiences that device made