| Pristine20 said: 1. Criticism is criticism, I'm not sure that specifying the kind of criticism is relevant. No one wants it eitherway. 2. Most people know that Sony is worse off financially. Their financial statements are often posted on this very site. 3. Nintendo was criticized for that mostly in the Wii generation. It was fair criticism in the sense that the customerbase they were pursuing was too fickle and unpredictable. As for bayonetta and Devil's third: neither of the two are big games or going to be big games. I don't know what the fuss is about. Some may just be unhappy they cant play them on their preferred system but that's jealousy not criticism. 4. Were yoiu around for ps3 launch? Xbox one pre-launch? Because I'm fairly sure that M$ and Sony have faced more criticism at certain points as well. Instead, most of the WIi threads in it's prime were about how mouch money it printed. 5. There are way more multiplats skipping nintendo's system than Xbox one and ps4. This criticism is fair. Install base and system power are nintendo's fault. I don'tknow how you can deny it. I can't think of any ps4 exclusive that's not a sony investment so I'm not quite sure what comparisons you're making. As for nintendo's seal of quality, it really did exist so it's wasn't unfair criticism at the time. When have nintendo ever gone out of their way to accomodate third parties compared to other manufacturers? You keep mentioning ps4 but neglect to mention that Sony went as far as to consult 3rd parties when developing the system. On the other hand, nintendo just made the best system to play the games they envisioned not to accomodate (not that this is necessarily bad). When a company is performing poorly the CEO gets blamed. This is not unique to nintendo. 6. I have been actively visiting gaming sites for at least 11 years now and I've not heard most of the criticism in your second to last paragraph. Perhaps one thread by a random guy isn't significant? WHat I have heard though is criticism of fps saturation and praise for nintendo for making colorful games instead of brown and grey space marine shooters. Goes to show huh? How come you also never addressed the fact that nintendo definitely has more supporters on this site for example? Were you hoping for gaming to be an echo chamber where everyone agrees that nintendo can do no wrong? If not, what criticism have they gotten that you agree with? Want to see contradictng criticism on other companies? M$ was criticized for too much focus on kinecttowards the end of the 360s life and for moving the same sentiments to the xbox1. Now that Kinect has been deemphasized, I've read commentary suggesting that the system doesn't differentiate itself from the ps4 now. |
1. It's not the kind of criticism, it's the validity and consistency of it. It's the attitude behind the criticism. When you criticise, for instance, CoD for not mixing things up enough with real new content, it's because you want CoD to have more variation between games. But when people criticise Nintendo for, say, not having enough new IPs, it's not because they want Nintendo to make more new IPs, as the same people criticise Nintendo for not making a new Metroid game when they announce a new IP instead. And you can bet the same people who complain about the fact that Mario 3D World wasn't a new Galaxy game will start complaining that Nintendo are making too many Mario games when they do announce a new Galaxy-type game.
Also worth noting is that Nintendo is criticised for not making new IPs when they typically make 2-3 new IPs a year (which is more than most publishers), and that they're criticised for over-reliance on Mario despite Mario making up a relatively small fraction of their lineup.
So no, "criticism is criticism", as you intend that phrase, is wrong.
2. And yet, more time is spent arguing that Nintendo should go third-party, more time is spent calling for Iwata to resign, and more time is spent declaring that Nintendo is doomed than is done for Sony.
3. Nintendo weren't pursuing any particular "customerbase". They were trying to be inclusive. Which is why they pushed to get Monster Hunter on the system, why they made a fuss about World at War at E3 2008, why they developed Disaster, Xenoblade, Metroid Prime 3, etc, and why games like Resident Evil 4 were pushed so much by Nintendo. It was third parties that focused purely on the "casual market" - and by you making the claim you just made, you've again proven my point that Nintendo is uniquely blamed for everything, whereas usually the developers and publishers are blamed.
4. It's not about the amount of criticism. When people criticised the PS3 launch, it was because of Sony putting their collective foot in their mouth. When people criticised the situation with Xbox One, they were criticising it for anti-consumer attitudes that MS were forced to back away from. Those were both legitimate reasons to criticise. And there's legitimate reasons to criticise Nintendo. But the gaming community doesn't criticise Nintendo for those legitimate reasons, they criticise Nintendo for everything they can think of, no matter how inconsistent it might be.
5. You mention that you can't think of a PS4 exclusive that isn't a Sony investment... both Bayonetta 2 and Devil's Third are Nintendo investments at this point in time, but it doesn't stop the criticisms. Yes, lots of multiplats are skipping Nintendo's systems... but in many cases, this includes games that are releasing on PS3 and 360, which obviously could run on the Wii U, so it's not about hardware. And the Wii U has an install base similar in size to the PS4 and Xbox One, and larger than the Xbox One, so it's not install base - especially given the games that were released for Xbox One and PS4 launch but that skipped the Wii U. So no, Nintendo isn't at fault for lack of multiplatforms when third parties use obviously-false excuses that amount to more nonsense criticism of Nintendo. It's not just the gaming community that does it.
Also, I said nothing about Nintendo's seal of quality, so I'm not sure what you were responding to, there. And yes, when a company performs poorly, the CEO gets blamed... and yet, people spend far more time calling for Iwata to resign than for Kaz to resign, despite the fact that Sony have been losing money at a prodigious rate under him. Oh, and people don't call for Iwata to resign because of financial reasons - they'll often couch it in those terms, but the facts are made much more clear when they elaborate - it's always about the fact that they think Iwata's "focus on teh cazualz" is a bad thing (never mind that there's no evidence of such a focus, especially with the Wii U).
6. You must have spent most of your time on certain, relatively reasonable sites, if you haven't heard those sorts of criticisms. People do sometimes praise Nintendo for using colour... but it's usually done as a backhanded compliment, along the lines of "It's great that Nintendo don't just do the stupid brown-and-grey... if only they didn't make all kiddy games!", where the person's use of words like "kiddy", when you look into it further, translates to "games with a variety of colours". People refer to games like de Blob as "kiddy", despite the actual content, purely because it's a game about colour.
And as I said, there are entirely legitimate reasons to criticise Nintendo. But if you look at the list I provided, the vast majority are either nonsensical or inconsistent. It's not the presence of criticism, it's the nature of that criticism that is noteworthy.
MS were criticised for putting too much focus on Kinect towards the end of the 360's life, because it was a peripheral that nowhere near everybody had, and was not an inherent part of the system. They criticised MS in the case of the Xbox One because it was now a defined part of the system that was introduced to give the system a distinct identity... and even then, most people criticise MS not for dropping the Kinect, but for the inconsistent attitude towards it - first declaring that it was essential to the system and that it was here to stay, and then announcing that they were dropping it. Criticising a company's obviously-false statements isn't unfair - like criticising EA for saying that the new Simcity needed online to function at all because of all the cloud computing done in it, and then 3 months later releasing a patch that removed the need for online. This is a fair criticism.
And I actually think it's entirely fair to criticise Nintendo for not making enough games that made good use of the Wiimote. Such criticism is healthy and reasonable. The problem comes with the people who then criticised Nintendo for making Skyward Sword use the Wiimote so much.
Note that Nintendo gets criticised for not releasing the PS4. That's what it boils down to - they argue that Nintendo should drop the gamepad, which produces a system with nothing in terms of controls to distinguish itself from the PS4. Then they argue that the reason the Wii U is performing poorly is difficulty in porting down from PS4/XBO (even when many games are still also being made for PS3/360, and those games also don't get ported) - so the system needs to be replaced with a stronger system (indeed, many say Nintendo should just drop the Wii U entirely and release a new system now, never mind the backlash they'd get for it). And then they criticise Nintendo for free online. What's left? A system with the control scheme of the PS4, the online system of the PS4, and the power of the PS4. These people are calling for the PS4.
Do you see people saying that MS should release a more powerful system? Some were saying that they had to remove the requirement that Kinect be connected to the system, but nobody was really bothered by Kinect's existence (and indeed, many were calling for Kinect for PC).
Sony, Microsoft, Activision, etc, all tend to get criticised for actual problems. Nintendo gets criticised for anything the person can think of. And then those who call people out for nonsensical complaints get called fanboys and are derided. Just as you derided me as though I wanted some sort of echo chamber, rather than just the end of contradictory criticisms.
