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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Are Nintendo games held to an unrealistic standard?

Pikmin is a amazing, love it.



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KLXVER said:
Snesboy said:
I don't thinks so. Lots of games Nintendo has published have been trash.

Metroid Other M
Disaster Day of Crisis
Devil's Third
Every Pikmin game

I could go on but I won't.

and what makes you right and people who like Pikmin wrong?

People who like Pikmin have poor taste.

Chrkeller said:
Pikmin is a amazing, love it.

Is it though? Is it?



In my opinion, yes. I love the time management and strategy elements.



Snesboy said:
KLXVER said:

and what makes you right and people who like Pikmin wrong?

People who like Pikmin have poor taste.

Chrkeller said:
Pikmin is a amazing, love it.

Is it though? Is it?

or maybe the kids game is too deep for you?



Chrkeller said:
In my opinion, yes. I love the time management and strategy elements.

You should check out a real manly game like StarCraft 2.

KLXVER said:
Snesboy said:

People who like Pikmin have poor taste.

or maybe the kids game is too deep for you?

About as deep as a 5 hour game can get.



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Can't say that I use video games to define manhood. It helps that I'm not insecure with who I am. But whatever floats your boat there captain.



Welp, this thread has gone off-rails. Anyways, in terms of sales, I have not seen much people (outside RolStoppable) holding Nintendo's less popular IPs to unrealistic standards.



BraLoD said:
Chrkeller said:

I completely disagree, Nintendo simply focuses on different technology.  The problem is you are viewing technology exclusively as better graphics.  From a technology perspective Nintendo focuses on ways to play.  Off the top of my head Nintendo developed shoulder buttons, analogs, rumble controllers, 4 controller ports, multiple screens, motion controls and now a hybrid console.  All that is technology, just not 'better graphics.'  

Personally I love Sony and Nintendo, what makes owning both such a great experience is the fact they focus on different things.  Nintendo doesn't need to be another "me too" console.  The Xbox X is a power beast, too bad MS has little to no exclusive content.  At the end of the day Nintendo develops software, than creates hardware to play their games.  This is different view compared to Sony/MS.  

For those who think there is a Nintendo bias, do you think there is a Naughty Dog bias because almost everything they release is reviewed 90+?  I'm guessing not.  

Either way, there is no Nintendo bias.  Nintendo makes superb titles.  

And I don't see how does any of that goes against Nintendo having fallen behind in technology, which was the statement you went against.

Oh and about ND, any reason their games shouldn't be getting that reception?

We will have to agree to disagree.  Technology isn't graphics.  The Switch has technology we have not seen in the gaming world before.  If the Switch has new technology (which clearly it does), then by default Nintendo isn't behind on technology, but rather in a different direction.  Either way, we clearly disagree.  

ND, thanks for proving my point.  When games get reviewed well on their console of choice, they deserve the recognition....  on other consoles, bias.  See the convenience there?  If not, cool.  No skin and all that.



RolStoppable said:

They would be stupid to do both. When they are about to make a sequel to an IP of which they know that it won't be able to sell more than two million copies, they are much better off by outsourcing it to a lesser development team. The game gets made without being detrimental to Nintendo's core business. Nobody needs to be upset about the lack of a sequel (because the game gets made) and Nintendo doesn't waste top talent on a game that can be made my someone else based on an already existing framework. Win-win.

But that just cheapens the potential of the brand. ARMS could grow into something much bigger and did pretty well for a first start. Why ruin that by chucking it over to a developer that may or may not have any clue what they're doing. Outsourcing makes sense if its an already popular brand and the team doesn't have any ideas for it, or another developer has an idea for a new game. But for a fledgling IP that still has more potential to grow, it makes much more sense to keep making it in-house to nurture it more until it's a more established player. 

F-Zero only sold 2 million on the SNES, yet Nintendo still made a sequel in-house. Star Fox sold under 3 million copies, yet Nintendo still made most future entries in-house. Pikmin has only ever been able to move 1-2 million copies, yet Nintendo's made 3 games in-house at this point. Nintendo's a fairly big developer, they have the resources and the money to handle their niche games in-house. I would get this argument if again, Nintendo's console was struggling in sales, or they were some indie studio who needed to be careful about spreading themselves too thin. But they are neither of those things. If one of their teams wants to make a sequel to a less popular brand, they can do it as long as they have ideas.



RolStoppable said:

No, it doesn't hurt the potential of the brand. Nintendo allowed Rareware to make Donkey Kong games, they handed Metroid to the unknown Retro Studios and Luigi's Mansion to Next Level Games. There are some great examples of outsourcing creating win-win scenarios, especially because Nintendo's portfolio of valuable IPs is too big to be covered by internal developers alone. ARMS isn't a game idea that is so out of this world that it requires an internal team for a sequel.

In those examples, it was because internal teams within Nintendo didn't have any ideas for those franchises at the time, so they looked for people who did. Yabuki on the other hand, has several ideas for a new ARMS, so if he wants to make a sequel in-house, he has the okay to do it more than likely.

F-Zero was created at a time when 2m were as big for a game as 10m are today. The context of time needs to be taken into account, so 2m today and 2m in the early 1990s are not equal. Regardless, Nintendo's internal developers only made one sequel to F-Zero before the IP got outsourced. The original Star Fox was co-developed with Argonaut, only Star Fox 64 was made internally; later Star Fox games were all outsourced.

2m is still a hit regardless of decade. Of course, the bigger the budget the more you'll need to sell to break even, but Nintendo games don't really have that high of budgets to begin with generally, at least not compared to most western AAA games. Even Miyamoto said BotW would only need to sell 2 million to break even. And again, F-Zero only got outsourced because the team within Nintendo had no more ideas left after X, so they turned to Sega for any ideas. Star Fox has always been led internally by EAD. Argonaut was brought in to help the developers make 3D models. Even when it started getting outsourced in the GameCube era, Nintendo quickly took the series back in-house starting with Command.

Pikmin is a very different story and basically the prime example of Nintendo doing things wrong. Their internal teams made three games in the series, each of which fell short of the 2m mark. Business interest got neglected to pursue the lovechild of Shigeru Miyamoto. Pikmin 3 went into development at a time when Nintendo's consoles were doing great in sales. Its development got shifted to the Wii U and when that console fell flat on its face and needed big titles from Nintendo's internal developers, they had Pikmin 3 in the pipeline. That's why it shouldn't matter what the console sales are, because it's always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to having system sellers in the works. Pikmin 3 with the pathetic sales history of the Pikmin IP was a guaranteed miss from the get-go.

Again, the Wii U wasn't doing well, so you might have had more of a point back then. But not for the Switch. If a new Pikmin from EPD releases on the Switch, it'd probably be the best selling entry in the series with 2-3 million copies. That's my point, if software sales and hardware userbase are this good for the Switch, why wouldn't you want to take risks on niche ideas? Just look at the last time Nintendo was doing so well in both categories with the Nintendo DS. It had software sales so ridiculously good, that even most of the niche games could do at least half a million, thus Nintendo was more inclined to take creative risks on that system.

Your entire argumentation would have merit if outsourcing spelled doom for an IP, but that's simply not the case. Given how highly regarded Nintendo's IPs are, Nintendo can basically pick who they want to work with on Nintendo IPs because that's a dream of lots of developers. And because of that, those developers are usually passionate about working on Nintendo IPs and that leads to better results than a run of the mill game.

It's arguably safer to keep a still new and fledgling IP in-house to nurture it more until it becomes one of Nintendo's star players. There's a difference between farming out Mario, and farming out ARMS. One's a long-running, established hit with years of influence for developers to pull from, the other is some weird, new thingamajig with only one game under its belt.