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noname2200 said:
09tarheel said:

I understand those complaints regarding the 3DS itself, but not for Iwata's comments that this thread is about. The 3DS is already out, Nintendo is invested in 3D for the next several years, what do people want him to say now other than the company needs to do a better job of convincing people of the value of 3D?

Alright, I'll put the kidding aside for a second and try to be as clear as I can when I'm goofing off at work (this isn't meant condescendingly, it's just an explanation for why some of my post may seem rushed and incomplete).

The complaints you're hearing are, in essence, a tweaked version of the classic saying "don't throw good money after bad." You said it yourself: the market doesn't seem to value the 3D effect, and certainly not to the degree that Nintendo was expecting it to. Given that, why is the lesson Iwata has learned "we need to educate the public to value 3D more!"? In other words, why are they choosing to double down instead of listen to what the market is saying, and adjust accordingly?

Instead of giving us more of the games that have sold over 20 million copies, i.e. the games that we have told Nintendo with our money that we want to play, Nintendo's decided that it will "create new experiences which have been neither enjoyed nor requested by consumers, and let them say, “This is the very thing I have been wanting to play” once they have actually tried it". It's like Toyota announcing that it's throwing out all its learned about carmaking during its history, and creating tricycles which you propel by singing into a tube and steer by blinking certain patterns into a scanner; you haven't previously enjoyed nor requested this, but I promise that you'll love it once you try it!

Personally, I find it sad that the only DS mega-hit to see a sequel so far, Nintendogs Cats, is essentially a clone of the original, but that Nintendo hoped and dreamed that slapping the new 3D effect and Spotpass connection would somehow make people overlook the fact that there's not a whole lot that's new in the game. As if Spotpass and 3D alone were enough to make us care! When the eShop launches, we're going to get a free copy of Excitebike, to show us why we should pay a premium for classic games that simply have the 3D effect slapped on to them: what's the over/under on how that's going to end?

You raise some objections to returning to the proven formula in lieu of putting all their eggs into the 3D basket. Yes, it's true the 3DS has already released. Yes, they've already sunk who-knows-how-many millions into developing the 3D. But this doesn't mean they have to follow the sunk cost fallacy. Third-parties did so this generation with HD, and by and large it's screwed them over.

And it's not like this would be the first time Nintendo's overlooked a "key" system feature. We know from the DS and the Wii that Nintendo itself is perfectly fine with ignoring a system's "key feature" when it suits them; Mario Kart DS didn't use touch controls, New Super Mario Bros. DS didn't use touch OR 3D, and Wii games like NSMBWii, DKCR, MKWii, and SSBB either used the Wiimote's features in a perfunctory manner, or possibly not at all.

So. What do we want Iwata to say? We want him to say "Here are the games you've proven to us, over the course of 25 years, that you want to play." We want him to say "We became obsessed with something you don't really value too much, and we're going to correct that. We do NOT want him to say "you don't know what you want, we do, and we shall teach you!"

We want him to say the things he said when the Wii launched. He was a wise man then. He didn't want to try and ram something down our throats.

That´s a great post..it all comes down to Nintendo developers just doing whatever the hell they want to, without taking into account what the majority of the market wants.....if you haven´t already, read Malstrom´s "Email:Miyamoto is a genius" article...it´ll resonate well with what you said here.