Nintendo just shot themselves in the foot for next gen, repeat of Wii all over again

[comawhite94]

noname2200 said:

comawhite94 said:
In terms of software, I think that Zombie U, New Super Mario Bros U, Pikmin 3, Mass Effect 3, and Darksiders II, and Assassins Creed 3 should make for an acceptable launch window. There are those that complain that it won't have enough momentum right out of the gate, but historically I think it is in a company's best interest to build slowly but surely upon a system's foundation.

Take the Xbox 360 and PS3 for example. They both started off slowly, with lean lineups and relatively bad press in their first years (with RROD, and high price points, respectively) but slowly released AAA every year, added new features, and became the beloved systems we know today. The Wii on the other hand, started out incredibly strongly with Twilight Princess, Excite Truck, Wii Sports, Warioware, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy all in its first year. It was so jam packed that Nintendo had sparse lineup from Fall 2008-Winter 2010. This is why, in my opinion, that only having a few 1st party games is acceptable to me in the Wii U's lineup. It is in Nintendo's best interest to have their studios constantly releasing a few games at a time, instead of having a ton of games one year, none for the next two, then a packed lineup, then none, etc.

In terms of graphics, I do think the graphics are underwhelming, but consider that the games shown are either ports, or are Nintendo IP's which typically don't show off the true graphical potential of the hardware. Inevitably, Wii U graphics will be compared to PS4 and Xbox 720 but I think that we are fast approaching a point in graphics where games will just be too expensive to make, and 3rd parties will ultimately shy away. How many studios have closed this generation alone, not because they made consistently bad games, but because they put their money on a single title and it didn't sell the millions and millions they needed it to. Factor 5 comes to mind. The point is that the Wii U could still hold its own in terms of 3rd party lineup, unlike the Wii. It just depends on development costs for Sony and Microsoft's next gen systems. Sure, there will always be the ID's, Cryteks, and Epics of the world, buy if it costs devs a shit ton to make games for PS4/XB720 I think there's a fair chance that many will favor the Wii U. Look at what happened with Monster Hunter 3; originally a PS3 game, but ultimately released on Wii because of high dev costs.

Nintendo's failing point, to me, is that they failed to explain how their new hardware will make their vision a reality. Last year Reggie said that the Wii U was "tailor made for you." But how exactly? How does having a table controller guarantee it will suit each gamer? Or does that refer to the variety in its software library? Also, this year, Nintendo said that it hopes that Wii U will connect families and gamers in an age where smartphones, tablets, laptops and e-readers have separated them. But how so? How will adding yet another gadget not confound the supposed problem of family separation? And what of their online plan? Will each account be tied to each console, or will I have a username and password to access my online account from any Wii U? And what of dev support for the Wii U eShop? How much storage will the Wii U come with? Too many questions remain unanswered.

Also, how about some new IP's here Nintendo. They showed off 4 Mario games. I think we can all agree that's a tad excessive. I do think that gamers are partially to blame for this, because whenever Nintendo announces new hardware, the first thing we beg for is new Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, etc. How about something new, in the vein of Xenoblade, The Last Story, Disaster Day of Crisis, or Another Code? Not necessarily a sequel to these IP's (although that would be nice too) but something that can replicate their respective creativity. Even though I don't own a PS3, I have to admire Sony for making Beyond and The Last of Us (two brand new IPs) the center focus of the PS3 lineup. Nintendo needs to do something similar.

Overall, this was a very 'meh' E3, but not as bad as some made it out to be. The Wii U could still recover. It's too early to tell.

Hey, welcome to the site!

I can't say I agree with everything you posted. The launch window stuff looks pretty good for a launch, yes, but it's disturbing that we're getting almost nothing for what's beyond this holiday. Doubtless we'll be learning more as time goes on, but since they're trying to convince me to plunk down a few hundred bucks on their newest machine I need to know that there's plenty of great stuff coming up in the future as well. In light of the emphasis they've been placing on third parties recently, and the paucity of first-party games they showed, I also need to see much more on that front than a few year-old ports and some (not all) of Ubisoft's multi-plats. What they showed would have been acceptable, albeit still weak, if this was the system's fourth year. But for something that's coming out in about six months, this conference fell too flat. They needn't show all their hand, or even reveal more than a name or brief teaser for a handful of their other titles, but it'd be nice to not be kept completely in the dark.

Regarding the graphics, I don't personally care much myself, but Nintendo does have a strong history of great graphics, even in recent times, and I don't see why they couldn't have used at least one of the three first-party games they showed today as a demonstration. There's nothing in Nintendoland that inherently means they couldn't have used it as a graphics powerhouse if they were so inclined, for instance, while Mario games like Galaxy and 3DLand are some of the more beautiful games on their respective systems. Pikmin is also quite nice graphically; the original even came out near launch, and was a good demonstration of the system's graphics horsepower. I agree with your sentiment that pretty graphics are already dangerously close to not being "worth it," although I'm unsure if they agree with that. For their sakes, I hope so.

I'm also fine with the number of Mario games. Four in one year is certainly not unprecedented, after all! I'll admit that launching two 2D platformers so close together is novel, although I have faith that they'll be strong enough to stand on their own.

I didn't have much hype going into the conferences, so I wasn't exactly disappointed, but this E3 has certainly not delivered as much as prior years. With luck this is just a blip on the radar. Although it'd be nice if all the conference presenters started being more efficient and effective in their presentations: too many of them go on for far longer than their content warrants.

Solid points, and I think many of them come down to subjectivity, but I will say that regarding graphics, I was speaking in more of a technical sense, not artisitic. Nintendo's first party games like Mario Galaxy look good because of design, not because of texures, lighting/particle effects, polygon counts, etc. 

To me, this E3 validates a theory I've held for a year or two, and that's that the extended life of this generation, along with the potential increase in dev costs on next gen platforms has lead, in part, to creative stagnation today. It feels to me like everyone (Nintendo aside) is afraid to move on to new hardware becuase of the financial risks involved. As much as we say that game consoles don't compete with smartphones and tablets, the fact remains that the mobile market is booming, and not every consumer can afford or dedicate time to both. And aside from the higher dev costs already mentioned, there is the uncertainty of the economy. Some are predicting that the recovery from the collapse of 2008 is just a temporary illusion that can be undone anytime. There is still a lot of uncertainty and unemployment remains high. Thus, people are spending less on luxuries like entertainment, and what money they do spend on it is spent on well known brands to avoid the risk of buying something new and having it be bad. This is why, at least I think, why games like Cod sell millions every year, while new IP's sell less. Thus, in the end developers make fewer new IP's and we're left with the creative stagnation  (at least I perceive) at this years E3. 

I'm not trying to paint a doomsday picture, but I think that gamers need to adjust their idea's of what a game should do. Not every game needs to have multiplayer, co-op, online, acheivements, DLC, etc. Ask yourself, would Dead Space really have been improved with a chatty co-op partner? Was the atmosphere of Bioshock improved with multiplayer in its sequel? I think gamers need to stop looking at games as a bulleted list of necessary options and ask themselves what additional content would add to the experience of game X, given the context of the game and the game's strengths. Also, devs need to quit wasting time and money on unnecessary costs. Would it really improve the game to have the state of the art lighting and physics engine? In most cases, probably not. Budgets vary from project to project, so it's hard to give all encompassing advice, but I do think that devs need to be smarter about the costs of making games with out obsessing over their bottom line. Once we can acheive this reality, then we won't have such a boring, predictale E3 showing like this year. 

So...yeah. Bit off topic there, but still good discussion nonetheless imo. :)