| Zod95 said:
1. Harming gamers 1.1. What Nintendo does with your dollar It doesn’t take much time to search for graphics and tables on Google images about the profits of the big three and realize that Sony and Microsoft pick your dollar to spend on more games and consoles while Nintendo keeps much (if not most) of it. Just because Nintendo makes a profit doesn't mean they're trying to steal your money. They are a business, and saving their earnings is a completely normal practice. 1 dollar spent on Sony or Microsoft products means 1 dollar to feed hardware and software developers for the production of more and better games. Sony and Microsoft have other divisions besides gaming. In that way, their division can be subsidized with little consequence to the entire company's future. 1 dollar spent on Nintendo products means a very significant part of it out of the videogaming industry. It’s interesting to realize that the only 100% gaming corporation making consoles nowadays is also the only one taking money away from the gaming cycle. No, this actually makes complete sense why they would do this. It isn't even really true either, as it makes it seem like Nintendo doesn't spend money on making games or new experiences. 32B$, that is Nintendo’s “debt” towards gamers as of 2011. 1.2B$ is the Sony’s “debt” as of 2010 but now it must be nothing. With Microsoft, it’s the opposite: gamers have a “debt” of 6.8B$ as of 2011. These figures don't make much sense at all. There's no "debt" to anyone. Some of you may tell that companies are meant to make profits and thus it’s totally legitimate for Nintendo to make billions at the gamer’s expense. It's not at the gamer's expense. People choose to buy these products. It's not like sheep flocking to their masters who abuse them. That is true. However, you as a gamer have the power to choose. If there are companies that have been willing to give you as much as you give them, you can opt by them and make the market to operate on this logic. That is also fair. Again with this whole "debt" thing, it really doesn't make sense. What you're really looking at is the result of how much it costs to create the hardware, plus the fact that they subsidized their consoles (which Nintendo did not do). It isn't because they're trying to cheat us like you're making it out to be. It's because if they don't make a profit in their gaming division... pretty much their only division... they wouldn't be around anymore. It doesn't make sense to make this argument. You are right that gamers have the power to choose and there are plenty of Nintendo fans that HAVE been blindly accepting everything Nintendo does, but you're taking this way too far into the ridiculous.
1.2. How Nintendo has evolved along the time But, as gaming became more and more evolved, as digital experiences became more and more complex, and as genres were changing in both form and popularity, Nintendo wasn’t able to follow the market trends and the industry turns. They got stuck in the past, fearing change, more competitive segments that were emerging and refusing to leave behind the aging concepts that made them multi-millionaire. Except this isn't how it worked out. Nintendo isn't stuck with "the past" in terms of genres. Mario is their platformer game. F-Zero was their high-speed racer. Metroid was their more mature game. Pokemon was their RPG. Fire Emblem was their Strategy game. Zelda was their adventure game. There are more that Nintendo owns and all of these have evolved with the market and continued to sell well with probably the exception of F-Zero (in their respective markets). The top-notch designs became cartoonish, the unparalleled gameplay level became too basic, the content remained linear and the genre focus continued to be the same (platformers, RPG and little more). Except you're really only focusing on their most popular of franchises... AKA Mario & Pokemon (and the little more most likely is "Zelda"). They have more than that, and platformers, RPG and Adventure game cover A LOT of ground in terms of genres. Not only that, but you're just wrong with this. Twilight Princess =/= Cartoonish. Fire Emblem is rather mature, and so is Metroid which never was "cartoonish." Where are these "too basic" gameplay levels you're referring to? And "linear" is so often used as if it were really bad. It's not. It's necessary to tell a good narrative, and sometimes good for keeping a game accessible. As a result, the teenagers and adults that grew up with Nintendo were already too old to be pleased with the same experiences and kids became the main client of the “kindergarten” offers that Nintendo games had turned into. Also not the reason why this happened. This was more of a result of marketing than anything else. On the other hand, Nintendo got clinged as much as they could to the old formulas. One big example of this is the balloon-based games. When videogames were not evolved enough to have voice acting, real-time animations or character full-control, developers usually opted by game architectures based on text balloons that would tell what the characters were saying or would give options to progress in the game or perform some actions (like it happens in all handheld Pokémon games). From the 5th generation onwards, developers began to move out of this archaic concept. Tech is what was preventing them from evolving. Nintendo got clinged to the cheap architectures. Money is what was preventing them from evolving. This argument is filled to the brim with holes. Voice acting is not a sign of a game being more advanced. Real-time animations exist in Nintendo games, but are certainly not necessary as MANY 3rd party games still don't opt for. "Character full-control" I don't even know what that is. Nintendo is not "clinging" to these "architectures" and it ISN'T because of money either. They may be driven by profit, but that applies to any company. Of course we know Nintendo is not exempt from the whole concept. Platformers were still very popular but other genres emerged. Sports became very significant and Nintendo’s response was Mario Tennis, Golf, Strikers and Baseball, which were fun (Nintendo never stopped being competent in what they were committed to) but were too basic when compared to FIFA, PES, Virtua Tennis, MLB, NBA, NFL, etc. Nintendo also did Wii Sports, which did extremely well. I don't see what is considered "too basic" here. This seems just like a personal preference for you. A game having simpler mechanics does not make it a worse game. These games not only presented more complex and deeper gameplays but also attempted to be realistic in content (real players, real teams, real championships, real stadiums, etc.). With a tiny portion of such content, Nintendo Sports games could mostly appeal to kids but not to the majority, which moved to PlayStation. Such an overstatement that it isn't even true. Also, Wii Sports. The exact same thing happened with the Driving genre. Games like Need For Speed, Test Drive and Gran Turismo offered real cars, realistic environments and simulating gameplays when compared to Mario Kart and F-Zero. Once again, Nintendo avoided photo-realism, realistic gameplay modeling, car sounds and anything that couldn’t be done within the four walls of their studios or represented a major expense. Traditional-development / easy-business was their niche. It sounds like you just want Nintendo to spend more money on their games because you prefer "photo-realism." Photo-realism is NOT the same as "evolving." Same thing happened in the Fighting genre, where Nintendo came up with Super Smash Bros to compete with the complex and somehow realistic Tekken, Dead Or Alive and Soul Calibur. Recycling characters to an arcade experience shows the Nintendo’s commitment in regards to the Fighting genre. Same thing with the Strategy genre, where Pikmin was the only RTS to compete with the complex Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, Homeworld, Company of Heroes and the deep and simulating Civilization and Total War. All of these arguments fall apart once you find out why these games were even made. Smash Bros was meant to be an accessible fighter game that wasn't supposed to be like the other games you just listed. Read it up sometime, k? Platformers were now sharing protagonism with Action/Adventure games and the peeking Shooters. Nevertheless, Nintendo kept up with Mario and Donkey Kong while Zelda, Golden Eye and Metroid Prime were the only response for such a change. Again, with the exception of Golden Eye, Nintendo continued to be on the cartoonish/wonderland style that could solely rely on their talent to make games and nothing more. They were full of money but it was not to be spent like the others were doing. Even when they were drastically losing market share to PS1, the billions were to be kept in their pockets. I think the fact that you keep using the word "cartoonish" means that you don't know what you're talking about. It's like you think photo-realism is always harder to create than something that looks animated. Your jumps in logic are astounding. The Wii U just continued the Wii’s path, being 1 generation behind on core capabilities and relying on another gimmick (the gamepad). I don't think using the word "gimmick" is a good idea if you want to really be taken seriously. The PS4's controller is a 'gimmick' as is the XBox One's. Anything created to boost the appeal of a system is a gimmick. But this time Nintendo was not capable of catching the casual market. Most of the non-gamers that bought the Wii just moved out of the market as fast as they had moved in, searching for new ways of entertainment (smartphones, social networks, etc.). Others evolved and became more demanding (like the NES/SNES clients) and moved to PlayStation or Xbox. Only a tiny part upgraded their Wii to Wii U, and the sales show that. Except everything you said is speculation. You cannot actually claim to know this, just as I cannot claim that this is indeed false. Over the last 2 decades, Nintendo did everything to avoid massive money spending. Except that isn't even really true either. While Gran Turismo was modeling hundreds of real cars, TOCA was designing dozens of real tracks, Project Gotham was recreating several world cities and rFactor was modeling real car handlings, Nintendo was recycling the old same old Mario Kart. This comparison doesn't even make sense. Does a game HAVE to sample real cars to be a racer of note? No. Is Nintendo recycling the same old Mario Kart? No. It's like you haven't even seriously played any of the Mario Kart games if you think that. While Crytek, Epic and Polyphony were developing cutting-edge game engines, Nintendo was doing nothing special at all. Problem with this argument is that if Nintendo were to do this, they would almost surely lose money and end up using their resources where it's better spent. Do you see Sony and Microsoft going around trying to out-do the current game engines themselves? While Fuel, Just Cause, Test Drive Unlimited and Operation Flashpoint were building thousands of square kilometers, Nintendo was keeping up with the small levels they had ever done. While Sonic was hiring bands to create dozens of quality music tracks to its games, Nintendo continued to use instrumental-only soundtracks for Mario. Such a cherry-picked statement. You do realize that Nintendo has a lot of great music under its belt, right? You're acting as if Nintendo just "recycled" their music as well. While The Getaway, Uncharted, LA Noire and Heavy Rain were raising up the gaming standards to compete with movies or TrackMania, Crashday, LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers were creating powerful level editors and promoting the play-create-share concept, Nintendo was doing nothing for it. While World of Warcraft, APB and MAG were revolutionizing the online gaming experience or while GTA, Total War and Arma were designing highly deep simulating environments, Nintendo was claiming that violence and photo-realism were out of their landscape. But the truth is that Nintendo has never tried to engage into bold concepts that could require a lot of money with the risk of being massive flops (other developers did). While Nintendo could have tried to expand further, you've got it all wrong. It's about what they think is worth investing into. This is another thing that's normal for a healthy business to do. However, the thing is that Nintendo has plenty of times innovated the market with ideas. They ‘ve never done on Mario Kart what others did on ModNation Racers many years later. They’ve never done on Pokémon what others did on Spore many years later. What the heck does this even mean? The uncontrolled power of a game community fascinates most of developers but scares Nintendo. Their talent and creativity are only used to easily profit from gamers, who made them rich in the first place. Note that I’m not taking into account tastes when referring all those games earlier (like the Guinness book is not about the best people in the world). I’m just focusing on objective remarkable achievements of some games that could have only been done with effort/time/money. If the game X is beautiful or if the game Y is fun, that is already subjective (about tastes) and it is about talent (the only thing Nintendo games have relied on, despite their immense potential resources). Except what you've been stating aren't objective facts. You made a plethora of mistakes.
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I'll respond to more later.
