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Soundwave on 11 March 2014
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TornadoCreator said:
Soundwave said:
TornadoCreator said:
I would be extremely pissed off. I think the Wii U is one of the finest consoles of all time, and much like the Dreamcast before it, it exists at a time where it's goals and mine coincide. I can be playing Donkey Kong or Mario on the GamePad while having something else on the main TV, like a sitcom, stand up comedy, or comfortable show I know well like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I can lay in bed and play like I do with my Vita/3DS. This is how I want my console. This is perfect for me...

What I want from Nintendo is a one-console solution. A console that is both a home console and a true handheld in one. When you're in the house you use the TV and GamePad, but on the move you can take the GamePad with you, like you would your DS and play it on the move. You could even have it backwards compatible with both the Wii U and 3DS games. Allowing you to play Wii U games on the move, and play 3DS games on your big TV. This is the future I hope Nintendo go for, I'm not sure how they'd do it exactly, but it'd be awesome if they could. I'm watching out eagerly for the announcement of the Nintendo DSU in 2017-2018, and if it happens I will name myself forever a loyal Nintendo fan.

What I don't want though is a Hardcore HD Console, filled with grizzled brown haired men with guns grimacing at each other. We have plenty of consoles who do that already. I would consider it the death of Nintendo if they actively started courting the Playstation/Xbox gamers with promises of hardcore testosterone romps. I would morn them and move on. The last bastion of the carefree fun, Nintendo must remain as it is... it cannot die, it was hard enough losing Sega, let's not do that again.

So, would I be angry, YES! I'd be fucking livid. It would be an outright betrayal. You have 6 million people here Nintendo, and likely another 6 million still wanting to join who are simply waiting till they have the money to jump in, or waiting for a game like Smash Bros. or Mario Kart to make the switch over. I know at least 4 people who are currently saying, "I'm thinking of getting a Wii U soon". These people all believe in you. Don't let us down for the millions of CoD-kiddies out there who couldn't give a rats arse about Nintendo. We saved the princess, we killed mother brain, we rescued the seven sages. We threw the red shell, we captured the pikachu, and we found the banana horde. We're here to stay... look after us and you'll get my money every year, I promise you that Nintendo. If you leave us for the CoD-kiddies though, I won't be coming back. Have you seen what Mistress Sony can do with an OLED screen? Think about it.

Yeah it's great that Nintendo is different, but at the same time I think 90% of shoppers are starting to say they don't want to buy a console just for 3-4 Nintendo games a year. If people are going to invest $200-$500 on a home console they expect access to a full library of content from all developers, and honestly I can't blame the consumer for expecting this. When you buy a Blu-Ray or DVD player would you be OK with just 4-6 high quality movies released on it per year? 

I think the name of the entertainment business has simply  changed from one in which companies' could dictate what consumers would buy and how to a new era where consumers say "we want the widest variety of content and we want to consume it how we want, not how you tell us". That's how the smartphone/tablet has emboldened consumers, they expect more nowadays, how a lot of companies did business in the 80s and 90s simply doesn't cut the mustard any more (this goes for Sony as much as Nintendo, but their video game division at least has their act together). This is why a lot of people simply won't touch a Windows phone, no matter how high quality it is ... it doesn't have access to same number of apps as iOS or Google Play offer. 

The Super NES was fairly similar hardware wise and even library wise (in some ways) to the Sega Genesis? Do you confuse the two even remotely? Of course not. A Nintendo console is always unique for the fact that it has Nintendo exclusives on it, it doesn't need a controller shaped like a sex toy or be painted purple to stand out. Nintendo hardware is always distinct even if they do pump up the testeroterone ... the N64 was certainly a bit more testerterone fused than say the Wii, but that doesn't make it a Playstation derivative. 

I think internally too, Nintendo's main enemey may actually not be Sony/MS anymore, that may also be a dated perspective. There are plenty of cartoony games making a huge impact on the market ... the problem is they are sheparding in the age of the 99 cent "throwaway" game (but you notice how many cartoony console games are flopping nowadays? W101, Rayman, Tearaway, Puppeteer, LBP Karting, etc. etc.). That audience is being eaten up smartphones/tablets ... perhaps the time has come for Nintendo to consider a more balanced approach, going back maybe more to a N64-style approach, just one that isn't crippled without third party games. 

Those games aren't all flops. Rayman is doing well, and Tearaway is one of the best recieved games on the Vita. Sure they're not CoD level, but what is... expecting that is just stupid.

The question I'd want to ask though, is what do you mean by N64-style approach? Stunted, unwilling to move with the times, outdated on release, and highly over-rated perhaps? Seriously I consider the Nintendo 64 to be the single most over-rated games console in the history of the medium, and this is the same medium that has people waxing nostalgic for the NES and paying £100+ per cart because it's "classic". The Nintendo 64 was no only outdated on release, it had a piss-poor library of games, terrible third party support, and used an outdated medium for it's games so when it did get third party games like Spider-Man bits where cut from the game due to memory issues. Add in one of the least comfortable controllers ever made that wasn't made for an Atari console, and you've got one of the turds of gaming. In fact the only reason the Nintendo 64 is even slightly popular is it's EXACTLY the right age and sold under the perfect conditions in USA especially that all the American gamers in their 20's now where children when it released. The funny thing about Nostalgia is it turns perfectly reasonable people into complete idiots and now todays 21 year old where 5 years old when that console released... that makes them the perfect age to run game review channels on YouTube, gaming blogs, or forums, etc. and spread their opinions to other misinformed nostalgic 20'somethings all of whom also seem to think Super Mario 64 and Ocarina Of Time are masterpeices we've yet to come close to replicating. You live in that echo chamber long enough and you start to genuinely believe that these are the "greatest games evar!!!1!!!one!!!" when in actual fact they're decent, if a bit repetitive, predictable, and bland; but for early 3D they where a good attempt.

As for style, the things that make the N64 famous are Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros. Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong... where's the testosterone you speak of? Sure there's GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, and that's about it really. Nothing else stands out as especially "mature", there's extremely childish games like Conkers Bad Fur Day, filled with toilet humour and swearing, effectively a 13 year olds idea of maturity, but nothing overly mature there. All I'm getting at is that the Wii U is thankfully not like the N64. It's an elegant example of childish fun that children and adults can enjoy equally, much like the SNES and indeed the Wii. If anything the mature Nintendo console was the GameCube, with Resident Evil, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, and the only mature styled Zelda game to date, Twilight Princess. That is the Nintendo console much maligned. The GameCube is the console people should be looking back on fondly. Fixing every single issue the N64 had, and still keeping a good selection of Nintendo classics including Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Super Mario Sunshine, and the start of Pikmin and Luigi's Mansion.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not having a go and I do genuinely wonder what you meant by "N64-approach", and if I've understood you correctly, even if my sincere dislike of the N64 may have caused me to rant somewhat. I do honestly think I'd rather have Nintendo around making niche consoles with their own games, than have them try to move along to the mass market appeal. I don't want dark and gritty Mario or emo-Donkey Kong just because colour and happiness makes the CoD-kiddies interested... after all, there's only one Nintendo console the CoD-kiddies ever liked, and it was the one with GoldenEye on it, because all they want is to make themselves feel all grown up by shooting guns, (kinda sad really), and here's yet another reason why the N64 can fuck a whole lot of off. That was Nintendo meeting people half way, and I hated it with a passion... I hope with bated breath that they never do that again.

The N64 had a lot of games that were selling other than just Mario games. Sports games, FPS, action games, wrestling games, racing games all sold very well on the N64 and so did all the staple Nintendo IP -- Star Fox, Mario, Pokemon, Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Zelda, Kirby, DK, etc. etc. N64 had a pretty nice balance in software sales given everything. 

We all know why the N64 lacked games and it was because of the bone-headed decision to go cartridge only, which turned a system that probably would've sold 100 million consoles into one that still powered its way to a respectable 33 million only. The GameCube may have fixed some of the problems the N64 had, but it also basically screwed up on everything the N64 did well that people liked ... want Mario 64-2 ... here's a off-beat weird Mario game with all tropical levels that no one asked for. Liked Zelda: OoT? Here's a cartoonized version that no one asked for. Loved GoldenEye? Great, here's a single player Metroid game and we've sold Rare too. Nintendo took one step backwards for every step forwards they took with the GCN. 

If they could have some how combined the good of the N64 (Mario 64, GoldenEye, Zelda: Oot, Rare's overall output, relatively well thought of by kids and teenagers) with the "good" of the GameCube (Resident Evil exclusivity, better third party multi-plats, more JRPGs) maybe they would've had something, but that's not how making a successful product works, you have to be on your A game all the time, not half the time (sorry Nintendo). 

But none of that really has anything to do with this thread.