Most Overhyped Game of the Year so Far

[Arkaign]

It's foolhardy to deny that Nintendo 1st party IPs probably account for the majority of console games with 90+ universal acclaim over the past couple of decades.

Now they might not bridge the appeal gap to those who are particularly into more gritty/realistic games, and that's fine. But the quality and stability of what's there is impressive. I've yet to run into a Nintendo title where I'm like 'man, this is unfinished, look at this placeholder texture here, or this weird slowdown/tearing!'. I'm talking their version of AAA, eg; Mainline Mario, Zelda, Metroid (whoops @ other M, lol), Kart, Smash, etc.

It IS fair to say that when they decided to 'go small' on the hardware guts end, along with their Japan-centric licensing/development tactics, that they basically guaranteed an exodus of major 3rd party support over the years. It began with the N64, and they have continued to struggle to this day. Even ~100M Wii consoles couldn't break that open really due to non-core-IPs selling poorly on the consoles even when they're available (some of that due to the kind of people who buy Nintendo consoles, some of that due to people that want to play those consoles owning better platforms for those types of games, and some of that due to the hardware power or lack thereof to do those titles justice to begin with).

One thing I do really admire Nintendo for historically is their ability to thrive in a non-bloated manner though, and I suppose managing costs and not going berzerk with bleeding edge tech/etc helps them achieve that. Which is exactly why I believe the hugely expensive tablet for the U was a crucial, nearly deadly error. If they didn't have to account for that on the BoM sheet, the MSRP of the system could be massively less, and their market penetration would be a lot higher.

I'm a great example, I do most of my gaming on other platforms than Nintendo systems, but I still like and want the Nintendo systems. But there is a price point which I won't breach for a console that's fundamentally a step below what else is out there, and I don't see value in the tablet. So for me, $149, $179, even $199 bundle would have gotten me in by now, purchasing their big IPs. But $249/$299 is just not a great value for how much I would use it.

Nintendo took a risk and brought their most ambitious product ever out in terms of BoM cost, and it bit them HARD. However, amortization and the lowering of costs over time has the U finally able to reach some level of success in my opinion. If historical trends prove accurate in time elapsed before major price reductions are brought into play on the supply side, and Nintendo can source much cheaper displays thanks to huge global tablet sales, then we could (should) be looking at $199 bundles this holiday that aren't money losers for Nintendo.

At that point, I'll bite. I already like my 3DS quite a bit, and liked the Wii enough to still have it connected for the occasional game.