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burninmylight on 16 November 2014
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Euphoria14 said:
burninmylight said:

First of all, Nintendo has been making consoles before the Wii U, so if you're going to ask that question, don't pretend like there haven't been many, many examples of first and third party games that either wouldn't be possible or as fun if they were made on a plain-Jane console with a standard controller.

Have you seen my sig? I obviously know Nintendo have made plenty of other consoles and guess what? Most of them used plain-jane consoles and a standard controller, just like Smash Bros WiiU will. NES? Regular controller. SNES? Guess what?! Standard controller. N64? Must be different right? Nope, pretty standard there. Gamecube? Now things change! Oh what's that? Standard controller? So I guess Wii changed things and they tried to replicate it with the WiiU. From my vantage point it seems Nintendo have made plenty of games that were possible elsewhere since they used standard controllers. *Standard as in what we see today, being d-pad, 4 face buttons, shoulder buttons, analog sticks.

Second, explain to me how Nintendo Land would work on PS4/X1. Or Zombi U. Rayman Legends is on other platforms, but the Wii U version is the definitive one, and the sales show it. Pikmin doesn't require the Gamepad, but it sure does make the game better with it. Are there many examples? No, not yet. But you asked what about the Gamepad makes the Wii U special, and I gave you some examples. And

Big whoop. ZombieU made decent use, but it wasn't even a Nintendo developed title. Also forget about just Pikmin 3 not making any real justifiable use of the Gamepad. How about MK8? Smash? Donkey Kong? Maybe SM3DL? These are games made by Nintendo and they can't even find any real justifiable use for their own "special" gamepad. They could all play perfectly fine with a plain-jane standard controller.

Finally, I believe you misunderstood the point; it's not just about the controller or other things that we the consumers see, it's about what's under the hood. Nintendo developers get the most out of their hardware because it is made for them, and they can focus on getting the most out of only that hardware and optimizing it without having to worry about things like parity and portability (see: Ubisoft and Assassins' Creed). In the same way you expect Naughty Dog to get the most out of Sony hardware, you expect EAD to get the most out of Nintendo hardware. Much of that would be lost if they didn't have their own console to focus on.

Yes, it is made for them, but ONLY them, which is why they can't really get 3rd party devs on board since they don't want to have to invest time and money into finding use for the gamepad, especially when Nintendo themselves cant even do that and when 2/3rds of the consoles don't even use things like the Gamepad and/or Wiimote. More power, proper online infrastructure and Pro controller bundled from the start and more willingness to actually work with and respect the 3rd party portion of the industry and you probably would have seen many of these 3rd party titles on the WiiU.

Nintendo consoles don't sell because of a special looking controller or Nintendo innovating in terms of how to play. People bought Nintendo consoles for their games. So making a console like the others wouldn't hurt since they will always have the strength of their own IPs to go along with all those 3rd party titles.

Wait, I changed my mind, one more thing:

"From what I see it doesn't really bring anything worthwhile to the table to justify the quote you bolded, unless off-TV play is what everyone is excited about, but I do that with my Vita and it was cool for a day or so."

Yet another comparison of a handheld console to a home console. I can't believe you had the nerve to bring up justification and Vita in the same sentence. Sony should just kill the Vita and make its handheld studios go third party, assuming they still exist.

Seriously? How the heck did you undertand it in such a twisted manner? I wasn't comparing a handheld to a console. I was obviously comparing the idea of off-TV play, and yes, Sony should drop out of the handheld market. 

"Have you seen my sig? I obviously know Nintendo have made plenty of other consoles and guess what? Most of them used plain-jane consoles and a standard controller, just like Smash Bros WiiU will. NES? Regular controller. SNES? Guess what?! Standard controller. N64? Must be different right? Nope, pretty standard there. Gamecube? Now things change! Oh what's that? Standard controller? So I guess Wii changed things and they tried to replicate it with the WiiU. From my vantage point it seems Nintendo have made plenty of games that were possible elsewhere since they used standard controllers. *Standard as in what we see today, being d-pad, 4 face buttons, shoulder buttons, analog sticks."

NES = Before it, controller designs were all over the place and most of them weren't optimized for any actual games. NES standardized the D-pad on the left and action buttons on the right layout. Made for Super Mario Bros.

SNES = Introduced the four-button face layout and nonintrusive shoulder buttons and became the template of every single standard controller since, with the exception of Nintendo, ironically. Before it, all buttons were right on the face.

N64 = Brought analog sticks into the mainstream (wasn't first though) along with a back trigger. Before it, D-pads were the norm. Every controller since has adopted an analog stick. The controller was made specifically for one game, Super Mario 64.

GC = Analog triggers? Super Mario Sunshine and racing games use them. I sure with the Gamepad had them.

Wii = Motion controls. Not even going to waste time explaining, outside of two words: Wii Sports.

Wii U - Gamepad screen.

I never said every single Nintendo game uses the controller it appears on in unique and intriguing ways. All I said was that that Nintendo makes it consoles for its developers first, and it has always been that way, and as a longtime Nintendo gamer, you should know that. I saw your sig just fine. This is why I can't understand why you expect Nintendo to ever make the same controller twice.

"Big whoop. ZombieU made decent use, but it wasn't even a Nintendo developed title. Also forget about just Pikmin 3 not making any real justifiable use of the Gamepad. How about MK8? Smash? Donkey Kong? Maybe SM3DL? These are games made by Nintendo and they can't even find any real justifiable use for their own "special" gamepad. They could all play perfectly fine with a plain-jane standard controller."

Like I said, you asked what games are on the Wii U that wouldn't be possible elsewhere, and I answered. And you conveniently ignored Nintendo Land. I forgot to mention Miyamoto's upcoming projects as well.

"Yes, it is made for them, but ONLY them, which is why they can't really get 3rd party devs on board since they don't want to have to invest time and money into finding use for the gamepad, especially when Nintendo themselves cant even do that and when 2/3rds of the consoles don't even use things like the Gamepad and/or Wiimote. More power, proper online infrastructure and Pro controller bundled from the start and more willingness to actually work with and respect the 3rd party portion of the industry and you probably would have seen many of these 3rd party titles on the WiiU."

When Nintendo made a console with power on par with its contemporaries and was a snap to develop for (GameCube), how did that work out? I'm not even disagreeing with you on this one; I'm just saying why I think Nintendo said "Screw it" when it came to the technological arms race and decided to do its own things. Does that mean it should stop making consoles altogether? No, it shouldn't. Sometimes doing its own thing works, sometimes it doesn't.

"Nintendo consoles don't sell because of a special looking controller or Nintendo innovating in terms of how to play."

"People bought Nintendo consoles for their games. So making a console like the others wouldn't hurt since they will always have the strength of their own IPs to go along with all those 3rd party titles."

True, people buy Nintendo consoles for their games. The graphic above actually reinforces your point as well. But again, no one bought the GameCube when it was just like the others. It had representation from every first party IP that mattered: Mario, three Zeldas, two Metroids, F-Zero, Smash, Star Fox, Kobe Bryant, Mario Kart, Mario Strikers, a Mario RPG, Donkey Kong (but not platformer DKC) Fire Emblem and was the debut of Animal Crossing and Pikmin, along with a few other original IPs.

Do you mean exactly like the others? Like, make a $400-500 box w/o backwards compatibility and charge $50 a year for Internet services and have the only thing that makes it stand out is the first party games? I think that's the topic of another discussion, but I'm not convinced that would work either.

"Seriously? How the heck did you undertand it in such a twisted manner? I wasn't comparing a handheld to a console. I was obviously comparing the idea of off-TV play, and yes, Sony should drop out of the handheld market. "

Dude, you compared Vita's off-TV play to Wii U's off-TV play, a handheld to a console. One costs $400+$200, the other costs $300. And 1/3rd of that $600 is practically dead in English-speaking countries.