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JWeinCom on 19 December 2020
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curl-6 said:
JWeinCom said:

Microsoft in general. Gamepass is a great service, but aside from that, they dropped the ball this whole generation. First party output has been really poor. Not a developer exactly, but w/e.

Nintendo depending on what you consider "this generation". If you mean the Wii U, then obviously they deserve a spot. It was a case where the software and hardware team apparently couldn't get together and figure out what the fuck they were doing. After Nintendo Land, no games came out that really made use of the Wii U Gamepad. Which may be because the gamepad sucked, or may be because the developers sucked at utilizing it. Chicken and egg.

But the biggest problem with the Wii U IMO was that it just didn't have good games. They decided to release the sequel to arguably their biggest franchise, Wii Sports, as 5 separate initially digital only games, with nothing added but online play. Wii Fit was a digital first release that for some strange reason added little new content while taking away old content. As for Nintendo's core releases they were the definition of playing it safe. Mario 3D World, DKTF, NSMBU. All good games but nothing that would be fresh enough to create a buzz that would get people talking about the Wii U.

Of course, if you mean the Switch as this generation, they're killing it. They came out of the gate with something new and exciting (obviously Zelda and not 1-2 Switch) and really frontloaded the launch. Whereas the Wii U got its best games relatively late, Switch had them up front, and a good impression is important.

Yeah first party wise I'd definitely agree with Microsoft with the Xbone and Nintendo with the Wii U, both failed to provide either compelling hardware or sufficient compelling software, and both were a massive step down from their amazing 7th gen predecessors.

Not sure if you meant hardware to apply to XBox One, but in terms of hardware, it's fine. It's not like I can really tell much of a difference if I play a game on my PS4 or Xbox One. But Microsoft handed off its two biggest franchises to third party devs, and didn't really create any new franchises. Which is why they're buying up developers now.

I think the Wii U could have been successful. But the marketing team, software team, and hardware teams just couldn't all get together to figure it out. I think the gamepad had some cool applications, and it had some good games, and Miiverse was a really interesting idea. But the various ideas never game together. I worked retail at the time, and it was kind of hard to figure out how to sell the thing. Whereas I think the Switch isn't quite as interesting, but with just the debut trailer they were able to easily explain the main selling point.

But I'm a little concerned with Nintendo atm. Obviously, the Switch is going to break 100m with relative ease, but at this point Nintendo should be setting itself up for the future by using the big install base to launch new franchises. That's something they really didn't do well with the Wii/DS, and it bit them in the ass. Conversely, it's something Sony did really well with the PS3 and 4, and it paid off bigly.