RolStoppable said:
Doobie_wop said:
You don't think having a decent online infrastructure, a lack of region locking, Third Party support, a decent patch and update system, consistent quality releases throughout the year, achievements and at least a slightly more powerful system at launch is important at all? Even we were just use the online and Third Party support as an example, those two alone are pretty big problems.
I have my settings to 10 posts per page, I should probably fix that, so thanks for reminding me.
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First off, you should know that if Nintendo was caught trafficking children for sex slavery, I'd still argue in their defense. Alright, here goes.
Online gaming is pretty low on my personal list, but I understand that others care much more for it. The issue with the DS and Wii online infrastructure is that it couldn't be changed posthum, so Nintendo and the owners of those systems were stuck with it. The 3DS clearly shows that Nintendo actually listened, acknowledged that there is a problem and offered a solution. One universal friend code per system and you can see which games your friends currently play. That's already a big step in the right direction, I don't think anyone sees this otherwise.
Region locking is an issue that shouldn't be an issue. It wouldn't matter if region locking is in place, if all semi-important games see worldwide releases. If Nintendo as well as third parties manage to speed things up in terms of localization, then region locking won't be a problem. We'll have to see how things go with the 3DS, but that system is already attempting to fix or lessen some other issues, so there are reasons to be hopeful.
Gaining third party support really wasn't easy for Nintendo considering their position before the 7th gen. Every analyst wrote them off and so did third parties. This has been a rough gen for Nintendo, but once again the 3DS shows that they actually do care to get third parties on board. The launch lineup and already announced titles include already more big third party franchises than the DS and Wii had combined.
Patching games is a double-edged sword. On one hand it allows developers to fix some bugs and glitches that they overlooked, but on the other hand it all too often encourages publishers to rush games to the market. Not everyone can or wants to take his gaming system online or knows about the existence of a particular patch, so these people would be left with broken games. For that reason I rather have no patches at all and those developers who deliver sloppy work deserve to be punished. Releasing unfinished games should not be encouraged.
Consistent quality releases throughout the year is directly linked with third party support as there's no single company who ever managed to do that alone throughout an entire generation. Yet another time where I have to point at the 3DS as proof that Nintendo does care.
Achievements are far from being essential to games, I think most gamers would prefer ingame challenges that unlock additional content instead of some overarching achievement system giving you points that have no further use than showing off.
I am not sure what exactly you mean with "a slightly more powerful system at launch", but I guess this is in reference to the Wii. Slightly more powerful wouldn't have cut it to get ports of HD games and making an equally powerful system would have increased the price tag dramatically. A powerful system is not of much use, if you have to wait for a price cut in order to be able to afford it and the PS3 showed that a lot of PlayStation fans were not happy about its price. But you should clarify this point, should the system be more powerful to get ports or is it about personal preferences like not being able to stand the sight of jaggies?
I think I've covered everything. Many of the things in question couldn't be changed within this generation, including the online infrastructure and third party support. Stuff like the Wii's storage problem was solved eventually and Nintendo also gave demos for WiiWare games a go (at least for some of them).
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