So , this being my first thread on the site after being a long time follower, let me just say that I think there is a very strong, educated and passionate community here. Also one that I feel cares quite a lot about the company and the products they support with their hard-earned dollars (euros, pounds etc ), which is as it should be! That in my opinion is admirable and commendable!

I have been wanting to open this subject to discussion for quite some time now, in the hopes if this thread gaining a "Sticky" status so that the opinions here can be subject to revision and re-examination throughout a prolonged period of time, and also in order to attract the largest number of participants as possible.

Following a discussion on a previous thread, I wanted to attempt to build a more solid foundation for the many praises and criticisms Nintendo receives as a company. The main goal here is to build a coherent document - a sort of manifesto if you like those kinds of big grandiose words - containing expectations as well as requests from long time Nintendo supporters.

Generally speaking, for all of us who love to complain about the big N or wish they did something differently or expanded more upon something that you really loved, how would you like to see them act differently?

If you could amend Nintendo's "core philosophy" about making games and entertainment, what would you change?

If there are essential features or directions you feel should be included in their approach to gaming, what are they? and how do you suggest implementing them in a manner which is consistent with Nintendo's existing ideology?

If you've ever had a gripe with Nintendo, even if you're not sure it's justified, this is basically your opportunity to sound off in a constructive manner, and hopefully through continued discussion and iteration we can build something here that is worth while. Something we can all get behind and then in turn push Nintendo to get behind as well!

Bellow are some posts quoted from the original thread that got me thinking, so you can get a better idea of where I'm coming from, and hopefully convince you to get behind this initiative as well: (the last one being from myself)

• "I hate the love Nintendo gets, I'm cool like that."

• "doesn't have to be harmful to be irritating.  I too dislike some of the Ninty love where Nintendo just can do no wrong, Wii games can't possibly lose money because they only cost a dream and a unicorn fart, and they're the only ones in the current generation of consoles.   It's like that Middle School girl writing Jenny Miyamoto in her notebook and dotting the i's with hearts kind of love.  annoying."

• "Uh huh... And mindless people that seem to follow what corporate PR says as truth gets on my nerves too but you don't see me saying that in threads whenever there's a bunch of spin involved... honestly though there's two sides of that story being all the needless/unprofessional hate and maybe if people weren't so hateful then we'd have fewer people adamantly and annoyingly defending them eh?

Honestly what you states is annoying of all fans not just Nintendo fans... its a trait they all share, ALL OF THEM.  You might as well be just stating you don't like fans, cause guess what die hard star wars fans will defend the new trilogy, die hard Microsoft fans will defend XBL pricing and console failures, Sony fans will defend going from the top of sales to the bottom and losing billions of dollars in the process, and Nintendo fans will defend some of Nintendo's odd choices...

Nintendo fans defend things that directly affects their gaming though. Sony fans may defend some of Sony's corporate choices like removing Linux or they may defend the sales of a certain quarter, but I haven't seen many of them defending Sony's line-up in 2007 or the GT5 delays or the lack of party chat. Everyone would complain and as time went on, Sony began to fix those problems.

The majority of the negative things that come up involving Nintendo is defended to the point of irrationality. Crappy online service? Screw online gaming. Achievements? Screw Achievements. Sparse line-up? Nintendo are game developing GODS! Region locking, who needs imported games? Third Party support? Third Parties suck monkey balls and we don't need their garbage. HD console? Hahaha, I enjoy jaggies. Game breaking bug that requires you to send your console or SD card to Kyoto? We don't need patches or updates. Waggle added unnecessarily? Thank God, my wrist needed a work out. Europe getting games late? Who cares about Europe?

The only recent issue that I've seen that's been universally attacked is the one that involves Japanese Wii games being kept within Japan without any sort of word on localization. Lots of Wii fans are pissed, but I'm not seeing many of them voicing their opinion to Nintendo that this issue is bothering them and that they want it fixed, they just seem to mumble about them on forums. The same can't be said for Sony fans who send out constant demands on a weekly basis directly to Sony and actually try and force info out of the community managers on the Sony sites. 

I don't hate people, I just hate when people are screwed out of things that they should have in this day and age of gaming. Most of the things I listed can be easily implemented into the Wii or any future Nintendo device, but a lot of them will go unnoticed or will be lacklustre because Nintendo thinks that creating Wii Science is more important than creating a decent online network. 

This was much longer than I wanted it to be, but I'm bored and I keep dying in Persona 4, so I'm also a little agitated. Once again, I don't intend to offend anyone and I may be wrong about some things, but I'd rather be educated on what I've said wrong and none of it was with intention to harm."

• "I Wholeheartedly agree, especially with the parts in bold. I will go out on a limb and say something borderline inflammatory, because I feel it needs to be said, and have felt so for a while now.

One of Nintendo's biggest assets, it's loyal and loving fan-base, is also one of it's biggest liabilities!  

As a relative newcomer to Nintendo gaming (you could say I'm one of those who never really got into gaming until fairly recently but was always interested) I find many of the points of view regarding Nintendo software, hardware and even business strategies to be extremist and unhealthy.

There is a consensus among many fans and even developers regarding a so called "Love-Hate" relationship with Nintendo, but it is very rare to see an honest attempt by a fan base to try to come up with anything resembling a coherent, realistic and constructive analysis of the company. Not just a critical one, mind you, but also one going into the company's many strengths and advantages in a manner that a manager within Nintendo itself can relate to.

Sometimes opinions about the company are so polarized, categorically narrow-minded or otherwise ill-explained that it's not surprising Nintendo often come to the conclusion that they're better off following their own instincts, as fans don't know what the hell they really want. This is of course not the case, but you would be hard pressed to gather a clear opinion from Nintendo followers by trying to sort through so many inconsistent, rampant and occasionally borderline-emo statements coming from the player-base.

Personally, I think a lot of this failure to communicate comes from the fact that a large portion of the "original" Nintendo fan-base is biased in one way or another. Having played Nintendo games during the defining years of their childhood, it's probable that they have formed an image of Nintendo that is strongly associated with their own personal, internal experiences growing up. This is in fact a well-known and documented phenomena in psychology and has also been discussed in the media in relation to the old star-wars films vs. the new ones, for example.(so please don't take this as a personal attack by myself on loyal Nintendo fans throughout the world, as I do not intend it to be as such by any means. Thank you for holding on to your pitchforks just a bit longer )

The main problem here, as far as I can understand is twofold:

1) Childhood experiences are personal, individual and extremely rigid!

This makes them both objective from a personal point of view on the one hand (they are what we take for granted as being obvious - the basis for our later experiences), and highly differing from a global point of view (each person has a different "mental image" of Nintendo, since everybody grows up differently and has a different perception of "the Nintendo experience").

Clearly there is no way a coherent criticism of the company can be extracted from such raw material, as it would seem to be impossible to even describe what Nintendo is, not to mention what it isn't, based on such wildly divergent and biased experiences.

2) Childhood experiences are inherently difficult to communicate!

This is also something that developmental psychology has explained, as many of our earlier life experiences are not processed through verbal channels, but rather through more abstract sensory and emotional ones, and therefor are appropriately more difficult to translate into words should the need arise.

Once again, this makes such experiences very bad candidates for forming the basis of any critical thinking since we can't even communicate them properly! Not even to ourselves, let alone to others!

                                                           *                                        *                                            *

The way I see it, in order to offer better, more coherent criticism to the company, we must first do a much better job of communicating our personal preferences and expectations within the fan community. Only after having reached a consensus (or at least something close to one) should we try to make our opinions heard by the company... Otherwise, why should they listen!?"

If I haven't bored any remaining readers to death by now, please allow me to offer a few guide lines. These are of course open to revision as better suggestions are made, but just to start us off:

1. Do not post in this thread unless you have owned a Nintendo system, preferably both handheld and console, and unless you've played many 1st party games on those systems.
2. Please try to make your suggestions as general as possible, and as clear as possible, preferably through examples from games you've played (these can be non- Nintendo games of course). e.x. if you think Zelda's formula is  stale, please elaborate what type of game you would like to see the franchise evolve into, and how you suggest those changes be made. Better yet, describe the types of games you would like to see Nintendo make that they aren't making currently, and explain how these new types would mesh with Nintendo's existing philosophy.
3. Please try to be creative and flexible when responding to other people's suggestions, and make an effort to accommodate their ideas whenever possible. The main point of this exercise is after all to form an opinion which is as uniform as possible.
4. Having said that, please strive for minimalism and simplicity when proposing new concepts or amendments to the existing ideology. If the end-product of our shared brain-storming is too convoluted and complicated, it hurts the chances of it being taken seriously, let alone being implemented.

Given all that (phew! ) please post, share, discuss and enjoy!

Nintendo cannot be made better.

It is impossible to improve upon flawless perfection that is undeniable by any sane being and can do no wrong.

By the way, most of the content of your first post is essentially Nintendo/Nintendo fan hate with a "no offense" on top.

Just making a note that I'll be back to write up my thoughts and that the OP is fantastic.

Nintendo fans are going to hell.

your first two sentences made me think you were being sarcastic... the third one however, not so much... so I will reply in earnest and say that I respectfully disagree.

Nothing is flawless, everything can be improved upon and should be open to criticism, especially be us customers supporting Nintendo with our dollars. In fact I feel that this is our obligation to them as loyal fans. I would expect nothing less from the leader of this industry than to be able to have open and constructive discussions with its fanbase.

I feel that under Iwata, Nintendo has made remarkable strides towards increased transparency and better communication of its vision with the industry in general (see the "Iwata Asks" series, or any number of previous GDC keynotes) and I think there is room for equally remarkable steps towards improved fan and community relations.

In fact I can think of at least a few companies in the industry who are already doing this better than Nintendo with examples being Sony and certain HD remakes (the Sly Collection and the Ico & SotC re-masterings which afaik were made in response to fans' demand) as well as Capcom and how they are going about the whole Mega-Man Legends 3 development (not to mention the whole community they have going on in their western blogs).

You could argue that these measures are being taken only because these companies are not "on top" this generation and as such should be seen as desperate moves rather than innovative ones. In response, my point of view is that a company being popular and being more transparent and cooperative shouldn't be mutually exclusive..

..and in order for that to happen, us fans also need to step up our game... just my opinion of course, you are welcome to disagree, but the way I see it if we help N help us (sorry for the lame Jerry McGuire plug ) then everybody wins.

Nintendo must realise that profit from software sales is the highest priority. They should do things that make money, not what their developers wish to do nor what the core userbase is asking for nor what analysts say they should.

Every time a project is started, it must be because those resources are best spent there. No working on niche games when there is demand for another series that would make more money.

Every time software is launched, it must be to sell hardware and bring more people to Nintendo platforms. Not to show off hardware features or a software gimmick like user-generated content/waggle/Three Dee.

Consequences of this:

- No Wii Music sequel. Don't even hint one.
- More 2D Mario, and sooner in a console's lifecycle (not years in as with Wii/DS/3DS)
- More of the same in a game series, don't try to innovate (Metroid Prime, not Metroid Other M)
- Don't improve online. That's clearly not why people buy Wiis and DSs.
- Release all games worldwide in a timely manner! I don't understand this part when Sony and MS have no problem with simultaneous universal launches.
-  Don't make any games with 50 people that take a year to make if you could make something like Brain Training in six months for the same revenue.
- Bring a Pokemon RPG to Wii! People don't want the Colosseum/Battle Revolutiuon stuff you keep forcing on them.

• I think Nintendo should invest some money into expanding their own studios. Expand, buy and/or start new ones. They have a lot of beloved franchises that needs new entries every gen, and they also need staff to create new franchises. I could also see them working more with third parties. Platinum Games were interested in creating a Star Fox game. Let them do it!

• Nintendo needs to level up their localisation skills. Seriously, too many games stay Japan-exclusive, or does only come to one western region. Then there are situations like KEY where there are huge gaps between American release and European release for no good reason. Are they promoting Homebrew Channel or...? I can fully understand why some games such as XenoBlade and The Last Story won't be released simultaneously in all regions because of the longer translation processes but c'mon, how much dialogue does Kirby have!?

• The online part needs improvement. Virtual medals doesn't mean much to me but it should be easier to play online games.

This, that´s really true, nintendo has a lot of franchises, not as big as mario or pokemon but still, they should brink old franchises back to life on their consoles, I cannot complain of the quality of their games, because is just amazing, but I would complaing that they are using metroid and mario a lot this gen, (Again quality games) but the should reboot old franchises as well. DK is a ray of light on that matter, star fox 3ds helps as well, hopefully pikmin, fzero, a new starfox, a new yoshi's island, xenoblade, last story, and who knows new IPs, )...  

The first two sentences were sarcastic. ...well, partially, at least. I wasn't actually saying that Nintendo is flawless - nothing is, obviously. But, like you, I respectfully disagree with your stance.

You see, Nintendo can't have discussions with its fanbase. Why? Because its fanbase isn't the kind that'll want to talk, or so I believe. All of us on here, we're certainly not even a significant proportion of Nintendo's fanbase and our comments mean nothing whatsoever. The "casuals", on the other hand, probably aren't the kind who will really find anything horrible enough about the product that they'll complain or request. They'll just see what's released and buy it if they think it'll appeal to them. Most other fanbases will desire a certain game and ask the companies for it, but this fanbase will buy whichever game suits their desire best out of whatever Nintendo offers. Therefore, Nintendo doesn't need to discuss with its fanbase, it needs to study it, which, I dare say, considering the kind of data they tend to offer at conferences and quarterly, they do better than anyone else.

My point is, Nintendo has room to improve, obviously, but it is no worse at serving its fanbase than any other company. It's just that its real fanbase never bothers to express itself on forums and the like. If you're making this thread, you might as well make one for Sony, for MS, for Sega, for Activision, for Ubisoft, for SE, for Capcom... you get the idea.

*Nintendo should expand its company by buying more 2nd Parties. More games can be made with more employees and thats what they need to do and I am sure they can afford to do so. The Wii and DS have been very profitable and honestly they probably made more money off of Wii Fit/Plus than Sony did with the actual PS3. Nintendogs and Wii Fit both probably made millions in profit. They release very good quality games and I actually like the direction they're heading with Wii Fit and Vitality Sensor but I also want some old stuff as well and more 2nd Parties can help that situation. As I said the Wii__ series is a great group of games and Mario is nice too sometimes but there is no reason to not have a Pikmin, Starfox, or F-Zero by now.

*In my opinion Nintendo never should have sold Rare. Rare was a great company and while people now say they have gone downhill I think they did only because they left Nintendo. They were a great team and worked well together and made some of the best games of the N64 Gen.(I didn't play games before the 64) Selling Rare lead to them coming in #3 during the G.C Gen and with Rare Nintendo could have outsold Microsoft and the G.C could have sold at least 30 Million. The main thing I miss about Rare is something Nintendo can't get back unlike with Donkey Kong and Retro...Banjo-Kazooie. Imagine a Banjo-Kazooie Wii or Banjo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl!

*With the above said I still like the new Nintendo better than the old Nintendo from the N64/G.C days...I just wish we could have both and they would be unstoppable LOL.