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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Mr. Miyamoto Really Enjoying Pikmin 3!

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happydolphin on 14 February 2012
Korppi said:
miz1q2w3e said:
Korppi said:

Like Wii Music and Metroid: Other M.

Why, whatever do you mean?

To create a good product, you need to invest a lot of time and effort into it, consider the customers' interests in lieu of your own, have someone behind your shoulder to tell you which ideas are stupid, refrain from shoehorning said stupid ideas into the product regardless, et cetera, et cetera. And unless the developer in question is a masochist, that generally means no fun time for them.

Wii Music and Other M are the most notable examples of developers opting to "have fun" instead of doing any of the above. (Except for, arguably, the first thing) Both were commercial bombs and are well-nigh unanimously considered the low points of their respective series.

Not saying that developers can't enjoy their work. But given the chance, they usually put their personal enjoyment and interests above the consumers'. And, really, who wouldn't in their position?

(I had that all phrased much more eloquently, but blackouts are frequent here)

I won't talk about other-M, I'm not a fan. I'm a Metroid fan that is definite, but I own other-M and haven't enjoyed the little I've played of it.

Wii Music, though. That's not a good example. When Miyamoto puts his heart into something, he generally knows what he's doing. The thing about Wii Music that we don't see is why it failed to meet expectations. We know it failed, but we don't know why. To say it bombed is a total overstatement...

PosGamePlatformYearGenrePublisherNorth AmericaEuropeJapanRest of WorldGlobal
1 Wii Music Wii 2008 Misc Nintendo 1.32 1.05 0.46 0.31 3.13

I know, I know, if you compare it to Wii Play, WSR, etc. etc. it's low. But you know what? Wii Play was a piece of garbage. People bought it in truckloads, but big question. Who bought Wii Play 2 (Motion)?

That's right, nobody.

PosGamePlatformYearGenrePublisherNorth AmericaEuropeJapanRest of WorldGlobal
1 Wii Play Wii 2006 Misc Nintendo 13.69 9.07 2.93 2.82 28.50
2 Wii Play: Motion Wii 2011 Misc Nintendo 0.14 0.22 0.16 0.05 0.57

So much for listening to consumers. They thought they were listening, sure. Consumers said "Give! Give!". Then when the 2 came out. Oh geez I won't even offer a proportional success value it'll be ridiculous.

We can twist facts until we're red in the fact (and this goes for Rol too), but fact is Miyamoto generally knows what he's doing, the guy is full of creativity and ideas that lead to success. Some less, granted I'll admit, but in general he does a fantastic job. Other M has nothing to do with him as far as I see it.



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happydolphin on 14 February 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:

I won't talk about other-M, I'm not a fan. I'm a Metroid fan that is definite, but I own other-M and haven't enjoyed the little I've played of it.

Wii Music, though. That's not a good example. When Miyamoto puts his heart into something, he generally knows what he's doing. The thing about Wii Music that we don't see is why it failed to meet expectations. We know it failed, but we don't know why. To say it bombed is a total overstatement...

PosGamePlatformYearGenrePublisherNorth AmericaEuropeJapanRest of WorldGlobal
1 Wii Music Wii 2008 Misc Nintendo 1.32 1.05 0.46 0.31 3.13

I know, I know, if you compare it to Wii Play, WSR, etc. etc. it's low. But you know what? Wii Play was a piece of garbage. People bought it in truckloads, but big question. Who bought Wii Play 2 (Motion)?

That's right, nobody.

PosGamePlatformYearGenrePublisherNorth AmericaEuropeJapanRest of WorldGlobal
1 Wii Play Wii 2006 Misc Nintendo 13.69 9.07 2.93 2.82 28.50
2 Wii Play: Motion Wii 2011 Misc Nintendo 0.14 0.22 0.16 0.05 0.57

So much for listening to consumers. They thought they were listening, sure. Consumers said "Give! Give!". Then when the 2 came out. Oh geez I won't even offer a proportional success value it'll be ridiculous.

We can twist facts until we're red in the fact (and this goes for Rol too), but fact is Miyamoto generally knows what he's doing, the guy is full of creativity and ideas that lead to success. Some less, granted I'll admit, but in general he does a fantastic job. Other M has nothing to do with him as far as I see it.

Still using the same old nonsense, because you (want to) believe that Miyamoto is infallible. Wii Music was a complete bomb, it was Nintendo's big holiday title in 2008. There's no way around it, this game was a complete failure and had a notable negative impact on the Wii's momentum. Nintendo also stopped production of the game. This has never happened before for one of their flagship games. That's how bad Wii Music is.

Consumers didn't want Wii Play Motion. In the Wii's fifth year the audience was already way beyond the phase of introductory games. Wii Play wasn't a piece of garbage, because it offered value. But Wii Play Motion did nothing of that sort. Minigames? Already played to death in the previous years. Wii Remote Plus? Useless, because no games that would use it were announced. Except Zelda, but that one could be expected to have its own WRP bundle, because all previous games had their own too.

Miyamoto's irrational hate for Super Mario Bros. is the main reason why Nintendo is in such a bad position right now. If he takes the praise for Nintendo's success, then he must also take the blame for Nintendo's failure, because in both cases he is equally responsible.

I never said I disagreed dude, especially read what I said in my last paragraph "Some less, granted I'll admit". Of course Wii Music is not the blazing success we expected, but it doesn't mean it was a bomb. Yeah, it dissapointed, that's true. But then what is your take on Wii Play motion, who's fault is that then? You can slam Miyamoto all you want, and you can say I needlessly praise him, but you do slam him, I don't needlessly praise him. I'm just trying to put things into perspective and keep us from being way too biased.

"HUH?" at motion controls! Wii Sports Resort Rol, successor to Wii Sports. Now don't tell me motion controls were not supported. The casuals do not buy 15 games.

Big deal, Wii Music wasn't the massive success it was supposed to be. It doesn't discredit Miyamoto's involvement and love for development for all eternity is all I'm saying.

People didn't even understand Wii Music. It's cover had no art, no explanation of what it was. Was it Rock Band, was it Guitar Hero? Who is gonna buy something they don't even know they're buying. And you're gonna tell me "It's a game where you just wave your hand and you make music". So, Just Dance is a game where you just wave your hand and you make points. It sells boatloads and you go crazy. So, tell me what is the significant gameplay difference between Just Dance and Wii Music hey?

Listen, Wii Music is a bad example. It was misunderstood by the audience. They don't even know what it is. It failed at marketing is what it is I'd be hard-pressed to see people actually really trying it.



happydolphin on 14 February 2012
RolStoppable said:

1) A game that is expected to blow past the ten million mark and ends up selling three million copies is a major flop. Whoever was responsible for Wii Play Motion is responsible for its failure. It's that simple.

2) But even casuals buy more than one game per year. You can't honestly believe that Wii Sports Resort was enough for 2009, 2010 and 2011. It's no wonder that Wii sales declined massively after 2009, because Nintendo abandoned their audience.

3) I don't think I made such a "for all eternity" statement.

4) There's a rule: You don't blame the audience. The audience understood Wii Music after they bought it. It was terrible, that's why it got bad word of mouth which eventually led to Nintendo ceasing production of the title. That's why the Wii got bad word of mouth, because Nintendo let their audience down. Wii Music failed because it isn't even a game. In their most basic sense, games can either be won or lost. But Wii Music is about making an arrangement and rating yourself afterwards. That's garbage. And yes, I know there's a few people out there who like a creative tool like that. There's also people who like Mario Paint, after all. Something that is equally worthless on a video game system.

The vast majority of people wants to play games and contrary to the popular belief of hardcore gamers, casuals don't mind losing. It's actually the opposite, it's the modern hardcore gamer who gravitates towards games that make it hard to lose the game while something like Wii Sports is all about scoring and thus winning or losing, both in the main and practice modes. Wii Fit is also all about highscores, the game keeps track of your daily stats and people try to beat their own records. That is a game. Wii Music is not.

5) Wii Music failed because it committed the greatest sin there is in the video game business: It was not a game.

5) I never understood Mario Paint when it came out. Today, people consider it what software or a game? I don't know.

The fact that you aren't given a template to follow makes it less of a game, but Wii Music had and objective still. It was to follow the tempo so as to have the music play right. I have the game, didn't play it yet (damn I hate saying this), but I understand the object of it, it is a game. You need to follow the tempo so as to get the best sounding result. The result and point system is not obvious but it's there. It is a game by definition. HOWEVER, I will agree with you that the line was blurred for this game. It leans towards the utility software. But since when was that ever wrong on consoles? Swapnote is a utility software, but it's one of the most played applications on the 3DS. Capital sin my behind.

4) I didn't blame the audience Rol, I blamed marketing and presentation. I blame retailer misinformation. The game was badly marketed. That's all I'm saying.

3) Well you sure as hell bring it up alot.

2) Okay, I understand what you mean. Conceded.

1) It's a disappointment, it isn't a failure. 3 Million is still reasonable for a misunderstood game (see 4 and 5).

 

Listen, I'm not here to disagree, I just think it's used way too easily and it's one of many of Miyamoto's endeavors, many of which were fine.

Hey, pikmin. The game was not a disappointment, sold a humble Mil and a half. Nobody gives him a hard time for that. You mentioned somewhere that Miyamoto was responsible for the 3DS launch line-up. PM me where you got that from I'm really curious.

You know, it's not because a game has Wii ... in it's title that that it ought to sell 20Mil either. Who knows how that works. And had it sold 20Mil, you would've said what? Few of us understand how that crowd works. It's called the blue ocean and that's not for nothing. It's still an experimental audience. Look, Nintendogs+Cats now needs an e-shop demo because nobody understood its value. It's alot of trial and error in this market still, despite Nintendo hitting a streak throughough the Wii+DS generation.

Just my two cents.

also, for the record guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Music#Reception



happydolphin on 14 February 2012
RolStoppable said:

5) No, that isn't how Wii Music works. You give yourself a score after your performance and it can be whatever you want it to be.

Swapnote is used, not played. Nobody sees it as a game, but it has its purpose, because right now it's the only way to communicate with other 3DS owners. And it's free, so another big difference.

4) If there was something good under the surface of Wii Music, then the marketing would have been irrelevant as good word of mouth would have picked up. Instead, people hated the title because there was (next to) nothing to like about it.

...

Pikmin was never positioned as a major IP, that's why sales of 1.5 million are okay. Expectations do matter.

I get that Miyamoto was responsible for the lineup (not just launch, but first year) from the way it looks like. It's basically all stuff that he enjoys making. The only odd game is Nintendogs + Cats, but I guess Nintendo's business side insisted that at least one game like it needs to be made. Pilotwings Resort, Steel Diver, OoT 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, SM3DL, MK7, Mario Tennis, Paper Mario, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Luigi's Mansion 2... Miyamoto loves the Nintendo 64/Gamecube era games. That's no secret. Just like it isn't a secret that he doesn't want to make more Super Mario Bros. games. So the lineup looks like Miyamoto got to make the games he wished to make and those he didn't want to make were absent.

If Wii Music sold 20 million copies, it would have obviously been a different game (and a game). Even ideal marketing for Wii Music (whatever that would have been) wouldn't have led to notably higher sales.

Blue ocean audiences really aren't too different from regular gamers. They may play different genres of games (although regular gamers play these blue ocean games too), but they expect the same stuff from a sequel: More polish, more content, more options. In N+C's case (we've gone over this before), the system was priced out of the audience's range and it was pretty much the only game that appealed to that audience, because everything else was aimed at male teenagers. You wouldn't buy an expensive system that only had one game for you either. Nintendo also advertised the game as its main feature being 3D. By now it's established that virtually nobody gives a damn about 3D, so it's an (almost) worthless addition to games. There are now cats in the game, but other than that... I don't know. It seems like Nintendo thought that 3D would do the trick.

Okay Rol, everything here is good. I'll just leave it here because I don't want to argue. But I will say this.

N+C as you said (and yes we did go over it) was launched while the system was targeting early adopters that are not casuals (different from the DS at 150$). But shouldn't it have sold once the system went down in price? Or do you believe the timing was so off it demolished the marketing to adoption momentum? The demo should remarket it, would the upcoming sales be a good metric, or no? I trust your call.

You say there are just cats now... and what 3D. The graphics are fully updated, you say Ninty thought 3D would do the trick, but what do you expect, or mean when you say "more polish, more content, more options". Polish is there, content, idk Cats?, then options I haven't played the game, but how can they not add options. I really doubt people didn't buy it because it wasn't an update to NDogs to be totally honest. I don't know what you're expecting though. Apart from the marketing mishap I understand you're arguing the game itself was not enough, intrinsically. That's where I don't follow. You use sales as the ultimate reference to content quality, but there must be more.

The 3DS lineup, since you're speculating (about Miyamoto tastes to 3DS lineup fidelity), it looks alot like it holds cube-like games. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a Miyamoto selection. When I look at it, it tells me that that lineup is in line with the cube lineup in the sense that it is aimed at the core. LM, SFox64, OOT, and all those you mention seem to be either Nintendo core, or some hybrid between core and casual (Resort, Steel Driver with stylus and gyro controls). In other words, when I see it, to me, it says that it stems from a business decision to cater to the core. You see it as Miyamoto's brainchild. We're both speculating, but which is more faithful to the past? Did Miyamoto launch Blue Storm? Rogue Leader? But those were core exclusives. If you added those to the 3DS list, you wouldn't see the difference with your list. So it's not Miyamoto-bound, but Nintendo-core bound. imho



happydolphin on 14 February 2012

RolStoppable said:

Now for the main reason why N+C cannot match the lifetime sales of its predecessor. It's a question of content, but not in the sense of levels or amount of things to do. The Nintendogs IP has no central character nor a unique world (like Mario or Zelda games), so it's much easier for competitors to take sales away. There has been an abundance of pet simulators on the DS and other devices in the last few years. Not as good as the original, but cheaper. Nintendogs is still a good brandname, but the series cannot protect itself from copycats like other Nintendo IPs. Other companies can make dogs and cats games, but they cannot make Mario and Zelda games. I hope that this explains this point well enough.

Brain Training will be hit even harder, so Nintendo cannot seriously continue it on the 3DS. They will have to come up with a new brainteasing experience. Whether that is some new logic puzzle or a well-designed package, I don't know. But it cannot be More More Brain Training. The IP is kinda useless now, just like Tetris's hardware selling power greatly diminished over time, because it was put on pretty much every device. But this kind of stuff will always work for a single generation due to the first mover advantage where the market associates one type of game with a specific gaming machine.

OK for almost everything here, I enjoyed reading this part. I am not sure Nintendogs is entirely replaceable due to the quality of Nintendo's offering of the game. You touched on this a bit, but I would be hard pressed to see Nintendogs be pushed out by the copy-cats simply due to the quality of what Nintendo offers in it. I know you don't like when I do this, but it's a game sales site, so bear with it.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=dog&publisher=&console=DS&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

This list contains most of the items with dog, dogz, dogs in it on DS, including Ubisoft and Square-Enix's offerings. Nintendogs has captured a market the others don't even touch the foot of. The total of said games is 28.58Mil, Nintendogs takes up 24.36Mil so clones get 4.20Mil. The 3DS version holds another 2.1Mil. There is still another 20Mil (24 NDogs - 4 Clones) to reach.

Who did Nintendo attract with that game, they are out there somewhere. Nintendo tapped into a market the clones can only dream of at 25Mil sales. There is still that market out there.

This same logic applies to Brain age and others. I didn't even realize this until preparing my reply. At first I was agreeing with you. Seems a little counter-intuitive, but it's surprising to be true.

RolStoppable said:

Super Mario Bros. is THE Nintendo core game, especially after its sales performance on the DS has proven once again that it is. What you call "Nintendo-core" could easily be considered Nintendo catering to their Nintendo 64 fanbase. That isn't Nintendo's entire core costumer base though, rather it only represents the games that Miyamoto personally wishes to make. And honestly, a lineup that looks like the Gamecube's is very bad, because we know how the Gamecube sold. Coincidently, the 3DS tanked and still isn't completely in the safe zone.

Honestly, from a business perspective it made no sense whatsoever to hold back a sequel to NSMB for such a long time. Nintendo is usually a very well-run business, so the most plausible explanation is selfishness on Miyamoto's part. He has a lot of power and freedom and he doesn't want to make another Super Mario Bros. It adds up. Sure, there's nothing to prove this with 100 % certainty, but all other theories boil down to Nintendo's businessmen suddenly suffering from severe brain damage.

By "Super Mario Bros.", you mean 2D SMB as in NSMB I understand. I like the distinction you make with the N64 base. True, that is what I considered the Nintendo core. I understand these people buy NSMB (as I did) and thoroughly enjoyed it, but we also bought SM3DL. The big question is, who was Nintendo aiming? If they were aiming us, why didn't they just release NSMB as you suggest?

I believe it is for a question of image. Nintendo wanted to avoid emitting the image of offering an overly casual console. Yes, Resort and N+C, but I believe they wanted to keep it mild. So, to cater to the core and attempt at a core image, they held off on the Core+Casual appealing NSMB. Add to this that they probably wanted to keep SMB for year 2 to 3 of the 3DS as they did for DS and Wii, so as to ensure momentum in the peak years. It's a game of "Keep hitting" if you know what I mean. With these two reasons, that's how I figure it.

That is why I understand they didn't give SMB at launch. At the same time, they didn't want to reduce the sales numbers to 3D levels and they also wanted us to feel the stereo-3D effect, so a 2D-3D hybrid became their solution. Lastly, they brought the NSMB themes to the 3D offering (as we all know SM3DL looks and sounds alot like NSMB) so as to bolster appeal. All in all, I don't think it is Miyamoto's decision, I believe it was a team decision. Iwata, Miyamoto and all stakeholders seem to have a hand in this.

This is the explanation I understand. As for LM and the list you offered, again, they want to hold an image for now, keeping casual to a mild level. Iwata went on record about this, but I lost the quote. He said something around the lines of they are focusing first on core, and working at keeping a fragile balance between casual and core for the 3DS. I understand this to mean that they will bring in the casual games, but for the start, they don't want to scare away some core that are less familiar with Nintendo. It doesn't mean they put all casual aside, but they are keeping it dosed.

I don't think it's all about Miyamoto honestly. I see alot of Iwata in this.



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Salnax on 14 February 2012

I wouldn't be surprised if this outsold the rest of the series combined. That would only take about 4 million sales, and if this is a big deal launch title for the successor of the third most popular platform ever...



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happydolphin on 14 February 2012
RolStoppable said:

But SMB not being a launch game, because Nintendo didn't want to hurt the sales of the game... no, just no. I don't think Nintendo is THAT stupid. It's a game that sells huge numbers for years, so there's no such thing as launching it too soon.

I never, ever said that. Okay for everything else, I loved reading it. I'm not saying I agree to everything, but I sure can follow your thinking and see value in alot of it.



happydolphin on 14 February 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
RolStoppable said:

But SMB not being a launch game, because Nintendo didn't want to hurt the sales of the game... no, just no. I don't think Nintendo is THAT stupid. It's a game that sells huge numbers for years, so there's no such thing as launching it too soon.

I never, ever said that. Okay for everything else, I loved reading it. I'm not saying I agree to everything, but I sure can follow your thinking and see value in alot of it.

This was my interpretation of this sentence, although I really wasn't all too sure about it:

"At the same time, they didn't want to reduce the sales numbers to 3D levels and they also wanted us to feel the stereo-3D effect, so a 2D-3D hybrid became their solution."

They didn't want to reduce the sales numbers to 3D levels... what is this supposed to mean?

Oh geez Rol, yeah I wasn't clear there. Yeah I meant they didn't want to reduce their core-only mario (supposed to be 3D) to 3D level sales,... that was another part of the problem. Their solution to that plus trying to play with the 3D effects gave the 2D-3D hybrid. Good thing you asked.



archbrix on 15 February 2012
RolStoppable said:
happydolphin said:
RolStoppable said:

But SMB not being a launch game, because Nintendo didn't want to hurt the sales of the game... no, just no. I don't think Nintendo is THAT stupid. It's a game that sells huge numbers for years, so there's no such thing as launching it too soon.

I never, ever said that. Okay for everything else, I loved reading it. I'm not saying I agree to everything, but I sure can follow your thinking and see value in alot of it.

This was my interpretation of this sentence, although I really wasn't all too sure about it:

"At the same time, they didn't want to reduce the sales numbers to 3D levels and they also wanted us to feel the stereo-3D effect, so a 2D-3D hybrid became their solution."

They didn't want to reduce the sales numbers to 3D levels... what is this supposed to mean?

Along with trying to push the 3D effect in Mario 3D Land, I think the main reason 2D Mario for 3DS was held back was because NSMB DS was still selling so well.  That game came out a year and a half after the DS launched and the new game should release roughly on the same schedule for 3DS. 



Araknie on 15 February 2012

Me wanna fun too!



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