I remember that comment. Fair you say great game, but the general lines are that it is lesser, that's the way I understand your rhetoric.

Emotionally invested? Yes many of us are, of course we are, we value these companies and the entertainment they offer us. I don't want to fight, but you've made me so damn bitter.

"So whenever I say that 3D Mario games don't cut it, it's perceived to be equal to calling these games bad."

That's why you need to nuance your posts and be less provocative. If you're provocative, you tend to just exaggerate one side of the issue without showing the nuances and it gives us the wrong idea. Constantly.

If a game doesn't cut it, it misses the mark. Yet many of these games you hint at are gems, Galaxy being one of them. If awesomeness is what matters, why do the "low" sales of Galaxy even matter? How awesome really can a 2D Mario be, and if it can be really awesome, then how much needs to be injected to realize it? NOT MUCH! So why bring down Galaxy when NSMB awesome can be made by the brush of a hand?

1) That works .

2) I don't think I would hold you to a poorly made or poorly evolved 2D Mario game if it sold poorly. But yours and my definition of poor are different. I don't see NSMB WiiU to be all that interesting and I don't expect massive sales of the game, especially not at 60$.

3) But I said "demand creates supply" http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4456007. I understand what I'm saying isn't intuitive, but what I'm talking about is Moore's Law. Sad, but it's just as real as aging. People are expecting cutting edge, but they don't realize that the more we go forward, the less ppl can afford it. So, they are not ready to pay 200$ for just a new DS, they want more, they want the 3DS... and it costs money, alot, and they're not willing to pay for it. At the same time, you have games that cost much less to make nowadays thanks to technology, yet we are being charged robbing prices on them. That I despise.

4) No matter how good that game would have been, it would not have changed anything, and the dogs really say hello. You can only improve so much the recipe has an age, and once it's dead, it's dead. Some Nintendo recipes have a time-bomb attached to them. Once they're done, they're done (think Warioware, it was awesome once, and then it's over). Depressing, but real and true.

The only other option is that Nintendo release games like Mario 2D, i.e. revival classics, and games more in line with Microsoft and Sony's 1st party flagships Halo and Uncharted.

The casual train has come and gone I believe, and Nintendo needs to look at new opportunities to make its future. Fair, games like Mario Kart will never be fully casual and are evergreen. But games like Brain Age can't be banked on, they have an expiration date. Nintendo needs to continuously find new non-gamer experiences to interest that crowd it is not one to settle for similar experience, they are much more in line with Hollywood, and that's not a no brainer but it's true since both target mainstream people who aren't die-hard fans, who don't have that attachment to the franchises.

It's a whole other world, a whole other paradigm, one few of us here understand because we are so ingrained in the culture of beloved franchises, but the non-gamer will never be satisfied with that, they constantly need new, they constanatly need fresh.

Having said that, certain franchises have the ability to stay fresh through evolution and continue to attract non-gamer crowds, though mind you only a more committed portion of that crowd. They would be what moderate gamers? You know that your cap on such games are say 16M, aim for it, but don't expect the same games to sell over and over again, and in saying that I'm looking at NSMB. It as it is cannot sustain a Nintendo console, Nintendo needs it to evolve. If Super Mario World was not the proper evolution of Super Mario 3, then what was, nobody yet knows because we haven't seen it happen. We know Mario 3 was the right evolution to Mario bros., but why? Was it the item sub-screen, was it the maturing of mario, the new suits, the meaner baddies, the more imaginative worlds? Well if that's what it is, then BRING IT ON NINTENDO, I want to see it.

But for the love of god don't charge me 60$ unless you really spent that much effort into it, the Premium effort as you so well said.

Wow.


People still read Malstrom?


I use to love Malstrom but I find he, and John Lucas and that gamerace guy, while all being very smart, very elegant and making some wonderful posts, aren't really half as smart as they think they are. But then who is on web?

2) I just meant it as an example of a game I considered poorly evolved, irrespective of platform, since almost all platforms are capable of 2D to a certain extent, I didn't mean to confuse.

3) You say valid things, but the appeal of 3DS goes way beyond marketing. The device is a handheld, a video game, dedicated handheld. People have spoken with their dollar that 250$ is not something they are willing to readily spend on one. Many were (up to 5Million maybe, I can't remember?) but many more weren't. That's why when the price went down, more people bought. It idn't hurt that both Mario Kart 7 and 3D Land also released roughly around that time window, so all was well. Fair, you can say games weren't well marketed, but in that case how come the DS trend was going down, was it based on lack of content? The PS2 was supported for many years with many games. True it took a long time to die, but its trend was downward nonetheless. You can disregard technology all you want but the market says otherwise.

4) @Nintendogs: You could say that, but given the video I showed you on Nintendogs it was clear there were still many things the dog owner could do that weren't in the original, and then you have an almost unlimited number of animals to interact with if the series is well managed. But the fact remains that certain phenomenal experiences cannot be recreated, pokemon is the exception. You may be right for WarioWare, but 1M is still kinda low given its appeal to the broader audience. Then again 1.3 M for Mega MicroGame$ was also low given its appeal, so my numbers might be a little out of whack. Smooth moves actually did quite well so you're probably right to conflict with me on this example.

@Mario: Yes, I agree that this game can continue to grow and interest the audience due to its fantasy nature and brand appeal, very much unlike Nintendogs. It's not because it can change that it has more life, but because the fantasy gives the brand an alluring power, and consumers come back wanting more. Your movie to documentary example is valid, but not because one can't expand (the documentary, which it can), but rather because one is just more alluring (the movie/fantasy title). As for betrayal, I can understand the emotion.

Malstrom is just overly angry when it comes to 3D Mario and other "modern" games in general. I definitely agree with him when it comes to the effect 2D Mario has on other games being released. Some of his examples are simply... wrong (Gunstar Heroes? Really?) but 2D Mario definitely created a huge market for 2D platformers made in the same manner.

I would totally like to see Nintendo put more effort into their 2D Mario outings because, hell yes, there is a huge market behind that which could be stimulated and to some extend resurrected that way. It looks like we'll get more 2D Mario in the future so here's hope

This is the mistake people make when reading Malstrom (I agree). It's not about what YOU want as a gamer, it's about what will make Nintendo lots of sales and money. Nintendo's recent strategy has failed in those two categories despite still pleasing some of the hardcore (who don't see the problem).

If you want Nintendo to still be around to make niche hardcore games, they have to make more Wii Sports and 2D Mario as a first priority. I personally dislike Wii Sports and liked Mario Galaxy 1 but I'd rather the former was made.

You clearly didn't read my post with the NES games and their sales, the market Malstrom was talking about created by Mario.

You're mixing two things up, Malstrom's views, which confuse sales and awesomeness, and Rol's pov.

Like most of us, Rol wants to see Nintendo do well. In that case, he wants them to sell well. But if you look earlier in the topic, I asked Rol, what is most important here, sales or awesomeness, and he told me awesomeness. So the question is, if a game is fantastic, yet it doesn't sell all that well, which desire is the most important, for Nintendo to do well, or for their games to sell.

You'll tell me, they're one and the same, when a game is good, it will sell. But the fact of the matter is, many games don't sell all too well (relatively speaking) despite being gems. Galaxy is by far a much better game than NSMBWii, but which one sold better, we both know the answer to these questions.

Bottom line, if that is your stance, that you discuss sales as sales and don't equate sales to quality, don't bash a game if it doesn't sell well, be SPECIFIC. Just say: "this or that game would have sold better", don't use other confusing rhetoric such as "this game didn't sell well because it's not a real Mario".

And I'll gracefuly close this with

"..."

3) Yes, the DS went down quickly because of a lack of content. Nintendo themselves obviously had to move on to push their new system, the 3DS. They still released a few DS games here and there in 2011, but it was a far cry from their previous support. If you have paid attention to Media Create numbers over the last couple of years, you could quickly come to the conclusion that third parties started to give up on the DS and instead made the PSP the PS2 of this generation. Remember, in handheld terms, Japan is by far the most important region when it comes to quality support. Even today, the number of PSP releases is still higher than the one for the 3DS. The DS may have become the bestselling system in Japan of all time, but Nintendo still didn't get the PS1 to PS2 treatment from third parties. The 3DS was forced to start from scratch and earn the support all over again.

We both followed the Media Create trends (I was even following them before coming to VGChartz on another site called themagicbox.com), and I have also been following them lately as you know, and yes the PSP has been getting more support you don't have to convince me on that. But the PS2 is the one you have to disprove, not the DS (I shouldn't even have mentioned it). The PS2's trend went down despite great game support. And the PSP? The same can be said, the HW and SW trends are downward for PSP if I am not mistaken (I should get those charts out soon as well).

@bold. You can say the same about anything. The basic premise of mario is still the same: You save a princess. But that's not what matters, it's the internal of the game that matters. In fact, in Nintendogs 3D, you could walk your dog around and meet people, and I don't remember the video much, but what I do remember is that if I had played Nintendogs I would have liked all the new features in the sequel. Problem is, it's a non-gamer phenomenon and from the looks of it these are one-hit wonders.

Pokemon and Mario are in a different boat as you say because they are fantasy, and being fantasy they have that alluring quality that only fantasy offers, one to which guys like you and me will stay connected to and become fans.

And I really didn't mean to say that Mario couldn't follow that pattern, I meant to say Nintendogs and Brain Age couldn't, much to your siding. I wasn't clear.

Here I'm not talking about inter-console competition (like N64 to PSX), I'm talking about inter-generational competition (like say GB to GBA). People need new hardware, and I think the PSP example is a good one.

@Documentaries. Your analogy is still good.

Wasn't really responding to you, was making a point Rol made stand out more.

Not, when a game is good it will sell. The games that sell IS the only decent measure of quality (obviously you can hold a subjective ranking but it's not worth discussing on the internet as your preferences are your own). Plenty of quality games that I like haven't sold, and they didn't deserve to sell either.

Galaxy had higher production values, yes. Was it doing the job the market needed it to do, not really. Nintendo put no effort into NSMB Wii (recycle art, sound and level design) and yet it sold more. If Nintendo had put NSMB Wii on an equal pedestal development wise we wouldn't need to have this debate, it would just be so high that Nintendo couldn't continue to be in denial about what they need to spend money on.

I disagree with Rol if that's what he said, I believe sales are the important thing. I desire Nintendo to do well because they will then have enough money to do projects that don't make sense - the games I like e.g. Galaxy.

"not a real Mario" is Malstrom shorthand for "a sequel to the original Marios that people who liked those would want to buy, and that new gamers can experience the same as what SMB did for 80s gamers".