toastboy44562 said:
Nintendo thinks their games are superior to 3rd party games we can all agree on that. Maybe that was true 20-30 years ago but that is not the case today. All the highest budget and highest grossing games are from third party developers.
Actually, the first part is still true today. I'm not saying every Nintendo game is better than every 3rd party game or anything, but in general, Nintendo-published games tend to be better received than those of the average publisher. Metacritic, for example, has recorded that the average Nintendo published game scores a 76, whereas the industry average is a 67. Furthermore, using the same website as a guide, you'll find that four of their games, two on each of their platforms, received metascores of 90 or higher, making them among the most critically acclaimed games of the year.
As for budget, having a big one is irrelevant. Yes, GTA5 had the biggest budget in gaming history, but that is not what matters: net profit is. And Nintendo games, though they have smaller budgets, seem to still be big sellers. 2 of the 10 best-selling games of 2013 are Nintendo titles, and even the "disappointing" Super Mario 3D World will probably outsell other exclusives like Killzone: Shadow Fall and Beyond: Two Souls by 2014. And 2013 was far from Nintendo's best year! Top Ten best-selling skus in previous years included 2 Nintendo games in 2012, 4 in 2011, and a whopping 6 in 2010!
This doesn't mean 3rd parties are useless, but arguing that Nintendo is somehow inferior to third parties is laughable. It is by far the most notable publisher in the industry, with the possible exception of EA.
Nintendo only releases about two games for their home console a year, with little to no third party support, does Nintendo really expect gamers to buy a game in spring and keep on playing it until christmas? are they nuts? How can they expect a home console to survive with only two games that people want to play on it a year? This is why the gamecube sold lousy and the Wii U will sell just as bad.
Nintendo has released about nine games in 2013: Lego City Undercover, New Super Luigi U, Game & Wario, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Wind Waker HD, Wii Party U, Wii Fit U, and Super Mario 3D World. Even if you disclude things like retail expansion packs and 2nd party games, that is still about one title every two months. And that's not counting their eShop and Virtual Console offerings. Point being, the "two games per year" is laughably innacurate, unless you have an extremly narrow version of the word "games."
As for the GameCube... do you remember the GameCube at all? It had the best 3rd party support of any Nintendo system siunce the SNES. Sega released a bunch of their Sonic and Monkey Ball games for the platform, LucasArts did loads of Star Wars games including an exclusive or two, Namco Bandai brought the best-selling version of Soul Calibur 2, EA brought their various sports and racing games, THQ and Activision brought their licensed games, and you even had support from companies like Square Enix and Konami. In total, the GameCube had dozens of acclaimed games from 3rd party developers and publsihers, including both exclusives and multiplats.
Nintendo needs to wake up out of their 1980's coma and realize they need to make their hardware similar to competition in order to adopt the most popular games (Call of Duty, GTA, Battlefield etc). I get it they want to make their product different than the competition but they can do it in other ways.The best ways Nintendo could have won, in my opinion, was to release a Xbox One/PS4 kind of device with proper online packaged with a wii motion plus remote and a modern day PS/X1 style controller. It should have been packaged with a new IP hit game with some of Nintendos hottest franchises. They SHOULD also have every retro Nintendo game available to download day one. And they should of called it the Wii 2. They should have similar build to PC games and Blue Ray capabilities. This is the 21st century. At a price tage of 350-400 dollars, Nintendo could have easily won this generation doing this in my opinion.
Nintendo DID make hardware that could play those kinds of games. The Wii U has two Call of Duty titles, and is more powerful than the PS360 duo which received GTA5 and Battlefield 4. It wasn't very much more powerful, but even accounting for things like the RAM necessary for the system's OS and the streaming to the GamePad, you're still left with more powerful hardware than the PS360. And despite this, those two platforms received more 3rd party support in 2013, including cross-generational games, than the Wii U did.
Making a console similar in specs to the competition would have been suicide for Nintendo. As a smaller company, they can not afford to lose as much money per unit, meaning that your version of the Wii 2 would have likely cost $500, especially with two types of controllers thrown in. That would be double the cost of any prior Nintendo console.
Nintendo's online is only not proper if you go in with specific expectations. It sascrifices some online functionality for actually being free and including an online social network for gamers in addition to all the online basics like multiplayer, the eShop, streaming, etc. Nintendo could have benefitted from also having a pre-PS4 PS Plus like program that would offer a "deluxe" online experience, but don't mistake the one offered by the Wii U as a bad one.
Nintendo did try to release a new IP with the Wii U. It was called Nintendo Land. And even ignoring it, within the first year of the Wii U's life, you had entirely original games like The Wonderful 101. As for some of Nintendo's hottest franchises... what do you think 2D Mario is? And the Wii U already had hundreds of retro titles available Day One, via Wii Mode. They just didn't have every bell and whistle of the new rereleases.
The console you're describing, made by a not particularly big company, including two controllers, with a Blue-Ray player, and presumably specs on par with the competition would never cost as little as $400, let alone $350. At that point, you might as well ask Nintendo to give away their hardware for free because you're being absolutely ridiculous.
Conclusion: Nintendo's faults are largely their own, but your prescription to their ills is arsenic. Even if the Wii U neverr picks up, Nintendo can recover from it. The same could not be said for your strategy.
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