It is about superiority and inferiority. I don't need a tangable reward if I am confident about a predition. I know I'm right. If I'm confident that I'm right, all that winning a bet would do would give me a false sense of tangible superiority over the person that lost the bet. If I'm confident that I'm right, I shouldn't feel need to rub that into someone elses face by "winning" a bet. I don't need the added pleasure of winning something. I don't need to make someone else feel like they've lost something. I take the same amount of pleasure being confident that Platoon won't sell well as I do about knowing that the sky is blue. It doesn't matter to me, but if someone tries to tell me that the sky is brown, I'm going to confidently tell them that their wrong. I don't need to rub it in their face by taking something from them like money or "sig control for a month."

And saying that it looks stupid tells me absolutely nothing about anything. Its just your opinion and your opinion alone and it isn't even explained very well. Care to explain what exactly you don't like about it or respond to the rest of the points that I made? I mean, if not, that is cool to, but if you don't want to have a discussion, don't respond to my posts.

Honestly, E3 seems to bring out the worst in some people's ability to have a discussion @.@

Normally I wouldn't actually bet anything, but the problem with not putting anything into the bet makes it sound like you're not committed.  At least for me personally, it's not about rubbing it in someone's face.  At least not usually.

It tells you everything. Do you play games you think look stupid? If people look at a game and think it looks stupid, they won't buy it. I'm sorry if this is a shock to you, but most people are going to see Splatoon, think that characters and the game looks stupid, and ignore it. They won't care that it's colorful, or unique, or imaginative, or finally a new IP from Nintendo. They'll look at it and think it looks stupid. Less people would do that if it had Mario characters, because Mario is part of the most lucrative videogame franchise in the world and Mario's name sells games.

It doesn't matter why I think it looks stupid. That's not the point of me saying it looks stupid. Me telling why it looks stupid won't suddenly convince the gaming masses that it doesn't look stupid and it won't make Nintendo change the aesthetic so it looks more marketable. This isn't a question of quality. It's a question of marketability. I'm not so shallow that I won't buy a game because I don't like the aesthetic or that I think the concept is eccentric. 99% of people who buy video game software are not like that.

The topic asks if Nintendo was smart or stupid for not making Splatoon a Mario game. I'm saying that Nintendo was stupid for making Splatoon look stupid. You need to understand the discussion taking place.

That's the thing. I don't need to feel like someone is confident in their prediction. I just need to feel confident in my own and if someone want to challenge my prediction, all I need to do is back up my prediction with indicatory facts that back up my prediction.

I'm glad they didn't. I have no idea if it would sell more if they did, certainly it would sell more if they released it on other platforms, much more than any boost from slapping Mario/whatever milked out Nintendo characters they might include. Nintendo likes to say they are about "fun" (e.g. explaining why they haven't enabled Twitch streaming, although somehow PR presentations streamed on Twitch are "fun"), fixating on indefinitely milking a narrow range of pretty arbitrary characters is not "fun" it just unimaginative, FUN is "fun", and that's what this game seems about. I think the blooper/squid cross-over is interesting though, because it does have some cross over, but isn't necessarily "in your face", i.e. gratuitious IP placement. The interview with the designers seemed to indicate the squid concept was rather ad-hoc, not like an imposition of IP for it's own sake, but an organic development from the imagery/ideas of the game itself.  What it does is allow some future game, possibly in some different genre, to explore some further blending of Splatoon and other Nintendo IP, which is plausible IMHO... But the point is not to over-do it... They should be appealing to new players have no attachment to the previous IPs.

I think Splatoon looks fucking awesome. As normal Nintendo fashion, they introduced a new unique idea that looks incredibly fun. The only concern I have is with team chat. I hope they do not remove the capability to have constant in-game voice chat with at least your team members. Leave this to parental settings Nintendo. Don't force it.

The COD-base could play on WiiU a shooter like ...COD. The fans of dark gritty games could play Batman. But both aren't selling very well on WiiU. So why should Nintendo provide more of the same instead of trying something different?

Yeah, that's my main dislike with Nintendo. Trying to protect kids too much. There's a thing as too family friendly! 

" most people are going to see Splatoon, think that characters and the game looks stupid, and ignore it.": Hmmm, interesting. Most of the opinions I have heard seem to think that the characters look fine. Just because you don't like how it looks doesnt mean that most people agree with you. You are just some random forum goer... And as I said, does it actually matter? I used the example of de Blob before to show that a game with a similar aesthetic and worse looking characters can sell just fine.

I've explained myself, given reasons why it doesn't matter if the character design is stupid and given reasons why it is a good decision for it not to be Mario game.

Your argument is essentially that you think it looks dumb...that is one of the weakest arguments I have heard around here and if that is all you have to bring to this discussion, I have nothing left to say to you

PS: No need to act all high and mighty with your "I'm not so shallow" staments and your "It's childish and doesn't accomplish anything but make one person feel falsely inferior and one person feel falsely superior"... its pretty shallow and childish