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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Iwata: Nintendo Wants To "Suprise Gamers" With NX

Soundwave on 23 March 2015
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:

There's no reason they couldn't have a solid base to work from that is similar to PS/Xbox as well as trying new and different things. Besides I think it should be the games that differentiate the consoles, not the hardware.

But what will being similar to PS/XB gain them? Third party games that won't sell? People seem to forget that Gamecube did have pretty solid 3rd party support while being powerful and cheap and that didn't do much for them.

The hardware is many times necessary to differentiate the games, things like DS & Wii wouldn't have been nearly as successful if they were just standard upgrades to GBA & GC.

3rd party games will sell if they are comparable to the PS/Xbox versions. Contrary to popular belief people do actually have reasons other than 'eww Nintendo' for not buying Nintendo consoles and all the 3rd party games on them that they would buy anyways. Take away those reasons by being similar enough to the other consoles and Nintendo open themselves up to the huge multi plat audience of gamers.

The Gamecube example doesn't really work at all. Remember the original Xbox released that gen as well, that too had third party games, was powerful and wasn't overly expensive. It didn't really matter what they did that gen though, PS2 was just set up to win regardless of the competition. But look at what happened to the Xbox after that, MS went for a more powerful console, got all the 3rd party support and massively increased their sales. Nintendo boosted their sales a different way, but that way was clearly a one off, while the way Sony and MS have been doing it has worked many times and still does.

As I mentioned before they could have a solid hardcore console and then try the new stuff on top of that. The Xbox 360 released a year before the Wii and was only $50 more expensive. I expect they easily could have boosted the Wii's specs while still retaining some profitability, even if they only broke even on console sales the software would make up for that. Just imagine if they had the same specs as the 360, were just as easy to develop for and had an optional standard controller at launch. They would have got all the 3rd party support, had Nintendo's 1st party, motion controls and would still have been affordable. With both the casual audience they got and a chunk of the PS360 audience they could have matched or even exceeded PS2 numbers.

Let's take a look at Nintendo platforms and see how much they relied on 3rd parties

NES-15/20 top sellers Nintendo published

SNES-13/20 top sellers Nintendo published

N64-20/20 top sellers Nintendo published

GC-16/20 top sellers Nintendo published

Wii-14/20 top sellers Nintendo published, 1 other based on Nintendo ip

On average 78% of the top sellers on Nintendo hardware belongs to Nintendo

Nintendo's success/failures have always come down to their own output, if they are able to come up with new concepts and execute them properly they have success, if they have a poor strategy then they fail. Adding 3rd party support does little for Nintendo, of course they are welcome but Nintendo software has always been to main reason to own a Nintendo console.


I think this is an oversimplification. 

For starters, sales figures from the NES and SNES era are spotty at best, so we don't know the sales of all the games from that era. 

Even so, something like 33 or 34 out of 54 of the top selling NES games are third party titles per Wikipedia, though I think certain games are missing like Contra and Super C, Double Dragon, Batman, Ninja Turtles II, Ninja Gaiden, etc. 

For the Super NES, sales of the system were not meeting Nintendo's expectations until Street Fighter II came out and really changed things for the machine. And they would have lost flat out to the Genesis had they not caved and uncensored Mortal Kombat 2. 

The Nintendo consoles that haven't had market leading third party support ... the N64, Wii, GCN, and Wii U ... 3 out of 4 of those systems have gotten decimated by Sony (as in not even competitve with Sony). The only one that was competive was the Wii and that was more due to the motion gaming fad. 

So third party support certainly matters. I remember when I first got my NES, I didn't really know much about the differences in systems and I asked my friend "the Sega Master System looks pretty cool too" and he quickly made sure I didn't get the Sega because while it had good games (1st party stuff) it didn't have the variety of games (which I now know to be third party support). Over the years Nintendo basically became the Sega Master System, the modern day NES now is the Playstation 4. 



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zorg1000 on 23 March 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:

Well considering every Nintendo console except the Wii has sold less than the one before it, Nintendo software alone clearly isn't good enough anymore.

Well considering, 3/5 of those devices were market leader, yes they are if Nintendo has a sound strategy with strong execution.

If there were enough Nintendo fans for that then the Wii U would be topping the charts every week, it was built mostly to cater to Nintendo fans after all. That isn't the case though, there just aren't that many people that want to buy a console solely for Nintendo games.


Most people aren't fans of companies, they are fans of games. When Nintendo offered consoles that redefined gaming for millions of people, they found success. Things like NES & Wii changed the way people played games and offered new game concepts that hadn't been used before.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Soundwave on 23 March 2015
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:

Well considering every Nintendo console except the Wii has sold less than the one before it, Nintendo software alone clearly isn't good enough anymore.

Well considering, 3/5 of those devices were market leader, yes they are if Nintendo has a sound strategy with strong execution.

If there were enough Nintendo fans for that then the Wii U would be topping the charts every week, it was built mostly to cater to Nintendo fans after all. That isn't the case though, there just aren't that many people that want to buy a console solely for Nintendo games.


Most people aren't fans of companies, they are fans of games. When Nintendo offered consoles that redefined gaming for millions of people, they found success. Things like NES & Wii changed the way people played games and offered new game concepts that hadn't been used before.

The NES really didn't offer a "new way to play". Over time actually the gimmicks that Nintendo had to initially shove into the system like R.O.B. and the Zapper were barely/rarely used. People just wanted the meat and potatoes gameplay with the standard NES game pad. 

The foundation the NES established still continues today even in platforms like the PS4. The Wii motion gaming craze meanwhile is pretty much all but dead in under 10 years. One was a fad, the other wasn't.



zorg1000 on 23 March 2015
Soundwave said:
zorg1000 said:


Most people aren't fans of companies, they are fans of games. When Nintendo offered consoles that redefined gaming for millions of people, they found success. Things like NES & Wii changed the way people played games and offered new game concepts that hadn't been used before.

The NES really didn't offer a "new way to play". Over time actually the gimmicks that Nintendo had to initially shove into the system like R.O.B. and the Zapper were barely/rarely used. People just wanted the meat and potatoes gameplay with the standard NES game pad. 

The foundation the NES established still continues today even in platforms like the PS4. The Wii motion gaming craze meanwhile is pretty much all but dead in under 10 years. One was a fad, the other wasn't.

Yes it did, u say standard NES game pad as if it was a standard controller for the time. Pre-NES, standard controllers looked like the Atari 5200/IntelleVision/ColecoVision controller. And it's not just about controllers, it's also about the games, Super Mario Bros was a massive leap from earlier platform games like Pitfall and were there games that played like Zelda or Metroid before those games released?



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

Soundwave on 23 March 2015
zorg1000 said:
Soundwave said:

The NES really didn't offer a "new way to play". Over time actually the gimmicks that Nintendo had to initially shove into the system like R.O.B. and the Zapper were barely/rarely used. People just wanted the meat and potatoes gameplay with the standard NES game pad. 

The foundation the NES established still continues today even in platforms like the PS4. The Wii motion gaming craze meanwhile is pretty much all but dead in under 10 years. One was a fad, the other wasn't.

Yes it did, u say standard NES game pad as if it was a standard controller for the time. Pre-NES, standard controllers looked like the Atari 5200/IntelleVision/ColecoVision controller. And it's not just about controllers, it's also about the games, Super Mario Bros was a massive leap from earlier platform games like Pitfall and were there games that played like Zelda or Metroid before those games released?

The controller was refined, but it wasn't really a "new way to play", it was just a better version of what had come before. 

And certainly the NES had far (far) better graphics than the Atari 2600/5200. 

But you can say similar things about say the leap from 16-bit systems to the Playstation, etc. The NES was a standard game console, while it did have gimmicky controllers like R.O.B. and Zapper this was mostly just to get retailers to carry the system because it was at its heart a traditional game system. 

The NES probably was the Playstation 4 of its day. The Sega Master System (ironically) is basically what Nintendo has turned their console division into (niche side product, no third party support, great 1st party games). 



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JazzB1987 on 23 March 2015
PxlStorm said:
Just like how the Wii U will get a lot of 3rd-party games, am I right?


Those are 2 different things tho.


Nintendo wantint to suprise you is directly dependent on Nintendo.

Third party being on NIntendo is not  its up to the third party to decide it.  Nintendo made the mistake that they "promised" something they have no influence on.



zorg1000 on 23 March 2015
Soundwave said:
zorg1000 said:

Yes it did, u say standard NES game pad as if it was a standard controller for the time. Pre-NES, standard controllers looked like the Atari 5200/IntelleVision/ColecoVision controller. And it's not just about controllers, it's also about the games, Super Mario Bros was a massive leap from earlier platform games like Pitfall and were there games that played like Zelda or Metroid before those games released?

The controller was refined, but it wasn't really a "new way to play", it was just a better version of what had come before. 

And certainly the NES had far (far) better graphics than the Atari 2600/5200. 

But you can say similar things about say the leap from 16-bit systems to the Playstation, etc. The NES was a standard game console, while it did have gimmicky controllers like R.O.B. and Zapper this was mostly just to get retailers to carry the system because it was at its heart a traditional game system. 

The NES probably was the Playstation 4 of its day. The Sega Master System (ironically) is basically what Nintendo has turned their console division into (niche side product, no third party support, great 1st party games). 

The NES controller was absolutely nothing like the any previous controller, so it wasn't just a better version, it was completely new. Just like the Wii Remote wasn't just a better Dualshock/Gamecube controller, it was something brand new that let u play games in a new way. Both of these consoles branched out and featured new games genres that hadn't been used before.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

DélioPT on 23 March 2015

His words might sound bad because Wii U failed. Had Wii U been a success and people would be excited.
Whatever NX is, it surely won't be Wii U 2.0, so people can relax.

Now, we could speculate and try to imagine what he is talking about: is it the way you control the games that will surprise or is it what the console has to offer?
If it's in terms of control i don't see how Nintendo can do something new. We have seen motion gaming with controllers, without controllers, controllers with screens, VR devices... or is it just a step forward in one of those fields?

What it the big change is how the game changes depending on the player? What if QoL and NX interact to change the gaming experience?
Or, Iwata could just be opening NX offerings to include Android games and Steam games and make it a more universal machine?

It could be anything!



sc94597 on 23 March 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
sc94597 said:

Saying the GCN's mini-discs greatly affected its third-party support is silly. The Xbox 360's DVD's didn't influence its third party support compared to the PS3's Blu-Ray discs. This is obviously an example of selection bias. 

Pretty sure 3rd parties were threatening to drop PS3 support due to it's difficulty to develop for when it was doing poorly. Of course it then picked up so nothing came of it, but still it could have happened.

Which isn't relevant to what I was saying. People said third parties didn't support the GC because its mini discs only held up to 1.5 GB versus the 8.5 GB of a dual-layered DVD. Yet the Xbox 360 only supported 8.5 GB dual-layered DVD's and the PS3 supported 33.4 GB on its Blu-Ray discs. Only supporting DVD's didn't affect the Xbox 360's third party support, nor did it help the PS3. In fact, the 360 got Final Fantasy XIII games using multiple discs. It is silly to cite that as a reason for any third-party woes the GameCube might've had (in itself.) 



JNK on 23 March 2015
zorg1000 said:
Ka-pi96 said:
Sounds bad.

Don't want any surprises, don't want any gimmicks. Just give us a standard console with all the features people expect from consoles these days, great 3rd party support and plenty of good 1st party games. That's all you need to do Nintendo, please don't screw it up.


I like that Nintendo is always trying to come up with new things, I don't get why people want 3 nearly identical consoles, if u want something like PS4 or XB1........just get a PS4 or XB1, that's just my opinion tho.



well i want zelda, mario kart, gta, witcher and co all on one system