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Forums - Nintendo - Is Nintendo entering a new golden age?

Arminillo on 16 June 2017
mZuzek said:
Ninten78 said:

With the Switch selling well and the plethora of (2 new Metroid games) new games announced,stock prices running and increased awareness of Nintendo IP.Is Nintendo enetering a new golden age akin to the Wii/DS era?

Your thoughts?

I wouldn't call Wii/DS a golden age.

uh... wii/ds era had...

Golden Sun (1)

Fire Emblem (3)

Warioware (3)

Metroid (3 and Prime collection)

Punch Out

Mario (4 and Super Mario DS)

Zelda (4)

Custom Robo (1)

Chibi Robo (1)

Legendary Starfy

Kirby (a ton)

Yoshi (2)

Super Princess Peach

Ouendan (2)

Rythym Heaven (2)

Donkey Kong (1)

Star Fox (1)

Pokemon (Gen 4-5, multiple Wii spinoffs)

Operation Rainfall (Xeno, Pandoras, Last Story)

No More Heroes (2)

Tatsunoko VS Capcom

Monster Hunter Tri

999

and a ton more im not gonna bother to add here...That was one of the brightest eras of Nintendo history.



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Cerebralbore101 on 16 June 2017
mZuzek said:
Dulfite said:

Are you joking? They are two of the top 5 most selling gaming devices of all time, in the same generation. How would that NOT be a golden age?

Because when I think of golden age, I don't think of sales, I think of amazing games that left a legacy and a following.

Wii/DS certainly had plenty of great games, but not so many were that spectacular. Prime 3 was a stellar entry in the Metroid franchise, but not as good as its predecessors; Skyward Sword, though a great game, was very divisive and definitely underwhelmed a lot of fans (also, both the Metroid and Zelda entries on the DS were also very divisive); Star Fox went missing except for a pretty crappy early DS game; Pokémon had no console spin-off of the same quality as the GameCube ones, and had again, divisive main entries on the DS; both Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. had some of their worst entries on the Wii (though at least MKDS was good); and overall most of Nintendo's output was just focused on tiny casual games.

There was definitely a lot of good during that era, but certainly not enough for me to call it a "golden age" when compared to the likes of the NES, SNES and maybe even N64, all of which produced tons of timeless classics.

^This guy gets it. 



Platina on 17 June 2017

They definitely are not in the spot that they were a couple of years ago, but I wouldn't say Golden age :p



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bigjon on 17 June 2017

The Wii was a golden age for Nintendo sales wise, but IMO not for games. It was pretty much Super Mario Galaxy... Nintendo seems to be targeting gamers again as opposed to targeting non gamers (blue ocean strategy)



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

bigtakilla on 17 June 2017

Wii had the original Xenoblade Chronicles, the greatest game of all time, so yeah, I'd say golden age.



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DarthMetalliCube on 17 June 2017

Based on how insanely packed Nintendo's booth was at E3, I'd say yes. It was difficult to even move around in there. Freaking Splatoon (not even Mario, but SPLATOON) had minimum two hour waits.



 

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Soundwave on 17 June 2017
bigjon said:
The Wii was a golden age for Nintendo sales wise, but IMO not for games. It was pretty much Super Mario Galaxy... Nintendo seems to be targeting gamers again as opposed to targeting non gamers (blue ocean strategy)

Yup, Nintendo has basically said as much. 

Wii/DS era was focused on increasing the population of gamers, but now with smartphones, everyone is gaming, so the focus now for Nintendo is to push their classic IP (and presumably new ones) in broader ways (movies, theme parks, etc.) and my guess is to strengthen the IP they will push the quality of those IP more in line with what the fans want. So big Zelda, big open world Mario, the Metroid Prime 4 that fans have been clamouring for, etc. 



bonzobanana on 17 June 2017
curl-6 said:
Soundwave said:

Wii era is overrated. Only really Mario Galaxy 1/2, Skyward Sword/Twilight Princess, Xenoblade, Metroid Prime 3, DKC Returns, Mario Kart Wii, and Smash Brawl are "must plays" and a lot of mediocre to "OK at best" third party stuff.

N64 alone had more must plays IMO. Mario 64, Zelda: OoT, Zelda: MM, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Star Fox 64, Paper Mario, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 64 despite having a year less on market.

I understand Wii was successful with casuals, but they abandoned Nintendo anyway and a lot of the software aimed at this audience was frankly shit, so not sure what the net end benefit of all that was. In terms of actual high quality games, the Wii is not much better if at all than the N64 or GameCube. It's claim to fame is a gimmick. 

Way more good games on Wii than N64 or Gamecube I'd say. If we're going to mention stuff like Rogue Squadron and Conker, then on the Wii's side I'd add Monster Hunter Tri, The Last Story, Rayman Origins, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, de Blob 1 & 2, Sin & Punishment 2, etc.

Of those wii games you mentioned not one of them I like except for Rayman Origins which was standard definition on wii and looked absolute crap compared to other versions which made the game far less appealling. Personally the golden age of Nintendo was Super Nintendo, N64 and Gamecube. I thought the wii was very weak and didn't buy one until many years after launch and probably played more gamecube games on it than wii games. I'd played and preferred Twilight Princess on gamecube but still not a favourite Zelda of mine. Skyward Sword was also weaker than past efforts yet I absolutely adored windwaker on Gamecube. I loved the mario galaxy games though. 

However the big issue with wii was the technology had stood still. Where as 360 and ps3 were delivering cutting edge games with amazing sound and visuals the wii was actually inferior to the original xbox in spec. Many games which were available on both were simply better on the old xbox. It had true 5.1 sound, 32bit colour, hard drive for fast loading and a more powerful gpu, 20 gflops compared to 12 gflops. To me Conker on the xbox looked and sounded far more impressive than mario galaxy. I thought many titles on wii failed to shine due to the low performance level of the wii. It was a very disappointing console if you also owned a ps3 and 360.  I never spent much time on the wii and never got good value out of it.  So for Nintendo's profit's the wii was a golden age but for me it was a huge fall in gaming quality. It probably didn't help that the era represented a huge improvement in television technology with both plasma and LCD displays both of which the 360 and PS3 looked amazing on but the wii looked like something that was for CRT's only.  The same could be said of sound which had the innovation of 5.1 audio which even the older xbox had fully implemented but the wii was still using 2 channel audio with the dolby prologic pseudo surround which was frankly rubbish and no better than the earlier surround systems used on dreamcast or even super nintendo. wii developers were always struggling to make game content as relevant and most third party publishers only offered sub par versions of their main games. There is an immersion level to gaming where you feel that you are really in the game world that you get on pc, playstation and xbox that you simply don't get on Nintendo hardware to the same degree.  

Despite the weaker hardware sales of ps3 and 360 they actually sold more software. 

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/

There is a high percentage of ex wii owners who simply view it as a rubbish console from my experience. Many of these people were marketing led but disappointed with the games available. Many switched to other formats at the time or bought other consoles and let the wii become a dust collector. Not all of course many were very happy with wii but I think there was also a huge level of disappointment with the console.



curl-6 on 17 June 2017
bonzobanana said:
curl-6 said:

Way more good games on Wii than N64 or Gamecube I'd say. If we're going to mention stuff like Rogue Squadron and Conker, then on the Wii's side I'd add Monster Hunter Tri, The Last Story, Rayman Origins, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, de Blob 1 & 2, Sin & Punishment 2, etc.

Of those wii games you mentioned not one of them I like except for Rayman Origins which was standard definition on wii and looked absolute crap compared to other versions which made the game far less appealling. Personally the golden age of Nintendo was Super Nintendo, N64 and Gamecube. I thought the wii was very weak and didn't buy one until many years after launch and probably played more gamecube games on it than wii games. I'd played and preferred Twilight Princess on gamecube but still not a favourite Zelda of mine. Skyward Sword was also weaker than past efforts yet I absolutely adored windwaker on Gamecube. I loved the mario galaxy games though. 

However the big issue with wii was the technology had stood still. Where as 360 and ps3 were delivering cutting edge games with amazing sound and visuals the wii was actually inferior to the original xbox in spec. Many games which were available on both were simply better on the old xbox. It had true 5.1 sound, 32bit colour, hard drive for fast loading and a more powerful gpu, 20 gflops compared to 12 gflops. To me Conker on the xbox looked and sounded far more impressive than mario galaxy. I thought many titles on wii failed to shine due to the low performance level of the wii. It was a very disappointing console if you also owned a ps3 and 360.  I never spent much time on the wii and never got good value out of it.  So for Nintendo's profit's the wii was a golden age but for me it was a huge fall in gaming quality. It probably didn't help that the era represented a huge improvement in television technology with both plasma and LCD displays both of which the 360 and PS3 looked amazing on but the wii looked like something that was for CRT's only.  The same could be said of sound which had the innovation of 5.1 audio which even the older xbox had fully implemented but the wii was still using 2 channel audio with the dolby prologic pseudo surround which was frankly rubbish and no better than the earlier surround systems used on dreamcast or even super nintendo. wii developers were always struggling to make game content as relevant and most third party publishers only offered sub par versions of their main games. There is an immersion level to gaming where you feel that you are really in the game world that you get on pc, playstation and xbox that you simply don't get on Nintendo hardware to the same degree.  

Despite the weaker hardware sales of ps3 and 360 they actually sold more software. 

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/

There is a high percentage of ex wii owners who simply view it as a rubbish console from my experience. Many of these people were marketing led but disappointed with the games available. Many switched to other formats at the time or bought other consoles and let the wii become a dust collector. Not all of course many were very happy with wii but I think there was also a huge level of disappointment with the console.

I owned an Xbox 360 last gen and the Wii was not disappointing to me. In fact, while I enjoyed them both, I actually liked the Wii more. Nothing on 360 blew my mind quite like Mario Galaxy did, while motion controls wowed me more than HD graphics. My Wii library is bigger than my 360 library and I'm pretty sure I spent more playtime on my Wii also.

At the end of the day, Wii still outsold both PS3 and Xbox 360.



burninmylight on 17 June 2017
curl-6 said:
Soundwave said:

Wii era is overrated. Only really Mario Galaxy 1/2, Skyward Sword/Twilight Princess, Xenoblade, Metroid Prime 3, DKC Returns, Mario Kart Wii, and Smash Brawl are "must plays" and a lot of mediocre to "OK at best" third party stuff.

N64 alone had more must plays IMO. Mario 64, Zelda: OoT, Zelda: MM, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Star Fox 64, Paper Mario, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 64 despite having a year less on market.

I understand Wii was successful with casuals, but they abandoned Nintendo anyway and a lot of the software aimed at this audience was frankly shit, so not sure what the net end benefit of all that was. In terms of actual high quality games, the Wii is not much better if at all than the N64 or GameCube. It's claim to fame is a gimmick. 

Way more good games on Wii than N64 or Gamecube I'd say. If we're going to mention stuff like Rogue Squadron and Conker, then on the Wii's side I'd add Monster Hunter Tri, The Last Story, Rayman Origins, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, de Blob 1 & 2, Sin & Punishment 2, etc.

Not to mention the fact that the Wii was the ultimate Nintendo box for its time because you had access to a vast library of VC games + backwards compatibility with GC games and controllers, so if  you had never owned a Nintendo console up to that point, you had access to almost all of the 1st party greatest hits. And WiiWare gems like the Bit.Trip series and Cave Story.

And it was the first online Nintendo console. Sure, many games like SSB had incredibly shitty online functionality, but that's still more than what GC and N64 offered. MK Wii is inferior to MK64 and MKDD, but I still had a much bigger blast with it because I never had the problem of not having people to play with. Same with Smash, Pokemon and Dr. Mario.