Forum - View topicThe X Button - Formative Fears
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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It's pretty disheartening to see how terribly Konami has been faring as of late. It seems that this AAA idea of investing massive amounts of cash to make super-powerful hardware and titles with ultra-grade graphics has brought them down to their knees. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before other AAA gaming companies end up suffering the same fate.
Plus, it doesn't help that there are people out there that have been pressuring Nintendo to conform to this AAA mentality for years. Last edited by Mr. Oshawott on Fri May 01, 2015 7:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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It kind of reminds me of the current Hollywood approach, which is big spectacle, big action, and big thrills. Every major studio is ding a high-roller strategy, where they hope to spend, say, $300 million and get $800 million back worldwide. You don't really have the more humble movies anymore, let alone weird but cheap experiments like Rear Window, except on the limited circuit, since studios want that nine-digit return.
Not that they can't sometimes be good, but a movie with a very high budget is not necessarily better than a movie with a low budget. Same holds true for games. Since Hollywood is doing a high-investment, high-return strategy, I'm guessing the same is true for video games, as game designers seem to admire Hollywood for some weird reason. Problem is that it's way tougher to make that work for video games as, except for mobile gaming, the audience is narrower.
Which games are dependent on amiibo support? Mario Party 10 unlocks some new modes and such, but I've never seen a game actually need them, which puts them above Skylanders and Disney Infinity, though admittedly, both those games' figurines are higher quality and cost less. I'm tempted to get an Aladdin and a Jasmine even though I don't have Disney Infinity (just as I have a Stealth Elf without having a Skylanders game).
Well, there's the Professor Layton series. |
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gatotsu911
Posts: 457 Location: US of East Coast |
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I hadn't caught that bit about the SNES VC; that's awful, and hopefully not true. Seeing as SNES games released on the service have only dried up since the addition of N64 and DS a few weeks ago, it seems like it might be premature to declare the SNES portion of the service dead, though I guess someone who works at Natsume would have more contact with Nintendo than I do.
Right now the Wii U's VC selection pales in comparison to that of the Wii, or even the Japanese Wii U (which at least has some of Square Enix's 16-bit library - all I really want). Not to mention the Wii VC had comprehensive libraries for non-Nintendo systems (Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Neo Geo, arcade, etc.) that are apparently a lost cause on Wii U. Being able to play these games on the Gamepad makes the Wii U's iteration of the Virtual Console my favorite one yet, but I wonder whether the narrow selection and steady trickle of releases aren't a downside of Nintendo's insistence on including nice but largely unnecessary extra features like Miiverse support, retro manuals and save states. If I could trade those for a game selection more in line with the Wii's, I'd do it in a heartbeat. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
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It's not just that though even when you do make a quality game you going to have people who pretty much go "meh not as good as this other game I played or there's not enough things I like but other people won't like".
People want Nintendo to stop making consoles or handhelds that are a generation behind their competitors and come with needless gimmicks and also make some of their titles available for mobile devices, not dump millions of dollars into making games that look good but play terribly. Plus considering how badly Wii Music bombed they wouldn't need to do that anyway. |
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Mr. Oshawott
Posts: 6773 |
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Nintendo's consoles and handhelds are a generation in the rear of their competitors...how? They seem pretty up to date as far as I know.
What are these "needless gimmicks" you're referring to?
Well, good news: Nintendo made a deal with DeNA to develop new gaming apps for smartphones and the like. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
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Tech wise almost all of Nintendo's system's have been behind their competition. This was particularity noticeable with the Wii and even more apparent with the WiiU.
The Wiimote and the WiiU Gamepad, to say nothing of the forced motion controls infamously associated with the former.
Jury is still out on this being a good idea, especially when it ignores one of the key things people wanted, which was to play Nintendo's back catalog on mobile devices. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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The Wii was a colossal success though. So was the NES, the Game Boy, the DS and the 3DS, all of which have gimmicks. That's Nintendo's thing, and it's been Nintendo's thing since at least the early 80's.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
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Only because it was a system primarily designed to appeal to casual gamers, that's part of the reason why Nintendo has been having so much trouble with the WiiU.
The DS and 3DS are more gimmicky than the last two but their dual screen functionality is in no way divisive than a remote with built in motion sensing functionality and a tablet controller.
True though they handled it better.....well at least until they came out with tech like the Virtualboy. |
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Via_01
Posts: 551 |
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I think it's fine for Nintendo to catter to casual gamers. That's what they've been doing for a long time, and it's been working quite well. The thing with the Wii U is that they actually tried to make some other companies make games for them... which didn't work out too well. This is where the gimmicks come into play: A Wii U game, or even a Wii game, NEEDS to use the motion sensor / dual screen gimmick; that's Nintendo's policy, and if you can't adapt your game to use those functions, then you can't put a game in their consoles at all. And many developers have a hard time doing so, because most of the time it'd mean having your game on Nintendo consoles and there only, as adapting your game to such a varied number of styles must be pretty hard.
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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There are also some companies that only do hardcore gaming and don't have that much experience in newcomer gaming, like Arc System Works and Nippon Ichi, and I noticed, with their releases on Nintendo systems, that they usually don't know what to do with the unique features on Nintendo hardware or don't make that good use of them.
Some of these companies do figure it out, however, like Capcom and WayForward. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5976 |
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Actually you can make games with out the games requiring the use of the features I mean if Sony can make a slew of PS3 games that didn't use the motion sensor in the Sixaxis/Dualshock 3 Nintendo could've easily done the same with most of the Wii's catalog. Half of the WiiU's library can be played without the gamepad so at the very least Nintendo made the controllers options for the WiiU less narrow. But I digress. |
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