Nintendo: The fall of greatness?

a reply to: ckhk3

They are developing a new console. It's development name is "NX". They copped up to it back in March.

a reply to: EternalSolace

Here is the thing...

The only Nintendo products I own at the moment, are a Nintendo 64, and several games for that platform. I have not properly enjoyed a Nintendo game since they stopped making games for that platform. The GameCube was OK, but in my opinion did not have any games that stood out and really waved the flag for Nintendo.

The Nintendo 64 had some great games, made by some really amazing developers. What it did, that no Nintendo machine since has been able to do worth a crap, is compete with other machines of its era in terms of playability of its games, the beauty of the experience visually, and the quality of all the key elements of game design which went into creating games for the system. Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the 64 was just mind blowing to play, visually stunning for its time, and the story was engrossing and the characters engaging. More over, the game was a standout not just amongst Nintendo games, but amongst ALL games of the period in question.

While I understand why it would be economic suicide for Nintendo to try and compete with the several generations newer, faster, more powerful machines that are out on the market at the moment, it has to be said that the moment their games and machines stopped being able to compete with other machines out there, is the exact moment that Nintendo stopped making games which were relevant to the computer games industry as a whole, and stopped making games that engaged the player in anything like a noteworthy fashion. That is how I see it.

While the crucial thing about a gaming console is not how beefy it is, but how well it uses what it has, it must also be able to take advantage of the genius of animators, developers, writers and so on. The 64 did that well, and what they are making now does not. I would argue that this is because Nintendo as a company have lost direction, to the point where they do not know where in the market place they are trying to get to, or indeed, how to approach moving forward, given their unenviable position in the industry.

My attitude to Nintendo at the moment is as follows. I love what they were, but do not like what they have become. I would have thought, by now, that it would have become obvious to the people running the company, that bringing out consoles which do not take advantage of the speed of technological advancement, and making tortured sequel after tortured sequel to play off childhood memories to sell games, as opposed to making groundbreaking games, is a sure fire way to run a company into the ground. At the same time, I would also have thought it was perfectly obvious that they have not the clout to put together a top quality, current, and competitive console at this point.

They either need to start slowly working toward a blinding hardware release, which abandons all the nonsensical toy store bull crap they have been obsessed with for years, and concentrates on being a gaming machine for gamers, or accept that their days as a player in the hardware market are over, and concentrate on making games for other platforms instead. All I know is, if I was a games developer working for Nintendo right now, I would be very depressed. They are trying to paint the Mona Lisa with the tools of cavemen, trying to build the Eiffel Tower with a bucket and spade, and no iron what so ever. More precisely, they are trying to make games for a platform which is so far behind the times, that all it can really cope with and do well, is party games.

Nintendo need to seriously consider whether they wouldn't be better off just making games for the other platforms out there, ceasing making consoles and games for themselves entirely, and start making games for the other, bigger, more powerful and better quality machines, so that their games designers are not atrophying while unable to properly exercise their badassery due to the pathetic limitations of the hardware they are creating for. It's either streamline the business in this fashion, or take the risk of making a new console, a console so hardcore that it makes everything that is coming out over the next ten years look shabby, and relying on that being successful enough to cover the cost and make a profit.

However, what ever it is they end up doing, they need to get it over with one way or another. All that is happening right now, is that the company appears to be stagnating and failing in every particular to make a go of things, and so change, of one sort or another, must come soon, if there is to continue to be a business for them to operate at all. They will just fade away at this rate, unless something changes.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I agree with everything you've said. There's one thing that stuck out to me though. If Nintendo was still creating content like they were in the NES-N64 days, then I would say that you are correct in that they don't need a high powered console. The problem is that they're not putting out the same innovative and creative content that they once did. That makes a high powered console essential in order to court developers and publishers. Most developers aren't going to lower the standard of a game from PC, PS4, or XB1 to make it work for Wii U.

That said, while I don't want Nintendo to directly compete with Sony or Microsoft, they have to be able to support cross platform games to stay afloat in the long term. I'm unable to link to the article, but there's an article on Eurogamer that discusses Dice's decision to omit Battlefield 4 from Wii U. It essentially said that Dice needed to focus on what they did well and going for a release on Wii U was too risky. Techland's Dead Island: Riptide won't be coming to Wii U either. Techland said they didn't want to rewrite the game engine to work on Wii U. Similar story for Saints Row 4 and other major titles.

Like I said before, I don't know whether it's pride or ignorence but they've got to take a serious look at themselves and how out of touch they are with the gaming community. Shigeru Miyamoto, while I have much respect for his talent, needs to make way for new talent. The talent is out there, Nintendo just has to let it flourish.

I'm not the biggest gamer nerd anymore, but back in the day I spent a great amount of hours navigating the worlds of pokemon on gameboy first, and then zelda and mario on the gamecube and wii. Along with some other great titles.
Link's adventures probably being my favorite franchise. Loved the wind waker on GC, twilight princess and skyward sword on the wii and a few titles for the gameboy and DS.

They showed real passion when creating their homegrown titles and it's a shame to see it like it is.
The golden era is long gone. Its a tricky situation, how to survive whilst remaining who they are and yet embracing and accepting the constant changes in technology and public preferences.

Long live Miyamoto

pokemon master race.

a reply to: EternalSolace

My opinion is that the Nintendo commanding officer has decided to hold back in regard to future development of systems. This is smart in my opinion as game consoles and handhelds are on the way out in place of downloadable content.

There is no future for either consoles or handhelds. It hurts me to admit this, but in the future all video games will be downloaded.

The only reason the DS didn't go the way of the PS Vita is because Nintendo couldn't afford to let it lose, so they cranked out first person titles that were of fairly high caliber.

The truth of the matter though is that this train is about to derail and all the big companies know it. The difference with Nintendo is that they are actually in an advantageous position for the trail to derail when it does. The reason for that is they own huge franchises and will be able to choose what platform they want to develop for exclusively in the future. Sony does not have a Mario equivalent, neither does Microsoft. When their systems get traded in for online platforms(steam, gog, etc) they have no bargaining power in terms of transitioning.

The Microsoft 8 operating system is in my opinion, Microsofts attempt to start transitioning into creating an operating system where they can control users content completely(and ultimately putting Steam like systems out of business by making only Microsoft's version of the same thing work).

All these companies realize that the ship is sinking.

Nintendo is simply sitting back and milking the current systems as much as they can until the regroup and figure out what the next path/destination is. Their ability at this point to transition into the downloaded world is going to depend on companies like Microsoft are able to control their content and operating systems.

a reply to: EternalSolace

In your last post, you were talking about Nintendos content creation during the NES /N64 period... During that period, with specific focus on the N64 era, Nintendo were making great content back then, its true. They were not releasing as many titles as the Sony Playstation folks were, but the titles they did release were often genre defying (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and so on). But during that period, they were making games for a machine which was pound for pound more powerful than its rival machines.

These days... The Ford Motor company makes and sells more cars than Jaguar does. It has more cars to choose from in its stores too. People still buy Jaguars when they can afford them though, because the cars that Jaguar make are often more plush, have bigger baseline performance off the forecourt, and they are often what is referred to as a drivers car, a car for people who like to drive, rather than a car designed merely to transport people or cargo over a distance. They are an event.

The Nintendo 64 was an event. It was beefier than its closest rival, and so the fact that third party developers were sometimes unwilling to involve themselves in a system which ran on cartridges and could not handle CGI too well, was mitigated for by the raw quality of the titles which came out for the system. But now, the same cannot be said. It's all very well having little third party involvement if your machine is powerful as all hell, smashes your closest rival to ruin with its baseline power, can be upgraded with an expansion pack, and boasts genre defining titles.

But what they are doing these days, amounts to asking everyone to develop games to be played on a Dorito chip, and expecting anything other than a rather lacklustre response from the buying public, and developers alike. Again, power is not everything, but Nintendo are so behind the times at this point, that no amount of innovation can possibly overcome the limitations of their current devices. They have nothing in the pipes which even comes close to the power of the PS3 for goodness sake, let alone the PS4, or XBox One. Without at least keeping up with the other machinery on the market, they will not be able to recapture the success of the N64 .

With the rest of the market looking to increase the immersion level of their users experiences, using ever more sophisticated movement controllers, more attention being paid to the rise of VR gaming, Nintendo face being left in the dust, unless they throw off the shackles they put about their own shoulders back in the day, build themselves a new, bruiser of a machine to rival all contenders for power and flexibility, start getting games made for it which are going to redefine genres, and above all abandon the family friendly Tonka toy approach they have been riffing off for the last fifteen or so years. They need to get angry, and build a big angry machine, if they want to remain a contender in the industry.

There would be nothing wrong with them relegating themselves out of the hardware market, but they need to figure out which is going to be which, and if they do bring out another machine which flops through lack of power, third party support, and a lack of stellar titles, the entire company will collapse at some point, and no one wants that.

ly to: Lysergic

PC may be the power house, but if it does not have great FIRST PARTY and SECOND PARTY EXCLUSIVES.

Most PC games come to cosoles anyway. Sure we all know they have higher graphics settings on PC, but without EXCLUSIVES, oh well. There are sooooooo many games from Sony and Nintendo I would miss going PC only. It would just never happen.

As far as Nintendo's E3 Digital Event, it sucked. If Nintendo would have shown Devils 3RD, Fatal Frame 5, as well as Shinen's Fast Racing Neo, all of which are coming out this year, Nintendo would have been fine.
Instead they showed Fast Racing and Fatal Frame during the Treehouse. That was poor decision making on Nintendo's part.

In the meantime, even though the Digital Event sucked, Nintendo Wii U has the MOST exclusive content, with the most exclusive games .

Hell Wii U has more exclusive first party games than PS4 and XB1 combined at least for now.
Splatoon just released two weeks ago, and its super fast paced, and FUN.

I am looking forward to playing, Fatal Frame, StarFox Zero, Devils Third, and Mario Maker this fall

The Sega thing I was going to mention in general, until you added that at the end. Yeah, where to start really though with Nintendo. So many things wrong. It seems at some point they knew they couldn't compete with MS or Sony as far as money to a console, so they assumed they were going to lose, and became gimmicky. Be a niche within gaming, when obviously they weren't. I think there are serious differences in philosophy, like philosophy, between Nintendo and Sony. And Sony seems to have the upper hand. Whatever Sony's philosophy is, and what it does for gamers, gamers are taking to it, a lot. Nintendo seems lately to have some really weird ideas, philosophy, that no one, loyal, smart, dumb, ect. Can really get. They're leading gaming absolutely far worse, than Sega ever did. Sega dropped out of the console market obviously, so if that is any indication, Nintendo is in serious trouble in that regard. Sega was way better than Nintendo is now, and they stopped console hardware. Sega was definitely quite "different" than Nintendo, and even with that differentness that was awesome, no consoles. Nintendo has the niche now on differentness, and doing worse than Sega did.

originally posted by: jtrenthacker
Right with you. I had the NES and stuck with them right up to the GameCube. After that, I went to the PS3.

I think one of Nintendo's problems is that they have not matured with their core users that have been with them since the beginning. We are now in our 30's soon to be 40's. We want mature content with great graphics and sound. We no longer want a childish gaming system with childish games.

They should come out with a flagship console that would be a direct competitor with Microsoft and Sony and maybe have a second lesser console that is aimed at the younger gamers. The only reason I was even considering a Wii U is because I have three young kids of my own.

As for myself, I may never buy a Nintendo system again.

"Mature content" and great graphics and sound. The idea is cliche and just not true. Whether old mmorpgs which were at their peak then and haven't seen the same since, or modern examples such as Minecraft. Gaming has changed, but what made it great wasn't the aforementioned. That does such a disservice to gaming.

2 home consoles, why...such an unrealistic idea..

I get the sense that the Wii U is just an interim console designed to keep the brand in the market place. I think Nintendo next console will be genuinely innovate like the original Wii. In the mean time I reckon Microsoft will bring out a slimmed down version of the Xbox One.

Nintendo's hardware has been a generation behind since the Wii, even Call of Duty gave up on the Wii U not releasing Advanced Warfare, still to this day 3 years later Black OPS 2 on PS3 can have over 200,000 players in multi player during the weekends and around 100,000 weekdays.

Take a look at YouTube videos of the Wii U version from the the first week of release when a game usually has the most players ever, Wii U version had 3,000 players, im going to make a good guess that number barely reaches 300 today.

Game developers are tired of spending money and resources shoehorning a game onto an inferior console that's not going to sell well anyway.

I have every Nintendo console from the NES to the Gamecube, I did have a Wii and it was junk, 90% of the games where garbage shovelware, Wii mote controller was a joke, I hate motion controllers but still I gave it a go and it was not accurate at all.

The console was simply an overclocked Gamecube.

I stuck with my PS3 and moved over to PS4, didn't bother with the Wii U and i'll probably never buy another Nintendo console again if they keep releasing consoles with last generations hardware and forced gimmicky motion controllers.


I would like to see Nintendo start releasing their games on other consoles like Pokemon, or Mario Maker that does look like a really good game but im not buying a Wii U for 1 game.

Even I have always been a big fan of Nintendo all the gaming consoles they have introduced. Many of the player's mind must have diverted towards Nintendo's new version "Nintendo Switch" and become a huge fan of playing a wide range of video games over it. I must say Microsoft and Nintendo are really doing a great job of keep introducing new consoles, as just few days ago I came across through Website for Acheter Xbox gift card 50 euros, which will offer a wide range of games just in 50 euros.

a reply to: TrueBrit

After creating a new thread, I stumbled upon this one. I want to now add an update to this thread. Their recent marketing and sales practices have actually shut off a lot of people from supporting Nintendo. I am close to abandoning Nintendo myself... as much as it pains me to say that.

The discontinuation of the Wii U. The under production of the NES classic and its subsequent discontinuation of production when so many people never got the opportunity to purchase.

Nintendo is either incompetent or calculatingly evil when it comes to their sales, production, and marketing. Forced artificial demand scarcity... not cool Nintendo!

a reply to: EternalSolace

And they STILL have not abandoned the faddy bull crap they have been doing, and actually pushed resources into power parity.

They need to get off this nonsense, stop treating their consumers so badly and actually compete in the big leagues, or consign themselves to the history of gaming, rather than simply being a bed time story that gamers tell their children, to keep them out of the long grass.

a reply to: TrueBrit

The Switch appears to be an amazing console. Whether 3rd party publishers actually jump on board is yet to be seen and as always will ultimately dictate whether the switch will fail or succeed.

I wholeheartedly believe it's time for Nintendo to abandon hardware, outside of handhelds, and focus solely on software. Seeing Mario, Zelda, and Metroid in full 4k glory on an Xbox One or PC with Oculus Rift... yes please!

a reply to: EternalSolace

I have seen the Switch.

It does not impress me. I see a faddy nonsense box, which cannot keep up with the current competition, leave alone be competitive with future machines. The PS4 does a better job of being a console than the Switch, as does the current generation of Microsoft box. Both companies are already in development of improved machines or new generation gear that is going to melt the face off the public and be hyper accessible, as all their previous offerings have been. Nintendo have not even attempted to get on that wavelength, and that is why they fail.