Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

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scotland
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby scotland » July 15th, 2017, 9:21 am

Rookie1 wrote:If the Switch was $100 cheaper, I might consider it. Too expensive for what you get IMO. Hell, I got a solid "off-brand" tablet from Amazon with similar specs that is comparable in size, and it was less than $100.


I agree. The price issue was talked about a lot at release, but not much anymore. Its too expensive, especially compared to full featured tablets that can do so much more, like Netflix for example. Add in the expensive extras, and that makes it worse.

BanjoPickles
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby BanjoPickles » July 15th, 2017, 1:34 pm

There are so many things about modern-day Nintendo, and their diehard fans, that seriously grate on me!

1). The defense of everything. The rallying cry of "graphics aren't everything," or "fun is what counts." Though I agree, it's somewhat of a dishonest rationale. Fun is what counts, eh? Yeah, I had an absolute ball playing Dark Souls III, a gorgeous, atmospheric game that I would take over darn near anything that the Wii U had to offer. It was deep, immersive, challenging, rewarding. So many Nintendo fans seem to look at PS4/XBox 1 as nothing more than consoles that cater to the lowest common denominator.

The Switch has been a success since release, but Nintendo fans don't seem to understand that a console that is a success for the first four months means nothing in the long term! The Dreamcast sold extraordinarily well during the Fall/Winter of 1999, and then.....the bottom dropped out!

2). The insistence that Nintendo is the end all, be all of gaming! Do they make great games? It goes without saying! However, I can name so many companies, both old and new, that have released games that I would rather play than anything Nintendo has offered! Earthbound was great, but Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Dragon Quest V were better. Breath of the Wild is a wonderful game, but I prefer the Souls series. During the NES era, I preferred games like Bionic Commando, River City Ransom, Nightshade, Contra, Final Fantasy, Maniac Mansion, the MacAdventure games, Little Nemo, Castlevania III, and others to Mario 3, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus.

3). The consequence of gimmicks is both real and obvious. The Wii was a massive success, yes, but at what cost? I have always found it strange that, post-snes, Nintendo's successes haven't trickled over into the following generation. The PS2, for instance, sold like gangbusters, in part, because of the huge success of the PS1. The PS3, even at $600, was NOT a failure, even at launch (even though it was the third best selling console of that generation for the longest time). The Wii U should have been a success, but it tanked!

Third parties have notoriously treated Nintendo's gimmicks as an invitation to shortcut their way through game design. For every third-party gem (Little King's Story, Trauma Team), there were countless "Birthday Party/Carnival" cash ins. Now, with the Switch, you're seeing a glut of iOS ports, or games that would have been more at home on the Ouya! That isn't to take away from the hard work of the indie community, but indie games are NOT what sell consoles! "Graphics don't matter." Yep, and that's why there are huge holes in the Switch's lineup. For the past three generations, Nintendo has allowed themselves to become the secondary console! Aside from the elderly, non-gamers, and diehard Nintendo fans, nobody I knew only owned a Wii! On the flip side, do you know who I knew who only owned a PS3 or 360? Friends who weren't diehard gamers who loved Call of Duty (I'm not one of them), diehard gamers, rpg fans, racing fans, fans of action, retro gamers, sports fans, and everybody in between.

Nintendo develops controllers based on their own ideas, and most third party developers don't want to dedicate their already stretched resources to cater to something that is so far removed from what the competition is doing. Sony and MS, per interviews with several developers, actually cater their controllers, and the flexibility of their hardware, to the third party community!

4). Shortages. I don't care what anybody says, when it comes to defending Nintendo; the proof is right in front of us. When is the last time that you went into a store and were not able to secure a PS4, or Xbox 1? Even when the consoles launched, they seemed to be readily available. In fact, I don't think that Sony has had mass shortages since the PS2. Nintendo, on the other hand (save for the Wii U and Gamecube), seems to constantly run into the same stupid shortages. It's beyond frustrating, and can you give me any reason why people should tolerate it? "It's Nintendo" is not a reason.

5). Their stubborn insistence on doing things their way. In some ways, this isn't such a bad thing....but there have been so many times, over the past twenty years, where their decisions have been absolutely ignorant! "We know that it's 2017, but we have finally figured out how to solve the headset dilemma! Use your cell phone!" Friend codes, limited amounts of flash memory instead of offering hard drives (charging me $300 for a 32GB console when I can buy a 500GB console from Sony seems insulting at best), the drip feed nature of the Virtual Console, allowing the eshop to be a dumping ground for junk games made by junk developers, the most pathetic deals in the industry (compare Sony's excellent flash sales to any Nintendo promotion), the treehouse event in lieu of an E3 conference, and the list goes on.

6). The Switch itself. Outside of Mario Odyssey (which does look absolutely fantastic), Xenoblade 2, and the promise of Metroid Prime 4, the library looks tired! It's disturbing that Nintendo fans are holding up Skyrim as a crowning achievement, or as some sort of proof that third party support exists! No, it's just further proof that third parties no longer take Nintendo seriously. Switch will get a port of a six year old game with some Zelda fan service thrown in, while PS4 and XBone will get Elder Scrolls VI, the next Fallout, and whatever else Bethesda is working on. I also think that it's strange that the "graphics aren't everything crowd," the same people who are whooping it up over Skyrim, are also the same people who once called Skyrim a bug-riddled mess of a game.

7). Nintendo likes to kill things. One of the biggest thorns in my side is their tendency to kill off services, or products, with no real rhyme or reason. Why did they completely kill off 3DS Virtual Console support while still pumping them out on the Wii U? What stopped them from releasing more titles from the NES/SNES libraries? What stopped them from releasing Startropics 1 and 2, Uniracers, Super Mario RPG, Kirby Superstar? They killed off the NES Classic before most people were even able to see them in the wild? They essentially lined the pockets of scalpers, and then killed it off.

I get so tired of Nintendo employing this "good enough" strategy to much of what they do.

Anyway, that's my rant. I'm sorry that it's salty. I'm in a bad mood today Haha!

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JustLikeHeaven
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby JustLikeHeaven » July 15th, 2017, 2:56 pm

I hear you on most of the complaints Banjo. Nintendo diehards can be blind to many of the company's flaws (which there are many).

That being said, I really thing the Switch is their best console since the Gamecube. The hardware and the controllers are the most mainstream since the Cube and I for one couldn't be happier. The ability to pick up the system and bring it with you isn't a gimmick at all. At first I figured I'd NEVER use it. However, sometimes when it's late I just want to play a game in bed and being able to play The Binding of Isaac or Breath of the Wild anywhere I want is sort of incredible. It's an incredibly useful feature and I wish Sony or Microsoft had the same ability!

Also I'm really enjoying the fact that indie games are getting physical releases on the system. The aforementioned Binding of Isaac, Stardew Valley, Cave Story, The End is Nigh, and more are all really excellent games to help beef up the library. Another thing that I'm happy with is the ports of Wii U games. Since I skipped that system I'm pretty excited to get my hands on some of the better games. My fingers are crossed that Platinum Games follows through on their teases and re-releases both Bayonetta games and The Wonderful 101.

I think the system makes an excellent compliment to the PS4. With both the Switch and the PS4 I feel like you get the best of both worlds. You get all the AAA games that Nintendo won't have on the Switch...plus other indie games that aren't on the Switch. Right now I'm getting tons of eclectic and weird stuff for both systems. I'm playing more videogames than I have in YEARS.

I've been very impressed with the Switch in it's first year and I've got my eye on plenty of more titles that are coming out this year. I'll probably own 10-15 games on the system before the system even turns 1. For someone that completely skipped the Wii U I'm all in on the Switch at this point.

TheBlondeGamePunk3
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby TheBlondeGamePunk3 » July 15th, 2017, 3:09 pm

Nintendo might have set the world on fire back in the 1980's with it's N.E.S., It might've made revolutionary gaming with the SNES and N64 and It Might've made gaming popular on discs for Nintendo players with the Nintendo Gamecube and the Nintendo Wii. But with the Wii U, Nintendo did not plan well on it's release as many thought it was an addon to the original Wii, and It's Third Party support was pathetic.

The Switch looks like a Nintendo Wii U V3.0 but much uglier, The game company may have brought back Metroid, Mario, and Zelda from "Video Game Purgatory" but the fact remains.. That they are losing focus on what players have expected from a "Video Game Giant" like them, It's hard to believe that the company that stayed on top of the gaming world with Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, Metroid, and The Legend Of Zelda could find itself being called boring by the "Hardcore" players.

The "Gimmicks" we speak of are the "Modern" video game technology known as 3D, VR, 4K, 1080P, 60FPS, and the out-there kind of stuff, We didn't have very much 3D on the Nintendo 64 and most weren't at first impressed due to the Playstation's "3D" games, As for the other stuff mentioned this kind of "Gimmicks" will not save Nintendo, And one day, Maybe not in our lifetimes Nintendo could go out of business due to their mis-handling of what the players want. :| :| :| :!:

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pacman000
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby pacman000 » July 15th, 2017, 3:30 pm

GTS wrote:Hi everyone, I think we are all skirting around the real issue here. Nintendo is putting out consoles that are lower specs than their competitors. I remember back in the 16-bit days when graphical horsepower was the rallying cry for Nintendo fans. They were right. The SNES was, in most categories, better on paper than the Genesis.

But for the past 3 generations, Nintendo fans are resigned to say that graphical power doesn't matter. "Fun is what counts" etc. I believe that this view is flawed. Imagine playing a new Mario game with the horsepower of the PS4. It would blow people's minds. Switch is having good sales, but Nintendo was in a position to knock a huge blow to PS4; they missed.

I don't care if they have gimmicks; just get good specs. For the record, I own all three systems.

But weren't the SNES and the Genesis based on older processors which had finally become cheap enough for video games? If I remember correctly, the SNES used the same processor as the Apple IIGS; & the MegaDrive used the same processor as the Atari ST.

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scotland
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby scotland » July 15th, 2017, 5:14 pm

pacman000 wrote: but weren't the SNES and the Genesis based on older processors which had finally become cheap enough for video games? If I remember correctly, the SNES used the same processor as the Apple IIGS; & the MegaDrive used the same processor as the Atari ST.


I think the Nintendo philosophy goes back to the NES, which dominated the late 1980s US market. Its a retooled Famicom, of course, which itself was released in 1983. What's under the hood? A custom MOS 6502. This was hardly cutting edge tech, although its used well in the NES, with the ability to handle 64 sprites. Its really the same thing as the Atari 7800 has. The Colecovision and Master System run Z80 systems, but are running much faster (but handle fewer sprites). Nintendo doesn't want cutting edge tech. This way they get profit from the hardware, its already tried and true, and I would think there would be a lot of knowledge around in developing for that architecture. Its not a bad thing. For many consumer products, conventional wisdom is to wait a year for it to get the kinks out, and see how well its accepted.

I think for Nintendo is about replacing shiny cutting edge tech than it is about shiny new gimmicks. Its just different. I hear it resonates better in Japan maybe then in the US, but really, the US loves its gimmicks too. Think of the Apple Watch, or all sorts of consumer products from phones to refrigerators that really push 'We Got Gimmicks'.

BanjoPickles
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby BanjoPickles » July 15th, 2017, 5:41 pm

JustLikeHeaven wrote:I hear you on most of the complaints Banjo. Nintendo diehards can be blind to many of the company's flaws (which there are many).

That being said, I really thing the Switch is their best console since the Gamecube. The hardware and the controllers are the most mainstream since the Cube and I for one couldn't be happier. The ability to pick up the system and bring it with you isn't a gimmick at all. At first I figured I'd NEVER use it. However, sometimes when it's late I just want to play a game in bed and being able to play The Binding of Isaac or Breath of the Wild anywhere I want is sort of incredible. It's an incredibly useful feature and I wish Sony or Microsoft had the same ability!

Also I'm really enjoying the fact that indie games are getting physical releases on the system. The aforementioned Binding of Isaac, Stardew Valley, Cave Story, The End is Nigh, and more are all really excellent games to help beef up the library. Another thing that I'm happy with is the ports of Wii U games. Since I skipped that system I'm pretty excited to get my hands on some of the better games. My fingers are crossed that Platinum Games follows through on their teases and re-releases both Bayonetta games and The Wonderful 101.

I think the system makes an excellent compliment to the PS4. With both the Switch and the PS4 I feel like you get the best of both worlds. You get all the AAA games that Nintendo won't have on the Switch...plus other indie games that aren't on the Switch. Right now I'm getting tons of eclectic and weird stuff for both systems. I'm playing more videogames than I have in YEARS.

I've been very impressed with the Switch in it's first year and I've got my eye on plenty of more titles that are coming out this year. I'll probably own 10-15 games on the system before the system even turns 1. For someone that completely skipped the Wii U I'm all in on the Switch at this point.



I agree, but I don't. The Switch would be an awesome idea, if other developers actually treated it like it was more than a crappy handheld/tablet. So far, we have seen nothing more than games that have been released to death on iOS/3DS (Cave Story, Binding of Isaac, Shovel Knight). In fact, save for Arms and the upcoming Splatoon 2, there is nothing that I'm seeing that hasn't already been released (oh, and 1, 2-Switch). Honestly, I almost wish that developers would take the Bethesda route, since we're probably not going to see many priority releases. Transform it into a portable PS3/360 (why stop at Skyrim? Let's bring Dark Souls, Bioshock,Arkham, and countless other games from last generation to the thing) that also plays the best of Nintendo, and also doubles as the 3DS successor. Honestly, and I know that I'm not alone, this is starting to seem more like the next Nintendo handheld than Nintendo's next dedicated home console, if only because of the portable nature of most of the titles. They're going to need more than Indies to sell this thing over the long term.

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Rookie1
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby Rookie1 » July 16th, 2017, 7:46 am

pacman000 wrote:
GTS wrote:Hi everyone, I think we are all skirting around the real issue here. Nintendo is putting out consoles that are lower specs than their competitors. I remember back in the 16-bit days when graphical horsepower was the rallying cry for Nintendo fans. They were right. The SNES was, in most categories, better on paper than the Genesis.

But for the past 3 generations, Nintendo fans are resigned to say that graphical power doesn't matter. "Fun is what counts" etc. I believe that this view is flawed. Imagine playing a new Mario game with the horsepower of the PS4. It would blow people's minds. Switch is having good sales, but Nintendo was in a position to knock a huge blow to PS4; they missed.

I don't care if they have gimmicks; just get good specs. For the record, I own all three systems.

But weren't the SNES and the Genesis based on older processors which had finally become cheap enough for video games? If I remember correctly, the SNES used the same processor as the Apple IIGS; & the MegaDrive used the same processor as the Atari ST.


I think the "Specs" argument doesnt hold up when you try to compare to other systems, however, I will say that it holds up when comparing it to price.

As I said in an earlier post, I picked up a tablet that is comparable to the Switch and it was under $100. So youre getting a cheap tablet with a $100 set of joycons and a $100 dock. Meh!

Nintendo hasnt been about "power" in 20 years. Its been about fun games. Honestly, massive AAA titles arent a selling point to me. I could care less about that stuff, and am probably done with the Playstation/Xbox era. They do nothing for me anymore. I want fun games, and you dont need "power" to do that. Look at the quality of awesome titles that the PS3 & 360 got. Are you telling me that if Nintendo pumped out some amazing IPs on the switch with PS3/360 graphics, it wouldnt be good enough?

Anyone that is interested in massive AAA titles isnt drooling over a switch right now anyways. They are waiting for the PS5 or the Scorpio or whatever mid-gen $500 upgrade that comes out for those systems with the 4k 3D HD VR garbage they attach to it.

Personally, I feel the switch is solid for what it is when it comes to "specs." However, it is too expensive and the library (both current and future) sucks butt. The mystique behind it right now is that you cant find it anywhere. If they pumped these things out they would be collecting dust as there are no games for it that would sell the console. If you were a parent and your kid wanted something nintendo, would you get them an $80 2DS that has a massive library of reasonably priced games already in stock, or a $300 Switch that has 5 games, 4 of witch are sold out?

If they want this thing to perform in sales, the price needs to drop and they need to seriously pump out some games. We are only 5 months away from christmas, you cant find a Switch to save your life, and if you can there are no games worth buying right now. By christmas, the only other big title coming out is the new mario. WTH?

Also, are they even marketing the Switch anymore? I havent seen anything for it in atleast 2 months. I used to see their adds play in front of my kid's videos on their ipad apps, now I see nothing. I also havent seen an add in front of any of the youtube channels I watch, which when the switch first came out every other ad that I saw was for it.

Just seems like more and more of the "same old Nintendo." I really dont think the Nintendo fanboys are enough to keep this thing afloat. All this speculation that its going to outsell the Wii is just pie-in-the-sky babble if you ask me. Im sticking with 25 million units sold over the course of its lifespan, which will most likely be 5ish years if you compare it previous nintendo consoles.

TheBlondeGamePunk3
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby TheBlondeGamePunk3 » July 16th, 2017, 10:59 am

What has really hurt Nintendo more than what I've mentioned is how they have refused to let the Fans "Suggest" Video game ideas, I'm not denying that the fanbase of Nintendo can be annoying but many I've talked to have many unique ideas that Nintendo could've turned into games.

Another thing that Nintendo has "Wounded" themselves with is the lack of interest to bring back games that many hoped would get a sequel such as F-Zero, It took them 12 years to get a new Metroid game in the works and after the anger/controversy over Metroid Prime:Federation Force Nintendo did many a dis-service by standing by the game even after Change.Org petitions began to appear.


As I've seen throughout the timeline of the N64, Gamecube, and Wii, Nintendo was really grasping at straws with games that many didn't think would work, But some did become very successful and it's their success that lead Nintendo to attempt to do other unique game ideas and mainly while they are trying at times to do creative games, Sometime, They default back to Mario, Zelda, and Mii themed games and It's continuation of going back to bring icons back that could kill Nintendo off. :idea:

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Stalvern
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Re: Should nintendo drop the gimmicks?

Postby Stalvern » July 16th, 2017, 1:03 pm

TheBlondeGamePunk3 wrote:What has really hurt Nintendo more than what I've mentioned is how they have refused to let the Fans "Suggest" Video game ideas, I'm not denying that the fanbase of Nintendo can be annoying but many I've talked to have many unique ideas that Nintendo could've turned into games.

What company does? There is no productive way to turn the millions of arguing voices on the Internet into a coherent goal to follow.


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