The Video Game Critic

I had a hunch it would happen based on pre-E3 rhetoric, but clearly Nintendo is in a salvage operation to get as much revenue as possible while they try to rebuild for the NX and QoL.

The Wii U is dead, they've clearly pushed projects to the next system. 3DS is in need of a sucessor. Mario Maker and Starfox were true high quality projects that I honestly wish they would have just pushed to the next system. Everything else was either an Amiibo connected cash grab, a recycled asset game made from existing material, or a combo of both.

Apparently even Iwata tweeted about the response, a translated response was posted online, and even he apparently sees the backlash:



I don't really know what to expect from Nintendo in the future, I definitely understand they can't afford to consume huge budgets making games on a system that isn't selling like Wii U or a system like 3DS near it's EOL. They also can't afford to not release anything period, because they need cash flow coming in. I really hope for its future that they really are utilizing their full force an attention on their next system, the QoL project, and quality smartphone games.

It's a very interesting project is Shenmue. The obvious pro with it being fan backed is that there will be no publisher pressure and Yu Suzuki should be able to deliver his vision.
Presumably Sony must be providing development kits for free or partially funding some part of the project for it to come to PS4.
If there is going to be a physical release then I'll be straight onto Kickstarter.

Rev wrote:

Vexer6 wrote:One thing that surprised the hell out of me at Sony's conference was the announcement of a Kickstarter for Shenmue III, hard to believe that the long awaited sequel is finally going to happen(there's no way it won't get 2 million on Kickstarter, it's already at around 1.4 million right now).

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Yeah Shenmue hit their goal someone last night. I'm curious why Sony didn't find this themselves. Perhaps they wanted to see if it would sell or perhaps the creators wanted to do this through the fans and didn't want restrictions on their work. Who knows? I hope it gets a physical ps4 release.

My guess is they wanted to gauge interest. Shenmue 3 is going to cost a lot more than two million dollars to make, so that number doesn't really make sense.

I liked the MS conference, even though I don't care about their big franchises (Halo, Forza). Gears looked kinda cool though. The hololens demo was fine, but it looked staged.

Sony blew me away with The Last Guardian, Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy VII. Horizon, No Man's Sky, and Firehouse all were Sony exclusives or console exclusives that all looked really good as well. Unfortunately, all the stuff they had isn't going to be released this year. Either way, I thought they had the best conference by far.

Nintendo's was really poor I think. If we hadn't already known about most of the games they showed, or if they had more big surprises, it would've been better. Still, all of their big Wii U games (Tennis!) looked good to great and I'll probably be buying all of them. Also, I was hoping they'd have more New 3DS only games, but it doesn't look like any of them are.

As for third-parties, EA's sucked, Ubi's was better, and Bethesda's was awesome just because of Fallout 4.

My grades on the showings:

Sony: B
They showed the most eclectic lineup, the problem is most of it isn't coming until next year or beyond. Horizon looks interesting, Uncharted 4 looks really great, and they dropped info on three notorious vaporware titles that are coming - maybe not for a while however. They also grabbed some exclusive junk from major third party publishers, if you care about that sort of thing.

Microsoft: B-
They have the most well rounded lineup this year by default almost, pretty much because of Halo and Tomb Raider this year. A lot of service oriented types of announcements, being able to play 360 games or even get previous versions of Xbox One games as incentives to buy upcoming games is nice. I just am not interested in the Halo/Gears of War type stuff genre wise, backwards compatability should have been a big deal in 2013 not in mid 2015, and this early access and Hololens type stuff really doesn't do anything for me.

Nintendo: D
My thoughts were in the previous post, but Nintendo is obviously in transition. Almsot every game they showed used recycled assets of some sort, and I'm surprised to just read they brought on Platinum Games to make the campaign mode in Starfox. Not that I think Platinum is bad, they're a great company with a lot of big games from different publishers they have in the pipeline. It just goes to show I think internally right now, Nintendo is focused on two years down the line. Not what's going on right now specifically. But every company needs cash flow, they can't just hide in a cave for a while until things get better.

I don't follow most modern game, so this thread has been informative. A couple of questions;

1. Why has the Wii U done so poorly?
2. Why wasn't the XBox One automatically backwards compatible? I see everyone's excited that this will be a new feature, but it seems like a bizarre omission when it came out, to me?
3. Why is Sony #1 in this generation's console race?

Voor wrote:I don't follow most modern game, so this thread has been informative. A couple of questions;

1. Why has the Wii U done so poorly?
2. Why wasn't the XBox One automatically backwards compatible? I see everyone's excited that this will be a new feature, but it seems like a bizarre omission when it came out, to me?
3. Why is Sony #1 in this generation's console race?

Personal opinion of course
1.) Underpowered, exceptionally poor marketing and naming, lack of third party titles, lack of variety in the game library (ie your usual Nintendo franchises), gimmicky controller.
2). I'm with you. I understand backwards compatibility when transitioning from one generation to another, but nearly two years in ? I don't see the point.
3). They haven't done anything exceptional. Just focused on being a game console and not anything else. The Xbone has picked up since it started doing the same thing but the PS4 is already too far ahead but I think both systems will enjoy similar lifespans to the 360/PS3.

Voor wrote:I don't follow most modern game, so this thread has been informative. A couple of questions;

1. Why has the Wii U done so poorly?
2. Why wasn't the XBox One automatically backwards compatible? I see everyone's excited that this will be a new feature, but it seems like a bizarre omission when it came out, to me?
3. Why is Sony #1 in this generation's console race?

1 - They chose a route to think the Gamepad controller would recreate the Wii magic. Instead, people stopped caring about the Wii at the end of it's life cycle anyway, the controller added nothing to the system except a large cost. A cost that prevented Nintendo from becoming a cost leader at MSRP, caused them to cut costs on the actual specs of the console themselves, or both. This lack of usefulness of the Gamepad prevented Nintendo from creating anything that would cause a consumer to be interested in the system at launch, which carries over to this day. This also alienated third parties who couldn't out how to use it to add anything to existing franchises and, and combined with unorthodox awkward hardware technology, had a hard time even bringing ports from system 6 years older over with a decent framerate. All this snowballed to where we are today.

2 - XBONE wasn't backwards compatible because of the difference in architecture between the 360 and new system, and they saw no need to keep it until now, where I guess they have found 360 owners were content with old technology for a while without upgrading. Ironically, the new architecture route should have been what Nintendo did with Wii U as it turned out to be counter productive to keep ancient architecture around for the sake of protecting Wii BC when no one turned out to care.

3 - It's a close race still in the US, worldwide is obvious, because Microsoft has zero presence in Japan so Sony will win the console war worldwide regardless. In the US, Microsoft took a huge PR hit with their DRM fiasco and pushed people to the PS4 immediately. Then it turned out, PS4 has some massive technological advantages as far as resolution goes for its games and often third party developers are finding they can only render XBox One games in 900p while PS4 can render 1080p with no issue. PS4 also sometimes benefits from a little better detail on side by side comparison, but for the most part this has been the difference. The systems in the US are still very close in sales, however.

NX17 wrote:3 - It's a close race still in the US, worldwide is obvious, because Microsoft has zero presence in Japan so Sony will win the console war worldwide regardless.

Anyone have the numbers on Xbox and Ps4 in America? Because my understanding from all the monthly NPD U.S. numbers is that it isn't really that close in North America either. And if I have been reading correctly, the Japanese console market sucks for everyone.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/05/22/console-sales-hit-all-time-low-in-japan-5209893/

http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/04/24/ps4-sales-pass-1400000-in-japan-as-momentum-starts-to-slow-down/
And that last one is a POSITIVE story from Sony fans! 1.4 million? That's hardly the global difference maker. I think both are seperated by 8 or 9 million, and if that last article is accurate, the maximum difference from Japan is 1/8th of that (if Xbox One sold absolute zero there).

Voor wrote:I don't follow most modern game, so this thread has been informative. A couple of questions;

1. Why has the Wii U done so poorly?
2. Why wasn't the XBox One automatically backwards compatible? I see everyone's excited that this will be a new feature, but it seems like a bizarre omission when it came out, to me?
3. Why is Sony #1 in this generation's console race?

1. I am exactly in the target audience of the WiiU, but do not have one. The tablet controller was a poor choice that Nintendo could not back away from, the lack of 3rd party games thins the library and results in droughts, and the technology is lackluster in comparison to the other two consoles. They had a year head start, and should have pushed out a stellar library to take advantage of that.

2. One thing that actually hurt Commodore is what a great machine the Commodore 64 was. Its sometimes called "Gone horribly right". For Commodore, the C64 was so popular, who wanted a C128 that was C64 compatible - companies just continued to make C64 games. I think the same thing with the 360. The 360 has been such a success that maybe its hurting adoption of the Xbox One. It may also be that creation of the emulator really was a gigantic struggle, but I don't know. If it could be done wouldn't it have been better to have it done, if not right at launch, at least announce it was in the works? Wouldn't that have driven up sales of the Xbox One, and at a time when it was more expensive and much more profitable for MS?

3. In the US, while the Xbox One is competing well with the PS4 now, its been clawback for MS. With lowering prices and reduced its profits to increase the install base, dropping the Kinect and that profit, dropping policies that were designed to integrate the Xbox One into the home theater in order to bring families into the Microsoft and Windows ecosystem. I think the Xbox One current status is making the most out of disappointment for MS, but at the end of the day, it seems to a good system, with good bundles, at a good price. At launch, this would have been my 3rd choice console, but not anymore. Ask this question again next year, because I think MS can continue to wage a solid war with the PS4.

The point of backwards compatibility is to help ease 360 owners into buying an Xbox One knowing that unlike with a PS4, they won't have to pay for games that they already own on a previous gen system.

The Wii U failed largely because of a not-so-great library, a name that confused a lot people(they thought it was an add-on to the Wii instead of a new console), a somewhat gimmicky controller that some saw as unnecessary, a lack of third-party support, third-party titles selling poorly on the console, Nintendo being behind Microsoft and Sony in terms of graphical fidelity and many other reasons.

The Xbox One actually outsold the PS4 back in April, so i'm not too worried about Microsoft:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2015/05/14/xbox-one-outsells-ps4-for-april/