Atari Founder Warns Nintendo May be on The Way Out

[Bleidd Whitefalcon]

I say Nintendo should make a successor to the N64 without any gimmicks. Just a nice powerful console like they used to make with the launch titles being a pokemon MMO and a next gen Metroid as an answer to Microsofts Halo and Sony's Killzone.

Wasn't that the Gamecube? And look what happened with that

The marketing was terrible for the gamecube and it was competing with the new xbox and PS2 at the time. Like I said, but you have seemed to ignore, launch it with a pokemon mmo and a next gen Metroid and throw in a Zelda game for good measure and fans will come flocking. Not to mention a console like this would be much easier to get stuff like call of duty or assassins creed plus other third party games on it. They could price it much lower than the xbox one or PS4, as most Nintendo consoles are usually cheaper.

Sounds like a good comeback for Nintendo if you ask me.

There WAS Metroid and Zelda on the Gamecube. I'd need to check sales but I don't think it really helped them that much. As for a Pokemon MMO, I don't think Nintendo has the online infrastructure to sustain one. And it would cannibalize the main series over on the handhelds - why would someone buy the next version when they can boot up a game with every region and Pokemon?

The third party stuff... you have a valid point there. But I'm not entirely sure they could get to the point where they have really good ports of Assassin's Creed or CoD while being able to keep the price low. I wouldn't be surprised if the WiiU ports of Black Flag and CoD: Ghosts are based on the PS360 versions instead of the PS4 and Xbox One - we won't really be able to find that out until a few years down the line based on whether it continues to get the series after the PS360 stop being officially supported

 

[maddawg IAJI]

That's all? Let them just stop development on everything else and make an MMO from a single player franchise. Tell me, how often does it work out when publishers turn a single player franchise into an MMO?

Because obviously 'stop development on everything else' was what I was implying.

And you're absolutely right. How could they ever possibly hope to convert the complex and nuanced gameplay of collecting cute critters and battling with them onto a larger scale. Don't know what I was thinking. People would definitely not want anything to do with such a game least it destroy the continuation of such original and inspired single player hand-held releases.

How about you drop the sarcasm and tell me how many single player franchises turned MMO turned out well? That is what I originally asked.

Warcraft turned into World of Warcraft, Neverwinter got their own MMO, The Elder Scroll Series will be getting an MMo and its set to be a big one and then you got the Kotor series which spawned the fastest growing MMO in history.
The Final Fantasy series will be getting its second one, and at least big time franchises (DDO, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) also have their own MMO.

Pokemon is one of the most popular franchises on the planet and also one of the mediums most profitable. An mmo in the franchise would make a killing.

 

[newwiseman]

Am I the only person not interested in the Occulus Rift's head motion tracking? The ability to look around with my head doesn't appeal to me since I still have to use my thumbs to move. Until I get a "full-dive" option like SOA or the bleedin' matrix it just seems like an interesting way to do 3D gaming; I don't see that happening any time soon unless someone make a major breakthrough with EKG or some other technology for thought control.

More on topic: Nintendo can survive on it's first party content alone. They won't be as profitable as they've been in the past but they'll survive. Their hardware would die in a heartbeat if they developed for iOS and other consoles but their profits would probably shoot through the roof for the short term. In the long term, competition on other platforms would probably drive their non original, rehashed to death, ideas on games into making them a joke before fading away for real.

 

[Dragonbums]

Am I the only person not interested in the Occulus Rift's head motion tracking? The ability to look around with my head doesn't appeal to me since I still have to use my thumbs to move. Until I get a "full-dive" option like SOA or the bleedin' matrix it just seems like an interesting way to do 3D gaming; I don't see that happening any time soon unless someone make a major breakthrough with EKG or some other technology for thought control.

The idea is nice...but I don't think I could even use it for very long. Plus it makes me feel uncomfortable. As much as I like getting immersed in a videogames, I only take it so far. I don't want to literally "lose" myself in the game. I still want to be able to track what's happening around me. Is there an object int he way? Is someone coming up to me? Is there something going on outside that may or may not need my attention? Those things people have to factor in.

Another issue are those who may get motion sickness, and/or headaches.

People already complain about the 3D feature of the 3DS giving them eyesores and headaches and it's not nearly as immersive as the Oculus Rift. How bad will it be for the device?
It's very possible that this alone is enough to deter many people from the device.

All I'm saying is that they better take some serious pointers for where the Virtual Boy failed. Otherwise that Nintendo console is going to have it's modern day 2.0

 

[Dragonbums]

That's all? Let them just stop development on everything else and make an MMO from a single player franchise. Tell me, how often does it work out when publishers turn a single player franchise into an MMO?

Because obviously 'stop development on everything else' was what I was implying.

And you're absolutely right. How could they ever possibly hope to convert the complex and nuanced gameplay of collecting cute critters and battling with them onto a larger scale. Don't know what I was thinking. People would definitely not want anything to do with such a game least it destroy the continuation of such original and inspired single player hand-held releases.

How about you drop the sarcasm and tell me how many single player franchises turned MMO turned out well? That is what I originally asked.

Warcraft turned into World of Warcraft, Neverwinter got their own MMO, The Elder Scroll Series will be getting an MMo and its set to be a big one and then you got the Kotor series which spawned the fastest growing MMO in history.
The Final Fantasy series will be getting its second one, and at least big time franchises (DDO, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) also have their own MMO.

Pokemon is one of the most popular franchises on the planet and also one of the mediums most profitable. An mmo in the franchise would make a killing.

And sans the WoW MMO and TESO (because it hasn't come out yet.)

How many of them are colossal failures? Sure they are still running, but that doesn't mean they are making anywhere near the amount of profit they thought they could make.

Just because a franchise is popular doesn't mean it should instantly become an MMO.
Pokemon is more like turn based strategy chess then something that can work in an MMO.
It was never about the exploration and adventure more so then it is about gathering a variety of Pokemon, making a team specifically to suit the users needs, and putting that team to the test against other players online. For many people, that is more than enough for the franchise that gets accused of being a milked cow on a daily basis at the levels of CoD.

 

[Dragonbums]

As for a Pokemon MMO, I don't think Nintendo has the online infrastructure to sustain one. And it would cannibalize the main series over on the handhelds - why would someone buy the next version when they can boot up a game with every region and Pokemon?

Because when a new generation of Pokemon comes out it won't be available on the MMO game.

 

[WeepingAngels]

That's all? Let them just stop development on everything else and make an MMO from a single player franchise. Tell me, how often does it work out when publishers turn a single player franchise into an MMO?

Because obviously 'stop development on everything else' was what I was implying.

And you're absolutely right. How could they ever possibly hope to convert the complex and nuanced gameplay of collecting cute critters and battling with them onto a larger scale. Don't know what I was thinking. People would definitely not want anything to do with such a game least it destroy the continuation of such original and inspired single player hand-held releases.

How about you drop the sarcasm and tell me how many single player franchises turned MMO turned out well? That is what I originally asked.

Warcraft turned into World of Warcraft, Neverwinter got their own MMO, The Elder Scroll Series will be getting an MMo and its set to be a big one and then you got the Kotor series which spawned the fastest growing MMO in history.
The Final Fantasy series will be getting its second one, and at least big time franchises (DDO, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) also have their own MMO.

Pokemon is one of the most popular franchises on the planet and also one of the mediums most profitable. An mmo in the franchise would make a killing.

I didn't asl you to list MMO's that existed, I asked how many turned out well?

WoW and FF are about the only ones that turned out well. TESO isn't out yet and I haven't seen much excitement for it. TOR is doing well at all anymore.

 

[xPixelatedx]

...Didn't he say all consoles would be? Didn't he say mobile games would destroy the console market? Because I just want to be sure we're clear here; the guy has shit oozing out his ears.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

And sans the WoW MMO and TESO (because it hasn't come out yet.)

How many of them are colossal failures? Sure they are still running, but that doesn't mean they are making anywhere near the amount of profit they thought they could make.

None of them are. They're making profit through whatever business model they prefer. We don't have access to the amount of money they make so we can't really call any of them colossal failures, but with the high cost of upkeep for an MMO (Server maintence, patches, and constant development of end-game material) we can say that its continuing existence alone with no sign of stopping is of itself a success.

That's all? Let them just stop development on everything else and make an MMO from a single player franchise. Tell me, how often does it work out when publishers turn a single player franchise into an MMO?

Because obviously 'stop development on everything else' was what I was implying.

And you're absolutely right. How could they ever possibly hope to convert the complex and nuanced gameplay of collecting cute critters and battling with them onto a larger scale. Don't know what I was thinking. People would definitely not want anything to do with such a game least it destroy the continuation of such original and inspired single player hand-held releases.

How about you drop the sarcasm and tell me how many single player franchises turned MMO turned out well? That is what I originally asked.

Warcraft turned into World of Warcraft, Neverwinter got their own MMO, The Elder Scroll Series will be getting an MMo and its set to be a big one and then you got the Kotor series which spawned the fastest growing MMO in history.
The Final Fantasy series will be getting its second one, and at least big time franchises (DDO, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings) also have their own MMO.

Pokemon is one of the most popular franchises on the planet and also one of the mediums most profitable. An mmo in the franchise would make a killing.

I didn't asl you to list MMO's that existed, I asked how many turned out well?

WoW and FF are about the only ones that turned out well. TESO isn't out yet and I haven't seen much excitement for it. TOR is doing well at all anymore.

Okay, then barring the ones that haven't come out yet, the answer to that question is

Warcraft, Neverwinter, Swtor, DDO, Star Trek and Lotro.

You can't judge success of an MMO by its status mate. Their continuing existence alone is evidence enough of that. Do you have access to their financial papers? Are you aware that, free to play or not, some people have estimated it to be over 1 million dollars a year. So yeah, I'd say they've all been successes in their own right.

 

[Dragonbums]

-snip-

That's dancing around the issue dude. If they spent hundreds of millions of dollars into making an MMO and they are only making a revenue of 1 million a year back, then it stands to reason that the MMO was a colossal failure because at that point they aren't even getting back a third of the percentage it took to make that game on a yearly basis. That is a failure.
SWOTOR's preferred business model was subscription based and they had to scrap that for F2P because nowhere near the amount of people were paying the model to upkeep the game servers. Just because a game is there doesn't mean it's a success. At worst most of those MMO's are surviving, at best, they are mediocre and are making mediocre sales.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

That's dancing around the issue dude. If they spent hundreds of millions of dollars into making an MMO

Stop. They're not spending hundreds of millions. Swtor was a rare exception, but the idea is that they spend around 60 million dollars. And no, they're not making only 1 million dollars. Even with its bloated budget, Swtor has recouped their costs and then some and still remains profitable. Guild Wars 2, which only requires you to buy the game in retail for 60, has caused NCsoft's net income to rise 120 million in Q1 this year. The developers of Star Treak Online, DDO and Lotro are all stating similar profits. In short, just because they can't dethrone WoW doesn't mean they're not profitable. In fact, DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue as a result of going F2P. Lotro saw similar numbers and saw its revenue triple upon making the switch and Star Trek is reportably worth 50 million dollars to its developers.

You asked which MMOs were successful at recouping costs and remain profitable, I told you. Now you're trying to say that those don't count.

 

[Something Amyss]

True. But they're still popular with the kids, who are their main demographic. Increasing fragmentation between them and the rest of the AAA game industry is virtually guaranteed at this point, but then, a lot of the rest of them appear to be shitting themselves at the moment. Things are kind of crazy across the board in this medium right now.

Indeed. And just because something could happen doesn't mean it will. And I don't think it will, but I can't preclude the notion.

 

[JayRPG]

I say Nintendo should make a successor to the N64 without any gimmicks. Just a nice powerful console like they used to make with the launch titles being a pokemon MMO and a next gen Metroid as an answer to Microsofts Halo and Sony's Killzone.

Wasn't that the Gamecube? And look what happened with that

The Gamecube sold 22 million units
The original Xbox sold 24 million units
The Dreamcast sold 10.6 million units

The only stand-out of that generation was the PS2.

While the gamecube is regarded as a failure by most in the west (for some reason), it actually didn't do that bad at all.

On a personal note, I love my gamecube, I still play it more often than my PS3.

When people tell me the graphics were bad, I tell them to go and play Baten Kaitos.
When people tell me there were no great games on it that you couldn't get on other consoles, I say:
Tales of symphonia (well it did get a very limited PS2 port very late in the generation)
Super smash bros.
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Eternal darkness
Baten Kaitos
Paper mario
Metroid prime
Fire emblem
Pokemon colosseum
Pokemon XD
Lost kingdoms
Lord of the rings the third age
Digimon world 4
Evolution worlds
Summoner: A goddess reborn
And those are just the ones I remember.

The gamecube may not have had as many games as other offerings but almost all of them were damn good.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Wii U Pokemon MMO. That is all.

Some people say that this would do well. I'm skeptical. I'm a decent MMO fan; I've played moooost of the big ones. I also enjoy Pokemon; myself and my brother probably have ~10 pokemon games between us. I still wouldn't play a Pokemon MMO. So I dunno.

Yeah, I'd be more than a bit skeptical.

I've seen this come up far too often, where people just think that you can take a popular game, tack on "MMO" and suddenly makes it more awesome just because WoW did it.

It doesn't work that way: It didn't even work that way for WoW, given that WoW is a pretty big departure from Warcraft's RTS roots.

Pokemon is no different. I don't see what the appeal would be in such an MMO given that the most interesting long-term elements of Pokemon are in 1 vs 1 trainer competitions OR individual collection progress.

Neither of which are staples of MMO appeal; like massive PvE raids or large scale PvP arenas.
(the key word is "MASSIVE")

Closest they could manage without changing the gameplay completely would be adding a massive series of trainer hubs like city hubs in most MMOs...which kinda already exists in online pokemon already.

And if they change the gameplay completely...it's not really "Pokemon" anymore. It's more of an MMO with the Pokemon setting.

 

[Roxas1359]

snip

The GameCube broke even luckily because Nintendo quickly stopped production of it. Nintendo had produced way more GameCube consoles than the amount that was actually selling, so they stopped making them in 2003 so as to save money and just focused on software and a few added peripherals (GameBoy Player for example).
The console was excellent, but it's considered a failure by the West because they still produced more consoles than what actually sold and it didn't make a profit. For me though it was still one of my favorite consoles though, and had probably the best controller for any console, which is why I always get confused as to why Nintendo didn't make a Pro Controller designed off the GameCube controller because I guarantee that people would love it.
I don't think I've ever seen people actually claim that the GameCube was bad, but when compared to it's competition, the PS2, it was a lot less. Then again all consoles are considered less when compared to the PS2, which is still selling units and is the best selling console of all time. In second is the original Nintendo DS.

 

[runic knight]

As for a Pokemon MMO, I don't think Nintendo has the online infrastructure to sustain one. And it would cannibalize the main series over on the handhelds - why would someone buy the next version when they can boot up a game with every region and Pokemon?

Because when a new generation of Pokemon comes out it won't be available on the MMO game.

Or they do like they did with pokemon stadium or the poke-walker or the various other peripherals they have used with the games. Or they could just release an expansion. Hell, they could have the handhelds be the main game (usually up to lvl 50 or so for the pokemon), and the mmo be a sort of endgame location because of how much longer it takes to level. It could be a completely different play style (from turn based to more action oriented. Worked for kingdom hearts). There is a lot they could do with the franchise in an mmo setting. Hell, they could make another pokemon snap and it would still probably be successful.

Hell, look at WoW. An rts with a solid single player experience and a highly competitive multiplayer audience made the transition into mmo pretty well. I am not saying a pokemmo would be the new king, merely that in terms of success, pokemon mmmo has the potential and the demand.

 

[Dragonbums]

That's dancing around the issue dude. If they spent hundreds of millions of dollars into making an MMO

Stop. They're not spending hundreds of millions. Swtor was a rare exception, but the idea is that they spend around 60 million dollars. And no, they're not making only 1 million dollars. Even with its bloated budget, Swtor has recouped their costs and then some and still remains profitable. Guild Wars 2, which only requires you to buy the game in retail for 60, has caused NCsoft's net income to rise 120 million in Q1 this year. The developers of Star Treak Online, DDO and Lotro are all stating similar profits. In short, just because they can't dethrone WoW doesn't mean they're not profitable. In fact, DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue as a result of going F2P. Lotro saw similar numbers and saw its revenue triple upon making the switch and Star Trek is reportably worth 50 million dollars to its developers.

You asked which MMOs were successful at recouping costs and remain profitable, I told you. Now you're trying to say that those don't count.

The only ones I said didn't count was TESO because it wasn't out yet, and WoW because it's obviously top dog in the genre.

A lot of MMO's that have come out have always claimed themselves to be "WoW killers" and all of them spend WoW budgets in the hopes that they will topple the throne.

 

[Dragonbums]

As for a Pokemon MMO, I don't think Nintendo has the online infrastructure to sustain one. And it would cannibalize the main series over on the handhelds - why would someone buy the next version when they can boot up a game with every region and Pokemon?

Because when a new generation of Pokemon comes out it won't be available on the MMO game.

Or they do like they did with pokemon stadium or the poke-walker or the various other peripherals they have used with the games. Or they could just release an expansion. Hell, they could have the handhelds be the main game (usually up to lvl 50 or so for the pokemon), and the mmo be a sort of endgame location because of how much longer it takes to level. It could be a completely different play style (from turn based to more action oriented. Worked for kingdom hearts). There is a lot they could do with the franchise in an mmo setting. Hell, they could make another pokemon snap and it would still probably be successful.

Hell, look at WoW. An rts with a solid single player experience and a highly competitive multiplayer audience made the transition into mmo pretty well. I am not saying a pokemmo would be the new king, merely that in terms of success, pokemon mmmo has the potential and the demand.

Those will all come AFTER the new generation games comes out, and often a year or so later like they do already with PBR and Pokemon Stadium.

 

[JayRPG]

snip

snip.

Oh I so agree on the controller, it was comfortable, control scheme was amazing - The variable triggers were so good for racing games.

I find it kind of funny though, The Gamecube was a failure in the west, the Xbox was a failure in the east but both were just trying to climb the insurmountable hill that was the PS2, I often wonder what that generation would've been like sans PS2 (Gamecube vs. xbox vs. Dreamcast)

 

[Dragonbums]

snip

snip.

Oh I so agree on the controller, it was comfortable, control scheme was amazing - The variable triggers were so good for racing games.

I find it kind of funny though, The Gamecube was a failure in the west, the Xbox was a failure in the east but both were just trying to climb the insurmountable hill that was the PS2, I often wonder what that generation would've been like sans PS2 (Gamecube vs. xbox vs. Dreamcast)

I predict the Wii would still be around since Nintendo are notorious for trying out new things and never sticking with the old.

I actually don't think anything much will change. Perhaps the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 350 wouldn't be so high since the PS2 didn't really raise the bar( nor did it exist.)