Critical Miss: The Bad News...

[The Wooster]

WHO THREW THEIR BABY! And more importantly, will Iwata raise it as his own?

He will presumably apologise for someone losing their baby.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

This made me laugh hysterically, but really Iwata is apologizing for things he has no need to apologize for.

 

[Testsubject909]

Fair warning. Obvious WALL-O-TEXT in the way.

TL;DR: Didn't buy a 3DS, but this comic is pissing me off a bit on how insensitive it is and how completely blind you guys all are under the guise of "we're moar mature then you because we didn't buy it and we don't care!"

Seriously. Sympathize with your fellow gamers here people... Nintendo screwed it's early adopters and lowered the price suspiciously soon after the Vita's announced price in a show of what I can only see as panic with an offering in compensation that's heavily hit or miss.

I think we have a bit of a obligation to be upset. Unit has been out less than 6 months and its loosing 25% of its price. In return for our early support we get handed digital copies of gba games?

Yes I'm aware we didn't have to get anything, so don't bother pointing it out. Not giving out any kind of "apology" is bad marketing. Remember how pissed when the only thing announced for the ps3 outage was playstation plus?

In fact I'd have been a lot happier if they would have given me a list of games to choose from. Especially as I don't care about most of the games they have already listed as "ambassador" titles.

Just shows me that nintendo only has nostalgia to offer us.

The earlier you buy something, the more you pay for it.

That is a big part of how commodities are priced.

There is no excuse for not being aware that the price would drop. Just because t dropped sooner and by a larger margin than expected does not give you any kind of right to be annoyed. You were the one who bought something for a price it obviously isn't worth, knowing full well that EVERYTHING is priced higher when released earlier.

The problem isn't the sudden price drop. Hell, EVERYONE expects a price drop. It's how sudden it was, how early it was after the release and how large of a price drop it is. That is completely unexpected and everyone is well within their rights to be feeling a bit outraged. And it's not as if there's a better version out yet to warrant the large drop in pricing either. (Though I'm sure Nintendo is hiding a 3DSlite somewhere in their R&D and are keeping the lid closed extremely tightly because any word coming out of an actual working model is going to possibly get some negative reaction.)

That said though. Nobody should be pissed about a 3DSlite being announced next year. Considering Nintendo's track record, that's to be expected.

I'm sorry, but Nintendo are giving away 20 free games to people that already own a 3DS. What the devil do they have to apologise for?

People are self absorbed twits who think that because they bought a 3DS Nintendo owes them somethin.

Self absorbed twit or not, that's basically how consumers will feel. They feel entitled for paying for a highly overpriced piece of technology that currently has a very limited library which they willingly purchased for a different set of reason, amongst which might be the support of the technology to entice more third party development which in turn means that the money they put in good faith seems to have been possibly just stolen considering that Nintendo is still making a profit per unit since, again, the piece of technology they're paying for is... Well, not that expensive to make.

Sony Vita on the other hand. Man... Sony's a bit of a masochist, it keeps on taking hits per every unit sold for it's newer consoles. On that front, Sony seems like a company that cares more even though you can tell it's more of a marketing trick to get a larger consumer base so to make money off of the support that comes afterwards and the various other sales related to the console.

Still. It's far more appreciated to know you're paying less for more then more for less. (Yes, even with the price drop, the 3DS still feels like I'd be paying more for less).

Although I agree, I kind of feel like this comic misses the point.

It's not that Nintendo dropped the 3DS's prices. It's that they priced it too high in the first place.

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to develop a new gadget from scratch? There's a reason consoles have a high price early on, it's because the manufacterors need more capital to be able to produce the things more cheaply, as well as simply to offset the initial investment costs of building the machines that can mass produce the product relatively cheaply.

Personally, I think Nintendo is taking a serious risk here by dropping the price so soon, and we should be more supportive.

Although that doesn't excuse them for having a launch line-up smaller than my respect for politicians. Which is astoundingly low, by the way.

I think they were kind of resting on their laurels with the 250 dollar price. While other companies are losing money with hardware sales and depending on software, Nintendo thought they could get away with trying to make a significant profit on hardware sales like they did with the Wii. Then they got stiff armed by the PSVita. Which really put into perspective what people were getting. They were getting inferior hardware, inferior controls and less features for a the same price as if they waited.

Nintendo's not taking any risks. It's desperately wanting to take a large step and strides before Sony gets a heads up with it's new handheld.

Now, the SMART thing that Nintendo could've done is drop the price during December. Why? Christmas. Freaking Christmas. Plus it would've been 3 more months, well enough time to have people go "eh... it's been long enough, i guess a price drop was to be expected" compared to right about now. Which is to say. This last bit here is just to say I'm on EverythingIncredible's side on this.

Don't get me wrong though. I ain't hating on Nintendo. It's a wonderful company that's pushing boundaries even though it's doing it in a rather silly way sometimes but provides some interesting possibilities for gaming in the future and certainly delivers some nostalgically based yet still well rounded and solid titles with more core games then most gamers seems to want to admit.

But seriously. They dropped the ball and this comic is making light of it while insulting various gamers for the sake of just making a few trolls and jackasses laugh.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

Same thing happened when TF2 became free to play, only it was much cheaper to begin with.

 

[scorptatious]

People are angry over something becoming cheaper? What? Did I miss something?

Also those people in the last panel are clearly lactose intolerant and have vertigo.

 

[quantumcat]

I wrote a blog about why I think the price cut is upsetting. I think we're justified in being upset, although perhaps not strictly at Nintendo. The situation just *sucks* for early adopters, period. Saying you should have expected a price drop is equivalent to "herp derping" when trying to comprehend the source of ire. Of course folks expect a price drop--but even NINTENDO recognizes it's far too much and far too soon. Early adopters are necessary for the success of a console--without them, publishers hop ship, it has no games, and then the console sinks. While a price drop is inevitable, the early adopters should get something for their trouble. The problem isn't so much the price drop, it's that the 3DS was mismanaged so poorly the early adoption wasn't worth it.

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/quantumcatphd/why-the-3ds-price-cut-is-upsetting--207544.phtml

 

[Venereus]

Apologies if I'm missing something, but why are the strawberry milkshakes brown?

'Cause it's actually bullshit and the angry fans are right?

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I think now, the only thing Nintendo fans can do, is to send an apology letter to Iwata each time they buy a game for any of the Nintendo systems.

So, the Nintendo Wii owners get out of having to send an apology letter?


Buh-zing!

I snickered.

nogaems meme 2.0: wii has no gaems

In honesty though, the Wii has the best 1st/2nd party exclusives and is the only system without a subscription model for it's online (although it replaces names with fucking 9001 digit numbers), pay-to-play P2P network (ahem xbox) or add-on bullshit beyond the plastic bats, wheels, or tennis rackets that don't cost much and are for the casuals. Wii Speak doesn't count because it's not bullshit and neither does the Classic Controller for the same reason.

However, the graphics are fail, you'd be missing out on 90 percent of this gen's gems if that was the only system you had, the online system is fucking horrible, shovelware, Wiimote motion/waggle is used as a gimmick in otherwise good games, etc. etc.

Nah, it did have good 1st and 2nd party games.

Now it's got dust with Skyward Sword being the only game of note coming out.

Maybe if you live in Japan, then sure. You can get the Wii games Nintendo won't bring to America. I had a Wii... I got rid of it, because all it did was collect dust.

Mario Kart? I'd rather play it on the older consoles.

Twilight Princess? I got tired of that game. Thank god of OoT 3D. :3

New Mario Bros Wii? I loved/preffere the DS over the Wii version. Wii wasn't as fun.

Metroid Other M? Please, god no. I didn't enjoy that game... it felt good, but the cutcenes with Samus talking were obnoxious. That dumb thing with you needing to find a speck on the screen before she'd do anything...


Best game to me, for the Wii exclusively was Super Mario Galazy and the game that came free with the Wii.
Gotta admit though, I did get more fun from

 

[mjc0961]

That is bullshit! Strawberry milkshakes suck, chocolate or GTFO.

But I agree with the overall message. I bought it at launch and I'm not throwing a hissy fit. I think those that are should get a nice cup of shut the fuck up [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NhS6bOp-yN4/S16JWRA1HJI/AAAAAAAAALE/8qOjhEigDUU/s200/nice+cup+of+shut+the+fuck+up.jpg]. You always know you're paying more when you buy at launch, so you have nothing to complain about but your own impatience. Plus we're getting 20 free games which easily makes up for the price difference.

 

[Infernai]

It's ok Iwata, i forgive you.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I'm with you entirely about why people shouldn't complain about later price drops. Plus, it's not like people don't know that prices tend to drop over time. So nobody has the right to complain about having to pay full price at launch rather than a lower price a while later.

Also I just had a milkshake, it was chocolate though. The coincidence is weird.

 

[dancinginfernal]

That is bullshit! Strawberry milkshakes suck, chocolate or GTFO.

But I agree with the overall message. I bought it at launch and I'm not throwing a hissy fit. I think those that are should get a nice cup of shut the fuck up [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NhS6bOp-yN4/S16JWRA1HJI/AAAAAAAAALE/8qOjhEigDUU/s200/nice+cup+of+shut+the+fuck+up.jpg]. You always know you're paying more when you buy at launch, so you have nothing to complain about but your own impatience. Plus we're getting 20 free games which easily makes up for the price difference.

If it makes you feel any better, they're brown in the last panel.

I agree, by the way. Everything I planned to say was pretty much said by you. I guess that makes my post a glorified "This ^" post. Yay!

 

[TheRocketeer]

You know, I always held a powerful suspicion that Satoru Iwata was responsible for rickets. But I just didn't want to point fingers until it was confirmed by someone with the infallible integrity of a cartoonist or a games journalist.

Thank you for vindicating my convictions at long last.

 

[BX3]

Critical Miss has always been funny, but this is probably the first comic to make me laugh out loud so long and hard that it made my stomach hurt. I mean... good lord, that last panel XD

 

[lacktheknack]

I think the people that already bought 3Ds' were most pissed off, or at least it should have been just them who were pissed off. Fair enough, you go all early adopter and feel you have wasted like $60. i get that. but why were so many OTHER people pissed off?

Because people have a very, very loose grasp on economics.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So am I the only one who saw panel #4 and thought "jetpacks + short skirts = yay"?

This is obviously Iwata-san's fault. WHAT THE HELL, MAN?