NoeL said:
They would buy another machine if it appealed to them in the same way the Wii did. The Wii U only kinda does, but the main problem is the fact most people with a Wii don't even know about the Wii U. That's a failure of marketing, not product.
While many people who bought a WiiU are from this crowd of people,there where also a few others that bought it so they can play their 'core' games like Mario and Zelda. It isn't a problem of marketing for Nintendo I think.
Where I live Nintendo is the most active on marketing. There are WiiUs hooked on TVs on various stores,and they even rent space of stores to host scenery with real-life sized Mario pipes and boxes,so people can get in them and take photos,to market NSMBU. In America they even have people dressed as Mario to hand out WiiUs for FREE. No one else publisher does. Nintendo have the most active marketing for their new console than any of the other companies.
Yet people on the stores just skip the WiiU. Even on demo stands the thing doesn't attract people,while GTAV had a big line of people waiting for their turn to play. Marketing is everywhere. It's just that people ignore it.
The Wii was always the cheapest, and only got cheaper. This was never the main selling point, but it's a strong point nonetheless.
Yes it was always the cheapest. But it was just 50$/E cheaper than XBOX360 and XBOX360 was a way more powerful system.
Wii owners "didn't got" a Wii U because they don't know it exists! Those are the facts. Talk to anyone not in the gaming sphere - they're clueless about the product.
They know it exist,they are not living in caves they are living on the same cities we live,and they casually visit the stores,and the stores are full of Nintendo commercials.And they ignore all the posters and demo stands and skip them and go to other things.
Not even close ? Really ? Then why the new Super Smash Bros will be released on both platforms ? The exact same game,with nothing changed ?
That's not what you said, but let's just pretend you did.
Are you kidding me ? For God's shake,my post is still on this forum,check it to see what I actually wrote before replying me on something I never wrote about.
True, although Mario Bros. doesn't really fit into the "Mario" genre that began with Super Mario Bros. I guess we can say it's the first "Super Mario" game with simultaneous multiplayer.
So an official Mario game is not a Mario game. OK...
Wait, I thought we were talking about Mario games? Talk about hypocrisy!
What I'm saying is that with a few exceptions,for decades every new Mario game would come with a feature that is generally considered "fresh" at its era.Even if this feature has been seen on another game before,Mario games where of the most adoptive series of games when it came to using new technologies.I'm not hypocritical,you just can't distinguish between simple things. I am talking about the evolution of Mario games and their adaptability of new technologies,and the first time you completely changed the subject to not Mario games,and on the second time told me that the WiiU Mario is inovative because it did something other games have been doing for 20 years. I'm sorry but if you can't realise a simple thing that I'm writing,which is that usually each new Mario game would have a feature that is considered fresh in its age,then then it's not me the hypocrit. Saying that a 2013 Mario game is inovative for having a 1993 gameplay feature is much more suited to be called hypocrisy.
I'm pretty sure none of those fan games are making money off the property, and the ones that do get their asses sued off by Nintendo.
Use Google. Check how many Mario games you will find playable on websites. If on the website you visited there is a commercial,then the site is making money off the Mario game. Simple as that.
I guess you're just ignorant about the state of the industry then. Here's a list [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=459131].
With about 4-5 exceptions like Team Bondi,the most of these studios weren't qualified as AAA. I took time to check on the most of the studios of that list,and most of them had less than 30 employees. In fact I never even heard most of them or their games. That's not AAA. For a studio to be considered AAA in this age it should be on the range of 70 to 150+ people. A team of 8 people making 3-month games that they release on Facebook isn't considered "AAA". Again,it's not me the ignorant.
This [http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3439738/the-state-of-games-state-of-aaa] is also worth reading. AAA games NEED to be smash hits to make any profit at all. Tomb Raider sold two million copies yet was a financial failure. That's insanity.
What this article shows to me is that just spending more money on making a game doesn't mean it will also sale more. You also have to make a good game come out of it. The article presents the fact that Mass Effect 3 made 13 million dollars more than it costed as a negative thing. While earning more than spending is what is needed to raise your capital,a small earning is better than no earning at all.But Mass Effect 3 is a bad example. The reason it didn't brought in more money is because EA took central parts of the game's story and gameplay and decided to sell them as extras,thus selling a defective by design product. If the product you are going to sell is defective and consumers consider it's not a good deal,no matter how money you spend on it,it won't sell as good as products that are working right. Because just spending money doesn't gurranty you that you will get more money,you also have to have the knowledge to spend the money the right way. If I hold 1000 dollars and go give them to a goat to eat them,I can't expect the goat to give me my money back. The reason games like the ones on the article on the link you posted didn't sold well is because of bad design decisions.
The amount of money someone invests is irrelevant if the person that is making the decions is a fool and drives the studio to the wrong way with his decisions.
Case in point - smash hit.
That's the point. To make a smash hit.
Devote resources to creating solid gameplay rather than making things look and sound as good as they can. Dark Souls only sold 200,000 copies (compared to Tomb Raider's two million) but it was a critical AND financial success. Dark Souls turned a profit for the studio, Tomb Raider didn't. It was also a better game, despite looking and sounding worse.
You have no idea how games are made,do you ? I can program you all the gameplay mechanics of a Mario game in a single weekend,and a week on testing + tweaking them,and I'll have all the gameplay functions of a Mario game like jumping, extra life powerups etc on just a weekend. And then I can save the script files and re-import them on the next Mario game without having to code all that again. For simple games like Mario this is something that can be done in just a weekend.
For more complex games like an FPS it can take a few weeks. Yet what needs months to be made is the 3d models, animations, and levels of the games. Gameplay prototyping is like 5% of total development. There is also about 5% for sound,10% spend on bug fixing,30% for level design,and 50% for making graphics.
And judging by how much the same the gameplay of Mario games have been for the last decade,they could as well move code from one project to another,and just have people work on a single day to make new gameplay mechanics,from which only one will be chosen. Now if a game did something for the first time ever,a feature never ever implemented in the past,then yes,it could take weeks or even months of testing and polishing. But in the case of simple games like Mario,it's hardly it can take more than a week to write its gameplay code. Except if there is not concrete idea of how the gameplay will be and you have a team spending time to R&D. R&D for new stuff can take too much time. But again,we aren't talking about Portal here,or the construction of a unique state of the art AI system,we are talking about jumping and crouching.
Allow me to have a different taste than you,and not liking Dark Souls please.
Studios can still sink money into large scale Magnum Opuses but they simply can't afford to do that for EVERY game they make. This is what's making studios drop like flies. They sink all of their resources into games they can't afford to produce then pray to God it becomes a smash hit. If the game only sells "very well" as opposed to "exceptionally well" they collapse. This is a poor business model! It's also a model Nintendo is wise enough to avoid.
I agree that not all studios can invest huge money on their games. But still most of the studios that close doesn't close because they invested more money than Nintendo. They close because their games weren't as good,or weren't marketed enough. But let's put that on perspective. No matter the amount of sales if a team of 16 jobless pals can make more impressive games than a multi-billion company,there is something wrong. Investing more money on a game can be an adding factor to the sales,but in order for there to be any sales at all,the game has to be good enough to begin with.
And since Nintendo themselves have shown that they can't make substantial enough changes to the design to keep their franchise relative for ever,and instead rehash the same gameplay and story,perhaps they should start making them more shiny. A product has to feel enough different from one the buyer already has to make him consider buying it.
If you have a car already,and you want to buy a new car,most probably you won't buy the exact same model. But one that looks different.Maybe even a completely different type of car,like for example having already a sedan and getting an SUV.
A reason Nintendo's WiiU isn't selling enough is because the software they have released for that up to that point feels stale. For God's shake,look at the facts: The game that managed to rise the sales of WiiU most (WindWaker)is a remake.
If a remake of a Nintendo game feels more fresh and have more things changed than a "new" Nintendo game,then there is really something wrong with Nintendo.
i.e. you want magic to be real. What you "want" isn't financially viable. What you "want" has led to the AAA industry pumping out the same watered down, by the numbers CRAP because they can't afford to lose tens of millions of dollars road testing a new concept. It's precisely why indie games have stolen the spotlight over the last six years or so - they can afford to fail.
I can't believe what I'm reading. I say that I want to see games evolve,and you are telling me that because AAA game studios also believe that games should evolve,they don't evolve their games and instead release the same games every year. I start wandering if the time I spend writing this post have any purpose.
HOW DO YOU ???
So you are basically telling me that they are not evolving their games because they evolve them ?
OMG. I'm speechless.
Ironically, video games have been improving in quality, just not in the market you're pointing to. We're seeing new, innovative and fun mechanics come out of indies and smaller studios - the guys ACTUALLY driving the games industry. If all you care about is games that look and sound as close to real life as possible... why the fuck are you gaming in the first place? Just go outside!
The success and booming of indie developers is just proving my point. The one and only point that I'm trying to make you understand with all those posts.
That we have reached a point where Indie developers,even one-man teams,with no budgets at all,can produce games as impressive or even more than the games a multibillion dollar company does.
If that's not incompetency from Nintendo's side,then I really don't know what it is.
But if I was the CEO of a company with billions and the products under my command were worse than the products that the average Joe does at his garage,I' would be feeling such a shame to walk around other people.
