Whats so great about Nintendo games?

[Strazdas]

snip

Thank you for posting that. I should have said that I was basing my results off of games that had more than 10 critic ratings and more than 40 user ratings. I find that whenever you start talking about details like that, people's eyes glaze over. The reason for discounting games with a low number of reviews is because the Metascore isn't so much a consensus as it is the opinion of just a few people (unreliable data). Typically, it's games in the red and yellow slices of the pie that end up being excluded by this filter.

And I did not mean to exaggerate the difference in critic ratings across the various platforms - as you rightly point out, it;s quite small if you look at average Metascores. However, I stand behind the main point regarding the difference between user scores and critic scores.

if you look at the footnote of 2014 image it says that the scores are based on titles with 7 or more reviews. while not 10, it also excludes just having couple peoples opinion as a metascore. while i cant say for certain, it makes sense to assume they used same methodology for 2013 as well.

Metacritics user scores are very unrealiable and is heavily gaimed by companies and votebots. They are very much irrelevant. your probably better off looking at IGN user scores than metacritics.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

No console is based off CoD, or any IP in particular. Take away CoD, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Halo, any of those colossi - whether they're exclusive to a system or not - and Sony/Microsoft are still standing. They haven't based their success or popularity on anything in particular, except the possibility that you can play (most) games on them. Yes, there're exclusives, if only to offer some sort of unique selling point that differentiates them from the competition. But they're not mooching off anything. Or at least, not mooching of One Thing. Take away Mario and/or Zelda from Nintendo, and Pokemon off handhelds, and they have nothing left. I don't care how many C-list IPs you can enumerate, or that Pitt is your favorite character: they lose most of their consumer base in a heartbeat. Their entire marketing is based around Mario. Their big launches are based around Mario. Their success, going back to the 80s, has always been based around Mario. And for reasons involving tradition, conservativism and brand recognition, they have to keep chucking out Mario games even when there's nothing more to say about Mario or do with Mario. Same reason Disney keeps Mickey Mouse alive. You can't lose your head pet.

you say that like its a bad thing

It's bad because it makes the company predictable and its games always more or less same-y.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

No console is based off CoD, or any IP in particular. Take away CoD, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Halo, any of those colossi - whether they're exclusive to a system or not - and Sony/Microsoft are still standing. They haven't based their success or popularity on anything in particular, except the possibility that you can play (most) games on them. Yes, there're exclusives, if only to offer some sort of unique selling point that differentiates them from the competition. But they're not mooching off anything. Or at least, not mooching of One Thing. Take away Mario and/or Zelda from Nintendo, and Pokemon off handhelds, and they have nothing left. I don't care how many C-list IPs you can enumerate, or that Pitt is your favorite character: they lose most of their consumer base in a heartbeat. Their entire marketing is based around Mario. Their big launches are based around Mario. Their success, going back to the 80s, has always been based around Mario. And for reasons involving tradition, conservativism and brand recognition, they have to keep chucking out Mario games even when there's nothing more to say about Mario or do with Mario. Same reason Disney keeps Mickey Mouse alive. You can't lose your head pet.

you say that like its a bad thing

It's bad because it makes the company predictable and its games always more or less same-y.

some could argue the vast majority of titles are like that, even non franchise

 

[StreamerDarkly]

If the discrepancy between player to critic ratio in terms of Nintendo game ratings are as low as 3% then why is this even a question?

The point I was trying to make wasn't just about the typical difference between critic and user ratings for video games. Users generally judge games more harshly than critics, at least on Metacritic. This fact has been true for years and does not appear to be changing anytime soon. I recall a Facebook post by one of the major reviewers insinuating that users had increased their standards over the last few years whereas critics had remained consistent.

The real point, again, was what it says when users rate a specific platform higher than the others when critic ratings are used as a baseline.

That's more likely a difference of like maybe 100 people having a minute difference in opinion on how good the game is. Especially given the fact that there are a lot less game critics then there are game players as far as Metacritic is concerned. So that 3% suddenly becomes practically non existent if we are going to talk about "major" discrepancies between critic opinion of Nintendo and player criticism of Nintendo.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. To be sure, the number of critic and user reviews for an individual title definitely affects our perception of the reliability of that single data point (the Metascore for one game). I explained a bit more about this in the post above. From the standpoint of statistical significance, however, the discussion of whether a difference of X% between critic and user Metascores is meaningful is ultimately predicated on the number of data points (number of games) analyzed.

And it's far from supporting your original claim that the only reason why players rate Nintendo games "higher" (if you can even call it that.) is because they are easily impressed and don't know better.

Well, that was just one possible reason. Can it be supported by the fact that Nintendo captured the casual gaming crowd with the Wii and the misguided motion-control craze, and now continues to push gimmicks instead of horsepower?

Alternate explanations are encouraged. What I find is that people who don't approve of numerical ratings will simply shout at anyone who brings them up, refusing to believe that any meaningful point could possibly be made with them.

 

[thanatos388]

Nintendo just makes great games that are very different from each other. The only issue is that they use the same IPs for everything. Mario is their platformer, Zelda is their adventure game, F-Zero is the racing game. Even if they make a whole new platformer game they make it a mario game and people complain that they never change despite the fact that Nintendo puts FAR more effort into making it's franchises evolve and change with each installment than most any other franchise. People complain that Mario is all the same but if they were to sit down and play 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy in a row they would be hard pressed to tell you that "Nintendo just recycles the same game over and over". They do for many other games like Pokemon and such but those are usually made by different companies. Mario and Zelda games are vastly different experiences most of the time. It's more than I can say for Call of Duty, the Ubisoft Game, the Sims, Halo, Resident Evil, Ratchet and Clank, most fighting games, etc. Every new game has it's own identity for the most part (Twilight Princess and Galaxy 2 didn't and it's becoming a bigger problem now than before) but at least when a Nintendo game fails it's because they tried something new and failed rather than just seeing that consumers are tired of the same old thing.

All this talk about Nintendo always being the same and I still remember how everyone complained that Majoras Mask, Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Luigis Mansion weren't similar enough to the games they loved. Now they made more copies recently and everyone complains they never change.....

The Wii U is a failure though and will most likely be quickly forgotten by Nintendo when the next console comes. Don't know how anyone can call it a winner.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

if you look at the footnote of 2014 image it says that the scores are based on titles with 7 or more reviews. while not 10, it also excludes just having couple peoples opinion as a metascore. while i cant say for certain, it makes sense to assume they used same methodology for 2013 as well.

Actually, it looks like the 7 or more reviews footnote only applied to the analysis of good and great exclusives, not the average scores. Further, your original statement regarding Nintendo getting thrashed in terms of top rated exclusives seems dishonest as we must normalize to the number of games released to have any meaningful discussion on this point.

I'm waiting for you to provide a similar work-up of user review data which addresses the main argument.

Metacritics user scores are very unrealiable and is heavily gaimed by companies and votebots. They are very much irrelevant. your probably better off looking at IGN user scores than metacritics.

No one says that user ratings are completely impervious to manipulation. But that's just a sweeping claim on your part without any evidence to back it up. You might be surprised to learn how frequently users and critics agree whether a game is 'good' or 'bad' relative to their respective standards. I encourage you to take a look at Metacritic's user ratings across a large sample of titles before deciding that they're heavily manipulated.

I find the assertion that IGN users are more trustworthy a bit dubious.

 

[joest01]

Well, that was just one possible reason. Can it be supported by the fact that Nintendo captured the casual gaming crowd with the Wii and the misguided motion-control craze, and now continues to push gimmicks instead of horsepower?

I think that is a pretty big stretch. If the gap you report exists it might simply be down to professional reviewers applying criteria that don't necessarily mean people are actually enjoying the game.

As to the "casual argument", my own personal assessment is that Nintendo gamers are if anything more "hardcore". At least if you define hardcore as enjoys and is good at games that require twitch reflexes, not as plays realistic looking shooters in a multiplayer setting.

 

[LaoJim]

Snip for space

Snip

Very annoying I've just written a long reply to you post covering it more or less point by point and then my browser ate it. This has been happening to me too much recently, I really need to learn to write these things in a text editor first. Anyway the long and the short of it was...

Nintendo is a good company who make some very good games, some of which are even the best in the genre. Nintendo are probably also a much 'nicer' company than a lot of others. They deserve our support even on the rare occasions when they slip up. Nonetheless, some Nintendo fans tend to write posts as if Nintendo's games are the only ones worth playing and the genre's that Nintendo have traditionally been strong in are the best, most pure genres. While we can argue back and forth all day over which games are the best (and don't get me wrong, that can be fun), Nintendo does have some competition in the 2D platform arena especially now that XBox Live/Playstation Indies has really taken off. If you still think Mario is the best, great, but its strange how you have an answer that banishes every game from consideration (too short, too old, too new, a roguelike, no on-line community) - every one of the games I listed I genuinely enjoyed more than Mario Wii U. Similarly I've never really dug Mario Kart as a racer - there's always been something that is that little bit better，it's always struck me as bland in both its appearance and mechanics. Hell I'm playing Hydro Thunder Hurricane and the amount of imagination in its eight the tracks put MK8 to shame, even as a budget and unpolished title. There is also this idea that because Nintendo is a good company that automatically makes its produces superior; even if Ubisoft is a shitty company and you want to boycott it, fine I can respect that, but it doesn't make Rayman a worse game.

Thing is, I kind of bought into the Nintendo myth when I bought a Wii U last year intending to play the best Wii games while I waited for the new releases. Many of the games are good, some are even great, but even the best ones are not necessarily superior to similar games I have on the XBox.

 

[LaoJim]

Edit: And now I'm double posting - just great.

 

[Megamatics]

...Well maybe Nintendo's kind of games just don't appeal to you. It's not really a confusing concept to grasp but this generation, you have to admit was filled with empty promises, and Nintendo is the only company of the big 3 that is putting out games it's general fanbase can get behind. If you don't like Souls games(like me) you aren't going to find much appeal in a PS4, and if you aren't interested in a constant stream of shooters, you aren't going to find much appeal in an XboxOne. I however am looking to get an XboxOne in the future for Scalebound by Platinum Games. There aren't really any major games coming out recently that aren't better on the PC... With consoles boasting about 1080P 30FPS, PCs have been far beyond that spectrum for many years now. I plan on buying GTA5 for PC no matter how long it takes come out, and I also plan on getting the latest Batman game for it because I'm sure it will run at a smooth 60FPS on my PC. If you're a Nintendo Fan who wants Third Party games, you'd usually have to buy the consoles offering them, but this time around there is a much more affordable endeavor with a huge backlist of backwards compatible games and sales for newer games that make the cost of the plunge rather minuscule. I would of saved a Ton of money had I gone PC a lot sooner, and no, it doesn't cost thousands of dollars to run games at 1080p 60FPS if you know what you're doing.

 

[DrOswald]

No console is based off CoD, or any IP in particular. Take away CoD, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Halo, any of those colossi - whether they're exclusive to a system or not - and Sony/Microsoft are still standing. They haven't based their success or popularity on anything in particular, except the possibility that you can play (most) games on them. Yes, there're exclusives, if only to offer some sort of unique selling point that differentiates them from the competition. But they're not mooching off anything. Or at least, not mooching of One Thing. Take away Mario and/or Zelda from Nintendo, and Pokemon off handhelds, and they have nothing left. I don't care how many C-list IPs you can enumerate, or that Pitt is your favorite character: they lose most of their consumer base in a heartbeat. Their entire marketing is based around Mario. Their big launches are based around Mario. Their success, going back to the 80s, has always been based around Mario. And for reasons involving tradition, conservativism and brand recognition, they have to keep chucking out Mario games even when there's nothing more to say about Mario or do with Mario. Same reason Disney keeps Mickey Mouse alive. You can't lose your head pet.

you say that like its a bad thing

It's bad because it makes the company predictable and its games always more or less same-y.

So your problem with Nintendo is that they have based their business around selling proven products to people who want them? No, seriously, that seems to be your complaint.

Nintendo has a core of reliable products that they sell. They also have many experimental IPs they sell. If the experiment works, they bring it into the core IP list. When a core IP stops producing, they remove it from the list. That is a solid business model. You insist that in our consideration we should dismiss the dozens of "c-list" franchises Nintendo makes. What you don't seem to get is that those c list IPs are a key component of Nintendo's business model. Name any core franchise of Nintendo sans Mario or Zelda and it was once one of the c-list experiments. Even the juggernaut franchises like Pokemon and Smash bros started out as low budget experiments.

Which is why Nintendo is probably the publisher with the most variety in their catalog in the industry. I mean, can you name any other producer that payrolls so many different genres and IPs? They've got 2D and 3D platformer, racing, fighting, JRPG, Strategy RPG, FPS, action adventure, RTS, Puzzle, electronic board game, spectacle fighter, and metroidvania. And those are just the big ones they are doing right now that I can think of off the top of my head. What you might call A or B list games. I could make a massive list of games that don't even fit in our standard genres that they are currently producing. And even within those genres they produce games with incredible variety. Take Xenoblade vs Pokemon. Technically both JRPGs, but offering extremely different experiences.

Just because you perceive Nintendo games as being "always more or less same-y" does not mean it is true.

 

[Las7]

I don't say that critics necessarily overrate Nintendo. There isn't such a wide disparity with game ratings on other platforms to support that. Actually, even if there was, it would be difficult to prove that it wasn't a natural result of superior quality.

The observation was that players rate Nintendo games higher relative to critics than on other platforms. In other words, if the typical user score on Metacritic is 10% lower than the typical critic score across all consoles and PC, for Nintendo it is just a 3% difference. Those aren't exact numbers, just an example. The result is based on aggregate statistics over a large number of titles, so it obviously doesn't apply to each and every game.

But how to explain it? Why are players more satisfied than critics with Nintendo compared to other platforms?

This is actually quite easy to explain.
Other major studios and publishers are interested in providing other elements in their games - things like cinematic QTE Experiences, storytelling elements, too much bloat, trendy gaming mechanics/world building etc. These type of aspects can divide an audience especially when looking at a game.
Usually with AAA publisher when their games are focus on providing a cohesiveness experience - they get good scores.

The other problem with other studios and publishers is their marketing teams, they build unrealistic expectations before a game launch and when they release a game with half the features they were promoting there is a dissonance between what you expected as a customer and what you got.
With Nintendo usually what they market is what you get, they release review copies weeks/months in advance allowing reviewers to have a very similar experience to the gamers who experience the game at a later date. Right now with all the review embargoes reviewers sometimes don't even have time to see all features of AAA titles get good review scores while being slammed by the audience.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

This is actually quite easy to explain.
Other major studios and publishers are interested in providing other elements in their games - things like cinematic QTE Experiences, storytelling elements, too much bloat, trendy gaming mechanics/world building etc. These type of aspects can divide an audience especially when looking at a game.
Usually with AAA publisher when their games are focus on providing a cohesiveness experience - they get good scores.

The other problem with other studios and publishers is their marketing teams, they build unrealistic expectations before a game launch and when they release a game with half the features they were promoting there is a dissonance between what you expected as a customer and what you got.
With Nintendo usually what they market is what you get, they release review copies weeks/months in advance allowing reviewers to have a very similar experience to the gamers who experience the game at a later date. Right now with all the review embargoes reviewers sometimes don't even have time to see all features of AAA titles get good review scores while being slammed by the audience.

That is the funny thing when you get down to it; Nintendo has zero pretense about what their games are and are completely honest in showing them free of smoke and mirrors and artificial hype. The Treehouse streams they had at E3 were the biggest example of this; yeah, they had the Direct showing trailers and spectacle...but then they had HOURS of people from Nintendo just playing the games they showed on the Direct and spared no expense in showing off what a variety of titles they had from third-person shooters like Devil's Third and Splatoon to stylish action like Bayonetta to RPGs like Xenoblade X and Fantasy Life to smaller fare like Yoshi's Woolly World, Mario Maker, and Captain Toad. After that what everyone else had at E3 was just boring, hollow, and trite. Which is also how the past release calendar turned out.

It can't be denied that last year was outright tepid for everyone else in the gaming industry regardless of platform. Whether is was PC, new-gen, old-gen, console, handheld, 1st party, 3rd party, the releases were either underwhelming, overhyped, or just plain bad. Not a great year for the supposed revolution of the new generation of hardware which is clearly still in a protracted beta stage that isn't ending anytime soon considering the upcoming titles are looking as horrendously unimpressive as last year's. Meanwhile both the 3DS and Wii U knocked it out of the park in terms of titles bringing both quality and variety. If you had both of them, you were pretty much set for content. And of course we now have a new Direct incoming today so we'll get to see how the rest of Nintendo's year is going to pan out. So far it's been slow, but they're clearly going to pick up again even with a lot of known titles not having release dates set.

 

[Las7]

-snip-

You got to keep in mind that the most disappointing thing about last year was AAA market.
Last year had a lot of great indie games, PC exclusives and Wii U/3DS exclusive games - it was the AAA market that dropped the ball and apart from Bloodborne which is not a typical AAA game, the trend has continued. The higher the marketing budget is the more cynical I'm becoming about games.

 

[Strazdas]

if you look at the footnote of 2014 image it says that the scores are based on titles with 7 or more reviews. while not 10, it also excludes just having couple peoples opinion as a metascore. while i cant say for certain, it makes sense to assume they used same methodology for 2013 as well.

Actually, it looks like the 7 or more reviews footnote only applied to the analysis of good and great exclusives, not the average scores. Further, your original statement regarding Nintendo getting thrashed in terms of top rated exclusives seems dishonest as we must normalize to the number of games released to have any meaningful discussion on this point.

I'm waiting for you to provide a similar work-up of user review data which addresses the main argument.

Metacritics user scores are very unrealiable and is heavily gaimed by companies and votebots. They are very much irrelevant. your probably better off looking at IGN user scores than metacritics.

No one says that user ratings are completely impervious to manipulation. But that's just a sweeping claim on your part without any evidence to back it up. You might be surprised to learn how frequently users and critics agree whether a game is 'good' or 'bad' relative to their respective standards. I encourage you to take a look at Metacritic's user ratings across a large sample of titles before deciding that they're heavily manipulated.

I find the assertion that IGN users are more trustworthy a bit dubious.

There is no need to normalize in terms of games released because then you would also need to account for audience. PC has the largest audience and thus the most games. its also worth noting that a lot of those will the be indies which are released left and right all the time.

User review data is irrelevant as i already pointed out because mecracritics user ratings are gamed by corporations and moral outrages and are used as a weapon more than a rating system. metacritic user ratings are completely controlled by people that want to control it. At least on IGN users actually rate games they play.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Two main features about Nintendo come to mind that define it.

The first is polish. More so than any other dev I can think of, they polish, and polish, and polish some more. Like a master craftsman, they seem to try and make sure that whatever they are making is the best example of whatever that is they can come up with.

So, they have been getting sloppier over time. Newer games have more rough edges relative to their total content than older ones do, but even so, they are still quite obsessive over getting every little detail 'just right'

The other point they have going for them is innovation. This is most frequently argued about, and often misunderstood. Because people see yet another mario game, and conclude Nintendo never tries to do anything new.

The problem is, Nintendo's form of innovation is gameplay innovation. Not narrative or character changes, but changes in core mechanics and gameplay concepts.

Nintendo in essence invented the platformer. (Not quite, but to a large extent every platformer in existence after then owes something to donkey kong and mario)

They also basically invented a lot of basic stuff about 3rd person 3d games. Mario 64 defined the way most games ever since handle 3d platforming, basic aspects of character movement, camera controls and so on, that you see all over the place.
Zelda after it more or less invented the idea of locking on to something in the environment...

They do it with hardware too. Not always to people's liking, but you can see it nonetheless.
While analog control was around much longer, Nintendo made the analog stick a thing.
Imagine your game controller without analog sticks.
Because that's probably where you'd be right now without Nintendo's hardware innovation.

For that matter, add to the list the dpad, and honestly, the standard 'modern' controller design everyone now uses.
The Playstation and Xbox controllers are ultimately evolutions of the SNES controller layout.

Handheld gaming... That was Nintendo too. You might wonder, because there were others that have tried it too. But Nintendo's first attempts at handheld gaming were the 'game and watch' things in the early 80's...

The wii... Yes. Not to everyone's tastes, but certainly nobody else would seem willing to try and build a console around motion controls...


When berating Nintendo for being 'weird' and 'different', remember that we owe a lot of stuff we take for granted in modern gaming explictly to Nintendo. They invented it, everyone else copied it.

Just because some of their ideas are bad ones, it's worth remembering just how much basic stuff we take for granted in games can trace it's origin back to something Nintendo did.


That doesn't mean of course you have to like what they do. It may not be to your tastes. And honestly, while I said all that, I'm not sure if modern Nintendo can still pull off anything so significant that it'll permanently alter the entirety of gaming. (again) like so many of their controller innovations have in the past...
Nor can I really imagine them creating entirely new genres of games as they have in the past...

It seems unlikely. Then again, the thing about those innovations is you don't see them coming. So who knows.
Many will seem like gimmicks, some could change things so dramatically you'll wonder what we did without them.

It does seem unlikely though.

I guess the overall point is, Nintendo takes risks with game mechanics and hardware design that it seems other companies of similar size wouldn't attempt.

Can you imagine anyone else trying to build a Wii? Or the Wii U after it? Which is weak compared to it's competition but has a strange input device?
Whether that was a good idea or not, those are pretty risky moves to make when the name of the game in the console business has been 'have better hardware and better games than your competiton' for as long as anyone remembers it...

 

[CrystalShadow]

you were in the coolkids club with the footballers and the cheerleaders. .

Pssshh, I meant the real football, not handegg. also kidding

I have no idea what the attraction to Ninentdo games are.
They peaked for me at Yoshi's Island and A Link To The Past.

In the last 10 years or so they keep rehashing the same properties and games and people still love them and then complaining about CoD being a rehash in the same breath.

I had a PS1 over and N64 (but a SNES before that) so maybe I don't have the nostalgia goggles others have for Metroid or Animal Crossing. Fuck Animal Crossing with a rake btw, that "game" is fucking terrible and I have no idea why people love it so much.

Did you restart your account or something? There's no way a Escapist vet from 2009 only has 244 posts. Also, what the hell is Animal Crossing?

I wouldn't be too surprised. Most of the people I knew back then left ages back.
Myself I didn't post much for ages, and then basically ignored the site entirely from 2012 to late 2014...

Obviously, my post count is much higher than 244, but it's not hard to imagine someone that comes here only very rarely (like every few months.)

I imagine I made maybe 3-5 posts in 2 years?
That's what it's like if you keep your account around but basically ignore it for ages...

 

[RedDeadFred]

I find it silly when people complain about Mario being the same game over and over. It's a platformer guys! You can't really change it too much before it turns into another genre. People who like the Mario games like platformers with interesting levels, new mechanics (seems like there's new mechanics each game from my brief look at the last few 3d Marios) and colourful personality. How do you differentiate a platformer all that much besides art style and level of difficulty? At its core, it's just performing accurate jumps in a variety of contexts.

If you're critising Mario games because they have the same story over and over, that's fine, but I'm pretty sure people play the games for the new levels, new mechanics, and tight controls that they've come to expect. Maybe what Mario does doesn't appeal to you (it hasn't appealed to me in quite some time), but what it does what it does very well.

As for Nintendo games in general, others have already brought up why many enjoy them so I won't bother repeating them.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

No console is based off CoD, or any IP in particular. Take away CoD, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Halo, any of those colossi - whether they're exclusive to a system or not - and Sony/Microsoft are still standing. They haven't based their success or popularity on anything in particular, except the possibility that you can play (most) games on them. Yes, there're exclusives, if only to offer some sort of unique selling point that differentiates them from the competition. But they're not mooching off anything. Or at least, not mooching of One Thing. Take away Mario and/or Zelda from Nintendo, and Pokemon off handhelds, and they have nothing left. I don't care how many C-list IPs you can enumerate, or that Pitt is your favorite character: they lose most of their consumer base in a heartbeat. Their entire marketing is based around Mario. Their big launches are based around Mario. Their success, going back to the 80s, has always been based around Mario. And for reasons involving tradition, conservativism and brand recognition, they have to keep chucking out Mario games even when there's nothing more to say about Mario or do with Mario. Same reason Disney keeps Mickey Mouse alive. You can't lose your head pet.

you say that like its a bad thing

It's bad because it makes the company predictable and its games always more or less same-y.

So your problem with Nintendo is that they have based their business around selling proven products to people who want them?

No, if you carefully read the quote above you, my problem is that it's a predictable company that sells predictable games and hasn't evolved anywhere interesting since motion control gimmicry, and has most of its IPs staling in tired formulas that fail to draw new customers.

 

[joest01]

No console is based off CoD, or any IP in particular. Take away CoD, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Halo, any of those colossi - whether they're exclusive to a system or not - and Sony/Microsoft are still standing. They haven't based their success or popularity on anything in particular, except the possibility that you can play (most) games on them. Yes, there're exclusives, if only to offer some sort of unique selling point that differentiates them from the competition. But they're not mooching off anything. Or at least, not mooching of One Thing. Take away Mario and/or Zelda from Nintendo, and Pokemon off handhelds, and they have nothing left. I don't care how many C-list IPs you can enumerate, or that Pitt is your favorite character: they lose most of their consumer base in a heartbeat. Their entire marketing is based around Mario. Their big launches are based around Mario. Their success, going back to the 80s, has always been based around Mario. And for reasons involving tradition, conservativism and brand recognition, they have to keep chucking out Mario games even when there's nothing more to say about Mario or do with Mario. Same reason Disney keeps Mickey Mouse alive. You can't lose your head pet.

you say that like its a bad thing

It's bad because it makes the company predictable and its games always more or less same-y.

So your problem with Nintendo is that they have based their business around selling proven products to people who want them?

No, if you carefully read the quote above you, my problem is that it's a predictable company that sells predictable games and hasn't evolved anywhere interesting since motion control gimmicry, and has most of its IPs staling in tired formulas that fail to draw new customers.

Really? Metroid prime, mario galaxy, hyrule warriors, recent announcement of mobile. Whats the ish? Mario jumps, link swings a sword and samus does screw attacks?
Without them there would be no bayonetta (nor w101), itagaki would not be making devils third.
posts like this are a puzzle to me. Look inward and maybe your "problem with Nintendo" will be informative at least to yourself.