Why I love Nintendo

[Sir Pootis]

At first, I regretted supporting Nintendo with the Wii, but with the likely release of an always online Xbox and rumours of the PS4 having a similar function, I find it impossible to hate them. My primary problem with Nintendo is the weaker hardware, or more specifically publisher's rufusal to publish games for it as a result, but when Nintendo is the only major company, with the exeption of Valve, creating and providing a decent service, I find them more appealing as they are the only company worth supporting by default.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Sounds like a lot of what you love about nintendo is composed of "adding water to the wine" sorta speak. "Yeah, nintendo sucks it this one thing, but atleast this other thing is kinda good."

However with the next generation in the prospect, I might be more inclined to buy a WiiU due to it looking like the least bullshitty of the three. And mind you that's including the stupid touchscreen controller.

 

[Maximum Bert]

But there's a reason I'm still a staunch Nintendo supporter; they aren't nearly as scummy as the other two.

Thats a backhanded compliment if ever I saw one I would also disagree to an extent back when Nintendo were on top they treated a lot of their fans like shit with ridiculously high game prices and not a lot of localisations in fact one of the main reasons they actually ended up being kicked off the top spot was because they reneged on their deal with Sony and tried to get into bed with their competitor Philips instead, Not saying they are worse than Sony and Microsoft (especially Microsoft god I hate that company even before they entered the console market) but they are hardly all smiles and good intentions.

[quote/]Sony and Microsoft seem to be in a competition of who can make the dumbest desicion for their consoles, but Nintendo consistently shows evidence of a brain-and a heart. Maybe the Wii was a gimmicky fad, but at least it had the decency to cost less than half the PS3 did. Maybe the Wii U won't have graphics as good as the PS4, but at least I can play my favorite Wii games on it. Maybe the screen on the controller is unnecessary, but at least it was Nintendo's original idea, as opposed to Sony's. And maybe the Wii U doesn't have too many hardcore games on it, but at least they were smart enough to keep the price down (even if it means selling at a loss) as opposed to $500!

So, any counter-arguments?[/quote]

Cost less because you got less. Some would say alienating a large proportion of your core gaming demographic in order to try and court the unsustainable but potentially massive casual crowd wasnt there best idea from a long term perspective as for a heart no company has a heart they are all soul less machines usually designed to make money almost always more money so they post a profit.

Know what else you can play your Wii games on? a Wii. Note I can play PS2 and PS1 games on my PS3 seeing I got it fairly early and PS1 games on my PS2 even the 360 plays some Xbox games but they soon abandoned that in favour of trying to sell them to you again a practice which Sony also indulged in later as well and which Nintendo has been doing for ages. But lets look at the earlier consoles NES and SNES not comaptible same with the N64 and Gamecube its not until the Wii this changed at least on home consoles.

As for who pinched whos idea off who it dosent matter good ideas will always be stolen or borrowed (whatever way you want to look at it) its the one who pulls it off best that gets remembered and last gen (this gen/ whatever) Nintendo did that by far the best as Sonys and Microsofts efforts were a joke especially Sonys jeez what a load of crap that was but I didnt buy a kinect either because I thought no good games would be made with it and have so far not regretted my decision while I did have fun with some Wii motion controlled games although only Wario Ware gained from it imo.

As for comparing prices that is pointless as we dont have a price point for the PS4 and Nextbox yet and Sony and Microsoft have always sold consoles at a loss to keep prices down its only with the WiiU that Nintendo have followed suit.

I have enjoyed every Nintendo console to an extent. I will say they make way more reliable consoles than Sony and Microsoft (goddamn you Microsoft) and ofc they have some great games but then again so do Sony and Microsoft (only reason I bought a Microsoft console despite despising the company. Not going to let hate get in the way of me having fun)

 

[IllumInaTIma]

snip

While I certainly agree with your stance on multi-platform games becoming exclusives, I think it's okay to make enhanced editions of older games. I mean, they're rereleasing the game on other console some time after it's initial release, might as well add some new stuff while they're at it, and making the same enhanced edition for all other consoles wouldn't be very sound investment, I doubt a lot of people will buy it.

 

[rob_simple]

I like Nintendo because they are one of the few developers that seem to remember games are supposed to be fun. Playing through Metroid Prime again, recently, I forgot what it was like to play a game that I actually just enjoyed playing; not because I felt like I'd bought so I may as well finish it.

The problems I have with Nintendo are their over-reliance on old IP's --I'm sure Mario Galaxy 2 is very fun, but I've done Mario a hundred times before, I want something new-- and their insistence on focusing on theoretically interesting new methods of interaction, with the motion control and the touchpad, that end up becoming little more than tokenisitc with the majority of games that get released. There wasn't a single Wii game that I wouldn't have enjoyed playing more with a regular controller.

Despite that, they seem a lot more willing to take a chance on new things and strange ideas than any other major developer I can think of, and they have my respect for that.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

WAAAIT....low price??
PS3
$249.99 for 250GB PS3 model

$374.99 for 32gb WiiU model. (!!!!!!!!!!, i mean REALLY in this day and age you release system with such low space available out of the box?

A next-gen system with new ideas/technology and better graphics is going to cost more.

But you are making the wrong comparison, the direct comparison the OP made in the middle of his post was that original Wii's price being low compared to the PS3.

Before the Wii was out even a year I got the thing with another game besides Wii Sports for right at 250 dollars.

Also, as someone has already pointed out to you, that you can't compare the end of the generation price to the start of one. The PS3 when it launched was between 500 to 600 dollars, that is the number that counts when you compare. So the original Wii beat it in price and even at launch the Wii U beat it in price, and the Wii U is next-gen.

Yes 374.99 for the Wii U is higher than normal for a Nintendo system, but I know the PS4 when it comes out won't break lower than a base of 400.

Plus, I only see space on the Wii U as a problem for someone that is going to have 40 or more games on the thing, that is well beyond the game purchase count of a normal gamer(well until like 3 to 4 years later). I also never understood how people complained about the original Wii's memory amount. When my mom bought the thing for me as a gift(because at the time I had been looking everywhere and couldn't find one, since it was during the great Wii "rush"), at the store she got it from, the guy selling it to her said that it would be wise to buy an SD memory card(or whatever thing the Wii used for external memory) because the system didn't have a lot of space for it. The guy was obviously talking out his ass to sell more stuff, because during the time I used my Wii, which was around two and a half years, I had save files from 10 normal sized Wii games on it, plus 10 downloaded retro classics from the virtual store, and I still had a little less than half the memory of the system to go to fill up.

Considering the Wii U is only 32GB(though still greater space than the Wii), I would figure if I got one, with my purchasing level of gaming these days(much higher than before), it would still take around two years to fill that space up. Space always seems different compared to the other companies. Yes, for my Xbox 360, 32 GB is way to small(mine is a 120GB model), but the only reason I've used up 70GB of that space is because I downloaded a few of my full games to the hard drive to shorten load times. Main size and marketplace-wise, I have around 64 games(built up over almost 4 years) for my 360, and if I didn't download some of the main games full to my hard drive. I'd be looking at only 32GB or so of space used. So, to reiterate 32GB of space isn't on the WiiU isn't going to be a problem for some time, even if at all.

 

[V8 Ninja]

You know, OP, you need to provide data that leans toward your point when making an argument. Saying things and insisting that your statements are true is not data nor. Sure, it very clearly leans toward your main point, but it can be easily swatted down with anyone who has a conscience.

(I like Nintendo, BTW.)

 

[Requia]

I don't think doomsaying with the Wii and doomsaying with the WiiU are comparable. The Wii sold 600,000 copies in eight days. It was very obviously going to be the market leader *right then*. While some of the same 'its not as shiny' complaints have applied to the WiiU, the WiiU has also had nowhere near the same sales numbers.

But, that may be because the economy is still ass and a new console is an uneeded expense, MS and Sony won't be any better off in that case.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Something I read on Neogaf which made me pause for thought: why Nintendo always fail to get the support of the likes of EA.

Companies like EA and Activision are much more narrowly focused on selling games to the 18-35 male game demographic. While there are exceptions, the majority of games that revolve around shooting/stabbing people are played by gamers of that demographic. While Nintendo consoles often sell in bug numbers, they sell to a much wider range of demographics: parents looking for something for their kids to play, teen gamers, adult gamers, female gamers, etc etc. So while the total audience may be bigger, the market for 18-35 male gamers is smaller. Whereas while the 360 and PS3 may sell individually in smaller numbers, they sell in far higher quantities to that same demographic.

Meaning that if EA is making, say, an action-horror shooter and they want it to sell well, nothing Nintendo does will convince them that it'll sell better than on the PS360.

Maybe that's absolving Nintendo of too much responsibility, but I think this is a recurring trend we see. Just look at Kinect. Before it became an industry joke, it was one of the best selling consumer electrical goods ever. You'd think, with that sort of sales success, that publishers would be lining up to get games out for it. But as we saw, that didn't happen. Why? Because again, the demographics were wrong. Comparatively few of the gamers who bought Kinect were of that 18-35 demographic, so publishers didn't bother making many games for it. At most, we got a couple of "Better with Kinect" features for already existing games that were slapdash and pretty poor.

Really, it's a bit of a Catch 22. If Nintendo want EA and Activision fully onboard with the Wii U, then they need to sell more consoles to that 18-35 demographic. But that demographic won't pick up the console without the likes of EA and Activision making games for it.

Looking at it like that, I can kind of understand why Nintendo has been so slow in courting the likes of EA. It's just another example of homogenous, risk-averse thinking ultimately butt-fucking the industry. Nintendo can reach out and try and make the platforms open for the likes of EA, but if EA won't reciprocate in turn and actually make the sort of games that appeal to the various types of Nintendo owners, what's the point?

Conversely, this is probably why Ubisoft have done so well with Nintendo, especially with the Wii. They got in there with a popular dance game that appealed to many of the non-18-35 Wii owners, and Just Dance sold like crack as a result.

While the 18-35 male gamer is indeed the biggest demographic it also has a couple big problems: it has little room for growth and it also has the greatest chance of retracting. I remember Bob way, WAY back in his first Game Overthinker episodes reminded everyone that a problem with the audience everyone besides Nintendo is aiming for is that a lot of those 18-35'ers have the greatest chance of spending less money on games or just dropping it as a hobby altogether when bigger issues and responsibilities come up. Aiming at one audience is ultimately self-destructive. Furthermore, I notice this is primarily a problem with the West as EA and Activision always seem to pander to that demographic while Eastern devs like Atlus, Nintendo, Arc System Works, and even CAPCOM (with Phoenix Wright and their fighting games) are oddly more diverse in age and gender appealing (and that's before you get into them being the ONLY people aware that middle-tier budgets exist).

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

smart enough to keep the price down (even if it means selling at a loss)

Surely it's not smart if they're making a loss...

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Snip

Damn your good with this syntax. I tried putting my replies into your quote but gave up.

But anyway Jim does have a few complaints in his review. For one, the touch screen doesn't work very well with your fingers and doesn't have multi-touch which blew my mind. Its battery was short and the picture didn't look very good when streaming games to it. I was only really trying to counter your "At least its original" argument because that don't fly with me. Moreover, I agree with him sorta. I don't want the WiiU to fail nor do I think it will and it just doesn't appeal to me and I think Nintendo can do their thing (which is whatever they want) and still make games that appeal to me and others.

I know Metroid Prime 3 was rated T but that doesn't mean a whole lot considering games like Super Smash Brother Melee were rated T. Bro, do you even remember the end of that game? It makes me cringe just thinking about it.

"Sir Samus is sending a message!" MISSION COMLETE flashes on a big monitor and Samus gives a thumbs up and flies away

I don't even want think about what happened in Other M (I understand it might have been fun for some, but narrative is important to me)

Also, there was hardly any gore anything too violent ever in the series. I remember in Metroid Prime 2 you find a group of Space Marines who were killed and all you see are some cracked space suits. Wouldn't a scene like that have been more powerful if they had been torn apart or something? It would suddenly be like "Woa! This place is dangerous!" instead of "Fucking pussy space marines. Good thing I'm Samus". So yes. I like tities and gore. Its great when you can make a scene carry weight without that stuff but sometimes it just can't be skipped. But to gush a little about Metroid (I love it and have beaten every game except Other M) something I can't deny is that the worlds always felt oppressive and lonely constantly walking around with whole planet trying to kill you, every place you go feels abandoned, reading logs from long passes civilizations. Metroid Prime 1 especially because the game was hard as tits. That's all fine and dandy but don't you think a little more adult tension (example: gross corpses instead of the cloned "husks" you find) would have made that game amazing?

As to your Halo statement:

A) fuck Microsoft and B) only having good first party games is what I'm afraid of. Sure, Ninty releases a lot of hell of a lot more than more than Sony and Microsoft and I personally think their first party games are better than Sony and Microsoft's but how can I get a diversity of games on such a console? Those 3 titles you mentioned are one's I couldn't give less shits about. Sin and Punishment is a sequal to an obscure N64 game isn't it? And do those game even compare to games like Dead Space, Metro 2033, or Red Dead Redemption? I kinda doubt it (but feel free to prove me wrong with YouTube links). My favorite titles of this generation are all 3rd parties. I know the Wii U "in theory" won't get left out like the Wii did because of scaling in graphics engines now but if I have the choice to play a game on a console with great graphics or mediocre graphics I'm going to choose great. (Please don't get me started on pc gaming hardware superiority. My decision is strictly between consoles. There are reasons I prefer consoles for most games but that's not part of this)

Basically, I want this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSZy12EOSs

And none of this:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Wii+U&oq=Wii+U&gs_l=youtube.3..0l10.29990.31785.0.32453.2.2.0.0.0.0.63.115.2.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.0G9Ltvcpk5s

Your post is "Why I love Nintendo" and mine is "Why I stopped loving Nintendo". Who knows though. The console cycle is still young and its easy to say I won't get a WiiU until a sweet game comes out for it (WIND WAKER HD) and maybe they'll even do the things I mentioned but Ninty keeps their focus on younger age groups and casual gamers like they did for the Wii


Edit: fuck this site not making posting YouTube easy

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I like nintendo as well.

At least their idiocy is just idiocy and pride, and not...well...EVIL.

Yes, it's frustrating for them to not allow the Ambassador Project games to be bought on the 3Ds store (I was hoping to pick up a 3Ds eventually and get to play yoshi's island on the go! Now I can't do that EVER because they said they would NEVER put those games up the 3Ds store), and yes it's annoying that they said they'd never have sales or reduce the price on their Virtual Console games...

But overall, I don't get the impression that they're deliberately trying to take advantage of their consumers. They just seem to have these weird ideals and practices that make no sense.

At least I get the feeling that they give half a damn. I don't get that feeling from Microsoft or Sony.

 

[vasiD]

Furthermore, while modern engines are designed to be powerful, they're also designed to scale. Epic build Unreal 3 to be able to scale to iPhone and iPad. They'll do exactly the same for Unreal 4.

Only Epic stated quite publicly they have no plans to scale Unreal 4 for use on the WiiU, in fact they publicly laughed at the idea. The quote is literally like "Hahahaha, no.", in front of the GDC crowd unless I'm mistaken, who laughed with him.

Everything else you said is fair enough, and as a PC guy I really don't have a dog in this console wars fight aside from the simple notion of staying happily out of it.

 

[Sean951]

Furthermore, while modern engines are designed to be powerful, they're also designed to scale. Epic build Unreal 3 to be able to scale to iPhone and iPad. They'll do exactly the same for Unreal 4.

Only Epic stated quite publicly they have no plans to scale Unreal 4 for use on the WiiU, in fact they publicly laughed at the idea. The quote is literally like "Hahahaha, no.", in front of the GDC crowd unless I'm mistaken, who laughed with him.

Everything else you said is fair enough, and as a PC guy I really don't have a dog in this console wars fight aside from the simple notion of staying happily out of it.

Except he later backtracked [http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/mark-rein-interview-gdc-2013/] that statement and called it a gaffe.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

their utter lack of responsibility with regards to conflict minerals has put me off entertaining the thought of buying anything from Nintendo

 

[Arina Love]

WAAAIT....low price??
PS3
$249.99 for 250GB PS3 model

$374.99 for 32gb WiiU model. (!!!!!!!!!!, i mean REALLY in this day and age you release system with such low space available out of the box?

A next-gen system with new ideas/technology and better graphics is going to cost more.

But you are making the wrong comparison, the direct comparison the OP made in the middle of his post was that original Wii's price being low compared to the PS3.

Before the Wii was out even a year I got the thing with another game besides Wii Sports for right at 250 dollars.

Also, as someone has already pointed out to you, that you can't compare the end of the generation price to the start of one. The PS3 when it launched was between 500 to 600 dollars, that is the number that counts when you compare. So the original Wii beat it in price and even at launch the Wii U beat it in price, and the Wii U is next-gen.

Yes 374.99 for the Wii U is higher than normal for a Nintendo system, but I know the PS4 when it comes out won't break lower than a base of 400.

Plus, I only see space on the Wii U as a problem for someone that is going to have 40 or more games on the thing, that is well beyond the game purchase count of a normal gamer(well until like 3 to 4 years later). I also never understood how people complained about the original Wii's memory amount. When my mom bought the thing for me as a gift(because at the time I had been looking everywhere and couldn't find one, since it was during the great Wii "rush"), at the store she got it from, the guy selling it to her said that it would be wise to buy an SD memory card(or whatever thing the Wii used for external memory) because the system didn't have a lot of space for it. The guy was obviously talking out his ass to sell more stuff, because during the time I used my Wii, which was around two and a half years, I had save files from 10 normal sized Wii games on it, plus 10 downloaded retro classics from the virtual store, and I still had a little less than half the memory of the system to go to fill up.

Considering the Wii U is only 32GB(though still greater space than the Wii), I would figure if I got one, with my purchasing level of gaming these days(much higher than before), it would still take around two years to fill that space up. Space always seems different compared to the other companies. Yes, for my Xbox 360, 32 GB is way to small(mine is a 120GB model), but the only reason I've used up 70GB of that space is because I downloaded a few of my full games to the hard drive to shorten load times. Main size and marketplace-wise, I have around 64 games(built up over almost 4 years) for my 360, and if I didn't download some of the main games full to my hard drive. I'd be looking at only 32GB or so of space used. So, to reiterate 32GB of space isn't on the WiiU isn't going to be a problem for some time, even if at all.

But WiiU doesn't play next gen games, it will only be playing next gen Nintendo games, all multiform games will be on PC xbox and PS platforms again. Therefore in my book it's a current gen system. So why would i buy system that is no better than 2 that i already have. For Nintendo games? They don't interest me.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

I do like Nintendo, the DS and the GBA are two of my favourite consoles. However I keep forgetting that the WiiU exists until someone mentions it.

There's nothing about it that makes me want to own one. Very little third party support, controller has terrible battery life, UI is laggy, horrendous load times etc. I might pick one up in a few years when there's a decent library of first party games and when the price drops.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

snip

Nintendo's proprietary series are all targeted towards children, and made with children in mind. Pokemon is not a game for mature audiences, although they may enjoy it. The themes in it are not expected to be thought about and responded to by the average Pokemon player and are handled poorly, with Team Whatever tending to have an oversimplistic attitude that does not lend itself to discussion whatsoever. I'll give you Metroid, and Majora's Mask, but most other Nintendo games have at most a light subtext for mature players.

Monster Hunter not being multiplatform is beside the point. If Halo went from being Xbox exclusive to being PS3 exclusive and I were a Halo fan with an Xbox, it would be the same thing.

If I had to blame someone for Bayonetta 2, it would be SEGA for not publishing it. It's just sort of nebulously unfair that Nintendo got it exclusively, but as I said, they're not really at fault for it.

The Nintendo 64 was a long time ago. Nintendo has decided that instead of making more mature games for the audience that played N64 games, they are going to stick with aiming mainly at children. And after the Wii, which as you said had fewer mature games than either of the other consoles, Nintendo is hoping to regain the fanbases that they lost when they decided to make consoles based around motion controls and touch screens and releasing mainly shallow games for them. Besides which, I'm not talking about fans of action games or FPSs or whatever, I'm talking about the fanbases of Monster Hunter and Bayonetta specifically, neither of which were on Nintendo platforms.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Snip

My thing with consoles over pc is because at this point in my life, I'm fucking busy. For example, while I type this there is a pdf of a Biochemistry research paper on colorectal cancer on one half of my screen and a report on the other (by the way, Fun Fact: cooked meat creates HCA's which get "stuck" in the DNA of the cells that line your digestive track and can give you butt hole cancer. You've been warned). Random shit aside, I already bought a mid range gaming laptop years ago and I can run games a little better than my ps3. That, and I like controllers and tvs and stuff and it takes way too much effort to set this shit up on a computer. PC's need time and maintenance, god forbid I accidentally install a driver that screws up my other software. I also don't have $1000+ to drop on a pc with good enough performance to be worth it right now so there's no point. A console is a mid range pc except the games look better after a few years and it don't cost $600 or $700 and is a hassle to set up to game like a console.

Maybe I wasn't able to describe what I mean by adult which left you confused but to make my point: there's no reason you can't have both. A game with gore and adult content doesn't have to become "a B movie". That's why mentioned Red Dead and such. Red Dead is (obviously) a game about finding redemption so by necessity it had to be gritty otherwise there would have been no impact if all John Marstin did was punch some people or something G rated. Also, look at something like Fallout New Vegas. One minute you're getting a hand job from a robot and the next your making cutesy references to the Princess Diaries only to later experience a thought provoking commentary on religion between different cultures. These things don't detract from the game, but make it more complete. Google the white phosphorus scene from Spec Ops the Line. It probably wouldn't have the impact unless you played the full game though but when I played it.... Lets just say feels were had. That couldn't have been any other way that wasn't "so violent"

And I agree, you can't make a game with just high res textures and moar pixels but art style is important. Sure, the Wii U will probably have good looking games but won't you wonder what could have been? Wind Waker is being remade from the ground up in hd and that will be sweet but I wish some of the games I played on the Wii could have looked like that in the first place. Just to reiterate, I do NOT think games can only be good if they look "realistic" but lighting and affects can make all the difference in how immersed you are in a game. Deus Ex Human Revolution for example didn't look "real". There was nothing realistic about all that vapor and amber lighting everywhere but looked good with all that dynamic lighting. The world around the player is a character too and it should be noticeable no forgettable

Also, for the record, Metal Gear is the WORST example you could have used as a game that doesn't hold up. Metal Gear Solid 4 still looks unfucking-believable and I still play through that game. I'm serious. I expected every game to look that good someday and there's only a handful that come close. Even the Metal Gears from the ps2 and psp hold up as games that still fun and still look good.

As for Mario Galaxy, I still have Super Mario Sunshine around here somewhere. Its a Mario game and it looks about the same as Galaxy except for the whole space thing so I might as well play that again. Fuck, I forgot I might need my cousin to beat the level with the stingray

 

[DarthFennec]

I like Nintendo because they seem to be the only company who understands that power doesn't matter. They keep the power lower which keeps the price lower (which is a good thing), and the biggest change they make from console to console is the controller. I think this is great, because it shows that Nintendo is focusing on the user's experience (which IS what matters), and that they're willing to take a risk on an innovative control scheme (and, sometimes, this risk doesn't end up paying off). Of course, it's up to the developers to make good games out of it, but Nintendo does its share of that as well, and their results are normally fairly decent. It'll be fun to see how the WiiU does.