Double standards against Nintendo

[VG_Addict]

What is it with games journalism and the double standards it holds against Nintendo? If anything remotely negative happens to Nintendo, journalists claim that they're doomed and will go third party. When something bad happens to Sony or Microsoft, nobody says anything.

Actually, what is it with the gaming community being anti-Nintendo? People claim that Nintendo "abandoned" them with the Wii, which is essentially whining about a company not catering to you. They whine about how they casualized the industry, when the reality is that "hardcore" gamers do NOT in any way make up the majority of the gaming community.

 

[tippy2k2]

Did I miss something in the news or am I not paying attention to a shift in the forums?

We've had a bunch of "Nintendo is awesome!" threads popping up lately complaining about how everyone is so anti-Nintendo but I don't see these anti-Nintendo people popping up. Am I not paying attention?

I mean, yeah, I jumped off the Nintendo ship with the Wii and don't plan on getting the Wii U; that doesn't mean I hate Nintendo, I just have no interest in what they bring to the table compared to the other video game options out there.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

What is it with games journalism and the double standards it holds against Nintendo? If anything remotely negative happens to Nintendo, journalists claim that they're doomed and will go third party. When something bad happens to Sony or Microsoft, nobody says anything.

Game journalists generally aren't the ones who do that, it's mostly the gaming community and analysts like Pachter. Or maybe there are loads journalists who say that but I just don't visit the sites they work for anymore. Also,as it turns out, Nintendo is doing a lot worse than Sony and Microsoft are, at least in the console business, so of course there's going to be more articles about Nintendo doing poorly than about Sony or Microsoft doing poorly.

They whine about how they casualized the industry, when the reality is that "hardcore" gamers do NOT in any way make up the majority of the gaming community.

Do you have any actual statistics, along with definitions for "hardcore gamer" and "casual gamer", to back up this claim?

 

[VG_Addict]

What do you mean they're doing worse than they are? Nintendo has made more money in the console business.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Perhaps you should revert the question to "why Nintendo is anti-game community" ?

Nintendo might not have forced microtransactions and always online DRM,but they have done their own anti-community things.
They are the only games company that actually deletes youtube videos of their games its own self.
In Europe it has been trialed and fined for anti-trust policies,and there are store chains who stopped doing business with them because they required the shops to pay to buy stock themselves instead of only asking getting paid when the store actually sells the stock.
Another thing they tried to do is to force all retailers to price the product on the same price, something that makes Nintendo act as a cartel and violates Europe's free market laws,that provide retailers the power to price a product they have at any price they want.
And I know at least one case where Nintendo stopped sending review copies of their games to a magazine,because an individual writer on said magazine expressed that he liked better PSP than DS.
And that's all recent things Nintendo has done in E.U.,let's not go even more in the past, in the NES era and how it tried to monopolize the USA market.

The fact that Nintendo doesn't try to screw the end consumer doesn't mean it's a Saint Business. They are like ninjas instead: they do the dirty work behind the scenes.They just try to screw their competitors,often in ways that its arguable if they are ethic or lawful,and to a lesser extent retailers that doesn't want to pay for a possible failure of Nintendo themselves,and journalists who are not giving Nintendo favorable reviews.
Have you ever wondered why all Nintendo games get almost always perfect scores even if they look worse,sound worse,and have or do nothing new in comparison to games that are better in all these and get way lower scores ?
Nintendo is pretty clear: If a reviewer says he doesn't like one of their products,they stop sending him products to review.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

What do you mean they're doing worse than they are? Nintendo has made more money in the console business.

I'm talking sales-wise. The Wii U has been out for about a year in every major territory and only managed to sell around 4 million consoles, while the Ps4 and XBOne have each sold over 2 million consoles despite only being on the market for a few weeks and also despite the fact that neither of them has released in Japan yet. If this trend continues, the Wii U will quickly end up in last place.

Earnings-wise, the Wii U may be the most successful console of the three, but as far as I know, those numbers haven't been released to the public yet so we'll just have to wait and see on that front.

 

[TehCookie]

Sometimes I think saying the slightest thing bad about Nintendo and not showering them with praise is enough to be called anti-Nintendo. Unless you're a fanboy you should be able to see the pros and cons of each platform (yes every platform has cons).

I see all the Nintendo failing and going 3rd party like I saw the world ending in 2012. Fun to yell about, but won't happen.

 

[VG_Addict]

But many of the gaming sites and forums are anti-Nintendo. Gamespot and NeoGAF in particular are biased against them.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Game journalists generally aren't the ones who do that, it's mostly the gaming community and analysts like Pachter. Or maybe there are loads journalists who say that but I just don't visit the sites they work for anymore. Also,as it turns out, Nintendo is doing a lot worse than Sony and Microsoft are, at least in the console business, so of course there's going to be more articles about Nintendo doing poorly than about Sony or Microsoft doing poorly.

Except they aren't. At all. Sony has been bleeding money so badly for nearly eight years that it's gotten to the point where they're considered a moribund business and the PS4 is their last chance to keep afloat. MS on the other hand has never made a penny off their console division even with Live subscriptions. Nintendo has actually made nothing but profit for years and years with the sole exception of one year. Sony and MS, at best, have suffered a tactical victory, but a humiliating strategic defeat. Mostly because they have crap for foresight and crap for long-term ideas.

Do you have any actual statistics, along with definitions for "hardcore gamer" and "casual gamer", to back up this claim?

Uh, that's just common sense. An industry can't survive on the most "hardcore" devotees. The comics industry learned that lesson back in the 90s when it pandered so much to the most entrenched fans that it forgot to expand its audience, thus leading to the entire industry IMPLODING to the point where even after 20 years it still hasn't recovered. "Casual" gamers have always existed, it's just that people didn't care up until now. Though I can't exactly say WHY they suddenly made this buzz term other than the fact that having companies try to bring in new people makes their hobby less special.

Anyway, why I would argue this is the reason people like to milk Nintendo drama for all it's worth: because they LOVE a good sob/soap opera story. Fact of the matter is that saying "yeah, the Wii U is moving slow, but that's kinda obvious considering it's a launch year. Plus Nintendo is so filthy rich and lucrative they don't have anything to worry about financially" is BOOOOOORING for journalists and for gamers. Stability is boring and undramatic, making for a bad news story. It's why people tried to milk the 3DS' typical first year doldrums as some sort of crisis and when they try to act like it was a come-from-behind victory when in fact it was inevitable because Nintendo had a killer lineup coming ANYWAY. People like a good narrative, thus why you see people trying to manufacture a narrative out of Nintendo despite the fact that there is none. Now, as for why NINTENDO is the sole recipient of this despite Sony and MS (as well as a LOT of 3rd parties) going through LEGITIMATE crises in the gaming sector, I don't know. But a lot of it IS unjustified

 

[BrotherRool]

What is it with games journalism and the double standards it holds against Nintendo? If anything remotely negative happens to Nintendo, journalists claim that they're doomed and will go third party. When something bad happens to Sony or Microsoft, nobody says anything.

Actually, what is it with the gaming community being anti-Nintendo? People claim that Nintendo "abandoned" them with the Wii, which is essentially whining about a company not catering to you. They whine about how they casualized the industry, when the reality is that "hardcore" gamers do NOT in any way make up the majority of the gaming community.

Nintendo are showing sales figures which aren't aligning with a console that is striving. For example they're only the fourth console in history to ever sell less consoles in their second November than their first. The other three consoles? The Dreamcast, the Xbox and the Gamecube all of which failed to sell well.

Whereas Sony and Microsoft are breaking sales records at the moment. You don't need to be biased to be pointing out that Nintendo are struggling to sell Wii U's. Every single statistic is telling us that (the Wii U sold less consoles than the 360 in August and September. That's not the sales figures of a console that's overachieving). Major publishers are complaining about their sales figures, multiplatform games released on the Wii U are being outsold by 2000% (yes 2000%) on other platforms.

You have to be biased to consider people reporting this as 'bad news' as a sign that they hate Nintendo. When Sony's PS3 was getting outsold by the PS2 the same journalists were reporting about that.

I really don't even understand your last point, why the heck should people be happy that they're not being served just because 'they're not the core market'. Isn't that actually the definition of abandoned that you just said? Nintendo leaving those people behind to serve someone else instead? You would have to seriously love Nintendo with all your soul to be happy that they're doing well but not giving you the games you want but making money from other people instead.

I'm not like that at least. I can't imagine many Sony fans saying 'well we didn't get any third-party games we like but Sony made boatloads of cash anyway so I feel happy!'


EDIT: For that matter, everyone accepts that the 3DS is selling fine right? I imagine you think I'm Nintendo biased because of the stuff I've been saying, so here's a statement. The 3DS is indisputably the best handheld of this generation and will go on to significantly outsell the Vita (by tens of millions) and probably easily sell 60 million plus pieces of hardware. It's software library is incredible and capable of fulfilling the needs of almost all gamers and it's notable that the 3DS was the only platform this month to sell more software than it sold last year.

I acknowledge all that because it's true, and I say that the Wii U is struggling to sell consoles and retain 3rd party support because that's true as well. If you want me to say that it's possible the Wii U will regain the casual market and sell millions, then yeah that's possible too. But that doesn't affect me because I don't get my kicks from seeing companies stock prices rise, I get my kicks from playing games that I enjoy

 

[VG_Addict]

Apparently, Nintendo has lost market share on every console since the SNES.

Do you think this could be their last home console?

On topic, what about when Nintendo posted a loss back in 2011? People were all over it, saying it's time for them to go third party, when Sony and Microsoft BOTH lost billions on their consoles.

 

[Nouw]

People have been declaring that Nintendo will go the way of the dodo since the 80s. Who knows when it'll actually happen?

 

[Chartic]

Game Journalists have hated Nintendo after they basically said they're gonna stop catering to them and their stupid hype trains.

 

[Spambot 3000]

Maybe some game journalists don't like Nintendo because they're not slipping the journos some money under the table to give their newest AAA release another 9/10. (or maybe they are in which case I don't really know why you'll have to provide some examples)

 

[The_Echo]

journalists claim that they're doomed and will go third party

I have never seen this.

I've seen talk of the possibility in communities, and this is mainly spurred by that abysmal performance of the Wii U, but never have I seen a journalist say anything to this effect.

When something bad happens to Sony or Microsoft, nobody says anything.

Probably because their consoles are performing well.

People claim that Nintendo "abandoned" them with the Wii, which is essentially whining about a company not catering to you.

Nintendo had four generations of consoles and built up a very dedicated fanbase. Then, with the Wii, they nearly did a 180 and, yes, kind of abandoned the people who got them where they are.

They whine about how they casualized the industry, when the reality is that "hardcore" gamers do NOT in any way make up the majority of the gaming community.

This is in part due to the 100+ million Wii units, and considering the Wii was very much marketed to a casual audience...

Now, the "casualization of video games" is an iffy topic, the definition of which depends on who you're talking to. BUT, did Nintendo have a hand in the influx of casual gamers? I would say so.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

People have been declaring that Nintendo will go the way of the dodo since the 80s. Who knows when it'll actually happen?

it has gotten quite irritating; and now since it's obvious that Nintendo folding can never happen considering how well they manage themselves, people have been trying to move the goal posts. First it was "they'll have to go 3rd party", except that also doesn't work considering again how much money they make. Now one of the more popular ones is "well, they stop making consoles, but keep handhelds." When people have become this desperate to try and get Nintendo out of the console competition, you have to wonder if they even check what they're writing before they post it.

 

[Saltyk]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Who are these people? I see more threads talking about how people hate on Nintendo for no reason than actual threads hating on Nintendo. Just because people are acknowledging that the Wii U is selling like moldy cheese, does not mean anyone hates Nintendo. It means that the Wii U is selling like moldy cheese.

Personal opinion, I despise motion controls. I mean that I really fucking hate the gimmick. That's why I had zero interest in the Wii (or the Move or the Kinect). The lackluster third party support and whatnot didn't help. But they already lost my interest with the motion control gimmick. That doesn't mean I hate you for liking the Wii. I've even played Smash Brothers on the Wii and had a pretty good time.

I've had a little experience with the Wii U and the new Mario game. Mario becoming a cat was adorable. And the game seemed pretty decent. But I really don't have any interest in the Wii U due to what I fear will be lackluster third party support and dependence on a gimmick (albeit a better gimmick than motion controls).

Looking at the sales of the Wii U, and comparing it to the PS4 and Xbone sells, it's hard not to start worrying about the system's future. Can they find a Killer App that will save the system? Honestly, I don't know. But they better find it fast.

If the above means I hate Nintendo... Fine. I hate Nintendo. Feel better?

 

[Tom_green_day]

Uh, this website to a lesser degree (being more PC orientated) and other places more noticably, it seems that the internet is completely in love with Nintendo. Anytime anyone criticises them and they're shot down because N have been around a while so they're beyond criticism. The main times I see reference to anti-Nintendo is when people complain about people complaining about N, despite no-one actually doing it.
It's something along the lines of 'I want to talk about Nintendo but they haven't done anything important recently so I'll just pretend people have been talking shit about them so I can talk shit about those people.
I don't like Nintendo but that's mainly due to that prick Reggie something who has something to do with Nintendo of America. Jeez, hate that guy. Otherwise, I don't have much to do with them so it'd be wrong of me to attack them.

 

[Hagi]

How is claiming things are doomed a double standard?

PC? Doomed for well over a decade now, continually dying because of piracy, being too expensive and being too complex.
XBox One? Doomed thanks to the Kinect, no backwards compatibility and always-online requirements.
Any new MMO? Doomed, guaranteed to be another WoW-clone that'll go F2P in a few months.
Any resurrected old franchise? Doomed, certain to be another lame modern military shooter giving up everything that made the original franchise unique.
Any kickstarter? Doomed to fail! Most likely just a scam and if not then there's no way they'll get it do plus in the case they do it'll just be a disappointment.