What's with the extreme Nintendo Hate?

[Treaos Serrare]

While I don't share in any malice toward Nintendo, I certainly do understand why people have it. For many people, Nintendo was what got them into gaming, and they feel like they've been left out in the cold as the big N has embraced a wider audience. EA gets a ton of flack (not undeserved) for the homoginezation of its games, but with the Wii, to many it seems like that was done with the whole console. The Wii helped produce more shovelware than I've seen since the market was flooded back in the 80s.

Another problem are the core Nintendo titles. One of the things that made Nintendo so big was its ability to take great ideas and make them even better with subsequent iterations. Super Mario Bros. was great, SMB 2 took paltforming to a really interesting place with some neat mechanics, SMB 3 is a classic for the ages and SMB World took the formula amazing heights. If you look at SMB Wii, it seemed like it was copying ideas from SMB 3 wholesale despite the fact that SMB 3 had already been outdone. At some point, Nintendo quit improving those beloved titles and started simply cannabalizing its old ideas, creating games that weren't even as good as ones they created decades ago.

In short, the first issue made it seem like NIntendo no longer cared about its audience and the second issue drove it home. It wasn't that Nintendo simply made some mistakes, but seemed to deliberately shun the people who helped make it a great company while simultaneously ripping that audience off by trying to resell them 20 year old ideas. I hope Nintendo is successful. I hope Nintendo realizes its mistakes and fixes them. And I hope Nintendo gets back to what it used to do so very well, but if Nintendo continues to act as if people who don't count gaming as a core hobby are more important to market to than those who do, they can expect for those that do to shun them in return.

All of this and more, it seems to me that BigN want to get as many consumers as possible for the cheapest buy in price, and while that may make BUSINESS sense, it make no sense whatsoever to non-business people, in fact it make no practical sense either. How many times are they going to Frankenstein their franchises before getting the ole shovel out and digging up some obscure corpse of a game from 30 years ago? Giving the freshly exhumed body a bit of make up and a few air fresheners to hide the decay and masquerade as a worthwhile product to siphon money out of new and old gamers alike.
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, playing to nostalgia is likewise a wonderful thing but there comes a point where the same beat is hit so many times you've broken that particular bit that made it interesting, and since nobody remembers how to fix it they just wallpaper some bullshit over the damage and act like they haven't done a better job on a shoestring budget shit graphics and 8bit chiptunes

 

[Annihilist]

My only problems with Nintendo are that the Wii U doesn't have nearly enough games for it - although hopefully that should change by the end of this year, and that New Super Mario Bros is just the same game over and over. People say that about other Nintendo franchises but they change enough that it isn't a problem for me. NSMB though is pretty much the same each time. I mean, I'm not one of those people that cry out that every game must "innovate", but Christ.

I'm of the opinion that anything which is created must be unique in some form, otherwise it can be too easily substituted with something which already exists, rendering its existence pointless. If you're going to make something, you can't just replicate something which already exists - people might as well just replay/reuse/re-whatever the original. What's the difference? And this applies to most everything, especially art and creative mediums.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Their games are always quality. When's the last time you heard of a Nintendo game having bugs or not working.
I'm an old school gamer so maybe I have a bit more respect for them than a lot of others.

I must disagree heavily with that first part. Their games are not always quality. They may not have bugs and may function as intended, but that is not all there is to quality. While I already picked on SMB Wii in my post above, it is as bad as any regurgitated sequel in terms of being a bland cash-grab. Bethesda games are so full of bugs it's jaw dropping, but I'd take a bug filled New Vegas over SMB: The Rehash any day.

Mario games are anything but bland they are always really colorful and full of new ideas on game mechanics. Just look at Super Mario Galaxy or Luigi's Mansion 2

Sometimes I think people who point at Nintendo games and say 'rehashed cash grab' have never even played the games they are talking about. Just because they use the same characters does not mean they are the same game.

Unless you are suggesting Super Mario Bros, Galaxy and Mario 3D all play the same (or even look the same) and that's not even going into games like Luigi's Mansion or Animal Crossing.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Some people just hate Nintendo. Some love Yahtzee a little too much and take his word as gospel, and since he hates almost everything Nintendo puts out, they take that to an extreme. Some are Sony fanboys who remember the major console war that went on between the PS1/N64 and later PS2/Gamecube (heck, when the Wii/PS3 were out it took some time for Sony's fanboys to start targeting the 360 instead of the Wii because they felt the old rivalry would remain). Others are just simply doing it because they think it is cool.

Most people aren't necessarily gleeful of Nintendo's trouble, though, they are just disappointed with Nintendo. They completely mishandled the Wii, and then completely mishandled the launch of the 3DS, and now they are mishandling the WiiU. People are just angry that they haven't learned from their mistakes. I myself would love to be enjoying the WiiU right now, but I'm not. Why? Because all it has to offer right now is New Super Mario Bros. U and Monster Hunter 3, with little to no knowledge of their major franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros., Star Fox, FZero, etc. Any disappointment to Nintendo is a potential for them to learn, and while I wish they didn't have to go through that, I just really hope they learn from this unlike the last time it happened.

 

[Annihilist]

I hated Nintendo before Yahtzee made it cool.
I always thought their games were juvenile, repetitive, boring, and overall annoying. And their "innovative" gimmicks were the worst offenders. They keep trying to make kid/family games, which are the most boring games to me, so maybe that's part of it. But in general, Nintendo are just shit - or at best, medicore. The fact that they keep releasing rehashes of the same games doesn't help either.

I take it you don't like Pixar films either then, given that they're also entirely kid/family films? And yet Pixar is possibly the most acclaimed film studio in the world. It's as if entertainment made for families can appeal to both children and adults. And maybe adults, real 'adults', do't have a problem admitting they enjoy stuff that's more family orientated. I mean, that would also explain why Studio Ghibli is one of the other most acclaimed studios in the world...

I take it you also didn't play SMG, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Metroid Prime, or Skyward Sword? Because none of those games were anything even close to a rehash.

Ha, no. Pixar films are always intelligent and interesting films which are also appropriate for kids. There's a difference. I love Pixar. I would argue Dreamworks are far more notorious for that trope, and Disney cartoons even more so. Both of the latter tend to lean toward shitty kids films with no interesting plot, characters, or ideas - just a bunch of "fun" talking animals to rake in the kids. But I digress. I can't say I'm a fan of Ghibli either, but I don't think they're bad, just not my thing really, despite having quite a few decent films.

Yeah, ok, I'll admit that I'm not interested enough in those games to actually take the time and money out to play them. And why would I when there are better games to play? More interesting, original games with more diverse and dynamic themes and concepts. Why would I want to play a Zelda or Metroid game? What's the appeal? I don't see it, and maybe it's just me.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Hate? I don't know about hate. But I guess many people just wished Nintendo's drive for innovation in terms of controls would extend to their games as well.

Personally, I never liked Nintendo's type of games. So while I shouldn't really care about what happens with Nintendo, I guess on some base level I'm happy about any bad news about sales and stuff, because those news would imply that more and more people are thinking like me, and confirmation is always a good thing, isn't it? Perhaps that's the root of schadenfreude for quite a few people.

 

[Snotnarok]

I don't hate them, I think they've been excessively lazy lately with their titles and their products either don't interest me or make me question why others would want it as they're of little value comparatively to other things.

New Super Mario Bros was a neat call back on the DS, then they brought it to the Wii with extremely similar functions and with 3 characters that all use Marios animations. They literally admitted they were too lazy to animate Peaches dress so they didn't use her. Okay, fair enough...how many more New Mario Bros games have there been? They're all extremely same-y and STILL don't have Peach and the music is crazy similar to the DS game still.

Their All Stars celebration for Mario was also insulting as it only included a rom of All Stars, not even the version that came with Super Mario or you know including the Gameboy titles or Yoshis island. No, it was just a rom on a wii-disc for 50 bucks.

They're remaking Wind Waker...why? It's still an incredible looking game, and we all know cell shaded games don't really age poorly and you know it's going to be 50-60 bucks any way which is funny since the GCN version is ...what 20? Probably 10 if you find a solid deal? They're just choosing the easy option for a quick buck by making an easy port.

They ruined Metroid with Other M, I love metroid and there's no defending that pile of shit. It's bad in every department, gameplay, sound, visuals, designs, story, etc and only more insulting it tries to sneakly declare the Prime games (some of the best games of it's kind) non cannon. So, yeah I spent 50 on that and it was pretty much sold the next day after it was beaten.

I think the WiiU is interesting but given it's about even with current gen consoles it's not an investment I see myself or people I know getting. No, stop, do not quote me telling me it's more powerful because I'm going to tell you here, you're wrong. Okay it has higher specs, great! Except it has to have resources dedicated to encoding and streaming video to the controller and that takes a LOT OF POWER. That's why many live streams and lets plays usually have high end PCs or use capture cards to capture off a console. So there's that, the fact an update takes up 85% of the HDD space of the lower model and the upper model is bad even for 2006 standards, PS3 came with 80GB, well that just about says everything. There's no value in the console and playing New Mario Bros game isn't exactly a reason to jump up and buy it because you can easily get a near identical game on the Wii and EVERY game ported to it either runs worse or looks worse so again I'm not excited to purchase things for it.

I don't like the 3DS, I think 2 screens are pointless for gaming, the 3D physically hurts my eyes in a few seconds, I've not liked the games on it or there's a better version on another device. I'm sure it's fun but I didn't even really like my DS much, I preferred my GBA SP+ in every way.

I don't hate Nintendo, what I listed is just personal reasons why I don't have any interest in buying their devices or games. Seriously I have a GBA SP+, Gamecube, Wii, SNES, NES, and GBA is probably my favorite handheld. Why is it? Because it has a large number of great games and they're new/exclusive to the system or just nice to have portable versions.

 

[Gorrath]

Their games are always quality. When's the last time you heard of a Nintendo game having bugs or not working.
I'm an old school gamer so maybe I have a bit more respect for them than a lot of others.

I must disagree heavily with that first part. Their games are not always quality. They may not have bugs and may function as intended, but that is not all there is to quality. While I already picked on SMB Wii in my post above, it is as bad as any regurgitated sequel in terms of being a bland cash-grab. Bethesda games are so full of bugs it's jaw dropping, but I'd take a bug filled New Vegas over SMB: The Rehash any day.

Mario games are anything but bland they are always really colorful and full of new ideas on game mechanics. Just look at Super Mario Galaxy or Luigi's Mansion 2

Sometimes I think people who point at Nintendo games and say 'rehashed cash grab' have never even played the games they are talking about. Just because they use the same characters does not mean they are the same game.

Unless you are suggesting Super Mario Bros, Galaxy and Mario 3D all play the same (or even look the same) and that's not even going into games like Luigi's Mansion or Animal Crossing.

I don't know why you brought up Galaxy or LM2 when I was specifically critical of SMB Wii. You contended that Nintendo games are always quality. I pointed out that I believe SMB Wii is not a quality game and the reason for this is that it actually had less ideas/content/interesting mechanics than SMB games that came out 20 years ago.

To me SMB Wii was a rehashed game that was meant to sell on old ideas and nostalgia, hence how closely it hewed to the SMB 3 formula, which in my estimation counts as a cash grab. I have played SMB Galaxy and didn't care too much for it, but I didn't accuse it of anything. I have not played LM2 and it looks like it might be a fun game. But none of that has anything to do with your claim that Nintendo games are always quality or my response that I think SMB Wii clearly is not.

 

[Gameguy20100]

My Opinion on Nintendo has always been a big fat "meh".

While I've never had a Nintendo console since my dad broke my Snes when I was 6 I really have had almost no opinion on them.

Its like my view on Activision I neither like nor dislike them.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well I don't like Nintendo because they are releasing sequels to games I liked on other platforms exclusively on the Wii U. Other than that, couldn't care less. The casual market they tapped with the Wii is not taking away from the traditional gaming market that much. They can have all the gimmicks and toys they want, I'll be doing what I like to do and don't have to buy their products if I don't want to. Except the whole Monster Hunter/Bayonetta thing, which of course I'm bitter about. But that is pretty much my one reason. The good thing about them having plenty of their own franchises to rehash is that they can make games for their technology, which tends to be unique, so if they wanted they could develop less shovelware partygame compilations and do more with the technology they create. As far as handhelds, I like the PSP best, but sadly Sony's handhelds are too expensive to justify the catalogue and Nintendo's are what you'd expect, and with mobile gaming, I don't see a future for either of them.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I don't think personally disliking one game, that in no way tries to hide that it's a modern update of a classic, isn't really any evidence that Nintendo are a shitty company.

Also I'm pretty sure SMB Wii had a lot of new features and power ups that the original games didn't have. Personally my only gripe with that game is that the third and fourth players are toads and not Peach and Daisy.

 

[fletch_talon]

Stop making things I don't like Nintendo, stop it naow.
What, no! Stop being different, be normal, I don't like change, make the Gimmicks[sup]TM[/sup] go away.
Why can't you be like the other consoles, just make your pictures nicer, games are like porn to me, all I care about is what it looks like.
Your games are all the same Nintendo, I don't play them but they're all the same and offer nothing new or worthwhile to anyone, also they're shit, I don't enjoy them so they're shit and should go away forever, just like pineapple on pizza and guy on guy pornography.
All the people who like Nintendo are just stupid ignorant fanbois who need to wake up and play a Real[sup]TM[/sup] Next-Gen[sup]TM[/sup] console.

Or alternatively the lot of you who represent the opinions shown above can accept the fact that Nintendo make products that people enjoy, some for the quality, some for the nostalgia, some for the simple fact that they are trying new things instead of being a carbon copy console who's distinguishing feature is a slightly different roster of games. Nintendo have an audience, if that audience is not you, get the fuck over it and play the games and consoles that you do enjoy.

[sub]PS. Yes I did have fun using the sup tag[/sub]

 

[Lightknight]

Well, despite Nintendo's lack of creating new IPs, the old ones still carry enough nostalgia for the children gamers in us. Heck, they kind of rely on nostalgia at this point. It would be fantastic if Nintendo became a Sega in which their IPs became available on other systems because they're more of a software company than hardware at this point and can't hope to compete with Sony or Microsoft in that arena when those players have huge corporations that don't necessarily rely on the game division's profits for years. Once hardware started to get ramped up with the ps1 their doom was fairly well spelled out and then Nintendo only really survived the past generation so well, hell, profited from it, because they brilliantly thought up the Wii and used it to begin targeting a market that wasn't really being served previously. Note that while their hardware sold wonderfully, they had consistent trouble on the software side of things because it wasn't powerful enough to play most of the big titles without being significantly ported down to.

But the WiiU? It's a current generation machine delivered in the last year of this generation that was improperly marketed in a way that many people thought it was just a Wii peripheral and not a new system. What's interesting is that it being more powerful just makes it able to be ported to by the other more popular systems rather than meaning it'll get direct third party development. Especially not when the big companies are already looking to the next generation of consoles and Nintendo already invested in this one that's only marginally more powerful than the 7 year old other consoles.

But if you want to know the reason why I'm really beginning to turn against Nintendo after having a childhood full of it, it's because the titles that they so regularly mass produce today were mostly created over 20 years ago. They are the epitome of stale. Most of the titles were developed in the 80's. Have I played Mario, Metroid, Kirby, Zelda? Yes, I've played them all, over and over and over again on multiple platforms for the majority of my life. The games aren't growing up with me. The vast majority of other 3rd party games Nintendo puts out hardly seem to even be curated (perhaps indicative of Japanese culture). But unless they come out with new IPs at anything close to the rate that Sony and Microsoft are popping them out, then they're only stretching my nostalgia ever more thin and that's not enough for me to buy a system. It's enough for me to buy the games. I can think of three legitimate IP's developed over the past two decades by Nintendo and none of them are anything I care about, Pokemon, Pikmin and Animal crossing. Pokemon counts more as an adaptation of a TV show and card game than an IP they created. But it is much loved. Then take a look at Sony and Microsoft's systems and realize that they haven't even been around for the full two decades and both seperately have more beloved titles (numberically, not titles that themselves are loved more than say, Mario, that requires time)than Nintendo does.

Basically, they need to stop seeing themselves as a powerhouse and realize that they've got to innovate or roll over or die. If this fails, and it will, I want it to at least prod them to action and potentially reinvent themselves in a successful, more customer-pleasing way. Even die-hard fans of Nintendo should be able to admit that they've been milking old titles to death and a little failure could go a long way to restore a bloated immobile brand.

Mario: 1981
Metroid: 1986
Kirby: 1992
Link/Zelda: 1986
Tetris: 1985
Star Fox: February 21st 1993
Kid Icarus: 1986

*sigh*

 

[Annihilist]

[Ha, no. Pixar films are always intelligent and interesting films which are also appropriate for kids. There's a difference.

No, there isn't. Mario games may not have intelligent stories, but they have some of the most fiendishly clever level design out there. Seriously. While the rest of the industry is devolving the art of level design into a series of ever more linear corridors (see COD, Final Fantasy XIII, etc), games like 3D Land and Galaxy have some of the cleverest, most fiendish and intricate level design in the medium. That's it's own form of intelligence, and given how crucial gameplay is to gaming, I'd argue far more important than simply having a clever story.

Um...what? How can you compare something like Wall-E to something like Madagascar 2 or Shrek 4? I'm still talking about Pixar and whatever. But on level design, and having not played much Nintendo games I can see where you're coming from to a degree. But only to a degree.

By the way, I'm not merely talking about "having a clever story". I think games are a great opportunity to create not necessarily fun, challenge, story, puzzles, escapism or a social interaction medium - but experiences. An experience is what games should focus on becoming, as the added interactive element makes this a massive step upward from films. Limbo is one of my favourite games for this reason, for example. So neither clever levels, nor clever story, are really my main concern.

Yeah, ok, I'll admit that I'm not interested enough in those games to actually take the time and money out to play them. And why would I when there are better games to play? More interesting, original games with more diverse and dynamic themes and concepts. Why would I want to play a Zelda or Metroid game? What's the appeal? I don't see it, and maybe it's just me.

How do you know other games are better if you've yet to play the ones you're insulting? The Mario Galaxy games are currently the highest rated games on both Metacritic and Gamerankings. Not the be all and end all of quality markers, sure, but at least a damn good indication that both games were critically adored upon release. Something their mammoth sales (16 million between both games) would suggest extends to gamers. Kirby's Epic Yarn got rave reviews and good sales. So did DKCR. Metroid Prime 3 didn't sell all that great, but it was hailed as a revolution in FPS control. Why would you purposefully not play games like that? If they don't appeal to your sensibilities, fine, but to use some metric of 'betterness' while at the same time admitting you haven't played any of them... that just foesn't make any sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is claiming quality because a bunch of people liked it. If there are reviewers I have some kind of ideological affinity with, that's different - but that's subjective, and therefore not a good way to grade quality. I hear about Nintendo games from both friends and the internet, and I can't say anything has sold them to me - in fact, most of the time they put me off. Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc don't look interesting from where I'm standing. I might be wrong, but nothing has convinced me to pay money and spend my time finding this out for myself. All the stories, from what I can tell, doesn't change with each game (so why keep releasing them?), and has become its own brand of cliché. So what's left is gameplay. Which I don't know a whole lot about, granted, but I'm not going to stick around to find out.

 

[Gorrath]

snip

I don't think personally disliking one game, that it no way tries to hide that it's a modern update of a classic, isn't really any evidence that Nintendo are a shitty company.

Also I'm pretty sure SMB Wii had a lot of new features and power ups that the original games didn't have. Personally my only gripe with that game is that the third and fourth players are toads and not Peach and Daisy.

I think we may have stumbled onto part of the answer to the op's question. Somehow you've managed to construe my criticism of a single game into "Therefore, Nintendo is a shitty company." I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion given that I've already stated that I want Nintendo to do well. The fact of the matter, right now, Nintendo is not doing well and part of that reason is what has happened with the Wii.

I'd say calling a game "NEW Super Mario Bros Wii" does nothing to project the image that is a spiritual remake of an older game, nor do I agree that it had a lot of new anything. The main new feature of the game was simultaneous multiplayer, which neither I nor a lot of people found to work very well, and in many cases be a detriment to the gameplay. If you don't think so, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. Obviously this is a matter of opinions.

Also, SMB Wii isn't the only example I could cite, I simply found it to be the most compelling example. Some in this thread seem to be dismissing any and all criticism (not saying you are) as simply fanboyism or as being drawn from a single popular critic, but denying any criticism isn't going to help anything. Acting as if all is well in the House of N when so many, many fans feel like Nintendo has turned away from them is just as bad as spewing unwarranted vitrol and hate.

I do not like the direction Nintendo has gone. I am not alone in that opinion. I have reasons for feeling the way I do that are shared by many. Those reaons are primarily linked to the first and third party titles that came out on the Wii. Hyperbolic responses on either side do nothing to further the discussion.