Why I love Nintendo

[Matthew Jabour]

It seems that Nintendo fans in this day and age are an endangered species. What with the Wii alienating all the core gamers and everyone turning up their noses at the Wii U, it seems nobody is sticking up for the house of Mario. But there's a reason I'm still a staunch Nintendo supporter; they aren't nearly as scummy as the other two. 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?

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Am I the only one sensing great irony because of OP's profile picture?

 

[Eddie the head]

I nothing Nintendo. To say I hate them would mean that I care in the slightest. They do there thing and whatever it doesn't effect me. I can't muster anything more than apathy for them.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

All the best jrpgs are on Nintendo handhelds these days. So I also love Nintendo.

 

[The Selkie]

I wish they'd went a different direction with their next-gen console as I quite like Nintendo, but I get the feeling that when the other, most powerful consoles are released the Wii U will fall back into the Wii's role of being a platform for occasional casual gaming. I just have no interest in motion controls etc. and many of MS's current failings are in their efforts to replicate what Nintendo have achieved with the Wii (by trying to force the kinect on us).

 

[Busard]

I'm just afraid that the WiiU goes the way of the Wii in terms of power relative to the other competitors this generation. I'm also worried about 3rd party games. Having weaker hardware isn't going to help with the low amount of 3rd party games.

Actually, it's pretty much impossible for the Wii U to be as outpowered by Nextbox/PS4 as the Wii was by PS360.

The Wii was outpowered by the HD twins by a factor of about twenty. It wasn't just the lack of HD, the console didn't even have programmable shaders. The reason third-party games didn't appear wasn't just because it was underpowered in comparison. Developers have ported games and engines to other underpowered hardware (see Epic putting the Unreal Engine 3 on iPhone). The issue was that the Wii's architecture made it too much effort for many to bother porting their engines and thus their games.

The Wii U will be less powerful than the PS4 and Nextbox, but not by the same factor. At most, it'll only be 3-4x. And while that sounds a lot, that's happened before with consoles. The Xbox was about 2-3x more powerful than the PS2. The N64 was 2x more powerful than the PS1.

While the Wii U still has custom architecture, it also has the modern features that developers expect in consoles, such as programmable shaders and multi-core CPUs. 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. Any developer worth their salt now knows it's important to be able to get your engine at least running on smartphone technology, as that's where all the money is going now. If a game is built on a scalable engine, then it doesn't matter how great it looks on PS4, developers will be able to scale it to Wii U. If they didn't already do this, 360 and PS3 owners would never get any shared games with PC.

Lastly, power is less of an issue now than it used to be. We're fast approaching the point where making use of the latest cutting edge technology and graphics simply isn't cost efficient fo most small-medium developers. That's why we saw so many Japanese developers go to Wii and DS/3DS this generation. Big publishers will be pushing for prettier games next generation, but they're all losing money right now. They won't be able to afford to push budgets to an insane degree like they have this generation, not if they want to see an actual profit.

Don't be surprised if companies find they're simply not able to afford pushing high end games out on the PS4. Many developers will simply work better with smaller, more medium sized projects. That's where the 3DS has found its niche, and when the cost of high-end triple-A development becomes a reality next generation, I'd be surprised if at leasta few developers didn't fall back on the more cost effective Wii U. Nintendo are already doing well with indie developers for that precise reason.

Also, if the Nextbox rumours are true, Microsoft have pretty much taken themselves out of the race next gen.

It's not as simple as that, it's not just a case of "scaling down" graphics. You also have to code it specifically for the platform you want to port it on.

It's never been a thing about power. Nintendo has alwys been notably hard to work with third parties: They hog a lot of their source, they don't share a lot of their practices, they tend to boss third parties around a lot. That coupled with consoles which were always quite unfriendly to work with and a fanbase accustomed to Nintendo standards.

Sony had this problem on this gen with the ps3, and the ps2. Their problem was not the console performance but it's infrastructure and the pains it involved for the developper just to get in touch with the system. PS4 apparently solves a lot of that by having an infrastructure that is closer to a high end PC, making it easier to port multiplats or make exclusives for it.

Developpers don't look on performance of a console but convenience. There will be more likely to work on a console that works closer to high end pcs than on a console that separates itself with a custom infrastructure that is unfriendly to a majority of third parties. That's a reason why I don't see Nintendo getting a lot of third parties this time around, although they might get more than with the Wii because of slightly more powerful specs, but they'll mostly have to count on themselves from here.

 

[InvaderTim]

Being one of 7 people that actually own a Wii U I really don't understand the criticism, the console is brilliant. Maybe a little slow in terms of loading times but otherwise it does exactly what it says on the tin, I don't have to subscribe to a gold service to use the online features, I don't have to buy extra proprietary memory to store downloaded games, and the graphics are in my opinion where a console should be at, game's are becoming more and more expensive to make and we've seen companies make unrealistic projections as to what their games should sell to justify the cost of development. I don't see Nintendo having much of a problem in that respect as the other big two compete for polygons at a loss for their own profit margins.

Even if we're off to a slow start with sales once Nintendo starts rolling out its heavy hitters, the next 3D Mario, the next Zelda, the next Metroid FPS, and the obligatory Mariokart/Smash Bro's I don't see sales being a huge deal.

Also. WIND WAKER HD

 

[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? i can understand basic 8gb model but high end sku only 32GB is this some kind of joke? or they certain that their digital marketplace will be wasteland without any 3rd party digital only games so they didn't bother? and yes i know you can expand it but that's another expense when PS3 have 250gb out of the box and cost less)

Compared to consoles that WiiU is competing (same 3rd party games as THIS gen consoles with same sort of performance at SAME 720p resolution) that's EXPENSIVE for when soon to be devoid of almost all 3rd party support system!

Only market WiiU have is people that love first party Nintendo games. Everyone else including 3 party devs going to flock to new gen and it will be wii all over again, except WiiU will not sell as good as wii.

I admit i don't have much love for Nintendo and it's games but i do not wish them to fail. i just don't see "hardcore" crowd buying it and 3 party developers interested in making games for it.

Nintendo certainly will not sink but it will not gain ether. i would say situation will stay the same, Nintendo doing it's own thing and MS and Sony battling it out for "hardcore" crowd.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Don't care about the Wii U right now, except for the future Fire Emblem X SMT game, but I always love the nintendo handhelds. The DS was like a handheld PS2 and the 3DS is shaping up really well.

 

[Busard]

It's not as simple as that, it's not just a case of "scaling down" graphics. You also have to code it specifically for the platform you want to port it on.

It's never been a thing about power. Nintendo has alwys been notably hard to work with third parties: They hog a lot of their source, they don't share a lot of their practices, they tend to boss third parties around a lot. That coupled with consoles which were always quite unfriendly to work with and a fanbase accustomed to Nintendo standards.

Sony had this problem on this gen with the ps3, and the ps2. Their problem was not the console performance but it's infrastructure and the pains it involved for the developper just to get in touch with the system. PS4 apparently solves a lot of that by having an infrastructure that is closer to a high end PC, making it easier to port multiplats or make exclusives for it.

Developpers don't look on performance of a console but convenience. There will be more likely to work on a console that works closer to high end pcs than on a console that separates itself with a custom infrastructure that is unfriendly to a majority of third parties. That's a reason why I don't see Nintendo getting a lot of third parties this time around, although they might get more than with the Wii because of slightly more powerful specs, but they'll mostly have to count on themselves from here.

Thing is, we're already hearing from developers that the Wii U is surprisingly easy to develop for. Vigil Games said as much when they talked about Darksiders 2. They managed to get the game up and running on the console in a very short space of time. Other developers like Frozenbyte have also said that the console is pretty easy to get their games running on.

Apparently they didn't give third-parties a lot of tools to work with at first, but that's because they were changing the specs of the console right up until the last minute. Now that they've got the system out, they seem to be making a big effort to get the tools out there to make developing games as easy as possible. Just look at the announcements they've made about indie games recently. They're supporting a whole load of different engines and scripting languages, they're giving indie developers full versions of Unity 4 free with their development kits, they're apparently working with third parties on getting software that allows you to port from iOS to Wii U with the press of a button... with indies at least, they seem to be going all out on making development as easy as possible. And it would be silly to think that those changes towards indie developers don't also represent changes they're making to third party developers in general. They already got Platinum on-board pretty damn quickly. Atlus seem to be pretty onboard as well. I'll be amazed if they don't have other such announcements to make in the near future. Especially as they're already working with third-parties like Namco, Next Level Gaming and such on some of their established IPs.

In theory, that's great if it works out. In practice, I also remember people saying they would support the Wii when it launched. Or Ubisoft for the Wii U, until they made Rayman Legends multiplat that is

Another problem with the Wii U is it's visibilty on the market, and it's fans. As far as I'm concerned and from my dev standpoint, Nintendo fans usually buy well-known nintendo games. A small fragment of them actually go out and buy indie stuff (the wii ware thing was atrocious during the Wii days, so let's hope they manage this better this gen).

As for indies, well microsoft had a head start, and Sony also just opened the floodgates for indie developpers, simplifying the way to submit projects and they will also have a unity integration.

Technically, Nintendo can be on equal footing but from what I've heard from indie devs is that they're relucant to go to Nintendo for two reasons: Visibility (it's not guaranteed that, even if the game is good, people will pay much attention on a Nintendo platform as it's been last so far in promoting indie games) and also the "Nintendo seal of approval". You might remember the issue that Edmund McMillen, the creator of Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac, had when he tried to submit BoI to Nintendo, who refused because of "religious themes", an issue that had little to no bearings on other platforms, especially PC for which indies have such an easier time at this point.

In conclusion, I really wish for Nintendo to continue to exist, and no doubt they will. Their first and second party games are AMAZING (I still believe in the Nintendo Seal of Quality) but they always had this nasty "closed circuit" mentality since the Nintendo 64 by trying to keep as much control as possible on their products and allowing little room for third parties. Time will tell if they've learned from the previous gens and will not only allow and ease but also promote third party developpers throughout the lifetime of the Wii U.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I used to really love Nintendo, but now I just can't seem to get excited anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love my DS and all the weird and quirky games that I've found for it, and I really hope that the 3DS gets better. But as it stands right now, I can't get excited for the WiiU and I felt the same way about the Wii as well.

I remember a time when I used to get excited about a Nintendo developed game or new console, but now all I can do is just give an apathetic shrug.

I find that rather sad.

 

[Auron]

I don't hate Nintendo and still remember the N64(the gamecube not so much) very very fondly. I dislike the gimmicky control scheme in the wii unfortunately and haven't had a console of theirs(or any.) for a while now, it's sad but we went different directions I suppose. Not happy to see them losing money though.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

I was talking about a few aspects with some friends over twitter a few days ago on the wii-u. Nintendo finally does a fully realized hd system out on the market, even if it's 5-6yrs late to the game. Now One thing I would like to see is a lot of specialized ports on the wii-u such as fallout 3/new Vegas "which would use the tablet as the pip-boy". If the rumors for the 720 are proven true then I might give all of my support to Nintendo and even Sony for this next generation of gaming.

 

[Nazulu]

That's it? You only love Nintendo because their competition stinks? Fuckin' Oath, I used to love Nintendo! Their hardware before the Wii are tough as hell since all of mine are still working just fine, and they've made some of the greatest games ever! Yeah, I'm no fan of the Wii, that thing gave me the constant shits.

I've been lookin' into the WiiU over and over, and even though I will probably prefer it over the Wii no problem, there is nothing there I really want. If they release another amazing title like SSB Melee or Metroid Prime I'll sacrifice everything else to get it ASAP.