News: Iwata: Nintendo Wii U is Not Over Yet Page 1

Sonic_13 29.01.2015#1

I'm eagerly awaiting the reveals of what Retro Studios and Next Level Games have been working on.

satsubatsu347 29.01.2015#2

I miss the days when Nintendo used to LAUNCH with half a dozen first party titles so that messes like this were avoided. Damn "progress."

Marzeee 29.01.2015#3

satsubatsu347 said:
I miss the days when Nintendo used to LAUNCH with half a dozen first party titles so that messes like this were avoided. Damn "progress."

Hopefully this will be the case with Nintendo's next hardware. They said they had learned after they had a poor 3DS launch line-up and they still launched the Wii U with mediocre software. NSMB is a good game at its core, but it's nothing to get excited about at all. It's just another NSMB game that looks the same as any other NSMB game. Then most of the third party stuff was already available on other consoles at a cheaper price. There was literally no reason to buy Wii U at launch for most people. Nintendo Land was was great, but again, not really one of those big launch titles the console needs to get it off the ground.

By the sounds of things though, it looks as if they'll be more prepared when their next hardware comes around. I'm sure Miyamoto mentioned recently he'd like a new 3D Mario to launch with the system?

Eitherway. it's happened now. All they can really do is try their best with the software output and they're doing an amazing job considering the situation. Lots of great games on the way still and then even more revealed at E3 this year. Wii U kind of feels like the Dreamcast 2, to be honest. Amazing hardware and software, yet not many buying into it. It's a real shame.

( Edited 29.01.2015 09:06 by Marzy )

RudyC3 29.01.2015#4

They said it themselves that they had underestimated the time and resources it would take them to develop HD games. Miyamoto said so if memory serves right,and I was like "D'Huh !! Seriously, you didn't know HD games took more time and resources?"

They hoped to have a lot of games in development before the launch of the system to be done at launch, or shortly after. Pikmin 3 was one of them, though you might argue it was in no way a system seller but more a magnet for fans of Nintendo and the franchise itself. I think they also hoped to have a couple more third party games launched as well, like Rayman Legends which got pushed back a lot. It was originally penned to be released 3 to 4 months into the life of the system and we all know how much it got pushed back (I remember it was planned for February 2013 at one point and was finished by then, too!)

Part of the problem, also had to do with being first to launch their system, delaying it too much would have placed them against competition on store shelves and I'm sure they wanted to avoid this. And the fact that people, LOTS of people got confused by the naming and thought it was just a new controller for an aging system didn't help things one bit. They didn't drive the point home enough, or should simply not have gone for that name. It's easy to understand that they tried to catter to the crowd who bought Wii, through brand recognition, but those people by the time the Wii U launched, had mostly already put the Wii in their cupboards and forgotten about it by then, so that didn't go according to plan either. Software and hardware sales near the end of the previous system's life, other than "Just Dance" fanatics, should have given them a hint to that effect.

Also... what are they hoping to do by keeping future projects secret ? "We have several games in development not unveiled yet". By not showing anything of what the future holds for Wii U and not building excitement on the long term, you only make people remember that Wii U exists when you make a Nintendo Direct or at E3 and the rest of the year, when nothing gets released for a long period of time, people forget about it. You should unveil them with less long stretches of time in-between each and then build hype with footage or pics more frequently, otherwise the games people keep thinking about buying in the future aren't going to be your own. What's for Wii U this year? Xenoblade? Zelda? Yoshi? Maybe Splatoon. Then what's next? By not saying anything all the time, you leave people with the impression that beyond those few games, there won't be anything left to play after that, and that's not a good impression to let people have. If people have to choose between a system like XB1 or PS4 which you can be sure will continue to be supported for years with quality software and a Wii U that's in permanent situation of seemingly not getting anything anymore, which one are you going to go for?

Starfox hasn't been shown yet. Kirby isn't a system pusher. Project Giant Robot looks meh. Mario Party 10 doesn't have online for crying out loud. And some of what IS announced isn't looking like big killer apps, sorry to say, like Devil's Third. At least not for me anyway.

My point is, they're not building anticipation and excitement like they should. I love my Wii U, I'll still be playing it years down the line, I still have a heap of games to play on it which I haven't even started playing yet, but I know not everyone is like me, and those people who don't have one yet, if they're not big Nintendo fans who can't live without their next Zelda, they're not being given big reasons to buy this one as their only current gen system, or even as a companion to a XB1 or PS4. They're not displaying the Wii U as a system that still has a lot of life left in it. Iwata's intervention is only throwing oil on the fire, because he's just teasing "yeah we have other projects you haven't seen yet", but he's not even throwing us a bone, it's just wind coming out of his mouth.

Edit this post:

They said it themselves that they had underestimated the time and resources it would take them to develop HD games. Miyamoto said so if memory serves right,and I was like "D'Huh !! Seriously, you didn't know HD games took more time and resources?"

They hoped to have a lot of games in development before the launch of the system to be done at launch, or shortly after. Pikmin 3 was one of them, though you might argue it was in no way a system seller but more a magnet for fans of Nintendo and the franchise itself. I think they also hoped to have a couple more third party games launched as well, like Rayman Legends which got pushed back a lot. It was originally penned to be released 3 to 4 months into the life of the system and we all know how much it got pushed back (I remember it was planned for February 2013 at one point and was finished by then, too!)

Part of the problem, also had to do with being first to launch their system, delaying it too much would have placed them against competition on store shelves and I'm sure they wanted to avoid this. And the fact that people, LOTS of people got confused by the naming and thought it was just a new controller for an aging system didn't help things one bit. They didn't drive the point home enough, or should simply not have gone for that name. It's easy to understand that they tried to catter to the crowd who bought Wii, through brand recognition, but those people by the time the Wii U launched, had mostly already put the Wii in their cupboards and forgotten about it by then, so that didn't go according to plan either. Software and hardware sales near the end of the previous system's life, other than "Just Dance" fanatics, should have given them a hint to that effect.

Also... what are they hoping to do by keeping future projects secret ? "We have several games in development not unveiled yet". By not showing anything of what the future holds for Wii U and not building excitement on the long term, you only make people remember that Wii U exists when you make a Nintendo Direct or at E3 and the rest of the year, when nothing gets released for a long period of time, people forget about it. You should unveil them with less long stretches of time in-between each and then build hype with footage or pics more frequently, otherwise the games people keep thinking about buying in the future aren't going to be your own. What's for Wii U this year? Xenoblade? Zelda? Yoshi? Maybe Splatoon. Then what's next? By not saying anything all the time, you leave people with the impression that beyond those few games, there won't be anything left to play after that, and that's not a good impression to let people have. If people have to choose between a system like XB1 or PS4 which you can be sure will continue to be supported for years with quality software and a Wii U that's in permanent situation of seemingly not getting anything anymore, which one are you going to go for?

Starfox hasn't been shown yet. Kirby isn't a system pusher. Project Giant Robot looks meh. Mario Party 10 doesn't have online for crying out loud. And some of what IS announced isn't looking like big killer apps, sorry to say, like Devil's Third. At least not for me anyway.

My point is, they're not building anticipation and excitement like they should. I love my Wii U, I'll still be playing it years down the line, I still have a heap of games to play on it which I haven't even started playing yet, but I know not everyone is like me, and those people who don't have one yet, if they're not big Nintendo fans who can't live without their next Zelda, they're not being given big reasons to buy this one as their only current gen system, or even as a companion to a XB1 or PS4. They're not displaying the Wii U as a system that still has a lot of life left in it. Iwata's intervention is only throwing oil on the fire, because he's just teasing "yeah we have other projects you haven't seen yet", but he's not even throwing us a bone, it's just wind coming out of his mouth.

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Luna Eriksson 29.01.2015#5

What times are you talking about? From my memory there have NEVER been many first party games out by launch for any Nintendo System ever.

With that said, yes. The launch lineup was pretty bad, but the quantity is not the matter, but the quality. What signifies a good launch title is that it is a title that will survive for a while, like a Zelda game or a 3D Mario platformer filled with secrets to find and discover. Which is something the NSMB games does not exactly deliver. I 100%ed that game during the first weekend, and I did not even play it as much as I could have as Nintendo Land was much hotter considering I had friends over.

I do, however, think this is the first time some buy a system at launch as gaming has overall gone towards becoming a blockbuster industry in which recent releases have such a big focus. Back when I were young even most gaming enthusiasts did not get the systems on release, and for good reason. There simply seldom was an enough quantity of quality titles to justify buying that new system at launch.

The issue has been the low number of quality third party games. No one is going to buy Watch Dogs, Gimp edition for 10-20$ more months after the initial release, for example. Or Mass Effect 3: The Watered Down edition when they can buy the glorious triology for the same price (if not lower) on last gen consoles they most likely already own. The game that totally saved the Wii U for me 2013 single-handedly was MH3U. But considering that is a niche game that really is not for everyone so is it understandable that the sales were low. If only one of the good games released for the Wii U 2014 was released 2013 instead I think we would look at a whole different picture. Image if Hyrule Warriors or Mario Kart 8 were released back then before the PS4 and XBone was released? That could've created an upset. Not that the PS4 and XBone has done a better first year than the Wii U though. I am shocked so many have bought those systems to be honest. While I own a PS4 so am I sincerely disappointed with it, and by the looks of it it might pass without getting a single game I bought it io play.

The important thing is that Nintendo needs to get better touch with WESTERN third party developers. I know they have pretty good connections with some Japanese like Atlus from the 3DS library to judge, but they need Western third party as well. Nothing that I personally am too hot about, I love me some quirky Japanese games, but I know most people around me are VERY hot into Western games and the Wii U lacking them is a main point that prevents them from wanting to get it. If that means they need to release a more powerful system, so be it.

Edit this post:

What times are you talking about? From my memory there have NEVER been many first party games out by launch for any Nintendo System ever.

With that said, yes. The launch lineup was pretty bad, but the quantity is not the matter, but the quality. What signifies a good launch title is that it is a title that will survive for a while, like a Zelda game or a 3D Mario platformer filled with secrets to find and discover. Which is something the NSMB games does not exactly deliver. I 100%ed that game during the first weekend, and I did not even play it as much as I could have as Nintendo Land was much hotter considering I had friends over.

I do, however, think this is the first time some buy a system at launch as gaming has overall gone towards becoming a blockbuster industry in which recent releases have such a big focus. Back when I were young even most gaming enthusiasts did not get the systems on release, and for good reason. There simply seldom was an enough quantity of quality titles to justify buying that new system at launch.

The issue has been the low number of quality third party games. No one is going to buy Watch Dogs, Gimp edition for 10-20$ more months after the initial release, for example. Or Mass Effect 3: The Watered Down edition when they can buy the glorious triology for the same price (if not lower) on last gen consoles they most likely already own. The game that totally saved the Wii U for me 2013 single-handedly was MH3U. But considering that is a niche game that really is not for everyone so is it understandable that the sales were low. If only one of the good games released for the Wii U 2014 was released 2013 instead I think we would look at a whole different picture. Image if Hyrule Warriors or Mario Kart 8 were released back then before the PS4 and XBone was released? That could've created an upset. Not that the PS4 and XBone has done a better first year than the Wii U though. I am shocked so many have bought those systems to be honest. While I own a PS4 so am I sincerely disappointed with it, and by the looks of it it might pass without getting a single game I bought it io play.

The important thing is that Nintendo needs to get better touch with WESTERN third party developers. I know they have pretty good connections with some Japanese like Atlus from the 3DS library to judge, but they need Western third party as well. Nothing that I personally am too hot about, I love me some quirky Japanese games, but I know most people around me are VERY hot into Western games and the Wii U lacking them is a main point that prevents them from wanting to get it. If that means they need to release a more powerful system, so be it.

Save Changes Cancel Full Edit

The difference between illusion and reality is vague to the one who suffers from the former and questionable for the one suffering form the later.

RudyC3 29.01.2015#6

Andre Eriksson said:
What times are you talking about? From my memory there have NEVER been many first party games out by launch for any Nintendo System ever.

Mmmh. Gamecube had a pretty strong lineup at launch, but I agree not solely on First Party software. In terms of first party it had Wave Race Blue Storm, Luigi's Mansion. And Smash Bros Melee and Pikmin were out within a month of the system's launch in Europe and North America. Crazy Taxi, Super Monkey Ball and Star Wars Rogue Leader were in my opinion all solid titles for the launch of the system in North America an Europe, so that one launch was pretty good in my opinion. But then again, that didn't save the system in the longer run, the early days of the Gamecube were great in terms of releases, but later releases missing features from versions released on other platforms didn't help the Gamecube sell more units, in addition to sorely missing features which were considered standard already by then like DVD and CD playback features.

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Luna Eriksson 29.01.2015#7

RudyC3 said:
Andre Eriksson said:
What times are you talking about? From my memory there have NEVER been many first party games out by launch for any Nintendo System ever.

Mmmh. Gamecube had a pretty strong lineup at launch, but I agree not solely on First Party software. In terms of first party it had Wave Race Blue Storm, Luigi's Mansion. And Smash Bros Melee and Pikmin were out within a month of the system's launch in Europe and North America. Crazy Taxi, Super Monkey Ball and Star Wars Rogue Leader were in my opinion all solid titles for the launch of the system in North America an Europe, so that one launch was pretty good in my opinion. But then again, that didn't save the system in the longer run, the early days of the Gamecube were great in terms of releases, but later releases missing features from versions released on other platforms didn't help the Gamecube sell more units, in addition to sorely missing features which were considered standard already by then like DVD and CD playback features.

NGC was pretty good, yes. A solid release with focus on quality titles that lives for a while due to high replayability. But, it was an exception and still not really so high in numbers, but rather quality. The Wii U is in the same ballpark in numbers, yet not quality.

The difference between illusion and reality is vague to the one who suffers from the former and questionable for the one suffering form the later.

RudyC3 29.01.2015#8

I can't really think of any system, even a non-Nintendo one, that had a release window much stronger than the Gamecube's in terms of number of quality releases.

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Luna Eriksson 29.01.2015#9

RudyC3 said:
I can't really think of any system, even a non-Nintendo one, that had a release window much stronger than the Gamecube's in terms of number of quality releases.

Agree to 100%.

The difference between illusion and reality is vague to the one who suffers from the former and questionable for the one suffering form the later.

erc (guest) 29.01.2015#10

satsubatsu347 said:
I miss the days when Nintendo used to LAUNCH with half a dozen first party titles so that messes like this were avoided. Damn "progress."

I recall that Nintendo was really trying to get 3rd parties to get a foot hold on both of the systems at the initial release of both the 3DS and the Wii U. They were really trying to pull in the 3rd parties because that has always been a major complaint by consumers and 3rd party devs/publishers. Devs/Publishers have always complained that Nintendo games are too hard to compete, but Nintendo gave them a chance and many/most didn't pull through. Many just tried to shove half ass ports, or gimped versions of multiplatform games.

Now Nintendo knows, they need to build their fanbase with their games, if 3rd parties come along for the ride, fine....if not...fine as well.

Endless Solitude (guest) 01.02.2015#11

I'm of the opinion that they should release a new version of the Wii U - one that has much larger storage, (minimum 128 GB, but ideally 256 GB or higher).

It seems to me that Nintendo missed a major opportunity with the Wii U: the opportunity to provide definitive editions of successful multiplatform HD titles of the previous generation. What they did with Darksiders 2 (where the Wii U version had on the disk much of what was sold as DLC on the other platforms) should have been done with many more games, (such as Dark Souls, Kingdoms of Amalur, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, Sacred 2, etc.... etc...)

This would benefit them in multiple ways:

1) It would increase the number of available titles early on..

2) It would discourage those who had not yet purchased a PS3/Xbox360 from getting those consoles, since they could look forward to these games coming on to the Wii U.

3) It would encourage those who did have PS3/Xbox 360 into getting Wii U, if only to see what their favourite games would be like with two screens.

4) It would please third-parties, since they could garner extra sales of their existing titles - provided they were prepared to simply port them over to the Wii U.

5) It would make the Wii U the platform of choice for those who dislike paid DLC - since it would be offering these HD titles with all the DLC being on the disc.

Even now, I'm surprised how few multi-platform titles have made it onto the Wii U.

satsubatsu347 03.02.2015#12

Well:
NES released with 18 first party games in North America (10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung-Fu Master, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros., Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew).

SNES was way slimmer with Super Mario World, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Gradius III, and SimCity. With Gradius III being a third party launch title.

Game Boy was similar to SNES with Super Mario Land, Alleyway, Baseball
Tetris, Tennis.

These were day of releases. This does not even count the first three to six months from launch. Which seems to be the modern "launch window."

RudyC3 03.02.2015#13

satsubatsu347 said:
Well:
NES released with 18 first party games in North America (10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung-Fu Master, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros., Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew).

Mmmh but a lot of these games were already over two years old in Japan by the time they arrived in the US and most of them had been already released over the course of those previous two years. This was a very particular situation, as Nintendo didn't have a foothold in North America yet, and they took years to make the jump. Some of these games arrived late 1985 in the US when they originally were released in mid 1983 in Japan (two years and three months earlier to be exact). So there had been plenty of time for Nintendo to develop all of these in between, especially since it didn't take that long to develop a game back then, compared to nowadays. It's rare to see consoles take over two years to be released outside their home turf these days.

( Edited 03.02.2015 22:27 by RudyC3 )

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