The Nintendo Wii U is Great Thread

[Thrik]

Same Wind Waker HD gameplay footage:

 

 

It actually looks more faithful to the original than I expected. For some reason the early media gave me the impression that we were looking at a serious overhaul of all the art assets, but most of the original geometry and textures seem to be intact — just in higher resolution. I'm totally fine with this, and the (dialled-back) bloom looks good.

 

I'll tell you one thing though, after listening to Blake Robinson's renditions of the Wind Waker soundtrack I'm really wanting some remastered music in this shit.

 

 

 

[Twig]

Dragon Roost is possibly my favorite Zelda song out of all the songs. That's a very good version of it. Man.

 

(This is my favorite rendition.)

 

[tegan]

So there's a price drop the basic bundle's being discontinued, and the Zelda special edition Wii U bundle that got leaked is confirmed.

[Frenetic Pony]

2DS, Zelda Remakes, "New Super Mario Bros" out your ass.

 

I want to make a video, if I was interested at all in video editing. It would be Gollum having a conversation with Nintendo. "We... don't, need you, anymore." Nintendo "What? What's it saying precious?" Gollum "We don't need you anymore!" Nintendo "What's is SAYING?" Gollum "Leave now, and never come back!"

 

We seriously don't, I've come to the sad conclusion. What's the difference between a DS and a smartphone? Well the smartphone is potentially already cheaper, has a much better battery life, a lot more memory for downloading games, much higher specs, has access to 3g and maybe 4g internet, and has access to a hell of a lot more games and apps. What does Nintendo have in its favor hardware wise? A little thumbstick thing and a few dedicated buttons. Give a dedicated keyboard phone a thumbstick and the entire DS/Gameboy hardware line is caput as a hardware concept.

 

The Wii-U is similarly worthless in terms of hardware. It's a last gen spec'd machine that costs more than last gen machines and has a "controller" with no novelty for games and terrible battery life. And Nintendo doesn't even have games I'd pay for their system anymore. After learning all the cut dungeons aren't coming to Windwaker HD it dropped off my "must play!" list, Smash Bros already looks obsessed with more characters rather than bringing back fun stages and other things, something which did no favors for Brawl. Metroid is totally MIA, Mario Kart still rather peaked with Mario Kart 64, even Mario Party is said to have gone downhill by most accounts I've heard.

 

Nintendo, I loved the Nintendo 64 and playing Rogue Squadron and Ocarina and Goldeneye, ditto with my gameboy and Pokemon. I didn't regret buying a Gamecube and playing Windwaker and Metroid Prime and Sunshine, but I do admit to having at least as much fun with Halo and other games on my Xbox. I did regret buying a DS because Animal Crossing didn't really Wow me, and Pokemon was just, well, I'm not a Pokemon fanatic. And I definitely regretted buying a Wii, which was used for some Wii Sports with my family and that's about the long and short of it. And there's no fooling me into a Wii-U or 3DS anymore, and the only thing I wonder is how long it will take many more others to agree with me. It already seems to be happening on the Wii-U front.

[tegan]

That doesn't sound like a problem with Nintendo as much as your tastes changing as you get older. It happens to everyone, but blaming it on the market is kind of a poor way to mask what's really just coming off as nostalgia (especially saying that Mario Kart peaked before it even had online play).

 

Also, the difference between a DS and a smartphone is that one is designed for actually playing games. If the iPhone were really going to kill the dedicated handheld market like everyone seems to keep thinking it's going to, it would have happened in 2007. Not that there's anything wrong with smartphone gaming, mind you, but it's as different from dedicated handhelds as handhelds are from consoles, or consoles are from PCs. There have been attempts to merge dedicated handhelds with smartphones before (remember that huge push Sony made with the Xperia Play or their PSN-compatible tablets? Neither does anyone else), but they never become anything more than a niche curiosity because they're trying to merge two fundamentally different philosophies of the way games are produced and played.

[miffy495]

Yeah, the difference between my smartphone and my 3DS is that my 3DS actually has more than two games that I want to play on it. As for being disappointed with the DS, I can only imagine that you must have looked at the two games that you mentioned and then never any others. The DS had one of the strongest libraries of any system in recent memory for me. Absolutely incredible stuff on there. As for the Wii, though there was often a long-ish wait between the really good games, they certainly did exist and I never felt like I didn't get my money's worth out of it.

The 3DS seems on track to be just as good as the DS, and the Wii U, while still finding its legs, is looking like it will be a lot more worth it by the end of the year. Pikmin 3 is bloody amazing, and having played the demo for Wonderful 101 twice through now, I'm incredibly excited to get paid and get my hands on it. I think that Nintendo is getting there. Their last two systems have had rocky starts, but I feel like they're going to get there. They already have with the 3DS, and the Wii U feels like it's justified itself to me now. I hope it keeps trending upward.

[JonCole]

I'm not particularly convinced that game consoles have anything intrinsically better about them than phones other than physical controls. The UI is generally terrible, online stores inferior to iTunes/Google Play, etc. The only advantage that I can see is that "serious" game developers make games for them. If Nintendo made $30 games for iOS and Android and didn't have a dedicated handheld, people would follow the games and pay what was demanded of them. Those kinds of games don't prosper on mobile as it is because the same developers who make games for consoles/handhelds simply don't exist on mobile.

[lobotomy42]

I think the main reason to stick it out with Nintendo consoles, especially the 3DS, is that they have a lot of Japanese games that will never come to their competitors.  The Wii had some excellent exclusive jRPGs last cycle, as the 3DS does now.  It will be interesting to see if the Wii U manages the same feat - so far it's Nintendo games only.

 

But I can completely understand how, if you're not into *really* into Japanese games, there are plenty of choices to be found elsewhere, and keeping a 3DS around wouldn't be worth it.  Most of the heavy hitters will eventually make their way to the PS3, it's true. 

 

Growing up, video games were for me synonymous with Nintendo and Japan, so it's frustrating to see the ascension of the Call of Dutys and the niche-ization of non-shooters, and Japanese games in particular have taken a hit.  But even I have to admit that the games I'm looking forward to the most are not from Nintendo or even their close partners.

[tegan]

Well, consider that a phone by necessity must be considered a phone first. Battery concerns and constant competition with other installed applications, texts, and phone calls mean that a cell phone game's experience almost always has to sacrifice depth or length of play sessions. Most of the most successful games on smartphones (ie: Angry Birds) have been low-impact, where a player can accomplish something in a play session that lasts only a few minutes and interactions that last only seconds. It's more difficult to get a player to invest in a game that takes long-term commitment or extended interactions. Hell, social platforms like phones and Facebook are what brought us free-to-play, which is entirely centered around exploiting the player base's desire to play less and play faster. There are certain types of games to which that environment is perfectly suited, but the ones that have traditionally flourished on consoles aren't among them. Consider Animal Crossing, which has arguably become the 3DS' killer app. It's a game that demands slow patience. Leaving it as-is would make it virtually unplayable on a phone, while bogging it down with microtransactions would make it completely joyless.

 

What's unique to Nintendo in the industry is their habit of making hardware specifically tailored to the types of games they want to make. It's no surprise that Nintendo consoles have traditionally been unevenly favourable to first-party releases and while dissuading to third-parties, because their hardware is usually designed around their software. Hell, the N64 was basically made to play Super Mario 64 with little regard for how third-parties would use its fucking weird-ass hardware specifications (notice that Nintendo accidentally created their biggest rivals because they didn't want to introduce loading times). It makes Nintendo a pain in the ass to work with, and sometimes they'll get too ambitious and add a feature that they just don't have the ubiquity to support, but it's the forefront of why their games do so well and it's one of the things I admire them for. If anything, I think that the Wii U's shown Nintendo's willingness to compromise to making a less self-serving console by having a standard button layout and the option of an Xbox-style controller, not to mention their recent close partnerships with companies like Sega and Platinum to bring more variety to their console lineup.

[lobotomy42]

What's unique to Nintendo in the industry is their habit of making hardware specifically tailored to the types of games they want to make.

 

Well...maybe.  That's their standard line, anyway.  But it's not clear to me that 3D is actually a key feature of any of Nintendo's 3DS games (and the existence of the 2DS would seem to confirm this) and they certainly haven't put much effort into using the GamePad on the Wii U.  I suppose it's possible there's some killer app waiting in the wings for the GamePad, but frankly, I doubt it.  I really think their hardware design since the DS has been finding some unique hook that differentiates them from their competitors, and then seeing if they can work that into game designs after the fact.  This isn't necessarily a bad strategy, but the causality seems to be in the other direction from what they'd like us to believe.

[tegan]

I feel like 3D was kind of a red herring to get people to try the system and discover that Streetpass is the actual hook of the system.

[JonCole]

It's a bad red herring because I've still yet to use Streetpass once and I don't feel any worse off for not trying it.

 

I understand the point you're trying to make with phones being poorly suited to extended game sessions, but I simply think that's not true. Nintendo hasn't made games suited to short play sessions because they haven't been forced to. The general crux of my argument is that phones are underutilized because they're underutilized. There will be no good case for a Mario game with 2 minute, touch-friendly precision controls until Nintendo decides they want to do that. I wasn't convinced that 3D wasn't only a gimmick until I played Super Mario 3D Land. Sure, they haven't gone past too far beyond that as far as gameplay being affected by 3D, but I still never would have bet that stereoscopic 3D would have any impact on a game until I was proven wrong.

 

I think that's what's so attractive about the idea of Nintendo making phone games. There's something about Nintendo that they can take a console that admittedly not a lot of people are very interested in like the 3DS (at the beginning of its life) and the Wii U (still) and make games like Pikmin 3 or Animal Crossing that get people to say, "Shit, maybe I made a wrong move not buying that console" even when there are really quite few games of quality to be played otherwise. I wouldn't trust EA or Activision to make a compelling series of games on a phone - I mean, they've been doing it and have failed, as far as I'm concerned. But if Nintendo took Mario, Link, and Samus to phones, I honestly think they could make it work.

 

And while the battery life thing is a concern, in my dream world where Nintendo makes phone games they could easily snatch up a phone case manufacturer and make combination battery case/physical control pads. Or, in my revolutionary theory that things don't change unless people demand it, if people started wanting to play a shitload of games on their phone (30% of revenue which went to the phone manufacturer), phone manufacturers would take notice and make battery life a priority. Or chip-makers would produce more power-efficient GPUs. Or something.

[lobotomy42]

It's a bad red herring because I've still yet to use Streetpass once and I don't feel any worse off for not trying it.

 

I understand the point you're trying to make with phones being poorly suited to extended game sessions, but I simply think that's not true. Nintendo hasn't made games suited to short play sessions because they haven't been forced to. The general crux of my argument is that phones are underutilized because they're underutilized. There will be no good case for a Mario game with 2 minute, touch-friendly precision controls until Nintendo decides they want to do that. I wasn't convinced that 3D wasn't only a gimmick until I played Super Mario 3D Land. Sure, they haven't gone past too far beyond that as far as gameplay being affected by 3D, but I still never would have bet that stereoscopic 3D would have any impact on a game until I was proven wrong.

 

I think that's what's so attractive about the idea of Nintendo making phone games. There's something about Nintendo that they can take a console that admittedly not a lot of people are very interested in like the 3DS (at the beginning of its life) and the Wii U (still) and make games like Pikmin 3 or Animal Crossing that get people to say, "Shit, maybe I made a wrong move not buying that console" even when there are really quite few games of quality to be played otherwise. I wouldn't trust EA or Activision to make a compelling series of games on a phone - I mean, they've been doing it and have failed, as far as I'm concerned. But if Nintendo took Mario, Link, and Samus to phones, I honestly think they could make it work.

 

And while the battery life thing is a concern, in my dream world where Nintendo makes phone games they could easily snatch up a phone case manufacturer and make combination battery case/physical control pads. Or, in my revolutionary theory that things don't change unless people demand it, if people started wanting to play a shitload of games on their phone (30% of revenue which went to the phone manufacturer), phone manufacturers would take notice and make battery life a priority. Or chip-makers would produce more power-efficient GPUs. Or something.

 

I think what would happen is Nintendo would suddenly find their games lost among the huge sea of games in the various App Stores, they would no longer be the huge monster in an ecosystem of their own control, and as a result they'd be forced to knock their prices down to $4.99 just like everyone else.  On the Wii U/3DS, they control the platform, are invested in it, can market directly via eShop and Nintendo Direct videos, etc.  Having their own console, even an unpopular one, gets them lots of press coverage and attention they would otherwise never get.  (Think of all those "BEST 10 GAMES ON PLATFORM X IN YEAR Y" lists that game sites love to run.)  It's a huge disincentive for third parties to ever bother making games for Nintendo platforms, but a huge incentive for Nintendo to stick to their own consoles.

[JonCole]

XCOM for iOS sold for $20 and reportedly did quite well. If a turn-based strategy game with a big following on PC of all things can sell for $20 on the app store, Nintendo doesn't need an ecosystem to sell games for a reasonable price and get hype. I don't think press for Nintendo's wares depends on hardware, because Nintendo literally creates its own press conferences online via Nintendo Direct and journalists report on it no matter how insignificant the update. Let me tell you, if Nintendo made iOS games Apple would market the hell out of their products. And strong sales are all you need in iTunes to grab the attention of literally tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of people. The eShop is nothing compared to that.

[tegan]

nintendo should make games for iphone because history tells us that atari and sega became much more successful and devoted to quality after they went third-party

 

oh

 

oh wait

[lobotomy42]

XCOM for iOS sold for $20 and reportedly did quite well.

 

Let me tell you, if Nintendo made iOS games Apple would market the hell out of their products.

 

They would market Mario, Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Zelda, certainly.  But where does Chibi Robo end up? WarioWare? Fire Emblem?  3DS Games -- even the second-stringers -- debut at $40 and stay there for as long as they are published.  And Nintendo usually publishes *something* each month, even if it's re-hash or a low-profile title.  Most of these second-tier games would fall by the wayside.  To say nothing of the fact that they're no longer selling hardware, and are actually now paying a licensing fee to someone else.

 

If your argument is that *some entity* named Nintendo with the rights to Nintendo's back-catalog could reap tons of profit off of iOS games, then I completely agree with you.  But Nintendo today has thousands and thousands of employees, dozens of divisions - for both hardware and software - and benefits from strong relationships with brick-and-mortar retailers like GameStop and Wal-Mart.  Pursuing an "app" strategy would mean throwing a lot of that away, so I can understand their reluctance to do it.  It would basically mean the end of the company in its current form.

[JonCole]

nintendo should make games for iphone because history tells us that atari and sega became much more successful and devoted to quality after they went third-party

 

oh

 

oh wait

 

Yeah, Nintendo beat both of them. Two examples hardly establishes a pattern, especially when both companies history is completely different. Atari failed as a third-party because they failed miserably as a first-party and got sold/passed around to exploit their name. Sega bowed out and largely became a publishing house, with only three internal development studios. Nintendo has far more studios than that and a much more solid first-party internal stable than either of those companies at their respective peaks.

 

Pursuing an "app" strategy would mean throwing a lot of that away, so I can understand their reluctance to do it.  It would basically mean the end of the company in its current form.

 

Considering Nintendo has largely stayed the same exact company since the Nintendo 64/Gamecube, the company in its current form seems to be on its last legs. But that's just my perception. And seemingly the perception of every one of these pundits who thinks Nintendo is wildly out of touch, not to lend them any particular legitimacy but only to note their number.

 

I'd agree that games like Fire Emblem, WarioWare and the like are second-stringers in that they don't sell 10 million copies like Mario Kart does. They're also obviously not mass-market focused like Mario Kart is. I personally feel those games will find their respective audiences on whatever platform they land on, granted the fans that have kept those franchises afloat don't suddenly decide to not like Nintendo games anymore. I don't see why they couldn't still be a premium price on a different platform, it seemingly works for Final Fantasy games on iOS that hold their high prices despite being crappy ports because their audience finds them.

[Thrik]

Man, look at this shit.

 

 

 

 

I really do love Ganondorf's depiction in Wind Waker. Definitely my favourite rendition of him by far.

[Roderick]

You're right, and that's beautiful. The oriental influences are amazing.

[syntheticgerbil]

We seriously don't, I've come to the sad conclusion. What's the difference between a DS and a smartphone? Well the smartphone is potentially already cheaper, has a much better battery life, a lot more memory for downloading games, much higher specs, has access to 3g and maybe 4g internet, and has access to a hell of a lot more games and apps.

The answer is not the same games and apps. And usually not anywhere reaching the quality of a Nintendo game. That's pretty much it.

[Twig]

If Nintendo went mobile, I would, in all likelihood, stop playing their games altogether. I can't imagine a more undesirable situation. I have yet to play a single mobile game that I'd put on the same tier as any good PC, console, or handheld game, and it boils down almost entirely to the controls. I hate mobile controls of all kinds. Please noooooo.

[JonCole]

If Nintendo went mobile, I would, in all likelihood, stop playing their games altogether. I can't imagine a more undesirable situation. I have yet to play a single mobile game that I'd put on the same tier as any good PC, console, or handheld game, and it boils down almost entirely to the controls. I hate mobile controls of all kinds. Please noooooo.

 

You wouldn't even try it? I am a little incredulous that people have so much love for Nintendo hardware/software in its current state, yet seem to be able to give them no benefit of the doubt that they could potentially pull off a good mobile game.

 

Also, there are now physical game control standards for both iOS and Android that match the number of control mechanisms as a standard 360/PS3 controller. Is my scenario of a combination battery pack and control device such a ridiculous idea?

 

Also on that Ganon statue is epic. I really would not be embarrassed to put that on my nerdy game figurine shelf.

[tegan]

Also, there are now physical game control standards for both iOS and Android that match the number of control mechanisms as a standard 360/PS3 controller. Is my scenario of a combination battery pack and control device such a ridiculous idea?

 

Yes. Because it's been done. It's been done countless times, and it never ever works. It creates a chicken/egg scenario where consumers don't buy the accessory because game developers don't make it a requirement because it has a low adoption rate. It's the same reason why game accessories never reach a level of ubiquity where the consumer can be relied upon to buy an add-on.* What's more, there's not a chance in hell that a company like Apple is going to back down from their Minority Report monolithic aesthetic and produce/market a big ugly button attachment, and third-party solutions have demonstrably never caught on. You can't rely on optional accessories, full stop.

 

Furthermore, what would the point of Nintendo changing to different hardware and then deliberately changing the hardware to make it make it more like the kind they were already using? It would be an utterly pointless and roundabout exercising in accomplishing absolutely nothing. Honestly, the most frustrating part of having this argument over and over is that it always seems to come from the same corner of the internet that thinks Nintendo hardware is based on "gimmicks" and then wants them to move to a platform exclusively controlled by the same gimmicks. It's also a move that financially makes absolutely no sense. Why the fuck would Nintendo even bother thinking about iOS when you compare selling 12 million copies of Angry Birds sold through the app store for less than a dollar to easily selling nearly twice as many copies of the 99 dollar Wii Fit just a few years ago?

 

*the only exceptions I can think of are the Kinect, which kind of didn't go anywhere after its initial success thanks to a massive marketing push and then became a pack-in; Wii Motion Plus, which never caught on at all until it outright replaced the Wii Remote; the aforementioned Wii Fit balance board which didn't have enough audience crossover to even justify the handful of other compatible titles; and possibly the 360 controller for PCs, which is its own weird deal.

[Twig]

You wouldn't even try it? I am a little incredulous that people have so much love for Nintendo hardware/software in its current state, yet seem to be able to give them no benefit of the doubt that they could potentially pull off a good mobile game.

Nintendo isn't the only good developer, nor are they the best. If no mobile games have convinced me so far, why should I expect Nintendo to be the one to do it?

 

Mobile controls are atrocious. I have never and probably will never like touch-screen only controls on those tiny smartphone screens. I've tried a huge number of games, and while I can get some level of enjoyment out of some of them, it's rare, and also it's never even near the level of enjoyment I get from more traditional games - be they PC, console, or handheld. Tablet gaming is another story entirely. There, the screen is big enough to accommodate things more appropriately. But only for very specific genres. Speaking of genres! None of Nintendo's franchises will work well on mobile. Mario, Zelda, Metroid? Those franchises would die if Nintendo went exclusively mobile. No thanks.

 

Also, you're confusing my hatred for mobile controls with my love for Nintendo hardware/software. While it's true that I am a fan of Nintendo, I am also nowhere near the level of a fan I was before, well, a lot of things have happened and now Nintendo is not a company I much care for anymore, beyond playing a few games every now and then.

[Ucantalas]

The only mobile games I've found that work are slower paced, mainly puzzle games, where I have time to think about where Im going to put my finger on the screen before I cover half of it with my hand.