RIP Nintendo, 1889-2016

[Merus]

Or done something interesting with their second screen thing.

[Frenetic Pony]

Or done something interesting with their second screen thing.

 

Second screens are used, primarily by programmers. Really if it was such a good idea why wouldn't we have done it before on the PC right? It's not like having 2 screens available for a game hasn't been around for a while.

 

On a side note, just for the hell of it, I'm also predicting Sony's picture division will be spun off. Or rather should be spun off. I mean, Amazing Spiderman 2 may well... or rather will lose money after the like 200 million dollar marketing is taken into account. And "Angry Birds" the movie, Popeye... I mean wtf? You don't have to be Amazing (cough) to do well in Hollywood these days (Cough, Michael Bay, Bob Orci, Cough). Just give people the stupid crap they want, which is apparently a movie where sci-fi gobbledy goop gets talked about and then something blows up in CG. Not an outdated, sexist comic strip.

 

Though admittedly, the "sci-fi nonsense + explosions" may burn itself out this year between Spiderman, Godzilla, X-men, Tom Cruise lives forever by sucking the souls out of people that watch his sci-fi movies, Transformers: Michael Bay's mountain of coke needs to be bigger, Jupiter "Who keeps giving these siblings money" Ascending, Guardians of the "Marvel itself will burn out eventually, all these movies are starting to blur together" Galaxy, Earth to "we stole the plot to ET" Echo, Dawn of the "This movie might suck cause they've not given it any advertising budget" Planet of the Apes, "WTF is this movie even" aka Lucy, The (totally not riffing off the success of Hunger Games) Maze Runner, and let's not forget Ninja "So much cocaaaaaaine for Michael Bay!" Turtles.

 

I'll even do you one and remove the "for kids" and "for dumbass angsty teens" one to keep this "OMG Avengers made all the money!" genre pure. That's still 11 movies, almost 1 a month, and far more than 1 a month for the summer where most of these are.

[Justin Leego]

On a side note, just for the hell of it, I'm also predicting Sony's picture division will be spun off. Or rather should be spun off. I mean, Amazing Spiderman 2 may well... or rather will lose money after the like 200 million dollar marketing is taken into account.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is sitting on a two-weekend international box office of $550 million after an estimated production budget of up to $250 mil ($225m says Deadline, including marketing spend).

 

Uhh.... are our reactions to this thread contributing to research for a new screenplay project?

[BigJKO]

1989?!

 

Accurate! Deal with it! 

[Thrik]

Second screens are used, primarily by programmers. Really if it was such a good idea why wouldn't we have done it before on the PC right? It's not like having 2 screens available for a game hasn't been around for a while.

 

Also, people who bought the second best-selling games console of all time.

[Bjorn]

Also, people who bought the second best-selling games console of all time.

 

Also people totally don't sit there playing their games consoles with laptops, phones and/or tablets open next to them.  Cause that totally doesn't happen.  Finding interesting ways to use second screens would be a waste of time since only programmers use them.

[Winnipeg Fats]

It's like anything, right?  Do it well and it's a good idea, do it shitty and it's a dumb one.  

 

I haven't seen much on the WiiU, but what I have seen hasn't made a great case yet for a second screen.  I find looking away from the main screen either breaks my immersion or my concentration, and the info on the second screen seems like it would be a simple enough thing to put in a HUD or behind a menu, since I'm not looking at the main screen anymore, anyways. Is the barrier perhaps that most games aren't developed to REQUIRE that second screen, making the design require that screen be superfluous?

 

That said, there may very well be compelling evidence that a second screen can indeed enhance the experience. I'd love to hear about it, if there is.

[lobotomy42]

Although I think the Wii U's fate is not great, I do think this is the right move:

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-13-nintendo-wont-launch-wii-u-successor-until-it-has-satisfied-current-owners

 

The only thing worse than losing money on the third-place console would be cutting-and-running from a third-place console, thus sending the message to their fans that they should never, ever buy a Nintendo console at launch ever again.  The last thing you want at launch is a bunch of your biggest fans sitting around saying "Well, we'll wait and see how it does before we buy it."

[Frenetic Pony]

Also people totally don't sit there playing their games consoles with laptops, phones and/or tablets open next to them.  Cause that totally doesn't happen.  Finding interesting ways to use second screens would be a waste of time since only programmers use them.

 

For concentrating man! Geeze you just hate thinking Nintendo is wrong.

 

Humans can only concentrate on one thing at a time, very few people can actually "multitask". For primary use, programmers are the primary people that actually use two screens, and that's just to display more information on one task, and that's side by side. Unless a game is so unengaging you can just look away without bothering to another screen then it's not happening. And if it did happen that wouldn't be a very good game right?

 

They've had 18 months+ lead development time to come up with something. Microsoft dropped the Kinect after 7 but you're still clinging to the Wii-U's second screen after all this time?

[Twig]

Geeze you just hate thinking Nintendo is wrong.

Geeze you just hate thinking Nintendo is not wrong. No, even worse, you can't even fathom the tiniest POSSIBILITY that Nintendo might not be a complete and total failure in every possible way. It's incredible.

 

Let's just throw out an example to counter your insanity: Etrian Odyssey is one of the best franchises to come out of the past few generations, and it owes a considerable amount of its greatness to the fact that it utilizes the second screen of the DS family so well.

[Bjorn]

For concentrating man! Geeze you just hate thinking Nintendo is wrong.

 

Actually, I haven't particularly cared about anything Nintendo has done in about 20 years.  My kid owned a Gamecube and I liked Mario Kart Double Dash.  I think that was the last Nintendo game I played?  The last Nintendo hardware I owned for myself was a SNES.

 

What I think is that you're wrong and making a lot of bad assumptions and bold claims with little to back it up.  Sorry if that's blunt, but you tend to be blunt, so why not.  Off the top of my head, people I personally know who regularly use multi-screens include:

 

Graphic designers

Video and Photo editors

Journalists

Gamers

Stock brokers

People who deal with databases all day (which is mostly what I do)

Online business owners (the other thing I do all day)

 

Those multiple screens come in a variety of categories.  People may have two monitors, a laptop and a desktop, a tablet/phone and a PC of some sort, or any number of combinations.  But all of them have found that having multiple screens available simultaneously for discrete tasks is better for their productivity, business or hobby.   A second screen may not always be a great fit for any particular game, but there are plenty of examples of good ideas.  The 3DS is full of them, and second screen tech is still in its infancy for console gaming. 

[juv3nal]

That said, there may very well be compelling evidence that a second screen can indeed enhance the experience. I'd love to hear about it, if there is.

 

Maybe there isn't a big enough market for it or maybe the underlying hardware doesn't have enough juice to do it well, but it seems like a feature built for asymmetric local multiplayer, doesn't it?

[Thrik]

Double post. Keep going!

[Thrik]

What I think is that you're wrong and making a lot of bad assumptions and bold claims with little to back it up. Sorry if that's blunt, but you tend to be blunt, so why not.

I'm afraid that I agree. The fact that you're completely ignoring valid arguments made in this thread in favour of dismissal is also a little grating, FreneticPony.

Again, if two-screen gaming is so silly then why is the SECOND-BEST SWLLING GAMES CONSOLE OF ALL TIME a two-screen console that frequently actively uses both screens? The problem is blatantly implementation/adoption. I'm not saying that two screens are vital for great games, but they can certainly be an asset.

As for the two-screen demographic comment, in my experience the creative segment such as designers, musicians, audio engineers, and video editors uses multiple screens easily as much as programmers. But what has that got to do with anything? PC games don't use two screens because most PC gamers don't have a laptop or rig at home with two screens. Also, two monitors is not the same as a TV and a touch screen.

[Frenetic Pony]

Posting that (yes people use it for productivity, ok it was just too specific of an example!)

 

Regardless, posting that made me realize something. People, just... everyone seems too much of a fan of Nintendo. Far too enamored to ever believe Nintendo screwed up. No one has had trouble calling out Microsoft on it's bullshit, and the One has probably been saved from a Wii-U or worse fate by it.

 

But no one suggests giving up the damned stupid tablet controller for Nintendo, no one. People triumphantly announce that Kinect shouldn't forced on people, but no one thinks of this for Nintendo.... it's useless! It's a useless, expensive, unnecessary thing. They could ditch it and drop the Wii-U price by $75 and probably salvage the whole thing.

 

And this, really, is why I predict Nintendo is just going to keep sliding. There are just, absolute blinders on everyone, up to Saturo Iwata, that Nintendo is somehow "different". That they somehow don't compete against Sony and Microsoft. That somehow smartphones haven't eaten into their handheld market. Every time you say that all people can say is "Nuh uh! That's not true, people still buy 3DS's." Newsflash: It will sell less than the DS when the world is richer than it was a decade ago and the video game market has grown substantially, meaning it should have sold more. So yes, smartphones have eaten away at it.

 

But it's all "Nuh uh, Nintendo will be around forever. Nuh uh Nintendo didn't make a stupid controller even though no one can think of use for it. Nuh uh, Nintendo's investors are all so invested in the company that they will bankrupt themselves just to keep Nintendo alive! I know it, I believe it." Even Iwata seems to believe it. And until that's gone, until Nintendo's magical fanboy distortion field is gone, and they can make rational decisions like sporting a good online infrastructure, and ditching losing prospects like their tablet controller, and etc. then I'm going to say they are going to just slide down the hole.

 

This is why I say they need a new CEO. Someone that can act rationally,  someone that can actually think of these things. But right now their big plan is to bring out another Mario Kart, another game that will inevitably be called "not as good as Mario Kart 64" a game that today would be launched on mobile for $3, but they'll charge $60 for the sequel, and no one will question them, because they're Nintendo and even as they post continual losses they can't actually make a mistake.

[Frenetic Pony]

I mean look at this shit, stop just rooting for Nintendo and read this: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-05-13-nintendo-two-years-away-from-redefining-video-game-platform-iwata

 

Really? Ok, yeah, you're going to save the Wii-U by just magically popping out the next Pokemon. Right. "We have plans" it reminds me of George R.R. Martin the South Park Black Friday stuff. "We have great plans. They're coming, oh don't worry they're coming. No seriously, stop asking more questions, big things are coming, I promise."

 

Maybe if the fans, aka most people on this thread, were as logical and honest with Nintendo as Microsoft's fans were, they might be inclined to listen. I don't want Nintendo to die. I like competition. But "believing" in Nintendo isn't going to magically wipe away half a billion dollars in losses with no defined plan to turn it around other than optimism.

[Twig]

People, just... everyone seems too much of a fan of Nintendo. Far too enamored to ever believe Nintendo screwed up. No one has had trouble calling out Microsoft on it's bullshit, and the One has probably been saved from a Wii-U or worse fate by it.

What the fuck are you even talking about? People on these forums criticize Nintendo all the time. Having problems with something does not prevent you from enjoying other aspects of that thing.

You're insane.

[sclpls]

Yeah... there is some major goalpost shifting happening here.

[juv3nal]

But no one suggests giving up the damned stupid tablet controller for Nintendo, no one. People triumphantly announce that Kinect shouldn't forced on people, but no one thinks of this for Nintendo.... it's useless! It's a useless, expensive, unnecessary thing.

 

What are you even talking about.

1) Just because they haven't demonstrated a good use for it doesn't mean it's useless.

2) It's precisely because they haven't demonstrated a compelling use for it that I haven't bought one of them.

 

If you consider NOT buying their product a case of being "too much of a fan" then I just have no idea what you're even talking about.

[Twig]

Also every Mario Kart except Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart Advance are better than Mario Kart 64.

[SecretAsianMan]

Also every Mario Kart except Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart Advance are better than Mario Kart 64.

 

I really loved Mario Kart 64... but I suspect it doesn't hold up.

 

Also still not reading your posts.

[Merus]

I mean look at this shit, stop just rooting for Nintendo 

Maybe if the fans, aka most people on this thread

 

Don't you dare tell me what my argument is, and don't you dare tell me that I have the same argument in this thread as everyone else. You don't get to speak for me.

[Bjorn]

Maybe if the fans, aka most people on this thread, were as logical and honest with Nintendo as Microsoft's fans were, they might be inclined to listen.

 

I'm speechless.

[BigJKO]

Where is this magical wonderland where no one ever criticises Nintendo for the shit they do? 'Cause all I see these days is "Nintendo is doomed", "Nintendo needs to put games on iPhone" and "Nintendo should drop that GamePad."

 

In other news, Microsoft is now selling Xbone's without Kinects! RIP Microsoft 1783 - 2014. "You had a good run."  

[Thrik]

It's pretty patronising how you're asserting that you're clearly right and everyone else is just a silly deluded fanboy Frenetic Pony, especially when you have little to no credentials that back up your apparent deep insight.

What's bizarre is that you're fighting points and throwing the fanboy label around towards a forum comprised of people who have been consistently critical of Nintendo's actions regarding the Wii U, 3DS, Wii, DS, and GameCube going right back to 2004. We've done this dance before.

You seem to confusing us not buying into your overdramatic speculation that's based upon no historical precedent or keen insight with us being fanboys. In fact, most of us are very much the opposite and are candidly realistic about all console manufacturers; this forum is great for such objective discussions, so it's shame that you're lowering the tone. But there's a difference between discussing failings and announcing the doom of one of the world's most successful companies.

It's clear that your ego and evident inability to see beyond a year or so — not to mention you completely ignoring points people have made in favour of inventing easier ones to argue against — will prevent any further worthwhile discussion here, so I think I'm out of this thread now.