Gaming Nintendo: Failure or Innovation?

[OrbiterSpore]

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/09/who-wants-a-wii/

Are "current gamers" the core market? I'm serious, Nintendo have introduced more people to gaming than any other existing console maker/software publisher. It is likely that a very large part of the demographic that they will be going after is new gamers or those looking to move up from the Wii.

According to Wikipedia, the WiiU will have similar processor technology to the Watson AI. That is kinda ironic to the common belief that Nintendo can't keep up with current console market. (Scientists, no sir; Engineers!) Also, i can surely say that who bought a Wii in their mind totally WASN'T looking for hardcore. And after a quick search on Google, WiiU shouldn't cost more than USD $300,00

I'm personally a big fan of Portal, considered 'semi-hardcore', but i don't like the gameplay style of Half-Life, though the story IS interesting to me. I just don't like the gameplay style, there's nothing wrong in that. Want highest-end graphics? Go play in space get a computer. We all know computers are better than consoles in the graphics market.

I think this somewhat applies to " mainstream hardcore gamers' " beliefs to WiiU in the future:

You see this tablet? This is why we're here. Because this little white and silver tablet is the most hated product on Earth, and we need a place to dump all of them. But those savages are also smart consumers, and they don't want to buy them any more than we did. We're on the brink of war, and you're supposed to be finding a business deal.

(Well... Unless Nintendo is planning to make the WiiU i black version, i'll keep one word changed. )

As for the motion controls, i personally experienced no problems with the Wii. The answer? Mainstream gamers are probably all mobility-challenged or unhealthily sedentary. What is the big effort on moving your arms or doing specific gestures? I really can't see.

Satoru Iwata stated on 2011' E3 that the WiiU was made "for you, your friends, and your family." Wii had this unique capability for reaching various age layers. So there's not much sense on buying a Wii to play alone, locked in a dark room, and the same goes for the WiiU.

IMHO, i see no point in believing that Nintendo is competing with Sony and Microsoft. Let's be realistic; each company is aiming at distinct objectives, Nintendo being the utopic, "Neucom-ish" developers in a global-scale outreach for gaming for all ages. Though it's a fact that every single industry in this world is competing with each other, i don't see any "Aperture Science x Black Mesa x ENCOM" competition.

As a unrelated side note, i believe the article was done referring to Brazil, since about anything related to gaming and electronic entertainment is overly expensive around here.

So, opinions? Thoughts?

 

[jedidia]

Nintendo has a nice history in innovation, and had a very lucky break with the Wii (it could have ended differently. technically, the console was crap. They profited from the fact that noone else had demonstrated that motion controls are a mixed basket).

In the hardcore market, they can't compete. Simply can't, that ship sailed long ago. And the problem is, in the casual market, they'll have a darn hard time unless they reduce the prices of their games by a factor of 10. Mobiles and the I-pad are taking up too much of casual market to leave much for casual gaming with a price tag of 70 Bucks attached to every single game.

 

[Alfastar]

Yep, If we must listen to Nintendo then we must play on a ugly tablet (Some things looks even almost the same as the PS Vita) and buy and play Mario games or games as Wii-sport.

I can conclude two things:

1: This thing (WiiU) can ruin the era of the Hardcore-gamer's, because everybody wills a family-friendly game tablet *Ugh*

2: the society is now in a tablets trend. Every thing what looks like a smartphone or tablet is ''good, better, cooler''

 

[Quick_Nick]

Wii certainly seems like the most family-friendly console out there. That has pros and cons as far as sales...

 

[Izack]

I haven't played a Nintendo game newer than six years, so I guess I can still say that I like them. :lol:

 

[mojoey]

They should have dumped the WiiU, and gone for a Gamecube 2.0

 

[Quick_Nick]

I haven't played a Nintendo game newer than six years, so I guess I can still say that I like them. :lol:

Yes. There is a Wii in my house and I can rarely bring myself to play new Nintendo games anywhere. I play NES, SNES, GameBoy, and N64 basically daily though. (emulation and the real thing) I much prefer the good old Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros, Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Contra, etc. over remakes of all said games. Nostalgia ftw.
If I'm going to play those sorts of games on the Wii, I'm going to use an older style controller anyways. :lol:
I've even got a NES-style controller for emulation on PC. (and Abobo's Big Adventure was fun)

 

[Unstung]

Other than their consoles, Nintendo's handheld market continues to be successful. The 3DS is selling really well, but as with the Wii, its games are generally more casual. Also, Nintendo has Pokemon.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

We've got a Wii, and while the games are not "hard-core" several do provide some very good gameplay. I'd like to challenge anyone to try the EA Sports workouts and not feel worn out after (and not be painfully sore the next day).

That being said, I don't think Nintendo did a good job keeping an eye on which games we marketed for the Wii. There was waaay too much crap available (shovelware) that really stood in the way of some really good titles.

I like that it can play Gamecube games too, lots of good titles can still be gotten on the secondary market that still entertain after all this time. Several NES/SuperNes/N64 games can be played (after download) and I can stream movies with it too.

I'm not enough of a gamer to get an X-Box whatever or a PS (place number here). Several people at work say that I need to get one or the other, to which I normally replay "You're single, aren't you?" (knowing that the answer is yes).

[opinion]Once a man winds up with a wife, kid, cars, house, bills, there are multitudes of things that he should rather spend money on than getting a new game console every 2 years.[/opinion]

I think that Nintendo does pretty well at the innovation part of the question, but they fail at capitalizing on said innovations. The 3DS for example, a wonderful hand-held system that wasn't released with enough titles to enjoy what should have been a lead in market share.

 

[Eccentrus]

well, my friends and me are all hardcore gamers, people who can sit on the front of the screen for 12 hours and stuffs, but when we go on vacation, what we would like to bring is Wii, no PS3, no X360, just the Wii, it's a console, for the laughs, not for serious gaming, seriously.

 

[Zachstar]

When they start saying things like "Watson AI, Cell, Brazillions of cores" I just sigh...

Sega had a great console called the Sega Saturn. At the time of launch it was being hailed as Sega's next genesis due to its innards being similar to high end Sega Arcade units.

Issue was for development it was an absolute nightmare to develop for. And the Cell processor had a much lesser but similar story of difficulty.

They are trying to get the CPU to be able to do more to make up for the fact that after less than a year these days the console GPUs are being beat by even upper mid range PC GPUs

 

[PhantomCruiser]

well, my friends and me are all hardcore gamers, people who can sit on the front of the screen for 12 hours and stuffs...

Enjoy it while you can :lol:

Ooooo the Sega. Saturn was great, Dreamcast (which I still have) was great too. Another two systems that failed because of improper marketing.

---------- Post added at 02:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:09 AM ----------

well, my friends and me are all hardcore gamers, people who can sit on the front of the screen for 12 hours and stuffs...

Enjoy it while you can :lol:

Ooooo the Sega. Saturn was great, Dreamcast (which I still have) was great too. Another two systems that failed because of improper marketing.

Nintendo has had their share of rotten eggs too. Anyone old enough to remember that game-glove thing they had?

 

[jedidia]

The 3DS is selling really well

After they dropped the prices drastically, yes. It doesn't change the fact that Nintendo lost the lead share in the handheld market to Apple, and they don't even sell a portable games console...

 

[Zachstar]

I think the marketing was fine atleast on the Saturn and it even had a modem addon (Sega Netlink) Tho the lack of a major Sonic title at launch was quite bad considering Mario 64 is what sold a crapton of N64s.

Yet it faced the N64 and Playstation that were far easier to develop for.