Mixed News for Nintendo, Microsoft 155
If you were to just look at downloadable content this week, Wii and 360 owners would have a lot to cheer about. Virtual Console downloads include the (under-appreciated) Legend of the Mystical Ninja and the original Castlevania. Xbox 360 owners can finally sink their teeth into the board-game spectacular that is Settlers of Catan. Classic titles Millipede and Centipede will also be on offer via Xbox Live Arcade. Unfortunately, there are some less cheery things to discuss as well. Virtual Console sales are down, apparently, and some analysts are questioning whether Nintendo's success may be bad for the industry overall. As for the 360 ... the Elite may be bringing back some old problems. 'Red Rings of Death' have already been reported with the just-released consoles, and DRM issues with Live Arcade titles on the 'upgraded' system are making some new owners frustrated.
Nintendo is bad for Publishers... kinda one sided (Score:4, Interesting)
I say let the big companies fail, I'm hope I don't have to see Madden 2015 advertised...
Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Um... Isn't that what virtually any business aims to do? You don't think Microsoft and Sony are trying to do the same?
Although I haven't been following video games nearly as actively as I used to (read: at all), I thought Nintendo was making great strides to bring third parties on this generation, or at least claiming to.
Nintendo is the Future, Dammit! (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, I may buy 'this is bad for all the people doing things the old way', but this is only because the Wii and DS are two radically different paradigms. Once these interfaces take off, we may see the WiiMote and Nunchuk turn into a smaller, sleeker 'WiiWand' with 'Wiiry Stone' attachment, or the DS Lite become the DS Nano (or maybe the DS Slim, or DS Micro, DSleek . . . you get the idea.)
Nintendo is unlikely to change the interfaces AGAIN so soon, simply because these were so dramatically different from the norm, and I estimate that even if they update the hardware within the next few years, what we'll be seeing are not new systems in the vein of the PS3 where the engine development is the radical difference, but rather changes in form factor.
Expect crazy leaps of intuition like a WiiDR pad or DS games that are both DS-playable but have DS++ elements for whatever the DS's successor is, by all means, but since the most drastic part of Nintendo's great leap forward has already been accomplished, we shouldn't see another new switch in the actual computational hardware anytime soon.
Re:This is just. plain. stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Listen to them cry now! (Score:5, Interesting)
And how is this any different from Nintendo's business strategy from past generations?
Well perhaps it is bad for consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
Point One: I do not like nintendo games. I own a DS but not single nintendo developed game. Worse, all the games listed as being developed by nintendo leave me cold as well. So if other publishers, who make games I do like, can't survive, then I loose out.
Nintendo becoming the biggest player is only good if you like nintendo games.
I think people still expect that the DS and Wii are intermediate consoles, the DS was even claimed NOT to be the next gameboy but a in between. This might have been nintendo trying to safe itself from a potential failure BUT the idea has stuck.
Point Two: IF HD-TV takes off then the Wii might age a lot faster then previous consoles. HD-TV might not take off, especially if people do not buy the Blu-Ray player or the HD-TV addon player. *cough* PS3/360 *cough*
Point Three: See one. Oh and remember, to read carefully. Nintendo overruns the top end sales of charts on NINTENDO platforms. This can also be read thus. Do not publish games for the Wii because they won't sell because Wii buyers only buy the kiddie Nintendo games. Sure, you might claim that this market is big enough, but Nintendo itself seems to think it needs third party titles to reach that audience that its own games cannot.
Blizzad created a huge success with WoW BUT it also can be seen as bad for the industry as all that money is NOT going to other publishers and ultimately this leads to fewer games and less choice.
Does it help if you replace Nintendo/Blizzard with Microsoft and talk about the OS market instead to see the light?
What the game industry does NOT need is a monopoly. Not by MS, not by Sony and certainly not by Nintendo (especially the US half of it).
Success a bad thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Translation: "The old third party "same port across the board" style of developing doesn't work in this generation, we'd have to change the way we do things, but we don't want to or want to know how, so we will just whine about it instead."
Games are supposed to be about fun, not profit. If the game is fun, it will sell. if the Wii's first party games hurt Third-party devs' profits, it's not the Wii's fault!
Could it be that third-party devs would have to... god forbid, work a little at making a game for the wii? This reminds me of the same Bullshit that went on with the N64: Lack of third-party support. But that was for a different reason.
There really IS no reason now.
This exposes something about a few third-party publishers, and it isn't pretty at all.
Re:New gamers not digging the lackluster VC... (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the problems the Wii faces is that this is Nintendo's first major foray into areas that Microsoft came in, established, and is currently doing a "2.0" with. It seems to me that the VC is essentially Nintendo in the wading pool with online distribution, they're just trying it out for now. Same with online connectivity. Just be patient is what I keep telling people.
I still haven't explored purchasing anything through the VC yet. I have a sizable NES, SNES and N64 collection but they've got me very close. If the prices were like $1-2 less I would seriously drop the money no questions asked.
Re:A few thoughts... (Score:4, Interesting)
As the owner of a lovely ten shares of Nintendo ADRs, I can say that it WILL make you wealthy.. mine are up about 125% (yes, ONE HUNDRED and twenty five percent) since last March. If only I had more than ten.
Re:Well perhaps it is bad for consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It makes sense if you think of 'Coopetition' (Score:5, Interesting)
Developers can piss themselves all day that they won't make as much as Nintendo, but it's kind of hard to have any sympathy for them when their mantra is to develop for one console, and port to the rest (and ones like EA weren't even on board till just recently!). Of course people aren't going to buy Prince of Persia in droves. It's been out for the previous generation of consoles for how many years? Developers need to just stop complaining, and stop giving excuses so they can get out from underneath Nintendo's shadow, and *gasp* do something new & interesting.
Re:Well perhaps it is bad for consumers (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't help but think that if EA were required to step up, they would. (And they've said that they reckon they can become at least the #2 developer on Nintendo's platforms.)