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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

Nintendo Moves Back, Shuffles Release Dates 57

Press the Buttons has commentary and release dates, now that Nintendo has released their Fall release plans. Frustratingly Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing DS have all had their release dates moved back. From the article: " Q1 2006: Metroid Prime Hunters from Nintendo. Bad Nintendo, bad! This game has slipped down the calendar so many times it isn't even amusing anymore. First it fell from a June 2005 release down to August, then to October, and now it's dropped into next year. Here's hoping they're using this extra time to add online multiplayer support, because if not a lot of people are going to be even more disappointed."
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Nintendo Moves Back, Shuffles Release Dates

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  • No worries! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @03:50AM (#13387451)
    This game has slipped down the calendar so many times it isn't even amusing anymore. First it fell from a June 2005 release down to August, then to October, and now it's dropped into next year.

    I just hope they don't release it too close to the release of Duke Nukem Forever.

    That game is supposed to be amazing, and I'd hate to see Nintendo get scooped.

  • Well (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @04:27AM (#13387556) Journal
    I would rather they pushed them back to improve them than release a buggy piece of crap (Battlefield 2).
    The real people at fault are the marketing department for setting silly goals , Thankfully nintendo has the sense to push things back .
    I don't think there will be any kind of Duke Nukem farce , nintendo do have a long history of shuffling release dates and it normally turns out for the better
    • Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @07:39AM (#13388168) Journal
      Exactly. I'd rather play a good game later than a rushed game now. I mean, unless you own a games store, how does Nintendo delaying a game affect your life in any meaningful way? I'm sure you can find something else to do to kill some time while you wait.

      Although, to be honest, I got bored of the metroid demo after about five minutes. If you're looking for some gameplay to keep you busy, go pick up the Advance Wars game that dropped yesterday. I've had the GBA Advance Wars2 game for well over a year, and I still play it at least every other day.
  • Don't Forget... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Luigi30 ( 656867 )
    Half-Life was scheduled to be released mid-1996 but was delayed a year because the devs realized it sucked and they had to rewrite it...
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Daikatana was released years after it was initially scheduled to come out. And it was still horrible. Delays don't always mean a better game.
  • by wilbz ( 842093 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @05:28AM (#13387697)
    Maybe it's just me, but isn't this just adding more encouragement to those who (like me) have been waiting to buy the DS until there are more AAA titles available? What are the odds that the price on the DS is going to drop between now and when these games are released (especially MP:Hunters)?

    It will be real interesting to see if the two recent releases (Advance Wars and Nintendogs) are going to push hardware sales enough for Nintendo to lay off any cost cutting measures. Certainly there are going to be some pressures from Sony around the holidays, and I don't know if the DS lineup is strong enough to carry the system without a price cut. Will Nintendo try to lo-ball Sony with their older (and arguably inferior) but significantly cheaper system?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      They just announced a price drop to $129 a few days ago...
    • What are the odds that the price on the DS is going to drop between now and when these games are released (especially MP:Hunters)?

      I just read somewhere that the price is going to be dropped from $150 to $130.

      • I just read somewhere that the price is going to be dropped from $150 to $130.

        It [google.com] already [amazon.com] has [gamestop.com] been [ebgames.com]. Gotta love how Nintendo stories around here seem to have a mysterious effect stopping people from doing any pre-post fact-checking.
    • by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @07:15AM (#13388044) Journal
      Nintendo's Ace in the sleeve is the GBA compatibility , Now its a shame they didn't add emulation for the GB and GBC .. but its a small quibble .
      The PSP has a few good titles (though i have regretted buying one as by a few i mean about 3 , hopefully that will change before Christmas ) but the DS can survive a drought because it has a back compatibility list in the thousands with new titles released regularly for the GBA .

      Backwards compatibility can aid a new console immeasurably .. for example the PS2 when it was released had an awful line up , but there were some high quality PSX games that were just released (not forgetting the 5 or so of titles before that) .I would say that was fairly instrumental in securing the PS 2s place in the market.

    • As far as AAA-titles go, this fall seems to be the time still. Mario Kart, Trauma Center, Black & White, Animal Crossing, and maybe even the new Super Mario Bros. are going to be released before Christmas, plus Nintendogs.

      The price cut already happened, by the way :-) The DS price dropped 20 dollars on August 21st.
  • by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @07:44AM (#13388199) Homepage
    Remember how the SNES Zelda shipped late? Or how FF3 slipped and slipped? Remember how late the original Metroid was? Or how late Warcraft 3 shipped? The Sims?

    Once it's released, people will forget the delay. As long as the game is good and doesn't ship like buggy junk, bygones will be bygones. Nintendo has a solid track record in this respects, so more than likely in 6 months we will be cooing about how awesome the new Metroid is, and will have forgotten the delays. It's better to have a legendary title tomorrow than a half-baked good game today.
  • The Animal Crossing delay really ticks me off. It leaves me wondering why I rushed to get the DS last year. Nintendo still hasn't managed to produce any good games for it.

    I've always been a die hard Nintendo fanboy, but if things don't turn around they're gonna lose me. The turn around for new games is simply unacceptable...
    • Re:Damn it. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blueskatz ( 241135 )
      Seriously, chill out. At least they're doing better than the PSP. I felt the same as you until the last couple of months. But I think with the combination of WarioWare, Kirby, Advance Wars, and Nintendogs, the purchase was well worth it to me. Then you have the other interesting, but not "must buys", like Meteos, Pac-n-roll, and Pac-Pix that round out the system pretty well.

      And looking to the near future, next month we have Lost in Blue and Trace Memory, which both look promising. And by the end of the
      • Re:Damn it. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jonny_eh ( 765306 )
        How is it that you can consider Warioware a must buy but not Meteos. I own both and can easily say that Meteos is one of the best handheld game released in the past 12 months.

        I got bored of warioware after a week. I bought Meteos last month, and still play it almost daily. Meteos is the best puzzle game I've played since Tetris, IMHO of course.
        • It depends on which WarioWare you mean. The original and Twisted are pure joy, and last an amazingly long time (especially Twisted, which has a surreal number of unlockables). The DS-specific WarioWare, Touched, is the worst of the lot, although there are still cool things about it.
        • I think I may be in the minority, but I got tired of Meteos pretty quickly. I don't know why - I just didn't get into it. I've enjoyed all of the Wario Ware games though, and still play them.

          Glad we agree on Tetris. Though I think the best puzzle game since then was Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo.
    • Re:Damn it. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cdneng2 ( 695646 )
      The DS did seem rushed to get it out before the PSP. However, look at the lineup of the PSP games versus the DS games. There's a lot more fun games for the DS then the PSP. I'd take the DS anyday.
    • Umm, lemme get this straight... you rushed out and bought a DS knowing full well what the launch titles were and then get angry because a single game is getting delayed a year down the road?

      This is the problem with all early adopters of new gear. Eventually learn that the problem is not on the companies side, it is in fact your rush to have the latest and greatest with high expectations that have no basis in reality. I'm guessing you are younger as with time you will soon learn that having the latest "cool"
  • Looking back at the past games from Nintendo over the last years many of them felt rushed, not up to the quality that one was used from Nintendo, be it MarioSunshine, ZeldaWindwaker, Pikmin or WarioWareTouched. So while a delay might be annoying, I strongly prefer a delayed game over a rushed one, especially on a console where you will be stuck with that game forever, on the PC at least a rushed game can with a bunch of patches be brought to the quality that it should have had from the begining.
    • I disagree on Pikmin, which through successive replays shows that it's actually very well put together, and designed around the idea of playing time attacks. (The game can be won in nine days....)

      Pikmin 2 seems more rushed than Pikmin 1, because of the somewhat-cheaty dungeon design. It's still cool, though.
  • You're Complaining? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @08:23AM (#13388469) Homepage Journal
    Bad Nintendo, bad! This game has slipped down the calendar so many times it isn't even amusing anymore.

    This is exactly the kind of behavior we should be encouraging, not disparaging. How many times have we seen games released too early for no reason other than that was the stated release date, or simply because the Christmas season neared, only to have a buggy piece of crap?

    Sure I'm dismayed that the game I'm looking forward to (New Super Mario Bros) continues to be delayed, but I'd rather wait and have a better, longer game than get it now and be less satisfied. I think we could all do with a little less of this "I want it now!" attitude that has become so prevalent in today's high-tech age. Take your time, Nintendo. I know it will be worth it.

    In the words of Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game may eventually be good, but a bad game is bad forever"

    • While everything you said is absolutely true, if these games don't come out during the fall, what are we going to be playing then? Metroid pinball? (hey, if it's good?)

      It would suck if all the games then come out during the second week of January all at the same time. Let's space these games out a bit!
      • While everything you said is absolutely true, if these games don't come out during the fall, what are we going to be playing then?

        Maybe that would be a great time to start pursuing other past times, like reading, board/card games, and sports?

        I don't mean to be snide or harp on you in particular, but are we so dependent on video games that we start worrying when there's a slight drought in newly released games?

  • X-Com / LSN ! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sept. 6: Rebelstar Tactical Command from Namco

    Great. This is Laser Squad Nemesis for GBA, from the folk that did the awsome Laser Squad Nemesis.

    Great, great, great.
  • by webrunner ( 108849 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @10:21AM (#13389457) Homepage Journal
    A lot of the games people are calling "delays" aren't. Animal Crossing DS and Mario Kart DS did not have offical release dates until now, now they do (within the Q4 2005 timeframe that Nintendo offically stated)

    Any other release date you heard were just wild guesses (some of them were even in September and January which aren't Q4 2005)
  • It seems to me that it's lines like the last one from the article that generate unhealthy hype. I'm sure a lot of people would be happy with the game whether it had multiplayer or no, but if everyone gets this bad idea that multiplayer is the only thing that will save the game, then it's failure is certain.
  • *sighs* (Score:3, Funny)

    by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <tukaro@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @11:30AM (#13390060) Homepage Journal
    This plus the fact that they pushed back The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (did that even get a slashdot cover?) to spring 2006 makes me a very sad Nintendo user right now. I even preordered Zelda.

    I think I'll go make some soup so I can cry into it.
  • by DoctaWatson ( 38667 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @09:46PM (#13394735)
    It amazes me how people buy into the rationale that says the longer a game's release is delayed, the better, more finished it will be on release. Pretty much every +5 on this story is patting Nintendo on the back for "taking their time to make a great game".

    Does it ever occur to anyone that these delays might negatively affect the production quality of the title? Or perhaps delays have more to do with marketing than development?

    Sure, releasing early is a bad idea. But that doesn't mean releasing later guarantees a good game. (Nor does having the word Nintendo on the box)

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