Iwata Confirms Nintendo Network, New Wii U Controller Functions 111
New submitter DeanCubed writes "In a Nintendo investor meeting, CEO Satoru Iwata confirmed a new Nintendo Network for the company's 3DS and upcoming Wii U game systems. This includes multiple user accounts per console (not tied to hardware, a first for Nintendo) and digitally distributed retail software releases for their online store. Iwata also noted that the Wii U's tablet controller will feature NFC (Near Field Communication) functionality, allowing the ability to use figurines and cards to input visual data to the console. They are hoping to use this to make micro-transactions for paid DLC easier."
Online network OK. But what about the Wii-U? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having read both TFA and a few other more detailed articles out there (Eurogamer has a good one), the Nintendo Network looks like a good thing, albeit one which is many years overdue. It'll be good to have the it there, but it's hard to see anybody getting excited about it, given that at best it will bring functionality on a par with Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
I think the Wii-U is a cause for greater concern. It's going to be launching in difficult economic times. The 3DS did that last year and its initial sales were poor. They've now recovered a bit (though they're still below forecast), but only at the expense of Nintendo having to sell the system at a loss. Now, selling at a loss isn't exactly a bad strategy (it worked wonders for Sony with the PS2), but it's very much counter to Nintendo's historic strategy. The Vita, also launching in difficult times, has had a poor Japanese launch despite a really quite good launch-games lineup. Having seen what the Vita can do, I very much want to own one - but I'll be surprised if its US and European sales don't fall well short of targets. I get the feeling that 2012 is going to be a really bad time to be launching a console - most people are unlikely to be feeling any kind of real economic recovery during the year. Microsoft and Sony have clearly decided to hold on and wait in the hope of a kinder economy; Nintendo, with Wii sales exhausted and their finances at an all-time low, don't have that option.
But more worrying still is the lack of a real public narrative around the Wii-U. The Wii had one of these. Motion control was easily grasped. You could watch somebody demonstrating one - or try a demo unit yourself - and "get" the concept instantly. If you actually used the thing more extensively, you'd come up against its limitations very quickly; the motion control was imprecise and in many cases placed a barrier between the player and the game that meant it ended up less immersive than traditional controllers. But by then, the sale was made. The Wii-U is a much harder concept to grasp. It's a home console which has some tablet-ish features. But how will it work with a room full of people? What will the tablet actually add to the games? And how is it going to be fun at a party with a room full of people with a few drinks inside them?
There are actually answers to those questions if you look around enough at the material that's been made available. But they're not simple answers and they're not easily communicated. On that basis, I just cannot see the Wii-U replicating the success of the Wii's early years. I'm also unsure that the pitch to the more traditional "gamer" crowd will work. There's a lot of frustration with the current generation's techological limitations. But I don't sense any confidence that Nintendo - who, let's not forget, have spent the time since the Wii's launch neglecting this demographic - are the people to usher in the next generation. I also find it hard to imagine developers doing much with the Wii-U's hardware - which is better than the current generation, but not by a huge margin - putting much resource into developing games for it that actually push it beyond what the 360 and PS3 can do. More likely, it will just get a lot of PS3/360 ports, which present little compelling reason for the "gamer" crowd to jump ship from their existing platforms until those get replaced.
The 3DS also suffered from a mis-managed message at launch. It was launched on the basis of "look 3d!" rather than "look, more powerful DS with better graphics". People weren't interested in 3d. A better DS is a stronger pitch and Nintendo have had more success with the 3DS since they switched to it. But I'm struggling to see what the pitch is with the Wii-U.
I've been wrong on calling "Nintendo are doomed" before. But I'm finding it very hard to see a convincing path to success for the Wii-U. The Wii was the right product at the right time (I admit it took me a while to recognise this). But for Nintendo to capitalise on that success, I think they needed to have a replacement ready by the back end of 2009 or early 2010 at the latest. As it is, they've endured a pretty grim second half of this console cycle and are in a very risky position now.
Re:Online network OK. But what about the Wii-U? (Score:4, Insightful)
at best it will bring functionality on a par with Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
And probably not even that. Though Wii has WiiWare, which compares to Xbox Live Arcade, I don't see Nintendo introducing a counterpart to Xbox Live Indie Games any time soon.
I think the Wii-U is a cause for greater concern. It's going to be launching in difficult economic times.
I was under the impression that toys were one of the more recession-proof sectors of the economy. What kind of economic times was the Super NES launched into?
It's a home console which has some tablet-ish features.
As I understand it, it's the evolution of the GBA-as-a-controller concept that the GameCube tried
But how will it work with a room full of people?
Only one player can use the tablet. Other players can use a Wii Remote+Nunchuk or the Classic Controller. How does the PC work with a room full of people?
What will the tablet actually add to the games?
For one thing, ability to play while the TV is in use. For another, the same thing that the second screen of the DS added in 2004.
And how is it going to be fun at a party with a room full of people with a few drinks inside them?
Developers of games for Xbox 360 and PS3 have allegedly already been ignoring this market, making games whose only multiplayer is online because they can sell more copies that way [cracked.com].
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This is interesting stuff - but it just serves to illustrate the problem. All of the questions I asked can be answered (as I said in my original post). But the answers don't fit into a simple narrative. And not all of the answers are particularly satisfactory or exciting. And when it comes to the last question (how it works with a room full of people), you basically have to just point out that developers for the 360 and PS3 have neglected the same market.
This is valid and true. But the point is that the "no
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A PC Doesn't work with a room full of people. The only time I've seen a PC work with a room full of people is when It's a LAN party, and each person in the room has their own PC.
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I remember some pretty fun experiences with a PC and a room full of people back in the early/mid 90s with the Battle Isle games (which I did a journal post on the other week).
Now admittedly, it was a room full of very nerdy people who actually found hex-based turn-based strategy games fun, but still...
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A PC Doesn't work with a room full of people.
In theory it can when games are programmed to make the most of a home theater PC by reading more than one USB gamepad. But as the Cracked article explains, big-name video game developers have been reluctant to cater to the HTPC market.
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I realize Cracked is not exactly a hard news source but the basic statement is true. The big-name video game developers have not really released any 'deliberately' HTPC friendly titles.
I would hazard that has allot to with the fact the HTPC comes with all the control limitations of a console -AND- the potential hardware compatibility, and performance problems of a PC. Sounds a recipe for an experience that is going to be at best slightly better than current generation consoles and a total headache at wor
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Just to be pedantic, but there's nothing stopping you from hooking up four USB gamepads to a USB hub, loading up ZSNES, and getting some four player Turtles in Time action going on.
Pretty much any console prior to the current generation is playable on the PC, so... yeah. Why have 10 or 15 consoles hooked up to the television when you could instead just have one PC with a bunch of emulators and ROMS and some USB controllers? And that's not to mention all of the games you can play exclusive to the PC that are
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Just to be slightly more pedantic, one thing would stop you: the SNES version of Turtles in Time was a 2 player game.
Super NES cartridges don't fit in a PC (Score:2)
there's nothing stopping you from hooking up four USB gamepads to a USB hub, loading up ZSNES, and getting some four player Turtles in Time action going on.
1. Turtles in Time for Super NES came out before the multitap, as basscomm pointed out. 2. Super NES cartridges don't fit in a PC without an obscure German adapter sold only online [retrode.com].
And that's not to mention all of the games you can play exclusive to the PC that are fun in their own right
Do you know of a list of worthwhile PC-native games supporting two to four gamepads?
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Simple, hotseat gaming a la Worms Armageddon / Worms World Party! We had some good times with that game back in the day...
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There are a few other instances that come to mind -- "You Don't Know Jack" for one. Sure, three people on the keyboard at a time might have been a little cramped, but it made the punching/shoving to keep from getting badly "screwed" all the better. Also any hot-seat games work as a group. Or classic adventures, where others can s
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I agree fully with the majority of your post. In fact, I think this is the only sentence I don't. People want 3D. But they want the 3D that's in Star Wars and science fiction, not the 3DS. I actively sought out a 3DS in Best Buy just to see the 3D, because while I've never been interested in touch and motion control as particularly useful to gaming, I think that 3D certainly could be.
But spending 30 seconds using a 3DS and playing Pilotwings Resort, it's clear from the d
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I think the 3DS would have done better if they had also designed the demo unit stands to allow for more flexibility in holding and viewing the unit.
Just like you, I sought out a demo of the 3DS when it first came out, and from the Best Buy demo station was not impressed and generally uncomfortable with viewing the screen. However, after my wife bought me one for Christmas and I've had a chance to play it while sitting down with the unit right in the "sweet spot" instead of awkwardly crouching over a too-lo
Wii-U - Lots of opportunities (Score:5, Interesting)
"The 3DS did that last year and its initial sales were poor."
The 3DS may have had sales figures that weren't as good as they were expecting, but having sold 15million units quicker than either that Wii or the DS, I have to wonder just what those forecasters were smoking at the time. The attach rate of the console was pretty poor at first but that was mainly because the hardware launched without any first-party titles alongside it.
"What will the tablet actually add to the games?"
Rephrase that question to what will the Wii-U bring to tablet games, and keep in mind how popular the touch screen has become as a gaming interface in the mobile arena. I think that's a smart angle to go for. Nintendo promised the world with motion controls, disappointed everyone at first, but then lived up to that promise (for a price) with MotionPlus. Considering that Wii-U works with Wiimotes, MotionPlus might get a chance to shine and revitalize enthusiasm for motion control like Kinect did.
"I'm struggling to see what the pitch is with the Wii-U."
That's probably because they haven't pitched it to us yet.
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Once they slashed the price, and then released the first major first party games, things started to do well. But till then, Nintendo looked to be in trouble.
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The Vita, also launching in difficult times, has had a poor Japanese launch despite a really quite good launch-games lineup.
The Vita (and 3DS) have a much bigger problem than hard economic times: the explosion in smartphone gaming. Why buy a dedicated handheld gaming device when you already have a perfectly good handheld gaming device that you already carry with you everywhere you go? The Vita is a bit more powerful than most current phones, but that will stop being true once Tegra 3 based phones become widely available. About the only thing dedicated handhelds have over phones is better controls. I think the Xperia Play is
NFC security? (Score:2)
I don't have any practical experience with NFC, but couldn't someone put a NFC reader up to unopened game boxes that have DLC codes in them and steal the codes? Is there a cheap and easy way to prevent people from doing something like this?
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Is there a cheap and easy way to prevent people from doing something like this?
Adding a switch or button on the device that controls NFC could prevent that functionality from being activated until the box is opened.
Disappointing with no Wii support (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel like the online component is a place where Nintendo had an opportunity to excel and they completely dropped the ball. The Wii had connectivity all along. It's storefront worked fine. But that was all. The Opera browser sucked, and still sucks. First they charged for it, but because it sucked they finally gave it away. You could add friends somehow, but it was some convoluted confusing manner of trading codes with each other and typing them in onscreen. They had downloadable games but no support for downloadable content (I'm looking at you, myriad of trivia games). Why? The Wii could have been a pioneer in living room web browsing and content but had nothing of it. It seems like Niintendo didn't thing this 'Internet' thing was going to take off or something.
And so now, they start to make an attempt at an online component but it's not going to be available to the millions of units already out there. Sigh....
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What about multiplayer in games? The Wii doesn't multitask. It can't have the app running while also playing Mario Kart to translate the new user accounts and connectivity to existing Wii games.
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What about multiplayer in games? The Wii doesn't multitask. It can't have the app running while also playing Mario Kart to translate the new user accounts and connectivity to existing Wii games.
but the Wii U will be significantly more powerful and hopefully they can add this functionality (and at least make VoIP a system level function like the 360) to former Wii games that supported online MUTE play. Love Mario Kart Wii and most of my friends have it, but we never play it online sue to the lack of voice support.
Re:Nintendo.. (Score:5, Informative)
Crashed and burned? They have sold 95 million Wii's http://kotaku.com/5879478/the-wii-will-sell-a-hundred-million-eventually [kotaku.com]
Nintendo did dominate the Xbox and PS3 to the point where both Sony and Microsoft felt the need to incorporate motion controls. Nintendo also made money on every system and if the Xbox 720 rumours are true, Microsoft appears poised to follow in Nintendo's footsteps with the next console cycle. The Wii did fizzle out toward the end of it's life but it's still a great console that shook up the industry far more than the PS3 or Xbox could ever hope to.
If anything I'd argue the Wii U is the lacklustre console. The Wii is a pretty hard act to follow but this is Nintendo after all and they could easily pull off a SNES here. Only time will tell but as far as the Wii is concerned, I'd hardly call it the flop you imply it is.
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But if you look at the wii itself, it was underwhelming from day 1. Poor game selection, save for a handful of first party titles, and the novelty wore off fast. It was bought, played for a few weeks to months, then sat on the shelf collecting dust for the rest of the generation.
Re:Nintendo.. (Score:4, Insightful)
That has not happened. Go into any Toys R Us, Target, Costco, Gamestop, K-Mart, WalMart, etc... They all have very large Wii sections. This is even now when the Wii is at the end of it's life, and it's successor has already been announced. Making the claim that all of these stores have been dedicating huge amounts of valuable shelf space to a product line that doesn't sell is a might extraordinary claim, and thus needs more evidence than an anecdote from members of a minority group.
My own anecdote is that I got my household a 360 for Christmas this year. On Christmas day, we spent about 45 minutes enjoying the 360, and appreciating how cool the Kinect is. We then spent about 3 hours playing Fortune Street on the Wii.
The Wii was terrible like the 2600 was terrible.
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And what about the recent announcement by THQ that they're no longer going to develop licensed games aimed at kids because the money just isn't there?
(Although my personal opinion on that bit of news is that they're merely looking for a scapegoat to blame for bad sales when the real culprit is crappy derivative programming that parents finally caught on to)
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Ummm - the Wii destroyed on the attach rate also.
It had 132 different games that sold over 1 million copies, 2 that sold 10 million plus, 4 that sold 20 million plus, and 2 that sold over 30 million copies (and I'm not counting Wii Sports here).
It also had another 18 games that sold 900k+ copies.
Sony would have sold their mothers to have that kind of sales performance.
Next time its best to keep quiet when you don't know what you're talking about.
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I disagree about underwhelming.
My own anecdotal piece: I went through four years of college, and the Wii was a popular item through all four years. Granted it was a very small selection of group games (MarioKart, Smash Bros, New Super Mario Bros, etc), and sometimes we'd watch someone playing a single player (Zelda, Mario Galaxy, etc) but the Wiis I saw in college were not dust collectors.
My own anti-anecdotal piece: my own Wii has largely been collecting dust. I don't have most of the group games (or the
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But look at this [mcvuk.com]
Wii sales in 2011 were clearly far below sales in 2010 At least for the Chistmas season. They "crashed and burned" almost as low as Xbox and PS3 during the Christmas season. Clearly Nintendo is in trouble!
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Have you seen Nintendo's financials? They are in trouble, which is why they need to develop a new console asap. How long did the Wii last compared to the Xbox or PS3, can you remind me?
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Yes, I have seen their financials. I think you've confused Nintendo's corporate losses with Wii sales, but the truth is that a combination of currency exchange rates, slow 3DS sales and lower game sales than expected are to blame for that.. Without the Wii sales, their losses would have been much heavier.
The Wii somehow still sold in greater volume than the Xbox and PS3 over this past Christmas season. Nintendo has sold 95 million units to date... just a bit less than twice as many units as either Xbox or
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Hahahahahahaha - their financials are because their money is in USD holdings, and due to the strong Yen, and piss-poor US dollar, there is an $864 million FX loss on the currency conversion.
But, you probably don't understand a word of what I just said.
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Its more like crashing and burning
What would be interesting is to see how much money the platform has generated aside from high console sales. While PS3 and Xbox have not sold as many consoles, I would argue that overall those platforms have been far more profitable in the long run. Xbox has their Live subscriptions, Sony has Home generating a solid amount of money through micro-transactions. There is a lot more activity in game development on PS3 and Xbox. Finally both Sony and Xbox re-invigorated thei
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Wow, you still don't get it. It crashed and burned. Have you seen Nintendo's financials? They are _hemorrhaging_ money. Sony and Microsoft are still selling well, Nintendo is dead in the water unless they come out with a new one quickly.
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I agree with your point about the perception of the Wii's performance as opposed to the reality.
What people don't tend to realise is that there are two broad ways to make money from a console. The "Nintendo" model and the "everybody else" model.
The Nintendo model is to sell the system at a profit - even if not a huge one - and then sell first-party games at it for a profit. This has to be quite an aggressively focussed approach and it generally results in putting out hardware that third party developers are
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Seen their financial results lately?
Yeah.
If the Wii-U fails, they're out of the hardware market. They survived the Gamecube generation because of the GBA and the DS, which they were selling at a hardware premium, with a solid 3rd party software lineup bringing them in free money. The 3DS is... finally... selling (though not quite as well as expected). But it's selling at a loss and with a pretty crap 3rd party lineup.
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erm, yes the first loss in 30 years... oh no shut down the whole company!
Come on, don't be so naive, Nintendo is sitting on a huge pile of cash from all their previous successful (at least financially) generations, they can afford to innovate and try to push the envelope. I'm glad they do it! They'd easily survive a Wii-U "failure", they have a great knack of making money consistently.
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Shareholder owned companies don't get to sit on huge piles of cash for long. Those little things called "dividend payments". Sega went from "mega-successful console manufacturer" to "out of the hardware game" very quickly indeed in similar circumstances.
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Nintendo needs the U _now_ and they need it to be ~25% more powerful than current generation gaming consoles.
They need the Wii U now and they don't need it to be really any more powerful. I mean it'll make sense to make it more powerful, but does it *need* to be more powerful?
They need games. Bad. The problem with the Wii was that everyone's grandma bought one for Wii sports and never picked up another wii title after that.
I think that more powerful hardware will lead to more developers signing up, but, keep focus on what's actually important here.
Games.
Also an HDMI socket would be nice too.
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> Games.
Dead Space: Extraction
Donkey Kong Country Returns
ExciteBots: Trick Racing
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider: Anniversary
House of the Dead: Overkill
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Mario Kart Wii
Okami
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre
Super Mario Bros. Wii
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Tetris Party Deluxe
Wario Land: Shake It!
Worms: Battle Islands
You were saying?
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err no?
There's the non gamer market that didn't buy games beyond what was packed in with the console. The attach rate for the Wii isn't that bad, it's actually way better than the 360's. I was working on some faulty preconceptions.
But ultimately my point was that what's important to the Wii U is what's ultimately important. Games.
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For a console that crashed and burned, it sure is following the same standard patterns of a normal 5-year Nintendo console lifecycle. I'm pretty sure they were still much more profitable this generation than the GameCube generation even including this years sales.
I found the trick with Wii games was to go into them with an open mind and try not set too many expectations. You'll enjoy them a lot more that way. There is a distinct culture difference in Wii games that just flies over the heads of many peopl
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They better come out with this quick. It's amazing how quickly they crashed and burned with the Wii. This is what I call an "I told you so" post.
It seems like only a year ago (and it probably was) when any time you said the Wii was in trouble someone would come and tell you how wrong you are and that the Wii is "totally pwning Xbox and PS3". I think anyone could see the trouble was heading to within 1 year of the Wii coming out, but nooooooo. "Oh, you don't know how much the Wii is dominating Xbox/PS3!".
Well, no - it wasn't. It was selling at a small profit for Nintendo but nobody was buying very many games. It was old technology, it looks like crap. It was a gimmick that flashed brightly for a while because of the innovative controller, then it died almost as quickly.
Nintendo needs the U _now_ and they need it to be ~25% more powerful than current generation gaming consoles. I wish them well, I think 3 major platforms is perfect and want them to stick around but I was a bit annoyed by the blinders people had regarding the Wii.
Nintendo profited from every Wii made. Sony and MS lost lots of money on every PS3 and 360 sold until recently.
The global attach rate for the Wii is about 7.7, while it's around 8.5 for the PS3. The 360 has an attach rate of about 9.2 in the US, and less globally (I don't know the number).
The Wii has sold about 100 million units and the PS3 and 360 are sitting at around 60 million units.
Nintendo is the developer of most of the top-selling games on the Wii, so they get 100% of the profit.
For the PS3 and 36
old school (Score:1)
When I heard about NFC in the controller... (Score:2)
Skylanders uses RFID for its "Portal of Power", not NFC, but NFC is essentially just building on RFID anyway, and is backwards compatible with existing RFID infrastructure and tags. The "Portal of Power" may have been a gimmick, but it was a very profitable gimmick that was popular with the kids. Incorporating that kind of functionality direct into the Wii U controller is a stroke of sheer genius from Nintendo, IMO. RFID tags are cheap. $0.15 for a passive (
Meh (Score:2)
Couldn't be less enthused about a new console then Wii-U. Wii turned into a huge disappointing largely because of the strict adherence to produce juvenile games and a stunning reality that Nintendo invested $0 into any innovation outside motion control. Wii is last Nintendo product I will own, period.
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But TFA kinda just disproved your notion that Nintendo is investing zero into innovation... where have you been the last two E3s?
I've been perfectly happy with the systems and games they've been putting out, but maybe that's just me.
As a gamer (Score:1)
Innovative enough? (Score:2)
The wii was a success due to the innovative new controls and a comparatively low pricepoint. admittedly the wii can be a lot of fun. firing up wii sports with people who would never normally touch a game (my dad and others) was great. and there are some good games out there.
however that time is over. looking at gamespot wii has had almost no good 3rd party games out in a while. i haven't bought a new one in ages. and Skyward sword while an ok Zelda game hit me hard because i played skyrim at the same time
Pokemon MMORPG (Score:2)
All Nintendo has to do is make a Pokemon MMORPG and they got the killer app for the Wii-U and the Nintendo Network.
Unless of course, they try to make it a WoW killer.
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Out of band initiation (Score:2)
99.99% of our lives will be nothing but a birth, marriage, and death certificate in 200 years.
Which is why Facebook has introduced timelines, and Ancestry has indexed old historical documents. Historians will have a lot more to go on.
But historically, Nintendo has been opposed to the sort of public social interaction and sharing seen on Facebook. On DS and Wii, players cannot communicate unless they have mutually exchanged friend codes out of band.
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"Which is why Facebook has introduced timelines"
I can see it now, a Ken Burns-esque narrative flashing up pictures of people playing beer pong and puking, and a deep voiced narrator saying with the utmost gravitas:
"Oh Em Gee, I can't believe I got so super smashed last night. Wut did I do? Seriously? Who's got the pics? El Oh El"
- Bob Henderson, August 5th, 2012
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"Which is why Facebook has introduced timelines"
I can see it now, a Ken Burns-esque narrative flashing up pictures of people playing beer pong and puking, and a deep voiced narrator saying with the utmost gravitas:
"Oh Em Gee, I can't believe I got so super smashed last night. Wut did I do? Seriously? Who's got the pics? El Oh El"
- Bob Henderson, August 5th, 2012
Weird. Not like I'm going to continue building the empire in Chemical Engineering my father began...
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But, will it have games geared for people OVER 5 years old?
Games for people over 5 are called school and career, where winning and losing have a deeper meaning and there are few second chances.
You could say the same thing about TV / Movies, Sports, Art etc... and you'd still be wrong in every instance. Games are entertainment. Entertainment has always been an important part of human culture. Be thankful that your schooling and career are so joyful and interesting that you never need entertainment... Not everyone is so fortunate.
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The cynic in me wants to say that if "school" was a game, it would be one which flashed up big signs saying "YOU WIN" and "1,000,000,000 POINT BONUS MULTIPLIER" every few seconds, until suddenly it was over and around 75% of players were then faced with a sign saying "Game over. Guess you sucked after all."
But then, I'm a hopeless cynic.
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But, will it have games geared for people OVER 5 years old?
Games for people over 5 are called school and career, where winning and losing have a deeper meaning and there are few second chances.
From the ESA report: [bizreport.com]
Around 68% of U.S. households now play computer or video games and it's not just the youngsters in the family that are doing so. While the average age of a gamer is 35, over a quarter (26%) is age 50 or over. The bulk of gamers are in the 18 to 49 year age range.
Dammit, how dare I challenge your preconceived notions with abhorrent facts! What a cad I am!
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On a more serious note: I really hope Nintendo will have some good games this time.
Because that dumb Mario five...thousandth edition thing they do with all of their titles, is really sucking.
Everything is so childish and dumb. For a grown-up, the thing is utterly useless.
Sometimes it feels like the music they listen to in the future in Demolition Man. You know, with every "band" being a childrens' choir.
What seems to be your boggle? Your face is all tense and angry, like you need to go use the three sea shells. Perhaps some music will enhance your calm.
Good things from the garden
Garden in the valley
Valley of the jolly green giant!
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Donkey Kong, Mario, Excitebike, Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Fzero, Star Fox, Pilotwings, Kid Icarus, Pokemon, Earthbound, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, 1080, Wave Race, Super Smash Brothers, Wii Sports, Xenoblade, Battalion Wars, WiiFit, Endless Ocean, and yet you say they just rehash Mario. This is a firm with the largest catalog of diverse and successful games ever made and yet you make it seem like they rely on a singular franchise.
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I don't anticipate buying the Wii U and hate the single tablet controller. I think it is a stupid decision. But they have a lot of third party developers confirmed to be making Wii U games well before the hardware is ready to launch.
And this won't be two Wii's. The hardware is considerably faster.
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You almost had me there for a second. But two things you failed on:
1) "Posting anonymously to dodge NDA" -- If you're really in a development situation with an NDA, you would know that anything you write at work can be read by the boss and merely "posting anonymously" is still an incredibly risky move that could very easily get you fired. Any developer with even an iota of intelligence wouldn't take that risk just to troll on slashdot.
2) "two wiis" -- rehashing the old and tired insult that the next gene