Nintendo WiiU : Thread 05

[dataDave]

It doesn't just help. It's absolutely necessary.

And true, they will need to work around it; however the only way they can is with an array of reserved buttons for jumping to each of the team mates and/or the base.

[Fader209]

Someone posted a positive article about the WiiU?!

Quick, everyone muscle in with their usual tired negativity to counteract it.
We can't possibly have people enjoy their console choice.

[wakka]

Or use the analog stick to pick which teammate/base to jump to then press A to confirm.

Having a screen you can tap is better, yeah, but it's not absolutely fundamental to the entire game that that element works that way instead of using an analog stick to select and a button to confirm.

The screen is helpful on Mario Kart 8 too - indispensable online for seeing what items other players have. But again, it's not fundamental to the game and if it wasn't there, everyone would be on a level playing field anyway and it wouldn't matter much.

[Pikate]

Nintendo's issue is their brand is a maker of children's play things.

The Famicom was a success because of Japanese schoolboys/students (watch the Iwata asks with Kamiya where both agree on that fact) and the NES was the same in the US. The SNES and N64 carried a lot of those customers forward as legacy machines but the PS1 eventually won the same hearts and minds with CD-ROM and the wider range of mature games. The real game changer was Sony putting a DVD-player in the PS2, that legitimised gaming and transformed consoles into multi-media machines and while Sony did that Nintendo made a little purple box with tiny discs for a child's hands.

Then while Sony made their PS3 a sleek-looking blu-ray player and Microsoft made a console heavily focused on internet connectivity, social features and digital delivery of both games and video Nintendo made a motion controller for a console that was effectively a 21st century family board game (and still didn't play DVDs).

Nintendo don't make those entertainment boxes, honestly I don't think they can, the audience who make a console a 100-million-seller won't accept a multimedia device from Nintendo the way they'll accept a Sony DVD/Blu-ray player under their Sony TV or a Microsoft online device connecting to their Wi-Fi along with their Windows based PC. Nintendo have to make children's play things for success, look at how amiibo sell out and how Pokemon sells 3DS consoles. The Wii U hardware was fine, Nintendo have to be unique and distinctive, a tablet was worth a try considering the iPad craze at the time. The real problem for Nintendo was the branding, marketing and distribution. All of which have been a disaster.

People still aren't sure if Wii U is a tablet add-on for Wii. People still aren't sure if Wii U games will play on Wii. As for seeing Wii U at physical retail, well good luck with that outside of GAME. Wii U is a great console they just didn't push it enough, they got stuck in no-man's land with half-baked media functions like TVii and chasing core gamers with things like Batman or Need for Speed that were out already on PS3/360 or putting too much effort into funding/promoting things like Bayonetta 2 and Devil's Third which are very niche. I will always maintain Wii U is a great machine, I've enjoyed mine more than any other console I've owned, it just wasn't supported or pushed enough.

None of the complaints out there about Wii U will sell NX, what would sell NX is a cheap (therefore not PS4-power) console with a dedicated amiibo game at launch and a marketing blitzkrieg leading up to xmas. Once that game and amiibo became a Christmas must-have Toys R Us would dedicate large shelf space to it, Tesco and Wallmart would want it front and centre to get Christmas shoppers in their doors and it'd be an exponential million seller, like the Wii. A PS4 powerhouse with a traditional controller, blu-ray and FIFA/COD would do nothing for Nintendo, they lost the gamers who want that with the N64, Gamecube and Wii and those gamers aren't selling their PS4/XB1 mid-gen for a Nintendo clone of a PS4 (or even a more powerful machine), no way, no how.

[wakka]

Yeah to a certain extent I agree. Nintendo in the 90s served an audience composed by and large of children. In 2015 their audience is schizophrenic - partly kids and partly VERY ANGRY 30-something men. So you get Woolly World, and everyone complains that it's not as good as the one released in 1993. But the real market for these games should be kids who were born long after that.

That said though, they just need to make good games and everyone will be happy.

[dataDave]

No, they just need to make good games on a powerful console. Imagine how much better Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Smash would look on something as powerful as a PS4, for example.

[wakka]

Possibly, yeah. I'm not sure that the Nintendo PS4 that most of the internet wants would be a riproaring success though, but who knows?

[dataDave]

Of course it would. Throw four times as many polygons at Smash and watch the sales soar. MK8 needs a HD remaster as well.

[speedlolita]

No, they just need to make good games on a powerful console. Imagine how much better Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Smash would look on something as powerful as a PS4, for example.

Really? They're already 1080p60 with a highly polished visual style. Being on system as powerful as a PS4 would add nothing to them.

[dataDave]

It would add bragging rights for the internet people. The very same internet people who are going to make Shenmue III a commercial blockbuster.

[Pikate]

Wii U has good games, the worst Wii U games I bought were The Wonderful 101 and Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush but I'd have called them GOTY contenders on another platform. Even Yoshi's Woolly World I was lukewarm about when actually it's fantastic, just next to 3D World or Mario Kart 8 or Bayonetta 2 most games don't size up. Nintendo just didn't make enough games for Wii U what they did make punched above it's weight.

Case in point, I'm buying a PS4 in the coming weeks not because the Wii U hardware isn't enough, not because I haven't enjoyed Wii U games but because Nintendo have clearly dumped Wii U, all they have left for it now is secondary projects for EAD teams (Mario Maker, Animal Crossing amiibo Festival) and a Star Fox game they've farmed out to PlatinumGames. Wii U failed not because of the hardware but because Nintendo didn't have a clear plan for it, or any kind of direction or conviction. They stabbed in the dark and eventually found a direction with amiibo which came too late and didn't have the games it needed.

[wakka]

It would add bragging rights for the internet people. The very same internet people who are going to make Shenmue III a commercial blockbuster.

Ah yes - those same people that said for years they really wanted a mega powerful handheld with two analogue sticks and made the Vita a smash hit.

[randombs]

Haha I take back some of what I said. For some reason my phone(or my goofy finger) made the article jump past the title and opening bit so also I thought it was just a love letter. I resent being blamed for the Wii-U. Its troubles are due to things out of my control.

[Asura]

Sony putting a DVD-player in the PS2, that legitimised gaming

Not getting at you Pikate, but this terminology (which is commonly used) has always irked me.

[speedlolita]

The PlayStation "legitmised" gaming.