I’ve played four of Nintendo’s big E3 2013 games and I’m still undecided whether to be excited or disappointed. Nintendo didn’t bring the shock of the new to E3. They brought comfort food.
They brought Mario Kart 8, which is a Mario Kart like all the rest except this time you can drive on the walls and on roads that turn upside down.
They brought the next Mario game from the ace team in Tokyo that re-wrote the rules of Mario in the Super Mario Galaxy games and then produced a sort of 2D/3D hybrid 3DS game called Super Mario 3D Land. Now, that team brings us Super Mario 3D World, a sequel with multiplayer and some cool new power-ups.
They brought Pikmin 3 that looks as good and as rich as the Pikmin games before it, now with an interesting extra “bingo” multiplayer mode.
Nintendo brought a new game from Retro, a studio esteemed for first making three Metroid Prime games that played like nothing else and then for making a modern sequel to Rare’s classic Donkey Kong Country sidescrollers. Their new game is a sequel to that Donkey Kong game. It’s lengthily titled Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze. It’s Donkey Kong Country Returns in HD, set during a Viking invasion of Donkey Kong’s jungle, replete with spear-wielding penguins and so many returning features. As in previous games, players can collect bananas, KONG letters and banana coins; toss Diddy at enemies; have Diddy barrel run over enemies; ground-pound.
Nintendo sceptics will look at this line-up and snort about how Nintendo doesn’t seem ready to do anything new.
They say they’re adding underwater levels, bringing back minecart levels and bringing back Dixie Kong, though I didn’t see any of that in what I played. One change I did see: sometimes the camera angle shifts and you’ll see at least some of the barrel-cannon sequences from a behind-the barrel perspective.
And… that’s it.
Well, that’s it plus Bayonetta 2 (see above…she has short hair now!). Those four Nintendo games and Platinum’s Bayonetta 2 are what I played at Nintendo’s booth in advance of E3. That surely doesn’t encompass all the games they’ll have at E3 for Wii U. I didn’t play the promised new Smash Bros., and at the time of this writing I don’t know if they’ll have gams like the company’s Zelda: Wind Waker remake, Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem or X or the new Yoshi yarn game. Nor do I have a feel for what they’re targeting to more casual players. They didn’t show me the new, now-delayed Wii Fit; I see no signs of the next Wii Sports, should one exist.
Nintendo sceptics will look at this line-up and snort about how Nintendo doesn’t seem ready to do anything new, how they seem to mostly go with what already works.
Nintendo fans, at least, might be delighted that a steady flow of well-made Wii U games are finally set to arrive from Nintendo. Or they too might be wondering where the “new” is. Nintendo execs sometimes remark that they can’t win, that they get critiqued for just doing sequels or for neglecting cherished franchises. Yet on Nintendo 3DS, they’ve struck an admirable balance, releasing new and old games, updates to classic franchises and updates to more obscure ones. That doesn’t seem to be where the Wii U is at. It’s still operating in the obvious, the predictable… the safe.
It’s clear that the Wii U drought is nearly done…Better times and better games are coming very, very soon.
But remember: at their worst, Nintendo still makes fun games than most other companies. That’s why I can also tell you that all of the games I played on Wii U were fun. All played well. Mario Kart 8 was smooth as can be. The upside driving may be automated, but I was able to manually cut around some other racers by finding and taking a shortcut that had me driving over my opponents on a wall.
Pikmin 3, which I played with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk looked great and was a lot of fun. It feels very similar to the old GameCube Pikmin games, but the graphics are richer and, well, I haven’t had a chance to command 100 little vegetable men around in a while. In the Bingo multiplayer mode that I tried, my opponent and I each had a four-by-four grid filled with icons representing enemies to defeat or items to collect. We raced through the same playing field with our growing, rival Pikmin armies, rushing to be the first to fill a row or column of our grid. Collecting a needed item or enemy would fill in that square in my grid and block it from my opponents. We could also use power-ups against each other’s Pikmin squads.
Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze plays shockingly similarly to the previous DKCR, but it’s undeniable how good it looks. Retro’s artists draw great jungles that are fun to romp through. The levels I played also seemed to be packed full of hidden areas, secrets and what have you.
And then there’s Super Mario 3D World… it seems to be brimming with new Mario formula tweaks and is probably the best thing they’ve got coming of what I played.
You can play as Mario (regular), Luigi (long jump), Princess Peach (flutter jump) or Toad (speedy), for the first time since, I think Super Mario Bros. 2. You can transform any of them into cats and then, as cats, swipe enemies with your claws or briefly climb walls.
There are all sorts of tubes to manually fly through, and there’s a neat opportunity in those tubes to spread abilities like the invincibility from a magic star to other players you contact (this might happen outside of the tubes as well; I’m not sure).
There’s a piranha plant power-up that lets you hold a potted, carnivorous plant and then run at enemies with it, as it gobbles each one up in front of you. The game’s dev team filled the Super Mario Galaxy games with fun changes to the Mario series. This game seems bursting with them too.
The subtext of this year’s E3 for Nintendo is that, while Microsoft and Sony bluster and hype about the possible future of their soon-to-be-launching systems, Nintendo gets to deal in the reality of actual games made for a maturing platform. They get to showcase the kind of quality games a company can make when it’s no longer rushing to hit the deadline of the console’s debut. They instead get to show us more complete games for their budding next generation.
What’s so strange about their showing — what’s so bizarre in light of the repeated calls for Nintendo to do a Sega and start making games for other consoles — is that the four, fun new games I played for Wii U, barely justify the platform. Two of them, Mario World and Donkey Kong use the Wii U’s signature, the screen in its controller, to simply duplicate what is displayed on the TV. One of them uses the GamePad screen as a map. The other, Mario Kart, uses it either as a map or a horn, depending on which display you choose. Nintendo could hardly have made a weaker case for needing its own hardware to make its own games.
A day ago, I talked to Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, a company that released a launch-day Wii U exclusive last November and has announced no Wii U-only games since. Ubisoft is still supporting the Wii U with Wii U versions of its big games like Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed IV. I asked him what it would take for Ubisoft to make a new Wii U exclusive. Nintendo has to grow the installed base of the machine, he told me. And he seemed happy that Nintendo was going to centre this E3 on five of their biggest possible franchises. From that executive, system-selling standpoint, he’s got a point.
Nintendo could hardly have made a weaker case for needing its own hardware to make its own games.
All this tepid reaction aside, the worst Nintendo can seem to do is merely make enjoyable games. Familiar games, but enjoyable nonetheless. All four games played comfortably well. Super Mario 3D World and Pikmin 3 even appear to be potential high points in their respective series. The former seems immediately stuffed with new tweaks to Mario gameplay. The latter oozes polish.
The worst Nintendo has done this year is that they’ve failed to surprise in huge ways (aside from announcing Mega Man for Smash Bros, that is!) and have allowed for continued doubt about what the Wii U is really good for.
On the other hand, it’s clear that the Wii U drought is nearly done. If you bought the Wii U or want to buy the Wii U to play a slew of fun, well-made Nintendo games, better times and better games are coming very, very soon.
Comments
49 responses to “Nintendo’s New Games Are Fun, But They’re Playing It Ridiculously Safe”
Did you write this before the Nintendo Direct? Pretty funny that they are THAT predictable.
I honestly think they’ve dug themselves into a hole with the timing of the WiiU , it’s getting no 3rd party support because it’s so far behind the real next gen systems and as a result Nintendo are having to phone in their major releases in order to fill holes in the release schedule.
It’s getting no 3rd party support because not many people own a Wii U, it has nothing to do with how powerful it is. Power has nothing to do with how successful a console is.
Agreed. Any real gamer will tell you that quality games and gameplay are more important than raw power.
The whole Wii U name debacle hasn’t helped things much either.
Power comes into it because it’s out of sync with the other two next gen consoles.
If you’re making a triple A game for the PS4 it makes sense to put it on the Xbone as well. The WiiU version would need to be specifically made to cope with the discrepancy in power, this combines with the low install base and means most companies just ignore the WiiU.
It’d the same thing that happened last generation with great games like Mass Effect no showing on the Wii. The big difference is that this time the WiiU isn’t standing up on it’s own like the Wii did.
“Power comes into it because it’s out of sync with the other two next gen consoles.”
Yes that’s nothing like the ps2, Gamecube and original Xbox…. nothing was out of sink there.
Do you remember when all three consoles got all three Prince of Persia games?
Developers can do it if the want, Nintendo will get there install base in time and third party’s will port games, unless they don’t like money.
Those three consoles were MUCH closer in specs than the Wii and Wii U were to the rest of the pack. The Gamecube was the last genuine attempt by Nintendo to make a console which could be sold on the basis of its power and sat comfortably between the PS2 and Xbox in terms of specs.
The Wii and WiiU are a close to a full fucking generation behind their rivals in terms of tech! If you think it’s going to be as easy for a developer to port over the assets from something like Battlefield 4 and get them to run as it make Prince of Persia on 3 comparable consoles then you’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
If you’ve missed that here’s the co-founder of Epic games saying “Hahaha, no” when asked if the WiiU can run the Unreal 4 engine.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/03/the-wii-u-wont-be-getting-unreal-engine-4/
EA have also stated that it won’t run the Frostbite engine being used for their next generation games.
When the Wii U is so far behind the pack that at an engine level games need to be rebuilt from the ground up it means they need a massive install base to make it worth the effort. They don’t, so they won’t get much 3rd party support.
It’s not so far that an engine has to be remade, for a lot of them it’d just need to be tweaked (which is normal anyway) to cope with the new limitations. And besides which, Nintendo don’t necessarily want the uber-realistic, generally violent games – just like with the Wii. Just think of it like the olden days when cross-compatibility was a scarcity; it’ll have it’s own library of good games.
You have just demonstrated you have no idea how a game engine works or just how complex it is. Thanks.
I haven’t worked in a big studio but I know a little about programming. If you’re talking about the low-low-level stuff, which a lot of studios have trouble getting into from what I’ve read, I recognize that the Wii U relies on PowerPC architecture as opposed to x86-64 architecture but unless it relies on that entirely for all cpu calculations and not just the mathematical libraries that’d be fairly straightforward. The CPU also only uses three cores as opposed to the ridiculous eight that the PS4 and X1 use so threading would be different (at least the clock speed is similar). It uses a standard AMD GPU supporting DX10, meaning that most games will be fine with that or just need to cull a few function calls (don’t know how big of an update it was but I thought it was pretty small).
Most of the other stuff is just changes to what SDK calls are made, exactly like when switching development from Xbox to PS or vice-versa. I expect that there’d be a LOT of IFDEFs involved between every platform.
I don’t mean that it’s easy, just that every platform is very different and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t reuse most of an engine. I was just saying that the Wii U isn’t such a leap as between the PS1 and PS2, for instance.
Programmer chiming in.
A well made engine will scale nicely. Yes you’ll have to write all the low level code to support a new platform, but the engine itself will still function.
Unity for example supports everything from Android up to PS3/360/WiiU.
Extra features will add overhead, but can generally be compiled out for platforms that aren’t going to use them.
Having said that using something like the latest Cry engine then cutting things out to make it work on a weaker platform is a waste of both time and money. Better off using something more targeted at the WiiU and adding features with all your leftover horsepower than the other way around.
TL;DR; You can definitely make an engine that supports all the platforms.
It’s not the engine that’s remade 99% of the time, usually ‘tweaking’ the engine to that extent is unfeasible and would require the original coder to go back to the drawing board and produce new development tools. It’s normally easier to do what companies like EA did with Medal of Honor and get a completely different development house to create a separate title under the same franchise using a completely different engine.
The Unreal Engine 3 for example has never been used in a Wii game as far as I know. The hardware just doesn’t support the things that the engine can do. For that reason fantastic multi-platform releases like Mass Effect, Borderlands, the Arkum games and Bioshock all just skipped the Wii despite its massive install base.
I think even the most optimistic Nintendo executive understands that the WiiU is very, very unlikely to build the kind of install base/ market share that the Wii enjoyed. Without it there is absolutely no justification for even considering doubling your development costs to create a separate Wii version when you can create a PC/ Xbone/ PS4 version using an industry standard like the Unreal or Frostbite engines and sell it on all three.
The 3rd party developers know this and have already jumped ship. Just have a look at the release schedule for the WiiU and it becomes pretty damn obvious. Normally this is fine, Nintendo makes the best games on the planet, but it seems this time they have been left so high-and dry by the 3rd parties that they need to fill the gaps with rushed out cut-and-paste jobs like New Super Mario Bros WiiU, Super Mario 3D Land WiiU and the “new” Wind Waker (I know that’s blasphemous, that game is a classic).
I love Nintendo and I want them to succeed, but I also know that if they were making software for someone else’s hardware they could release great games “when they’re done” without having to worry about stopping to give CPR to their hardware division.
I guess… I do think that the Wii U is a lot closer to the others than the Wii was to the 360 and PS3 but I am mostly talking out of my a**e so I’ll defer to communal wisdom. Hopefully they get some more support from 3rd parties (Sonic’s a pretty good sign)
Whilst I agree that the Wii U is severely under-powered compared to the two new consoles (Xbone and PS4). 3rd party support doesn’t necessarily mean getting all the cross-platform (Xbone and PS4) AAA releases
The Xbone has a controller, The PS4 has a controller, The Wii U has a controller with an inbuilt screen as its main input device. That tells you right there that they don’t want to be like the other two. We could have some really cool and innovative 3rd party games exclusively on the Wii U, all we need are developers/publishers willing to take the plunge.
Nintendo have always done their own thing, and that’s why I love them.
nope. You think the companies not porting their engine are all just lying then?
It’s just about investment versus return. Did you never play Metal Gear on the Gameboy? You can always port a game (if not an engine) to a less powerful platform if it’s worth it. It’s just not, yet. And I’m not saying it wouldn’t be more expensive moving from PS4 to Wii U than it would be for PS4 to X1, just saying it’s possible
On the contrary; I think it lacks 3rd Party support because it’s such a unique platform to develop for (seriously, good luck porting a game with multiple independent displays do any other device) and it would seem Nintendo don’t have a very good knack for attracting indie devs either.
After PS4 and XBone’s work today, I think the Wii U is comfort food for gamers!
(Hell; at least you know what you’re going to get from the Wii U)
I was happy with The Direct Steam, Pumped even!
I buy a nintendo console for these kind of games and that’s what im getting. If i wanted the normal stuff i wouldn’t have a wiiU….totally different market and personally i cant wait for what’s coming!
What did you expect? The console has barely any titles they need to bring in the big and safe games, they can’t afford to experiment until they have more games out and the console is selling at a better rate.
If they’d experimented, they’d get slammed for going out on a limb and not bringing out classic franchises. They really can’t win. 6 months of being criticised (rightfully) for no games. Now criticism for bringing out the games that everyone wants to play.
Me? I’m really, really stoked. This is exactly what I wanted. This is why my wife bought me a wii u. Mario. Mariokart. Donkey Kong (SO STOKED ABOUT THIS). Zelda.
I’m really looking forward to the next year on my wii u. I won’t be lining up for a new console from the big 2. I’m gonna be happy with my PC and my Wii u.
Yeah, the lineup looks quite solid now:
Super Smash Bros
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 8
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Jungle
Zelda Windwaker Remake
Pikman 3
Sonic Lost World
Xenoblade successor
The Wonderful 101
Bayonetta 2
They WOULD get slammed if they just experimented. Just like they are getting slammed for doing nothing new. I want both. Frankly, there’s not enough games announced at for 2014. If they aren’t up to it, they need to start sourcing out their IP’s.
Maybe… i don’t think they’re going to do that though. I didn’t own any of their previous consoles except for the SNES, but the criticism I always heard about nintendo was the lack of titles.
I knew that going in though. Didn’t expect to have to wait so long to get access to the good stuff, but we got the wii u so we could play nintendo titles. We have little kids and they love mario as well, so it’s perfect for us.
Thats fair enough. I’m merely pointing out that either extreme should be criticised and that the main problem is a lack of title overall.
But really I want a Metroid.
And not a single 3rd party game was given that day 🙂
The thing about this formula is that it works. I had held back from getting a WiiU because the lack of games, but I’ll be getting one when some of these games become available. Yes, it’s another Donkey Kong Returns by Retro… But the past DKR is perhaps the tightest platform I’ve played since the days of the SNES, so more of that is good. Yes, it’s another Mario by the guys who made Galaxy. And galaxy was a game oozing with creativity, clever gameplay and fun. More of that is good. More Smash Brothers and Mario Kart? Welp, hundreds of hours of raw fun will be had with my friends in the next years, I can’t see how that is a bad thing.
Sure, these games will lack a few dozen polygons, or a few hundred shades of mud and grit, or super-detailed nose hairs, or whatever features specs-driven gamers want from their games in lieu of fun, but I fail to see how those things would improve my gaming and that of the millions that have kept Nintendo afloat throughout more console generations than the competitors.
While I agree with you, I’d love another Mario game set in a truly engrossing 3D world like the ones from Mario 64 or even SM Sunshine and I think the WiiU’s shitty specs really limit their design options in that case.
I mean even Galaxy, as great as it was, was clearly (masterfully) designed around the Wii’s technical limitations.
Did you see Bungies Destiny today? I want Nintendo to make me a tremendously fun Zelda with a game world that looks that alive! I’m sick of small floating islands in the sky being used in Nintendo games to cover for the hardware limitations (Galaxy, Skyward Sword, tonight’s Mario game).
Pretty sure it’s an stylistic choice. I mean, theoretically, the WiiU should be able to output stuff /at the very least/ on par with the best stuff done for the PS3. They just choose to spend their dev time in creating actual game experience and more content than adding super detailed fog and shadow effects and life-like pore-y skin textures.
besides, for what I understand, neither the PS4 or XBone have as remarkably better specs than the WiiU as people were expecting.
It’s definitely a stylistic choice to some extent. To be honest I think the very familiar presentation of the new Mario is more a symptom of Nintendo needing to get the game out ASAP so they just stick to what they know.
The problem for me is this means a REAL new Mario (if one is coming) is probably at least 2 years away… I hate that it’s come to the point where the first 2 Mario games on their shiney new console look so much like uninspired rehashes of handheld games.
I swear I remember reading once that devs didn’t want to release on Nintendo because they didn’t want to compete with a new Mario or Zelda, so when there’s no new Mario or Zelda they complain that not enough people have the console for them to bother making games for it? Make up your minds.
When the writer says the game drought is soon to end he means 2014.
I really don’t care about 3rd party titles on a Nintendo system, they’re pretty much ALWAYS better on the PS or Xbox. That being said, I’m pretty disappointed we’re not seeing anything particularly exciting from Nintendo..as the article said, it’s the same old same old.
Okay, here’s the article if Nintendo went original and fresh:
“Nintendo have bravely taken the risk of showing some original titles, but the lack of staple names like Mario and Donkey Kong have us wondering if this is enough to convince gamers to buy a Wii U this year.”
You people are not even worth trying to please.
Everyone love to hate Nintendo do some reason…. I don’t get it.
In the end they will probably sell the most consoles again, slowly chugging away behind the big 2 fighting it out.
That’s exactly it man, they can’t really win with “gamers”, no matter what they do
Pretty much delivering what we expect. Some may take this as a bad thing, others a good thing.
I like comfort food.
I’d also argue that new games don’t usually equal new ideas anyway, that could also be called “more of the same” too couldn’t it?
3D world isn’t the grand epic Mario game in the vein of 64/Sunshine/Galaxy that I’ve been waiting for, but it looks alright I guess. I do like the throwback to Super Mario Bros 2 with the character selection, hopefully you can switch between them per level rather than locking player 1 to Mario etc. I assume this means that the storyline will be different from “The Princess has been kidnapped” too.
Mario Kart actually exceeded my expectations because I had set the bar so low, the wall driving looks cool.
I like the look of the X game.
Lineup is solid now:
Super Smash Bros
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 8
Donkey Kong Country Tropical Jungle
Zelda Windwaker Remake
Pikman 3
Sonic Lost World
Xenoblade successor
The Wonderful 101
Bayonetta 2
Maybe the lack of genuinely new stuff is disappointing, but really – when you look at where the Wii U is at now, these games are a hell of a lot better than what it’s currently getting, which is basically nothing. These won’t broaden their audience beyond their long term fans, but will at least bring in some of the Nintendo loyalists who are waiting for the actual Nintendo games to buy one. If these games can get some consoles sold then maybe we’ll see some risks taken later on.
The real problem is that they’re coming about a year too late – by the time they come out it’ll look more like picking up the pieces rather than creating some buzz about the console which they could have done if released at or near launch. You really wonder what their plan was, or if they even had one. Look at some of the stuff that’s come out for 3DS in the past year. If they’d just got half – hell, even a quarter – of those on Wii U instead then things might have been different.
To all those saying that we are impossible to please let me tell you how they could please us:
1 Awesome new 3D Mario adventure game to be released this year
1 New Zelda game to be released this year
1 Promising new IP
A few cross platform titles
THIS IS NOT ROCKET SURGERY!!!
Oh like Super Mario 3D World, Link to the Past 2 and Wind Waker (That’s 2 Zelda’s)?
Like that?
I should have clarified that I was referring to the WiiU, but seeing as the entire article went without mention of the 3DS I thought that went without clarification.
Super Mario 3D world seems to be a basic platformer like Super Mario Brothers Wii, where I have lamented the lack of an adventure game like Super Mario Galaxy.
I love Windwaker but a HD remake is not a new game.
I still think Nintendo’s games are in a different class to almost every other developer out there (bar Naughty Dog and a few others).
People can whine about Nintendo rehashing the same games, but almost every other game is derivative of games past, and slapping a new IP on or throwing more polygons doesn’t change that.
BOGGLES my mind that there could be an actual discussion as to why the Wii U lack 3rd part support.
It’s almost sold no machines and we’re over the 6 month period since release. Will it sell more? Definitely, because a price will drop, Nintendo games will release, but that’s not a reason for 3rd parties to invest money or shift focus from the brands who give the majority what they want.
It’s all about money for everyone BUT Nintendo, that’s why i adore them, they seem genuinely interrested in evolving games, but sadly they don’t realize that newcomers and people who aren’t that much into gaming (the type who gets the annual sport games, maybe a new GTA or a really hyped game once in a while…you know people NOT on these websites), they define next-gen in one way, one way only: GRAPHICS
Don’t believe me? What did you say the first time you saw the Ps1 or Nintendo 64? “Oh my god those INNOVATIVE AND TOTALLY REVOLUTIONIZING GAMEPLAY MECHANICS” – no, you were in awe of the graphics. Somehow that’s a shameful thing to be these days, ’cause a “real gamers” motto is “graphics means nothing if gameplay is bad”… Stupid, as if you can’t be impressed by graphics, that’s a very valid reason to buy a game, some people, a lot of people, are into that kind of thing.
But ask yourself, if you had NO IDEA what’s going on in the gaming world, and from Nintendos side, the only thing you have seen the past 15 years is.. The same.. Wouldn’t you want to the huge AAA hollywood like games, where possibilities are far more, and where the look of the game itself is a mystery as to how someone can actually build that?! Most people think of tames the way tou did when you first saw Mario 64 back in the days, or Ocarina of Time: these WERE revolutionizing games, they were big games, they were hyped and incredible all the way through, but they are old now. Even with a layer of HD graphics they are too simple to satisfy the modern gamer, and most of these games, while still fun to us who gets a sense of nostalgia, they have NOTHING on newer games, especially not in the eyes of newbies or people who are generally uninterrested in gaming
So Wii U won’t get support, because it’s trying new things, but at the cost of what draws most people to them. Wii was a succes because we didn’t yet understand the capabilities of HD graphics and the last gen. We didn’t fully get the ‘revolution’ Nintendo aimed for, but we heard of this gameplay that put you and your movements to play, and that was great foe a few years untill devs started to understand that nobody bought anything but Nintendo games for that console either. That’s of course exagguration, but look at how many Wii’s were sold, but how poor sales were for several of the huge 3rd party titles that actually hit the console, and this is what matters: sales and money. Nothing less, nothing more – it’s a business and Nintendo is doing it very oddly right now.
I love my Wii U, but i can already, and very safely say this: the machine will pretty much be dead by 2015. Nintendo does not have ressources to pump how 5 exclusives each years, and it won’t be enough anyway. I look forward to the E3 games, but damn it i was disappointed that they didn’t suprise us with anything.
Of course they have the resources to pump out 5 exclusives each year, what rock do you live under. They have plenty of dev teams and with all that money they have they can easily splash a bit around. I think Nintendos biggest problem is that they don’t like to spend that money. Nintendo need to realise that 3rd parties need a reason to make games for their console and money is the greatest reason.
I’m not to fazed though, Nintendo has always acted on it’s own and completely ignored the other consoles, I expect them to come out of this gen completely fine and ready for the next gen.
The usual suspects to be sure, but bear in mind the Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario-Kart Wii sold between 25-30 MILLION copies each and it makes sense.
At this point Nintendo aren’t trying to win the console generation this time but just please their many fans and make a truckload of money.
Of course they’re playing it safe. The Wii U has been underselling so they’re going to be releasing the cash cows (with all due respect) before they start taking risks. Once Super Smash Bros gets released more people will fold and get a Wii U and thats when i predict they will take more risks like say, a new Metroid or Star Fox (i would like a really big and adventurous Star Fox game like Mass Effect, expand on what Starfox Adventures did but bigger) or F Zero (I always keep saying that a 3DS F Zero game will do wonders)
As @boomzzilla said, NSMBW and MKW sold truckloads, releasing them will bring in the families. Then they have titles like Bayonetta and Smash for the more core as well as Zelda and W101 for both. They are covering all the bases and the only thing they could have done better with this E3 is put in surprise. Their christmas lineup has great variety and looks to be a winner and I fully expect there to be a 3D World or DK bundle of some kind.
Long time Nintendo fan, but this was not enough to turn around 2 lackluster E3s
And being only slightly cheaper than the PS4, stuck with last gen tech and being the only developer for their own system, nintendo’s in a lot of trouble…
They really should just show EVERYTHING in development, even if it was 3 years away and won’t represent the final product, just like the good old days
Mario 3D World is not enough to make me get a Wii U
And where are the 3DS games?!