Flat Wii U sales. Decreases in executive salary. Wishes for Nintendo to do something radically different. There’s no doubt that the House of Mario is facing serious challenges.
They’re having a big investor meeting tonight. And the image above, tweeted out by a parody account pegged to Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime earlier today, suggests that Nintendo’s going to do its own thing, confident that its faithful will follow them.
Comments
16 responses to “Nintendo’s Recent Drama, Summed Up In One Cheeky Image”
could have sworn a motion sensing wii remote was a “gimmicky attraction”
On the contrary. I’d say it’s the gimmicky attractions that are losing them fans.
Lost Nintendo fan right here. Bought every system up until the GameCube
Nintendo is not short on gimmicks. Just there last gimmicky attraction (adding a leapfrog to the concole) just fell flat.
I’ve been a Nintendo fan since the NES, but I fail to see how the Wii remote and Wii U gamepad are not “gimmicky attractions”.
The Wiimote added a lot to certain games and when used well was a really cool addition.
The fact that a lot of companies couldn’t do be arsed to do shit with it doesn’t make the device bad.
Having a “gimmick” is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just something that makes it stand out from everything else. From Wikipedia: “In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something “stand out” from its contemporaries”.
I enjoyed playing games like Mario Galaxy with the Wiimote, so I’m not saying that the Wiimote was bad, it was good, when implemented properly. but with games like Smash Bros. where they gave you a few different controller options the Gamecube controller was my choice every time.
Nintendo has always been an innovator, if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have the analog stick or force feedback in our controllers, but it seems like since the Wii came out that console manufacturers (particularly Microsoft) are hell bent on trying to make us like motion and voice control. I don’t want to wave my arms about and talk to my console whenever I play a game, I, like many “core” gamers just want to sit down on my arse, controller in hand. The way gaming was meant to be.
If Nintendo wasn’t around, I think the analogue stick would be inevitable, the rumble probably not.
Playstation Move and whatever the Xbox motion thing was/is called tell me that the motion sense Nintendo popularised went beyond “gimmicky attraction” when it set a standard.
Move > Wii (non-plus) in terms of accurate. Sony just showed everyone what happens when you increase accuracy and release peripherals (the gun) that actually let you play the game in proper AAA style.
Also, everyone got sick of waiting for the HD versions of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. So they made:
Karting – Little Big Planet Karting, F1 All Stars Racing, Modnation Racers
Smash Bros – All Stars Battle Royale, etc.
Of course none of the things you mentioned really hit it off, because most gamers don’t care for gimmicks or imitations. I got the move, but it was never implemented well enough, even in Killzone 2, I remember thinking, it’s got good accuracy, but it still felt limited.
Little big planet etc are good karting games, with great flexibility, but just not as popular for some reason, which was the same as All stars. Good game, but not overly popular – one thing I found with All stars, was the over-complex controls. Something like that should be pretty simple, because the game is more about the over-the-top frantic action, then trying to learn complex moves, that are more suited to a regular beat-em-up.
BUT at least SONY freaking try different games, new IP’s. We wouldn’t have gems like puppeteer, Teraway and every other game I can’t think of right now. Commercial success be damned!
Don’t get me wrong, I like the WiiU, but they screwed the pooch with how they launched it, and how they continue to present it. We’ll see in the coming years, how the industry progresses and what happens regarding all consoles.
I’m sorry jasnjazz but you are a straight up troll and it’s obvious because you say you know what move is but you claim to not know what kinect is, either your dumb as a rock or gandalf is gonna turn you into one!
Not only does this insult anybody who abandoned Nintendo for not providing what they wanted, it also implies that “true fans” are brainless sheep who will stick with Nintendo no matter what.
Not to nit-pick, but the image was actually tweeted from the Reggie Fils-Aime parody account, not Reggie himself. “#TheRegginator Parody account. From the mind of @daniel_switzer”
Ahhhh, good spotting. It makes sense now.
Haha I love that Kotaku didn’t even notice that.
Wow…that’s a pretty massive oversight on Kotaku’s part. They probably should note that….
Well… that’s no small fuck-up.