I didnt know what thread this was so I looked. It's the wiiU mock one guys -Cowcaster

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > I didnt know what thread this was so I looked. It's the wiiU mock one guys -Cowcaster

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PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Supercar Gautier posted:

Has this thread become a competition to see who can describe games as inaccurately as possible?

It looks to me more like it's turned into people loudly screaming at each other, "what, different people have different tastes? no way, M Y tastes are just objectively superior and other people are just plain wrong!"

# ¿ Nov 23, 2013 19:45

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:09

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Quest For Glory II posted:

Who is buying a Playstation 4 to play Knack? They're buying into the brand. It's not like they can't just get Black Flag, or Ghosts, or Madden on their PS3/360. They certainly aren't buying it to play those games. Launch lineups are awful. I just don't think it's about having the games at this early stage. I think it's about the hype, and Nintendo isn't producing hype.

And I don't care if they do or don't have the games, if they were planning on waiting to advertise the system for when they had games, then they should have launched Wii U in 2014. Since they didn't do that, they should advertise what they have, and advertise the gently caress out of it.

The Wii U has been out for a year though so it isn't really about "launch lineups" anymore. Anyway I think you're both wrong, while some of what you're saying is true for other console developers, Nintendo have always been in the unusual position that people buy their consoles mainly because of the very high quality of the exclusive first-party titles, and the Wii U has so far been hampered by a severe drought in that regard.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2013 20:09

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

oneliquidninja posted:

I have a theory on how backwards compatibility is hurting Wii U sales amongst Wii owners due to perceived value.

I don't really have much to say about the rest of your post, but for this part I just wanted to say that, as someone who's seriously thinking about buying a Wii U right now (mostly because of Cat Mario 3D World, and right now it's looking more and more likely that I will), if the Wii U wasn't backwards compatible with the Wii I wouldn't even be thinking about it. I've never owned a Wii, and the ability to play through the back catalogue of games on there (in particular, the Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime series) is a very important consideration in my decision making. But probably you're right that I'm in a very small minority in that regard.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2013 15:46

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

keyvin posted:

I don't think its a small minority. Backwards compatibility was a big factor in my choice as well. Even if games are fewer and further between than on xbone and ps4, I can fill in some time with a wii title I got for under $20.

I was just guessing that the vast majority of prospective Wii U buyers would already have owned a Wii before, unlike (apparently) us two.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2013 19:35

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

zenintrude posted:

Yes. Please buy one.

He already has a Wii though. If I was in his place, I'd have to give some serious thought as to what I'd want to get a Wii U for, as I can think of only a single game out for the U right now that I want to play, that isn't for the Wii.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2013 19:55

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Edmund Honda posted:

The 1500% increase in sales was a single week going from the lowest LTD (2600) to the highest this year (39k) on the back of the new bundles and price cuts in Japan. They've dipped back to 16k as of the most recent reported week; PS3 was 12k that week.

They haven't filed a quarterly report covering any of the sales post-price cut. They shipped 90k in Japan 1Q, 140k 2Q. Worldwide was 160k and 300k. Those numbers are all pre-price cut.

Sold 95k in September in America with the price cuts and back down to 60k last month. October comparison: outsold 2:1 by PS3, 3:1 by 360.

It could quite possibly be the 5th best selling console in America for November. It's not even outselling the Wii by a huge margin.

tldr: yes, the numbers are up! But a 200% increase doesn't make it into a huge success, or even a Gamecube one.

Well, the usual staple Nintendo titles that come with every console they release, they've only just now, one year after the console, released the first AAA title out of that range. At this point they can only hope that this will get more people to consider buying into the console, like it did for me.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2013 17:38

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

ImpAtom posted:

Yeah I would not actually take those numbers as remotely relable. I am not saying the Wii U suddenly did well. (Honestly I'm more referring to the 15 point gap between X-Box and PS4 which is extremely unlikely.) Infoscout is just not a reliable source for hard numbers.

I don't know, they might actually be. For instance if the numbers aren't total number of units sold but only for the past few days, I wouldn't be surprised if the Xbox One hugely outsold the PS4 during the past three days only, for instance, because that was the release weekend for the Xbox One but a whole week after the PS4 launched, so basically when most of the available PS4 units had already been sold. Does anybody have any idea how many units Sony had held back/ready for black Friday? Not that I'm saying the numbers are accurate, either, just that they might be.

If they are, then that's obviously a bad sign for Nintendo, though. Didn't some (more reliably sourced) numbers come out recently that Super Mario 3D World didn't do all that well so far in Japan? A drat shame if true, after it reviewed so well :smith:

Still I guess the only thing Nintendo can do at this point is, continue to release good games so as to try and raise the Wii U's profile. Abandoning it would probably be a bad idea at this point, and also there isn't really something very fundamentally wrong with the console itself that one would expect to prevent it from doing well, at least with the usual staple Nintendo titles, even with the expensive touchscreen controller that (at least so far) hasn't panned out much.

EDIT: To add that vvvvvv the post below mine is saying more or less exactly what I wanted to say, only doing a much better job of it vvvvvv

PrBacterio fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 2, 2013

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 01:02

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Astro7x posted:

You know, sales were fine last year in November and December. Then 2013 came along with the Year of Luigi. I blame Luigi for all of this, nobody wants to buy a system for Luigi...

This theory makes me sad, but I can't find a single argument to refute it

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 21:04

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Fallom posted:

The sales were better (not good) because the Wii U had just loving launched you dummy.

(I wasn't being serious :ssh:

)

# ¿ Dec 4, 2013 02:25

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

BattleMaster posted:

I wish that the original DS had an analog stick like the 3DS because there are so many games that decided that the touch screen was a good substitute for analog controls (it isn't.) There are even some games that might be passable of the controls weren't so garbage, like Phantom Hourglass.

The controls in Phantom Hourglass were fantastic, though? That was one of my favorite parts of the game, it felt so intuitive and it almost felt a bit like a throwback to the classic point-and-click adventure games of old :ohdear:

PH was by no means perfect, though. For one, it was far too easy.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 01:39

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

TaurusOxford posted:

It's not going to get third parties regardless considering it's a generation behind in hardware, and even when it gets PS3/360 ports they're gimped versions.

I don't get why people keep saying that, from what I understand the WiiU has actually fairly beefy hardware, in console terms. I mean, obviously not nearly on a level to compete with the newly launched nextgen consoles, but still far in advance of the previous generation's standard. If anything, it's therefore quite solidly in-between generations, which also matches it's release date and price point.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 17:50

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Jeffrey posted:

Nintendo thought they had a new crop of loyal customers when really all they had was 2006's furby. I bet no one who had a furby bought the furbyU either.

I think they were fairly aware that the majority of the Wii customers weren't going to come back for their next iteration of console, seeing how they've been saying from the outset that the Wii U was more targeted at the "core gamers" market again.

thefncrow posted:

If you use a $50 loss as an estimate for their loss at $350, selling WiiUs for $200 would mean taking around a $200 loss per unit. And you can't necessarily count on production costs going down hugely, since Nintendo is using custom chips and touchscreen technology that's fallen out of favor.

I didn't know that. Couldn't they switch production of the gamepad to whatever touchscreen technology is now more popular (and therefore, presumably, cheaper)?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 18:03

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Keito posted:

I don't know man, they have Cranky with pretty appealing cane jumping features.

I still think someone should make a gif of that, in the vein of those COD: Ghosts ones people did with the announcement of "fish AI, so the fish can move out of your way" juxtaposed with footage of Super Mario 64 that has fish moving out of the way, only with Cranky Kong's cane jump cutting to Scrooge pogojumping on some chests in Duck Tales for the NES instead.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 00:19

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

It's still not too late for them to rename it the "Wii Two," and then come out with an advertising campaign centered on the slogan "Wii Two have a nextgen console!" :v:

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 00:24

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

MechaCrash posted:

At this point, I think Nintendo is trying to give us what we want. They want to give us what we want. They just have no idea what the hell that is.

A new Metroid Prime by Retro and a good new Zelda for the Wii U? This isn't exactly difficult to figure out, I don't think :ohdear:

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 00:34

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Asema posted:

you joke but there was a thread on neogaf where this argument was brought up

God that thread ... :bang:

Mennonites Revenge posted:

Maybe the formulation of this question indicates the problem. It shouldn't matter that Japanese game developers don't know about North American marketing; they should let their North American marketing division do their job. I wonder if there's a bit too much micromanagement from Kyoto?

Except I think it doesn't even sell in Japan.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 06:37

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Astro7x posted:

Exactly.

Huh? Has there been any news or other concrete evidence to believe that X has been cancelled?

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 17:09

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Paper Jam Dipper posted:

Okay...

So this thread wants Nintendo to make money.

But they want Nintendo to either make money by spending the maximum amount of money they have to build the strongest possible console (when everyone knows that consoles have maybe one, maybe two generations left of existing) or want Nintendo to just assimilate and conform to being a third party for a company that has more money than them.

Because Nintendo trying their own thing and being unique to themselves should be frowned upon and we should celebrate the fact that despite succeeding with their strategies on the Wii and DS, they are now failing with the Wii U and originally stumbled out of the gate with the 3DS.

Do I have this right?

Also call me crazy, but even with all the doomsaying and the bad performance so far and the wasted first year of the Wii U I'm still not quite ready to write it off entirely, mostly because Nintendo have shown with the 3DS that they have the ability to turn a situation like that around. Mostly, I still believe it all comes down to games; Nintendo's position in the console market has always been that they initially sell most of their consoles based on the strength of their own first party games, with any third party titles coming in only after they've established an install base that way.

The mistake they've been making, and are still making, more than the expensive controller, in my opinion, is that they've been putting way too much emphasis on side-scrolling platformers. The underwhelming Cranky Kong announcement is, again in my opinion, a symptom of that: It's yet another side-scrolling platformer, and there's not a lot of excitement anymore for this type of game. While such games might sell well and many people enjoy them, I don't think many people are going to buy a console just for that, and also the market's been rather saturated with them recently, in particular on Nintendo consoles with the glut of NSMB games they've been releasing for all of their platforms.

Mario 3D World, I expect, is going to move somewhat more consoles but on its own it's still not going to be remotely enough to get any kind of momentum going for a $300 console; my prediction (and iirc some sales numbers will become available tomorrow?) that there'll be a slight increase in the number of Wii U's sold this month, but not nearly as much as necessary or maybe hoped and predicted for by Nintendo based solely on the strength of 3D World alone.

A pertinent post I remember reading earlier in this thread said something to the effect of "probably a lot of people googled 'price of wii u' in reaction to 3D Mario World's release and then sighed in disappointment when they found out." Still it's not the price itself alone that's the problem, in my opinion; it's the price combined with the fact that 3D World is the only compelling game they have on that level so far, and people are (understandably) reluctant to buy what amounts, in their eyes, to a $300 "Super Mario 3D World machine." Once this becomes two, three, or even four games of that calibre, however, the situation might change and people take another look, in particular those who are now eyeing 3D World jealously but reluctant to buy into an expensive platform for that alone, which I think might be a quite respectable segment of the market.

In summary (and this might count as a TL:DR version of this lengthy post), I think, even now that they've finally released 3D World, Nintendo still need to make with the games. And substantial games that move consoles, side-scrolling/2D platformers don't count. NSMBU doesn't count, Super Luigi U doesn't count and Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze won't matter where it counts, and that is, in number of consoles sold. Similarly, I don't think many people are going to buy a $300 supposed "next-gen" console for WWHD, a slight graphical update and rerelease of a now nearly 10 year old game. Super Mario 3D World might have done it on its own, if it had been a launch title; but it wasn't, and Nintendo have lost a lot of consumer confidence in the year that the console has been out with hardly anything to justify its existence.

PrBacterio fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Dec 11, 2013

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 16:23

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

I'm not disputing the excellence of these games or that they sell well; the original NSMB for the DS is one of my all-time favorite games ever. And I do know they sell like gangbusters. Didn't NSMB sell something crazy like 30 million copies? But I think people in this thread are making the same mistake Nintendo made: Believing that a lot of people buying, playing and enjoying these games translates into a similar number of console sales. I don't think that is true. People who already own a Wii U may go out in droves and buy NSMBU and Super Luigi U, and probably the new Donkey Kong game as well. People who don't, though, aren't going to buy a Wii U just for that; consumers expect something more. I think 3D World fits that bill, but I also think that a single game like that is not enough anymore, a this point, to convince people to buy into the platform; it would have been as a launch title, but not after a year-long drought.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 16:48

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Paper Jam Dipper posted:

The Wii U launch had a ton of games but no killer app in the first six months. It took a year for that killer app to release.

Yes, thank you, that's exactly what I was saying. The only thing I was trying to say beyond that is, now that the killer app has finally arrived a year late, it's not going to be enough anymore. They need more than that. Had they released a game like 3D World at launch, things would have gone differently. With the loss of consumer confidence the Wii U has accumulated over a year, though, 3D World alone isn't going to be enough.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 17:12

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

whaley posted:

I need ten zillion games to come out a month so I can post about my twelve year old backlog please

The medical technical term for this is "Steam's Disease."

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 02:37

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

That loving Sned posted:

Have there been any series that have been improved when outsourced to a Western developer?

Metroid Prime is generally considered to be very good and a highpoint in the series, isn't it?

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 03:02

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Edmund Honda posted:

^^ the 2DS doesn't have two screens, check and mate

What? I'm fairly sure this is wrong, or is this some joke I'm not getting? For reference, here is a picture of a 2DS (from Wikipedia):

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 16:28

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Barudak posted:

Its actually one screen with dividers placed over it to give it the illusion of being two separate screens. Saves money.

Oh, I see

So is the bottom screen still a touchscreen, though?

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 16:31

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

They probably did that for the Wii backwards compatibility though, I would think.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 21:01

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

AngryCaterpillar posted:

Here is the redaction:

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_22013695

The Wii U does have a fairly good (i.e. high) attach rate though from what I've heard.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 16:04

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

hubris.height posted:

Apparently EA got really pissed off when Nintendo wouldn't allow them to take control of the Nintendo EShop and the Multiplayer Gaming Network (trigger warning, reddit) they intended to make and just shoveled the ports onto the Wii U as quickly / cheaply as possibly with no concerns for how playable it is.

They wanted to integrate all of Origin with it, I guess. Not exactly a trustworthy site but it is interesting. Kinda proud of Nintendo for having the balls to say no to EA.

But Assassin's Creed is made (and published) by Ubisoft, not EA?

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 17:06

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Equilibrium posted:

The Wii U port of AC4 is so bad I don't understand how something like that can be allowed to release to market. If your game is running at 20-24 fps consistently it might as well be unplayable.

Incidentally, welp, I guess this answers my earlier question, I won't be getting ACIV for the Wii U then, thanks.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 17:54

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

To be fair, without having played it, but what I've heard of Other M's story is, indeed, fairly dire. Samus is supposed to be pretty much the one Nintendo character who's the hardass, stone-cold badass type so when they go in quite literally the exact opposite direction with her characterization in a game's story then of course fans of the series aren't going to be happy about it.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 18:04

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

hubris.height posted:

Super Mario 3D Land is a blast and the joy I've had playing that game with friends is probably the most fun I've had playing a game in a long time.

(Guessing you mean 3D World? 3D Land is the 3DS one)
This point bears repeating by the way. It really can't be overstated just how awesome SM3W is :3:

Which also, once again, relates to the argument I've been making repeatedly in this thread: With Nintendo consoles, even moreso than those of other console makers, it all comes down to games. 3D World is really the ONLY killer app of that magnitude Nintendo have managed to get out so far. Unlike other posters in this thread, I lay the blame for the Wii U's failure in the market so far solely at the feet of Nintendo's sluggish release schedule of their major first party titles.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 18:29

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Quest For Glory II posted:

Presumably because they could add save states and button remapping to the emulators. But in reality, it's so Nintendo can nickel and dime their fans with completely nonsensical Upgrade Fees to play their old Wii VC games with those new features (that should have been in the original Wii VC in the first place).

Which is really stupid and shortsighted of them. With their position in the market right now it should really be in Nintendo's best interest to make things as easy and streamlined for their users as possible but well, here we are :sigh:

EDIT: To clarify my point: "Nickel and diming their customers" is precisely the position that Nintendo should NOT want people to associate with the Wii U, if they still want it to succeed in some fashion.

PrBacterio fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Dec 13, 2013

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 18:32

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Astro7x posted:

Nintendo will always be behind in terms of technology because they won't eat the price of a console as badly as Sony and Microsoft are willing to.

Except, with the Wii U, they are? By all accounts, MS and Sony are eating much less of a loss on each Xbone/PS4 sold than Nintendo are with the Wii U, especially Sony who I think are pretty much selling them at cost.
I don't think there's any reason why Nintendo wouldn't be able to, in principle, compete with Sony/MS on performance terms except that they decided not to, which, in my opinion, is because they feel they got burned on that strategy with the Gamecube, which was by far among the more powerful spectrum of its generation and still sold like poo poo.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 18:23

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Bobnumerotres posted:

Well I know quite a few people who picked up a WiiU, especially the SM3DW + NSMBU bundles for the value. Maybe for once a Nintendo console will do better in the west. It'd certainly be interesting to see what they do in response to an audience shift like that.

It's pretty alarming how lovely it's doing in Japan, though. Especially when the console launched with Mario and Monster Hunter over there.

It's doing much better in Japan than pretty much anywhere else in the world, though. Sales numbers over the holiday for the Wii U were actually even fairly decent in Japan, it just didn't last and now they've gone back to being terrible like everywhere else, but elsewhere didn't even have a short-lived Christmas bump of that size.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 00:36

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Astro Nut posted:

And I will say again, I really wish there was a strategy game for the Wii U that utilised the gamepad in place of the mouse setup. Its the closest you can get without just getting a mouse and keyboard, and given the struggle of getting RTS and other such games onto consoles and making them good, it could be a really interesting experiment.

I will never understand why they didn't do this with Pikmin, it would have made so much sense.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2014 16:42

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Paper Jam Dipper posted:

When you're a public company, it doesn't matter how well you're doing now. Only how well you're doing based on what you did previously. 3DS isn't doing better than the DS so the media and public perception is its a failure. Just look at how many articles discuss how "it's selling but not as much as they thought!" Of course, the media is doing this so they can push the smartphone agenda.

Yeah, sure. "The media" are pushing their sinister and shadowy "smartphone agenda" from behind the scenes :rolleyes:

Do you realize how paranoid that makes you sound? :tinfoil:

# ¿ Jan 19, 2014 18:24

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Papercut posted:

Right, so the Wii U is a generation behind its competitors, unless you consider its competitors to be 360/PS3. Nintendo is just now offering features that have been standard for years, while their competitors are adding stuff like Skype, auto-recording gameplay, PVR functionality. Some of these things might be total garbage, but the average person is going to compare the features and rightfully come to the conclusion that the Wii U is way behind feature-wise.

But the Wii U does have a built-in Skype clone app in its OS? I mean its not literally Skype but demanding that would be rather unfair, seeing how Skype is owned by Microsoft ...

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 23:02

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Right, but that's because nobody has bought the drat thing which means it's just another chicken-and-egg problem. Like I said, seeing how Skype is owned by Microsoft it's not like they could have just put that in and called it a day.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 23:17

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Astro7x posted:

Google Hangouts, Facebook Chat, create an iOS App that communicates between smart phones and Wii U's messaging system... Skype is not the be-all end-all to video chat. But even so, the reason Skype is so popular is because you can access it from anywhere. It's not like you can't use it on Apple products.

Any nobody is going to buy a Wii U for Skype anyway. It's just that the video chat is a completely useless feature with such a small install base. I am not even connected with my friends that actually have a Wii U.

True, that's something they could have done and hopefully that announcement they made regarding how they should look into how smartphones are influencing their business will result in something along those lines, though I'm not going to hold my breath :v:

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 23:25

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

Something like Phantom Hourglass might work, I guess. Still doesn't address the issue how any of this is supposed to get people to buy more of Nintendo's actual consoles, though.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 00:55

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:09

PrBacterio: Jul 19, 2000

I've found the curve to go somewhat like, it's slightly even more fun with two players than playing alone but it goes downhill fast with every further player added beyond that. Two-player mode is really the sweetspot for that game, imho.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 19:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > I didnt know what thread this was so I looked. It's the wiiU mock one guys -Cowcaster

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