Since when do gamers hate Nintendo?

[Vyk]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will make me buy a WiiU. Until then, it has little interest to me. I kinda wish Nintendo would wake up and try a little. But since they won't, then I can's blame people for disliking them. I certainly don't want it to be another Call of Duty machine. But having almost exclusively casual and/or kiddie games doesn't make it appeal to me. I get the feeling Nintendo doesn't even want it to appeal to me half the time. They don't make or help port games aimed at adults, and generally don't care about a westerner's opinion

I'm sure there's many 40 year old Japanese men who enjoy playing reiterations of Mario and Zelda for the N'th time. But for me, I need more meat than just jumping on blocks or solving puzzles with voiceless characters. Story. Or style. Or something. I don't hate them though. I feel kinda sad for them. And I probably won't defend them..

[Mercen-X]

I was hesitant about getting a DS just to play Kingdom Hearts 358. But my mom picked up solely to play a hidden object game (the only one ever released for the handheld afait). I got a PSP only when a sufficient number of titles caught my interest (but I mostly bought it for Crisis Core, Dissidia was a bonus later on).

Can anybody suggest some awesome Wii games? Not Wii U. Just Wii.

[Dat Matt]

Depends on what games you are interested in and what location you are in Mercen-X. Region locking could prevent some goods games you may want to play.

[Vyk]

Its almost completely painless to hack your Wii... if the need arises

Xenoblade Chronicles is probably the best on the system

A couple other top contenders are Muramasa The Demon Blade, and Resident Evil 4 if you haven't played it already. Though on that note, if you have an older Wii, there's a few dozen amazing GameCube games worth looking into as well

Some of the ones that are always in top lists that interest me and may interest you are things like No More Heroes and Red Steel 2

You can get Cave Story from the store, I can't remember if it's $5 or $10. If it's $5 it's totally worth it. Still one of the best indie platformers with an interesting story and awesome Metroid style gameplay

[black orb]

>>> Isnt the 3DS one of the top-selling consoles?
I dont see the hate there..

[Madame Adequate]

Nintendo is almost two different companies these days, the handheld market is a roaring success that shows with some work you can turn around something once believed to be on the road to failure, whilst the WiiU seems to be demonstrating that sometimes you can do not such thing.

[Wolf Kanno]

Gamers have been hating on them since the N64 days to be honest, that was pretty much when they started to become known as a system with a few really awesome games and a large library that wasn't.

I'll come back to this topic when I have more time to think it over but one odd thing I have been noticing with the WiiU is that people kind of like it better than the Wii, I mean I have friends and acquaintances who all hate the Wii and motion control gaming with a passion but they all oddly think the WiiU is actually a good system that just happens to have nothing on it. I think Nintendo could turn the Wii U around but they need to fix three things, none of which will be easy for them.

1) They need to re-brand the system and show why it is something to pay attention to. They need to sell to both developers and consumers that it is something special and the controller serves a purpose to enhance gaming beyond being a convenient menu hub. They may need to even do a redesign to fix some of the consoles technical problems more of that below...

2) They need to fix their online infrastructure. They are lagging behind their competitors, even though it has improved over time, it still feels like they are resentful about it, and Nintendo has several franchises that could easily take advantage of it. If Nintendo was desperate enough, I feel they could easily turn the system around by rebuilding their internet structure to something more modern and then debut it with a Pokemon MMO that has compatibility with the current entry on the 3DS so you can swap in Pokemon between games. Not likely to happen but I feel it would have a fair shot of getting people to notice.

3) Win back third party developers. Which has been on Nintendo's To-Do list for their main consoles since the N64. The Wii U was meant to do this but it's cumbersome architecture and Nintendo's general lack of helping developers not directly co-developing for them has shot them in the foot. This could be partially fixed with a re-branding and a release of a Version 2.0 of the system but even then I feel Nintendo needs to finally give up on some of their control issues. Sadly, even just getting ports is not likely to happen too often for the system since it's way under powered compared to its competitors. I mean part of the success of X-Box and Playstation is that they can both play similar powered games, though one often gets shafted in the process but developers are much more likely to consider your console if just tweaking some code will make it work on multiple systems. Wii U can't really do that and will have to survive on unique gaming experiences instead of relying on mulch-platform help like they had hoped.

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, it may not have the power or games, but as a System it's pretty cool. The controller is far more comforatable to hold then you would think, the touch works as a great menu hub, being able to play games just off the screen without a tv is actually pretty cool, and there are a few things I could think of that could use that touch screen very well.

It really isn't a bad system at all, Nintendo's smurfed up more on the marketing end (To both consumers and developers) that has prevented it from getting any solid games, from an actual production stand point they did just fine. (Well, online infrastructure asside. )

[maybee]

It's because it's not the cool/ hip/ in thing anymore.


It doesn't have the Halo or the Call Of Duty and the Mountain Dew advertising bro.



Nintendo makes ' children games '

[Dat Matt]

That's the confusing thing about the Wii u. It is playing inna competley different leauge from the rest of the other video game mediums. Ps4 and Xb1 while pushing out the content (eventually) that our less hardcore audience will play (those that play consoles for Fifa/maddrm/cod a few hours a week) will be the majority of the sales for the ps4 and xb1. The players that dedicate more time to games should be moving to PC gaming this generation. PC gaming is cheaper overall, has better visuals, is upgradeable and will play 90% of the big releases on consoles.

What PC gaming won't do is play Nintendo games. Nintendo games are never on any other formats, so the Wii u should be pulling in people that are looking for that more childlike variety in there games. But with games such as pikmin 3, super Mario 3d world, wind waker hd and the wonderful 101 its not giving enough varaition to this norm that is found elsewhere. You don't buy a Nintendo console to play Fifa or call of duty, you do it yo play metriod, Zelda, kirby etc. That's where the have fallen flat. Its taken them a year and a half of poor sales to get a game that I, diehard Nintendo fan #53246, can get excited about playing rather than "eh I'll buy it to play it at some point".

[Aulayna]

I do wonder if a lot of the hate stemmed from the N64/PSone era. The Saturn flopped pretty hard, and the Dreamcast never really picked up traction - so there was a lot of Sega fans who may have adopted either a PS or N64. This meant that it was just Nintendo v Sony for a while, with PS being the more popular of the two and more known for it's "edgier" marketting etc. Then as more and more consumers came in with the PS2/Gamecube/XBOX era it was generally commonplace for people to bash the Gamecube as the kiddies console.

I miss the Gamecube era Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Party 4, Mario Tennis, Super Monkey Ball... oh what fun at sleep-overs we had. Then stuff like RE, RE0, Metroid Prime, Tales of Symphonia, Baton Kaitos. Plus it had the best version of Soul Calibur 2.

I guess they also kind of screwed themselves over by not picking up on the multimedia side of things either. Those tiny CDs, whereas PS2s and XBOXs could play DVDs, that was a pretty big things really to have an all-in-one multimedia machine back then, especially as the PC lull started a bit once the home console popularity started going up.

[Ayen]

I think maybee hit the nail on the head personally. Nintendo has been labeled as the consoles for kids. I think that goes as far back as the Super Nintendo. I can't remember where I read it, but I think there was a survey or something taken where a lot of boys wouldn't fess up to owning a SNES for this reason.

*shrugs* I've always liked Nintendo. The NES was where I broke into gaming. My first system was a N64 and I thought it had a fantastic library all its own. I enjoyed my Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo GameCube. I'll always appreciate them trying to be innovative. It's one of the things I love about them.

[Wolf Kanno]

I guess they also kind of screwed themselves over by not picking up on the multimedia side of things either. Those tiny CDs, whereas PS2s and XBOXs could play DVDs, that was a pretty big things really to have an all-in-one multimedia machine back then, especially as the PC lull started a bit once the home console popularity started going up.

This is Nintendo's other problem and one of the reasons why third-party developers hate them because Nintendo always creates their own proprietary formats which are generally a bit more pricey, difficult to work with, and gives Nintendo more leverage when dealing with third-party developers. The whole jumping ship that happened with the N64 was due to Nintendo sticking to cartridge over moving onto CD based games. On the other hand, as Mr. Shauna points out, this is part of the reason why PC never gets Nintendo's games until emulation catches up because unlike Sony and Microsoft's machines which are basically underpowered PCs, Nintendo's system is usually a bit more unique and thus their games always remain exclusive whereas Sony and Microsoft now have to contend with the PC market hogging part of their profit shares. The crippling of exclusives we witness last-gen dealt a serious blow to the console market and finally allowed PC to be something noticed.

I think maybee hit the nail on the head personally. Nintendo has been labeled as the consoles for kids. I think that goes as far back as the Super Nintendo. I can't remember where I read it, but I think there was a survey or something taken where a lot of boys wouldn't fess up to owning a SNES for this reason.

That is news to me.

The closest Nintendo ever got nailed with the "kiddie" moniker was from how they handled Mortal Kombat 1 by removing the blood and replacing some of the more graphic Finishing Moves but the backlash was enough to make sure MKII and III never saw such censorship. I feel the kiddie moniker started with the N64, mainly because all the mature third-party games wound up on Sony whereas Nintendo was left with their more family friendly first-party titles. I remember Conker's Bad Fur Day being a big deal cause it was much more mature than other games on the platform.

[Colonel Angus]

I guess they also kind of screwed themselves over by not picking up on the multimedia side of things either. Those tiny CDs, whereas PS2s and XBOXs could play DVDs, that was a pretty big things really to have an all-in-one multimedia machine back then, especially as the PC lull started a bit once the home console popularity started going up.

This right here is an interesting point. They claimed the only reason for the minidiscs was to prevent piracy (lol, right?). They concerned themselves so much w/ "protecting" their product, they missed the modern innovations, & in turn put out a product that couldn't reach it's full potential. Even now, they won't use DVDs for the same reason. In turn, for how "innovative" Nintendo comes off, this set back almost takes away innovation.

It reminds me of Bill Wirtz, the late owner of the Chicago Blackhawks NHL team. From the 70s or so until his death he forbid his team's home games from airing on television. He did it under the guise of "protecting" the ticket buyer. But what he did was take away the best way to promote his team. This in turn lead the team to have only a small faction of fans, most of who remember the team from the pre-tv ban era.

Like Wirtz, who's unfounded fears led to his teams unpopularity, Nintendo's fears lead their system's unpopularity.

[Dat Matt]

I remember reading an interview behind the whole "Lack of DVD support" for the systems. I believe it was Minamoto that said that most entertainment systems in a family home have access to a DVD player, so they could "non-value added costs" . This means that knowing the end user would not have any practical reason to have a 2nd or 3rd DVD player in their entertainment unit, they can reduce the costs of the system accordingly. I for one have access to 4 mediums (not including my laptop) that have the functions to play DVDs. I don't need a 5th or 6th one via the two nintendo consoles I own.

That being said though, Our main DVD machine is the PS3, a competitor. The fact we own that console and have been using it for DVDs rather than the Wii/Wii U may make us more Playstation aligned. Dunno. just suggesting things there. The part about Non Value Added Costs is gold