Wii U Catch-All

SixteenBlue wrote:

The fact that all 3 Project Rainfall games came out here speaks volumes. On top of that, The Last Story was XSEED's best seller of all time. They have proof there's a market here for these games and they're not going to take that and ignore it.

Which should also mean Sakaguchi will keep making video games! After all, he stated that if The Last Story didn't do well it may be time to stop making games for a while. The Last Story is basically a repeat of Sakaguchi's history, from the name to what it meant to its success.

So we should be getting more Mistwalker goodness in the future.

You know, it's possible to be a Nintendo fan and be fairly critical of them at the same time. That's where I consider myself to be.

There hasn't been a Nintendo console other than the Virtual Boy that I haven't owned. I actually like every single one of their gaming properties, and their first-party developed games are universally enjoyable (some more than others, but they've never produced an in-house game that I didn't at least have fun with). I will get a Wii U; that's not in question.

However, that doesn't mean that everything they do is gold. Pointing out that games like Xenoblade and The Last Story would be even more gorgeous in actual high-definition resolutions rather than the jaggy, pixelated appearance that 480p can present on a large HDTV isn't an unreasonable statement. And if anything, it's only a complaint I've levied because I enjoy the games, I like the Wii, and I just wish it was even better.

Likewise, pointing out that the Wii U is low-powered for a next-generation console (the upcoming generation, not the current generation) is also not an unreasonable statement. Most of the cross-platform titles that have released on the Wii U have been shown through analysis at Digital Foundry (which is a very impartial column/segment of Eurogamer) to be at best on par with their 360/PS3 versions, and often slightly below their quality. As for why that is, that's a good question. I don't really know.

And for it to leave me a little concerned about how well Nintendo will compete with MS and Sony, that's only because I want Nintendo to succeed. But I seem to raise the ire of Nintendo's hardcore fanbase when I make statements like that.

There seems to be a definite gulf between the overt negativity of the gaming press against Nintendo and the overt defensiveness of the Nintendo Faithful. It's not quite to the level of Sony Defense Force, but sometimes it seems to approach that.

All that said, I'm very excited to see what Nintendo comes up with for the Wii U, but skeptical of how solid the 3rd party support will remain in the future; we're off to a good start at the very least.

The Wonderful 101 has been on my radar since it was Project 100. I'm very excited. It and Pikmin 3 are my tipping points for purchasing a WiiU, even on my broke college student budget.

I'm with Farscry on the whole "Big Nintendo fan but also critical." While yes, I'm also a very big supporter and always look forward to the IPs they put out and the choices they make, I think about it from the longevity they have and try to look at it from their eyes. While yeah, so many of Nintendo's choices seem... odd, I don't blame them for wanting to explore and expand to different audiences. Not to mention just taking gaming in unique directions that end up being a success - but there is always failure that they learned from.

Anyone remember the vitality sensor they showed off one year? They heard so much negative feedback about it that clearly it never made it beyond that one announcement. That was a failure that they clearly put a lot of thought into. But they learned from listening. And while sometimes it seems they aren't listening to everyone, or the just the seasoned gamers, they have proved to be listening more than any other company.

SixteenBlue wrote:

The fact that all 3 Project Rainfall games came out here speaks volumes.

Well, aside from the fact that XSEED had to publish 2/3rds of them. Although that might be more due to the fact Nintendo was already transitioning away from Wii publishing by that time.

Regardless, Nintendo being more willing to open their catalog to other localization outfits is a really good thing. That doesn't happen very often, and the other example I know of is Cubivore on the Gamecube.

They have proof there's a market here for these games and they're not going to take that and ignore it.

True, between the three Wii JRPGs, and the success of similar games on the DS/3DS they should have plenty of evidence that these games will sell here (not to mention sales data on JRPGs released for 360/PS3). I just have a hard time trusting NOA not to be NOA and refuse to carry them for nebulous reasons. Like I said earlier, Xenoblade was announced at E3 and they pulled it from the US release calendar in 2010, and we ultimately got the European localization just running in NTSC format.

EDIT:

Farscry wrote:

You know, it's possible to be a Nintendo fan and be fairly critical of them at the same time. That's where I consider myself to be.

It's called "tough love" for a reason This is basically how I feel. Being willing to be critical of the company is what separates people from being an unwavering fan/zealot.

All that said, I'm very excited to see what Nintendo comes up with for the Wii U, but skeptical of how solid the 3rd party support will remain in the future; we're off to a good start at the very least.

This is basically where I am right now. We've been told "third party support will be better this time, pretty much every hardware cycle since the N64". While factually true, it's still not been enough to really justify going Nintendo exclusive for a handful of genres/series. But, I also don't think we're ever going to get back to the SNES glory years, so what can you do?

Farscry wrote:

Likewise, pointing out that the Wii U is low-powered for a next-generation console (the upcoming generation, not the current generation) is also not an unreasonable statement. Most of the cross-platform titles that have released on the Wii U have been shown through analysis at Digital Foundry (which is a very impartial column/segment of Eurogamer) to be at best on par with their 360/PS3 versions, and often slightly below their quality. As for why that is, that's a good question. I don't really know.

Because it's cheap?

Keep in mind, with the fact that Sony's hurting majorly, financially, and MS is taking a beating from the analysts, the next generation won't be nearly as much of a jump as people seem to think.

From the rumored Orbis specs(which sound convincing, especially because it's all off-the-shelf hardware), we're looking at the relative power of a current, low-end PC(or 2-3 year old mid-range gamer rig). And if the rumors are to be believed, MS is going the same route with the nextbox.

Farscry wrote:

You know, it's possible to be a Nintendo fan and be fairly critical of them at the same time. That's where I consider myself to be.

I think of myself the same way. The issue I have, the one I'm talking about above, is that they're often not leveling fair criticisms. They're taking glib shots and ignoring attempts to further the discussion.

However, that doesn't mean that everything they do is gold. Pointing out that games like Xenoblade and The Last Story would be even more gorgeous in actual high-definition resolutions rather than the jaggy, pixelated appearance that 480p can present on a large HDTV isn't an unreasonable statement. And if anything, it's only a complaint I've levied because I enjoy the games, I like the Wii, and I just wish it was even better. :)

It would've been nice if the Wii had been HD. Do you think it would have been as successful as an HD console? Nintendo had their reasons for taking the path they did, and it worked out wonderfully for them. Graphics aside, some of my favorite games of the past six years were Wii exclusives, so I think it worked out for me as well. Was it the perfect console? No, there can only be one Super Nintendo, I'm afraid.

Likewise, pointing out that the Wii U is low-powered for a next-generation console (the upcoming generation, not the current generation) is also not an unreasonable statement. Most of the cross-platform titles that have released on the Wii U have been shown through analysis at Digital Foundry (which is a very impartial column/segment of Eurogamer) to be at best on par with their 360/PS3 versions, and often slightly below their quality. As for why that is, that's a good question. I don't really know.

I can say with 95% certainty the answer is time and effort, and how companies choose to allocate it. NBA 2k13 is garbage on Wii U compared to the 360 version (30fps vs 60fps), and I've warned people against in in this thread. On the other hand, Nintendo Land is friggin' gorgeous and smooth. 2k decided that putting in the money to bring the Wii U NBA 2k13 to 60fps wouldn't be worth the extra sales from the people who consider frame rate a critical part in game purchases (probably wise on their part, to be frank). The Wii U will be outclassed in terms of power when the next consoles from Sony and MS come, I have no doubt. But I can't get behind the logic that it's lower-spec than the 360 and PS3 because some launch games have bad frame rates. Third party launch games have been lacking for my entire life. Also, and I think people need to think about this harder than they do, I don't know if the gulf between the performances in the three consoles will be as wide as usual.

The Wii U is, according to tech people I speak to, at least twice as beefy in terms of raw power as the Xbox 360. Unless I'm mistaken and Sony/MS are getting the tech for their boxes from the future, the best they can possibly do is about on par with cutting-edge PC games right now. To me, the gulf between the PS2 and the XBox360 is a lot larger than the Xbox360 to cutting-edge PC games. As in, SD to HD was bigger than 720p to 1080p. Maybe the consoles have been holding back PC development all these years, which would have some ramifications on this discussion. I don't know.

And for it to leave me a little concerned about how well Nintendo will compete with MS and Sony, that's only because I want Nintendo to succeed. But I seem to raise the ire of Nintendo's hardcore fanbase when I make statements like that.

I think it's important to clearly define "succeed" in that first sentence. What does the Wii U need to be a success for you? Sell 100m units? Have all the hottest third party games? I'm the type of person that buys all the systems. I'm closing that loop tomorrow with my first PS3. All I need for Nintendo to do is make good Nintendo games and do well enough business-wise to keep making them. It would be nice if I could call the Wii U my primary console for the next half-decade or more, but if not that's fine too. It's been fine since I fell in love with the PS1's RPGs.

All that said, I'm very excited to see what Nintendo comes up with for the Wii U, but skeptical of how solid the 3rd party support will remain in the future; we're off to a good start at the very least.

I'm anxious to see if that proves true again. I think Japanese support will remain in place for Nintendo. The big Japanese publishers have been slow to adopt HD, and reportedly struggled with the scope that the enhanced tech provided. Now they finally have their feet under them, and Sony is going to pull the rug from under them again (if the tech leap is that large). The Wii U provides an HD console without another corresponding jump in development costs, and the best brand-recognition (Sony's hold on that country is a lot shakier than it was during the Playstation hey-day).

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but that's how I see things for now. It's very hard to judge a console generation before two of the machines aren't even announced yet.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Farscry wrote:

And for it to leave me a little concerned about how well Nintendo will compete with MS and Sony, that's only because I want Nintendo to succeed. But I seem to raise the ire of Nintendo's hardcore fanbase when I make statements like that.

I think it's important to clearly define "succeed" in that first sentence. What does the Wii U need to be a success for you? Sell 100m units? Have all the hottest third party games? I'm the type of person that buys all the systems. I'm closing that loop tomorrow with my first PS3. All I need for Nintendo to do is make good Nintendo games and do well enough business-wise to keep making them. It would be nice if I could call the Wii U my primary console for the next half-decade or more, but if not that's fine too. It's been fine since I fell in love with the PS1's RPGs.

My definition for success is only two things:

1) Continue to be profitable enough that they continue to produce consoles and games.
2) Retain a large enough marketshare to continue to get third party support that delivers great games; for me, this is particularly the jrpg/quirky/adventure genres.

The last generation that I limited myself to one console was the 16-bit generation. I am content now to accept that in any given generation, there will be system-selling exclusives for me on at least two consoles. And somehow I inevitably end up playing around with almost all of every generation. But I'm a market outlier.

Farscry wrote:

The last generation that I limited myself to one console was the 16-bit generation. I am content now to accept that in any given generation, there will be system-selling exclusives for me on at least two consoles. And somehow I inevitably end up playing around with almost all of every generation. But I'm a market outlier. ;)

Ditto, although I've managed to keep away from the Microsoft consoles. I've been Nintendo/Sony/PC since high school, although I definitely remember playing PC games like Doom and SimCity 2000 a lot during the SNES era and Apple IIe stuff during the NES, so I've never been purely all Nintendo.

cube wrote:

From the rumored Orbis specs(which sound convincing, especially because it's all off-the-shelf hardware), we're looking at the relative power of a current, low-end PC(or 2-3 year old mid-range gamer rig). And if the rumors are to be believed, MS is going the same route with the nextbox.

All hear say and rumors. Devkits are constantly changing so who knows what the final configuration will be. Comparing it directly to a PC isn't really a fair comparison because console developers are coding to a very specific configuration without operating system overhead. PC developers have to take into affect hundreds of different setup's, configurations, drivers..etc etc. I could be wrong but I expect the first batch of games on the new PS4 and 720 to be a decent jump from what we have now.

Anyone playing Balloon fight? It is a tough game and totally work the $.30 we're being asked to pay. I kind of hope Nintendo would have a $.30 VC game every month. It would be really good for the community.

Ulairi wrote:

Anyone playing Balloon fight? It is a tough game and totally work the $.30 we're being asked to pay. I kind of hope Nintendo would have a $.30 VC game every month. It would be really good for the community.

I agree, that'd be nice. I went ahead and bought Balloon Fight...even though I already have the 3DS Ambassador version

It's fun, but simple. I'll get a little mileage out of the non-competitive mode.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

Anyone playing Balloon fight? It is a tough game and totally work the $.30 we're being asked to pay. I kind of hope Nintendo would have a $.30 VC game every month. It would be really good for the community.

I agree, that'd be nice. I went ahead and bought Balloon Fight...even though I already have the 3DS Ambassador version

It's fun, but simple. I'll get a little mileage out of the non-competitive mode.

I had the 3DS version but I left my 3DS on the plane from Taiwan to Japan and they won't let me redownload any of the games. :'( I hope one day Nintendo has everything tied to a Nintendo account.

Ulairi wrote:

Anyone playing Balloon fight? It is a tough game and totally work the $.30 we're being asked to pay. I kind of hope Nintendo would have a $.30 VC game every month. It would be really good for the community.

I didn't actually watch the Nintendo Direct but aren't they supposed to be releasing a VC game at a low price every so often for the next while? I totally bought Balloon Fight for $0.30 (though the 38MB download made me laugh given you could fir probably half the NES library in that size) and yeah, I forgot how hard it gets how fast.

The increased file size is probably due to the ability to create restore points and completely reconfigure the controls.

It's one 30-cent game per month through July. Here's the schedule:

January – Balloon Fight (NES) – available now until February 21
February – F-Zero (SNES) – February 20 – March 21
March – Punch Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (NES) – March 20 – April 18
April – Kirby’s Adventure (NES) – April 17 – May 16
May – Super Metroid (SNES) – May 15 – June 13
June – Yoshi / Mario & Yoshi (NES) – June 12 – July 11
July – Donkey Kong (NES) – From July 15 – August 13

I'll probably get Balloon Fight even though I have it on the Wii (which I haven't imported yet). Fun little game.

One thing from the Nintendo Direct that really is pissing me off: To get the discounted WiiU VC games, we have had to import the Wii VC games. That's stupid. I sold my Wii. I don't have access to my Wii games and Nintendo knows what Wii VC games I've already purchased. They should just base it on our Club Nintendo accounts. This is the stuff that the press should be harping on! It's anti-consumer and they have the ability to pressure Nintendo in a way that regular gamers do not.

Now for something completely different: I am loving Miiverse. I think that both Sony and Microsoft are going to try to create their own social network on their platforms. Once we are able to create private groups it's only going to get better. I am surprised with how often I find my self going on there and finding out what people are doing and saying.

Ulairi wrote:

One thing from the Nintendo Direct that really is pissing me off: To get the discounted WiiU VC games, we have had to import the Wii VC games. That's stupid. I sold my Wii. I don't have access to my Wii games and Nintendo knows what Wii VC games I've already purchased. They should just base it on our Club Nintendo accounts. This is the stuff that the press should be harping on! It's anti-consumer and they have the ability to pressure Nintendo in a way that regular gamers do not.

Your suggestion to use the Club Nintendo accounts might not be terribly accurate, as Club Nintendo didn't show up here until two years after the Wii, and the option to tie your Wii shop account to your Club Nintendo account wasn't implemented until a while after that. Another issue is that at most 10% of customers actually join Club Nintendo. I suspect that'll go up, as the 3DS and Wii U now have in-system prompts to join, but look at the used section in Gamestop sometime at first party Wii games - all the Club Nintendo codes are still there and I've never seen one that didn't work. The situation does suck, but hopefully it's the kind of problem we'll only have to deal with once.

Spoiler:

Also you should've known not to sell your Wii before you transferred your stuff :P

Now for something completely different: I am loving Miiverse. I think that both Sony and Microsoft are going to try to create their own social network on their platforms. Once we are able to create private groups it's only going to get better. I am surprised with how often I find my self going on there and finding out what people are doing and saying.

Yes, Miiverse is way cooler and more integral to the Wii U experience than I had expected. I'm not sure Sony and MS will do something similar, to me it seems more like their style to just have Twitter and Facebook apps created.

I'm starting ZombiU in earnest today, to play alongside Ni No Kuni on PS3 (I figure the tone of each will balance nicely). Do any veteran survivors have spoiler-free tips for a newbie?

Also, Nano Assault Neo is way, way better than it gets credit for being. Gorgeous, too. I could see someone getting motion-sickness from it, though.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm starting ZombiU in earnest today, to play alongside Ni No Kuni on PS3 (I figure the tone of each will balance nicely). Do any veteran survivors have spoiler-free tips for a newbie?

Everything is dead. Or is going to die soon.

I'm curious to see how Miiverse will handle being accessible outside of the Wii U interface. I really haven't spent much time trawling through it, but the line art people are doing is impressive, and being able to log tips for Mario U was fun (even if the game only let you do it at random intervals). I agree with Blind that Sony/MS are more likely to integrate existing services, but I think that's their loss as both Nintendo and Valve have social communities/forums that are accessible while playing at the touch of a button (or two).

Completely agree with Ulari, it would be nice if they provided some discount if a game was registered to your Club Nintendo account, but I think this is just another issue we have to deal with (much like PXA's migration issues) due to the lack of a unified account structure prior to now. Hopefully this won't be an issue with the next Nintendo console.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Your suggestion to use the Club Nintendo accounts might not be terribly accurate, as Club Nintendo didn't show up here until two years after the Wii, and the option to tie your Wii shop account to your Club Nintendo account wasn't implemented until a while after that.

Was it really that late? I remember GBA games having registration codes. I don't think the rewards program was available then, but you were certainly able to register games to an account on their website. The funny/creepy thing about that was the accounts were also hooked into their Nintendo Power subscription backend. When I registered an account in high school they immediately found my old NP subscription data and showed me every single time my parents renewed my sub and had my home address and everything.

Gumbie wrote:
cube wrote:

From the rumored Orbis specs(which sound convincing, especially because it's all off-the-shelf hardware), we're looking at the relative power of a current, low-end PC(or 2-3 year old mid-range gamer rig). And if the rumors are to be believed, MS is going the same route with the nextbox.

All hear say and rumors. Devkits are constantly changing so who knows what the final configuration will be. Comparing it directly to a PC isn't really a fair comparison because console developers are coding to a very specific configuration without operating system overhead. PC developers have to take into affect hundreds of different setup's, configurations, drivers..etc etc. I could be wrong but I expect the first batch of games on the new PS4 and 720 to be a decent jump from what we have now.

My MS sources are assuring me that the next Xbox will be on par with current gen PC games running at 1080P 60Fps with all sorts of AA/AF and should by all accounts look vastly better than the best Xbox 360 games simply from the rendering...most 360 games aren't even 720P native but rather upscaled. Texture quality alone will take a significant leap this next gen.

shoptroll wrote:

I really haven't spent much time trawling through it

I'm doing that now, because I have too much of a headache to play anything, and it has become more internet-y since I last visited. A user named simply "Cody" has been in four of the five boards I visited with the simple message, "wii u chat girls only." Toward the top of the Epic Mickey 2 board is a picture of pedobear with Mickey ears.

shoptroll wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

Your suggestion to use the Club Nintendo accounts might not be terribly accurate, as Club Nintendo didn't show up here until two years after the Wii, and the option to tie your Wii shop account to your Club Nintendo account wasn't implemented until a while after that.

Was it really that late? I remember GBA games having registration codes. I don't think the rewards program was available then, but you were certainly able to register games to an account on their website. The funny/creepy thing about that was the accounts were also hooked into their Nintendo Power subscription backend. When I registered an account in high school they immediately found my old NP subscription data and showed me every single time my parents renewed my sub and had my home address and everything.

Oh Christ, you're right, I forgot. What happened was, when they rolled out Club Nintendo in December '08 you could make a Club Nintendo account and link it to your old generic Nintendo customer service account. Still, there was no tie from the customer service account to any type of online system. Generally I think there are too many gaps in the data points to consider this series of accounts a very reliable source of data for them.

Actually now that I'm looking at it, I got CN coins for stuff purchased before CN was implemented here, so I guess they did credit some of that stuff retroactively. f*ck Nintendo, I guess!

Kind of funny... the CN website has phased this info out as far as I can tell, but for a while I had an old order for the Earthbound strategy guide listed. I bought the game used, and when I got a Nintendo Power subscription in '96 I had my mom raise hell at them til they agreed to send me that instead of the Killer Instinct guide or whatever was the usual bonus.

GG, that's reassuring, because I've been displeased with some of the recent console version of high-end games (Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed 3). Even if I am leaning more toward buying Sony first.

However!

I think we differ in the definition of what is a significant leap. The PC versions of those games are definitely a lot better looking, but the difference just isn't as large as it was from, say, God of War to Gears of War.

So my takeaway is that playing Wii U games after owning a PS4 won't be as jarring visually as playing Wii games after owning a 360.

Also, I think your sources are smoking some funny cigarettes if they don't think there'll be any sub-60 FPS games on the next generation consoles. Is that what you meant?

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm starting ZombiU in earnest today, to play alongside Ni No Kuni on PS3 (I figure the tone of each will balance nicely). Do any veteran survivors have spoiler-free tips for a newbie?

Also, Nano Assault Neo is way, way better than it gets credit for being. Gorgeous, too. I could see someone getting motion-sickness from it, though.

Regarding ZombiU,gameplay hints, no story stuff:

Spoiler:

Take it really slowly. If you see a situation and think "hmm, could be a bit tricky, but I'll give it a go", don't! They will moiderise you.

Always stash a grenade or something in the storage box in the hide out. That way, when you die and need to kill your former character's zombie to get your stuff back, you can just hurl a grenade. Losing that fight will lose all your stuff, which is deeply frustrating. Always keep a couple in your inventory too, for mobs.

Bear in mind that different survivors have different strength levels. Some will take out a zombie in 4 hits; I had one who took 9 to get rid of a standard fleshbag.

Use obstacles. Zombies, being dumb, will go straight for you, and clamber over a barrier, which slows them down and leaves them open to an easy knockdown or one hit kill.

Grenades don't destroy all your stuff as well as your old zombie?

It's never happened to me.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm starting ZombiU in earnest today, to play alongside Ni No Kuni on PS3 (I figure the tone of each will balance nicely). Do any veteran survivors have spoiler-free tips for a newbie?

Also, Nano Assault Neo is way, way better than it gets credit for being. Gorgeous, too. I could see someone getting motion-sickness from it, though.

For ZombiU, don't rush and get very familiar with the timing required to use the cricket bat effectively. It's the only weapon you can always count on having available. And yeah, if you rush ahead, you're going to get screwed. Be prepared to die a lot (particularly at a certain point I won't spoil) and if you are, try to avoid crowds as it will make it much easier to get your stuff back.

For Nano Assault Neo, yeah it's awesome. Starts off easy but gets brutally punishing on the 3rd area (which I've yet to beat the first level of yet). I own every Nano* game Shin'En's ever made and they're an awesome developer. Tiny, talented and fiercely devoted to Nintendo's platforms. They always had to tie themselves to a publisher before but they were able to release independently on the eShop which is great for them.

***Wrong Topic***

ahrezmendi wrote:
PRG013 wrote:

I think the WiiU needs some Bang-Zoom game that totally takes advantage of the new features and hardware to finally shut these people up.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were having a mature discussion. I didn't come in here saying "lol, teh Wii U sux", but apparently my opinion isn't wanted at all.

Sorry, I should have clarified my statement. I meant the media outlets that are trying to say there is nothing great about the WiiU when clearly that is yet to be seen.

Gotcha. That's media for you, sensationalism sells so they try to create it at every turn.

On the matter of constructive criticism versus hate-mongering, I completely agree. That's why I try my best to construct coherent arguments for my criticism of Nintendo. I have also owned every Nintendo system excluding the Virtual Boy, but that doesn't mean I don't think Nintendo has made mistakes. I even went to incredible lengths to get a Wii within its first month of being available, and you can imagine how difficult that was. That's the main reason why I'm so hesitant on the Wii U, I really don't want to wind up with another Wii. So far I like what I see, but I want proof positive that things like the online mode in Smash Bros work before I'm willing to commit.

Really it's only going to take one killer title. I bought an N64 exclusively for Ocarina of Time, and I'm willing to do that again if Nintendo can show it to me.