Wii U Catch-All

That bundle would be a great early birthday gift to myself. And then my savings account would weep. So perhaps I will have to put this WiiU purchase off a bit longer. Or at the very least, until after I've found myself a PS3 and Ni No Kuni. Why is this hobby so expensive?!

It's cheaper than most other hobbies. Just imagine if you were a golfer, and you paid greens fees every weekend. ~$100 per weekend, ~52 weekends in a year = ~$5200 a year. Do you spend $5200 a year on videogames? If you do, I want a photo of your collection, 'cause it must be massive.

ahrezmendi wrote:

It's cheaper than most other hobbies. Just imagine if you were a golfer, and you paid greens fees every weekend. ~$100 per weekend, ~52 weekends in a year = ~$5200 a year. Do you spend $5200 a year on videogames? If you do, I want a photo of your collection, 'cause it must be massive.

Thanks. I'll remember that next time my dad claims I'm "wasting time and money" with my silly hobby and point out what he does with his. :p

Ouch. Kotick's comment was particularly ouch, because if he's saying it you know all the publishers are thinking it. I wonder how much Nintendo is going to have to pay, metaphorically speaking, to rebuild the reputation they lost with the Wii.

Same old song and dance, folks.

2009:

The PlayStation 3 can be an easy target sometimes. The system is routinely outsold by all its competitors in the US—although performance is markedly better in other markets—and at the Game Developers Conference this year, Nintendo showed a slide that claimed the Wii Balance Board is doing as well as the PS3 in terms of worldwide sales. Activision Blizzard is taking things to a new level, however, openly threatening to cut support for Sony's platforms.

2013: Them CoD games are still hittin' the PS3.

Ha, goes to show nobody should listen to Bobby Kotick, a lesson I should have learned long ago.

Talk about an intellectually lazy article. I almost feel that a lot of people are feeling left out of the "Nintendo is D00m3d" party. First, Rayman Legends didn't sell that well. It didn't. People like it because it's beautiful and a nice little platformer but it was never going to push units. It isn't difficult to google and find out how many units sold. Second, the real story here is why is Ubi Soft not releasing a finished game and why are they pushing it back to September when the onslaught of new titles hit. Rayman is going to bomb. It's going to bomb on the Wii U, it's going to bomb on the Xbox 360, and it's going to bomb on the PS3. Want to know why? Because all of the big dogs will be out then. Rayman cannot compete with the big dogs. Releasing it during the dry spell was going to allow it a long time to grow with the Wii U.

I am willing to bet my life savings that when Rayman bombs this fall the blame will be on Nintedno. We'll then get the follow up articles "Why don't 3rd party games sell on Nintendo systems" How often do we get "Why don't third parties care about Nintendo platforms as much as Nintendo?" Because, when they do, the games sell.

Rayman was a mediocre platformer with beautiful presentation. IGN said that Rayman outshined NSMB Wii U, which maybe artistically that may be true for some people but when we get into the nuts and bolts of platformers and the design therein, it doesn't compete with Mario. It just....doesn't. I kind of wish the press spent half as much time on going after anit-consumer choices like this, as they do on writing about Nintendo is doomed. Remember after the Wii was a smashing success? I remember from 1UP that the Wii is a fad and Nintendo will be DOOMED!!!! when the bubble bursts. It's boring and it's lazy. But, Ben wanted to get in to the group think, lazy.

I don't follow why you think the game's performance will be attributed to Nintendo when it's going to be seeing a multiplatform release. Actually I don't follow a lot of the gist of that post.

To be honest, I think this is a smart move on Ubisoft's part. Hype drives early sales, and there's no better way to kill hype than keep a game from a platform for six months. Timed exclusives are worth the cost of locking them up, based on the same principle.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I don't follow why you think the game's performance will be attributed to Nintendo when it's going to be seeing a multiplatform release. Actually I don't follow a lot of the gist of that post.

To be honest, I think this is a smart move on Ubisoft's part.

I think porting it was a smart idea. I think delaying until September is a bad idea. Why will Nintendo get the blame? Because they always do.

I still don't follow. If anything, they would have been blamed if the game came out in February and then didn't sell in September. I've never seen them blamed for a game's overall sales on multiplatform releases. There are a load biases against Nintendo that I think many journalists are guilty of, but I don't think this is one of them.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Hype drives early sales, and there's no better way to kill hype than keep a game from a platform for six months.

Also you can kill hype by keeping a finished game from releasing for six months.

Actually it's generated a lot of negative feelings, but Ubisoft's is clearly willing to take that chance of offending a small user base in exchange for making more money.

Maybe they will change their minds, who knows?

Normally I'd say that the type of people that know about games at such a granular level are a tiny minority that don't impact sales in a meaningful enough way, but...

Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade is a huge, huge Wii U fan. The site/those guys have an enormous following, I have no doubt he is one of the most influential gamers on the planet. He's already taken issue with the delay on twitter, and I suspect it'll be brought up in the site post on Monday (they see over three million unique hits daily). I think the sheer volume of sh*t he can kick up might stir something in Ubisoft.

ulairi wrote:

Rayman was a mediocre platformer...

That just isn't true. I've been playing platformers for as long as there has been such a thing, and can't see this flaw that "we" are all aware of. You don't much care for it? That is absolutely fine, but don't wrote as though that is some generally held public opinion.

It was never going to be a system seller on a grand scale. There are a few, like me, who thought a Wii U in anticipation of an early release, but if a Mario platformer can't sell a Nintendo system at launch, a Rayman one certainly won't.

If it fails as a multiplatform release, and I suspect that it will at that time of year, it will be no one's fault but Ubi's for squandering hope of a splash on a system without many games in exchange for drowning in an avalanche of PS3 and 360 releases in a few months. I don't see any obvious advantage to sitting on a game that is ready for release to an audience that are desperate enough for games that some might take a risk on something that they might not have played otherwise.

Is September really considered the a part of the crowded holiday release period? I don't see it. The only game I'd consider bigger than Rayman that came out last September was Borderlands 2. I don't think Tekken Tag 2 or Dead or Alive 5 are the kind of games you shy away from in a release schedule. 2011 was the same, one big-name September release: Gears of War 3.

If they'd moved it to November I could see why people think Rayman is going to get trampled. I think in September you're either going to make it on the quality/reputation of your game and brand or not.

Edit: eh, forgot they moved GTA 5 into September. I still think it's a smart business move for Ubisoft, but that does complicate things. I'm not sure there's a lot of audience crossover between GTA and Rayman.

I saw Batman AC Armoured Edition half price. I love the game, but played through it on 360. Is there anything about this version to justify double dipping?

I don't think anyone here played it.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Is September really considered the a part of the crowded holiday release period? I don't see it. The only game I'd consider bigger than Rayman that came out last September was Borderlands 2. I don't think Tekken Tag 2 or Dead or Alive 5 are the kind of games you shy away from in a release schedule. 2011 was the same, one big-name September release: Gears of War 3.

If they'd moved it to November I could see why people think Rayman is going to get trampled. I think in September you're either going to make it on the quality/reputation of your game and brand or not.

Edit: eh, forgot they moved GTA 5 into September. I still think it's a smart business move for Ubisoft, but that does complicate things. I'm not sure there's a lot of audience crossover between GTA and Rayman.

September is absolutely part of the holiday shopping season. It may be the early part of it, but the simple fact that you listed Borderlands 2 and Gears of War 3 in it proves that. It's not November is what you're trying to say, I think.

What I'm saying is you aren't automatically destroyed if you're not Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Halo, or a Nintendo first party game in September. That's the way people are talking about moving Rayman to September, and I just don't think that's the case.

People are more likely to skip stuff at full price in anticipation of the sales and bigger titles at that time of year, I would have thought.

Maybe, but during those kinds of sales it's the retailer taking the hit. The number of people they get in the store that might buy anything else is worth the $20 hit they take on the price of a product that already has a pretty terrible profit margin.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm not sure there's a lot of audience crossover between GTA and Rayman.

I'd be surprised if there was.

I'm wondering if part of the justification for the Wii U delay is to get the sales numbers bundled in with the PS3 and 360 versions which will be better looking for analysts/investors. While this one probably won't sell gang-busters (like Origins) it will likely be profitable, and since they might be looking at the holidays without an Assassin's Creed game in the hole they probably need to have something to keep the investors happy.

spider_j wrote:

I saw Batman AC Armoured Edition half price. I love the game, but played through it on 360. Is there anything about this version to justify double dipping?

As I understand it, its the same game with some gimmicky touch stuff on the GamePad and a worse frame rate.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

As I understand it, its the same game with some gimmicky touch stuff on the GamePad and a worse frame rate.

I wish it had replay value - the gimmick of the radio stuff coming out of the GamePad is pretty cool and had me saying "badass!" when I first heard about it. Which reminds me: hint to devs/publishers - the GamePad can function as an audio channel that doesn't sound utterly tinny and is right in the player's hands. Seems like if there's any "easy" answer for what to do with the GamePad, that one's up there...

mrtomaytohead wrote:

New in-box WiiU bundle. The Deluxe set (32GB model, stands, Nintendoland) + pro controller + ZombieU for $389. That's $110 worth of extras for $40 more. Now that's sounds like a good deal. Coming next Sunday, February 17th.

Aaaaand that should pretty much seal me picking up a WiiU next Sunday

CptDomano wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

New in-box WiiU bundle. The Deluxe set (32GB model, stands, Nintendoland) + pro controller + ZombieU for $389. That's $110 worth of extras for $40 more. Now that's sounds like a good deal. Coming next Sunday, February 17th.

Aaaaand that should pretty much seal me picking up a WiiU next Sunday :D

Awesome! That's a pretty good deal, too bad I already got mine!

They should have had this bundle from the start, eh?

Yeah, I think Nintendo seriously underestimated the popularity of the Deluxe model. I think you're right, they should get rid of the white one.

Maybe they should have initially released only the Deluxe set, but with colour choice of white or black, that would have been smarter? Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

CptDomano wrote:

Aaaaand that should pretty much seal me picking up a WiiU next Sunday :D

You strike me as the kind of guy that'd be tough to wrangle into Monster Hunter co-op sessions. Accurate?

I've read a couple articles, actually just small opinion pieces, that have me a little nervous for the system's health now. I'm hoping Nintendo does whatever needs to be done to avert a crisis, like they did with the 3DS. This new bundle certainly seems like a step in the direction of a price cut in time for the holidays, just ahead of the other console releases.

Blind_Evil wrote:

You strike me as the kind of guy that'd be tough to wrangle into Monster Hunter co-op sessions. Accurate?

Eh, you could say that for *any* co-op to be honest. Not out of a want to play, just the scheduling is a bit rough.

*shuffles the application off the desk*