Games you are playing

[Weeaboolits]

Mushihime-sama Futari 1.5

[Ninten]

Finished Devil Survivor for the fifth time.

> had enough

[scy]

[Yoonah]

b-but i already have Vulcanus :X

[SirthOsiris]

[scy]

And it sold ridiculously well (500,000 initial throughput); 25% more than their target, I believe.

[Etrian Veteran]

According to trusted hardware leakers 01.net, Nintendo is having more than a few birthing complications with its upcoming Wii U system. Allegedly in "development hell", Nintendo has been accused of trying to rush the production of the console to get it out quickly. That's so totally unlike Nintendo!

Due to its rushed design, the Wii U is said to feature "inadequate" streaming and wireless functions, as well as a cheap chip set. The wireless controller -- Nintendo's big selling point -- doesn't even work, with developers using tethered controllers. It's claimed that even the tethered ones aren't working correctly.

"Many developers are feeling lost, their progress impeded by a distinct lack of visibility, their working hours by the quasi-paced daily software updates," adds the gossip-gatherers.

The sad thing is, I don't think it takes any great stretch of imagination to believe this stuff. Nintendo's past already hints at a willingness to rush consoles and a complete failure to grasp wireless technology, so these rumors aren't exactly fantastical. In fact, I'd be more surprised by reports of development going smoothly.

- Jim Sterling, Destructoid

Lame.

[zamisk]

Wouldn't put it past them, but I still have some faith

[scy]

...

So, normal Nintendo development?

[Ninten]

I love the Wii, but in my opinion that also felt rushed out.

I'm not excited for the Wii U. Gimmicks, boo

[Maxine MagicFox]

What the hell is up with Nintendo lately. I'm really becoming SERIOUSLY disappointed with them. Their production policies just seem to have changed ever since they announced 3DS. It's all about getting the shit out as fast as possible regardless of possible fall out. Well, I say it started with the 3DS but maybe with the DSi systems... "bigger screen, stretched pixels".

It's disgusting really. -_-; I love this company. Why? Why are they doing this to themselves.

Why don't they just be content with the products they have now and focus on making games for them. The Wii is awesome, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the DS.

They are just tearing their ownselves up. Let the other companies have their console wars. Nintendo, you obviously can't keep up and any effort to do so is only destroying you.

[Yoonah]

meh
i'll only get a WiiU if an EO comes out for it, and maybe that's a stretch...

[scy]

Honestly, the only thing that has changed is your realization that they're doing this. They've kind of been like this since the N64 era.

*shrugs* I'll get a WiiU to get a WiiU. Something is bound to come out for it I want and it's not like consoles are that expensive.

[Skele Von Mann]

Eh, I'd just wait for anything good to come out like the 3DS.


Anyway, never actually touched the campaign of Warcraft III and its expansion, so I'm doing them now. .

[Starfe]

This sounds like a conversation that could rapidly become much like the Mega Man one. So let me get out ahead of this.

You have to remember that these video game companies don't care about you. The 'gamer' is not the target audience of almost all of these console launches, and how rushed or expensive or whatever a console is has so much more to do with business maneuvering than it does with a desire to actually produce a quality product. All they really want to do is produce a product with base functionality that will sell well. Maybe some of the developers working on the product don't feel this way, but that doesn't matter, because they don't pay the bills. Nintendo is a publicly traded company, and they are beholden to no one besides their shareholders and board members.

Besides, the people most apt to notice and be put off by flaws in a just released system are the enthusiasts, and the enthusiast is not the person they need to sell it to, so why bother producing a quality product to please a customer who doesn't really matter? The industry is not a niche industry anymore, and its certainly not about gamers. The Wii came out almost 5 years ago. I know plenty of people who own them. At this point they basically fit into two groups: People who are multi-console owners who game regularly, and people who only own the Wii and use it for Netflix or rarely to play a Virtual Console game. Guess which group is larger? The latter. When Kinect came out everyone I worked with was talking about how they had tried it and had so much fun, and given that I was the only one there who owned a 360 they asked me if I planned on buying one, and were shocked when I told them I wasn't. Many of them said they might buy a 360, just for the Kinect functionality. I was shocked, at first, that suddenly I was the minority opinion in a video games discussion at the office, despite being the only gamer present. But thats how it is, the enthusiast is the minority opinion in the market. Video games haven't been a gamers only industry for over a decade, probably since the Playstation took off and certainly since the PS2 did. The video game industry is about sales, and it doesn't matter how you get them.

The only thing they're "Doing to themselves" by rushing consoles out is insuring that they can secure a slice of the market before their competitors. Get more consoles in homes before their competitors, and THEN they can worry about fixing serious issues or attempting to cater to niche audiences. Just look at the 360. It had a full year on the market before the Wii and PS3 did, and it was able to use that time to secure households and fashion the XBL system, and is by all accounts a resounding success. And maybe this model of "securing households" doesn't make sense to people with disposable income, but just ask any kid who had a Sega Genesis and no Super Nintendo what it was like hanging out with their friends when they were younger and you'll see. If you rely on your parents to buy you games, and they're not willing to buy you more than one system, then you make do with the product you have, getting a console into households like that guarantees years of software sales even if they're not particularly good, and if you get the console out before the competition, then you're the only "Big New Thing" on the market.

And focusing on their current hardware? Given that a new console generation starts every 5 or 6 years (NES 1983/1985-SNES 1990/1991-N64 1996-GCN 2001-Wii 2006) then a 2012 release of the WiiU would be no more hurried or out of place than any previous console release. And the DS came out in 2004. Certainly theres nothing wrong with these systems, and the could certainly continue to yield games for years, but thats bad business. While its not quite as cutthroat as planned obsolescence seen in other manufacturers, like in iPods or other Apple products, its something similar. If they release a new console, software developers are going to be on board, they'll stop making software for older consoles (very slowly sometimes, like with the PS2) and eventually you'll be forced to buy one if you want to continue playing a particular developers games. It might take a while, but in the mean time they've been doing gangbusters selling their new product to the eager masses, the consumers that really matter.

And while 'console wars' to fanboys might be about system specs and exclusives and what have you, to manufacturers its about sales. And in that respect, Nintendo has done just fine. Remember that the DS is the second best selling system of all time. And the the Wii sold an incredible amount of consoles. Nintendo is more than keeping up in the 'console war', its just to them its about sales and nothing else.

I know it sucks to see a company you love feed into the business cycle and respond directly to competitors and put aside their long time fans for the sake of making a buck, I was pissed about it for a while as well when the Wii came out, but thats just how it is. Its been going on for a really long time, and has just become more noticeable as time has gone on. Its better to just enjoy what you can get out of it, than to expect the world. Like Scy said, "Something is bound to come out for it..."