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[Oregano]

I read that more along the lines of "If the Mario team makes an engine, ideally it should be usable by several other projects like Kirby, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong," but I could be reading that incorrectly. Like Captain Toad is clearly build on the same tech base used for Super Mario 3D World, but I'm not sure any of Nintendo's other games are.

Similarly the engine they're using to power Zelda might be an appropriate fit for a variety of other open world action adventure games by Nintendo.

I could see it also being a halfway house where the people they're making games with (where there are both Nintedo and third party staff on the title) are using a tech base Nintendo created. Some Kirby games are made externally at HAL Laboratory for example, but they might be offered to use Nintendo's technology to do that instead of having to make their own.

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of their developers like Grezzo and Camelot who would really benefit from having access to Nintendo's internal technology. Those small developers almost certainly don't have the manpower to be developing their own engines for HD games.

They give out Unity engine with their development kits for the Wii U...

Right but Nintendo doesn't actually use Unity, or Unreal or Crytek, etc.

Pretty sure the Metroid Prime games use a heavily modified UE2 so I don't think it's anything new



What are you talking about? Many of their Wii U games have hit that number.

I'm fairly sure that rumours about Metroid was debunked but don't hold me to it.

 

[Simbabbad]

Well, it's business. If it can sell enough to make enough profit with a physical release great. If not, keep the budget down and go digital only.

In Captain Toad's case they probably could have worked digital only since it was just as spinoff from levels in SM3DW and thus a lot of the costly engine, asset etc. development work was done.

Yeah, but I love stuff like Captain Toad, Wario Ware the Shake Dimension, Chibi Robo (sigh), Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, etc. It matters a lot in my interest toward Nintendo.

But yeah, business is business. I guess download sequels wouldn't be as fleshed as the originals, but I'd understand such a shift.

We'll see anyway.

Because that's how capitalism fucking works.

Yup, that's how capitalism works: if something costs a lot of money, doesn't fit at all the mainstream demand, and not only has no support from its niche audience, but said audience is toxic and starts hate campaigns whenever the products don't fit exactly what it wants, then why bother? Tons of money to make elsewhere with less hassle, the franchise is nothing but a source of trouble and harassment. You burned it to the ground.

The Metroid (vocal) fanbase is so toxic and so inclined to hysteria that it even tried to sabotage Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze's launch, because Retro dared not to do a Metroid Prime sequel.

At this point, even if Nintendo had a Metroidvania gameplay idea, they'd rather choose to slap the Kirby or Kid Icarus franchise on it, or someone like Sheik, because that way they'd have much more freedom to develop it and they wouldn't have to bother with hyperbolic hate campaigns.

 

[Seiniyta]

Metroid Prime 3 was a sci-fi FPS with incredible controls on the highest-selling home game console of the last generation.

It did okay but not great.

How about you stop shitposting in every Metroid thread like clockwork?

You also have to consider a few more factors though. How was the marketing? From what I personally remember (and this is bit fuzzy) I remember the Wii promotion channel where they sometimes uploaded quite low res videos about the game.

I didn't see any TV ads for Prime 3.

Also noteworthy is that Halo 3 and Metroid Prime 3 were released whitin a month of each other which probably didn't help despite being on a different platform.

A new Metroid Prime definitly could sell really well, but NIntendo should be smart in how they present it/advertize it. Especially in a era were Dark Souls has become a rather popular series that ended up selling really great despite how 'niche' it seemed.

 

[P44]

So give up creative freedom and new ideas and gameplay concepts, and simply become another AAA sell-out ala EA or Activision. Gotcha.

There's a middle ground between funky games that just crash and burn in the general market, and the next COD interation. Endless innovation sounds cool, but is a terrible way to run a company, because when your ideas miss repeatedly (I think it's fairly safe to say that had been the case for Nintendo for a good few years) it begins to sting.

 

[Anth0ny]

RIP Metroid

RIP Star Fox

RIP F Zero

RIP niche Platinum games that Nintendo decides to fund out of the goodness of their heart

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I don't think Metroid fans sabotaged Federation Force. I think Nintendo presented it in the worst way possible and it doesn't really matter if the game will be good or not.

I think the most insane parts of the Metroid fanbase don't want it to exist, and would rather have nothing. Those people don't even think that, if not for Federation Force, there would be a AAA Metroid Prime sequel. They just don't want this specific thing to exist.

 

[Xion_Stellar]

The digital only future really needs to come, that will help.

For as long as I live I shall continue to thwart this movement on consoles SPECIALLY when we are referring to the Region Locked systems that Nintendo makes.


On topic thou how often do non Mario/Pokemon games on Nintendo consoles break the 2 million sales mark? I feel like it's harder to break that goal on consoles than it is on handhelds.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I am also not sure I understand the current discussion.

This isn't Nintendo saying they're going to stop making games that sell under two million. It appears they're moving to a less-intense version of Ubisoft's model where big budget titles need to hit the two million mark while smaller titles do not.

 

[Javier]

It's what MACTAG SAID, he said stand alone was 49.99, which I thought just Bayonetta 2 without remastered first game?

So that's why it's 29.99 on amazon, and the original print is 100$?

Yea he confused me on that one. Because in states I remember seeing a commercial for re-release and gaf talking about the 29.99. His post through me off, said the stand alone was 49.99?

I'm not a guy who follows everything Nintendo, so I just took his word for it, even though amazon said different.

Bayonetta 2 was $49.99 digital AT LAUNCH.

When the physical standalone release happened, it got a permanent price reduction on the eShop to $29.99.

 

[RedToad64]

They use use the Nintendo Ware engine for Wii U games, right? Nintendo Land and Pikmin 3 both use it, I believe.

 

[Rodin]

Lot of people misunderstanding. This isn't like a capcom situation where they will only make games that sell over 2 million, it's more of a matter of them making games that will sell over 2 million so they can recoup the costs of the games that don't quite break even.

Yeah, this. Also keep in mind that the NX should have a largely shared library of games, so 2 million units is not that much and many "medium" franchises should surpass that milestone pretty easily.

Prime did 2.1M on an install base of 22M. If the quality and marketing is there, Metroid can hit that number.

Prime did almost 3 (2.84).

 

[10k]

Metroid wouldn't have a hard time hitting two million.

Metroid would almost certainly never hit two million.

Prime did 2.1M on an install base of 22M. If the quality and marketing is there, Metroid can hit that number.

 

[Koren]

If games are only available digitally in the future, I don't know if they'd really lose out on a huge market. That would imply that that huge market plays video games FOR those physical discs.

It's not just a matter of playing a disc vs playing a game...

A couple examples:
- For many people, a gift have to be physical. Should game be digital-only, people will turn to other gifts for xmas, birthdays and other similar cases... pre-paid cards is not the same, and digital gifting (when it's possible) also quite different.
- Physical media is a way to get free advertisement in outlets. Visit a supermarket to buy cabbages, and discover that a game is out, or another seems to worth a look.
- Physical allows for easy game-sharing... which helps to create a bigger market. I know several people around me bought a console because they knew they could at least borrow me a couple games from time to time, then start buying their own.

Besides, I don't have a shade of trust for the future of digital platforms (and because of that, I can gladly pay 100$ for a cart but will never pay more than 15$ for the same digital game)

It makes sense for books, as the experience fundamentally changes when you read a book on your phone vs in printed form, but video games are consumed digitally no matter what.

You say that for books, but what is the logic behind DVD/BR (and to a lesser extend CDs) still being a thing?

 

[Deleted member 752119]

Yup, that's how capitalism works: if something costs a lot of money, doesn't fit at all the mainstream demand, and not only has no support from its niche audience, but said audience is toxic and starts hate campaigns whenever the products don't fit exactly what it wants, then why bother? Tons of money to make elsewhere with less hassle, the franchise is nothing but a source of trouble and harassment. You burned it to the ground.

The Metroid (vocal) fanbase is so toxic and so inclined to hysteria that it even tried to sabotage Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze's launch, because Retro dared not to do a Metroid Prime sequel.

At this point, even if Nintendo had a Metroidvania gameplay idea, they'd rather choose to slap the Kirby or Kid Icarus franchise on it, or someone like Sheik, because that way they'd have much more freedom to develop it and they wouldn't have to bother with hyperbolic hate campaigns.

Honestly, one of Nintendo's biggest problems is they've tried to milk the shit out of existing IP too much rather than just make new IP when they want to try new gameplay.

Other M would have gotten a lot better reception if it was just some new 2.5D action game instead of a Metroid game, for instance. Federation Force would get less bashing if it was a new IP and so on.

Sony and MS are a lot better at just giving fans what they want from their major IPs, and making new IPs to do new things.

Hopefully Splatoon doing so well shows Nintendo that a new idea paired with new IP can be huge. I don't think that game would have done nearly as well if they'd done their typical stick to major IP approach and made it Mario Paintball or Smash Paintball etc.

 

[AmyS]

Genyo Takeda (Senior Managing Director, Technology Fellow):

The thinking for a long time was that computer performance for a game should be dedicated entirely to the consumer’s enjoyment, but now times have changed and the common sense is that computer performance should also be used to improve productivity in making the game software itself.

What I read into that is, while specs are neither all-important, nor unimportant, it will be very important for the home console and the next handheld to have enough in common, in terms of both architecture and well as the right ratio of performance, so that games can be easily transferable to and from each system, as Iwata said 3 1/2 years ago with regard to Nintendo's future hardware strategy.

What we are aiming at is to integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform. They will also work to avoid software lineup shortages or software development delays which tend to happen just after the launch of new hardware.

Did anyone else see those two statements in the same way?

It certainly did not make it easy when your home console to handheld power ratio is something like 20:1 or whatever, as was the case with Wii U : 3DS or Wii : DS.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Prime did 2.1M on an install base of 22M. If the quality and marketing is there, Metroid can hit that number.

30 years of games and only one sold more than 2 million. That's not good. Mario and Zelda sell more than 2 million on a consistent basis in the same time period of 30 years.

 

[thisisvlad]

To play armchair CEO for a second, here is how I would handle game development on the NX:

1. Release a series of "platform" games for the system. These are things like Smash, Mario Kart, Splatoon, Fire Emblem, maybe Hyrule Warriors, maybe a Super Mario 3D World-style platformer, maybe an Amiibo-focused game. These are the nearly guaranteed hits that would all be top priority to ship out relatively early into the console's lifecycle and would continue to be supported with new paid DLC content for the duration of the console's lifetime as a continuous source of revenue. Give them the budget they deserve, and play them safe. No experimental new control schemes or radical departures from what fans expect from these series.

I like where your head is at. In fact, I'd make a Nintendo subscription service that gives you all of these things at base. You could even bundle it with new systems, so that even if you have just an NX, you still have access to the key multiplayer games.

First this addresses a key design principle: there's no need to continuously rebuild these games from scratch, instead focus on the breadth of experience:

• Mario Kart 8: build out a true battle mode, add single player challenge modes, etc.
• SM4SH: provide single player content (training) that helps you on your journey to git gud
• Splatoon: build out support for vehicles, more single player content, etc.

Secondly, it ensures that the network effect of these titles are strong. A challenge today is that I need to have friends who not only own the Nintendo hardware but also the exact software that I'm playing for us to play together. Bundle that at the base level and I can be certain that you could switch over to whatever game if you wanted.

Lastly you could incent users, based on their playing time/style, to buy other more passion games. For example, do you play often as Marth in Smash Brothers? Here's an exclusive 10% off the next mainline FE game. Or you could have stretch goals - "# of tournament hosted", "# of hours played", etc.

 

[And_Gignac]

RIP Xenoblade X-2

 

[Intel_89]

Mario everything and Pokemon.

 

[Ogodei]

Honestly, one of Nintendo's biggest problems is they've tried to milk the shit out of existing IP too much rather than just make new IP when they want to try new gameplay.

Other M would have gotten a lot better reception if it was just some new 2.5D action game instead of a Metroid game, for instance. Federation Force would get less bashing if it was a new IP and so on.

Sony and MS are a lot better at just giving fans what they want from their major IPs, and making new IPs to do new things.

Hopefully Splatoon doing so well shows Nintendo that a new idea paired with new IP can be huge. I don't think that game would have done nearly as well if they'd done their typical stick to major IP approach and made it Mario Paintball or Smash Paintball etc.

Other M just wasn't a good game. If it hadn't been Metroid it probably would've been passed over for NA release entirely by Reggie, just like Disaster: DoC.

Not that your main point isn't valid, Other M's just not the right example. Federation Force, now...

 

[Father_Brain]

Right but Nintendo doesn't actually use Unity, or Unreal or Crytek, etc.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see that change on NX.

I imagine that most of their first-party output will continue to use proprietary engines, don't get me wrong, but the Japanese industry has clearly grown a lot warmer towards middleware engines in the past half-decade, and Nintendo isn't necessarily an exception.

 

[Crossing Eden]

RIP Metroid

RIP Star Fox

RIP F Zero

RIP niche Platinum games that Nintendo decides to fund out of the goodness of their heart

I'm sure they expected every game that Platinum made to make a profit.

 

[Oregano]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see that change on NX.

I imagine that most of their first-party output will continue to use proprietary engines, don't get me wrong, but the Japanese industry has clearly grown a lot warmer towards middleware engines in the past half-decade, and Nintendo isn't necessarily an exception.

Agreed, licensing Unreal Engine 4 is probably the best way to make sure its properly supported on NX too.

 

[MomoQca]

RIP Xenoblade X-2

Please re-read the OP. And where did you get the idea that XCX wasn't successful?

 

[Papacheeks]

Bayonetta 2 was $49.99 digital AT LAUNCH.

When the physical standalone release happened, it got a permanent price reduction on the eShop to $29.99.

But it was 59.99 retail correct with bayonetta 1 remastered?

It's on Nintendo's site for 59.99 with bonus disc.

Seems like the better deal was the one with bonus disc when it launched.

 

[Jubenhimer]

There's a middle ground between funky games that just crash and burn in the general market, and the next COD interation. Endless innovation sounds cool, but is a terrible way to run a company, because when your ideas miss repeatedly (I think it's fairly safe to say that had been the case for Nintendo for a good few years) it begins to sting.

I agree that there should be a balance between creative freedom and mass market appeal. But I hate to see Nintendo just pump out over hyped, samey crap with bloated budgets and shiny graphics like most of the AAA market in order to be successful.

 

[Jubenhimer]

Honestly, one of Nintendo's biggest problems is they've tried to milk the shit out of existing IP too much rather than just make new IP when they want to try new gameplay.

Other M would have gotten a lot better reception if it was just some new 2.5D action game instead of a Metroid game, for instance. Federation Force would get less bashing if it was a new IP and so on.

Sony and MS are a lot better at just giving fans what they want from their major IPs, and making new IPs to do new things.

Hopefully Splatoon doing so well shows Nintendo that a new idea paired with new IP can be huge. I don't think that game would have done nearly as well if they'd done their typical stick to major IP approach and made it Mario Paintball or Smash Paintball etc.

Microsoft, maybe. But Sony's new IPs, at least the big ones, aren't really that new typically. They all feel like the same style of "big budget, gritty, adult story with fancy graphics" just with a new coat of paint. Not to come off as bashing them, but outside of story, I don't think something like Days Gone or The Last of Us do anything truly new from a gameplay perspective. They are, or going to be great games I'm sure, but more in a polished, well made blockbuster kind of way, rather than anything really out there or experimental. Compare this to something like Splatoon, which takes the concept of a 3rd person shooter and completely flips it on its head, changing up the mechanics and tossing the uneccecary complexities of more conventional shooters, in favor of something so simple, anyone can pick it up and have a good time.

There are a few exceptions like the upcoming Dreams and The Last Guardian. But Sony's developers focus more on trying to tell an epic story rather than challenging gameplay conventions. This isn't a bad thing mind you, it's simply a different approach they take.

 

[blu]

This is quite interesting... correct me if I am wrong, but the way I read it is that they recognise the need of building performance headroom in HW/dedicate some of the HW performance not to improve how the game looks and plays necessarily but to speed things up development wise.

That's how I read it as well.

Essentially, this could be also explained as it is ok to use more general purpose engines that may be less performance optimised for a very very specific scenario and prefer reusable engines and techniques which make developing titles easier and cheaper.

That would be a logical conclusion.

This should/ought to go along with greater emphasis on CPU/GPU/RAM characteristics: if you build a very power constrained device (low performance because you target very low power dissipation and/or because you prioritise very low manufacturing costs) and you tell your developers to spend less time on title specific engines and tools and work on more generic technology instead, then it will be even harder on developers.

Well, unless you provide them with well-optimized middleware, perhaps some you did yourself.

 

[SalvaPot]

I think people are blowing the 2 mil quote out of proportion, I think they expect the usual, high budget suspects to sell at least 2 million.

The day Mario Kart, Smash and Zelda sells less than 2 million on a regular basis is when Nintendo is going to be scared.

Otherwise they can keep focusing the big bucks on this titles and just release low-to-mid budget releases for other games to pad the year, and if one of them actually manages to sell more than 2 million, that is huge for them.

Also the evergreen approach pretty much means they are happy if they manage to sell two million copies in 6 years.

 

[JMY86]

I think people are blowing the 2 mil quote out of proportion, I think they expect the usual, high budget suspects to sell at least 2 million.

The day Mario Kart, Smash and Zelda sells less than 2 million on a regular basis is when Nintendo is going to be scared.

I don't see us getting another Mario Kart or Smash for quite some time. I think Zelda is the only game on the horizon that has a chance to sell 2 million for them.

 

[10k]

30 years of games and only one sold more than 2 million. That's not good. Mario and Zelda sell more than 2 million on a consistent basis in the same time period of 30 years.

Metroid could be Nintendos persona in sales. Sell mediocre and then one entry explodes in popularity and the rest from then on do 2M+ .

Or be like what fire Emblem was which really didn't take off until awakening.

But this is wishful thinking.

 

[Regiruler]

Please re-read the OP. And where did you get the idea that XCX wasn't successful?

Where it probably did ~500k (give or take 100k) given retail estimates from various regions, which is low for a game of its development time.

EDIT: My god 10k what did you do to ramp up your tag?

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

I don't see us getting another Mario Kart or Smash for quite some time. I think Zelda (or possibly Metroid) is the only game on the horizon that has a chance to sell 2 million for them.

There are already solid rumors of an Ultimate / Turbo like edition of Smash Brothers coming to NX.

 

[MacTag]

Shadow warrior released in retail on PS4,XBOX same year Bayonetta 2 did for 40$. It's relevant it also was not full 59.99 when it launched on pc either but I was talking about console retail.

YEA Bayonetta 2 almost year and a half later re-released by itself for 49.99 such a great deal.

I would like to see some links for Wii u having more 20$ digital games currently than PS4+XBOX. How many Free to play games are on Wii u? There are a bunch on psn alone. How many second party exclusives HAS Wii U released this year that are in the 24.99-19.99 range?

Others have pointed out the Bayo 2 misinformation already but digitally Bayo 2 was $49.99 while Bayo 1 was $29.99. If you bought one you got an automatic discount of $20 on the other, making the same price as the $59.99 retail bundle. Later when Bayo 2 got it's $29.99 retail release the eShop price was dropped to match and the discount removed.

I blanked on Shadow Warrior 2013 but I'm still not sure of the relevance given Sony and Microsoft have basically nothing to do with it. Unless this really an issue for you on 3rd party rather than 1st party support? From what I can tell so far in North America Sony published 32 PS4 games that launched under $20, Microsoft published 14 Xbox One games that launched under $20 and Nintendo published 134 Wii U games that launched under $20.

 

[Onaco]

They give out Unity engine with their development kits for the Wii U...

But that's readily available and kind of expected. It's just as expected as including the power adapter with a game system... oh shit... wait...

 

[Wyndstryker]

Well, 2 million units isn't so hard for some of their titles.

Going by that some titles can fund 5 other titles alone.

 

[Draxal]

There are already solid rumors of an Ultimate / Turbo like edition of Smash Brothers coming to NX.

Ayup, Inklings will be the perfect Turbo (only) characters as well.

 

[TheDinoman]

Ayup, Inklings will be the perfect Turbo (only) characters as well.

Don't forget about them, too. Unless the NX hardware is super pathetically weak and can't run them for some reason.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

There are already solid rumors of an Ultimate / Turbo like edition of Smash Brothers coming to NX.

From the same source that said there would be a female Link option, wasn't it? Not sure if Emily Roger's is always correct

 

[TheDinoman]

From the same source that said there would be a female Link option, wasn't it? Not sure if Emily Roger's is always correct

It wasn't just Emily Rogers, it was also Serkan Toto (who apparently is a reliable source) who mentioned it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1176639

 

[bman94]

This kind of sounds to me like Nintendo is saying "we realize 3rd parties aren't lining up to develop for our consoles so we have to make some changes to get games out quicker to build up our libraries and save some money in the process."

I don't think the NX will get a ton of success with 3rd parties no matter how many 3rd parties claim that they're "excited" for it.

 

[Oregano]

From the same source that said there would be a female Link option, wasn't it? Not sure if Emily Roger's is always correct

Dr Serkan Toto said he heard Smash is one of several Bandai Namco projects for NX. He's not a BS insider doing it for e-cred either.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Honestly, one of Nintendo's biggest problems is they've tried to milk the shit out of existing IP too much rather than just make new IP when they want to try new gameplay.

Other M would have gotten a lot better reception if it was just some new 2.5D action game instead of a Metroid game, for instance. Federation Force would get less bashing if it was a new IP and so on.

Sony and MS are a lot better at just giving fans what they want from their major IPs, and making new IPs to do new things.

Hopefully Splatoon doing so well shows Nintendo that a new idea paired with new IP can be huge. I don't think that game would have done nearly as well if they'd done their typical stick to major IP approach and made it Mario Paintball or Smash Paintball etc.

Well for one other m was never planned to be a new IP it was made to be a story in the Metroid universe

 

[MacTag]

But that's readily available and kind of expected. It's just as expected as including the power adapter with a game system... oh shit... wait...

It's expected now but it was innovative at the time they started, Nintendo was actually the first console maker to do it. I wouldn't be surprised if they do similar deals with Unity and Epic on NX.

 

[SalvaPot]

Metroid could be Nintendos persona in sales. Sell mediocre and then one entry explodes in popularity and the rest from then on do 2M+ .

Or be like what fire Emblem was which really didn't take off until awakening.

But this is wishful thinking.

Fire Emblem is Nintendo's Persona in sales. You know what the game changer was?

A bigger focus on waifus

Spoiler

And accessibility.

.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Metroid could be Nintendos persona in sales. Sell mediocre and then one entry explodes in popularity and the rest from then on do 2M+ .

Or be like what fire Emblem was which really didn't take off until awakening.

But this is wishful thinking.

If Prime couldn't do that then nothing will.

 

[SalvaPot]

If Prime couldn't do that then nothing will.

Federation Force to sell 3 mill, now all sequels are Federation Force sequels.

 

[Toxi]

30 years of games and only one sold more than 2 million. That's not good. Mario and Zelda sell more than 2 million on a consistent basis in the same time period of 30 years.

Two. The original Metroid also cleared 2 million.

Also, no shit Mario and Zelda consistently sell more. Outside of Pokemon, there's no long-running Nintendo franchise those two don't consistently outsell.

 

[TannerDemoz]

It would help if their major releases were well advertised. They actually got it right with Splatoon, there was even a commercial for a content patch.

Do they go over their approach to marketing budgets? Because they'll have to get more aggressive if they want those numbers.

This, so much - especially since marketing is one of the main causes the Wii U failed.

I don't know if Nintendo has just killed marketing in the last couple of years because they know it's too late, but here in the UK there is also no marketing for any of their products.

I remember they did a lot of television advertising with the GC and Wii, Wii U absolutely nothing and even the 3DS seems to be lacking.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Nintendo really needs to do market research and keep their developers in check from doing what ever the fuck they want

ie who ever produced #FE. What made them think there was a market for that game. Hell even in Japan it sold like less than 30k the last time I saw it on mediacreate sales thread.

Nintendo's niche projects and collaborations fill gaps and satisfy their hardcore base, I certainly hope they don't go away, especially if third parties disappear again.