Nintendo: Project Cafe - Wii U

[Xeogred]

But I would caution you from making your mind up about Wii U so soon. I think / hope that Nintendo won't make the same mistake they have made with the 3DS and release it without a solid selection of software at launch. What would you want Nintendo to do differently than what they showed you today?

Well that could be a big reason why I'm so apathetic right now. All I'm seeing is the hardware... I need more than that. With so many systems and revisions coming out thesedays, I don't really get excited just for them as I used too. I'm not liking this controller at all either, "gimmicky" comments aside or whatever it doesn't even look like it'd be that comfortable to use with traditional games. But who knows, the Xbox did have the hamburger controller as Ack brought up.

Now you probably don't care at all but I'll continue and throw out what I think Nintendo's game plan should be. They should just drop the Wii support entirely (maybe keep supporting the Wii on the side as Sony did the PS2 for awhile, for those who still might want to stick with the Wii or whatever)... and drop the touch screen controller. Just give us a really powerful traditional console and shift the major focus on the games. I see some excellent 3rd part titles in that joystiq article I posted, but chances are I'm sure we'll see that on the 360/PS3 as well... so it's hard to give the Wii U any credit there at all. Nintendo's first party games for the Wii have been great, and there's a lot I need to catch up on whenever I get a Wii again, but it seriously doesn't look like it's been nearly as strong as the N64/GC in that regard. They had more support there too, with Rare punching out games left and right back on the N64, and the GC just had a lot of great gems... Nintendo should really focus more on their own titles and strengthen their 2nd party support like they used to quite a bit, so they've got more than "just a few" awesome exclusive titles to offer. I'm just not seeing that on the Wii. And they've been talking a lot about getting 3rd party support back with the Wii U, but with this touch screen controller and everything, it's all just adding another loop for developers to jump through whom may want nothing to do with it. They've complicated things once again.

I think it was also just really bad timing on their part to build up all this hype for the Wii U right now, when the 3DS just came out around the corner. I'm sure anyone can throw sales at me, but it clearly does not sound like anyone I really know and plenty of people here were that happy with the 3DS purchase right off the bat. This year should've just been spent on focusing on the 3DS and 3DS alone perhaps.

Then from there, Nintendo should just wait it out a little longer to see what MS/Sony's game plans are for their next consoles. They should just wait it out more to get better hardware in that thing that can keep up, as I'm sure MS/Sony's next systems will have higher limits. Though I'd certainly think the gap in terms of technical ability won't be as huge as it's been this gen, but still it just seems really early for a new console next year.

Right now it just kind of seems like they're jumping the gun and making some really weird decisions here that could backfire on them. Honestly the Wii U will probably be better than the Wii, but that's not saying much I'd say. All in all the Wii felt like a huge long lasting joke, and I'd just like to see Nintendo get really serious for once.

[Xeogred]

Good post, quoted for page 29.

A portable Gamecube would really make these controllers shine..

(Trying to segue the Troll definition debates... )
Talking with a buddy today, we thought about something-

Nintendo always manages to make a profit on their systems. They make roughly a 60-65% profit on every 3DS sold. Not sure the margin on the Wii, but we all know how many of those they sold, so - yeah. With the Wii U, people are freaking out over a price point, fearing a $350-450 or higher price-point. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo decides to go the Sony route, sell the system and one pack-in controller at cost or lower, and make their money by selling extra controllers, 1st party games, etc.* The controller is looking like a beast - both in the figurative and literal sense! It gives Nintendo the reasoning to offer a more trimmed controller model, (like the Wii's classic controller,) and make money that way. Also, going back to my notion of a portable Gamecube, give this new monster control some awesome bells and whistles, and I can see Nintendo easily selling $100 controllers like hotcakes, (making a 20-30% profit in the process!)

* - It's just pure skepticism, but I wonder if Nintendo may contemplate going back to their old ways of cracking down on 3rd party developers, (see: Nintendo Seal of Approval.)
By doing this, Nintendo would limit the amount of shovel-ware released for the system, (which alienated themselves with their "hard-core" audience,) and provide them an excuse to make more profit from 3rd party releases. Quality sells better, therefore - more $$ for 3rd parties on a Nintendo system, and even more money for Nintendo. It's what made Nintendo a monster in the 80's and early 90's.
I believe the controller will be the secret weapon for Nintendo's success with the Wii U. Those who are skeptical: I understand! But, tell me you wouldn't invest in a second Wii U controller that allows you to play both Gameboy - GBA, (maybe one-day DS games), as well as Soul Calibur II (w/ Link), Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Goldeneye/Perfect Dark head-to-head with other Wii U controller owners? I'm not saying that Nintendo will do all of this - but if they don't, well, the power could certainly be there - and there an awful lot of Geohots out there!

What do you all think?

[Ack]

* - It's just pure skepticism, but I wonder if Nintendo may contemplate going back to their old ways of cracking down on 3rd party developers, (see: Nintendo Seal of Approval.)
By doing this, Nintendo would limit the amount of shovel-ware released for the system, (which alienated themselves with their "hard-core" audience,) and provide them an excuse to make more profit from 3rd party releases. Quality sells better, therefore - more $$ for 3rd parties on a Nintendo system, and even more money for Nintendo. It's what made Nintendo a monster in the 80's and early 90's.

Hmm...I don't think so. Nintendo ended up being burned badly by those old 3rd party developer standards, to the point that some companies hardly worked with them for several console generations. The Big N's first party series are all gold-standards and guaranteed money makers, but that doesn't mean they're going to want to give up access to those third party titles so easily. In fact, with names like Assassin's Creed and the like, I feel Nintendo might even be trying to expand which third party developers they're using, though they may try to gain even more M-rated titles, as that "kiddy" image holdover from the days of Sega Genesis marketing has been haunting them for twenty years now. And those M-rated games are all the "hardcore" community tends to care about anyway, so that would be catering to them.

Besides, that "quality sells better" bit may be true, but all of that shovelware was so cheap to make that many of those companies made money even with piss-poor sales. In fact it's often the high quality games that don't make their overhead costs back. Why do you think the developer of Natural Selection 2 made a Sudoku game for Steam? Because it was cheap and earned him enough money to finish the NS2 project.

[elmagicochrisg]

As for the lack of gimmicks...what do you consider Xbox Live then, along with PSN and the Virtual Console? Online play has become standardized, but it started entirely as a gimmick. The Wii's motion controls may be a gimmick, but they have become popular enough to warrant both Microsoft and Sony pulling out their own equivalents. And consider some of the other gimmicks in gaming that have stuck around: memory cards, analog sticks, rumble functionality, backwards compatibility, wireless controllers, etc. And after the popularity of both the Wii and products like Apple's iPad and iPhone, are you really surprised that a major console developer took notice and wants to implement the technology?

I wouldn't exactly call Xbox Live, PSN and the Virtual Console gimmicks. The former are merely an enhanced 2-player mode, the latter is just about games. If anything, the latter goes back to the roots more than any development I have seen the past few years...

Memory Cards aren't really a gimmick either. They are only the result of the limitations we got with disc based games. Analog sticks are just a better version of the arrow keys. Rumble also doesn't completely overhaul the way we play games. Backwards compatibility is again just about games like Xbox Live and PSN are. Wireless controllers merely a better version of the regular controller. A wireless controller does not extensively change the way we play games, they simply add something to the old controller. No, remove actually... lol

Guitar Hero controllers, lightguns, dance mats, steering wheels... Those are what I call gimmicks. In essence a Wii controller is nothing more than a lightgun. Let's be honest. And who wouldn't call a lightgun a gimmick?... Exactly.

Like Xeo said, it would be nice to see Nintendo focus on the games again. Not on the gimmicks. It just feels like they go for the wow factor instead of the solid game factor the last few years. Which is in my opinion a very sad development. Gimme a solid base of really good games with a 'normal' controller, and here and there a game with the 'screen' controller or the 'point' controller on the side, and maybe, just maybe I might be interested. I have a Wii too you know. It's just impossible to see it as my main console. Simply because the majority of games are 'on the side' games...

[Rurouni_Fencer]

thanks for the quote, Xeogred!

Hmm...I don't think so. Nintendo ended up being burned badly by those old 3rd party developer standards, to the point that some companies hardly worked with them for several console generations. The Big N's first party series are all gold-standards and guaranteed money makers, but that doesn't mean they're going to want to give up access to those third party titles so easily. In fact, with names like Assassin's Creed and the like, I feel Nintendo might even be trying to expand which third party developers they're using, though they may try to gain even more M-rated titles, as that "kiddy" image holdover from the days of Sega Genesis marketing has been haunting them for twenty years now. And those M-rated games are all the "hardcore" community tends to care about anyway, so that would be catering to them.

Besides, that "quality sells better" bit may be true, but all of that shovelware was so cheap to make that many of those companies made money even with piss-poor sales. In fact it's often the high quality games that don't make their overhead costs back. Why do you think the developer of Natural Selection 2 made a Sudoku game for Steam? Because it was cheap and earned him enough money to finish the NS2 project.

You make very good points! But don't forget that as the 90's made way for more mature subject matter in gaming, Nintendo tried to rebel at first and got burnt. This gave birth to the infamous "Play It Loud" campaign, spearheaded by Mortal Kombat II and Killer Instinct - blood and all.. I believe Nintendo realizes the potential for profit within the "hardcore" crowd, and realizes that they alienated them with the Wii, (although, as a counter-point to my own debate - Madworld did not sell well at all.) But, as I continue to speculate, Nintendo will not make a significant margin - if any - on the console itself, and will need to rely on other means to earn their profit. What better way then through exclusive 1st and 3rd party games, and a controller that has the potential to double as a portable Nintendo legacy system?

[Ack]

Xeogred, you make some solid points that I'd like to discuss a bit and get your thoughts on.

Well that could be a big reason why I'm so apathetic right now. All I'm seeing is the hardware... I need more than that. With so many systems and revisions coming out thesedays, I don't really get excited just for them as I used too. I'm not liking this controller at all either, "gimmicky" comments aside or whatever it doesn't even look like it'd be that comfortable to use with traditional games. But who knows, the Xbox did have the hamburger controller as Ack brought up.

I think one way or the other we should wait and see more hands-on information before we judge how it will be. It's possible the final design will change too, considering we're still over a year away from the console's release.

Now you probably don't care at all but I'll continue and throw out what I think Nintendo's game plan should be. They should just drop the Wii support entirely (maybe keep supporting the Wii on the side as Sony did the PS2 for awhile, for those who still might want to stick with the Wii or whatever)... and drop the touch screen controller. Just give us a really powerful traditional console and shift the major focus on the games. I see some excellent 3rd part titles in that joystiq article I posted, but chances are I'm sure we'll see that on the 360/PS3 as well... so it's hard to give the Wii U any credit there at all. Nintendo's first party games for the Wii have been great, and there's a lot I need to catch up on whenever I get a Wii again, but it seriously doesn't look like it's been nearly as strong as the N64/GC in that regard. They had more support there too, with Rare punching out games left and right back on the N64, and the GC just had a lot of great gems... Nintendo should really focus more on their own titles and strengthen their 2nd party support like they used to quite a bit, so they've got more than "just a few" awesome exclusive titles to offer. I'm just not seeing that on the Wii. And they've been talking a lot about getting 3rd party support back with the Wii U, but with this touch screen controller and everything, it's all just adding another loop for developers to jump through whom may want nothing to do with it. They've complicated things once again.

Some of this I agree with. Nintendo has suffered from issues with third party developers for years, and though there have been times when they had solid second party support, like Rare in the late 1990s, they eventually lost it. Nintendo will continue to focus on their own titles, as they have always done, but they do need to cater better third-party support for a larger range of matured-themed material. There has been some on the Wii that was quite good, but nowhere near the levels of titles on the 360 and PS3.

But going back to the "traditional console" probably won't work for Nintendo. Think about it this way: in the last three generations, Nintendo failed to be the lead twice with a traditional console (to the point that during the N64 days they survived off the Game Boy), but the one time they went for the non-traditional, they ended up head and shoulders above the competition. That's a lesson Nintendo will take to heart, and while it may not make fans of traditional consoles happy, said fans haven't often been there for Nintendo in the past anyway.

As for the touch screen, yes it's a tough step for developers, but its also an interesting one, and if it proves popular enough, expect Microsoft and Sony to take notice and make their own.

I think it was also just really bad timing on their part to build up all this hype for the Wii U right now, when the 3DS just came out around the corner. I'm sure anyone can throw sales at me, but it clearly does not sound like anyone I really know and plenty of people here were that happy with the 3DS purchase right off the bat. This year should've just been spent on focusing on the 3DS and 3DS alone perhaps.

While I also think Nintendo should push the 3DS more, I'm not sure if this speculation is completely correct. I always believed that the handheld and console markets were relatively exclusive, meaning people don't see them as competing with each other. So for Nintendo to put out a new console so soon after a new handheld, well, they don't think of it as competing with themselves. Also considering how much money they made off the Wii, they may be sitting on a large enough pile of cash to consider taking this gamble.

Then from there, Nintendo should just wait it out a little longer to see what MS/Sony's game plans are for their next consoles. They should just wait it out more to get better hardware in that thing that can keep up, as I'm sure MS/Sony's next systems will have higher limits. Though I'd certainly think the gap in terms of technical ability won't be as huge as it's been this gen, but still it just seems really early for a new console next year.

But Nintendo has repeatedly done well with outdated harder and usually prefers to behave like the trendsetter. That way they hit a larger market of folks, and Sony and Microsoft just come off as copying them. And the huge market of non-traditional gamers that came in for the Wii just shows that folks who haven't in the past been interested in this hobby don't necessarily care about graphics. Also better hardware doesn't necessarily mean better games, as we here in the retro gaming community should know. As for waiting for MS and Sony's game plans...haven't they both stated that they don't want new consoles for several years? That is their game plan. So that gives Nintendo some time to make new sales and continue to shoot for that market of folks who probably don't really care what Sony and Microsoft are making (or have even heard they make video games).

Right now it just kind of seems like they're jumping the gun and making some really weird decisions here that could backfire on them. Honestly the Wii U will probably be better than the Wii, but that's not saying much I'd say. All in all the Wii felt like a huge long lasting joke, and I'd just like to see Nintendo get really serious for once.

Admittedly though as I've said before, that long lasting joke has sold over 86 million units. Considering how much money they made, I don't think they're too worried about the traditional game market anymore. Instead they're shooting for the folks who were never really into games but took an interest in things like the iPad. Nintendo has the name-recognition, the sales base, and the money to do what they want, and while it could backfire on them, it could also turn out hugely successful.

[Ack]

As for the lack of gimmicks...what do you consider Xbox Live then, along with PSN and the Virtual Console? Online play has become standardized, but it started entirely as a gimmick. The Wii's motion controls may be a gimmick, but they have become popular enough to warrant both Microsoft and Sony pulling out their own equivalents. And consider some of the other gimmicks in gaming that have stuck around: memory cards, analog sticks, rumble functionality, backwards compatibility, wireless controllers, etc. And after the popularity of both the Wii and products like Apple's iPad and iPhone, are you really surprised that a major console developer took notice and wants to implement the technology?

I wouldn't exactly call Xbox Live, PSN and the Virtual Console gimmicks. The former are merely an enhanced 2-player mode, the latter is just about games. If anything, the latter goes back to the roots more than any development I have seen the past few years...

Memory Cards aren't really a gimmick either. They are only the result of the limitations we got with disc based games. Analog sticks are just a better version of the arrow keys. Rumble also doesn't completely overhaul the way we play games. Backwards compatibility is again just about games like Xbox Live and PSN are. Wireless controllers merely a better version of the regular controller. A wireless controller does not extensively change the way we play games, they simply add something to the old controller. No, remove actually... lol

Guitar Hero controllers, lightguns, dance mats, steering wheels... Those are what I call gimmicks. In essence a Wii controller is nothing more than a lightgun. Let's be honest. And who wouldn't call a lightgun a gimmick?... Exactly.

Like Xeo said, it would be nice to see Nintendo focus on the games again. Not on the gimmicks. It just feels like they go for the wow factor instead of the solid game factor the last few years. Which is in my opinion a very sad development. Gimme a solid base of really good games with a 'normal' controller, and here and there a game with the 'screen' controller or the 'point' controller on the side, and maybe, just maybe I might be interested. I have a Wii too you know. It's just impossible to see it as my main console. Simply because the majority of games are 'on the side' games...

But those inventions did change how we play games and what we expect from games. That's what I'm getting at. Heck, video games even started as gimmicks to prevent boredom. Consider the history of Tennis for Two for instance.

But I see what you mean about wanting Nintendo to focus on getting quality software as opposed to hardware changes. The issue I see is that, considering how much money they made and considering how things went for them during the days of the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube, I just don't see them wanting to go back to traditional game consoles, at least not until they see it as a viable business strategy where they can still manage to stand out in the crowd.

[Ack]

You make very good points! But don't forget that as the 90's made way for more mature subject matter in gaming, Nintendo tried to rebel at first and got burnt. This gave birth to the infamous "Play It Loud" campaign, spearheaded by Mortal Kombat II and Killer Instinct - blood and all.. I believe Nintendo realizes the potential for profit within the "hardcore" crowd, and realizes that they alienated them with the Wii, (although, as a counter-point to my own debate - Madworld did not sell well at all.) But, as I continue to speculate, Nintendo will not make a significant margin - if any - on the console itself, and will need to rely on other means to earn their profit. What better way then through exclusive 1st and 3rd party games, and a controller that has the potential to double as a portable Nintendo legacy system?

I can see that about more mature games, hence the names of the games they've been dropping. But Nintendo has a habit of doing their best to make a significant margin on any hardware they sell, so I don't think that bit of speculation is correct.

[rainnyx4]

After seeing the new controller, I'm surprised they didn't throw another set of triggers and a second analog stick on the 3ds. They could've used it as a direct substitute for the system's controller. That would entice people to own both.

"Hey neither my friend nor I have a second Wii U controller so we can't play two player games. Oh, but he does have a 3ds! I'll tell him to bring that over to use!"

[Rurouni_Fencer]

But Nintendo has a habit of doing their best to make a significant margin on any hardware they sell, so I don't think that bit of speculation is correct.

This is definitely true, but as said before, Nintendo made a very nice profit on the Wii, and therefore can afford to gamble a bit on this generation - especially with Sony and Microsoft in the later-middle stages of their current consoles. This is why I'm guessing they'll try to deviate from previous business strategies.