Wii-U thoughts so far

[Jmustang1968]

Zero, I think those sites cover the MS and Sony consoles seemingly the most because those are the consoles that get the big software sales. Trying to be relevant to the most readers/viewers. I dont think the media drives it such much as the sales point where the media goes. But the Wii games received tons of coverage at the time.

The Dreamcast is always the forgotten console of that gen to me. I actually always forget it was even in that gen until I am reminded like now. It feels like it is gen 5.5 and not 6.

[AppleQueso]

The Dreamcast is always the forgotten console of that gen to me. I actually always forget it was even in that gen until I reminded like now. It feels like it is gen 5.5 and not 6.

Well it did die before like half of that gen's consoles even launched.

[Jmustang1968]

The Dreamcast is always the forgotten console of that gen to me. I actually always forget it was even in that gen until I reminded like now. It feels like it is gen 5.5 and not 6.

Well it did die before like half of that gen's consoles even launched.

Yeah, that would be the big contributing factor.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah Dreamcast existed in like a weird limbo state. It was released earlier than other 6th gen systems, has some overlap with the PS1 library, and was failing hard right as the other systems started to hit it big.

The 6th gen is really strong overall. Dreamcast had the great Sega games, Xbox is like Dreamcast 2.0 + Western RPGs, GameCube has an excellent first-party line-up, and the PS2 simply has a shit-ton of JRPGs (and games period).

[Sarge]

Yeah, I think a lot of the lack of success of the GC can be directly attributed to the N64 and the image Nintendo had procured at this point. Honestly, I think the "kiddie" thing started before that, though, in the Mortal Kombat saga. And make no mistake, Nintendo made its bones at that time by trying to appeal to kids and to a large degree their parents, 'cause they had the money.

As others here have pointed out, that obviously doesn't mean that there weren't "mature" offerings for Nintendo's systems, but Nintendo has mostly been happy to keep putting out the types of games that would be considered "kiddie" by the "hardcore".

I do wonder how much of that, too, is that those who grew up with Nintendo decided that they had "outgrown" Nintendo games. Ridiculous, I know.

At least Nintendo, though, had the luck of having the N64 only being a minor failure, not a massive one like the Saturn (another system I love!). That helped doom the Dreamcast just as surely as the N64's lackluster performance hurt the 'cube.

[isiolia]

I don't understand why NGC sold so low given that the hardware is more capable than ps2 (afaik) and games were on par or superior to what was on the PS2 (quality not quantity). If the PS2 sold 100+m units, you would think the NGC would sell at least 50m but at around 20m its hard to know what went wrong.

Some one who followed that generation from the start maybe could shed a light on this issue

The PS2 was the worst hardware on the market for that generation, easily. It just didn't matter.

Sega was out, MS was new, and Nintendo had driven away a lot of developer support. Meanwhile, Sony had knocked it out of the park with the PS1.

I worked at Software Etc around the PS2 launch. DVD playback was big for some people. For a lot more of them, it was bringing the next Final Fantasy, the next Metal Gear, the next Gran Turismo, next Medal of Honor and Call of Duty (you know, when they were WWII games), and so on.

The Dreamcast didn't have that - why do you think the Bleemcast! releases targeted some of those? It had arcade games, ports, and plenty of "well, it's kind-of like X", where X was a game on the Playstation that would probably get a sequel on the PS2, or at least have developer support on that system.

For a lot of people, the N64 was already the system they might dust off every so often for a first-party release. It got relatively few ports, and the games were expensive. New PS1 games were often in the $45 range, where N64 games were frequently pushing $70, with some of them needing a $20 expansion pack not everyone had.

Keep in mind, that's what the PS2 launched against. The XBox and Gamecube showed up a year later. The PS2 launch didn't have a lot of great stuff, but by the time the competitors showed up, you had Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Gran Turismo 3, Ico, and so on out. Actually, those consoles practically launched against GTA III and Metal Gear Solid 2. FFX was about a month out. Kingdom Hearts and Xenosaga a few months away.

So, you had a good start on the PS2 Greatest Hits library on the shelf, versus two launch libraries.

[ZeroAX]

Zero, I think those sites cover the MS and Sony consoles seemingly the most because those are the consoles that get the big software sales. Trying to be relevant to the most readers/viewers. I dont think the media drives it such much as the sales point where the media goes. But the Wii games received tons of coverage at the time.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but that begs the question why promote the PS4/Xbone as big things when at launch (and for me, even now) only offered slightly better versions of PS3/360 games?

I see a big PS/Xbox bias, and it's not mostly about nintendo that it gets to me, it's about PC. PC is the superior gaming platform thanks to steam. All your patch/driver needs are covered, PC hardware has become cheaper than ever before, and the games are just so much cheaper than their console version (specially 6 months after release).

Mind you I'm also seeing this from a European perspective where consoles are dieing since everyone prefers playing games on PC, so maybe things are different in America and people prefer to keep playing on their consoles and pay the premium prices to keep doing that.

[Jmustang1968]

Zero, I think those sites cover the MS and Sony consoles seemingly the most because those are the consoles that get the big software sales. Trying to be relevant to the most readers/viewers. I dont think the media drives it such much as the sales point where the media goes. But the Wii games received tons of coverage at the time.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but that begs the question why promote the PS4/Xbone as big things when at launch (and for me, even now) only offered slightly better versions of PS3/360 games?

I see a big PS/Xbox bias, and it's not mostly about nintendo that it gets to me, it's about PC. PC is the superior gaming platform thanks to steam. All your patch/driver needs are covered, PC hardware has become cheaper than ever before, and the games are just so much cheaper than their console version (specially 6 months after release).

Mind you I'm also seeing this from a European perspective where consoles are dieing since everyone prefers playing games on PC, so maybe things are different in America and people prefer to keep playing on their consoles and pay the premium prices to keep doing that.

Because those consoles are the next big thing. People seek news for the new stuff. The last console gen dragged on.

I am a big PC gamer myself, but consoles remain popular. Some associate PC gaming with nerds. Others just like the plug and play ability of a console. They dont want to deal with hardware and software installation. They want it on their couch and their big screen. Sure a PC can do this, but many dont associate the PC with that experience.

[Tanooki]

Can I ask a serious question...? I never understood why the GameCube got labelled with a "kiddy" image and people say third party support was lacking. I mean, it had plenty of "adult" games and plenty of third party support. Third party support did start to deteriorate towards the end of the console's life, but overall, the GameCube was arguably a far more inclusive and well rounded console than the N64.

Gamecube was my favorite of that era too, DC second to it as they were companions. Now the kiddy thing, that one is pretty cut and dry and it started with the Nintendo64 and Sony. Sony with the PS1 floundered the first year really, Sony engaged in new tactics to storm in and take the place(industry) over doing a few things. They cut their license fees heavily, in some cases gave people freebies as a bribe to come on board. They also unlike Nintendo or Sega would do heavy promotion and advertising for game makers to get them known, FF7 was the biggest as they ran that ad blitz. And then to put a thumb in Nintendo's eye after hosing over the Saturn the year before, Sony media and SCEA did a double strike attack. The media end went on the offensive with game media publishers and started throwing around kiddie console/system for the children with the N64. Despite up to the point them on N64 having more T/M content in it worked because they highlighted Nintendo and Rare's stuff, the media hip to Sony went along with it, developers went along with the media barometer of what people wanted and the N64 T-M stuff vanished for nearly 2 years pretty much only to re-surface later with things like Quake 2 and Resident Evil 2 which was too late to matter. Sony kept the blitz on and Nintendo kind of did it to themselves, they released a purple cube with a handle, instantly branded by the media as the childrens lunchbox so it got branded as the kiddie box too. That moniker Sony invented for Nintendo due to their family approach has never died. Again another story from my time at Midway, my first supervisor Dan came off of working on DOOM64 and I had asked him how things shifted so bad in the period and discussed that with me while we were working one afternoon.

Sometimes people say there's no such thing as negative advertising because it gets your name out there, but sometimes there is, because if you twist it right, the target is screwed. I didn't care though, I didn't get a PS1 or 2 up until 2001. The Gamecube may have never had GTA or other thug sandbox titles for the most part (it got the nicest version of True Crime Streets of LA which was awesome.) It did get a lot of third party stuff until people bailed after 1/2 its life was done and some of it was even by developers admission the best version when multiplayer(online) was taken out of it. The GC got a lot of third party support, good stuff too that the other guys got from many genres, the only one it was really dry on I think were sandbox thuggery games and RPGs. Honestly the GC has been the only disc based system I felt was ever durable enough to last over the many years, everything else including the Wii and WiiU seem just more flimsy but the GC was built like a tank just like the N64 before it.

[Jmustang1968]

Nintendo also released Super Mario Sunshine which sounds like a title for kids and stylized Windwaker to be more cartoonish. I think that piled on the rep.