The WORST Article about Nintendo EVER...

[Anayo]

Animal Crossing would be a perfect fit for the iPad and the monetization potential of its item collection system boggles the mind.

After reading that sentence, I wanted to say something very rude and uncivil about the author of the article. So I stopped reading.

[Exhuminator]

If Nintendo created their own smartphone, and published their own first party developed games for it solely, how well do you guys think that would sell?

[BogusMeatFactory]

If Nintendo created their own smartphone, and published their own first party developed games for it solely, how well do you guys think that would sell?

I think poorly. They would be entering a market filled with established brands that have a psychotic hardcore devotion. They would be the small fish in that scenario and I don't see that ever being a viable option.

[Tanooki]

I recall a Tengen cartridge with Afterburner. I wonder if Sega made any money from that, or if Tengen was just ripping everybody off.

I don't know much about Tengen, but from what I can tell they published ports of Sega, Midway, and Namco arcade games for the NES.

Unlike other unlicensed crap, these were legit good games. A few years ago I read up on the legal issues Nintendo had with Tengen, but I can't recall it all at this moment. Sega and Commodore didn't seem to mind Tengen games on their platforms.

The Tengen-published Sega games are After Burner, Alien Syndrome, Fantasy Zone, and Shinobi.

Tengen, the parent company was Atari. Atari/Midway released their own games, Sega, and Namco is right. While they were unlicensed, not everything was, as you said they're legit good games, and for a time they had a license too (see PacMan, Gauntlet, and RBI Baseball for example.) Atari(Tengen) were pissed at the fees and costs involved of having Nintendo make their own carts. The legal issues with Nintendo were two fold. One was Nintendo being pissed off they took their 10NES chip and reverse engineered it, and in a legal fashion not using stolen tech data and made a legit bypass. That's when they started making games in mass in those black carts which is when Sega and the others jumped on board with them. The other would be them getting some legals rights to Tetris, Nintendo getting other ones, and Nintendo kicking their ass in court for selling the superior Tetris title to their own game and wanting them out of the picture.

If anyone wants a nice taste of the story from both sides of it, find a used copy or a kindle edition of David Sheff's Game Over which covers the legal rumblings of Tengen and Nintendo.


OH and no I think a Nintendo phone would be a horrible idea. Sony who has far better brand recognition than they do these days tried it twice so far with their Sony Ericcson phone division and that went pretty much nowhere. I doubt mushrooms and triforce pieces would fare much better.

[Opa Opa]

Animal Crossing would be a perfect fit for the iPad and the monetization potential of its item collection system boggles the mind.

After reading that sentence, I wanted to say something very rude and uncivil about the author of the article. So I stopped reading.

Animal Crossing would be a great F2P game.

Monetize some of the vanity items (furniture, clothing) but still keep the rotating stock in the Tom Nook store to buy with in-game currency.
You could also sell the in-game currency with IAP's. Have a limit on island trips per week and sell tickets to travel to it for those impatient types.

I know some of you are probably cringing at what you just read but I think the core Animal Crossing experience (fishing, fossils, bugs, villager interaction, and multiplayer) can remain intact while monetizing other non-essiential aspects of the game.

I'd play it.

[AppleQueso]

bblegh animal crossing with microtransactions would utterly kill the spirit of the game

[samsonlonghair]

I think capitalism IS the spirit of animal crossing.

I wonder if they'd have success putting the Virtual Console on mobile phones.

Speak of the Devil, and he doth appear. Someone on NeoGaf discovered a recently-filled patent for Nintendo to put Gameboy emulators on mobile phones, PDAs, PCs, trains, and planes.

Here's the full patent application:
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... N/Nintendo

[irixith]

bblegh animal crossing with microtransactions would utterly kill the spirit of the game

Isn't being bent over by Tom Nook the spirit of the game? Doing what Opa described illustrates all too easily how Animal Crossing would translate, because the core is already there. Instead of being locked behind Tom Nook's paywall, you can be locked behind a real money paywall instead!

In summary, I hate you Tom Nook you bastard.

[Opa Opa]

I'll be genuinely surprised if they don't implement some of the things I mentioned in the next iteration. the next AC will probably be a $10-15 download with optional IAP's and items will be worth fewer bells to encourage player spending, more than likely.

[irixith]

I'll be genuinely surprised if they don't implement some of the things I mentioned in the next iteration. the next AC will probably be a $10-15 download with optional IAP's and items will be worth fewer bells to encourage player spending, more than likely.

I've actually been pretty surprised at Nintendo not at least capitalizing on DLC for Animal Crossing. You could have additional campaigns where you get even more indentured to the Nook family, different properties to build and pimp out, more animals to catch...the list is fairly endless. Such is the way of things I suppose. It doesn't make it any less of a good game the way it stands now.