"Nintendo Switch", News and Discussion on Nintendo's New System - It's Launch Time!

[Harvey]

I'd normally think nintendo would be on a bad position, all things considered, but they've apparently made so much money this year that they're probably fine

Even if they made a loss this year, Nintendo is so banked up that they can last until 2064!

I was talking about consoles only, they seem to have a very strong attachment to adding gimmicks to the console where whether it be the 3-D in the 3DS or the forementioned Wii and Wii U. As far as games yeah I would agree they're not much more innovative than Sony. I do think Sony & Nintendo are generally more innovative than Microsoft of the studios Microsoft owns I would say Remedy is the the only one that's truly innovative, I guess the hollow shell of Rare is still trying to figure what the heck they are supposed to be now days.

Kid Icarus Uprising would like to have a word with you...

Edited January 3, 2017 by Harvey

[Locke087]

Kid Icarus Uprising would like to have a word with you...

yeah it's a great innovative game but so is Gravity Rush, Last Guardian, and Tearaway among others. Nintendo really isn't that much more innovative than Sony.

[Harvey]

yeah it's a great innovative game but so is Gravity Rush, Last Guardian, and Tearaway among others. Nintendo really isn't that much more innovative than Sony.

You can pretty much say the same thing for the industry overall. As of now, not one single game even outside of Nintendo hasn't offered anything innovative even the games that you mentioned aren't really that innovative. Even Sony isn't that much creative considering most of their games are just copy paste of Nintendo's past games like that Smash rip off that Sony tried to do but didn't turn out well.

But does innovation really need to exist in Nintendo's case? The consoles that they make are themselves more innovative than their games and the games are based on each and every console that those games are being made. That's why its difficult for such games like Phantom Hourglass because that game was built for that system and it was only made for that system.

And when you compare who's doing better between Nintendo and Sony, Nintendo is by far the stable one atleast in terms of gaming.

EDIT: And just a pointer, but Nintendo DOES take a lot more risks than Sony. They just did Tokyo Mirrage Sessions and Federation Force.

Edited January 3, 2017 by Harvey

[Tryhard]

i know you like nintendo and want to play for the team and all that but to say that not one game outside of nintendo has offered anything innovative is laughable

experience new things

Edited January 3, 2017 by Tryhard

[Nobody]

You can pretty much say the same thing for the industry overall. As of now, not one single game even outside of Nintendo hasn't offered anything innovative even the games that you mentioned aren't really that innovative. Even Sony isn't that much creative considering most of their games are just copy paste of Nintendo's past games like that Smash rip off that Sony tried to do but didn't turn out well.

But does innovation really need to exist in Nintendo's case? The consoles that they make are themselves more innovative than their games and the games are based on each and every console that those games are being made. That's why its difficult for such games like Phantom Hourglass because that game was built for that system and it was only made for that system.

And when you compare who's doing better between Nintendo and Sony, Nintendo is by far the stable one atleast in terms of gaming.

EDIT: And just a pointer, but Nintendo DOES take a lot more risks than Sony. They just did Tokyo Mirrage Sessions and Federation Force.

Please do tell which nintendo games the last guardian, gravity rush, the last of us or uncharted are copies of, because i sure as hell want to play them Edited January 3, 2017 by Nobody

[Harvey]

i know you like nintendo and want to play for the team and all that but to say that not one game outside of nintendo has offered anything innovative is laughable

I'm sorry. I meant it in general and there are some games I've played like Owlboy which are innovative as well.

Please do tell which nintendo games the last guardian, gravity rush, the last of us or uncharted are copies of, because i sure as hell want to play them

Nintendo will never come to those games on par since those games are heavily on story than they are of gameplay and seeing as how Nintendo just wants to stick to gameplay, that will never happen so in that aspect, Nintendo loses and that's sad because they can make the effort if they try.

[Locke087]

That's because many of Nintendo's franchises don't lend themselves to story the few that do do actually have pretty good stories namely Xenoblade, Zelda, Metroid and the Mother/Earthbound games (Fire Emblem also tries) not all the stories in all these games are equal but many of these franchises have turned out excellent stories like Majora's Mask, Mother 3, Xenoblade Chronicles, or Metroids excellent environmental storytelling.

If this is a comment to the fact that it seems Nintendo doesn't want to anymore, I wouldn't agree with that entirely they could still have stories, they just wanted it out of all Mario related franchises (which is sad considering Super Paper Mario's excellent story but whatever), it's true that this generation hasn't seen a really strong story from a Nintendo game but it's not for lack of trying Fates and Xenoblade X put actual effort into trying to make their stories they just failed. Xenoblade X's story actually isn't that bad at all it's just not as good as the first one and it serves as a fine foundation for a sequel, it also fit well if it's more open world nature.

if you're taking about the more cinematic style of storytelling employed in naughty dogs works then yes you will never see that unless retro is put to work on something intriguing or Nintendo takes a new studio under its wings, Nintendo's current crop of studios is more familiar with the other style of storytelling in video games more akin to Last Guardian or that of RPG's.

Oh and just as a sidenote Gravity Rush has a fairly simple story it's hardly its focus....

And try not to be too cynical on the whole innovative thing nothing is truly 100% original everything has already been done there is nothing new under the sun, they are only seven types of stories in existence, and everything is a variation on something that already exists. For example Gravity Rush is very much a Action Platformer but it's gimmick is that it gives you complete control of gravity it's a twist on the concept. Kid Icarus: Uprising is a fusion of a third person shooter and action game, thats second portion is basically Sin and Punishment it really has not many original ideas it just fuses them together to create something new.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Locke087

[Harvey]

But the way you say that Nintendo isn't anywhere as innovative as Sony is saying that they aren't risky compared to Sony or that that mean their quality is somewhat mediocre.

Sony consistently makes new IPs and releases them. Having a new IP is less risky because you can focus on a specific kind of gameplay for that new IP so for Sony, I won't say that they are risky. Of course investing some budget for the new IP is risky but considering that the PS4 is doing wonders for them, I can't really say its that risky.

Nintendo however is the entire opposite. Instead of making a new IP for putting a new gameplay, they use an existing IP to make a spin off so that it makes it a new game which is very risky as we all saw how TMS got a lot of flak because of that.

As for Story, you're right that they can try on doing something about it. But inorder to do that, they need to bring back some of their IPs like Metroid for example. Then they need to increase their RPG franchises a bit as the only RPG series they have is Mario & Pokemon that do big for them.

Yeah Fire Emblem also has potential for a good story but I wouldn't bet on it as seeing how Fates sold well despite its shallow overall story, they most likely will focus on the gameplay side of things.

[Locke087]

I said they're equally innovative I like both companies believe it or not, it is possible. I believe both are doing very good work on the exclusive front for bringing in innovation to the table. Also I have already have explained why nothing is truly 100% new.

And by the way Sony's constant new IP's are actually kind a risky as you can see from last generation Sony's new IP sold so much worse than Microsoft did with Gears, Halo, and Forza which blew them out of the water. Sony is doing a lot better this generation but last gen they had some problems with a lot of their franchises since as they were throwing crap at the wall all the time. Bulls traded new IP and continue to support old IP's have their merits and I support doing both.

With stories we just have to see what Retros working on to see if Metroids is coming back, or mabye an entirely new IP. Monolith Soft is supposed to be working on something new mabye Xenoblade X2 or maybe a new IP, their games don't sell gang busters but they do sell well enough and they are slowly gaining a greater following. New 3D Zelda is coming out so we got that area covered... though it really is annoying that a new 3D Zelda didn't come out for an entire freaking generation. Hopefully with the Switch we get a couple new IP, and Intelligent Systems fires, or whips into shape their current writing staff is there definitely working on the next Fire Emblem.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Locke087

[Harvey]

Then why did you agree that Nintendo is less innovative than Sony if you like Nintendo as well?

And I did say that having a new IP is also risky but when you compare between Nintendo and Sony, Nintendo uses its existing IP to make something new which is even more risky than having a brand new IP.

Remember how Nintendo at one time thought of using Mario before making Splatoon? That's because Mario already was in a sort of third person view and seeing as how Sunshine is where Fludd was introduced, they could easily revisit that instead of making Splatoon.

Heck forget Splatoon, Look at Federation Force a game that no one asked for and Nintendo still took that huge risk.

Or how about that Dual Screen gaming which is the DS? No one in Nintendo except the former president Hiroshi Yamauchi wanted to use dual screens even Satoru Iwata was against it. it was made because he wanted it like that and that was a huge risk but in the end, it did wonders.

I'm not trying to argue that Sony is less creative than Nintendo or the opposite. I'm arguing as to how you claim that Nintendo is not taking that much of risk in games department which is false as they have taken some risks here and there like Fates being three separate games instead of one, Federation Force being what it is now and again, TMS.

I will agree that its not as risky as the last gen but the risk is still there nonetheless.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Harvey

[Locke087]

Here is the exact words I said and exact words I agreed to "Nintendo is not much more innovative then Sony as far as games are concerned" none of those words said Sony is more innovative than Nintendo or Nintendo is more then Sony. I said neither are far ahead of each other and both could do with more innovation. Also I never said that Nintendo doesn't take risks though they do play pretty safe with the majority of games as does Sony. I do believe they should produce more new IP's as when they do they're usually quite good. Shoving IP's onto existing ideas is not more risky is a clear business move to sell more copies. I hate this practice by Nintendo, it's fine the case of sports, casual, and racing franchises but otherwise it should go die, because we end up with games that don't belong in their IP like Star Fox Aventures and Federation Force which would have been better as new IP's imo.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Locke087

[Harvey]

Here is the exact words I said and exact words I agreed to "Nintendo is not much more innovative then Sony as far as games are concerned" none of those words said Sony is more innovative than Nintendo or Nintendo is more then Sony. I said neither are far ahead of each other and both could do with more innovation. Also I never said that Nintendo doesn't take risks though they do play pretty safe as does Sony. I do believe they should produce more new IP's as when they do they're usually quite good. Shoving IP's onto existing ideas is not more risky is a clear business move to sell more copies. I hate this practice by Nintendo, it's fine the case of sports, casual, and racing franchises but otherwise it should go die, because we end up with games that don't belong in their IP like Star Fox Aventures and Federation Force which would have been better as new IP's imo.

Oh sorry about that part..my bad.

But even so, that's just how Nintendo does their IP. To them, they make an IP so that that IP can be explored as much as possible and this is one of the reasons why their IPs are memorable.

Metroid Prime is actually a spin off game and Federation Force is a spin off game based on the spin off series. Even Kid Icarus Uprising is a spin off as it doesn't do the same things like what the previous two did. These are just a few examples of how Nintendo explores their IPs.

[Tryhard]

All companies take risks, but it is much different to simply publish a game rather than developing it in house, and they know what their spending money publishing. Nintendo's own developed games, especially Mario (though at least Mario Maker was something interesting, more about the mainline games), have looked safe to me for a while. #FE is developed by Atlus, which have a reputation for doing whatever they want (and in the case of a multiplatform game, Catherine, which is probably further out there.)

I also don't know about Sony games focusing on more story than gameplay - for ones like The Last Guardian and The Last of Us, sure, perhaps (even though the gameplay is at least good) but for ones like God of War or Killzone they don't seem to really care.

Really, console triple A games are far more likely to be fairly safe and fall within the lines of their genres, more or less. It's indie games on PC or distributed to consoles that usually have more freedom to do what they like.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Tryhard

[Locke087]

I pretty much agree with the above the AAA industry has been very safe as of recently really is a big reason why hope the Switch is successful because it could help hit the industry over the head by allowing for various price points thanks to its mobile nature (the ever ballooning budgets for making games this part of the reason for their staleness). There still some companies out there doing great things but for the most part the industry is struggling we can only hope they improve, for now if you really want innovation you have a look at the indy circuit.

@Harvey

No problem I can see it could be misinterpreted... now onto your other comment.

Metroid Prime is not a spin off it is aevolution of 2-D Metroid much like 3-D Zelda and Mario, it was not a case of shoving IP late onto an unrelated project like Nintendo is a bad habit of doing and was always meant to be a Metroid game and was designed as a Metroid game first and foremost. As much as I'd like to consider the 3D versions of Nintendo properties entirely different things due to my preference for them (I without exception think the 3-D versions of Metroid, Zelda, and Mario are better and I like and regularly buy 2-D games, though it should be noted that I think both should exist) they are not spinoffs they are part of the main franchise.

Kid Icarus uprising is forgivable because it's based off a long dead franchise and turned out really well, but still could've fared well as its own unique IP just Sakurai does what he wants and he got what he wanted there. As much as I love Uprising I feel bad for fans of the originals because now there is zero chance of a 2-D revival for the franchise, in fact since Sakurai doesn't want to make a follow-up Kid Icarus was just revived just to die again. For intents and purposes it is a new franchise it could've been a new IP and really it should've been as there would've been no limitations on what he could've done. That and I would love another new property to be added to the charming Nintendo staple and Uprising could've been that.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Locke087

[Zera]

If Metroid Prime is a spin-off, then so is Super Mario 64 and Zelda OoT.

It's basically the same thing but in Threee Deee!

Kid Icarus: Uprising, on the other hand, plays very little like the original, which was a sidescrolling platformer. Heck, Uprising started development as a Star Fox game, and I can believe it. That is a spin-off if I ever saw one. Link's Crossbow Training? Definitely a spin-off. It was revealed in Iwata Asks that they didn't put "Zelda" in the title to make it clear that it wasn't a main game.

[Quintessence]

I'm hyped because the wife of Monolith Soft's President retweeted Nintendo's Switch event. Would this mean a brand new Xenoblade game? Last time she did it was when Shulk was revealed in Smash's trailers.

[henrymidfields]

Apart from new IPs, it's also high time that at least one of the existing IPs should be improved in their stories too. Related to this, I can totally do with less of the worshipping of the dinosaur that is of Shigeru Miyamoto (as a number of comments in this thread from this very forum shows). It was a really good thing that the creation crew decided to give the dinosaur the bird and decided to do some deeper story-writing in Mario Galaxy 1, that at least attempts to go past the "What is the worst way that stupid bitch can get kidnapped again?" story, and at least attempts to write a serious adventure story. That dinosaur should have resigned ages ago.

Edited January 6, 2017 by henrymidfields

[Harvey]

Apart from new IPs, it's also high time that at least one of the existing IPs should be improved in their stories too. Related to this, I can totally do with less of the worshipping of the dinosaur that is of Shigeru Miyamoto (as a number of comments in this thread from this very forum shows). It was a really good thing that the creation crew decided to give the dinosaur the bird and decided to do some deeper story-writing in Mario Galaxy 1, that at least attempts to go past the "What is the worst way that stupid bitch can get kidnapped again?" story, and at least attempts to write a serious adventure story. That dinosaur should have resigned ages ago.

That "Dinosaur" is still relevant to Nintendo no matter the mistakes he's done. He did Pikmin 3 and he's doing 4 and he wants Star Fox to be popular and big.

Anyways, what mistakes has he done besides removing the story in the Mario RPG series and not doing a dedicated Star Fox game?

[henrymidfields]

That "Dinosaur" is still relevant to Nintendo no matter the mistakes he's done. He did Pikmin 3 and he's doing 4 and he wants Star Fox to be popular and big.

Anyways, what mistakes has he done besides removing the story in the Mario RPG series and not doing a dedicated Star Fox game?

Well, the dinosaur saying that the Mario, and even some Zelda games do not need a story. And I call bullshit to that considering that the aforementioned Mario Galaxy 1 won the BAFTA award when it's usually more story-driven games that wins them.

Below is the response I've made to the other forum thread I mentioned.

He's both good and bad.

For example like Etrurian Emperor said, Rosalina was going to have a much larger backstory, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 would expand it.

Her mother would even appear! Not only that but Rosalina was going to have a connection to Peach.

But Miyamoto decided to cut it, saying it wasn't needed.

And when Miyamoto steps out, the stories are incredible!

Majora's Mask was the first Zelda game that Miyamoto wasn't involved, and look at that game's story! It was amazing!

That being said, we can't deny the man is a genius when it comes to game development.

This! So much! I hate the Mario franchise in recent years so much, because of his no-story policy. Mario Galaxy was one of the few recent Mario games where the story was actually good. Bowser was actually awesome with his ambitious goal, Peach being kidnapped was better justified, and there was more than the same old story, and the ending was the best. There were times after Mario 3DS came out that I wished someone would pull the plug on the franchise. What was even worse was that Miyamoto decided to reverse the good things about Galaxy when that game won the BAFTA award - did he not get that memo?!

No, that dinosaur should at least keep his hand off other people's projects - he had his time. It's time he step into a glass box and let other have their creative input. And for those who wants a 2D Mario game that bad, they can go play the VC versions of the S/NES games.

Edited January 7, 2017 by henrymidfields

[Harvey]

Well, the dinosaur saying that the Mario, and even some Zelda games do not need a story. And I call bullshit to that considering that the aforementioned Mario Galaxy 1 won the BAFTA award when it's usually more story-driven games that wins them.

Below is the response I've made to the other forum thread I mentioned.

No, that dinosaur should at least keep his hand off other people's projects - he had his time. It's time he step into a glass box and let other have their creative input. And for those who wants a 2D Mario game that bad, they can go play the VCl versions of the S/NES games.

Where did you get the idea that because Galaxy 1 won a BAFTA means that its the best story written game? The game never had a great story and it was very similar to that of SM64 so by that logic, SM64 should also get a BAFTA award as well. The only thing that the story is slightly better than the SM64 one is storybook section of Rosalina but that's just about it.

A BAFTA award isn't just for the story alone but also for the other parts as well which is what the game probably bested for as well as Zelda. Speaking of which, nobody praises Zelda for the story but for the experience and the journey or quest. It is stupid to think that its the story that makes Zelda special. If that was the case, Nintendo wouldn't have screwed up the Zelda timeline and would have given a proper one for the fans.

You are confusing Majora's Mask story and its deep characterization. The story in Majora's Mask was very simple which was to just stop the mask and it doesn't do anything fancy with the dialog either. Its the characterization that made the game have some depth like looking at that scary moon very often.

Coming back to Shigeru Miyamoto, he is not involved with Zelda and that is left to Anouma-San and he won't be serving as the producer behind Mario anymore.

The fact that Nintendo is still keeping him means that he is still relevant to Nintendo which means he is still needed regardless of whether you think he should quit or not. If Nintendo realized that he's not like what he used to be, they would have fired him or made him retire by now and yet his work still delivers. It doesn't please the fans that I agree, but it delivers expectations which is what he has still done well. I understand why people are frustrated in him but they have to consider that Nintendo still needs him in some aspects which he still does well.

Also saying that people ought to stick with 2D Mario games on VC is a bit offensive considering that there are Mario fans out there(including me) just as how there are FE fans out there. How would you like it if I said just stick to FE games on VC or get PoR and RD yourself and give up on Nintendo remastering them? Better yet, how would you like it if I said that FE shouldn't be on switch at all and just leave it be on something else?

[Tryhard]

I mean, Nintendo probably won't get rid of him unless he resigns himself (highly unlikely) or he does something absurdly wrong (people in Japan who lose their jobs will often times never get hired for another company due to the stigma). It is customary in Japan to hold the same job for your entire career. You may be moved to different positions, but it is a huge doubt that he would be fired, unless he was to retire himself.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Tryhard

[Locke087]

While I agree that Mario platformers don't have a story worth talking about never had one you should not extend that to a story based series that does have depth of meaning and is really well written, because I do I praise Zelda for its story (at least the 3-D ones 2-D ones tend to have simpler stories). Zelda the stories are highly underrated by some people because they admittedly at their surface level they can be fairly simple but they go so much deeper than that... Infact Majora's is one of the best in the industry period, it a story of death, healing, grief and has some really deep themes. Zelda games have somewhat simple overarching stories (that's summarization of majora plot is a massive oversimplification) with heavily symbolic meanings they have a lot of hidden depths they don't need the words they actually use the medium of video games (shock of shock a game that doesn't think it is not a book or movie) through environmental storytelling (don't tell me it doesn't just look at twilight princess and majora's mask and tell me those games don't exude atmosphere from every pore), mechanics (such as majora's time mechanic, or ocarinas), and excellent world building. You don't need a complicated plot to be very well-crafted, and unlike kingdom hearts the timeline in Zelda is unimportant it's just a little fun thing that you can do to see how the games connect, for all intents and purposes the games are standalone otherwise they do have a light over connecting plotthread but they better viewed their own standalone pieces of art (which games are btw), though viewing them together can often be interesting as well.

this guy explains it better than I could. (You should watch the other parts too btw, though all this guys stuff is good and he's analyzed all the 3-D Zeldas except for skyward sword)

Edited January 7, 2017 by Locke087

[Water Mage]

Funny you should all mention Skyward Sword and Miyamoto, because from what I've heard, Miyamoto meddled quite a bit in Skyward Sword's development and even had story elements removed.

Also Yoshiaki Koizumi is someone who has spoken about his own love of adding story elements to his games especially subtle ones for the player to find out about the game world through interacting with characters within. He was one of the directors for OOT and MM and also said he hid story elements in the games so Miyamoto couldn't tell him to take them out.

I also remember reading that Miyamoto was really hard to work with during conceptual production on Hyrule Warriors and reversed Aonuma and Tecmo's plans several times.

[Harvey]

I mean, Nintendo probably won't get rid of him unless he resigns himself (highly unlikely) or he does something absurdly wrong (people in Japan who lose their jobs will often times never get hired for another company due to the stigma). It is customary in Japan to hold the same job for your entire career. You may be moved to different positions, but it is a huge doubt that he would be fired, unless he was to retire himself.

What about in the case of Gunpei Yokoi then? I'll admit that the information for that is unknown but I just feel like for someone like Miyamoto-San to retire, he would need to do something incredibly low enough that made a huge loss for Nintendo or something that no matter what he tries, he will eventually give up on it and retire. So far what he did isn't THAT terrible nor is it something that sunk him deep enough.

EDIT: oh...didn't realize until now that you posted exactly what I think about this whole "Miyamoto bashing" argument lol.

@Locke087

"You don't need a complicated plot to be very well-crafted". So in the case of the Final Fantasy games, they don't need a well crafted complicated plot or for something like Xenoblade Chronicles? What about Fire Emblem for that matter since most of them pretty much use complicated stories that are well crafted?

Edited January 7, 2017 by Harvey

[Locke087]

"You don't need a complicated plot to be very well-crafted". So in the case of the Final Fantasy games, they don't need a well crafted complicated plot or for something like Xenoblade Chronicles? What about Fire Emblem for that matter since most of them pretty much use complicated stories that are well crafted

From what I can get from what you said you're asking if an in-depth RPG which is totally different from Action Adventure (I refuse to call Zelda an RPG this genre is already overcrowded, I don't think Fire Emblem should count let alone Zelda) game needs a complicated plot which by the way they don't, see Ni No Kuni, Mother (aka Earthbound) 2 & 3, Paper Mario TTYD, which have relatively simple overarching stories of which Mother 3 I believe to be one of the finest stories in all of fiction. Relatively simple but subtle plots that have a lot of hidden depths are often the best way to use the medium, I can summarize Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, and The Last Guardian in a single sentence yet they are some of the best stories in video games.

There are many different forms of storytelling and you don't need a complicated plot to be good because the really good relatively simple plots are usually anything but simple if you look at them more deeply they have more to say but you'll have to learn it by playing the game and paying attention. Not saying there's no merit to more complex plots just saying both have their merit and both of have there place.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Locke087