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• 29Apr 13

  Remember: Nintendo is dead!

  

  What? When did this happen?

  I know there have been rumors that Iwata is on his way out (despite just recently being promoted), and the Wii U being the absolute wrong thing to have been made in the upcoming next-generaiton (despite both the PS4 and the rumored Xbox having touch controllers), but maybe it's time to face the music.

  After all, for this week's Chalk Talk, we got three suggestions for topics: 

  Synthia wrote:

  - Nintendo as of late seems to rely to much on nostalgia and well established worn out brands. Is this a good thing? Do they need to reinvent the wheel or if it's not broken should they not worry about fixing it?

  - Consider Nintendo's announcement about not having a Press Conference during E3 2013 because they wish to "Utilize our direct communication tools, such as Nintendo Direct, to deliver information to our Japanese audience and we will take the same approach outside Japan for the overseas fans." Is this a smart play for them or is this writing on the wall.

  - Will the Wii U become profitable? It's been shown that the Wii U has not been quite the hot ticket that Nintendo had hoped it would be (according to profits from the last fiscal year). But according to Nintendo they have plans to change that. What would you do to help improve the Wii U's image? Or do you feel that the Wii U simply has a bad due to baseless claims from "Nintendo Hater".

  All three of those topics assume as part of their underlying basis that Nintendo is in huge trouble. Are they in trouble? Of course they are. Are Synthia's suggestions valid? Well....

  1. Relying on Nostalgia 

  ---

  
  This has interested me in that it is something many say Nintendo is doing; exploiting people's memories of the past so that they would buy the same stuff over and over again. It's an interesting idea....except that's not what's happening.

  

  Let's take a look at the New Super Mario Bros. series, a series that people commonly refer to when talking about Nintendo exploiting nostalgia. It's a valid assesment; after all, the games always bring back a lot of stuff from the older games, from power-ups to themes to sound effects. 

  And yet, the series is one of the most popular of the previous generation; the Wii one alone selling over 26 million copies. You don't get to numbers that high by "exploiting the nostalgia" of people that played the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985. These games aren't big because they are selling to the "old gamers" (in fact, theya re the ones that complain about them), but because they are selling to kids.

  Kids! These people don't have any kind of nostalgia for 1985, 1995, or even 2005. These kids are playing these games on their childhood, the NSMB games will become nostalgia for them. The truth of the matter seems to be that Nintendo is creating nostlagia, not exploiting it.

  After all, how can you rely on something that doesn't exist, especially when those that would have nostalgia for the stuff aren't going to like it?

  But what about new IP's? "Nintendo certainly doesn't seem to create new IP's anymore. It's always Mairo, Zelda, Yoshi, Kirby, whatever." Well, that's a cool idea, one that shows how little they care about Nintendo's new IP's in the first place.

  

  This game obviously doesn't exist.

  

  Neither does this one (or it's sequel).

  

  What the heck is this supposed to be anyway? (or it's sequel)

  

  Is this some Sony game?

  Well, those games up there don't have Mario or Donkey Kong, or Wario in them; so how can they be new Nintendo IP's (other than being Nintendo IP's, of course)? 

  Some people are willing to rely on their nostalgia to make sure in their mind that Nintendo doesn't change at all from the way they saw them decades ago, I guess.  

  2. Nintendo giving up at E3 2013

  ---

  Certainly an interesting opinion, mostly because there is no way you would have come up with that opinion unless you already had a pre-existing idea that Nintendo can't compete with Sony or Microsoft. 

  

  I mean seriously!

  Nintendo can't compete with the PS4 or Xbox Infinity, despite Nintendo being the one making dozens of Nintendo Directs outside of E3, each containing subtantial new game announcements?

  Despite still having two (2) planned private meetings with the press to show off their games at E3 2013, as well as repeatedly mentioning in past Nintendo Directs about the games they will show off on the show floor?

  Despite Nintendo most likely bombarding the entire week of E3 with Nintendo Directs, which serves the exact same purpose of an E3 conference, except with Iwata being in front of a white background instead of some big LCD displays?

  You had to be convinced Nintendo can't do anything right that they would cancel their E3 conference just because "they have nothing to show and are therefore giving up".

  As for Nintendo's actual decision, I don't know if it's a smart play yet. It obviously didn't go well with the massive misinformaiton and pre-existing image of the company (which is comically incapable of explaining itself for anything, seriously!).

  How Nintendo's plan goes ahead on E3 2013 will be an interesting experiment to see; with SpikeTV certainly giving live primetime coverage of the PS4 and Xbox shows, I doubt they will do the same for any Nintendo Direct show Nintendo does.

  3. Will the Wii U become profitable?

  ---

  No.

  

  Not in it's current form, at least.

  Nintendo will have to redesign the console so that it doesn't cost so much to produce and finally be able to give it a price drop (similar to what Sony did with the PS3 slim), they will also have to rebrand it completely to get rid of the confusion about it being a Wii add-on or not (in a similar way to how the PS3 was rebranded to be more appealing), and of course, Nintendo of America will have to reach across third parties to give the system some more games (in a similar way to how Nintendo of Japan got the 3DS to have such a killer Japanese library).

  I don't know what Nintendo plans to do, but if it's not one of those things; then it's not going to improve. 

  But does Nintendo deserve all the doom and gloom? No, the Wii U could fail and they can just try again with something different; it's not like they are Sega who had no money by the time the Dreamcast launched. It would be nice for major gaming sites to stop promoting such poor views, but hey, I understand. Nintendo is supposed to be dead, can't blame ya'll for trying to fix the narrative. 

  • Posted Apr 29, 2013 1:48 pm GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 17Feb 13

  Letter to Sony: How to make the PS4 as succesful as the Wii U

  

  With the Gaming Journalists raving about the unprecedented sales performance of the Wii U, it's time to for Sony to get a few pointers on how to make their upcoming Playstation 4 reveal and launch to be as successful as Nintendo's magnum opus.

   

  Don't name the system Playstation 4

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  Naming it the PS4 would make it seem like it is superior or different from the PS3. Nintendo smartly avoided this by naming their system Wii U, which conveys absolutely no implication of a successor or improvement. In fact, it makes it sound like Ubisoft's Udraw tablet add-on for the Wii, which is a great idea because that is also a tablet that could be used with the Wii. Since the Wii U had a tablet controller, people would totally think it's a Wii bundled with the Udraw tablet, and that is guaranteedsales! Do the same for the PS4, and see the money be raked in.

   

  Design the system to look exactly like a PS3

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  "I already have the Wii, can't I get the tablet seperately?" 

   

  Nintendo designed the system that if anyone saw a photo of it, they would think it was a Wii. Which is a great idea, because everyone bought the Wii in the past. By having costumers confuse the Wii U for a Wii, you get to ride off the immense success of the Wii. If you design the PS4 to look exactly like the PS3, people will think it's a PS3 and gladly buy the same thing again! Heck, you guys already did the same thing with the Vita (which looks exactly like a PSP), and it's success in the marketplace shows what a great idea this is.

   

  

  
  

  This is not the Playstation Vita.

  
  

  Make producing the console be extremely expensive

  
  

  ---

   

  The Wii U has a tablet controller that costs $85 a piece. This controller dramatically increases the production costs of the Wii U, to the point that Nintendo makes a loss even while selling it at the extremely high price point of $350, despite the system's specs being not much different than the PS3 and Xbox 360. The higher price tag makes it seem like a premium product, and people alwayswant the more expensive product. You guys did great with the PS3, making it such a swiss-army knife of technology that made it début at $600; and we saw just how great the PS3 sold back when it was at that price point.

   

  Make ads that hide the fact it's a new game system

   

  ---

  Alongside the name and design, Nintendo also went to great lengths to hide the fact that the Wii U was a new system with their TV ads. By making sure that the new system was obscured and that it was never mentioned, putting the focus only on the tablet controller, and showcasing the types of games you already saw and had on the Wii, you got a marketing campaign that successfully and actively misinformed the public that a new system came out, and that you were still advertising your old last-gen system.

  
  

  Release the entire game library at launch

  
  

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  People don't like waiting for games, so what better way to avoid this by releasing everythingthe system has right at launch? Big launches are always more important that a filled release schedule, so if you have every game the system has out by launch (just like the Wii U did), the costumer has the entire library to pick from right at launch. People won't care about the huge drought that will come later because they have a huge backlog of games to play! Also, once they play everything they wanted, they will have fun going on message boards and patiently waiting for the next game worth buying for months because there's nothing else to play on the system.

   

  Be arrogant, believe you are invincible

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  You already did that well with the PS3. Carry on.

   

   

   

  Focus on things that aren't games

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  Instead of putting out compelling new software, Nintendo is spending their valuable resources on little toys like Wii Street U, which is free for a limited time, meaning they will eventually charge people to pay for this stuff. This will surely get your gaming audience to stand by you no matter what, and you will gain the respect of everyone in the industry. Invest in similar stuff, Sony; you're missing out on the Google Streetview audience!!

   

   

  Make it for no one

   

  ---

  

   

  Most importantly of all, don't have a target audience at all. Nintendo wanted to attract the hardcore gamers, and they made a controller with dual analog sticks and most of the buttons you find on a competitor's console (but not all of them); but they also want to attract the casuals, so they made the controller like a tablet and made it graphically behind so that they could sell it a "low" price. Of course, those things contradict, and you had a tablet controller that was too complicated and feature-less for the casual market, and a system that was too underpowered for the gaming masses. The system appeals to no one, no one gets it, no one wants it, no one can even tell the difference between it and the system they bought six years ago, let alone why they should get one. So Sony, if you want your PS4 to be as successful as the Wii U, make sure to do all of the above.

   

  You're good at copying, what are you waiting for?

   

   

   

   

   

   

  (no, I'm not serious, don't do this Sony, you'll die)
  • Posted Feb 17, 2013 6:03 pm GMT
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• 17Jan 13

  Jynxzor, Draugen1P and I completed Issue 64 of System Wars Magazine!

  We have been doing System Wars Magazine for over 5 years now, and it is so fun seeing System Wars user's reactions to articles written by other System Wars users. Although our little project has gotten a bit....tiny...over the past few years (only three of us left), we are always open to have more people join in the fun.

  I want to thank Jynxzor for writing a Preview on Don't Starve, which the developers liked enough to put it right on the game's official website. Photo proof!

  Also, let's not forget DraugenCP, who has written a ton of great articles from reviews, previews, and deep editorials on the art of foreign videogames. In my opinion, he should be working for a real website, not some forum past-time, but he's legit. Read his thoughts on the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim and The Scorchers DLC for Rage.

  I also like doing fanboy articles, which parody real fanboys while also exposing the flaws in their arguments. What's scary is that a lot of people actually think like this, and I simply just copy their arguments almost verbatim. This issue I did one on Wii U saving Gamestop and how Pokemon X and Y looks like an N64 game; both ideas are frankly ridiculous and terribly wrong, but the arguments are very much real ones that people use and believe.

  So here is Issue 64 of System Wars Magazine!Hope you guys enjoy it!

  • Posted Jan 17, 2013 7:58 am GMT
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