Topic: Nintendo cutting price of Wii U software?

[Abnormal Freak]

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/01/17/nintendo-finally-considering-price-cuts-we-cannot-continue-a-business-without-winning/

Not sure if this just pertains to Japan or if the US and Europe will follow, but it's interesting that cutting price of games may be in the future. I'm remiss to buy almost ANY game at $50–60, snatching up a deal when I can and only paying full MSRP when it's a game I really must play. The only reason I currently have New Super Mario Bros. U and a physical copy of New Super Luigi U is because I found them new for $30 and $20 respectively; and while I haven't gotten around to playing it, I bought The Wonderful 101 for thirty bucks because that's a nice price for a game I want to play.

Permanently lowering MSRP on Wii U titles will be a great move, I think. It benefits me and others, surely, but I think it could draw in newcomers to buy the system.

And hopefully they mean lowering prices on disc-based games, not just downloads.

[Ratty]

I can just hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth 15 years from now when the Wii U is reverently remembered the same way the Dreamcast is today. "Ahead of it's time!" Ironic since the Wii U actually took a few ideas from the Dreamcast.

I think Nintendo's real problems are
1. They were never going to duplicate the success of the Wii no matter what they did.

2. The people who made the Wii such a hit now just play games on their phones. Even if Nintendo had made more of them aware that the Wii U was more than just an add on for the Wii (by, I don't know, advertising it at all or calling it the Wii 2) most of those consumers probably remember never touching their original Wii much after buying it.

3. Consumers, even casual ones, are much more tech savvy, or at least tech conscious, than in previous years. So the method of using slightly older technology to save money on hardware and then game development costs, something Big N's been doing to different degrees since the original Gameboy, isn't gonna cut it anymore.

I think the failure of the latest big Mario title, in spite of critical adoration and most people agreeing it's a great game, demonstrates pretty conclusively that Nintendo needs new IPs for their focus on software to pull them out of the hole. But while they're hemorrhaging money with the Wii U the 3DS is doing well and they're sitting on a giant pile of original Wii and DS money, so they've got some time to sort it out.

[theANdROId]

How is it a failure already?  How did it fail?  It's been out for 2 months (I think?)...but that's only 2 months...and it seems to still be doing fine. 

[Ratty]

How is it a failure already?  How did it fail?  It's been out for 2 months (I think?)...but that's only 2 months...and it seems to still be doing fine.

It came out about a year ago and has failed to sell successfully. To the point that the other now-current Gen consoles have already outsold the Wii U in spite of Nintendo's year long head start. Even the big new Mario game that came out for Christmas flopped and didn't move as many consoles as they were hoping. So I wouldn't say the Wii U has failed per se but it's in the process of failing and if Nintendo doesn't follow through with drastic changes (like actually advertising the thing outside Japan) then they might as well just start over and release another new console in 2 - 3 years.

[Bergaron]

1) Drop tablet pad
2) [1] => reduce cost to 199 euros
3) Do the Zelda like the CGI Video.
4) End of problems...

[Inccubus]

Drop the tablet? That's insane. It's the strongest feature the system has.

[theANdROId]

I just think they have something different planned than what we expect or think they should do.  I mean...I don't think Nintendo has ever just followed the crowd.  They don't do something just because everyone else is doing it.  They make deliberate, yet still intelligent choices.  Innovative too, sometimes.  A few years back, they didn't *have* to go HD, so they didn't.  Instead, they made the Wii, and soon after, the other companies were all clearly saying, "Oh S#!%" because they rushed out their competitive answers.  Neither impacted the gaming world as much as the Wii did.  And through this they've broadened their horizons.  My mom, for example, HATED video games, and hated that I played them...until the Wii came out.  She liked what it did, how it worked, and went and bought one.  Now that she's seen the Wii U, she's saving for one of those (but on min. wage it might take some time).  I think many adults have responded this way, and the "gamers" that people say they've shunned or wronged...they'll be back.  We always come back.  We all have that weak spot.

That's not to say Nintendo is perfect or flawless.  Of course they aren't...but the same applies to the other console developers as well.  Neither is it true that Nintendo is a bunch of children.  They've come this far, and built some nice foundations for others to stand on.  I wish people (in general) would give them a little more credit for their business sechel.

[Abnormal Freak]

I gotta say the tablet isn't as gimmicky as people say it is. It has its gaming and non-gaming functions that really feel fun and intuitive, and playing games off the TV is awesome, transforming it into an at-home handheld. You can even play Wii games on it!

That said, when possible, I try to play games with a Pro Controller instead as there's nothing like using a classic gamepad.

Above all else what I think Nintendo needs to do to start winning over gamers is stop treating classic franchises like dirt. While I think they're nutty, there are gamers who are no longer interested in Mario and Zelda and would rather have a new Metroid or F-Zero, or for crying out loud a new Star Fox—as in an actual, brand new entry in the series that follows the first two, not another remake or offshoot.

It would be great if they'd experiment with new IPs as well. There's probably something I'm forgetting, but wasn't Animal Crossing the last new IP they've made? And that came out nearly 13 years ago. I'd even like to see them resurrect some pretty obscure IPs like Teleroboxer. They're sitting on a gold mine of history and talented developers, but they keep pushing the same stuff over and over again.

That said, we need third-party support as well, and so far we've seen some pretty shoddy ports and some asshole devs putting the system down as a child's toy and refusing to develop anything for it—BECAUSE GAMES NEED SUPER FAST PROCESSING TO BE GOOD. Hopefully Bayonetta 2 and "X" will kickstart a more hardcore third-party focus.

Failure or not, however, there's more stuff that pertains to my tastes on the Wii U than the PS4 and Xbox One.

[theANdROId]

...devs putting the system down as a child's toy and refusing to develop anything for it—BECAUSE GAMES NEED SUPER FAST PROCESSING TO BE GOOD.

This made me think of something...what about Jet Force Gemini?  This game came to my mind recently and I was really wishing I could play it, but since my N64 isn't working for some reason I've been reduced to living vicariously by reading about the game, watching a few videos, and listening to the soundtrack.  In my reading, I learned that even though the developers had the opportunity to make use of the system's expansion pack, they chose not to so that everyone could have the same experience with the game.  With the systems original RAM, they made an incredible game that is still tons of fun to this day.

Maybe this isn't really as applicable as I think...but it seems to me that it reenforces the idea of hard work and creativity to make something good, not the latest and greatest technology.

[Abnormal Freak]

I'd say that's true. I just started playing DK Jungle Blast on the Wii and it proves you don't need a ton of processing power and graphical capabilities to make a really fun, good-looking game—and this thing debuted on the GameCube. It used to be the hardware limitations made for creative thinking to get around them, but now it's all about having as much at your fingertips as possible, and anything less is supposedly garbage; and among triple-A titles, I think we're seeing more bugs than ever before, because nobody (aside from NINTENDO) is really hammering out the kinks. It's a weird world for gaming right now.

I liked it best how Chris Seavor said in his Conker's BFD commentary that most games nowadays have superfluous developer personnel and that's a big reason for games costing so much. You play just about any major game now and they have movie length end credits, when in the glory days of Rare and other studios, everybody did a little of everything and worked really hard at what they were good at, focusing on multiple areas of development and doing everything in-house with small teams. I don't think the technology has necessarily changed the way games are made, it's mostly about work ethics and producers hiring a bunch of unneeded hands to create jobs.

Then you still get the indies, especially the ones that look and feel like triple-A games. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, for example, is better than any horror game that's come out since or around its time, and it doesn't feel cheap or low-budget in any way, rather there's more creativity and neat little details going on than in the big games—and it was made by a small team. (The music and SFX man, for example, created all of the sounds himself instead of relying on an existing sound library. How many times do you hear the same SFX and cues in games and movies? Artistic creativity and work ethic make for better content.)