Topic: Confirmed: IGA not involved with Castlevania anymore. Europe helms the series.

[Intersection]

Konami is obviously trying to turn Castlevania into a blockbuster, perhaps with the goal of reviving the IP into something that can rival MGS, and for one reason or another, Castlevania's fanbase has dwindled from IGA's high point at the beginning of his tenure as Mr. Castlevania to its low point at Judgement/HoD. That's going to matter in Konami's eyes, regardless of any sense of holding the series's "spirit" or being consistent.

I don't think Castlevania's fanbase it itself had dwindled during IGA's tenure. I can't imagine many fans leaving after SoTN, since most of IGA's later games were perfectly faithful to what had made them fans in the first place.
Rather, I'd say Castlevania's share of the market and the larger VG audience was dwindling during IGA's period, something which would arguably inevitable.

Again, I didn't mean to imply that the series had never seen issues before IGA came to the forefront, only that IGA's success was ultimately in a steady decline after his breakout game, and that's why he will probably never see himself at the head of a high budget Castlevania title again (which is if he even wants to).

IGA's success wasn't quite in steady decline since his first game; it had remained more or less constant, but at a relatively weaker point, throughout much of his tenure.

But I'm nitpicking here. For the general picture, I completely agree with you.

I think part of the problem right now with the vita is that people think there are no good games on it, while that is absolutely false.

Hey, I don't think any one here has anything against the Vita. It's a well-designed platform that can support some truly great games on it.

The Vita has quality over quantity in my opinion.

That's very possible; but, like we were saying, that's more of the game developers' responsibility. The platform is just there to provide a great medium for the games they create.

The games on the 3ds didn't appeal to me at all. The majority of them seem like they are made for kids. The Nintendo e-shop was pretty weak compared to the PS store on the Vita as well.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "made for kids". Many games out there boast a more universal appeal, and, from what I've seen, that's generally a good thing.

As for the E-shop, it seems Nintendo has suffered from a bad start. Only time can tell what it will become.

And the main selling point of the 3ds was a joke. I've never in my life been so uncomfortable trying to play a hand held game. You literally have to hold the screen perfectly straight in front of your face to enjoy the 3d at all, and it still has a slight double vision look to it. The one gimmick nintendo tried to win people over with the 3ds was a complete failure.

Now here I entirely agree with you. I've always been one of the not-so-few who believe that 3D, as it is, brings precious little to the movie experience. And it's just as relevant (if not even more so) with handheld gaming. The 3D effect is often restrictive and minimal, and does very little to enhance gameplay. Our brain is already capable of intuitive 3D representation; unless the effect is flawlessly integrated with the platform, it's unnecessary and ignorable. And it hurts your eyes.

A Castlevania game exclusively made for the vita would be incredible.

I don't see how that would help. Castlevania has historically been set on Nintendo handhelds, and creating a Vita-exclusive game would do more harm than good. If anything, it would deter DS-owning fans from buying the new title, since the Vita isn't exactly cheap.
Now, a Vita-3DS game would be a good idea; it could potentially broaden the game's audience. But that would imply allotting money to the cross-platform porting, something which may or may not be an economically viable investment.

[DragonSlayr81]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "made for kids". Many games out there boast a more universal appeal, and, from what I've seen, that's generally a good thing.

That's not a problem. There's strength in marketing to a wider audience than a selected demographic. Actually, it's similar to the reasoning people give regarding "gaming being a business" and how companies are justified by rebooting and targeting a mainstream audience rather than stick with satisfying the needs of the small old fanbase. It's one of those "good enough for the goose is good enough for the gander" bits, or at least is so in justifying what making a CV game on the 3DS is more a likely win than on Vita. Besides, I still think 3DS has the numbers over Vita. There was an article I saw a while a go(well, like a month) where Sony admitted that Vita was not as popular as the 3DS, one of the reasons they decided to do the TV Vita thing. It really doesn't matter if the Vita's powerful, Sony just doesn't hold up, to handhelds, with Nintendo. PSP is a great example of this.

Besides, interestingly enough, Sony seems to be opening themselves up to newer types of gaming(especially on PS4), in particularly more "everybody" aimed games(less focus on JUST Teen-Adult games, more focus on all different age groups). The only one who seems reluctant to make that change is Microsoft.

[Belmontoya]

I have no problem with family friendly games with bright colors and cute characters. But I have a problem when those types of games make up 90% of a gaming library. That's what the problem with Nintendo is. They have over focused on family market and forgot who the people are today that grew up playing their consoles. I grew up with Nintendo, and I miss the days when you could buy a Nintendo system and feel like I was getting the cutting edge of gaming.

Nowadays their systems are weak and rely on gimmicks, and their games are focused on families with kids.

I'll say it again, vita blows 3ds away. If more people would buy it, they would realize that!

To each their own if the type of games offerered on the 3ds appeal to you.. But I found much slimmer pickings of games I actually wanted on the 3ds vs the vita. In fact, I would have to say that even my iphone offers better games than I could get on my 3ds and with superior graphics.

Castlevania belongs on vitan if it's going to be on a handheld.

[Ratty]

I have no problem with family friendly games with bright colors and cute characters. But I have a problem when those types of games make up 90% of a gaming library. That's what the problem with Nintendo is. They have over focused on family market and forgot who the people are today that grew up playing their consoles.

I don't think they've forgotten, they've just not been chasing the same market as Sony and Microsoft for this generation. Sony's PS2 greatly outsold the more powerful Gamecube, largely because the PS2's then-cheap DVD player appealed to casual and non-gamers. This seems to have shown Nintendo that the real money wasn't in appealing to "core" gamers.

Sure, Nintendo is suffering now because the casual audience has migrated to mobile phones and tablets, but remember that if you're going by console sales numbers the Wii "won" this gen easily. How did they do it? By appealing to a wider audience than the male 20-something core gamers (who as you say grew up with Nintendo) and dudebros that Sony and Microsoft went after with such gusto. Nintendo has been about the only source of bright colorful characters since the 7th generation started, and from the looks of things that's gonna be true for next-gen as well.

Remember Nintendo is the only pure games company in the race anymore, so games are more important to them than the others. The PS3 was obviously created as much or more as a strategic stab in the then-heated format war of HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray (the latter of which Sony had an investment in) just as the Xbone is obviously really about Microsoft trying to get a stranglehold on the streaming format. For these companies games and their quality are secondary. They want a chunk of that 20-30 something male demographic for their company in movies/TV first.

And after all while you can go on about specs and bits and bloops the important thing is the games. You may see a very pretty car in a lot but if it can't take you anywhere you want or need to go, why buy it? So enjoy what you like but don't begrudge companies for not marketing to your tastes specifically. Especially when 2 others are already doing that, life's far too short.

PS - Full disclosure, I haven't bought a new Nintendo system since the DS Lite (and the SNES before that), and the last system I bought new at all was a PS2.

[Belmontoya]

If games are truly more important to nintend than they are to sony or Microsoft then why don't they show it by offering a console that actually looks current? They just now released a console with HD. That is ridiculous.

Nintendo is too busy trying to cash in on kids with toy like games to make a serious console. So I have to strongly disagree with you ratty.

Sony offers plenty of kid friendly games like little big planet and more.

And this dudebro complaint doesn't make any sense to me. What makes a game dudebro? Violence and nudity? And you're making this complaint on a castlevania forum? That's a little ironic.

[Ratty]

If games are truly more important to nintend than they are to sony or Microsoft then why don't they show it by offering a console that actually looks current? They just now released a console with HD. That is ridiculous.

One 1. Using the older hardware/software makes the games themselves less expensive to produce. Leading, hopefully, to more time being spent on game design than technical tweaking thus leading to more fun high quality games. Though in practice this does lead to a lot of shovelware as well. Which is a problem Nintendo should address. 2. The older hardware is less expensive to make, so it's less expensive for consumers.

Nintendo is too busy trying to cash in on kids with toy like games to make a serious console. So I have to strongly disagree with you ratty.

"toy like games" we've all seen this right?
Game OverThinker v11
I think he makes some good points personally. Though I think there is room for a separate market for adult oriented games, without appealing to the younger generations the cultural relevance (and perhaps eventually the "life") of video games as we know them could go the way of the radio sitcom. Consider this- is the market gonna shift away from nuanced controller based gameplay when a generation raised entirely on ipad gaming becomes the coveted 20s-30s demographic? Or will kids who grew up on that shovelware (where "Angry Birds" is the height of game design) even care enough to keep games alive?

Sony offers plenty of kid friendly games like little big planet and more.

I've heard in next gen they are planning to branch out and appeal to different audiences, which should be nice.

And this dudebro complaint doesn't make any sense to me. What makes a game dudebro? Violence and nudity? And you're making this complaint on a castlevania forum? That's a little ironic.

Your (stereo)typical dudebro is the kind of Madden/CoD obsessed Fratboy douche who'd say all of Ayami Kojima's artwork/characters were "gay" (not to be confused with yaoi fangirls, they would mean gay as a negative) but would probably think LoS was grizzled enough to pass inspection. In other words the same kind of guys EA and Activision use in all their focus groups.

[Flame]

Even then, the typical dudebro probably wouldn't be able to grasp the story of LoS and think Gabriel is a stupid character because he isn't a carbon copy of Kratos.

[Belmontoya]

I gotta say this dudebro lable is kind of offensive.

I don't blame anyone who might be turned off by anime feminine looking male protagonists. Some people just aren't into that, and I don't blame them. I'm a fan of anime myself but I actually prefer the more realistic and grizzly look of LOS. And I also don't mind call of duty. But killzone is my shooter of choice. I have also owned a couple madden games. I guess this makes me a dudebro in yours eyes.

I think it's a little offensive to stereotype people just because they have a different opinion or taste. Taking it further and insulting someone's intelligence based on their preference in games takes that to another level. This "dudebro" crap irks the hell out of me.

[Ratty]

I gotta say this dudebro lable is kind of offensive.

I don't blame anyone who might be turned off by anime feminine looking male protagonists. Some people just aren't into that, and I don't blame them. I'm a fan of anime myself but I actually prefer the more realistic and grizzly look of LOS. And I also don't mind call of duty. But killzone is my shooter of choice. I have also owned a couple madden games. I guess this makes me a dudebro in yours eyes.

I think it's a little offensive to stereotype people just because they have a different opinion or taste. Taking it further and insulting someone's intelligence based on their preference in games takes that to another level. This "dudebro" crap irks the hell out of me.

You're putting words in my mouth, I never said everyone who plays/has played/enjoys Madden or Military shooters is a dudebro. But they are a demographic that is listened and marketed to to a scary degree, I guess Microsoft/EA/Activision/SpikeTV assume you can rely on them to spend money more than others. But I take it you've never had to share a living space with a dudebro. I have, this comic illustrates the attitude pretty well. Well, that comic and lots of angry "my-girlfriend-left-me-proving-all-women-are-tramps" misogyny.

PS- To be fair the dudebro I had as a roomie didn't just play Halo, Guitar Hero and Madden (though that was 90% of it) he also played some WoW, said he used a female avatar so people would give him stuff for free. (Not that I'd even asked why he used a female avatar.) Thankfully I was able to move rooms after he left me a note threatening to quote "make my life hell" for turning off his water cooler.

[Flame]

All stereotypes come from somewhere. ALL.

There IS a legit dudebro kind of people.

[DragonSlayr81]

All stereotypes come from somewhere. ALL.

There IS a legit dudebro kind of people.

Also, companies tend to target specific stereotypes/demographics with games. Saying stereotypes for the sake of it might be offensive, but that's who a lot of companies think of their customers too. It's easy to group people together by certain likes. It makes it easier to identify what they should try to aspire to and what target they should appease. With trend, it's the whole "flavor of the week" thing(though, LOL, because I'm so anti-trend, I always jest it's the "Flavor of the Weak"). I mean, I'm pretty sure when movies like Twilight got big, movie studios were snapping their fingers in board meetings and blurting out, "Okay, what kind of other teen novels can we adapt for the teenybopper audience?!". Individuality means little to these people. It's all about exploiting what's "in", pretending to be sincere about it, then ditching it like a hot potato when it stops being "in" and jump into the next big thing.

[Intersection]

Dudebro? Ah. This is getting nowhere fast.
The solution: just drop the idea. It is a stereotype, no matter how relevant it might feel.
But Jeffrey: remember that no stereotype can ever accurately describe a person. It can only leave a deformed image of what it is trying to depict. No one ever needs to take offense from it.
All the same, if you don't feel comfortable with it, it's up to us to leave it aside.

Now, for the rest, I stand by what I had said before: the quality of a game is entirely up to its developers. A platform is nothing more than the medium that hosts them.
And I don't see about the 2-screen, 3D-enhanced, touch-enabled handheld that makes inherently more accessible for a younger audience.

As for this ridiculous "toy game" debate, it doesn't have any reason to exist. Mario is just as "cutting-edge" as MW3. It's all a matter of taste, and you can't dismiss the other half of the board because it doesn't appeal to you.
And I don't want to hear the "90% kiddie game" argument. Nintendo's platforms hosted games from across the video game industry. You simply can't be that dismissive.

[Neobelmont]

We need gun more gunz to shoot stuff and our dudebro character will be hammer in a cod like vampire hunting fest with zombie co-op and all

[Ratty]

Dudebro? Ah. This is getting nowhere fast.
The solution: just drop the idea. It is a stereotype, no matter how relevant it might feel.
But Jeffrey: remember that no stereotype can accurately describe a person. It's a mass of misconceptions and preconceived ideas that can only leave a grotesquely deformed image of what it intends to depict. No one ever needs to take personal offense from it.
But, all the while; if you find it offensive, then it's up to us to leave it aside.


For the rest, I stand by what I had said before: the quality of a game is entirely up to its developers. A platform is nothing more than the medium that hosts them.
And I don't see about the 2-screen, 3D-enhanced, touch-enabled handheld that makes inherently more accessible for a younger audience.
As for this ridiculous "toy game" debate, it doesn't have any reason to exist. Mario is just as "cutting-edge" as MW3. It's all a matter of taste, and you can't dismiss the other half of the board because it doesn't appeal to you.

Yes, the dudebro thing is a dead end subject distracting us from the question at hand. While as I've said I lived with a guy who matched most of the criteria for the stereotype (and met his friends who did as well) it's true that no stereotype embodies the totality of a person, much less a people. But it's also true that corporations market to stereotypes and some people actively identify with them. For an example at the opposite end of the spectrum look at "Geek Culture". Many self-identified Nerds/Geeks insist, vocally or tacitly, that one needs to have been picked on and be male, white, straight and cisgendered to be a "real" Geek/Nerd. Can't think of much more that can be said on the subject of stereotypes in general or the dudebro stereotype in particular. At least anything that's even tangentially related to the original discussion of this thread.

While you could debate which is more "cutting edge" between 3D platformer #4567 and Military FPS #56,778 I think focusing on details like the minutia of system specs misses the point. Modern Chess is about five centuries old but people haven't abandoned it for Monopoly because that has more pieces. It's all a matter of preference.

[Belmontoya]

I'm only referring to my experience owning both handhelds. Nothing anyone has said can change the way the experience of each hand held was, at least for me.

I felt that the 3ds was aimed at younger teenagers and kids. I think it's a little funny to deny that Nintendo has a younger target market when it's so obvious that they do. I've got a valid complaint about Nintendo here.

I don't think any of us would mind spending more money on a nintend system to get the highest quality graphics and a better online service.

The way nintendo has been playing the field I would rather hey just pull a sega and stop making consoles.

I would way rather have Mario, Zelda and Metriodvania on my ps3/4.

A console is the medium between the player and the game and that is important. Nintendo blows at making a good medium these days.

Just go from simply holding a 3ds to a vita. The feel and comfort of a hand held is so important and nintendo doesn't get it.