[bgassassin]

That's a shame. I'm assuming all we will see from Sega is a Sonic game of some kind now.

Somebody tell Nintendo to pull out another moneyhat and save that game.

[bgassassin]

Who?

TwinIonEngines a.k.a TIE Fighter

[AzaK]

That's quite a leap, man... LOL No one buys a machine because of how many flops it does.

I think you're wrong in a way Ace. More power makes prettier games and There's a lot of people put there who love prettier, bigger, louder games. I would argue its probably 80% of the 360 market. :)

Looking at games through Michael Bay tinted glasses is depressing but it's a reality nonetheless.

"For us, there are two things that are going to be essential to the console market going forward," says Epic founder Tim Sweeney. "One is bringing together all the features and expectations that gamers have built up from all the main platforms out there today. There are great games with Facebook integration that enable you to hook up to social networks and find your friends in there. To be able to do that from next generation games and consoles would be really valuable." And it's not just social integration that gamers expect, says Sweeney -- mobile platforms have shifted player expectations of how they get their games, and new consoles should allow developers to meet those expectations.

This social integration thing is something I'm not sure Nintendo will do as they seem to like to build their own ecosystems. However if they can use existing systems also, then it will definitely be a hook for a lot of people. We live in a different world (for better or worse) now that there are Facebook and Twitter.

[fernoca]

If true, poor Jet Set Radio.
Second time planned to reboot on a Wii console and nothing.

This one could've been ace with the tablet, to do some graffiti...even put pictures (yes, dick pictures too!) on them.

[ShockingAlberto]

I don't think concern should be about variety or creativity.

DICE isn't going to suddenly start making 3D platformers even if we stayed at this level of tech.

But there's a ceiling to this stuff and, as that ceiling raises, the middle gets stretched further and further.



Let's say the top cookie is Activision, EA, Epic, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc., the companies that can afford AAA games. They might not like spending that money, but they can.

The bottom cookie are the lower-tier developers (in terms of budget, mind you). They might work with bigger publishers as developer farms, they might be digital distribution only, they could be looking at worldwide sales of 100,000 and being happy as fuck because that's better than they ever imagined.

The creamy middle is everyone else. THQ to Konami (though I think this may no longer be true of either of them for different reasons and directions), Tecmo to Koei, Atlus to Zoo Games. This was, at one point, the biggest part of the industry.

Then comes us.



We twist and pull the top cookie off, lick off the cream, and demand more. The cream that gets attached to the top cookie is gone. The rest can't compete. And all we have is a hunger for more of the highest budget stuff.

When I see "Microsoft is making a AAAA game," I get genuinely concerned. Not because I don't want high budget games, high budgets can be awesome! Uncharted 2 would have been a worse game without the money they threw at it (and UC3 was a worse game with more, so it's not always a direct correlation both ways). But as graphics capability rises, the consumer is going to want things that take full advantage of that, and the top of the industry is going to supply it to them.

And when that becomes commonplace, we'll suffer with greater prices, more lost jobs, more cut corners, and more content stripped away to become DLC on the first day because they want to raise the effective game price to $70 but can't because the market won't bear it.

tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.

[Hero of Legend]

Also, yeah, I've heard the Sega rumor, too. They had a reboot of something planned (honestly don't know what, but going by context clues, I am guessing JSR) for Wii U that's been cancelled.

Can you elaborate on said clues? :(

I wanted so badly for Headstrong to revive it on Wii U, and we may have just lost that opportunity. :'( :'( :'(

[I Stalk Alone]

Why is this so inconceivable? The 360 was as cutting edge as you can get in 2005 when it was launched. and it was $399/$299.

They lost multi billions on it and you expect MS and sony not to learn anything from that venture? 10x at $399 last gen and you lost $200 a console 10x at $599 for PS3 and you also lost $200 per console due to Bluray.

What would be smarter is that they release maybe 4-6x last gen for $349 release this year and break even. or release december next year for $349 at 8x the gpu power also at break even but then you just risk losing the generation to nintendo before you launch.

[ShockingAlberto]

Can you elaborate on said clues? :( I wanted so badly for Headstrong to revive it on Wii U, and we may have just lost that opportunity. :'( :'( :'(

I had heard they were tapping Headstrong for a reboot of one of their Dreamcast franchises and it had to do with an XBLA port.

Considering that it's Headstrong, the only choices there really are Space Channel, Crazy Taxi (which has only really been dead in terms of quality), and JSF.

[herzogzwei1989]

I believe both Microsoft and Sony will target a $399 price for their next-gen consoles while Nintendo has a $299 price-point for Wii U.

[AceBandage]

I don't think concern should be about variety or creativity. DICE isn't going to suddenly start making 3D platformers even if we stayed at this level of tech. But there's a ceiling to this stuff and, as that ceiling raises, the middle gets stretched further and further. Let's say the top cookie is Activision, EA, Epic, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc., the companies that can afford AAA games. They might not like spending that money, but they can. The bottom cookie are the lower-tier developers (in terms of budget, mind you). They might work with bigger publishers as developer farms, they might be digital distribution only, they could be looking at worldwide sales of 100,000 and being happy as fuck because that's better than they ever imagined. The creamy middle is everyone else. THQ to Konami (though I think this may no longer be true of either of them for different reasons and directions), Tecmo to Koei, Atlus to Zoo Games. This was, at one point, the biggest part of the industry. Then comes us. We twist and pull the top cookie off, lick off the cream, and demand more. The cream that gets attached to the top cookie is gone. The rest can't compete. And all we have is a hunger for more of the highest budget stuff. When I see "Microsoft is making a AAAA game," I get genuinely concerned. Not because I don't want high budget games, high budgets can be awesome! Uncharted 2 would have been a worse game without the money they threw at it (and UC3 was a worse game with more, so it's not always a direct correlation both ways). But as graphics capability rises, the consumer is going to want things that take full advantage of that, and the top of the industry is going to supply it to them. And when that becomes commonplace, we'll suffer with greater prices, more lost jobs, more cut corners, and more content stripped away to become DLC on the first day because they want to raise the effective game price to $70 but can't because the market won't bear it. tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.

Wonderfully stated.
It's just confounding that companies think this is a good idea. It's so short sighted. No other industry thrives on just high budget outings. None.

[I Stalk Alone]

When I see "Microsoft is making a AAAA game," I get genuinely concerned. Not because I don't want high budget games, high budgets can be awesome! Uncharted 2 would have been a worse game without the money they threw at it (and UC3 was a worse game with more, so it's not always a direct correlation both ways). But as graphics capability rises, the consumer is going to want things that take full advantage of that, and the top of the industry is going to supply it to them. And when that becomes commonplace, we'll suffer with greater prices, more lost jobs, more cut corners, and more content stripped away to become DLC on the first day because they want to raise the effective game price to $70 but can't because the market won't bear it. tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.

What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.

[Spieler Eins]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/do...-attack/728564 Listen to this bullshit. Do it.

Just why did I do this to myself? :( How did this guy get into such a position in which we also have to endure his BS as news-worthy all over the net...
I love how he doesn't even expect that his usual audience knows what a rhetorical question is, lol. Srsly, wtf is this shit?

[Nibel]

Man.. If just more people would see it the way Alberto described it.

[AceBandage]

What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.

We already did.
It was called Too Human.
It did shit to stop this stupidity.

[bgassassin]

Man.. If just more people would see it the way Alberto described it.

There are plenty of people out there that see it that way even if they all don't talk about it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=9399

[-Pyromaniac-]

tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.

the only thing that can possibly stop it would be the lowest end device (wii-u) becoming the de-facto console of the generation, just like PS2 was.

And lets face it, long shot is an understatement of the year on that one.

[Nibel]

We already did. It was called Too Human. It did shit to stop this stupidity.

That they are alliwed to work on a game even after the TH disaster is mindblowing.

[ShockingAlberto]

We already did. It was called Too Human. It did shit to stop this stupidity.

I dunno, you can't really use Too Human as proof of failure for anything besides Silicon Knights or Microsoft's ability to gauge developers well.

They were just inefficient developers that had to write their own engine rather than use UE3.

[ViewtifulJC]

Wait, are we talking about $70+ million dollar flops?

[BY2K]

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/timothy-wilson/4/a7/87

Say hello to the new Visual Effect Artist Retro guy from Gearbox/Freelance/Escalation Studios!

[Nibel]

Wait, are we talking about $70+ million dollar flops?

First you make the worst comparison ever and now you break my heart? I hate you, you monster!!

But remember: Shenmue was released in a time where most standards of today didn't exist.

[AceBandage]

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/timothy-wilson/4/a7/87 Say hello to the new Visual Effect Artist Retro guy from Gearbox/Freelance/Escalation Studios!

Damn, just hired, too.

[TheExplodingHead]

What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.

The problem is often that those "AAAA games" are also backed by AAAA marketing money and time slots, which makes it very hard to be a complete flop. That's also the reason we see the same type of gameplay as well as mechanics (and even button mapping in some cases) regurgitated over and over. Eventually it falls off, but while the money is good and guaranteed no changes will be made. All we can be sure of, is the next "hit" or innovation or ballpark new IP will be xeroxed and copied the same way.

The games industry, round and round we go.

[ShockingAlberto]

I think Shenmue today would probably sell okay in Japan.

[Sadist]

The current state of the industry still scares the hell out of me.

Especially with the whole Oreo analogy from Alberto. At times I wonder what the industry is thinking. I mean, a AAAA game. Sounds to me that only a handful of games can afford such a business model including Call of Duty.

I wish I could see into the future.

[Rösti]

So, for April this is what's in store regarding conferences and events Nintendo will in one way or another be at. Note that not all of these are game related events, some are IR events and some concern specific technology.

Conferences/events Nintendo will attend/exhibit at in April:

In chronological order.

CMMA Professional Development Conference

Date(s): March 31 - April 3
Venue(s): Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond Marriott Town Center, Redmond, WA
Topic: Media management
Probability of news: Very unlikely

Nintendo of America's Charles Nishida (AV production manager) attends as co-chair together with Microsoft Studios' Brian Honey (director/group manager). The CMMA Conference concerns mainly the creation, distribution and utilization of communications media for corporations and probably won't feature any news about Wii U (or Durango) released publicly anyway. On Monday there is an opening presentation at 9:00AM followed by a Tour Nintendo/Microsoft Studios at 5:15PM. I'm not expecting any news from this, but I'm expecting people to talk much about Wii U at least, perhaps there will be some buzz about Durango as well. It's not every day Microsoft and Nintendo walk so closely.

http://www.cmma.org/

PAX East

Date(s): April 6 - 8
Venue(s): The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA
Topic: Public video game expo
Probability of news: Moderate

Nintendo will be exhibiting at this show. If they will demonstrate the Wii U or only offer demos of upcoming and current Nintendo 3DS games is unknown though. I've suggested previously that due to the show being open to the public Nintendo may provide something about Wii U to prevent an angry mob from being established, and also to not have to answer questions about Wii U all day with "I'm sorry, I can't comment on that at this time".

http://east.paxsite.com/

2012 NAB Show

Date(s): April 14 - 19
Venue(s):Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Hotel and Casino
Topic: Audio and video content creation
Probability of news: Unlikely

Nintendo of America is not exhibiting at this show, but attending. What they will do there I don't know, but perhaps they are attending to find some interesting technologies to license for Wii U, or they are attending to talk with a company whose technologies or services they have already licensed but not announced yet. Major companies exhibiting at this show include Adobe Systems, Advantech, Akamai, Autodesk, Dolby, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Red Digital Cinema, Sony and THX to name a few. At it's height we'll get an announcement of some licensing deal, similar to that of Autodesk and Havok.

http://www.nabshow.com/2012/default.asp

IBM 1Q 2012 Earnings Announcement

Date(s): April 17, 04:30 p.m. ET
Venue(s): IBM HQ, Armonk, NY
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Unlikely

I'm not expecting any comments or remarks on Wii U during the presentation, though anything could happen, if anything will come from this it will be via the Q&A session after the presentation. This usually takes an hour (Q&A session included) and is rather boring if you don't happen to own shares in IBM; though sometimes they provide some details about upcoming tech, in vague language. Why this presentation could be of importance is that it reflects the first quarter of IBM's business and I would think it is in their interest to brief investors about new initiatives within the fiscal year, and Wii U is included in that. I do not know what companies will participate, but hopefully someone us eager to know more about Nintendo's new console and will ask about it.

http://www.ibm.com/investor/events/

Q1 2012 Advanced Micro Devices Earnings Conference Call

Date(s): April 19, 02:00 p.m. PT
Venue(s): AMD HQ, Sunnyvale, CA
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Moderate

Much like IBM's presentation will this focus on financials, but AMD always provides quite much information about upcoming and current systems and technologies. And like with IBM, this presentation reflects AMD's business in the first quarter of 2012 and more than likely is briefing investors on new initiatives in the fiscal year something on the agenda. On the 2012 Analyst Day, AMD spoke about their increased involvement with the video game industry, maybe they are going to elaborate on this further. Most likely there will be a Q&A session to this. As I see it, interest in Wii U's GPU appears heavier than interest in the CPU, so with little effort could AMD create some hype here even without actually telling something specific about the chip.

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74...ventId=4723953

COLLABORATE 12 - OAUG Forum

Date(s): April 22 - 26
Venue(s): Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
Topic: Technology and applications for the Oracle community
Probability of news: Very unlikely

Like the NAB Show, Nintendo is just attending and is probably seeking technologies to license or business partners. Notable exhibitors include AT&T, Cisco, Comdata, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Thomson Reuters to name a few. Not expecting any news from here.

http://collaborate.oaug.org/

Nintendo Fiscal Year Earnings Release

Date(s): April 26
Venue(s): Nintendo HQ, Minami-ku, Kyoto
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Very likely, almost guaranteed

This is what we are all waiting for. Wii U news will most likely come here; if it will be more info about NFC and similar I don't know though.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/

To summarize, in April we've got three events that may provide some new information about Wii U, the most likely being Nintendo's IR event on the 26th of April.

[Akai]

I dunno, you can't really use Too Human as proof of failure for anything besides Silicon Knights or Microsoft's ability to gauge developers well. They were just inefficient developers that had to write their own engine rather than use UE3.

More like Microsoft's inability to manage developers well. Silicon Knights didn't have any problems when they were being watched over by Nintendo...

[BY2K]

Damn, just hired, too.

Oh snap, I just noticed he worked on Borderlands!

- collaborated in creating the hand-painted Borderlands art style and provided guides for technique and process.

This pleases me!

[Sadist]

Wow, Retro is picking up a lot of folks.

[Nibel]

I hate the AAAA term. The only good thing about those games are presentation and marketing - but reading through recent threads proved me that this is more than enough to convince most people.

[AceBandage]

Oh snap, I just noticed he worked on Borderlands! This pleases me!

Yeah, they're definitely working on some kind of action game.

[Redford]

Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.

[guek]

The current state of the industry still scares the hell out of me. Especially with the whole Oreo analogy from Alberto. At times I wonder what the industry is thinking. I mean, a AAAA game. Sounds to me that only a handful of games can afford such a business model including Call of Duty. I wish I could see into the future.

It boggles the mind how people clamoring for a super-powered costly next gen really can't seem to connect the dots. The question at this point should be about how we can further expand the market, not make it more costly and thus smaller.

Things are only going to get worse. We've gone from smaller dev houses suffering under the sins of this gen to the likes of THQ, Hudson, and Sega. Sad times ahead indeed.

[ViewtifulJC]

Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.

AAAAA take a lot of talent, man

[AceBandage]

Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.

They aren't shopping.
They've had who was going to make their parts down for a while now.
All they're doing is tweaking already designed parts.

[Azure J]

Also, yeah, I've heard the Sega rumor, too. They had a reboot of something planned (honestly don't know what, but going by context clues, I am guessing JSR) for Wii U that's been cancelled.

You know, you're really cool for getting us info like this, but shit like this is just NO_GOD_NOOO.gif for me.

Jet Set Radio on top of everything? That franchise is like right after StarTropics for me in regards to my unrelenting desire to see a sequel to.

[ViewtifulJC]

They had a reboot of something planned (honestly don't know what, but going by context clues, I am guessing JSR) for Wii U that's been cancelled.

[Hero of Legend]

I had heard they were tapping Headstrong for a reboot of one of their Dreamcast franchises and it had to do with an XBLA port. Considering that it's Headstrong, the only choices there really are Space Channel, Crazy Taxi (which has only really been dead in terms of quality), and JSF.

I know it won't make a difference, but was it said if it was dead, or just being considered for the chopping block, and is there anyway for it to be kept alive? :(

...

How about a kickstarter? Fund JSR Wii U by Headstrong! :D

[Redford]

Ah, I see. It is especially exciting to see them pitching to upstarts, I could care less about most big devs today. We've done this to death, but it's true: they'll always cop out of exclusives and even ports so fuck em. I am fully expecting any wild Nintendo success this gen to be hinged upon a combination of brilliant new second parties and Nintendo's own.

[Spieler Eins]

It boggles the mind how people clamoring for a super-powered costly next gen really can't seem to connect the dots. The question at this point should be about how we can further expand the market, not make it more costly and thus smaller.

Just imagine the meltdowns that will happen when either MS or Sony will not release some power house of a console next gen, that so many are already expecting.

[BY2K]

Whatever Retro is working on, it's big. Really big.

[Smiles and Cries]

to have 27 days until some real WiiU news is not bad.

They should change the name at that time to get that out of the way, if not we are stuck with the U

[AceBandage]

Whatever Retro is working on, it's big. Really big.

Well of course.
It's going to be Nintendo's premier launch game.

[herzogzwei1989]

Date(s): April 26 Venue(s): Nintendo HQ, Minami-ku, Kyoto Topic: IR event Probability of news: Very likely, almost guaranteed This is what we are all waiting for. Wii U news will most likely come here; if it will be more info about NFC and similar I don't know though. http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/ To summarize, in April we've got three events that may provide some new information about Wii U, the most likely being Nintendo's IR event on the 26th of April.

Thanks so very muchh Rösti, I am expecting some news on April 26th. No specs or anything, but *perhaps* some kind of update on the status of the dev-kits

Thanks again for your exellent post..

[fabricated backlash]

AAAAA take a lot of talent, man

Not as much as AAAAAAAA+++ games. You just can't reach that without a staff of 100 AAA+ talents. Just one AAA- would fuck you over and you'd be left with AAAAAAA++ games.

[Nibel]

We got a date, huh..

So: it begins.

[BY2K]

Well of course. It's going to be Nintendo's premier launch game.

Not sure about launch title.

[AceBandage]

Thanks so very muchh Rösti, I am expecting some news on April 26th. No specs or anything, but *perhaps* some kind of update on the status of the dev-kits Thanks again for your exellent post..

Since it's aimed at investors, anything about the Wii U will be in one of two categories:

1. Partnerships with third parties.

2. Features of the console (such as NN).

[Redford]

All these coinings, dis threads going down in gaming history.

[TheExplodingHead]

When is E3 this year anyway, is it going to be in June again?