Aaronrules380
Member
Yes. And as I pointed out, the other studios have shown significantly lower quality on non Nintendo projects
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Robertson Rumor: Tanabe & Retro no longer on good terms, Sakamoto overseeing Retro
- Thread starter Tom Nook Sawyer
- Start date
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A Link to the Past
Banned
Why couldn't they have a balance between that like they had with Rare? Rare ultimately had a fair amount of freedom and trust, but still had Nintendo's guidance.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
This guy claimed that Star Fox Zero meetings on a potential delay were to be held at NCL the day AFTER the Direct released. The Direct was announced shortly after which by itself proved he didn't know what he was talking about again.
Is there a reason we still report this guy's rumors? He's been proven to be full of shit many, many times. Just recently he started some BS about "emergency meeting to decide whether Star Fox is delayed on Friday" and then the next day a Direct got announced which aired before this supposed meeting lmao.
This dude just has a big imagination and uses that to get attention / Patreon money.
This dude just has a big imagination and uses that to get attention / Patreon money.
SilverLunar
Member
the Sakamoto hate still persists in these lands, he makes millions sellers for nintendo and has a unique style of games,
let Other M go!
and this Liam dude as well, don't believe his lies!
let Other M go!
and this Liam dude as well, don't believe his lies!
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Not only that but he actually insults and attacks people who express doubt in the rumours he spreads.
It's not hard to get the impression he spreads these rumours to get attention and so he can flaunt how right he is. Even if he is right, he's very immature and that's probably a big part of why he's such a divisive figure.
It's not hard to get the impression he spreads these rumours to get attention and so he can flaunt how right he is. Even if he is right, he's very immature and that's probably a big part of why he's such a divisive figure.
I am Christina Aguilera
Member
Like, you guys see "they stuck Retro with the Other M guy," and I see "ALL OF THE PEOPLE THAT MADE THE BEST METROID GAMES THAT WE ALL LOVE ARE WORKING TOGETHER IN THE SAME PLACE while Tanabe is elsewhere working on some whatever kiddie multiplayer spin-off for kids"
A Link to the Past
Banned
I think it's fair enough to be wary of Sakamoto, just because Other M could be indicative of a shift in his perception on the series.
But Tanabe record after the Prime games are the Donkey Kong Country Returns series and Dillon Rolling Western and... Oh! Paper Jam and Federation Force. Talk about AAA complex games.
tbh this actually could lead to good things for them considering that Sakamoto seems to have a thing for series that don't seem to cost too much to make but have HUGE success in terms of reception and sales.
This is where I am tbh, I'm kind of excited... as long as the rumour is true =P
Aaronrules380
Member
Nintendo is much more easily able to manage and watch Japanese developers. The splatoon team was definitely not able to do whatever the fuck they wanted with that game. Creative freedom can happen even with someone experienced overseeing a project. And splatoon was a success, but most new ips really aren't. For every splatoon you get, multiple new ips fall flat, and many, many more don't even get greenlir
"imagination?" no, the dude gets rumors from different sources, some of which are legit, and some aren't. And he reports them as rumors, not fact.
Paper Mario Wii U turned out to be a real thing
I think he's pretty obnoxious and kind of an asshole sometimes but it's not true that he's always full of shit
A Link to the Past
Banned
Then by extension, why not beef up NoA? Why add so many extra barriers of communication between America and Japan?
Aaronrules380
Member
Likely because Rare was earlier on and proved competent from the start, whereas retro was a complete fucking mess. And while Rare got results, so does modern retro. So if both can get great results, why go with the option that can lead to catastrophic failure
That rumor was reported by others as well, though.
Finale Fireworker
Member
It's 100% his attitude. His attitude is really off-putting, which is why people are so sensitive whenever he leaks something. He puts himself at the center of his information a lot. I think this is reflected the information he chooses to share.
I don't know if he's ever wrong. I can't think of anything he's been wrong about. But reading his information, especially on Twitter, is enormously unpleasant. He doesn't post on GAF very much anymore because people find him so irritating, but also demand his info.
EDIT: He was wrong about Shovel Knight in Smash. I forgot about that.
People hate Liam, hence the tongue-in-cheek trigger warning at the head of the OP. But he has tons of industry contacts and has a strong line back to Nintendo.
I am inclined to believe his stories. Sometimes.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Thank you for reminding me.
GrantDaNasty
Member
There is every chance this is inaccurate, but then again, Nintendo has shown to have some trouble with their non-Japanese collaborators (Factor 5, Rare etc).
ShockingAlberto
Member
Have heard this before but likely from the same source and also like six months ago.
I'm on my phone, so I don't want to type my thoughts out here, but I remember reasoning that this was probably for the better.
I'm on my phone, so I don't want to type my thoughts out here, but I remember reasoning that this was probably for the better.
A Link to the Past
Banned
Also, wasn't there someone else who had a rumour that involved talking about how Tanabe was kind of a jerk?
Is it not potentially a catastrophic failure to have poor morale at Retro? Remember, not everyone got fired - plenty of people quit, and there has been talk of frustration with a lack of creativity.
Is it not potentially a catastrophic failure to have poor morale at Retro? Remember, not everyone got fired - plenty of people quit, and there has been talk of frustration with a lack of creativity.
Sure, but the fact is that he clearly has at least one reliable source at Nintendo. Probably the same one Emily Rogers and ShockingAlberto have.
Sylverstone14
Member
I know Liam puts out decent content for Unseen64 and tends to have good sources, but this just seems bizarre.
You won't see any developer badmouthing their producers in an interview like that. For them, interviews are part of PR, after all, and they aren't going to say anything that paints someone or something in a bad light.
That being said, after yesterday's Starfox rumors - which were quite obviously made up bullshit - I don't trust anything Robertson says anymore. He has his contacts and sources, but he's apparently willing to make up shit in order to get attention, which discredits him completely in my opinion.
Linkstrikesback
Member
Legitimate question. Is Sakamoto in charge of miitomo, and if not, why not? Surely that's the best use of his abilities and time right now?
SilverLunar
Member
He said it is a rumor, therefore everything he says spin into him never being wrong lol
The iwata Asks for NIntendo SPD1's (back when yoshio sakamoto was a manager of that) games painted Sakamoto as someone who gave a lot of creative freedom to his staff. For ex, there's a part in the Game & Wario Iwata Asks where they talk about how they deliberatly made the original iteration of the game bland and "boring" because it was supposed to be built-in the console and they feared their wacky style wouldn't gell well with a wider audience, but then he played the prototype and told them to just do their usual thing.
otoh, he hugely mismanaged Other M (insisting on having digital controls even when Team Ninja told him it was a bad idea, doing voice direction for the english dub despite not speaking english and imposing weird restrictions on the english script...). if he's supervising a new metroid or a big budget 3D game, he's hoperfully learned lessons from Other M.
(of course this is assuming the rumour is true, which I don't see as particularly likely due to tamaki's recent track record on industry rumours, as others have pointed out)
otoh, he hugely mismanaged Other M (insisting on having digital controls even when Team Ninja told him it was a bad idea, doing voice direction for the english dub despite not speaking english and imposing weird restrictions on the english script...). if he's supervising a new metroid or a big budget 3D game, he's hoperfully learned lessons from Other M.
(of course this is assuming the rumour is true, which I don't see as particularly likely due to tamaki's recent track record on industry rumours, as others have pointed out)
Aaronrules380
Member
How would you do this aside from what they're doing by having experienced developers oversee projects? Communication is always going to be limited, since most people on each side can't speak each other's languages, and the experienced people are by and large all Japanese. Hiring people from outside the company might interfere with their corporate philosophy, and honestly they don't have many western studios in the first place (retro is the only one they actually own for one thing)
A Link to the Past
Banned
Isn't it more likely that his sources made up info/had bad info?
Have NoA be somewhat autonomous, able to make major decisions without NCL approval (such as what content to localize, what games its western developers should create, etc.). The idea that Retro should have to play telephone to get answers is ridiculous.
wild wild rice
Member
I'll believe it when I see a Kelbaugh/Sakamoto twitter tour.
Vampirolol
Member
Inb4 Sakamato made one mistake out of many awesome games.
FunkyPajamas
Member
Yep, and along with (under?) Tanabe they made one of my favorite trilogies. With Sakamoto... I don't know what's going to happen.
The best hope for Other M is to say that it was bad because he was given full creative control, enough to override good advice from Team Ninja on the controls or veto any attempt from NoA to localize the game into something that would sound better.
The game didn't do well, Nintendo more or less knows this, it sold less than Prime 3 much further into the Wii's life, and it didn't do so much better in Japan to justify a Japanocentric "fuck it" approach to the next game (no willingness to continue to alienate the western base to chase Japanese consumers). If he runs another Metroid game, it's not going to be a vanity project.
Of course, i think that Other M is a game with good bones and just a bad outer shell, so i feel that if he had gotten stronger oversight and feedback, the game would have been much better received. Others who feel differently may disagree.
Aaronrules380
Member
And yet despite the turnover the games remain great. Turnover is pretty common in the western game industry I think, and there's literally no shortage of talent who would jump at the chance to work for retro. And we don't really no how much freedom they even get. Literally no development studio working under a publisher gets complete creative freedom
wild wild rice
Member
Please see first post.
Kimishima: Young Generation of Nintendo Developers to Lead Forefront of NX and Mobile
But I can sense the lingering "Why not throw him to mobile where I can ignore him" shade.
Linkstrikesback
Member
It's been 12 years since he was involved in a good metroid game. His time is far better spent elsewhere. Someone will be an entirely different person at any 12 year gap. His talents now are much, much better spent on everything else he makes (#Especially Tomodachi and Rhythm Heaven, both great series).
It's not like I think he should be taken out back and shot, but Metroid is not the series he should be working on. I can't think of many places of business that you can fuck up that bad and not shuffled around to some other position in the company, especially when you actually have shown you're capable of making the company a lot of money doing something else.
That's not what I meant. Tomodachi life is, by the wiki list, the 8th best seller on 3ds. Both my sisters love it. I love rhythm heaven, but that's an aside, I'm not going to pretend that series does anywhere near as well.
They're trying to use the "tomo" brand and a similar game style to break in to the mobile market. Why they wouldn't have the expert in the company working on that, I can't guess. It's very important this venture into mobile goes well for Nintendo.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I never asked for complete creative freedom. I asked for Nintendo to do with Retro what we know worked very well with Rare. I mean, it's not like these people working on their games are schmucks, Retro has very talented people, and the idea that it's not a problem that Nintendo may be disrespecting its workers because the replacements make good games is super corporate apologistic.
Aaronrules380
Member
Is there any company ever where regional branches are that autonomous? And I'm pretty sure NoA decides what gets localized for the most part, and exceptions are most likely going to tend toward NCL mandating that a certain title will be localized, rather than saying a title can't be
agiantenemycrab
Member
Sakamoto, to my understanding, had very little involvement in the gameplay design of the Prime series. He oversaw some aspects but it was mostly a Retro designed game with input from Tanabe and Miyamoto. When Sakamoto took back creative control of the series he steered it in the direction that gave us Other M. I have to imagine it doesn't sit well with him that the Prime games are held in much higher regard than Other M, his
baby
He defended his rumor quite vividly even after it was confirmed that Starfox didn't get delayed, which comes off as a desperate attempt to save face to me. First he claimed NCL would have an emergency meeting about Starfox on Friday, when the Direct got announced it suddenly was "actually today" (Wednesday) and now he's saying that the decision not to delay it was made "very recently". At the same time, we know due to the leaks (and NoE's teaser image which was a snapshot from the Direct) that the Direct was already recorded when he claimed that an emergency meeting would take place soon...
A Link to the Past
Banned
Perhaps not, but NCL has demonstrated all too often that it does not know how to run NoA. It's basically a macro version of Sakamoto wanting to handle Other M's localization.
Nah, I don't see it. If his source gave him bad info, it would be in his best interest to save face. Being defensive can simply be him trying to not become irrelevant.
Aaronrules380
Member
Nintendo's relationship with rare is a pretty unique circumstance for the industry as a whole. Why rare had culture shock when MS took over. And again, why risk catastrophic failure when they've proven that they can succeed on a safer route? That's not good business sense. All of your statements are based on hypotheticals and have no basis in the reality of the products retro has been making. You say a decline in morale will lead to issues, but turnover is common in the west, and despite major turnover after prime 3, retro went on to make an even more successful game
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
Welcome to the future, where a Retro Studios made Tomodachi Life will be a thing.
Aaronrules380
Member
such as what decisions? Do you have a list of decisions made by NCL rather than NoA? I don't see how you can make this claim without insider info
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