Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Some of their customers are even worse. So snobby and elitist when they really have no reason or right to be.
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Iwata's thoughts on the industry
- Thread starter openrob
- Start date
Some of their customers are even worse. So snobby and elitist when they really have no reason or right to be.
lukeskymac
Member
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Relaxed Muscle
Member
TBH The other 2 big are doing the same, or a much better rate than Nintendo. Sony with the Tomorrow Children, Soma, Bloodborne, Rime, etc... and MS with Sunset Overdrive, D4, Scalebound, etc...
Cultivating a wide ecosystem of games have been the job of the console maker for quite some time. I don't feel is a solution rather than "you should have been doing this if you don't want to fall even more behind"
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I've seen this statement again and again, and I don't think it's true. It's a misunderstanding how a lot of industries work. The "magic formula" for certain titles has been found. It's now going to be exploited until people are sick of it. Once that happens, some designer with a keen sense of the market will come out and bring an old idea or a completely new idea to prominence. Then the industry will swing to supersaturation of that idea. And so the pendulum of the market and of creative destruction swings. It won't kill console gaming, that's just silly.
I mean in the context of VR alone, this whole idea is dopey because VR by itself will provide all kinds of new ideas and avenues.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
There's a problem with immersion in games? What, do you want every game to be as simplistic and gamey as Connect 4?
Thank goodness the majority of gamers disagree and have shown such by rejecting the Wii U. The thought of a gaming future without immersion is massively unappealing.
Nobody said otherwise? All that was said is that Nintendo had to and that they are starting to...
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Oof. That unwarranted arrogance. I wonder if Iwata knew even then that Nintendo was slipping into irrelevance. Kids today want Minecraft instead of Mario, that's gotta hurt his pride.
Well, you know what they say about pride and falling...
ViewtifulJC
Banned
I feel like Bayo2/Devil's Third is one of those two little, too late thing. If you're in that 18-35 male demographic for AAA games like Bayonetta 2, are you getting a WiiU for that, or a PS4/Xbone for The Evil Within, Alien Isolation, Assassin's Creed, Halo, GTA, Shadow of Mordor, Far Cry, Call of Duty, NBA 2K, etc. Not to mention whats on the horizon with Arkham Knight, Metal Gear Solid 5, Witcher 3, Evolve, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Gears of War, etc. None of which the Wii U is ever gonna see.
You aint turning no tides or cultivating any audiences with a janky lookin' game like Devil's Third compared to all that.
You aint turning no tides or cultivating any audiences with a janky lookin' game like Devil's Third compared to all that.
Professor Renegade
Banned
This is the part that I agreed with most. Good graphics doesn't make the game good.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Good luck. They won't admit you're right.
LegendofLex
Member
But it does. There is an inverse relationship between Nintendo's financials and the closeness between their hardware and that of other platforms. This suggests that there simply isn't a place for a Nintendo console that specializes on games like Mario and Smash Bros. that are quite distant from multiplatform content but that also tries to accommodate that same content. Meanwhile, look at the biggest first-party games from Sony and Microsoft, and it isn't hard to see why the multiplats do well there.
The problem with Nintendo nowadays is that there isn't really anyone who is developing games in their space anymore. They've all been pushed to mobile platforms where games are F2P or near-free and that's the only way they can compete for user attention in a sea of F2P or near-free games. And this is exactly what Iwata means when he says that the push to make multi-platform games/imitation games/non hardware-specific games has the tendency to turn games into commodities.
The same thing is happening to some extent on multi-platform consoles: there's a plethora of shooters, open-world action games, etc. and it's created a crowded marketplace full of similar content, where the "choice" boils down to user attention. This is not necessarily encouraging a diverse ecosystem on these platforms; they're lucky to be able to take advantage of first-party money-hatting and alternative business models for indie developers, or you might not have much variety at all.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Right. Just not sequels from non-Nintendo companies, apparently (though of course that's complete nonsense).
Warm Machine
Member
Effort put into looks does not take away from effort put into design or implementation of design. Actually better graphics often leads to more options for a game designer to capitalize on.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Lol indeed. "Nintendo is so the best developer! But for some reason, the best games made that shit on all other games from orbit don't sell! How dare most gamers not agree and buy these games despite their lack of appeal outside a niche that I will in no way admit exists!"
i suppose that early on, through the ps2 era this was correct. i don't know if it's true now though. i feel that limitations that force creative compromises are where designers really challenge themselves and come up with great things.
KingJ2002
Member
Well he's definitely telling the truth about the state of the industry. Many developers are going on record saying things like "I hope you like sequels! Because that's what you're going to get." Budgets have ballooned and because of it there's not a lot of middle ground for experimentation by big publishers... Just tweaks to the same game on annual release schedules.
The indie movement is what keeping this industry fresh in my eyes but even then it's not enough.... Consumers have to tell these publishers with their dollars that these mega titles just aren't fun anymore... So there can be some new ideas flowing again from all parties.
The indie movement is what keeping this industry fresh in my eyes but even then it's not enough.... Consumers have to tell these publishers with their dollars that these mega titles just aren't fun anymore... So there can be some new ideas flowing again from all parties.
Melchiah
Member
Nor do bad graphics make a game any better. There's no correlation with graphics and gameplay, other than better visuals making the experience even better. I'd wager everyone wants to play the games they enjoy in the best possible form they can be. I have a strong distaste for the current mindset, that a visually stunning game must be empty inside.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
Yeah, exactly. It's what spawned so much creativity on older consoles. We're moving aware from creative efforts being spawned from having to work around limitations to them being spawned from having the power to create what you actually imagine. The problem, is that these creations seldom seem to take advantage of the power in meaningful ways.
For all the shit talking the AC games take, they very much are games that have taken advantage of the power allowed by the PS3/360 and onward to provide gameplay that simply wouldn't have been possible before. But for every one of them, you have something like The Order, where the graphical experience is the obvious priority as far as how power is utilized
You see, this is where game design comes into play.
A game like Captain Toad will only marginally need to improve on high end hardware coming out in 2030, becauase of the way the levels are designed.
Meanwhile to compete for the consumers money in the AAA space, it's all about scale. The more stuff you can fit into your game, the bigger you make the world, etc.
The game with the most realistic facial animations, highest quality voice acting, etc. will win. And these things are directy related to how much you are willing to spend. The guy who spends the most wins.
Same with Splatoon compared to Battlefield. The latter is now pushing destructible environments and organically appearing events like entire scyscrapers collapsing. That's pushing alot of horsepower, but a minimalist game like Splatoon will never have that issue of demanding bigger and bigger dev teams. The graphics will merely get shinier and the resolution bumped up. Nothing fancy.
Mario Kart 8 you could argue went from flat in the past to fully realized 3D tracks, with alot of twists and turns, up and down, inside out. Yeah but where do they go from here? There's not much else you can do, so they've already reached the upper ceiling for this franchise. From here it's smooth sailing.
Same with 3D Mario if they go for obstacle course style linear levels.
Zelda is a different because it seems like they are keen on, at least superficially, mimic open world games. But how does a 3D Zelda dungeon differ from OoT to SS? It's the same in scale but prettier graphics and cool effects.
Enclosed environments > open world
Minimalist artstyle > photo realism
Solid Samus
Banned
man, at this point you're just flooding the place with antagonistic substanceless shitpost responses lacking any value besides "yeah bro, you're right, look at these arrogant idiots from Nintendo, and their fans too. Looking down at everyone, what gall"... quit acting like your holding yourself to a higher standard than the people you're criticizing when you leave it to others to validate and elaborate upon your opinions and use their posts to act dismissive and shitty.
smh
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
But even there you see the same voices that have basically stopped anything but sports shooters and racing in the AAA space existing complaining about the aesthetic of indie titles with sentiments like "yawn, yet another retro style pixel game"
LegendofLex
Member
More people need to talk about this when talking about Nintendo. It's a severe disconnect between people's own opinions of Nintendo's games and the reality of the marketplace.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
It's literally a fact that those games are not identical.
Warm Machine
Member
All the new lighting and reflection tech that games like Alien Isolation are able to leverage have some cool game design possibilities.
MP games have benefitted from graphics upgrades more than any other genre. Anything that gives players more choice and options in a given situation based on the visual makeup of the environment they are in is game design.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Whenever someone at Nintendo says something to the effect of "everyone else focuses too much on graphics" their position tends to be misunderstood.
Nintendo has nothing against hot steaming Turbografx and production values, and will pump a lot into those things when they feel it's warranted. It more seems their criticism is based on the opinion game development should remain balanced. Graphics and graphics technology shouldn't be used as the primary selling point of a game, and I think it's dishonest to deny much of the industry does exactly that.
This is actually a reason why I look forward to diminishing returns. Once the age-old attitude of "what hot graphics will we see next? I bet we can't imagine them!" dies out, selling games purely on visuals should become more difficult. A design document which translates too "well, we have no real ideas for this game, but just look at this sexy facial animation technology we can deploy!" will no longer seem like something worth funding to the tune of 50 million.
Nintendo has nothing against hot steaming Turbografx and production values, and will pump a lot into those things when they feel it's warranted. It more seems their criticism is based on the opinion game development should remain balanced. Graphics and graphics technology shouldn't be used as the primary selling point of a game, and I think it's dishonest to deny much of the industry does exactly that.
This is actually a reason why I look forward to diminishing returns. Once the age-old attitude of "what hot graphics will we see next? I bet we can't imagine them!" dies out, selling games purely on visuals should become more difficult. A design document which translates too "well, we have no real ideas for this game, but just look at this sexy facial animation technology we can deploy!" will no longer seem like something worth funding to the tune of 50 million.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Absolutely true, and absolutely irrelevant to the point.
Melchiah
Member
I'd think, that the x86 hardware and better development tools free more resources to use elsewhere. What contributed on the innovativity of some PS2 games, was that the budgets were smaller and the teams had more freedom to experiment with ideas. Now the budgets are bigger, and many play it more safe. Indies have pretty much replaced the mid-size studios of old.
EDIT: The westernization of the industry may play some role in the change as well, as quirky Japanese games just don't sell that well anymore.
i would say those examples only occur very rarely. mirror's edge is another game that kind of needed to look realistic in order to get the platforming to feel just so, but i don't know how mirror's edge 2 is going to make me feel the platforming is somehow better just on the looks alone. team fortress 2 is a game from 2007 that was heavily stylized and something i'll play seven years later. valve actually notes in the developer commentary that one of the problems they faced was making the game too realistic, and how nothing actually came together until they tried making the game cartoony and instantly recognizable.
beyond good & evil was a game born out of compromise. it's not what space lord michel ancel had originally envisioned, but what we got was a compact and well-made action-adventure classic with the best cinematic gameplay for at least a decade.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
lol
Is not about design, is about higher quality assets. Mario Kart 8 has significantly higher quality assets and that means more dev time and higher costs. Same with the new Mario games, which each entry on a new console/portable means more costs and time, because they have significantly higher assets. Same with the new Zelda, which is not just "prettier graphics" is a whole new amount of detail possible with the new horsepower of Wii U compared Wii.
All this means bigger teams and bigger costs, is not going to stop just now, the next jump will require higher teams and higher costs, because it means more quality assets, and arstyle has very little to do about it.
And Nintendo can't just look at MK8 and say "this is enough until 2030!" because that won't work, specially with mobile gaming catching up in the tech curve.
People say this over and over again, but tech is way more than prettier graphics. Better tech means devs are free to develop the game they want with less restrictions.
All of what you said was adressed by subsequent posts (mine as well). Basically though all those NSMB were on different platforms. All those CoDs and the whole series of AssCreed is on PS3/360, that's a little different. Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are very similar indeed, they're also some of the best reviewed games in the history of gaming, I would say in that case the iterative sequel can be understood: the first one was damn near perfect in first place, why change the formula? To the bold: no.
Truth be told I haven't played III, but AssCreed 1 and 2 are almost the exact same gameplay-wise. Sure 2 has more stuff and is generally a better game (a very good game, unlike the first), but the gameplay really isn't that different in the end.
Mario Sunshine lets you propel around with water and you have to clean an island from dirt and mud. Mario Galaxy was the first game to employ the gravity mechanic in a platform, and to put it to such great use. NSMBU is a compendium on what made the old school 2D Mario games great, finally in co-op. 3D World is the most linear of the 3D games and let's you play in 3D co-op for the first time in the series, mechanics-wise is more vanilla, akin to Super Mario 64.
Sure, you jump, stomp goombas, run, etc. in all of them, but aside from that basic points the gameplay is vastly diferent due to those various mechanics. AssCreed really doesn't change that much between iterations.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Because a texture artist that used to do one texture per model then move on, now has to do multiple textures per model?
Because a modeller that used to make a single model to their poly budget now has to make multiple models of the same thing to cover LOD meshing?
Delusibeta
Banned
The problem is that game budgets are too damn high, which means that AAA games have to sell multiple millions to make that money back. This means that risk has to be minimised and the game has to appeal to the widest known audience, hence military FPSes everywhere and Ubisoft applying their open world formula to everything. That's not to say AAA games are incapable of new ideas (e.g. Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system), but risk is minimised (e.g. Shadow of Mordor being tied to the Lord of the Rings licence).
The main advantage indie games has over AAA games is that they don't have to make back as much money, and hence can take more risks. Of course, low money also mean low resources, hence the prevalence of retro-style graphics, which are cheap to look decent. Indeed, one thing Steam has exposed is that the median indie game is way worse than the median AAA game thanks to a lack of budget and/or development talent for the vast majority of indie games. Thankfully (for consoles), most of these crappy indie games don't reach the consoles, so console gamers get to enjoy the cream of the crop.
So, yeah, no silver bullets here.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
I agree with your post, but the problem isn't just risk-adversity in publishers; its risk-adversity in consumers too.
I mean, sure, it's a lot easier to point the finger at EA and say "lazy talentless fucks" when they release the same game 5 different times with a different skin on each, than to look at our own buying habits and criticise ourselves for only buying games day one if they're a sequel because we know we will definitely like it, buying singleplayer only games secondhand and then trading them in after we've finished them like a rental because we decided singleplayer only games are inherently worth less, or watching games on youtube lets plays instead of buying them at all and then going on messageboards saying how much they sucked.
But in the end, publishers only sell what the public wants to buy.
"Gamers" are at the very least hugely complicit in this.
LegendofLex
Member
Indeed, and that makes the idea of reaching across the aisle to neglected audiences - Nintendo's favorite style and an approach that's otherwise almost completely neglected by other platform makers - all the more essential if you want diversity to flourish in this industry.
Bigger audience = more users = more individual tastes = more viable products.
Dion Blaster
Member
Let's be honest. Nintendo as a publisher/developer is probably the best in the industry. But Nintendo is also a horrible, terrible content provider for its home consoles. A console will never be healthy with one great publisher making games for if and almost nothing else of note.
Paracelsus
Member
Amen. Gamecube sold 21m worldwide and had more valuable KA than PS360 combined. It may be good for the player, but not really.
Wrong, it holds true exclusively for Nintendo, and a very, very, very few exceptions for Sony and Microsoft.
LegendofLex
Member
Take a look at the best-selling first-party and best-selling third-party games on Sony and Microsoft's platforms. I think you'll find Sony and MS have a lot of power when it comes to setting the tone on their systems.
What is Nintendo supposed to do, strong-arm third-party publishers into making games that actually meet the needs of their audience? Third-parties were very vocal about not really being passionate about those games (or more specifically about the casual audience - and who can blame them, since their approach to development is to make the kinds of games they want to play), but at the same time not being able to ignore the business opportunity presented by Wii. Meanwhile, third-parties had no problem pushing out the same number of AAA games on other platforms, and concentrating their premium development efforts on those platforms.
What kind of signal does it send to users when most publishers' biggest-marketed games aren't showing up on their platform of choice? And what exactly is Nintendo supposed to do - ignore that they actually did create a relatively robust alternative market (where the premium games were games like Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Mario Kart, etc.) to chase after multiplatform titles (in other words, to bark up a completely different tree and tailor their console to the needs of a completely different market)?
Wii U was definitely designed to try to go in both directions at once. And what did we discover? We discovered that a console that can absorb multiplatform games overshoots the needs of Nintendo's market (if they wanted those games, they would be playing them on the other platforms), which means that not only do the multiplats not sell (why would they sell to people who weren't buying them anyway?) but the console doesn't actually attract Nintendo's alternative market either (why would it sell to people who just needed a Wii last gen anyway?).
Q
Queen of Hunting
Unconfirmed Member
its amazing how well this applies to games to this day especially the part about to many sequels realying on certain ip's etc.
just look at what happend last gen where devs/publisher relied on a single name (guitar hero for instance). assassins creed isnt to far off heading into crash course and it looks like cod is going same too.
just look at what happend last gen where devs/publisher relied on a single name (guitar hero for instance). assassins creed isnt to far off heading into crash course and it looks like cod is going same too.
Okami sold like shit, is it a bad game? Most blockbuster movies are viewed by millions and gross astronomical amounts of money, are they all deserving of that?
No.
The taste of the masses is usually pretty shitty. Gaming is becoming more and more a mainstream thing. AAA gaming needs to homogenize to appeal to everyone.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I'm trying to figure out why this is so funny and I'm coming up blank. Unless a once a console generation New Super Mario is some how an annual release, than I'm at a loss.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
You're not sufficiently condescending and dismissive of Nintendo to maintain the correct level of wilful ignorance that's required to see that Nintendo = Mario, and all mario games are the same.
PdotMichael
Banned
Bad graphics doesn't help.
PdotMichael
Banned
Papacheeks
Banned
He's not wrong in his bullet points.
But also look at the time of that speech compared to the one in 2011. Very different positions in terms of success for their home console.
Gamecube hype was getting spanked by PS2 and Xbox at that time.
And when he says very few original games I kind of scratched my head.
Because Halo was announced a year ago, Devil May Cry came out that year, so did ICO, Dark Cloud, Onimusha, Grand Theft auto 3 though a sequel to a average series at the time, blew up because of the open world game mechanics.
Not to mention Jak and Daxter, Zone of Enders among other titles that debuted during that year.
Compare that outlook then in 2001 to his outlook in 2011 from the video posted by someone earlier.
Nintendo was coming off that Wii money in 2011 so of course they are going to show positives in what they were outputting compared to other industry competition.
ANd now that the Motion control dust has settled, it shows that they stay true to not compromising when it comes to creating great games.
But at the same time, not diversifying and branching out to try new ventures that the market could really love.
But also look at the time of that speech compared to the one in 2011. Very different positions in terms of success for their home console.
Gamecube hype was getting spanked by PS2 and Xbox at that time.
And when he says very few original games I kind of scratched my head.
Because Halo was announced a year ago, Devil May Cry came out that year, so did ICO, Dark Cloud, Onimusha, Grand Theft auto 3 though a sequel to a average series at the time, blew up because of the open world game mechanics.
Not to mention Jak and Daxter, Zone of Enders among other titles that debuted during that year.
Compare that outlook then in 2001 to his outlook in 2011 from the video posted by someone earlier.
Nintendo was coming off that Wii money in 2011 so of course they are going to show positives in what they were outputting compared to other industry competition.
ANd now that the Motion control dust has settled, it shows that they stay true to not compromising when it comes to creating great games.
But at the same time, not diversifying and branching out to try new ventures that the market could really love.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I just find it so crazy to say something like that in the face of people pretty much begging for sequels to Star Fox, Metroid, Zelda, F-Zero, Kid Icarus, Punch Out, etc. I imagine there's even a lot of people really wanting a Super Mario 3D World sequel of some kind. For a company that apparently rehashes and yearly releases all their best franchises, there sure is a lot of pent up demand for sequels to a lot of their best franchises.
We get one, maybe two Mario games a year and they're never from the same genre at all. Stuff like Toad's Treasure Tracker, Mario Kart and Mario Golf may technically come out the same year, but they're entirely different games that just take place in the same general universe, which isn't really the sort of thing Iwata was talking about. They don't even appeal to the same audience.
But obviously since Hyrule Warriors came out this year and Link Between Worlds came out last year, Zelda is a rehashed, yearly franchise milked to the masses for easy cash.
Pokemon is the only series could theoretically make an argument like that for, but even so, it's not really Nintendo and again, the releases are so different, something like Pokemon Art Academy and Pokemon Omega Ruby might as well be different series despite being released the same year.
Memorabilia
Member
This. Usually first post nails it, but that post needs to be killed with fire. Iwatas statement reads like a "State of Gaming in 2014" guide.