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[Punished Miku]

The thing is, Sony and Microsoft have never tried this strategy. I’d bet they would be just as successful. Sony in particular makes fantastic games. Bottom line is they care enough to make improvements in their remakes and remasters. Nintendo doesn’t, they rest on their laurels.

We've seen them do both. I think what it shows me is that there's no unified strategy for re-releases across the whole company. It really depends on what particular teams are doing at the time.

Grezzo remade Ocarina of Time for 3DS. Then remade Majora's Mask. Then got to do a new IP (Ever Oasis) because they proved they can do a good job. Then remade Link'a Awakening. So we have one team that's good at remakes but seems to only have experience with Zelda.

Twilight Princess HD was by Tantalus in Australia. Seems they work on all kinds of stuff across multiple systems, not just Nintendo.

Samus Returns was remade by Mercury Steam in Spain, with supervision by Sakamoto. There is no existing Metroid team in Nintendo really. They outsourced Other M as well.

Wind Waker was remade by the actual main Zelda team on Wii U, because the team specifically wanted to try and take on a short term project that would give them experience making HD games, since they had zero. It was a strategic decision for them.

I don't think anyone has ever remade a Mario game or remastered one since SNES All Stars. This tells me that the current Mario teams see this as a waste of time and don't want to do it. But also that they have never set up an outsourcing team they trust to work on Mario, who has proven themselves. For Zelda they seem to be doing this fine, but for some reason not with Mario. I don't know why, but they did the same ROMs dump with the last Mario Anniversary game also.

EDIT: Actually, I forget the remade Mario 64 once for DS within Nintendo as well.

 

[McCheese]

I doubt whether anyone on GAF is in a position to make that assessment

Hello. Ex N64 dev and emu author chiming in.

The N64 graphics library had a very funky system where textures would be streamed from the cart due to the pathetic 4kb texture cache. So you would want to entirely rip that out and rewrite the rendering and asset pipeline in a modern Vulkan port.

The PC port is a sledge hammer implementation that brute forces a PC do things the weird N64 way at a massive performance penalty, you could not run the PC port on switch level hardware without some of the aforementioned rewrites.

Even the way the assets were stored would need converting, as the models for N64 games were often vertex lists written in pure C, Despite the N64 RSP being designed by silicon graphics, they didnt use the usual wavefront file formats as the developers up until that era were used to coding things old school inline ASM, they modelled them in alias then wrote the vertex, normal and texture lists by hand. The original model files no longer exist based on the code leaks.

Wide screen you could add in, and field of vision is easy enough to tweak as it's all just 4x4 projection matrix setup.

Frame rate is a tricky one as again, animations are all keyframed for 30 so you could half all the speeds and double the frame rate, and movement would be nicer, but animations would still appear to be at 30fps unless you modified them all or interpolated them.

So in short, a proper port is more effort than emulating, and an emulator has more reuse value for Nintendo. Personally I think they should have ported it and given it a compete crash bandicoot style refresh. But old N64 games are not easy to port and large portions need to be rewritten, so unless they were going to go all out with redone renderer, models and animations... It's not really worth it

 

[jaysius]

I didn't think about that. Is that true?

I asked in the right place and got the answer.

 

[MagnesG]

The thing is, Sony and Microsoft have never tried this strategy. I’d bet they would be just as successful. Sony in particular makes fantastic games. Bottom line is they care enough to make improvements in their remakes and remasters. Nintendo doesn’t, they rest on their laurels.

I mean sure, like I said they could try, the market just doesn't react to it positively when Sony/MS fans are so used to rabid sales only 2 months in, well maybe except for the early adopters of their FP titles, which is not much.

They would care enough to make improvements when their IP's future is at stake. This anniversary thing is a small side piece for Nintendo in their still relevant IP, Mario Odyssey was released 3 years ago and still selling, and I wouldn't be surprised if a new Mario would be announced any time soon.

I guess people really want to forget that Sony/MS releases lazy, unoptimized emulates ports all the time lol, not just Nintendo.

 

[iconmaster]

Actual knowledge

Thank you! This is great stuff.

 

[PlayerPurple]

Nintendo is the only company in the history of humanity that can get away with
1. Premium priced XBOX360 hardware in 2020
2. Full priced XBOX360 games in 2020
3. Not remaking N64 games in 2020
You can hate Sony until your teeth break and your gums start bleeding, they did remake Crash and Medievil, Nintendo won't remake M A R I O because "screw you".
The power Nintendo has over their audience is magical. Dark magic, still magical.

Apparently, Sony should've known when they released the PS Classic that emulation is only acceptable if you're Nintendo.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

So Activision can churn out full-on, high quality, high effort remakes of the following:

• Spyro 1-3
• Crash Bandicoot 1-3
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1/2
• Crash Team Racing

All of this in about three years. And they can do it across almost all platforms for each game. But Nintendo can only spend the time/effort to slap some ROMs on a cart with a emulator for some of their classic platformers?

Why are we giving this company money, again? Cause I'm having a real hard time understanding this.

 

[MagnesG]

Apparently, Sony should've known when they released the PS Classic that emulation only acceptable if you're Nintendo.

Sad retort when those games are way shittier to play with nowadays. They didn't age well.

 

[Punished Miku]

I bought Spyro. It sucks, and I barely played it for 4 hours before giving up on it. Looks really nice though.

 

[lostinblue]

Emulation is the reason SM64 is 720p 30fps and doesn't even fill up your screen. A port could easily have been 1080p 60fps in full widescreen, and could have had other visual improvements on top of that.

They could have added widescreen even without porting the game, 16:9 in emulators has been available for more than 10 years, and while managing what is culled varies from game to game, usually a code or patch fixes it.

In fact, a few years ago Kaze Emanuar did both a 60 FPS and a 16:9 patch for the Mario 64 ROM.

It's funny how since Mario 64 was decompiled last year, there are better fan ports for the switch than Nintendo's own paid version.

I wanted an actual remake, this isn't even a remaster. It's just very low effort, and very disappointing.

I wanted a port, but a definite version, with Mario 64 DS extra content, 60 fps and some graphical improvements (3D trees, polygons being less evident and skinned and higher polygon models, albeit not "modern versions" of them, only similar to the 1996 renders instead, also better particle sprites).

I dreamed of a remake when Mario Galaxy 2 launched with throwback galaxy in, but I don't trust Nintendo to touch their history as a high profile release anymore, nor do I think remakes are better than re-polishing what they already have.

But I don't trust their "quality of life" improvements after Majora Mask, nor do I like the brighter color pallete treatment that they seem to like to add on every re-release.

 

[Newly Vacant]

I asked in the right place and got the answer.

Huh. That’s not awesome. Although, I don’t know of a good solution.

 

[Max_Po]

Apparently, Sony should've known when they released the PS Classic that emulation only acceptable if you're Nintendo.

so you are implying that SNES and NES mini were actual hardware ?

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

I bought Spyro. It sucks, and I barely played it for 4 hours before giving up on it. Looks really nice though.

That's your opinion dude, my point was the amount of effort Activision of all people put here.

 

[Porcile]

They're good games and worth the money to millions. Get over it.

 

[McCheese]

Thank you! This is great stuff.

Thanks, if I had to estimate I would say a proper switch port would take a team of 3-4 people around 6 months. My guess is due to covid they went with the easier option so as not to miss the whole anniversary event. I think people forget that if they were remakes they would also need a lot longer post development for testing and ratings approval, no idea how those have been affected by the lockdowns.

 

[jakdex]

 

[Esppiral]

Hello. Ex N64 dev and emu author chiming in.

The N64 graphics library had a very funky system where textures would be streamed from the cart due to the pathetic 4kb texture cache. So you would want to entirely rip that out and rewrite the rendering and asset pipeline in a modern Vulkan port.

The PC port is a sledge hammer implementation that brute forces a PC do things the weird N64 way at a massive performance penalty, you could not run the PC port on switch level hardware without some of the aforementioned rewrites.

Even the way the assets were stored would need converting, as the models for N64 games were often vertex lists written in pure C, Despite the N64 RSP being designed by silicon graphics, they didnt use the usual wavefront file formats as the developers up until that era were used to coding things old school inline ASM, they modelled them in alias then wrote the vertex, normal and texture lists by hand. The original model files no longer exist based on the code leaks.

Wide screen you could add in, and field of vision is easy enough to tweak as it's all just 4x4 projection matrix setup.

Frame rate is a tricky one as again, animations are all keyframed for 30 so you could half all the speeds and double the frame rate, and movement would be nicer, but animations would still appear to be at 30fps unless you modified them all or interpolated them.

So in short, a proper port is more effort than emulating, and an emulator has more reuse value for Nintendo. Personally I think they should have ported it and given it a compete crash bandicoot style refresh. But old N64 games are not easy to port and large portions need to be rewritten, so unless they were going to go all out with redone renderer, models and animations... It's not really worth it

Do you realize that a native port of Mario 64 for Nintendo Switch exists and it does everything you mention? 60 fps, fluid animations widescreen etc.....

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

Hey remember when Nintendo on Mario's 25th anniversary put the ROM of an SNES game on a dvd disc and sold it for 60$.

Big N must’ve enjoyed that ass ravaging they just had to do it again without waiting 25 years to do it!

 

[kingbean]

Hello. Ex N64 dev and emu author chiming in.

The N64 graphics library had a very funky system where textures would be streamed from the cart due to the pathetic 4kb texture cache. So you would want to entirely rip that out and rewrite the rendering and asset pipeline in a modern Vulkan port.

The PC port is a sledge hammer implementation that brute forces a PC do things the weird N64 way at a massive performance penalty, you could not run the PC port on switch level hardware without some of the aforementioned rewrites.

Even the way the assets were stored would need converting, as the models for N64 games were often vertex lists written in pure C, Despite the N64 RSP being designed by silicon graphics, they didnt use the usual wavefront file formats as the developers up until that era were used to coding things old school inline ASM, they modelled them in alias then wrote the vertex, normal and texture lists by hand. The original model files no longer exist based on the code leaks.

Wide screen you could add in, and field of vision is easy enough to tweak as it's all just 4x4 projection matrix setup.

Frame rate is a tricky one as again, animations are all keyframed for 30 so you could half all the speeds and double the frame rate, and movement would be nicer, but animations would still appear to be at 30fps unless you modified them all or interpolated them.

So in short, a proper port is more effort than emulating, and an emulator has more reuse value for Nintendo. Personally I think they should have ported it and given it a compete crash bandicoot style refresh. But old N64 games are not easy to port and large portions need to be rewritten, so unless they were going to go all out with redone renderer, models and animations... It's not really worth it

No one thinks you're cool, just stop.


Seriously though, great info.

 

[McCheese]

Do you realize that a native port of Mario 64 for Nintendo Switch exists and it does everything you mention? 60 fps, fluid animations widescreen etc.....

No I've not seen that, it's pretty awesome the fan community put that much effort in! I saw the first PC port code and the renderer was hacky as fuck and sending one face at a time to OpenGL! My 1080 cried running it.

 

[brap]

Absolute minimum effort.

No visual improvements (ok, a few textures).
No 60fps.
No widescreen.
SM64 is 720p lol.

Not paying $60 for this.

Sunshine is also the PAL version isn't it?

 

[lostinblue]

No I've not seen that, it's pretty awesome the fan community put that much effort in! I saw the first PC port code and the renderer was hacky as fuck and sending one face at a time to OpenGL! My 1080 cried running it.

Even the PSP port is looking to be impressive at this point (it is widescreen too!). it has a few dips still, but very small at this point in time.

I played a little last week and someone posted a video on youtube.


The switch ones even have the new character models added in, which I don't like a whole lot, but I don't like to see the original ones, untouched on a modern platform either.

 

[Gamer79]

Sadly different audiences and different tiers of popularity for these products.
If Activision knew they could just repackage the original THPS 1 and 2 or the original spyro trilogy and have millions of people racing to buy them for $60 they totally would have.

But they don't have an army of these guys:

These guys look like Nambla members

 

[VN1X]

TRUE

 

[McCheese]

Even the PSP port is looking to be impressive at this point (it is widescreen too!).

I played a little last week, someone posted a video on youtube.

I'm holding off for the Nuon version!

Did you know the unofficial decompiled code turned out to be way better documented and easier to work with than the real source code? Which is so strange when you think about it. They must have really rushed the game out.

Sort of ironic that 20 years later they are having to rush it out again.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Sorry, but does it matter? Good games are good games.

 

[Esppiral]

Sunshine is also the PAL version isn't it?

And what's wrong with it being the pal version? I've read several comments of people concerned that they used the pal version.

It supports 60hz-30fps and it is multi language, because you know people like to play things in their native language.

 

[Neil Young]

The explanation might not please you, but for me the answer you seek is simple: Nintendo makes the best games in the industry by far. All the rest is secondary and overblown nonsense that non fans try to hammer in the heads Nintenchads with 0 success. Since I answered your question, let me ask you a question: if you don't think the value proposition Nintendo offers is any good, why do they bother you? Wouldn't it be easier to just ignore them? You said it yourself, you can play god knows how many games on the Playstation, so Nintendo isn't doing any harm to the market. Why so salty then?

I've spent thousands of dollars on Nintendo products. I currently have Nintendo art in my home and my favorite game of all time is a tie between Metroid Prime and Ocarina of Time. Why does it bother me? Because a company whose products and games I used to love became a cheap shell of itself who has no problem ripping loyal customers off. Limited time availability for ROMS? Fuck them! Unapologetic lazy cash grab trying to take advantage of those same loyal fans. No investment into their online? Cheap assholes. 6 plus years between Mario fucking Kart? Why?!! So sure, I'm salty. Yay.

Also, online services from 2007 and an E Shop that is garbage is overblown? What!?

 

[lostinblue]

Sunshine is also the PAL version isn't it?

I dunno, but Mario Sunshine is another one where, having emulation instead of a port is rather bothersome.

– Sunshine originally run at 60 fps, even the version shown at E3 2002 mere weeks before release was 60 fps. The final game was downgraded to 30 fps for unknown reasons.

Source: https://nintendoeverything.com/a-look-into-the-development-of-super-mario-sunshine/

Of course, it was downgraded because some parts struggled (I remember some parts with lots of reflections in the theme park to struggle in the final code) but there are plenty pre-release videos that show the 60 fps version, and, seeing that the 30 fps cap was only added like a month before release, if a proper port were to be made, animations would be 60 fps.

To this day I think forcing 60 FPS in Mario Sunshine through an emulator, works, but it's not perfect.

Also, online services from 2007 and an E Shop that is garbage is overblown? What!?

I refuse to spend online money on Nintendo.

No other brand has discontinued so many online services thus far and continues to make every single damn online infrastructure so different from the previous one as Nintendo. It gives me 0 confidence to buy things from their online infrastructure.

Plus, the thing about delisting old games that are being re-released on a newer platform is just mean spirited. It's bad enough that they dropped the Wii U out of a cliff then quickly nuked it's Miiverse system (it was really good too) and didn't even patch it's absence on Wii U or 3DS, despite making further firmware updates.

 

[samwizered]

I don't think emulation is inherently bad in this case, but this collection is just a poor value proposition.

It seems there was little to no effort to bring these games forward to modern hardware in any meaningful way. I mean, couldn't they have at least figured out a solution for widescreen? Come on now. I wouldn't expect them to fully remake these games or anything, but they could've done so much more - especially if they're charging $60.

Oh well, people will eat it up anyway.

 

[jaysius]

Huh. That’s not awesome. Although, I don’t know of a good solution.

Note that Switch has 0 analog triggers... THANKS Nintendo!

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

I don't think emulation is inherently bad in this case, but this collection is just a poor value proposition.

It seems there was little to no effort to bring these games forward to modern hardware in any meaningful way. I mean, couldn't they have at least figured out a solution for widescreen? Come on now. I wouldn't expect them to fully remake these games or anything, but they could've done so much more - especially if they're charging $60.

Oh well, people will eat it up anyway.

Dude they are charging $60 for 3 old games and did not make not one enhancement and it still sold out ......

 

[Endless Fluff]

I was expecting genuine remasters, not "ports" from the ShieldTV which they've used to sell the games in China. I guess I was expecting too much.

Oh well, not supporting it this way. A shame since I've never played Sunshine or Galaxy.

 

[Saruhashi]

What I'm curious about is how are Nintendo's most supportive fans ok with this continued level of pure laziness and lack of effort? All the while, they are charging a premium price for the honor of, for many people, re buying the exact same product from 20 years ago in this All Star collection.

Sony COULD be dicks and never put their first party games on sale. Easily. But, they have great sales constantly. When I bought the ps4, Sony was offering Ratchet and Clank AND Bloodbourne as their free games of the month. Bloodbourne is one of my favorite games of all time and I got it for free. I bought the Last of Us remake for like 5 bucks, God of War and Spider-Man for under 20. MS is bending over backwards to keep the fans they have so they keep coming up with ways to make them happy since their first party stinks at the moment. Gamepass could be the best value in gaming. Nintendo? Uhhh, you can buy Mario Kart for 50 bucks.

Nintendo is content to shit on their fans. Really, are you ok with the online (voicechat, friends lists, no achievements etc), lack of apps, ancient E Shop, paying for cloud saves, lack of releases, jacked up controllers? Great, they are making money but do I really still need to spend 40 to 50 bucks for Splatoon 2 and Octopath Traveller because they CAN sell the games for that much? Does it take 6 years to make Mario Kart?

I'll have a go.

At the end of the day, video games are an entertainment product for me.

So I own a PS4 and a Switch and I pick up whatever games interest me. Usually at launch because I am following announcements on here and will usually have one or two things I am actively looking forward too.

I wouldn't buy every Nintendo game but from what I have bought I feel like I am getting excellent content for my money.

3D All Stars is easy enough for me. 3 classic games for not even anything near the cost of a good night out. Especially now when good nights out feel like a distant memory.

To keep that comparison going when I go on a night out with the lads I want good food, lots of booze and a nice venue where we can get up to various types of mischief.

Someone in the group constantly prattling on about the cost of taxis, booze, food (or flights and hotels if its a stag do) is kind of just not welcome. Like, we're trying to just have a good time, you know?

That's the thing with any form of entertainment. It's just a case of knowing what you like and what you can afford. Why would I keep on throwing down 60 bucks on these games if I didn't enjoy them? Since I do enjoy them then why would I moan about the cost or how "lazy" the developers are?

If I'm working all week and then enjoying a few Nintendo games in my downtime then where's my motivation to "care" about all this stupid shit? The games are either good or they aren't.

I would suggest that in communities like this the act of criticism is held up as some righteous endeavour and its seen as a bit naff to say "I just like that game so I'm buying it".

Seems a bit daft to have such a keen interest in making sure everybody knows you don't think Game X or Game Y is "worth it" or to bang on and on about technical details.

Just enjoy whatever games you like. It's fine.

 

[Porcile]

I've got the game pre-ordered. Absolutely no fucks given. I want to play these games again.

Presumably most of you complaining are adults so If you don't like it then vote with your wallet while crying yourself to sleep wrapped in your Crash Bandicoot remake blanket, clutching onto your Game Pass receipt.

 

[Eevee86]

I'd probably pay $60 for 64 or Galaxy alone.

 

[Lukin1978]

It sucks because I would have bought a switch for Mario 64 if it was remade but why would I buy exactly the same game I've owned since 1996. Makes zero logical sense and I own sunshine and galaxy already nothing here for me.

 

[Lionel Richie]

I've spent thousands of dollars on Nintendo products. I currently have Nintendo art in my home and my favorite game of all time is a tie between Metroid Prime and Ocarina of Time. Why does it bother me? Because a company whose products and games I used to love became a cheap shell of itself who has no problem ripping loyal customers off. Limited time availability for ROMS? Fuck them! Unapologetic lazy cash grab trying to take advantage of those same loyal fans. No investment into their online? Cheap assholes. 6 plus years between Mario fucking Kart? Why?!! So sure, I'm salty. Yay.

Also, online services from 2007 and an E Shop that is garbage is overblown? What!?

Well then you know the answer to the question you asked. People continue to support Nintendo because they deliver good games. Some of the stuff you mentioned is really bullshit, like limited time availability for the collection sucks ass. But any Nintendo fan can acknowledge that's bullshit and not buy the game, be it for the morals of the situation or for the lack of effort in the non port. Same thing with the online, people can complain if you care about it and shit. I don't know man, what I don't understand is the expectation for some dramatic measures from the fanbase. As long as they deliver the games, and the overall perception is that they have been delivering the games, then you won't get much turmoil.

Like what are you expecting from "Nintendo's most supportive fans"?

Perfect example why Nintendo can do whatever they want to its fans with little or no repercussions. Because he holds their games in an almost diety like standard, all criticism aimed at them is just overblown nonsense. In the real world, things you like and enjoy, are the stuff your the most critical of.

I misspoke my friend and I apologize. I meant that the stuff he mentioned is EITHER secondary when compared to the overall reason why people like Nintendo (the games) OR overblown nonsense. Not necessarily both.

 

[Dr.brain64]

F nintendo.


Still buying this tho

 

[PlayerPurple]

so you are implying that SNES and NES mini were actual hardware ?

Try actually reading the post before replying.

 

[Sid Of Bee]

I don't understand the issue/problem. The games play and look great and authentic.

 

[Max_Po]

I don't understand the issue/problem. The games play and look great and authentic.

True... I think the crying is about emulation instead of code ported and compiled on Switch and the Price ....

 

[Ozzie666]

Poor Nintendo, they can't win. I would like to think, that during these times and pandemic, they had to make some short cuts. So to get the game out in time for the celebratory period, this is what we got. I would hope their plans were much greater and less 'lazy' at some point. Also those banners, really look like Galaxy 2 should be on there. These emulators may help pave the way to more Zelda's and other classic either in collections or online services.

Most people won't even know or care that its emulation, except for some internet peeps, who probably won't even buy the game.

 

[SegaShack]

That lazyness is what's worrying me. Hope Nintendo doesn´t turn out into another Valve.

You're talking about the same company that sold Super Mario Bros for NES, Atari 2600, Gameboy Color (Mario Deluxe), Gameboy Advance (NES Classics), Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and now charges 20 dollars a year for a subscription to play super mario brothers.

This is the same company that released a Super Nintendo rom of the World-less Super Mario All Stars on a disk for 50 dollars and it sold out.

Don't even get me started on all the GBA SNES ports and Switch Wii U ports they sell at full price. Nintendo is totally the king of repackaging their old games.

 

[SegaShack]

Your local Walmart/target will be sold out day one, an people will praise it. I wish Nintendo did a little more, at LEAST add unlockable games like galaxy 2 or even the DS version of 64, just something man this is lazy too the max. How can anyone be ok with this? I’m a big Nintendo fan boy, but you gotta call it out. This is fucking lazy.

The game is already sold out at all retailers in the US. The Nintendo forced scarcity tactic works.

 

[Lionel Richie]

I don't understand the issue/problem. The games play and look great and authentic.

Still looking around for confirmation on whether there is input lag or not. If there isn't, then we're golden baby.

 

[carlosrox]

Is this supposed to outrage me for some reason?

 

[Klayzer]

Well then you know the answer to the question you asked. People continue to support Nintendo because they deliver good games. Some of the stuff you mentioned is really bullshit, like limited time availability for the collection sucks ass. But any Nintendo fan can acknowledge that's bullshit and not buy the game, be it for the morals of the situation or for the lack of effort in the non port. Same thing with the online, people can complain if you care about it and shit. I don't know man, what I don't understand is the expectation for some dramatic measures from the fanbase. As long as they deliver the games, and the overall perception is that they have been delivering the games, then you won't get much turmoil.

Like what are you expecting from "Nintendo's most supportive fans"?



I misspoke my friend and I apologize. I meant that the stuff he mentioned is EITHER secondary when compared to the overall reason why people like Nintendo (the games) OR overblown nonsense. Not necessarily both.

No problem bro. We can disagree on issues with Nintendo respectfully.

 

[German Hops]

I'm outraged!

Where can I pre-order?

 

[Klayzer]

I'm outraged!

Where can I pre-order?

Lol. Pretty much