Should Nintendo actually be praised?

It appears Nintendo has largely avoided piss poor movie games and the barrage of corporate bullshit that has proliferated the industry i.e. Price hikes, preorder gold premium edition, microtransaction, unlockathon, forced multiplayer, times exclusive, platform exclusive content e.t.c....

With cheaper hardware, a focus on creative accessible game play, as well as keeping platform games relevant among a bunch of pretentious 16 bit indie games (that are pish and inferior) should Nintendo be praised, rather than scorned?

Have Nintendo actually saved console gaming these past two generations?

Buying a Nintendo game for 40 euro (PS4/Xbone games being 60 euro), coming home, putting in the disc and seeing that you actually got a complete and working game gives a good feeling.

Nintendo is still about giving people a fun experience. And I can get behind that.

But that doesn't mean they don't screw up in many other aspects.

Nintendo should be praised for their games, absolutely. They ship well made polished products that play extremely well and emphasize gameplay and local multiplayer, and they always ship feature complete (the one instance they didn't, everything was added later for absolutely free).

That said, their hardware, their infrastructure, their policies as a platform holder, their attitude towards a lot of industry standard practices, their third party relations, and the safeness they exhibit with a large portion of their games lineup is something that deserves to be (and is) called out.

TL;DR- Nintendo as a game maker? Brilliant. Nintendo as a platform holder? Jesus Christ, they should quit already.

Nintendo is like the sun, they should always be praised, cause even the moonlight is yet just a reflection of the sun.

One thing i find funny is that Nintendo games always look better graphical. They have this magic that i cant explain that makes their graphics dang ageless.

Compare Mario 64 to games around the same power, but yet that Mario 64 game looks sooooo good. Compare Zelda wind waker to games around the same power, omg, not even close. Compare Mario Galaxy to others, freakin blow-out, just compare this gen of Wii -U games to others of the same power, Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros, Pik-min 3 etc, blows dang games out the water.

This.

I called it many times, for the consumer, Nintendo going third-party would be best.

But perhaps one will exclude the other.

Say Nintendo drops their platforms and becomes a third-party publisher. What's to stop them from becoming like Square-Enix, and doing horrible pre-order incentives? Not releasing their games feature complete anymore, not releasing their games bug-free anymore, ...

What's to stop them from doing it now? How is one related to the other, really?

I have never heard a compelling argument for Nintendo not going third party, other than 'they should not, because this might happen,' and the might is always a hypothetical that is unsubstantiated. Why should Nintendo not focus on what it is best at, rather than having its albatross of a hardware business dragging it down?

What Char said.

You know when you buy a Nintendo game you're gonna get that Nintendo polish perfection.

Like charizard said as a game maker absolutely but other aspects hell no. Also I love that they have free online and no micro transactions. Nintendo deserves to be praised for the good things they do but that doesn't mean I'll give them a pass for the bad.

+1

It's a proven fact that games with cartoony art style age a lot better than the ones aiming for realism.

@charizard1605: The reason they shouldnt is because they would have less control over there destiny. Its really simple, Nintendo is in it for the long road, they didnt last since the 1800s by working for others, they might be a tiny company compared to the competition, but them controlling their own destiny is what makes them compete so good.

Remember when people where telling Apple to just give up and become a parts manufacturer for Microsoft and other companies like IBM did?, boy would that have been a mistake.

Steam is a funny thing to look at, they have all that money and power, but anyday they could be replaced. Why? Cause Microsoft owns their platforms and can control their destiny a bunch, its why Steam is trying so hard to become its ownself and control more of its destiny, they want to be like Nintendo.

Its no easy job, creating things from thin air is a much harder task, making things look like other things is kinda boring. But the fact that their graphics and gameplay both age good, its a no wonder people pay and game so much on Nintendos older games.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. A game maker will have full control over its destiny (whatever that means) as long as it controls its games- Nintendo's success will be less reliant on them having to sustain a hardware business in a world that has completely outgrown dedicated hardware, and more reliant on their successes as a game maker (which remain unmatched to this day). A hardware agnostic Nintendo is more in control than a hardware reliant Nintendo- they are free to track market trends and immediately shift their software towards wherever it is that the market is trending, without the onus of having to develop all new hardware to respond to those trends themselves. Shift top mobile? Cool, Nintendo is there. Shift to open standards? Cool, PC Nintendo games. VR? Yep. AR? Got it. High end console gaming? There. Handhelds? There. Nintendo can be there at the forefront of each trend at the beginning, pioneering it, instead of having to wait for a generational cycle of their own hardware, and having to rely on their own hardware delivery mechanism, which may cost them millions and not even take off. They can essentially lead the market by being where the market is going to be, and be there fast and first. That, to me, is Nintendo controlling its own destiny. Not them hopelessly trying to keep up in a world that now tends towards converged multimedia devices.

Nintendo is a toy maker- making things to play with is what they are good at, that is what they should focus on. For a long time, a toy to play electronic games is what the market wanted, and Nintendo did well then. Today, everyone wants an iPad for the living room, and Nintendo is increasingly unfit to provide that. Not having to worry about sustaining a loss making console or handheld will be good for Nintendo- with them not having to worry about the losses their hardware is making, they will be free to make their games, all of them, take risks, be innovative, and pioneering again, instead of relying on safe recycling of old franchises, and cheap 2D sidescrollers. There is no argument that exists where Nintendo going third party is undesirable, even to the Nintendo fan.

@charizard1605: They would be too limited in that direction, Nintendo comes up with their ideals, games etc and then makes the hardware to play the stuff they want. Having to work under another company would force them to cater their games to those devices. Without Nintendos great leadership that has innovated this industry through their games and hardware, this industry would have probably crashed and faded long ago.

Sure today they want an Ipad, but tomorrow its something else, Nintendo can create that something else. Nintendo can deliver that ground breaking experience that refreshes users passion. Not worrying about losses on hardware? They have never experienced such a thing, but you can bet if they went third party they would have to worry about loses from their games not selling with no hardware to back them up. If it wasnt for the Wii and DS hardware sales, Kirby would be dead.

Thats seems to be something i can never agree on, going third party has worked well for which big company? What company did so good at such a thing that so many want to predict Nintendo would be entering the promise land. They would lose all control without them manufacturing hardware and controlling what they implement in gameplay.

That's the thing, when was the last time Nintendo made a game that would be uniquely playable on its hardware and nothing else? What I am trying to ask is, when was the last time their hardware was dictated by their software, instead of them having to make software that justified their hardware? Mario 64 with the N64? Maybe Wii Sports and Wii? Apart from that, I only see them compromising their games to fit their hardware and justify it- Skyward Sword, for example, or Donkey Kong Country Returns. Where is the game on the Wii U that justifies the Wii U's hardware? The 3DS's game that justifies its gimmick? The best games on the Wii U and 3DS (Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Fire Emblem, A Link Between Worlds) are all games that ignore their system's respective gimmicks- and there is no reason that they could not have been on PS4, Xbox One, or PS Vita (and they would have been better on those systems, with, for example, a fully functioning and stable online system for Kart and Smash, for instance).

The TL;DR is- what you say is true and would be a great argument, if Nintendo's hardware was informed by the kinds of games they want to make. Today, though, Nintendo seems to make gimmicky hardware for the hell of it, and its software is them built around the limitations and compromises of its hardware. So no, once again, there is no argument against Nintendo going third party.

They should be praised for some things, and ridiculed for others... which basically applies to everyone.

@charizard1605: Yeah, sorry, i cant agree on that either, even the Wii and Wii U where designed to play the games they have. The games are created first, then the hardware, this is how it is, Pikmin 3 was a Wii designed game that was most likely in the works since Gamecube was released. Nintendo studios have been working on NX games for a long time, all the Wii U games have been about done since before Wii U was even released, they just spend time polishing and testing them for a long time.

Nintendo is about diversity, they are not gonna design all their games using the same gameplay mechanics.

Ridiculed for 80% and praised for 20%.

I get what you're saying, but I hesitate to praise any corporation (even ones that I respect, like NIntendo).

This is patently false, evidenced by the poor usage of most of their hardware in their games. Twilight Princess had Wii controls added less than a year before it was released. Super Mario Galaxy and Donkey Kong Country both have needless actions mapped to shaking the Wiimote (to their detriment). A game like Kirby doesn't even use the Wiimote's motion capabilities. Neither does something like Xenoblade.

Over on the Wii U? Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., Spatoon, New Super Mario Bros. U, Donkey Kong Country Topical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World, Yoshi's Woolly World, none of them actually utilize the WIi U's unique controls, and these are supposed to be the best games on the system. These games outright ignore the Wii U's special hardware, in fact. Literally the only good Wii U game which makes a good case for the Wii U hardware is Super Mario Maker, and even that could easily have been done by pairing a second screen to literally any other console, and did not mandate a console like the Wii U.

The Wii I can agree was designed out of a desire to create Wii Sports, fine. The Wii U? Nope. Nintendo 3DS? Nope. And even the Wii, outside of Wii Sports, held back most of its games, thanks to its hardware.

Back in the 80's and early 90's Nintendo deserved high praise. Now not so much.

Sure they still make quality games, but they've been making basically the same games since the 80's/90's so they should be highly polished at this point.

Though, the fact is they are behind the times and are losing relevancy overall. The vast majority of gamers don't look at Nintendo consoles as a potential primary console anymore and that is sad.

@charizard1605: What about naming the games that do, are you under the impression that all Nintendo games must use the same controls? Nintendo is very diverse, its unhealthy gaming the same way for all your games, Nintendo is in the health business, they know that gamers must adapt in order to evolve, if we spent all our time playing the same boring ways, we wouldnt be gaming long before we would start to have health issues.

3DS has 3D and augmented stuff plus its add many new gameplay mechanics that DS did not have. It is clear in many games that would not be playable on DS since DS lacks the controls.

@R4gn4r0k: It's both disheartening and disturbing to see the concept of simply "buy game" as something alien. Thse emen in suits, on stage wave their robot hand gestures sayingu it's about value, but really, we know what's really about.

Currently these prick men from asshole land are their darnest to turn gaming into a $70 iOS game.

Bleak times.

What games do it? I named Wii Sports, I named Mario 64, I named Super Mario Maker (which is still inessential). What else?

@charizard1605: I was talking about Wii U, they have Captain Toad, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2, Wii Fit U, Hyrule Warriors, Super Mario Maker, Zelda Wind Waker HD, Splatoon, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and New Super Mario and Luigi for Wii U, although its small, its still fun and cool. All these games show off the Gamepad and have great Gamepad gameplay implementations.

No.

lolwat

No.

only PC

I don't care what nintendo did for games in the past. I don't care if they saved video games 30 years ago.

I only focus on today. And today, nintendo is horrible. Their hardware/online is the absolute worst. The gimmicks for the sake of gimmicks actually hurts their games more than helps.

Going 3rd party and creating games on hardware that doesn't suck and has great online?! Why wouldn't nintendo fans want that?

But this myth needs to stop that nintendo makes amazing games. They don't. They make average/good 7/10 games at best with the occasional great 8/10 game like Metroid Prime or Zelda OOT.

They are a mid tier developer at best. Their games are easy, simplistic, handholding, fetchquesting, no voice acting, low budget, and cartoony graphics anyone could create. They still don't even know how to make textures!

But you guys constantly overrate these games this company makes. You always boast about how "polished and unbroken" they are. Of course those games are! They only have 2 guys on screen, in barren fields, no AI, simplistic combat/gameplay with cartoon graphics.

It is hard to break such simple games when nintendo games have the same amount of coding as "Pong"....LOL.

lol indeed

Captain Toad has the gyro use and touch controls, Mario Kart 8 has dual screen coop and gyro controls, Bayonetta has full touch screen support, also Bayonetta 2 does which is sweet. Wii Fit U uses the Gamepad as camera, gryo controls, and touch. Hyrule Warriors has dual screen coop, Zelda Wind Waker has the map function and item selection, New Super Mario and Luigi has the touch screen block thingy that you can help or mess up other 4 players which is actually pretty fun. Mario Party 10 another i forgot uses Gamepad cool also with the gyro and bowser mode.

I know... Never said, it's easy. Just saying that cartoony art style ages better than the realistic one. Same goes for 2D games. Point and Click adventures from mid-late 90s have also aged well due to their 2D design and cartoony art style.

I've always admired their development philosophy, and their tendency to polish their games to a shine. But they are still lagging behind, and remain conservative on gaming features they should be jumping on instead.

They need to find a way to get back on track all while retaining what makes them unique. Because as of right now, they're becoming an increasingly irrelevant factor. Well the Wii-U is, anyway.

So, the equivalent of developers making use of the DS4 touchpad by allowing you to swipe your finger across the thing so that you can scroll through the map of the gameworld.

Thank God, they made the gamepad.

Captain Toad's gyro and touch controls: inessential, would have worked just fine on a regular controller (and mapping camera movement to the gyroscope was the single most annoying part of the game)

Mario Kart 8 does not have dual screen co-op. Don't lie. The Gamepad screen always mirrors the TV screen, including a splitscreen as is. Gyro controls, again, are not unique to the Wii U Gamepad, and it would have worked just fine without it.

Wii Fit U: Gyro controls and touch screen... again, I am not seeing why the Wii U Pad was essential here, something like the DualShock 4 would have worked in all these cases.

Bayonetta 2: menu selection. Lol, okay

Hyrule Warriors: Right, I forgot about this. The firstgame you have named which uses the Gamepad in a good way, congrats

Zelda: Wind Waker: the game does not need either touch screens or the gyro, you know how I know this? The GameCube version had none of them.

New Super Mario: So a gimmick

This is asinine and also a little sad. None of these things you outlined needed the Wii U Pad, a DualShock 4 or a Wii U Pro with an inbuilt gyroscope would have achieved the same results. More than ever, I am convinced that the Wii U Pad was a needless gimmick, even Nintendo didn't know what to do with it.

It could be, i dont see them as cartoony too much, no more than cartoony looking Halo, or Uncharted in my eyes, but they do have a more simplistic design. Its something else i love about Nintendo so much, they have a very modern looking design in their art.

I never said they needed it, i just stated they showed it off good. I forgot about the Mario Kart 8 being dual screen with the Gamepad being split screen while the TV screen is solo. Its true Captain Toads Gyro was not great, but its touch controls were pretty sweet and fast. Bayonetta is not just menu, you can play the whole game using touch controls. For Wii Fit U the DualShock 4 has no camera. Zelda Wind Waker does need it, trying to play it with the Gamepro controller is not as fun, its way smother and faster using the Gamepad as a second screen. Can call it a gimmick if you want, but its fun and awesome for coop on the Mario games.

What did you expect, Nintendo to force every single game to use the Gamepad? Where is the diversity in that? That would take away from one of the Gamepads best features, off-screen play which is my favorite feature. Not even with the famous Motion Control did Nintendo try and force all its games to use them, they did all kinds of controls just like they always do.

@stuff238 Sadly, looking at reality, all critics around the world agree overwhelmingly the greatest games of all time are Nintendo products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered_the_best

It would appear Nintendo are possibly the greatest developer in the world, and history, according to statistical facts.

Very impressive.

@mesome713: We're going around in circles. Minor value added quality of life improvements are inessential, and are not indicative of Nintendo designing hardware around the games they want to make, but of Nintendo shoehorning their hardware into the games they have made. That is what I said is undesirable, and it undermines your primary argument for why Nintendo should remain a platform holder.

Again, to return to my original thesis: there is no reason why a Nintendo fan would not want Nintendo to go third party.

@charizard1605: True, seems we wont be able to agree, again, i have never heard of a big company going third party and succeeding to higher levels. Nintendo would no longer be the great Nintendo without the awesome innovative gameplay implementations.

Its like saying Sony should go third party since the Vita failed, they would make more money that way if they were on PC...not. Sony would dwindle worst than Sega and i would laugh. Whats funny is Wii U is not even a failure, the dang machine prints money unlike Vita, but you dont hear no Sony be Doomed, why? Wii U has been selling at profit, games are selling awesome, all Nintendo studio games selling good, bout all third party is selling good. Its has Amiibos and thanks to Wii U Nintendo has banked hard on them.

I think people just want too much from Nintendo.

@uninspiredcup:

How many of those games were made in the last 15 years? Metroid Prime and..... That's it. And Metroid Prime was more of a Retro game than a nintendo made game. So it is debatable if it should even count.

So my point still stands. Nintendo has sucked for the past 15 years and that is a fact. We should NOT be praising them for what they did in the 80's/90's when they didn't suck.

All your list did was show they used to make great highly rated games and now they don't LOL.

Keep reaching.

On the contrary, I've never heard a compelling argument for why Nintendo should go third-party. The arguments I've seen for why Nintendo should go third-party are either wishful thinking or unsubstantiated hypothetical predictions without any historical precedents to back them up. In fact, all the historical precedents we do have of console manufacturers going third-party show that they all went to shit after going third-party, e.g. Sega and Atari. If it didn't do any good for Sega or Atari, then there's no reason to assume it's going to do any good for Nintendo either.

They are absolutely essential at least to keep my long term interest of this medium in tact. The games industry would be fucking horrific without them. That's not to say they constantly bring out the good stuff.

I won't lie I can appreciate Nintendo because unlike MS and Sony they say F !&K You game industry we have our own method and it has kept them in the industry for quite some time. They like MS have tried to give us alittle spice. Now Nintendo unlike MS hasn't received the severe backlash for implement motion controls and other feature but at least they are trying. Honesty and most people say it Nintendo just needs that third party support, which by the way for a second there for the Wii looked like they may get just fell though thanks to developers just having problems finding useful way to implement Nintendo's controllers. I believe Nintendo may have to do a dual controller type deal where they have one standard basic controller with no gimmicks or special features, and include one controller that features something new. This way they still innovate but when they get third party support, the developer doesn't feel obligated to make games around or with the new feature.

Dont forget Mario Galaxy, Xenoblade Chronicles, Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros Wii U, Super Mario Maker and Splatoon.

Ninento should be praised for NES/SNES hardware wise and SNES/N64 software wise ,, And thats it.

How you asking if Nintendo saved gaming the last 2 generation when

1) Wii despite its amazing sales died prematurely ( let alone was in life support way earlier than losers )

2) Wii U sales are pathetic and while we speak Wii U is another dust collector ala Wii way earlier than competitors

3) Both systems lacked every single AAA caliber title as of 3rd party .... and lets not make a list which games exactly

4) Xbox One FAILED because of Wii ... It fall for gimmicky motion controls where MS thought would be the future trend , they tried to make a console based on what people thought Wii was missing ( 3rd party , graphics ,multimedia ) and what wii was offering ( casual appealed motion controls ) .. And i bet they crying out loud with the results

5) Almost full price games for Wii / Wii U even after 3-4 years of their original release = fail

6) Overpriced low end hardware to play 4-5 worthwhile games ... No sir , thnx... Rent the console with a game = the way to go for me .

7) CEO himself calling Wii U a secondary console CANT be the video gaming savior at the same time. Period

Nintendo needs to grow up like their fans did. I don't know the numbers, but I'm willing to bet that 60% of their fans grow up on the NES/SNES. I just recently bought a WiiU and I kinda regret it.

Yeah, its going to be hard for me to buy the NX, but then I think of @bunchanumbers as just have to for the sake of having my opinion validated. :D

This just shows that you have no idea about the gaming industry. Unless this is a joke name you made up to be clueless.

Nintendo has held back gaming for three generations and even worse their dedication to sue the shit out of anyone who dares talk about them in social media is destroying whatever culture they have left.

You also say things like they did all this on purpose about DLC and everything else. They didn't know how to do it, they still don't know how to have a solid online infrastructure. What they don't have compared to the other companies is something they don't know how to do. They piecemeal the shit out of DLC these days and sell it at incredibly high prices, they do the same for season passes that are nowhere near the value of other companies.

So yeah, what you're saying is "Nintendo has tried to kill gaming for the last few generations, that's good right?"

Higher score =/= better game. And if you remove Nintendo's dedicated websites that gave Ocarina of Time a 10 then the score comes down to 98, which is as much as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which is a multiplat and non Nintendo game. Just saying.