GG Weekly Videogame News 
Pachter: MS paid no more than $100 million for Gears of War
$99 million too much
igameresponsibly.com
gamingeek
EA reduces Forecast outlook
"Due to the weakness in current generation software"
news.ea.com
gamingeek
Game Informer blasts Wii U for using Friend Codes
Only.... it doesn't use friend codes.
gamnesia.com impressions
gamingeek
Iwata, other Nintendo execs taking pay-cuts to offset losses
This will last 5 months
www.rte.ie
gamingeek
JoJo's Alll-Star Battle Getting Limited US Release
Fan favourite got a mixed reception in Japan.
gematsu.com news
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robio (9m)
new ms ceo
I can't stand that Nintendo philosophy that it only takes one game to change everything. Screw that! Start looking at new IPs and old franchises and stop crossing your fingers that Pokemon Wii U Health whatever is going to save the console.
ah fuk i went back to reply 2 vaders post, how am suppossed to do a reply justice with one hand and the left one at that
feature parity missing is not bcause of the hardware difference, 3rd parties can implement same features thats bs, they chose not 2
afterthought? yep you've basically agreed that 3td prtys treat the system like shit and deserv e lower sales. but ur also assumin 3rd partys were somehow omniscent and called it b4 the u even launched. gamres were delayed evn 4 launch games whrn they had no idea what sales would b like.
"Again because of the hardware and input diffenences most companies dont want to waste extra time to change their game"
ur acting like it takes a massive effort to add a few control features, nope
" just look at the motion backlash and many think the pad is pointless. "
100 mill wiis and kinect/move disagree with u. but just cause some loud mouths on thev internrt thinks it doesnt make it true
"Because of the difference of hardware, why should the main team be forced to rework the game to fit a console where it will sell like crap."
wat difference? they can make a version with every feature of the competition, ur acting like it takes a massive effort to add a few control features, nope. and once again u assume companies were omniscent in advance of sales and dont think they should put in features which might actually incrse sales. ur line of thinking is just incredibly lazy. if ur a business and want a product 2 sell u make it better not worse. ur giving any shit thy want to throw up a free pass becase any improvemnt may take a smidgen of consideration or effort. u still dont xplain cteams even on launch games. they made it lower priority monthd b4 the u even launchrd
"Wii U is so unpopular that even game sites are prioritizing where most people will read the articles."
this is straight up bullshit, sorry. having done wrk with magazines i know how it works. publishers arrange hands on events and interviews, evn bring demos in to offices and they dont talk abot or show off u versions. this was true at launch too so u cant use the bs sales arguement again
"A result of the poor sales of the wii U, Ubisoft felt it would have been better to delay and launch everywhere, that was stupid on their part."
agreed, but the game didnt sell well on the 150 million ps3s or 360s either. the delay however hurt it and the system too
"You answered yourself here. Again Nintendo wants to be different, they dont foster relationships like MS or Sony does."
umm they want to b different cause they r a smaller company that doesn't want or need 2 throw millions of dollars to market and subsidise some1 elses game? I would want 2b difeerent too!
"And there are still a bunch of those copies sitting on shelves. Stores didnt start off with a tiny wii u section, it got adjusted quick when they realized it wouldnt sell."
4 a start that is completely false. even at launch there was no store presence and if anything here the u section has expanded. (from 2 games to 5 games lol) and the games aren't sittin on shelves, most people on gaf cannot find u versions of games in stores period.
u seem to be excusing a company under shipping and sending a game out 2 die, which is pretty lame, thats a self inflicted wound as are all the points i mentioned. the difference is u apportion 100% of the blame on nintendo wehn that's patently and logicallu untrue. ninendo cantcontrol how much a pub wants to expose its game 2 media, or the number of copies shipped, and they cant mandate wat feautures will be used. this is all decided by companies outside of their control
"This was not a self fullfilling profecy that caused the Wii U to fail, it was a series of bad decisions and refusal to make changes that anyone who follows the industry could see it was going to be a struggle for Nintendo. "
all right prof x, game companies should just hire you as u seem to know it all in advance. Not a self fufilling prophecy? you refuse to acknowledge a few key things which undermines your argument. u act like having no support wont lead to a platform struggling, thats bollocks
"The Wii bubble lasted like 3-4 years, the gen lasted 6 years. Wii support fell off, everyone saw the bubble was over "
ur lacking context here, 3rd parties were late on wii, then failed 2 capatalise on it by producing a swell of test products and spin offs.
also remember ms and sony artificially extended the life cycle of existing systems becase they cost so much to produce them, ms has still lost $2billion on 360, ea still lost $300 mill for the quarter, nintendo lost $15 mill for a quarter and it's mass hysteria? u still dont addess the abnormal press and gamer reaction, persistent 2 and half year hate campaign and how that affects confidence which affects sales.
"Nintendo showed nothing that they would make the Wii U any diffferent (from the wii), so why should third parties go out of their way when they already saw the outcome with the wii. They saw the success of 360/PS3, One/PS4 support makes perfect sense, Wii U did not."
that's flatout nonsense, wii u is not a casual motion controlled low cost console. nintendo showed a gamer focused, capable bit of tech, capable ofhosting the sort of hidef, high production games these 3rd party pubs want to make, which is completely different from wii. And why is it that 3rd partys putting in some kind of effort is considered "goingn out of their way" on nintendo platforms while they do far more as a matter of course on other systems.
All you arguments basically amount to is give a free pass to whatever bullshit half hearted move a 3rd party makes because they were somehow omniscent and prejudged the console way b4 it even launched in a "called it" move. Nope, turns out if you don't support a product it wont b succesful. thats not rocket science. thats a prejudged product you've undermined leading to the self fufilling prophecy you wanted in the first place
i agree with most of what you say but my biggest problem by far is you want to shit in a bag and walk up to nintendos house and drop it near the front door, while i think that shit should be divided up and given to each house on the street. My way is far more accurate and realistic to whats happened. u act like nintendo is some sauron like entity that can somehow make everyone in mordor do what they want whenever they want. when in fact they're more like the men of minas tirith who need the help of the rohirrim 2 survive. yeah i just dropped a lotr metaphor
i would agree with you a lot more if you would even acknowledge tgat most of these u ports suffer from publishers decisions which amount to self inflicted wounds. tendo cant control if ea wants to send a game out 2 die by lowballing shipments. or if ea wants to self sabotag their product by announcing complete triliogies of other games.
You need 2 at least acknowlege that better support and game announcements (if carried out from launch 2 now) would have left a far healthier eco system and a better performing platform.
After checking, also note that given the port costs of most of these games at $1million and the 40k needed to make a profit, tons of u games have already broken that metric. so it's not just about sales percentages byt cost vs return. the question 4 3rd parties is whether those people could be better put to use elsewhere.
they're not monster figures or anything but it's still way over the 40k needed to break even on a wii u port.
and don't xpect a reply to your next reply, or i'll crap out my left wrist too!
whatever, no harm meant we're buds and can agree to disagree. basically we agree on most points but u think it all stemmed from nintendo and 3rd parties had to half ass it bcause of that. My view is that by prejudging a product and putting out substandard software u only undermine urself and the whole platform and software as a whole, leading 2 that situation.
i believe this bcause 3rd paties did not look at early bad sales and start dropping back, even launch titles and very, very early period droughts showed 3rd party intent from the start.
No, no the philosophy is a good one. They just dont realize that the one game it takes to change everything isn't something they're already making.
At this point it doesnt matter what game thry release4it. gamers can c every future 3rd party game skipping it and the media hate parade has been reletntless. Funny bcause most media outlets wrote editorials about the better lineup of games on U at the end of last year compared to launch lineups on xb1 etc, too little too late. I thought it was "all about the games?" these days it's all about the sales and these smart asses on GAF etc wont touch it because of the snow balling negative mass hysteria hype train. Which they love to perpetuate. its a good system with good a good libraby with more on the way. try telling them that while they quote you npd figures from north america.
It IS pretty insane to go from a console that sells Wii numbers, to one that is selling as bad as Wii U is. But, this goes to show you that it wasn't the hardcore Nintendo fan, or the gamer audience in general, who made Wii a success. And now that Nintendo is trying to cater to that audience (and not doing a good enough job of it) they are finding out just how many people they lost during the Wii era while they were making money off the casuals.
PS3 was different. The ONLY problem with the PS3 was the launch price. $600. That's $200 more than the 360 at the time which, outside of not being a blue ray player, was just as good as the PS3. Arguably, the 360 was actually the better gaming console because even though it wasn't quite as powerful, it was easier to develop for and got better versions of most games early on, had a much better controller, and had a better online service. That leaves Blu Ray movies as the one reason to buy a PS3 at $200 more. THAT is why PS3 sold like shit at launch.
Now, over time Sony fixed most issues. The online got better, the price came down, while Microsoft foolishly left their prices sky high, including larger hard drives instead of lowering the price to stay ahead of Sony. And the multi-platform games evened out across the consoles in quality. For all intents & purposes, they ended up on equal ground, with the PS3 maybe even having a slight edge. I do think though, that if PS3 had launched at $400 Sony would have never had a problem with the console. It was just too much of a price difference to justify buying over an equal competitor.
Wii U does not have the luxuries the PS3 had. Its nice hardware, but clearly weaker than the competition. The online is definitely not as good. The controller is love it or hate it. Not enough variety in software, all the exclusives outside of Zombi U are family friendly. And by the end of this year the other consoles are going to destroy the U in quantity and variety in software. And the price is not cheap enough to really make any difference. Nintendo put themselves in this weird middle ground instead of just going all out, as people have been saying, and directly competing. The middle ground worked on Wii because they had those fucking casual assholes. On Wii U, what they've essentially done is crawled home to their wife (gamers) with their tail between their legs after having a torrid sexual affair with a college slut (casuals) and begging for forgiveness.
Jesus christ. The Mummy Returns, part deux.
Get well soon GG.
i;m like hook fromppan at the mo so can only write so much.
vader i think you're giving thr industry too much credit for predicting trends. your recollection of recent history is a bit off. just like a former ea dev said he was the only dev assigned to making ds games while 100 were working on psp. if you'll remember the press, the public, analysts and 3rd parties predicted a psp whitewash and nvr saw the ds coming. they also didnt predict the wii's success if u recall correctly most 3rd parties came in late on wii, nvr saw it coming and by the time they caught up it was 2008 (not coincidentally this was the year nin posted recoord 5x level profits) it was too late. they brought in test game ps2 ports and lame ass spin offs.
regardless in terms of volume wii sold more 3rd party software than any past gen platform (ps3/360) but of course the lifespan of tgese consoles r being xtended.
So out of 3 nin platforms they guessed 1 out of 4 right. thing is consoles ither do well or not, there's only 2 outcomes, so publishers can't say "called it" when they've done nothing and even led the inevitability of a platform struggling. that's likek predicting it will rain every day, and on the day it rains, saying "yep, knew it"
agree on ur ps3/360 bits edge, i think ms xb1 price is too high, rumour is a cut this year to ps4 levels
on wii i dont think you can call it middle ground, it's perhaps the most radical console of the past decade. a big risk. history is shining on its side simply because of sales, it was actually a big risk. and in some ways to a lesser xtent wii u is too. competing isn't about just making a higher spec console, that is an easy, safe and predictabje thing to do. redesigning the basic structure of your hardware each time take far more guts and is far more risky. risk can reap great rewards, but with risk there's a higher chance of failure too. like Jaffe said you cant have success without failure.
problem is this approach relies on having a compelling enough hook and the support of more risk averse 3rd parties. also theres no denying the markets havve changed, ipads and iphones didn't exist back then for casuels.
ipad, iphone tthats another set of products that the industry didn't predict. it created its own market. i imagine that's what nintendo wants to happen.
i agree with most of what you say but my biggest problem by far is you want to shit in a bag and walk up to nintendos house and drop it near the front door, while i think that shit should be divided up and given to each house on the street. My way is far more accurate and realistic to whats happened. u act like nintendo is some sauron like entity that can somehow make everyone in mordor do what they want whenever they want. when in fact they're more like the men of minas tirith who need the help of the rohirrim 2 survive. yeah i just dropped a lotr metaphor
Ok lets go with this they are exactly like the men of Minas Tirith, they are Denethor sitting on the throne pissed off at everyone else in the world cause they are ignoring them and yet they do nothing to seek out health. Lets light the fires Gandalf said but NOOOOOO Nintendo cant ask for help, they cant be bothered with going out of their way to ask those damn Rohirrim for help. They are supposed to come on their own, they are supposed to help cause we are NINTENDO!
And that does not work. Sony and MS are like the fellowship, doing everything they can to get the human factions to work together, Nintendo is Denethor just angry, bitter and has no clue how to cultivate a real third party relationship.
Awesome analogy.
Does The Last of Us get better? Like ... much much better? So far ... not so good. It's probably still early days but this is not nearly as good as I expected. A lot like Uncharted with action set-pieces intersparsed with exploration and token puzzle solving. With a few zombies thrown in for good measure. If there's a GOTY in there I'm really not seeing it yet
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Going to merge this with another post.
lft hand cramping will replay wkend or monday?
iWata interview:
Iwata also mentioned the need to “abandon old assumptions about our businesses”. This includes M&As (mergers and acquisitions), he said.
Head past the break for Iwata’s comments in full.
On what caused Nintendo’s poor performance…
Nintendo has undergone continuous changes over years, moving from Hanafuda playing cards to video games, and offering newer systems like the Wii. But we’ve been preoccupied with a fixed idea of what a game should be like. The game industry is at a turning point amid new developments like the rise of smartphones.
On those who express concerns about Nintendo’s business operations going forward…
Mr. Yamauchi (former President Hiroshi Yamauchi) often said “Shitsui-taizen, Tokui-reizen,” meaning that we should act regally when things are bad, and be calm when things are going well.” Were he alive now, he would tell me to carry an air of confidence.
We built up cash reserves when earnings were strong. Because the entertainment industry ebbs and flows in wild swings, Mr. Yamauchi insisted it is vital to have deep pockets. Without savings, we could not have recovered from a single failure in game systems. Even now, we can afford many options because of our robust financial standing.
Yes, it has a very boring first few hours.
There has been one constant in all this. Major third party ports will always sell worst on Nintendo consoles. I am talking about the more mature major titles. There is not one example of one of the big blockbusters selling best on a Nintendo console. Hell even RE4 which was an exclusive for a year sold less than the PS2 version. Most of the times those games sell significantly less. To the point where support for those kinds of games become pointless. The wii even went futher by making the console not as powerful to make sure that those ports dont even get made.
">u act like having no support wont lead to a platform struggling, thats bollocks
Obviously that would be true but you act like all third parties should have just magically started supporting Nintendo consoles for some strange reason you have yet to explain to me. Since the GC days third party support has been poor cause sales have been poor for them. They have over 10 years of history and not one thing about the Wii U seemed like it would change that. As the head of EA or Activision explain to me why you would all of a sudden launch full support for the Wii U? I wouldnt.
The sales of the hardware doesnt mean much, the Wii will show you that. The history of third parties on Nintendo consoles has been set for over a decade now, that is the pattern that has not changed. There is no guessing involved, there are years and years of solid proof. It seems to have reached a boiling point with the Wii U where almost no one will even throw in a courtesy third party game Nintendo's way, now that has to do with the sales which has lead to many cancelations and more lack of support than ever.
You keep saying Nintendo should stay different and yet you keep expecting the support to remain the same. They dont go hand in hand, if you go different you wont get the support, Nintendo had to know this. You seem to expect both, Nintendo to stay different and for all companies to join them in that journey. Why should they when most of the money is where everyone is, where everyone is already comfortable making games.
Yes third parties have treated the Nintendo systems poorly for years now but nothing has really changed, Nintendo has never really addressed it. The third party success stories on Nintendo systems usually involve very family friendly kinds of games. The Just Dance type of games, Skylanders, Boom Blox, Sonic, Lego etc. (I know CoD made money but thats CoD, it will make money on a toaster) If you are saying third parties should make more games like that than I absolutely agree with you. But it seems to me you are asking for the big boys, the ones I mentioned before, why would they? I don't think it costs as little as you think to port. Hell rumors are that it would be more cost effective for Ubisoft to cancel a finished Watch Dogs for Wii U than spend the money to manufacture and distribute it. You seem to not want the B or C teams working on a port, why would you expect them to have their best teams waste time on a port very few will buy.
No need to reply GG, please rest. I see your point third parties should be partly to blame, the industry had negative views of Wii U well before release. I get that. I blame Nintendo too much. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. You have done a great job of explaining your side already, I just want to explain my point of view. No need to reply right away or ever, dont hurt yourself over typing a response please.
whatever, no harm meant we're buds and can agree to disagree. basically we agree on most points but u think it all stemmed from nintendo and 3rd parties had to half ass it bcause of that. My view is that by prejudging a product and putting out substandard software u only undermine urself and the whole platform and software as a whole, leading 2 that situation.
Exactly this.
Soul Calibur II
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobileLink power.
Well if the next TES had Link in it then yeah they should port it.
They are doing well right now, not panicing and moving straight to mobile phones cause everyone is yelling at them. Smart move by Iwata. I don't know about their plan for the future though, seems kind of weird but Wii was weird and that worked so who knows. They have the right mindset for the present though, stay calm, dont go crazy.
This I agree with. I mentioned a few times on GS that Wii U easily has the best lineup of any next gen console (as it should its been out for a year) and yet people try to argue that it doesn't at this moment which is absurd. The Wii U has a really nice, small, but filled with quality lineup. Lets face it, when you compare the launch lines to each other Wii U wins. PS4 lineup was utter poop, Nintendoland was better than anything on that system.