The Wii U is dead in its current form, admits Nintendo. But what now?

[Lil Frier]

I can understand not liking something that's popular (I have many popular series that I would pay money NOT to play if someone tried to force me). However, the popularity of Zelda/Smash/Kart is absolutely insane. We're not talking millions sold, or tens of millions. Between the various releases, we're talking HUNDREDS of millions sold, which is pretty wild.

Well, those aren't all in the same group as one another. I LIKE SSB and Mario Kart, they just aren't the biggest deals to me. Like I said, I preferred Snowboard Kids I thought its ability to do tricks in the air was great, and the weapons were cooler. Super Smash Bothers wasn't bad, it was nice, I'm just not the biggest fan of fighters.

The Zelda games are the only ones I really have a distaste for, and it's not even fair for me to say it's because they're bad. I tried A Link to the Past as a kid, and I didn't like it. I then had a friend try to get me into Ocarina of Time in, like, 2003, but I couldn't do it. Considering I had already played the N64 to death from about ages 7-11, I was already moved onto the Xbox and enjoying Halo and the like.

I admit that there is a threshold where graphics can bother me. It's part of the reason I struggle to get through Half-Life, despite liking it (that, and I want to play it with a controller but haven't bothered to get XPadder or something yet). I imagine that if I tried a recent Zelda title, I'd be fine with it, I just didn't like the ones I tried when I tried them (when they were 5-10 years old).

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah the N64 Kart wasn't too great. By the time GC and especially Wii came around, they figured out how to transition it properly to 3D from 2.5D (mode 7). The SNES original is still an epic classic, and far superior to the N64 release.

Actually N64 is full of terrible disappointments from amazing franchises. Castlevania IV was insanely good. Castlevania 64 or whatever (both versions) were god awful. Mega Man 64 was a disgrace. Etc

 

[poofyhairguy]

Actually N64 is full of terrible disappointments from amazing franchises.

The N64 is easily the worst post-NES non-portable console Nintendo has released. It was SMB64, OOT, GoldenEye multiplayer and a pile of disappointment.

I would much rather have a Wii or Wii U, if only for Virtual Console.

 

[Lil Frier]

I disagree. Games I liked on the N64:

Snowboard Kids 1 and 2
Super Mario 64
Super Smash Brothers
NFL Blitz and NFL Blitz 2001
Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2
Pokemon Snap!
Multiple Mario Party installments
Diddy Kong Racing
Mario Kart 64
Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie

That's what I can quickly recall, though I'm sure there's a good deal more.

 

[Tweak155]

Yeah there were a lot of good games on N64. I'm thinking you guys just never really cared for it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was most excellent

 

[Pariah]

Waverace 64 was outstanding as well. N64 didn't have a huge volume of games, but it had quite a few truly great games.

 

[TheAdvocate]

I cant wait for mario kart 8. We play so much sonic all star racing as a family. I have some flashbacks to diddy kong racing. My PC is gathering dust.

I got the kids pikmin 3 - I havent touched it, but I dont get what little I have seen. Does it get any more interesting after the first couple of days in the game?

feel like I should have gotten them Rayman instead, but IIRC thats 1 player, which is a no-no with 2 kids.

Also debated getting DK:TF, but I dunno that I want another platformer.

 

[exar333]

I cant wait for mario kart 8. We play so much sonic all star racing as a family. I have some flashbacks to diddy kong racing. My PC is gathering dust.

I got the kids pikmin 3 - I havent touched it, but I dont get what little I have seen. Does it get any more interesting after the first couple of days in the game?

feel like I should have gotten them Rayman instead, but IIRC thats 1 player, which is a no-no with 2 kids.

Also debated getting DK:TF, but I dunno that I want another platformer.

I may be alone in this, but myself and friends always had a blast with the mario party series. Nintendo has killed this game series on the Wii....they watered it down, severely limited the gameplay, and there are hardly any levels to play. I loved these on the N64 and GC. They were fantastic and was a very accessible game for both veterans and casual gamers alike.

 

[metaphors]

I cant wait for mario kart 8. We play so much sonic all star racing as a family. I have some flashbacks to diddy kong racing. My PC is gathering dust.

I got the kids pikmin 3 - I havent touched it, but I dont get what little I have seen. Does it get any more interesting after the first couple of days in the game?

feel like I should have gotten them Rayman instead, but IIRC thats 1 player, which is a no-no with 2 kids.

Also debated getting DK:TF, but I dunno that I want another platformer.

Rayman is actually co-op and crazy fun I've been playing it with the GF and a few friends for the last 3 months straight.

I say this owning SMW3D and the new Donkey kong they pretty much sit there because of Rayman.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Yeah there were a lot of good games on N64. I'm thinking you guys just never really cared for it.

I got my N64 at the day of release, and I had many games for it. One of the most amazing gaming experiences of my life was that day when I rode my Pilotwings64 plane off the course and towards the water and just kept flying in this crazy new 3D world.

But looking back on it the N64 didn't have nearly the library of the SNES, NES, Gamecube and maybe Wii.

Sure there were some good ones (like so far no one has mentioned Paper Mario or Star Fox 64 which I did like), but I feel many didn't age well and too many were ripoffs of Super Mario 64's gameplay. I bought all those Rare games and played them for like 3 hours and quit. After you taste a filet mignon steak (SM64), then the sirloin doesn't taste so great. With the N64 you got served the filet mignon first.

The N64 also got too many terrible ports of PC games, and some of the good original games got terrible or unusual sequels. Too many of the third party games were very childish, or stupidly easy, after Sega (and later Sony) had already pushed gaming into a mature direction.

I was huge team Nintendo in the 90's, but when I look back at that generation the games that left the biggest impression on me were PS1 games like FF7, Metal Gear Solid, Wipeout XL, and SOTN even though I got a PS1 later in its life. Heck I can name three Saturn games (Dragon Force, Nights, Panzer Dragoon Saga) I would rather replay today than any N64 game other than SM64 and OOT. Especially since we never got Earthbound64.

In retrospect, the Virtual Boy and N64 soured me on Nintendo without even consciously knowing it. I went from getting everyone of their consoles day one to not giving them a second thought. Luckily I bought a Gamecube in college on an impulse with DD in a bundle, and I found out that Nintendo still had some magic in them.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I disagree with the games made by Rare that were 3D adventures being ripoffs. In many ways they were better games since they came out later. Banjo Kazooie is IMO much better than Mario 64. The control was more tight and precise, it had cleaner graphics and less clipping, and had a more interesting world.

 

[desura]

So the power thing was never really cleared up.

It looks to me that it is roughly the same power as a 360?

 

[poofyhairguy]

So the power thing was never really cleared up.

It looks to me that it is roughly the same power as a 360?

GPU stronger, CPU weaker.

 

[HeXen]

N64 had some trash though...Paperboy 64?

 

[ImpulsE69]

I honestly didnt care for most n64 games. I had one when it first came out and sold it within a year. I tried many games over the years and just didn't like them.

Except for Conkers.

Because of that, I didn't get a GC...and didn't play any GC games until I got a Wii. Both of which I liked many games on.

 

[gothamhunter]

How did nobody mention the Goemon/Mystical Ninja games.

 

[Arkaign]

How did nobody mention the Goemon/Mystical Ninja games.

I looooooooved the SNES one, and liked the N64 one Are there more?

 

[lamedude]

In English unfortunately no. There are a few translations for the 8bit games.

The N64 also got too many terrible ports of PC games

It needed more good ports of terrible PC games.

 

[Lil Frier]

I disagree with the games made by Rare that were 3D adventures being ripoffs. In many ways they were better games since they came out later. Banjo Kazooie is IMO much better than Mario 64. The control was more tight and precise, it had cleaner graphics and less clipping, and had a more interesting world.

Agreed.

Banjo-Kazooie > Super Mario 64

 

[mmntech]

The N64 did have quite a few solid games beyond what most people think of. What really killed it though was lack of third party support. This is when Nintendo's antagonism towards outside studios really started coming back to bite them in the behind.

I think losing Square-Enix was probably the biggest blow. Final Fantasy was one of Nintendo's biggest exclusive franchises on the NES and SNES. Then they jumped ship over to Sony and didn't produce a single game for the N64. Then a generation later they lost Rare. Nintendo still struggles with third party support. The big boys don't develop the same quality of games they do for PlayStation and Xbox. Nintendo also has a relatively small stable of first and second party devs to work with, which further limits their ability to churn out fresh content on a regular basis.

 

[sxr7171]

The N64 did have quite a few solid games beyond what most people think of. What really killed it though was lack of third party support. This is when Nintendo's antagonism towards outside studios really started coming back to bite them in the behind.

I think losing Square-Enix was probably the biggest blow. Final Fantasy was one of Nintendo's biggest exclusive franchises on the NES and SNES. Then they jumped ship over to Sony and didn't produce a single game for the N64. Then a generation later they lost Rare. Nintendo still struggles with third party support. The big boys don't develop the same quality of games they do for PlayStation and Xbox. Nintendo also has a relatively small stable of first and second party devs to work with, which further limits their ability to churn out fresh content on a regular basis.

With N64 I think third parties got squeezed in margins. That cartridge was expensive and Nintendo apparently wanted a big cut. So they went elsewhere. If I remember correctly developers cited the cost of the cartridge as a reason to not develop for N64. Nintendo was very paranoid about piracy and kept the cartridge format.

 

[exdeath]

N64. The Ferrari with a 1 pint gas tank.


999999999 trillion trilinear mip mapped blah blah blah triangles per second....


2k byte max texture size...


W.T.F.

 

[mmntech]

With N64 I think third parties got squeezed in margins. That cartridge was expensive and Nintendo apparently wanted a big cut. So they went elsewhere. If I remember correctly developers cited the cost of the cartridge as a reason to not develop for N64. Nintendo was very paranoid about piracy and kept the cartridge format.

The cartridges were a part of it for sure. By 1996, the industry had near unanimously decided that high-fidelity audio, voice over, and FMV cinematics were the only way to go. Something you just couldn't do with cartridges. Faster load times didn't mean squat at that point. Though Nintendo has always been paranoid about piracy. That's why they're still using proprietary media to this day.

Nintendo's issue with third parties goes all the way back to the NES days. They placed limits on the number of games outside studios could make in a single year. A lot of it stemmed though from Nintendo not wanting to make the same mistakes that Atari did. Which is perfectly reasonable. Though placing too many limits on established and trusted developers, and just created a lot of ridiculous red tape. Either you had to create shadow companies to produce more games, or just hope the few you had sold really well. I think this created a lot of bad blood over the years.

There was a lot of bad politics going on at Nintendo during that era, as well as a lot of bad business decisions. Accidentally creating the PlayStation was just the icing on the turd sundae. Nintendo could have had a powerful, CD based console to go up against a weakened Sega. The video game industry would be very different today if they had. Instead, they refused to relinquish any control over their hardware, and made that idiotic deal with Phillips. These problems are still dogging them today.

 

[poofyhairguy]

There was a lot of bad politics going on at Nintendo during that era, as well as a lot of bad business decisions. Accidentally creating the PlayStation was just the icing on the turd sundae. Nintendo could have had a powerful, CD based console to go up against a weakened Sega. The video game industry would be very different today if they had. Instead, they refused to relinquish any control over their hardware, and made that idiotic deal with Phillips. These problems are still dogging them today.

Nintendo did win the last generation of consoles by a large margin, so I don't know if NES-era mistakes still hurt them today. Honestly I believe Sony was going to make a console eventually, Nintendo snub or not. You read about their ego back then ("the Gameboy should have been a Sony device") and it seemed inevitable. What has hurt Nintendo the last two generations with third parties is hardware power.

But those old decisions certainly hurt the N64. Entire genres of games that were very popular for the SNES and NES (such as JRPGs and Metroidvania side scrollers) were barely represented on the N64 but were all over the Saturn and PS1. Honestly those Rare games might have been the greatest 3D adventure games ever, but that doesn't help when I really want to play a JRPG. Heck I have never even gotten every star in SM64, I got bored with that genre before I finished through the first game of its type!!!!

Honestly I feel even the Gamecube got better third party support. Soul Calibur and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes were better than any non 1st or 2nd party N64 games. It is almost like the industry conspired to screw Nintendo out of revenge or something back in the late 90's.