A while ago (18th September 2013) I wrote an article called “What Should Nintendo Do?”. In the article I went over a few ideas that I thought personally thought could help improve and shape the company. I’ve decided to review what I said and see which Nintendo achieved.
1. “The third party titles were already on current gen consoles and the tweaks weren’t good enough”. – This is still happening a few examples that come to mind are receiving Minecraft later in the console’s life span that it should have without fully utilising the hardware (inventory management) and being behind the current generations on the update number. Another example is Watch Dogs which was an inferior port. (I understand this is out of Nintendo’s reach without paying developers thought I thought I would touch upon it again). ☐ Nope!
2. “Let’s take the first party title New Super Mario Bros U, it’s not a must-have Mario game, it’s very similar to the other games in that series.”. – In terms of similar entries in series we have had a new Mario Tennis game which failed to add anything new outside of gimmicks alongside the newest Mario Party. ☐ Nope!
3. “I for one believe Nintendo can pull themselves together with the launching of a Mario Kart 8, Sonic Lost World, Super Mario 3D world, Super Smash Bros, and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze” – Unfortunately this didn’t seem to be the case each game launch did see sharp rises in console sales though failed to maintain momentum, however most of these games did impress in sales with such a small install base. ☐ Nope!
4. “Advertisements showing exactly what the WiiU is” – I don’t recall seeing many advertisements at all though I do believe the consumers now know what the WiiU is, however its hardly being promoted in game shops, my local Game only has space for 6 games and a lot of amiibo it didn’t even have twilight princess HD in sight. ☐ Nope!
5. “A benchark game like Metroid Prime 4″ – We never received the Metroid game we had hoped for and the newest title Metroid Prime Federation Force isn’t the game fans have been asking for, however if you put the Metroid title aside you can see the potential fun in this game. However we did receive Xenoblade chronicles X and Splatoon which I feel both had great art styles though not entirely benchmark. ☑ Kind of!
6.”A teaser for the new Zelda game in development” – This we did receive thought they have been fairly quiet on it and delayed it. ☑ Got it!
7.”A price cut” – I’m not 100% sure whether there have been any large price drops though I have definitely seen the occasional price drops for the WiiU, comment below if there has been. ☐ – Not sure!
8.”Third Party Exclusives” – We definitely got quite a few of these we got Bayonetta 2, Fatal Frame, Devil’s Third amongst others. ☑ You did okay!
9.”To co-develop more games with other companies so games can be released faster” – Hyrule Warriors(Koei Tecmo), (One I will get to in a moment), LOZ Twilight Princess(Tantalus), Smash Bros(Bandai Namco). ☑ Nice one Nintendo!
10.”A Damn Star Fox game” – Star fox Zero which is also being Co-developed by Platinum Games along with Star Fox Guard. ☑ Finally, just hope those motion controls hold up!
11. Extra –Here are a few noteable changes we got since the article I wrote;
- We got Super Mario Maker
- We got Splatoon
- We got Smash DLC
- We got lots of indie titles (inluding Minecraft)
- We got Yoshi’s Wooly World
- We’re getting a new Paper Mario
Whilst this article may have seemed quite negative towards Nintendo I’m still 100% a fanboy, but I’m not blind to their mistakes.
Thanks for reading,
-Tom
TomInbound's Game Dev 