Discussion "A struggling Nintendo is a creative Nintendo"- Do you agree with this statement?

[Dolce]

we as humans love a narrative. sports, real life, celebrities, etc. our pattern recognition and our reasoning just crave it. so we come up with reasons to justify why thing was the way it was. the reality is great games have been made in terrible conditions, great conditions, etc.

Well, a struggling Nintendo will do more affordable prices on the hardware and software

not true for software and questionable for hardware. people complained about Nintendo games being full price all the time during "bad" periods.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

I can't wait for the next system to be announced because Nintendo tubers are scraping the ground under the bottom of the barrel for content.

 

[AR15mex]

not true for software and questionable for hardware. people complained about Nintendo games being full price all the time during "bad" periods.

You clearly forgot the gamecube era, while for Nintendo 64 they had the players choice and I think at some extentend did the same for Wii U just remember dkcrtf

 

[Revolsin]

i do think that helped propel them to create BotW specifically which is really the cornerstone of the big transformation from nintendo lately.

but it's actually been self-propulsion since then tho as they just realized going ambitious with their games was actually the path to success

 

[Dolce]

You clearly forgot the gamecube era, while for Nintendo 64 they had the players choice and I think at some extentend did the same for Wii U just remember dkcrtf

that was 20 years ago and from a different era in general, Nintendo games during the NES, SNES, GB, and GC era would frequently go down in price. the "Nintendo doesn't discount games" thing is a more modern thing.

those discounts happened no matter if they were struggling or not. even the Wii had players choice in some form.

 

[Djehuty]

They're a step up in terms of quality and content, sure, but inventing Splatoon or Mario Maker from scratch during the Wii U days earns them more creativity points than putting out sequels to those games, in my opinion. Obviously later instalments have more features, that goes without saying for any game. Look, all Nintendo games are creative, but we should be looking at things in relative terms.

Ignoring MK8DX DLC and Smash Ultimate + Game Freak's Pokemon games, the Switch's 7 years on the market still did a ton of innovative stuff too, like you mention, ARMS, Labo, Ring Fit, BOTW/TOTK, but there's also been a lot of safe, iterative sequels and underwhelming sports games too.

What the heck does creativity pints even mean? It’s such a subjective value.


I personally think setting splatoon 3 in a wasteland is way more creative than what they did with the original, so I give it more creativity points. And that’s also ignoring that you have 2 creative games on the wii u in that regard, the switch just way more of those like legends arceus (don’t tell me Pokémon 1000’s of years in the past with an entirely new gameplay loop isn’t creative) new 3d Kirby, literally everything about totk and all the other new ip’s like arms, get it together, snipperclips, and 1 2 switch.

gues what the wii u had? Tons of safe sequal, it litteraly launched with a game that may as well have been a carbon copy of the wii version, Mario 3d world was just a better 3d world, donkey Kong tf was a better returns, there was a lot of stuff that was just more of the same, and that was most of what the wii u was, base 8 was Bassicaly 7 with new characters and tracks. This isn’t to deny their creativity but to say the wii u was more creative than the switch and had less iterative and safe sequels is just denying reality.

 

[Djehuty]

i do think that helped propel them to create BotW specifically which is really the cornerstone of the big transformation from nintendo lately.

but it's actually been self-propulsion since then tho as they just realized going ambitious with their games was actually the path to success

I think there was notcible change from when Nintendo wanted to make thier games smaller in scale and budget and dev time to create a great but generally not too ambitious product and after at some point they realized that that isn’t sustainable in a modern industry with thier ip’s so they just threw everything they had into projects. The biggest example of this is pikmin 3 to 4.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I personally think setting splatoon 3 in a wasteland is way more creative than what they did with the original, so I give it more creativity points. And that’s also ignoring that you have 2 creative games on the wii u in that regard, the switch just way more of those like legends arceus (don’t tell me Pokémon 1000’s of years in the past with an entirely new gameplay loop isn’t creative) new 3d Kirby, literally everything about totk and all the other new ip’s like arms, get it together, snipperclips, and 1 2 switch.

Splatoon 3 isn't really set in a wasteland though, it is for the character select, then your inkling immediately gets on a train, goes to a big city just like the first two games, and never looks back, lol.


And there is no way in hell Splatoon 3 is more creative than the first game, which had to actually come up with all the concepts in Splatoon.

 

[browneyes84]

I personally think setting splatoon 3 in a wasteland is way more creative than what they did with the original, so I give it more creativity points.

You think setting a game in a dystopian wasteland (gee, what a novel concept) is more creative than literally inventing Splatoon in its entirety? Ok then.

 

[Djehuty]

You think setting a game in a dystopian wasteland (gee, what a novel concept) is more creative than literally inventing Splatoon in its entirety? Ok then.

no i dont.

but creativity in that regard is subjective, is oddyssey less creative than Mario 64 for not setting the groundwork of mario? i'd argue in the same way splatoon setup the world 2 and 3 did a lot more in exanding it and fully creaitng the vibe, with 2 clashing ones in a hip and vibrant youthful culture compared to a dystopian and sterile lore and story.

this only came in 2 and 3, and then everything going on with the whole salmonids. actually yeah i changed my mind, 2 is way more creative than splatoon 1, i n the same way sunshine and odyssey are more creative than 64.

so in the end, yes i do belive 3 and 2 are more creative than splatoon 1. they do a lot more with the world itself and break away from what splatoon created the world to be. changing a lot of concepts a long the way (such as the octolings)

the wasteland thing was an example, but i could go ahead and say everything i think is creative about 3 if you want.

 

[WideAwake5]

Like everyone said, Switch proves that they can be successful and creative.

As a fellow Wii U lover, I do miss the style of directs they did in the Wii U era, but I don't agree with the video's idea of drip feeding details on projects. Nintendo has been comfortably announcing and releasing games within 6 months and I hope it remains this way forever. I think if they can add in some of the personalization and presentation style from the Wii U era to these recent directs, and it'd perfect

Also the videos notion that Nintendo's games released on Switch lack quantity and quality is wrong on both fronts, in my opinion. People compare Switch years all the time, based on the game releases. Wii U has three quality years, but even those years don't compare with the Switch years I prefer, like 2017, 2019, or even this year, both in quantity and quality. Maybe combining Wii U and 3DS years is what the video was getting at.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the video and happy to talk Wii U and 3DS era anytime. Great time despite the droughts and weird things fans how to put up with. Would love to see Miiverse, the Wara Wara plaza, Badge Arcade, Home themes, and other things return in the Switch 2. Of course, that would probably lead to a slow UI, and it'd be smart to go with the same as Switch but slightly improved. Maybe let's give them the benefit of the doubt, and allow them to plan out their next console and not rush to it, but even if they don't change a thing, I've still enjoyed Nintendo during the Switch era.

 

[Ryunosuke Naruhodo]

No I don't agree. If we take the Wii U as the definitive example of Nintendo struggling, even though there have been other times, there were downsides to this that we haven't really got over the last 5 years or so with Nintendo being successful. The main ones I can think of are Nintendo 'doubling up' on individual games/releases because releasing them just once was not enough, so we got 2 Smash games released just months apart, same with NSMB2 & NSMBU, and even Mario Maker, Hyrule Warriors and Yoshi' Wooly Word were re-released within a year or 2. Sure the Switch had Wii U ports aplenty early on, but that was borne by a need to make money back on their lack of success on the Wii U. All of Nintendo's 2022 games were brand new IIRC and that was hard to come by 7/8/9 years ago when Nintendo were doing what they could to make those Wii U games a success even at a 3rd time of asking (Hyrule Warriors).

They also end up stretching themselves to thin in a mad scramble to appeal anyone and everyone, with several games that fall way short of doing so. So take for example the genuinely great overall E3 2014 where we saw BotW for the first time, albeit briefly, along with Smash, Bayonetta 2 and Splatoon. It was great. But then alongside that you have Miyamoto demoing Project Giant Robot, Guard and his future sub 70 on Metacritic Star Fox game, as well as Codename Steam being dropped outside the Direct. Who asked for those game? Clearly no many people as combined they sold probably about as well as Tears of the Kindgom did in like its first 10 seconds of sales. There being creative and then there's making an Animal Crossing board game controlled partially by Toys to Life instead of... an actual Animal Crossing game. There's something to be said for keeping things simple you know.

And finally it's not like if you take a Wii U game at random and a Switch game at random the 'creativity' is abundantly higher in the former almost all the time because where is the creativity in Mario Tennis Ultra Smash? Or Paper Mario Colour Splash? Or Mario Party 10? Or even the genuinely great games like Pikmin 3, Super Mario 3D World and Xenoblade Chronicles X weren't doing anything that will be impossible to replicate in the future. They're just great Mario/Pikmin/Xenoblade games, which multiple Nintendo systems have had as well.

 

[browneyes84]

Who asked for those game?

"Who asked for Andor?"

 

[Mer.Saloon]

The DS says no. Maybe not all the crazy games Nintendo made were to everyone's taste, but you can't deny they did a lot of wild stuff.

And arguably the experiments they did on DS had more staying power than what they did with the Wii. There was more practical usages in that 2nd screen and stylus than the Wiimote's waggle function.

 

[browneyes84]

And finally it's not like if you take a Wii U game at random and a Switch game at random the 'creativity' is abundantly higher in the former almost all the time because where is the creativity in Mario Tennis Ultra Smash? Or Paper Mario Colour Splash?

I don't know, where is the creativity in Mario Strikers Battle League, Nintendo Switch Sports, WarioWare Get it Together, Mario Golf Super Rush, Mario Tennis Aces, Super Mario Party etc etc?

The main ones I can think of are Nintendo 'doubling up' on individual games/releases because releasing them just once was not enough, so we got 2 Smash games released just months apart, same with NSMB2 & NSMBU, and even Mario Maker, Hyrule Warriors and Yoshi' Wooly Word were re-released within a year or 2. Sure the Switch had Wii U ports aplenty early on, but that was borne by a need to make money back on their lack of success on the Wii U.

Are you joking? It sometimes feels like half the Switch library are ports of old games. They far, far outweigh the very occasional doubling up of Wii U games you mentioned (apart from Mario Maker, that doesn't count. And NSMB2 and NSMBU were two completely different games).

So take for example the genuinely great overall E3 2014 where we saw BotW for the first time, albeit briefly, along with Smash, Bayonetta 2 and Splatoon. It was great. But then alongside that you have Miyamoto demoing Project Giant Robot, Guard and his future sub 70 on Metacritic Star Fox game, as well as Codename Steam being dropped outside the Direct. Who asked for those game? Clearly no many people as combined they sold probably about as well as Tears of the Kindgom did in like its first 10 seconds of sales.

You're conflating two different arguments here. Creativity has nothing to do with sales success. You can achieve the former without the latter.

3DS/Wii U era first party games I would consider genuinely innovative/creative (not iterative sequels):

• Tomodachi Life
• Super Mario Maker
• Splatoon
• Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
• Miitopia
• Kid Icarus Uprising
• Streetpass
• Nintendo Land
• Captain Toad Treasure Tracker
• Miiverse
• NES Remix/SNES Remix
• Project Guard

Switch-era first party games I would consider genuinely innovative/creative (not iterative sequels):

• ARMS
• Ring Fit Adventure
• Labo
• 1-2 Switch
• Snipperclips
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Tears of the Kingdom

The Wii U was a failure, the Switch is a huge success with a ton more games, but judging on pure creativity and innovation, I can see why some might consider Nintendo are playing it a tad more safe then the Wii U/3DS era.

 

[Jbone916]

How can anyone claim that WarioWare Get It Together is not creative?

 

[Sunshinemario]

GameCube, yes. Wii U, no. Wii U has some of the most bland entries in a lot of franchises.

 

[meatbag]

3DS/Wii U era first party games I would consider genuinely innovative/creative (not iterative sequels):

I mean, the thing here is that you’re including 3DS when most people, including the poster you replying to, are only talking about Wii U. Of course 3DS + Wii U would compare more favorably.

(And even then I would add several games to the list for Switch. Astral Chain, Cadence of Hyrule, Good Job, Legends Arceus, Warioware Get It Together, etc.)

 

[browneyes84]

I mean, the thing here is that you’re including 3DS when most people, including the poster you replying to, are only talking about Wii U. Of course 3DS + Wii U would compare more favorably.

(And even then I would add several games to the list for Switch. Astral Chain, Cadence of Hyrule, Good Job, Legends Arceus, Warioware Get It Together, etc.)

The comparison between the Switch and the Wii U is inherently unfair because not only has the Switch been supported double the length of time, Nintendo had two platforms to make games for back in the day. So I think in a discussion about creative Nintendo then vs now it makes sense to combine 3DS and Wii U.

Astral Chain, Cadence of Hyrule, Good Job, Legends Arceus aren't made by Nintendo and is Warioware that creative, or is it just yet another good but iterative sequel that plays things relatively safe on the Switch?

 

[Reinhard Schneider]

No, i can't agree with that.

Struggling Nintendo is desesperate Nintendo, and desesperate Nintendo is sloppy Nintendo. Back in the Gamecube days, their most creative or groundbreaking games were either games that made use of the more powerful hardware or games inherited from N64 or GBA. Outside of that, everything else were direct sequels, collabs and some oddball new IPs like Pikmin.

Plus they put Mario everywhere to the point that they had to publicily admit that they would use him less in the future.

That gen, Nintendo was scrambling trying to put out the fires Yamauchi lit left and right, it even shows up in their GBA library.

Wii U era was a bit better, but it took them a while to get their shit together and still fumbled some releases in the end. They put most of their muscle on the 3DS library.

Nintendo is at their best when they're sucessful, they have the muscle and freedom to experiment and keep their momentum going, i don't think a struggling Nintendo would have given us a library like the Switch's or SNES'

 

[meatbag]

Astral Chain, Cadence of Hyrule, Good Job, Legends Arceus aren't made by Nintendo

Kid Icarus Uprising is made by Masahiro Sakurai and his independent team too, IIRC, so I thought we were counting first party published (at least, those we know that have significant input from Nintendo)

Snipperclips, too, done primarily by SFB Games

is Warioware that creative, or is it just yet another good but iterative sequel that plays things relatively safe on the Switch?

I mean you also counted ALBW which would arguably also be an iterative sequel

EDIT: And anyway, if we’re counting the 3DS, then that just further proves that success or failure doesn’t really have anything to do with how creative Nintendo is

 

[Deleted member 540]

Speaking of WiiU era nostalgia...


It's exactly what you think it is. To be fair, he's pretty open at the beginning that this is heavily nostalgia driven.

But something he said got me thinking and why Nintendo did what it did with Switch. He was saying how with the bubbly menus and whatnot that the systems were fun to play with even when not playing a game. But that makes them sound like... toys.

The idea of Switch being perceived as toy was probably anathema to Nintendo. They felt they needed it to be taken more seriously as a gaming system. Being an expensive toy was poison to its prospects.

Bubbly menu music, Miis running around the homescreen. It all projects a tone, dare I say, a "personality". But that's a "personality" that saw the company at its lowest. Nintendo "personality" doesn't sell. So they kept it far away and just let the games do the talking. That way the Switch is whatever games you want to play on it, uncontaminated by an overarching feel loudly imposed by the OS.

It was either that or rebrand the company with a death metal veneer.

 

[Beanstar40]

I can kind of see where they are coming from. The thing is Nintendo had to be creative because they needed to gain back market share. I definitely get the sense that success begets complacency in a sense, just look at Sonys ps3 output compared to now, and Microsoft has alot more varied first party titles now than when they were really successful with the 360. I don’t think nintendos games lost their creativity though, Sony got safe when they became number 1 again, Nintendo seems intent to remain creative and allow first party games at all budgets.

I do miss the personality of the Wii U and 3ds era though, if that makes sense.

 

[Djehuty]

I still hate this video so much, I won’t ever get the wii u era nostalgia, and using a dead person for sympathy clicks is awful.

 

[Djehuty]

Speaking of WiiU era nostalgia...


It's exactly what you think it is. To be fair, he's pretty open at the beginning that this is heavily nostalgia driven.

But something he said got me thinking and why Nintendo did what it did with Switch. He was saying how with the bubbly menus and whatnot that the systems were fun to play with even when not playing a game. But that makes them sound like... toys.

The idea of Switch being perceived as toy was probably anathema to Nintendo. They felt they needed it to be taken more seriously as a gaming system. Being an expensive toy was poison to its prospects.

Bubbly menu music, Miis running around the homescreen. It all projects a tone, dare I say, a "personality". But that's a "personality" that saw the company at its lowest. Nintendo "personality" doesn't sell. So they kept it far away and just let the games do the talking. That way the Switch is whatever games you want to play on it, uncontaminated by an overarching feel loudly imposed by the OS.

It was either that or rebrand the company with a death metal veneer.

I haven’t watched this vid I’ll.check it out later.

 

[Serif]

Funnily enough my favorite Nintendo console 'OS' is the original DS, which resembles more of early 2000s 'dumbphone' menus.

You can tell from the very first Switch trailer how deliberate Nintendo were in shifting away from their previous brand image and developing something closer in look to a smartphone, including the OS.

Saying it is reflective of Nintendo as a whole lacking 'personality' and 'magic' or some other abstract quality misses the big picture and just reeks of grass is greener attitudes.

 

[lexony]

I hate this history revisionism where people act like everything was perfect when Iwata was still there. This is as dangerous as blindly defend any business decision Nintendo makes nowadays.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

I would appreciate a return to the toy menu approach if it didn't get in the way of OS. The Switch was a breath of fresh air from a lot of what made the old screens clunky, even if Nintendo took it pretty far. I think a balance can be struck and I hope the next system does that.

Spoiler

Besides, it's not like customizable menus, jingles, and aesthetics is that different from a toy, it's just a toy adults jive with.

 

[boodream]

I didn’t know that video. Beyond the arlo-worthy process of using Iwata as if it were a Saturday morning cartoon character, there is such an obvious lineage and continuity between the Wii U and the switch that the whole premise is quite strange. Beyond the fact that almost all of the Wii U first party games are available on switch, the concept of hybrid has literally been sketched with the Wii U and ended with the switch.

Generally speaking I wouldn’t say that Nintendo is more creative when they’re in trouble but I would say that they tend to be more arrogant when they’re good so the console that comes will be interesting to observe from this point of view.

 

[PixelKnight]

Bit of a necrobump of a 9 month old thread to talk about a 5 month old video.

I think this is a different topic than the original thread title really, more about the vibe of Nintendo presentation and marketing across the DS/Wii/3DS/WiiU years than creativity in game design. All the Streetpass and Mii stuff and home screens, stores etc.

I did prefer the Wii eshop. But only as the music was cool and it was fast and functional, which is what I want from a shop, and is what the Switch has had one of its few failures at. The Wii was also full of shovelware but it wasnt as painful to browse as the Switch, where if I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for or it isn’t on my wishlist in a sale, it might as well not exist. As far as the menu screens and whatnot go, I prefer the Switch. Just a fast list of game icons to scroll through, no multimedia thingys.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

For all the personality it had, the Wii U's OS was, in practice, non-functional. It was slow, BC was a pain, and you couldn't navigate some key functions (e.g., the settings) without the GamePad. The barebone approach of Switch's OS is a reaction against Wii U's.

3DS' was better, but even there, it was often sometimes too slow on OG 3DS, and had a 300 title limit that wouldn't fly in the digital delivery era. Late games both on 3D and Wii U (Smash 3DS, Pokémon, BotW) even had to limit some of the OS functions to free RAM.

I agree that Switch goes too far in the opposite direction, but there is a reason Nintendo took this minimalistic approach.

 

[Pringles]

Yes, I agree.

 

[Koren Lesthe]

Nintendo wasn't struggling with the GBA and the DS is probably the most creative and ingenious period of Nintendo.

Also, the Switch is insanely successful, yet Tears of the Kingdom comes 6 years after the party and is one of the most genius action adventure game ever.

I don't really believe this statement has any weight, because you always find something that counters it, no matter what.

 

[PixelKnight]

It’s almost a survivorship bias thing- Nintendo is still with us as a platform holder and in a strong position. They always manage to bounce back, which shows that being in a bad position doesn’t mean they can be written off, either creatively or financially. As otherwise they’d be third party right now, like Atari and Sega before them. However, I don’t think that means a successful Nintendo is somehow less creative, which is what the saying seems to be implying. It’s that their wider company philosophy that enables creativity in both hardware and OS presentation and game design is pretty consistent through thick and thin, and they also manage their cash prudently. It gets them out of trouble by enabling them to both pivot and weather storms. But it also lets them capitalise on their position when they are doing well (like giving TotK all the time it needed etc).

 

[fluttersusagi]

in terms of software output, i disagree. in terms of marketing and PR, though? couldn't agree more.



the company has felt so unbelievably sterile and corporate, especially when it comes to interacting with their wider community, since reggie retired. how i long for the days of marketing like above back.

 

[PixelKnight]

in terms of software output, i disagree. in terms of marketing and PR, though? couldn't agree more.



the company has felt so unbelievably sterile and corporate, especially when it comes to interacting with their wider community, since reggie retired. how i long for the days of marketing like above back.

Is it really ‘wider community’ when stuff like this was so US-focused though? It’s basically NoA advertising to NA, not a global thing, and the latter is better for people in various other countries in that we’re more likely to get unified release dates outside of Japan now.

 

[boodream]

in terms of software output, i disagree. in terms of marketing and PR, though? couldn't agree more.



the company has felt so unbelievably sterile and corporate, especially when it comes to interacting with their wider community, since reggie retired. how i long for the days of marketing like above back.

It doesn't get more "corporate" than a marketing guy who sold TV and pizza before working at Nintendo and pretends to be our friend. You can find Takahashi and Koizumi, who are brilliant people who know video games, more austere, if you like, but less marketing and more developers put forward, it's certainly not something more "corporate". Even if yes, I know, it's less American.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

For all the personality it had, the Wii U's OS was, in practice, non-functional. It was slow, BC was a pain, and you couldn't navigate some key functions (e.g., the settings) without the GamePad. The barebone approach of Switch's OS is a reaction against Wii U's.

3DS' was better, but even there, it was often sometimes too slow on OG 3DS, and had a 300 title limit that wouldn't fly in the digital delivery era. Late games both on 3D and Wii U (Smash 3DS, Pokémon, BotW) even had to limit some of the OS functions to free RAM.

I agree that Switch goes too far in the opposite direction, but there is a reason Nintendo took this minimalistic approach.

The Wii U OS was just such a mess. If Nintendo could capture the best aspects of that OS without compromising performance and functionality, then that would be the sweet spot right there.

 

[Serif]

Let's return to marketing that failed to sell enough Wii Us.

 

[Beanstar40]

I think this era of Nintendo was special to me because it’s what turned me back into a Nintendo fan. During the wii and ds era, I was all in on the xbox 360 and ps3. I got a Wii very late into its life cycle and only ever played 4 games on it, Wii sports, galaxy, galaxy 2, and skyward sword. I just wasn’t into what Nintendo was selling anymore. It was dissapointing because I loved my GameCube, but as a teenager, I was more into mass effect and halo then Mario and Zelda.

Then in 2013 the ps4 and xbox one came along. i was 20 at the time, so out of my teenaged years. I got my ps4 at its midnight launch and then during those following months I just felt numbed, dissapointed by it all. Yeah, killzone, knack, and infamous second son looked very pretty, but was this really all I could expect from the next generation of consoles? There was just nothing exciting to me about the way these titles played. Watchdogs was the straw that broke the camels back, so much hype, and it was about as pedestrian as you could expect, and it didn’t look much better than an Xbox 360 title, so I couldn’t even latch on to the graphics. Drive club just kept getting delayed, and the majority of releases seemed to be remasters from the 360 and ps3. I felt deflated.

Around the time Mario kart 8 released, I went to my friends house. He had a Wii U, and insisted we play some Mario kart. I enjoyed double dash on the GameCube, but thought that Wii was dreadful and never played the ds version. Begrudgingly i said okay, and he turned on his Wii U. First off, I was just so impressed by the Amount of personality it had. The menu music, the mii’s running around waru waru plaza, it felt so cozy and inviting. He booted up the game and we ended up playing for about 4 hours straight. I could not believe how much fun it was, even despite its lower horse Power, how great the visuals were, how much fun watching our replays was. I loved every minute of it. Then, he put in super mario 3d world, a game I largely ignored because i assumed it was just a sterile new super mario bros style game. Again, I was just blown away by how much fun we ended up having, how great the music was, and how clean the visuals were.

When I left I knew I had to have a Wii U, I felt a passion for Nintendo I hadn’t felt since those nights playing twilight princess and Luigi’s mansion on my tiny little crt that was in my room.

The very next day, I packed up my ps4, all the games I had for it, and traded them to GameStop. I used the store credit to get the wind waker hd edition Wii U, mario kart 8, and super mario 3d world. I also grabbed a pro controller. Mario kart 8 also came with a free digital Wii U game, so I had pikmin 3 to play as well! Needless to say, I was knee deep in the Wii U ecosystem from 2014 to early 2016. I poured 100 hours into mario kart 8, I almost 100 percented 3d world, I loved every minute of wind waker hd. From captain toad, to Kirby and the rainbow curse, and Mario maker, that system created some incredible memories for me.

It also renewed my interest in the 3ds, which I now consider one of the greatest systems of all time, and I have almost a complete collection of 1st party games for.

The switch is on fire now, and I’d argue that their switch line up is one of their best first party line ups of all time on any Nintendo system, but I’ll always have a tinge of nostalgia for the Wii U and 3ds, because without them, I’m not sure I would have gotten back into Nintendo games the way I did.

 

[Herb Alpert]

I love when Nintendo gets weird with software, but I don't like when they do wacky things with hardware, because if it doesn't catch with the audience, you're stuck with a dead platform for at least 4 years.
The Switch is a good thing cause it keeps a quite standard control scheme and wacky things do not compromise it.
Innovation is less risky through software and peripherals.

A struggling Nintendo can try very unusual things, but as we saw with WiiU, they have to get a minimum of third party support.

 

[lattjeful]

in terms of software output, i disagree. in terms of marketing and PR, though? couldn't agree more.



the company has felt so unbelievably sterile and corporate, especially when it comes to interacting with their wider community, since reggie retired. how i long for the days of marketing like above back.

Honestly I prefer Koizumi and Takahashi. I know they're still marketing/PR guys at the end of the day, but I like seeing guys who have actually worked on these IPs that they're marketing VS Reggie who was solely a marketing guy for Nintendo. It's still marketing fluff but idk I feel like it at least comes from a place of passion (not that Reggie wasn't passionate, mind you.)

 

[Steve]

In short I think I’m more happy with an successful Nintendo, since the switch has revived and had an amazing output of phenomenal games.

Y’all underestimate how bad the software output was when the Wii U first launch, it was somehow dryer than the shara desert. I personally don’t wanna mention the online discourse most of us were dealing with was absolute hell.

Lastly the Wii U has caused us deep sided issues and worries of Nintendo next iteration of the switch 2, if it’ll either be a flop or a success (I think it’s gonna peak)

And lastly I think Nintendo are way more creative now, the best comparison of how much Nintendo has changed, would be with Mario Wonder. Compare that to Mario U, you can see them realising their biggest strengths as a company is their developers creativity.

But that’s my opinion, I still hold some nostalgia with the Wii U, but I’ll admit the Wii U was sadly pretty stinky.

 

[Sheldon]

I honestly thought the renewed activity in the thread was tied to the Wonder and Tears GDC talks.

Desperation can lead to inspiration, but struggling to survive also means having to push projects out the door before they're ready or passing on them due to uncertain commercial appeal, while enjoying a comfortable positions allows for things like collecting 2000 ideas from employees and taking a lot of time and care to try new approaches and find the fun new things and then get those things right.

 

[rêverie]

lest we forget...

desperation can birth some truly heinous decisions.

 

[Danny]

I think successful Nintendo is better. The whole expansion Nintendo is investing in now with new developers and building a new development building at a time when the gaming industry at large is seeing mass layoffs is totally dependant on the success they have had during the entire Switch era. And I think this expansion can lead to more creativity in the long run from Nintendo with new franchises being created by the new blood at the company.

 

[k samedi]

They have always been creative but they also had a head wind with the Wii U, N64 and GC. Sometimes their hardware concept just doesn't click with the consumer but that is also a negative side effect of trying to be creative all the time. The Wii U laid the ground work for Switch though so I see those more as stepping stones to big successes.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

lest we forget...

desperation can birth some truly heinous decisions.

Wanna talk abut a game that feels like it was rushed to catch on to some desperate hype, you got this right here. A travesty this thing came out in the state that it did. The idea of an amiibo party game isn't terrible in theory, but this game was not it. Definitely not it.

 

[Bulborb]

Honestly I prefer Koizumi and Takahashi. I know they're still marketing/PR guys at the end of the day, but I like seeing guys who have actually worked on these IPs that they're marketing VS Reggie who was solely a marketing guy for Nintendo. It's still marketing fluff but idk I feel like it at least comes from a place of passion (not that Reggie wasn't passionate, mind you.)

I wish doug bowser would do skits like Reggie did. Dude wont even say hi to us xD

 

[CyberWolfBia]

I just finished watching the video OP posted; -- It's interesting perspective from someone clearly blinded by nostalgia, and while I don't agree with the "struggling Nintendo is a better Nintendo" (their creativity is not correlated AT ALL with their success on the market), I do see the angle they're coming from with the statement.

I especially tend to miss the format of older Nintendo Directs, but they also were filled with the content like developer interviews and skits because there were not enough games for a 40sh minutes presentation. They even used Indies way more in regular Nintendo Directs back then, and now they comfortably position them in their own Indie World presentations.

The video says like having multiplat and 3rd Party content in a Nintendo Direct is a bad thing and I don't get at all.. like, their perspective is that only the Nintendo 1st Party stuff matters; -- Back on the Wii U days (and I say as someone that loved my time with the system), I cared immensely for things like Sonic Lost World and Scribblenauts, you know, games not made by Nintendo.. and had the option, I'd always buy my multiplat games on Nintendo systems because it's my primerly platform. So of course I want to know through a Nintendo presentation that these 3rd Party offerings are coming to the system I bought.

I'll give that they do need to be more transparent in general, have more developer interviews like the Iwata Asks (they do an abridged version now and then for select titles, such as Mario Wonder); but otherwise.. the challenges they come across in the market really doesn't make Nintendo games more or less special.