I would say that overall, Nintendo's first party output this gen has been of higher quality than Sony's. Yes Sony has invested in new IPs this generation, but other than maybe Uncharted none of them were real hits.
Right, but sales is not what I am talking about. I am talking about Sony's desire to continually invest in daring original hardcore IPs, even if there is risk involved and even if it ultimately fails. This is a trait Nintendo genuinely could learn from, and if Nintendo did it we would surely be far better off... they have more talent than Sony when it comes to this sort of thing.
As a gamer, that's all I care about. I cannot play sales and sales do not turn me on.
Plus, Nintendo did all the new IP inventing they needed for a sales standpoint with games like Wii Fit that sold 40 million copies. The Mario and Mario Kart franchises have also sold more copies than ever. I imagine a massive chunk of people who buy the NSMB games haven't played a Mario game since the NES, and that a significant portion of those 30 million who bought Mario Kart Wii never played one of those games before. Nintendo kinda brought those IPs to a whole new audience.
This is part of the problem. The gamers Nintendo appeals to with stuff like Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit are on average finicky customers who won't stay around long if some new gimmick isn't approaching their ADHD-addled minds. They gave the casuals the attention with the marketing budgets, and for hardcores they pretty much said 'well as long as Zelda or Mario is in the title they'll buy anything.' It was very afterthought-ish.
And yet the stable of hardcore games Nintendo has created remains relevant to everyone's tastes, including hardcores. And they continue to fail to add to this stable. Last generation they spent so much time marketing these cheap, casual shallow titles that obviously held much appeal, but how much of these franchises will now follow into Wii U and have the same impact? I highly doubt it could, because the Wii U pad is the front and center, not the wiimote.
So if Nintendo starts to add to this with compelling big marketed hardcore titles, they will add something that is important: future proofing. Because for as much as Mario and Zelda kick ass, they can only bring systems so far. Nintendo has demonstrated that people expect something more to buy into their units. For Wii it was wiimote; they think for Wii U it'll be the pad. But there are only so many gimmicks they can make. Eventually it is GAMES that will be demanded, and the market will get tired of Mario 8000 and Zelda 2000 and it'll end up with a Gamecube situation at the end.
I think it's fair to say we should expect more from Nintendo, who has more development talent than almost anyone in the industry.
But yeah I see what you're saying. Nintendo wants to grab back the hardcore this gen with the Wii U and it would be nice if they basically took the same IP strategy that worked with casuals and apply it to the hardcore - invest in a hit franchise. Thinking about it now, I honestly hope they do try that, but I also know it would have to be a surefire goddamn hit -- like a 5-10 million seller. In Nintendo's eyes it would also probably have to do something really new. Wii Fit did something new in the eyes of the casuals who bought it, so did Gears and Halo when they initially launched (to those who hadn't really played first person shooters or Winback or Killswitch). It would have to make enough of an impact to create a new market for core gamers on their platform. Can Nintendo, or any other company Nintendo might go into a publishing deal with, really do that?
Yes, exactly. You are describing my thought process very well here. And I think that might help avoid the piling on over RAM and CPUs and clock speeds and whatever, because people will then say "well, it may not be the most powerful, but Nintendo is offering games that really appeal to me. They're starting to get bold like the old days."
I think it would be very beneficial going forward. But we'll see. Every gen I hope for this but I do not get satisfied very often. Gamecube actually had a pretty nice stable of bold Nintendo game designs, but I'd like them to even go further. Really focus on shoring up their hardcore fanbase with new IPs that'll hook 'em for another 25 years.
