Iwata's Broken Promises (NotEnoughShaders article)

Consumers don't see it that way. Nintendo simply isn't the company they once were. Their output quality isn't the same nor is their timetable for releases. They still manage to make charming titles but the truth is they just aren't substantial in terms of depth and content. Games like Red Dead and Dark Souls are what I always imagined a future Zelda to be like when I was a kid playing A Link to the Past. Nintendo was still on the right track with their core software during the N64 era but since then they've slowly eroded their IPs by watering down the mechanics and alienating the audience that established them.

That's a level of subjectivity that can break scouters.
Your saying because you like dark souls their games lack depth. And also just a thought..
Children~
"We forget they are the vast majoirty of the gaming audience"~

Should I go into the face that people may like their games dn don't like dark souls or red dead.

Your taste isn't the only taste.
 
Please understand. There is no way to take all my cool PS3/XBOX games and put them on the Wii U. I also recall the dreamcast had a nice LCD display. I wonder why that didn't set the world on fire?

i loved the VMU, but the gamepad is not it. i can't load my chao up on it and take it for a walk. they have completely different functionality, just like they're both completely different in purpose to a home computing tablet.

You can't be serious.

your opening argument was that consumers see it as a tablet and competing with tablets, and then you went into a release rant about how nintendo wasn't like the good ole days anymore. the arguments aren't even close.
 
After reading that, I kinda hope Yamauchi was still the Prez

And now we have gone full retard. Some of Yamauchi's policies are what got Nintendo into its current predicament.

Okay, the way I see Nintendo's train of thought regarding the conception of the Wii U:

* Nintendo does not currently have the capacity to produce software for both their systems at a steady rate
* They have been making moves to expand to produce more. It's not a fast process, but it is underway.
* Right now, they believe that they need third parties to bolster their production to acceptable levels.
* One major advantage of the Wii Remote was that it offered a USP to play the games with.
* The Gamepad has a touchscreen to offer a new USP that the rival platforms do not.
* One major complaint about the Wii Remote was the fact that third parties didn't know how to use it, and did not have the time or inclination to do the extra coding required to take advantage of it.
* To solve that complaint, the GamePad was given traditional controls; third parties can use it as a standard controller.
* The touch screen can be pressed into service as a simple off-tv screen, requiring minimal extra code time; it is in effect a 'free' feature (Similarly the 3DS's major feature - again - requires minimal extra code time; they've produced two systems where third parties do not need to expend effort to make use of the USPs. Nintendo - I think - did this explicitly because it's what they believed third parties were demanding.


I don't see anything inherently wrong with the train of thought.. It certainly hasn't been successful out of the gate, but the reasoning seems sound; I recall *tons* of comments along the lines of "We like the idea of the Wii Remote, we just can't afford to spend time figuring out how to leverage it.". The Gamepad - as it stands - solves that issue. However, it solves it at a significant cost; the expense of the device led in turn to a restriction of how much they could spend on the power of the central unit. Since the major third parties haven't embraced that, I think Nintendo are doing the right thing by going all-out courting the smaller ones.

So, as a broad question to everyone: What's the solution? The Gamepad, for whatever reason, doesn't appear to be it. How do you make a device that:

* Has a USP over its rivals
* Requires minimal development cost to implement that USP
* Does not cost much to produce the hardware to offer that USP

Nintendo did the first two, at the cost of the third. Sony appear to have gone with a software-based USP by buying out the entire company that offers it. We'll have to see what Microsoft's is, although if the rumours of 'no used' are true, I'll be interested to see if that feature allows them to leverage some form of favourable treatment out of the publishers as a result.

Excellent post.

I think that on some level Nintendo realizes that the Gamecube wasn't hugely successful because it had nothing to offer developers that the PS2 and Xbox didn't. Issues like the controller, lack of online, and small discs were not insurmountable obstacles and were really, relatively minor issues with the Gamecube. The real problem is that it didn't have a unique selling proposition, and they've been trying to come up with one ever since.

Think about it: How the hell is Nintendo really going to compete with Sony and Microsoft for the support of third parties, especially western third parties, in the same arena with the same tactics? They can't afford to blow as much money on them.

The Wii Remote worked for consumers, but developers weren't willing to redraw their game design in order to work with it. From the time I saw the GamePad I've always imagined this being one of the main reasons Nintendo went forward with it -- it has a new USP but still resembles a standard game controller. Plus, developers already have some experience working with touch screens. Nintendo didn't think it'd be as hard for developers to figure out how to leverage the GamePad compared to the Wii Remote.

It's just too bad that the GamePad was so much of a cost draw on the Wii U that they had to sacrifice horsepower. That's the other reason they haven't been able to attract western publishers (Japanese publishers haven't had as much of a problem coming over). Once again, should we consider the current crop of big western publishers a lost cause for Nintendo? Should Nintendo have been trying to just break off completely and build their own ecosystem for new developers to grow in?

A lot of posts in this thread assume that Nintendo should still be fighting for the game console market in its current form.
 
Children~
"We forget they are the vast majoirty of the gaming audience"~

When Atari first came out sure. Now the medium has become standardized as entertainment for adults. World of Warcraft, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Just Dance, Dance Central, Brain Age, FPS, racing sims, etc.
 
is the WiiU and its gamepad a deliberate stepping stone to Nintendo moving to one platform in the future?

The off-screen play is good, and I appreciate it, but aside from that I haven't seen many compelling arguments for a second screen (ZombiU maybe, but I think that could have been done perfectly well on a normal console). And Nintendo had two E3s to explain how it could be used and basically failed.

so why have it? Emphasising off-screen could even damage their 3DS line - look at capcom originally not allowing off-screen play in monster hunter, perhaps due to worries about cannibalising 3DS game sales?

So will they bow out of home consoles next gen and move to a hybrid portable that can connect to your TV?
 
Yeah Iwata where the fuck is this?

nintendo-vitality-20100622_zpsae97496a.jpg
 
When Atari first came out sure. Now the medium has become standardized as entertainment for adults. World of Warcraft, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Just Dance, Dance Central, Brain Age, FPS, racing sims, etc.

Childen play those games, its why people say
10 year olds cursing on xbox.

That isn't a stereotype for no reason.
 
That's a level of subjectivity that can break scouters.
Your saying because you like dark souls their games lack depth. And also just a thought..
Children~
"We forget they are the vast majoirty of the gaming audience"~

I'm saying this as someone who has played through every Zelda and Mario that has released since the dawn of time. As a fan of those franchises I won't stop playing them but it has occurred to me that Nintendo simply has not managed their IPs well. Nobody would argue that deep inside they would love to see a different take, both in tone and design, on Mario and Zelda. Just one risk that would invite imagination and wonder back into those franchises. Yes, this is a subjective discussion but why would that make it any less relevant? Something is not working well at Nintendo.
 
the wiiu design needed to be built with better hardware than nin used. would have been better off releasing a $600+ system with this idea than what they gave us.
 
I think there is an adage about how every war is at first fought using outdated strategies designed for the previous war. It wouldn't surprise me that whatever lessons were learned from the wii drought aren't enough for HD game development.
 
i loved the VMU, but the gamepad is not it. i can't load my chao up on it and take it for a walk. they have completely different functionality, just like they're both completely different in purpose to a home computing tablet.



your opening argument was that consumers see it as a tablet and competing with tablets, and then you went into a release rant about how nintendo wasn't like the good ole days anymore. the arguments aren't even close.

I'm commenting on your post first and then commenting on the broader problems with Nintendo's current management, which is absolutely related to their decision to go into a market already saturated by tablet devices. This thread isn't just about the Wiipad but about several nagging issues.
 
Good and timely article. Hopefully articles like this will get people to stop saying, "B-b-b-ut Iwata said..." or "But Reggie said..." whenever Nintendo is criticized. They say a lot of things. Look at what Nintendo does, not at what what Nintendo says.

Iwata says what Nintendon't
 
And now we have gone full retard. Some of Yamauchi's policies are what got Nintendo into its current predicament.

Come on it's been 12 years since Yamauchi's step down. If you think that Iwata can't turn over this "predicaments" then he should have apologized more then.
 
So you don't play that many video games then....

I'd say the Wii U is my most used system ever as well....although it has little to do with the gaming side of things. I love the browser and when it comes to viewing screenshots and streaming video I prefer it to my PC or tablet.
 
I'm saying this as someone who has played through every Zelda and Mario that has released since the dawn of time. As a fan of those franchises I won't stop playing them but it has occurred to me that Nintendo simply has not managed their IPs well. Nobody would argue that deep inside they would love to see a different take, both in tone and design, on Mario and Zelda. Just one risk that would invite imagination and wonder back into those franchises. Yes, this is a subjective discussion but why would that make it any less relevant? Something is not working well at Nintendo.
1 Because nintendo has more franchises than mario and zelda, because if you REALLY wish to talk about bread winners you might wanna talk about electric mouses and smashing bros.

2 You ever think that your tastes have just changed? Not saying that nintendo is impervious to bad games ( I dislike the newest zelda) however a lot of people like the newer mario games, and the not skyward sword zelda's. Are they wrong, should they not buy mario galaxy 1/2 .

3 Yes a little change of pace is good , but can you blame them for being a bit hesitant. You remeber toon link, your remember all that dislike. You rember when mario dawned a water pack and luigi dawned ghost hunting pack and all that dislike.

And even then nintendo has done a lot of different for quite a long time, different was their whole thing this gen. It eventually bit them in the ass, not because of being different, rather their home console alienting their fanbase, and the releases for the "hard core" were almost exclusivly nintendo. But even then they had the DS, it isn't quality of games
Its poor management.
 
What annoys me most is that Iwata has made Nintendo a cheap-ass company. The hardware is a joke, outdated and overpriced (Nintendo learns the hard way... AGAIN). Someday they will get into real trouble, the consumers aren't as stupid as Iwata thinks.

Remember when Nintendo could compete with the hardware power of their competitors, like 1983 to 2004? And they still made lots of money. Good times.
 
To gamers like myself who have had so little invested in Nintendo growing up, the only things that get me to buy a Nintendo console are system sellers.

I bought 3 DS consoles to play the games I wanted, such as Infinite Space, PW, and Trauma Center. Of these system sellers that have appealed to me, none have been from their first party catalog. While my opinion is probably in the minority, I couldn't care less about the retreads of their first party offerings.

For me, get the games I want out and I'll get their consoles. Otherwise, sod off, Nintendo.
 
Well there are four things I think about Iwata's vision as the head of Nintendo.

1) He's too focused on Japan.

I remember at the start of this generation how Iwata kept on going on and on about how people are turning away from consoles and something must be done about this and how Nintendo would with the Revolution. This was a huge disconnect for me as at the time of his comments the console business was doing record breaking, gangbuster, business.

It's true that in JAPAN gamers were dropping out of consoles in favour of mobile and handheld games but he completely ignored what North Americans and Europeans were finding compelling about Playstation 2s and Xboxes.

Plus look at his success with getting Japanese support and his complete lack of success in getting Western support as the article points out so well.

2) He was completely right about games getting too complicated for many

The Wii was a huge success for a reason. Many people WANT to play games but don't have the patience or desire to get to grips with dual stick FPS, dizzying cameras, and control schemes that require using more than two buttons. It's a huge barrier to entry for many many people who did love playing MineSweeper, Solitaire, and had fond memories of Space Invaders, Pacman, and the original Marios. The Wii and the DS grabbed that undeserved market.

3) But...

That underserved market were even better serviced by smart phones and those, along with tablets and free Web based flash games, have taken all of it pretty much (Iwata was reduced to pleading with people not to sell games for 1.99 as it 'undervalued' software). Sony, Microsoft, and PC have the hardcore locked down as Nintendo neglected them for years (that old VGCats comic with the peas starving to death back in 2008 had a point http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=267) leaving Nintendo with just traditional Nintendo fans who they for some reason can't make enough software for.

4) What is with all the first party droughts?

What is even happening here? This I don't understand one bit. Nintendo has billions and had mega buck billions during the Wii phenomenon. Why didn't they invest that in their own software? Where's the games?
 
What annoys me most is that Iwata has made Nintendo a cheap-ass company. The hardware is a joke, outdated and overpriced (Nintendo learns the hard way... AGAIN). Someday they will get into real trouble, the consumers aren't as stupid as Iwata thinks.

Remember when Nintendo could compete with the hardware power of their competitors, like 1983 to 2004? And they still made lots of money. Good times.

To be fair, the current pricing of the Wii U is quite competitive when compared to other current generation consoles. Both Wii U and PS3 cost around 200€ these days and with the current sales and ongoing lack of games it will only go down, I guess.
 
Got a 3DS day one and a Wii U day one. I should have held off buying the Wii U after how terrible the 3DS launch was. I fell for it and believed they knew what they were doing and that there would be a steady inflow of games.
 
What annoys me most is that Iwata has made Nintendo a cheap-ass company. The hardware is a joke, outdated and overpriced (Nintendo learns the hard way... AGAIN). Someday they will get into real trouble, the consumers aren't as stupid as Iwata thinks.

Remember when Nintendo could compete with the hardware power of their competitors, like 1983 to 2004? And they still made lots of money. Good times.

Has any Nintendo system except maybe the GBA not had a glaring h/w weakness compared to the rest of the market? The NES shipped with a quarter of the RAM and an eighth of the VRAM of the Master System, the SNES's CPU was terrible, the N64 was tied to carts, and the GC had its tiny discs. And then there's the monochrome GB, low-res GBC, and the DS line compared to the PSP.
 
What annoys me most is that Iwata has made Nintendo a cheap-ass company. The hardware is a joke, outdated and overpriced (Nintendo learns the hard way... AGAIN). Someday they will get into real trouble, the consumers aren't as stupid as Iwata thinks.

Remember when Nintendo could compete with the hardware power of their competitors, like 1983 to 2004? And they still made lots of money. Good times.

I'm not too sure Iwata is the reason for that. I mean, when Nintendo did compete in terms of hardware their rivals were Sega and a Sony that at the time was testing-the-waters. Realistically speaking I don't think Nintendo is capable of competing graphically with Sony or Microsoft, as both are heavily invested in technology while Nintendo is just a game company. I also doubt whether they could afford it because even then 3rd parties still probably wouldn't support them, so it would just sit on a shelve bleeding money.
 
Has any Nintendo system except maybe the GBA not had a glaring h/w weakness compared to the rest of the market? The NES shipped with a quarter of the RAM and an eighth of the VRAM of the Master System, the SNES's CPU was terrible, the N64 was tied to carts, and the GC had its tiny discs. And then there's the monochrome GB, low-res GBC, and the DS line compared to the PSP.

The NES shipped 2 years before the master system.
 
Got a 3DS day one and a Wii U day one. I should have held off buying the Wii U after how terrible the 3DS launch was. I fell for it and believed they knew what they were doing and that there would be a steady inflow of games.

They lied. They said there would be a steady flow of games.
 
Iwata didn't ruin Nintendo... he saved Nintendo with the Wii and DS. Now, it can be argued that he is ruining the company all over again this gen. But without him, there might not be a Nintendo to ruin today!
 
Let's be real here: No matter whether you want Iwata gone, he won't be until some MASSIVE fuck-up happens at Nintendo and they start posting larger and larger annual losses. Do we even have their FY2012 numbers yet?
 
Downplaying successes and underlining fails are arguable but her arguments are fair : Nintendo is not taking a full direction, why?
Maybe they don't want to totally lose their place in Sony/MS market? They want bread and butter but don't want to go full force (ie : money) when others took huge losses and Sony didn't even earn enough to fill in the gaps. So now, they're caught between 2 stools. But they still can turn back the situation like 3DS. Otherwise, yes, they fucked up their transition.

Regarding expansion : they ARE doing this since 2010 : they did their new building for 1000+ developers in Kyoto (you don't decide this kind of investment within 1-2 years), EAD Tokyo has been expanding, Monolith has been expanding in Tokyo, Retro Studios has been expanding. We don't see the results right now (ie : games) but they've done this. Could they start even before 2010? Maybe but we've seen many companies expanding directly after big successes and having problems at first issues. Nintendo often plays it safe, when they do a bet, it's because they have nothing to lose.

Let's be real here: No matter whether you want Iwata gone, he won't be until some MASSIVE fuck-up happens at Nintendo and they start posting larger and larger annual losses. Do we even have their FY2012 numbers yet?

They may publish them within next weeks. They previewed operating losses but they should earn money thanks to weak yen.
 
Iwata didn't ruin Nintendo... he saved Nintendo with the Wii and DS. Now, it can be argued that he is ruining the company all over again this gen. But without him, there might not be a Nintendo to ruin today!

At least I wouldn't have payed over £300 for a console with hardly any first party games.
 
Has any Nintendo system except maybe the GBA not had a glaring h/w weakness compared to the rest of the market? The NES shipped with a quarter of the RAM and an eighth of the VRAM of the Master System, the SNES's CPU was terrible, the N64 was tied to carts, and the GC had its tiny discs. And then there's the monochrome GB, low-res GBC, and the DS line compared to the PSP.

You can dog on Nintendo's handhelds if you want, but at least through the DS, Nintendo's handhelds could not be bested for a) value b) battery life and c) durability. (Of course then Nintendo said screw all that, let's make a PSP-killer with no battery life that costs an arm and a leg and scratches its own screen when you open and close the system :\ ).
 
At least I wouldn't have payed over £300 for a console with hardly any first party games.

Aren't you to be blamed for that? The large majority of gamers simply avoided buying that console as a result, why didn't you do the same? ;)
Especially after the 3DS debacle a wait-and-see approach might have been right for you, especially as the console's price already decreased by more than 30% since launch.
 
Aren't you to be blamed for that? The large majority of gamers simply avoided buying that console as a result, why didn't you do the same? ;)
Especially after the 3DS debacle a wait-and-see approach might have been right for you, especially as the console's price already decreased by more than 30% since launch.

After all the articles I've read and the hyperbolic PR from Nintendo. I was led to believe there would be a solid stream of good quality 1st and 3rd party games.

A couple of months later. All I get is an apology from Iwata for the lack of titles on WiiU. So yeah, they are totally to blame.
 
The NES shipped 2 years before the master system.

And? That certainly doesn't mean they weren't competitors.

If we want to compare closer dates, the SG-1000 shipped day and date with the Famicom and also had eight times the VRAM (though a notably worse GPU to go with it.)

You can dog on Nintendo's handhelds if you want, but at least through the DS, Nintendo's handhelds could not be bested for a) value b) battery life and c) durability. (Of course then Nintendo said screw all that, let's make a PSP-killer with no battery life that costs an arm and a leg and scratches its own screen when you open and close the system :\ ).

I'm not dogging on it at all. Just pointing out that conservative hardware is embedded deeply in Nintendo's engineering DNA and has often succeeded before--so calling it an Iwata idea or pointing to it as Nintendo's current problem with no further explanation is flawed.
 
You mean like Wind Waker? Most of the reaction stemmed from how it looked, not the fact the game was rushed and even now you get people still bringing up how it looked 'kiddie'.

Wasn't Super Mario Sunshine a different take? It didn't work, people only really enjoyed the void levels so they came back 5 years later and gave us a whole game like those void levels.

One of the biggest problems Nintendo face is that people who game regularly don't seem to know what it is they want from Nintendo. Most Nintendo games are critically acclaimed in hindsight - up until the remake was announced, Wind Waker was actually quite popular and you even had reactions that Nintendo changing it to a more plastic look was making it worse.

Luigi's Mansion is another one, I remember when it came out how much stick it got, that it wasn't a 3D platformer and it was short so why would anyone want it - particularly at launch. Now it's considered a charming and quirky title with a much sought after sequel.

It's the complete opposite with the 360 and PS3, at the time you get games that you think "oh my God this is amazing" but then in hindsight you think 'eh'. I'm horribly generalising here but I mean games like Uncharted, God of War, Gears of War, games that were hugely popular at launch and still have devoted followings but they don't feel as timeless. I don't mean they're terrible games, I've got them and enjoyed them to varying degrees but I can stick on Super Mario World, 64, Galaxy right now and be just as enamoured as when I played them.
PS1 and PS2 games struggle to retain that timelessness and even when you get HD ports, like God of War 1 and 2, while fun they show the limitations.

Again, I'm not suggesting they're bad games now or that coming to them fresh means you'll enjoy them less - just that they aren't like Mario or Zelda games when you look back on them. And very few games are, Uncharted 3 was what, a year after the second game and didn't quite scale those heights? A year between games is impressive work but the polish shows when you look back on a generation.

I guess this is part of the reason why Nintendo games have such long tails. I'm confident that NSMBU will shake off this perception that it's a cynical cash in with high reuse of assets once people give it a go and see the level design for themselves. And remember, that's the sort of trade off you're going to get if you want shorter development time. Rather than invest as much effort in the graphics and music, you get the effort in how the game plays. Isn't that what we really want?

I see Nintendo taking risks all the time, sometimes in big franchises and sometimes in smaller ones. We mainly remember the ones that don't pay off, like them using the Pilotwings franchise on what is essentially a handheld Wii Sports Resort title, or changing the graphical style of a game, or changing the gameplay of a Paper Mario game to make it a pseudo platformer.

Pikmin is a title that people praise but most forget it was a result of an experiment with Mario. Fire Emblem has taken off roughly the same rate that Advance Wars has been put to one side. I don't think this is an accident either.

I think the lack of consensus as to what Nintendo should do makes the response from fans difficult to gauge. You hear that it should have more power, just like the 3DS, yet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone disappointed with 2013's release schedule for the handheld.

Maybe the truth of the matter is that Nintendo's retail philosophy disagrees with most third parties. Tomb Raider was last month's big release and (technically) this month's is Bioshock Infinite. In 6 months, how many copies of Tomb Raider will be contributing to the income of Square-Enix? I bet it'll be £17.99 before the summer is here in earnest and the gaming community will have moved onto something else. Nintendo on the other hand expects their titles to sell constantly and continuously, that Wii U owners now and in 2 years will want to buy New Super Mario Bros U or Lego City Undercover or Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.

Fantastic post. Very thoughtful, and I agree with the points made.
 
I'm saying this as someone who has played through every Zelda and Mario that has released since the dawn of time. As a fan of those franchises I won't stop playing them but it has occurred to me that Nintendo simply has not managed their IPs well. Nobody would argue that deep inside they would love to see a different take, both in tone and design, on Mario and Zelda. Just one risk that would invite imagination and wonder back into those franchises. Yes, this is a subjective discussion but why would that make it any less relevant? Something is not working well at Nintendo.

Oh, you mean like mario galaxies? or Mario Land 3D?

While it is true that Zelda hasn't reignited gamers imaginations in the same way, I wouldn't say it was from a lack of trying... TP went back to the oot roots everyone seemed to love and Skyward Sword was a new take because TP had failed.

I do think your opinion isn't the only one like it, its echoed a lot in the industry, but in the long term Nintendo isn't in trouble, Wii U hasn't had a single release outside of its launch titles beyond lego city stories (from nintendo) it's biggest problem was the delays of Pikmin, w101, and rayman. Of course 3rd party support is already low, but this is mostly because EA and Nintendo had a falling out, Ubisoft while delaying rayman is still releasing AC4 and watch dogs for the Wii U iirc, that is good news, also activision will probably not leave the Wii U any time soon.

Nintendo has had a lot of problems with the Wii U, but it does seem that they are taking the very same steps they took with 3DS to turn it around (a Zelda remake, price cut, 3D Mario and Mario Kart this year) at least that is what it looks like.

It was a harsh transistion to the Wii U, far harder than anyone expected and the sales are reflecting that, of course we all knew it wasn't going to sell like the Wii, but iirc Xbox 360 only sold 6 million by its first anniversary. Wii U could do better than that if the titles are there in time. Certainly a 3DS turn around would look like a miracle, but I'm not writing it off just yet because even without japan heavily pulling the line with the console, Wii U could sell 20-25million by its 24th month on the market.

My biggest problem with this article is really that it lacks analyzing the quotes it points out and ties in things said in the gamecube era for things done in the wii or wii u era, same for wii quotes. You can't look at every machine as a continuation of ideas if their targets and goals change so completely from generation to generation.
 
After all the articles I've read and the hyperbolic PR from Nintendo. I was led to believe there would be a solid stream of good quality 1st and 3rd party games.

A couple of months later. All I get is an apology from Iwata for the lack of titles on WiiU. So yeah, they are totally to blame.

Last year's E3 should have made it evident that these software releases were not coming. The months following E3 should have made that even clearer. And since launch it's just plain obvious that Wii U gamers have to solely rely on 1st party releases, which may arrive one day.
 
So will they bow out of home consoles next gen and move to a hybrid portable that can connect to your TV?

Nah, they'll bow out of portables next gen and move to a hybrid home console that can operate without a television :-)

I do broadly agree: Nintendo are laying the foundations for convergence further down the line. I would not be surprised if a future hardware unit is both portable and backwards-compatible with Wii U titles. I think that might be two generations away, not one, but we'll see.
 
I mean, it's difficult to take this article with more than a grain of salt when the only opinions she puts into it from other people are from others who agree with the premise she's attempting to come across with.

Someone could easily make an "opposite" article with far more people they agree with, to make a pro-Iwata article that turns most of Rogers' article around to portray Iwata in a more positive light.

I think yes, he and Miyamoto, etc have made some bad calls, but they've undeniably also made some very good calls.

Had Iwata and Miyamoto not done a complete 180 in console philosophy between GCN and Wii, Nintendo would likely not be in business anymore. No way a GameCube successor with HD graphics and dual analog controller would have sold more than GameCube.

They were precipitously falling into irreversible irrelevance during the GameCube era, and Iwata deserves a lot of credit for turning all of that around, while at the same time staying true to their purpose as a hardware/software company and not going rogue like SEGA.
 
And? That certainly doesn't mean they weren't competitors.

It´s normal for a system that is released years earlier to have worse hardware in some departments.

If Nintendo released later/at the same time they had always better or at least comparable hardware.
See SNES > Mega Drive, N64 > Playstation,Saturn, XBox > Gamecube > PS2, Dreamcast
 
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