NX launching in March to make sure there are games to go along with it
- Thread starter AcademicSaucer
- Start date
By what standard can a person who does not make games dictate to someone who does make games when those games "should" be ready?
I think it boils down to this: Most of us would rather they release the NX and its games when they're ready and not before, we're just impatient and don't like that the ready time isn't when we want it to be. But that's a "wish in one hand, shit in the other" scenario.
I have to imagine that Epic, the Unity guys, EA the other big boys have them at least. Well...Ubisoft might not cuz they leak EVERYTHING.
It is by definition PR talk. And I do think Kimishima is actually right. Question is rather, how many games will they be able to deliver.
MrSaturn99
Member
Not that I don't get your point, but you miiiiiiiight want to think about changing the present tense here.
That might be so, but they gonna have a hard time convincing people from the getgo.
Amany will wait it out and see if it actually pans out that way.
Hold your horses, by the time being the only confirmed game for NX is Zelda, and even then it might not be a launch title, at least it wasn't confirmed as that.
Barry Burton
Member
But they've never needed to "get it right" more than they need to this time. Shit happens and games get delayed all the time. There's no way they wouldn't have preferred to launch this November. That they were willing to push it back a few months gives me more confidence than concern, honestly.
But again, we'll check back in a year and see how well this works out for them. You might be 100% correct and they've messed up again and they haven't fixed the software drought problem. That would be incredibly disappointing.
As someone who is much more bummed out today about Zelda Wii U's delay than the NX 2017 release window, I'm shuddering at the thought of that happening. Think happy thoughts...
off duty ninja
Member
Man I want to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt but the Wii U KILLED my love for Nintendo and I don't see things changing. Where was Metroid, Animal Crossing, Zelda (non remasters) etc. We got 1 3D Mario and 1 side scroller. Why don't they make a console Pokemon?
I just have absolutely no faith in Nintendo's development process. It is like they have to time the release of Zelda to hit both platforms simply so they can say each one has a "new" Zelda title. I doubt there will even be another new one for the NX after this one.
I understand that they are perfectionists when it comes to game performance but drip feed of games is fucking ridiculous and is absolutely exacerbated by no 3rd party support.
The b tier Nintendo releases only reinforce my belief that they have lost touch with how to develop games.
I just have absolutely no faith in Nintendo's development process. It is like they have to time the release of Zelda to hit both platforms simply so they can say each one has a "new" Zelda title. I doubt there will even be another new one for the NX after this one.
I understand that they are perfectionists when it comes to game performance but drip feed of games is fucking ridiculous and is absolutely exacerbated by no 3rd party support.
The b tier Nintendo releases only reinforce my belief that they have lost touch with how to develop games.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Are you on drugs? The N64 launch was the worst Nintendo home console launch of all time. It came out with TWO games, dude. TWO! Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings. That was literally it. No other Nintendo console has come out with such a pathetic amount of games available on day one. It took the N64 three months to get to double digits in quantity of games available.
Not all of them have audiences elsewhere. There's no excuse for Nintendo not trying to get stuff like FFXV, KH3, or other 3rd party games that could sell decently for them. Heck, with Japan, I'd expect stuff like Kh3 to sell better on a potential NX than Xbox.
And what's wrong with getting some of those games and doing your own thing?
Tegra was out by at least Jan 2010 when 3rd party kits were going out. That wasn't why launch was pushed out to Q1 2011, it was because of the games.
Bony Manifesto
Member
There's probably very small, individually-vetted teams within those companies with early access to technical material, but I think as soon as full-scale development begins, it's impractical to keep so many people sworn to secrecy.
Tegra chip for the 3DS fell through, not the market Tegra chip. If had to have its hardware changed to the current chip, and that definitely fucked with their dev tools in the short term back then.
Duckhuntdog
Member
Kimishima for the combo breaker. Let's be honest, Iwata was a likeable person. But his ability to actually learn, adapt, and execute was horrible/non-existent.
Kimishima being more of an actual business man, is probably the CEO Nintendo really needs/needed.
metalslimer
Member
Yep and it took a a until holiday 2011 for the 3ds to get going. Nintendo rushed out the 3ds.
disastermouse
Banned
This will be quite forgivable if there's a Mario (3D), Zelda, and Metroid out when the system launches.
LordOcidax
Member
So, is Nintendo making this on purpose to bother the fans.... And yes in 3 months a game can be ready.
The statement isn't about software droughts though, it's about having games at launch. So you might want to save this list for when the "we want to avoid droughts on the NX" statement comes (and based on your list, it's coming).
Yeah but the NX is Iwata's work, if he can break this cycle of droughts it will be with the next console/handheld to release after the nx
Triggerhappytel
Member
What will their excuses be when the inevitable post-release droughts roll around though?
Doing so would over-saturate the NX's launch year which would result in 2018 being a little bit dry. It seems like Nintendo is aiming to have a solid and steady stream of first party titles. Unless Nintendo plans to rely on third party releases in 2018 to make up for the slight drought. I suppose it would make logical sense to do that since third parties will have had plenty of time to develop games by then. Hopefully.
The standard of those without infinite disposable income and many, many other choices to put their gaming dollars. To most people a console purchase is an investment, and just like any other investments investors can be scared off for a variety of reasons. Nintendo has been "Assuming" their sales for a long time now and seem to haven't learned a damn thing.
Wandering Robot
Member
That makes it sound like they weren't developing games this whole time at all. Not planning (or at least not planning well) for the NX release at all, either. Of course, I don't know how long the NX has been in production, but this "making sure games are there" seems like...well, kind of a non-answer.
To be fair, pretty much every platform lacks games in the launch window. PS4 had mostly cross gen games and remasters.
They should be throwing money into making it for holiday 2016. They are insane for missing this year.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
That's all fine and well, but why wait so long to unveil it and skip E3?
Alex_Mexico
Member
Three to five? Try two. Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings on day one. It took the N64 from its September launch until 1997 to get to double digits in amount of games released in NA.
The PS2 launched on day one with the amount of games the N64 took 4 months to release.
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
It wasn't ready yet. Is that not obvious?
Duckhuntdog
Member
Not really. He can delay the launch to a point where he feels confident enough that the games are on track. Which seems to be the case here.
Iwata would have probably launched the NX this year and let the drought happen and the give the ol' 'Please uderstand' or 'I'm sorry' excuse.
Kimishima seems he would rather delay and get things solid. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he delays again.
Worse comes to works Kimishima could just say transitioning to X86/ARM was difficult after you have been on PPC for so long. I'm joking about that, let's hope that isn't an excuse that is used.
I'm sure it's a blend of the two.
Switching platforms mid-development also increases the dev cycle in the case of Retro.
Barry Burton
Member
Absolutely nothing wrong with it, but they aren't going to do it.
And this is the one time Nintendo has ever launched a system where it actually makes sense for them to not invest in trying to get games that the other systems get. They missed that window.
It doesn't really matter either way, because Nintendo isn't going to do it. They haven't for 20+ years. This comes up every time they are about to launch a new console, but I really won't even entertain the idea of Nintendo prioritizing third-parties until they actually go out and get it done!
I'm just thinking purely from a dev cycle perspective, a 2018 past February release would mean it took them longer than four years to release a new game and that's disastrous management on Nintendo's part. Unless of course they're making something on a massive scale, like an MMO which then explains why they needed more time.
The decision to make it an NX game should have been made directly after Tropical Freeze instead of starting development on Wii U.
I think we have to be hearing SOMETHING soon at this point given that we're less than a year away from the thing launching.
I meant the change from Tegra to Pica, Tegra was out (of 3DS) by Jan 2010. The press didn't catch wind of it until around E3 2010 though.
friskykillface
Banned
idk man, I paid $350 + tax for a wii u system on launch day, and an extra $80 for two games (that was only with a buy 1 get 1 40% off discount) and after zombiU and NSMBwii u there was nothing until pikmin 3, they got lucky lego city was so good
NX zelda won't cut it honestly, will just buy it on Wii u and wait until black friday to buy a NX since it will have discounts x bundles and more games released for the holiday
Nintendo has to step it up this time with launch games and games in the first year , I will let ports of smash wii u and splatoon be acceptable if it is released in the first 6-12 months
NX zelda won't cut it honestly, will just buy it on Wii u and wait until black friday to buy a NX since it will have discounts x bundles and more games released for the holiday
Nintendo has to step it up this time with launch games and games in the first year , I will let ports of smash wii u and splatoon be acceptable if it is released in the first 6-12 months
One this isn't solely a Nintendo thing, most platforms struggle in their first year. Two Nintendos whole restructuring which started during Iwata has been aimed at solving this problem. Integrating the handheld and console division, making a unified development environment for handheld and home consoles, integrating the architectures are all aimed at making it easier to support two platforms at once and avoid droughts.
So even if things do get better now, we shouldn't give Kimishima all the credit.
I got ya (after re-reading) but it had the same affect on early software and SDKs. That's an underlying part in why the 3DS was so barren early on, and why Nintendo had to delay and even then still fail in providing large swathes of software.
The other problem, at the time, being that their major teams were swamped with the HD transition. The whole 3DS/WiiU cycle was, for them, an internal clusterfuck and a mess.
In this scenario, I think people are reading too far into Kimishima's words. For (a.) I don't think he's being entirely truthful in the source of the delay, this was definitely planned for 2016 and had a software line-up made, for (b.) I don't think he's talking about launch, I think he's talking about the coming year+ of getting a steady software stream lined up. I think two things have happened here (well three). The production on the hardware end is too slow for a worldwide release (and we had rumors of staggered releases), they hit software Q&A delays on Zelda and a few other titles, and, lastly, they wanted to button down a year+ of software scheduling. As these issues compounded on one another, I think they simply opted for a later release than the original Holiday intention.
here are the Nintendo-published retail releases for Wii U in North America over the last 16 months I bolded the ones I bought:
====2015==== [10 games]
February
20) Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
March
20) Mario Party 10
May
29) Splatoon
September
11) Super Mario Maker
October
16) Yoshi's Wooly World
16) New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U
November
13) Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival
20) Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash
December
4) Xenoblade Chronicles X
11) Devil's Third
====2016==== [8]
March
4) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
18) Pokkén Tournament
April
22) StarFox Zero
22) StarFox Guard
(I would have bought Xenoblade if I had the time to sink into it and I would have bought Devil's Third if it came out in August with the rest of the world.) I've felt fine about Nintendo's output over the last year or so, although from here on out it's bleak and I basically consider it a dead system.
And you can bet NX will have tons of those as well. Remasters make more sense there too, since almost no one owned a WiiU last gen, so potential to lure in new consumers with remasters of games they never played.
gigantor21
Member
...games they cant showcase at E3 despite the console coming out 9 months later? Forgive me for being a wee bit skeptical, especially after seeing the droughts that plagued the WiiU.
There was also a developer hiring increase as well as reorganizing offices and buildings. A lot of said changes will take time to pay off. It was long term planning, not short, and long term doesn't mean a year or two.
Nintendo in recent time is reluctant to show games that aren't just around the corner. I'm assuming they want to use social networks and media to show the console, as with their Twitch/Youtube Directs, when it gets closer to time. They've increasingly pushed E3 aside as a main venue for showcasing new product, as have some other companies.