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Ubisoft developer on IGN boards: "someone is making a comeback"

Spike said:
Nintendo "failed" because of four things:

1.) they didn't offer enough content regularly,

2.) they also couldn't secure enough of the "big" franchises. No GTA/MGS/DMC hurt them. Not a wide variety of RPG's also hurt,

3.) the media size not being standard with the competition gave the third parties an excuse for not supporting the system,

4.) no online support from Nintendo themselves.

Still, I don't really see the Cube as a failure, per se. It offered some decent titles, and it brought back the Metroid franchise, albeit a fps, Zelda:TP looks really good, and Pikmin 2 was godly. Still, I wish they had alot more going on the system.

5) Not letting NOA have any control. IMHO NOA should start developing game for the West(NST does not count) and securing western developers. Same could apply to NOE.
 
The Shadow said:
Being that it's generally accepted that he's referring to Nintendo as being back in the race, does that also mean that it's generally accepted that Nintendo utterly failed this gen with the GameCube?

Why, I don't think this has ever been covered before. Bravo to you, Shadow, for finding a brand new topic we may all discuss.
 
A fucking men... NCL is fucking clueless to what the western audiences want. NOA is just a figurehead for the fat cats at NCL. NOA needs more power. Been saying this for years.
 
Miyamoto 'overseeing' lots of projects really hurt Nintendo last gen imo.

If would have been able to spend more time developing, we would have probably seen another cool sequel or two (Mario 128 maybe), and one or two new IPs.

I'm sure his role really helped out the 'other' games he was working on - but I think it was a bad decision by Nintendo in the grander scheme.
 
Spike said:
Nintendo "failed" because of four things:

1.) they didn't offer enough content regularly,

Attention Nintendo fans and Nintendo critics, here's your homework.

Reconcile the following:
1) Nintendo didn't offer up a consistent flow of 1st party games, giving the appearance that even they didn't support their own system as much as they should have.

2) Nintendo fans only buy Nintendo games, so why should 3rd parties even bother developing for the platform?


So, for a moment let's say that 1 is true. The rationale would be to allow plenty of elbow room for 3rd parties to make some inroads into Nintendo's market. The result is that Nintendo is criticized for not producing enough.

Now let's say that 2 is true. The rationale for not bothering with GCN ports of games becomes "No one would buy it anyway," because the system's userbase is just buying Nintendo games. The result, again, is that Nintendo is criticized for constantly stealing the spotlight from the very companies that they need for the system's survival.


I've never, ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
 
xsarien said:
Attention Nintendo fans, nintendo critics, here's your homework.

Reconcile the following:
1) Nintendo didn't offer up a consistent flow of 1st party games, giving the appearance that even they didn't support their own system as much as they should have.

2) Nintendo fans only buy Nintendo games, so why should 3rd parties even bother developing for the platform?


So, for a moment let's say that 1 is true. The rationale would be to allow plenty of elbow room for 3rd parties to make some inroads into Nintendo's market, the result is that Nintendo is criticized for not producing enough.

Now let's say that 2 is true. The rationale for not bothering with GCN ports of games becomes "No one would buy it anyway," because the system's userbase is just buying Nintendo games. The result, again, is that Nintendo is criticized for constantly stealing the spotlight from the very companies that they need for the system's survival.


I've never, ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

If Nintendo made more 1st party games, it would have drawn more attention to the console. 3rd parties would have followed. Nintendo only had ~30% of total sales on it's best console (SNES).
 
Onix said:
Miyamoto 'overseeing' lots of projects really hurt Nintendo last gen imo.

If would have been able to spend more time developing, we would have probably seen another cool sequel or two (Mario 128 maybe), and one or two new IPs.

I'm sure his role really helped out the 'other' games he was working on - but I think it was a bad decision by Nintendo in the grander scheme.

Well he went down to like 6-7 games last year, I think, with heavy focus on a couple (new Mario, new Zelda). He used to be doing 20-30, from reports a couple years back.
 
Onix said:
Miyamoto 'overseeing' lots of projects really hurt Nintendo last gen imo.

If would have been able to spend more time developing, we would have probably seen another cool sequel or two (Mario 128 maybe), and one or two new IPs.

I'm sure his role really helped out the 'other' games he was working on - but I think it was a bad decision by Nintendo in the grander scheme.

YES!

I've been saying this forever, Miyamoto taking a more hands off approach lead to NCL games that were great but not incredible, genre difining stuff that I expect from them. That's what hurt GC more than anything in my eyes. N64 had very little software, but Nintendo's stuff was GOLD and I loved it for that. I can't say the same for GC, if you're not going to deliver a ton of content at least make sure what you do have out there is incredible.
 
Zerodoppler said:
Nintendo lost because the general public is less interested in its franchises than they were in the past.

Yes, and many of them were also pissed because many of those games weren't as good this generation as last.

Stop it. You don't know what you're talking about, really.

Sunshine was in no way "rushed", and Mario Kart didn't scream "rushed" in any way either.

DDR with Mario was too simplistic, yes. But it was meant to be. And that wasn't Nintendo giving their franchise to Konami to make. They just let Konami put Mario in their franchise.

.. And why the hell are you mentioning Strikers again? No one cares if you thought it didn't have enough content. You're supposed to be naming games/reasons stating why GameCube "failed" and Strikers is in no way proof of that. It's been out for a month, it's good singleplayer and GREAT multiplayer, and sold great in its first month.

Whatever. I read an article that said Nintendo was tight scheduled for MK: DD and Sunshine. I could be mistaken, though.

And I'm mentining Strikers because when people see the quality not as top notch as it should be, it'll make them reconsider when getting another Mario Sports game on the chance that it could be just as barren or whatever.

And sports games aside, Nintendo did stupid things to Mario and Zelda as already stated.

Attention Nintendo fans and nintendo critics, here's your homework.

Reconcile the following:
1) Nintendo didn't offer up a consistent flow of 1st party games, giving the appearance that even they didn't support their own system as much as they should have.

2) Nintendo fans only buy Nintendo games, so why should 3rd parties even bother developing for the platform?


So, for a moment let's say that 1 is true. The rationale would be to allow plenty of elbow room for 3rd parties to make some inroads into Nintendo's market. The result is that Nintendo is criticized for not producing enough.

Now let's say that 2 is true. The rationale for not bothering with GCN ports of games becomes "No one would buy it anyway," because the system's userbase is just buying Nintendo games. The result, again, is that Nintendo is criticized for constantly stealing the spotlight from the very companies that they need for the system's survival.


I've never, ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Very good point. I can't speak for everyone else, but given the choice, I would rather have excellent first party support from Nintendo than a few meager third party games here and there.

YES!

I've been saying this forever, Miyamoto taking a more hands off approach lead to NCL games that were great but not incredible, genre difining stuff that I expect from them. That's what hurt GC more than anything in my eyes. N64 had very little software, but Nintendo's stuff was GOLD and I loved it for that. I can't say the same for GC, if you're not going to deliver a ton of content at least make sure what you do have out there is incredible.

High Five!

Well he went down to like 6-7 games last year..

And one of those games happened to be DK: JB. :groan
 
Oblivion said:
GC failed cause Nintendo rushed out with games, outsourced their franchises to (some) incompetent third parties, and did incredibly stupid things with their biggest franchises.

Also, purple

This is hilarious to hear that they are now being criticized for rushing out games after what N64 owners were plagued with delay after delay after delay.
 
mj1108 said:
This is hilarious to hear that they are now being criticized for rushing out games after what N64 owners were plagued with delay after delay after delay.

If they were able to churn out these games while keeping their N64 level of quality, then it wouldn't have been a problem. But that didn't happen. So given the choice:

-Shorter wait for mediocre game
-Longer wait for Fantastic game

Yeah, I'd pick the latter. :)
 
xsarien said:
Attention Nintendo fans and nintendo critics, here's your homework.

Reconcile the following:
1) Nintendo didn't offer up a consistent flow of 1st party games, giving the appearance that even they didn't support their own system as much as they should have.

2) Nintendo fans only buy Nintendo games, so why should 3rd parties even bother developing for the platform?


So, for a moment let's say that 1 is true. The rationale would be to allow plenty of elbow room for 3rd parties to make some inroads into Nintendo's market. The result is that Nintendo is criticized for not producing enough.

Now let's say that 2 is true. The rationale for not bothering with GCN ports of games becomes "No one would buy it anyway," because the system's userbase is just buying Nintendo games. The result, again, is that Nintendo is criticized for constantly stealing the spotlight from the very companies that they need for the system's survival.


I've never, ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Yup, pretty much.

What I was referring to is the launch. They launched with Luigi and Wave Race. Two weeks later, there was Pikmin and SSB:M. Then there was...NBA in January and nothing from Nintendo for a long while after that.
 
Oblivion said:
Yes, and many of them were also pissed because many of those games weren't as good this generation as last.

I really doubt that the "polish" of the games have much to do with sales. Most people never read reviews. If they did, you wouldn't see stuff like Driv3r on top of the charts. Mario sells because it's Mario.
 
Now the GCN is failure? Based on what?

It had great games 4gamers and made profits 4 Nintendo - thats all that matters.



/
 
Zerodoppler said:
I really doubt that the "polish" of the games have much to do with sales. Most people never read reviews. If they did, you wouldn't see stuff like Driv3r on top of the charts. Mario sells because it's Mario.

Well, the cel shading hurt Zelda badly, so that's worth mentioning.
 
nightez said:
Now the GCN is failure? Based on what?

It had great games 4gamers and made profits 4 Nintendo - thats all that matters.



/

Oh no no, its not an economic failure. Its a strategic failure ;).
 
Oblivion said:
Well, the cel shading hurt Zelda badly, so that's worth mentioning.
Actually no, it didn't.

You can say "BUT IT SOLD LESS THAN OOT!!!11"

OoT is the best selling zelda at something like 7-8 million. All other zeldas are between 1 and 5 million. WW is somewhere around 4 or 5 million.
 
Oblivion said:
And one of those games happened to be DK: JB. :groan

Are you implying the DK: JB wasn't worth his time? Are you daring to say that DK: JB wasn't a good game? Because *sharpens knife* I'm simply dying to find out.
 
I <3 Katamari said:
Wow, you really do like to back up your arguments with reasoning behind it.

Lol. I purposely made my post sound like that. But you want an argument, fine.

-The cel shading turned off a lot of people.
-WW sold less than Ocarina.

Thus we can reasonably conclude that cel shading hurt Zelda. :)

Are you implying the DK: JB wasn't worth his time? Are you daring to say that DK: JB wasn't a good game? Because *sharpens knife* I'm simply dying to find out.

He could have devoted his time to something more useful. Also, the fun was over just as quickly as it began. :(
 
DK:JB hater said:
-WW sold less than Ocarina.

Every Zelda game has sold less than Ocarina.



DK:JB hater said:
He could have devoted his time to something more useful. Also, the fun was over just as quickly as it began. :(

Bullshit, Jungle Beat is the 2nd best game Nintendo has developed this gen. It was the essence of fun and old-school gameplay, mashed together in DK goodness and hilarity. Breaking old scores and unlocking new levels can take a while.
 
Ganondorf>Link said:
Every Zelda game has sold less than Ocarina.

Damn it! The point is cel shading is bad and Nintendo should never ever do it again! Gawd. [/napoleondynamite]

Bullshit, Jungle Beat is the 2nd best game Nintendo has developed this gen. It was the essence of fun and old-school gameplay, mashed together in DK goodness and hilarity. Breaking old scores and unlocking new levels can take a while.

2nd best game Nintendo developed this Gen?

BACK TO THE LOONY BIN WITH YE
 
Foolish person said:
Damn it! The point is cel shading is bad and Nintendo should never ever do it again! Gawd.

No its not bad, especially since its one of the better selling Zelda games.



Foolish person said:
2nd best game Nintendo developed this Gen?

BACK TO THE LOONY BIN WITH YE

DK: JB was almost as good as RE4. Only Wind Waker was better in terms of games developed by Nintendo, otherwise nothing else really came close.
 
Oblivion said:
Damn it! The point is cel shading is bad and Nintendo should never ever do it again! Gawd. [/napoleondynamite]



2nd best game Nintendo developed this Gen?

BACK TO THE LOONY BIN WITH YE

Jungle Beat is one of the most fun and original games of this entire generation. Probably the best platformer this gen.
 
Cell Shading didnt make the Zelda game bad, the fact that the game was less than steller did. It had like 4 dungeons, the sailing was very repetative and the game was hardly a challange.
 
Oblivion said:
He could have devoted his time to something more useful. Also, the fun was over just as quickly as it began. :(
You seriously fail at fun...Go back to hitting a hoop down the road with a stick...
 
I would definitely rate Jungle Beat in the top 5 Nintendo developed Gamecube games easily. Definitely the best Donkey Kong game in a LONG time.
 
Failure?

Hmm...let's see. The Gamecube:

1. Sold ~19 million units around the world.

2. Has plenty of great games--18 at 90+% at Gamerankings.com, including 2 in the top 5.

3. Made a lot of money for Nintendo, even while being a "budget system" for most of its life.


Now, here's its closest competitor. The Xbox:

1. Sold ~22 million units around the world.

2. Has plenty of great games--22 at 90+% at Gamerankings.com, including 1 in the top 10.

3. Has lost a lot of money for Microsoft--reportedly about $4 billion, even though it spent most of its life at the high end of retail pricing on current-gen consoles.


If the Gamecube is a failure, then by any standard, so is the Xbox. But the Xbox isn't considered a failure. I suppose Nintendo gets a harsher judgement because it has some history to live up to.
But judging the Gamecube on its own merits, rather than through fanboy glasses or via unrealistic comparison with its predecessors, it's a successful console. It has everything a successful console should have--great games, good sales, a large/diverse library, strong retail presence/availability, and it turned a healthy profit for its company.
 
Leondexter said:

Failure of course is relative, but even after all that you have written, Nintendo still sounds as though they are fighting the tide. The XBox may have paid a heavy price for its "success", but it is still a success.
 
Xellotah said:
Failure of course is relative, but even after all that you have written, Nintendo still sounds as though they are fighting the tide. The XBox may have paid a heavy price for its "success", but it is still a success.

And the Gamecube was successful as well, without the price. How about that!
 
Xellotah said:
Failure of course is relative, but even after all that you have written, Nintendo still sounds as though they are fighting the tide. The XBox may have paid a heavy price for its "success", but it is still a success.


Good thing Dyack isn't on the 2nd party list anymore, what a waste of money and a shitty game to boot including a shitty halfassed remake
 
mj1108 said:
This is hilarious to hear that they are now being criticized for rushing out games after what N64 owners were plagued with delay after delay after delay.

Exactly. To me, GCN trumps N64 on just about every aspect except for two major things:
-sales (N64 had sold more hardware units and had more million sellers software-wise)
and
-that one killer app (Goldeneye) and/or that one defining must-have (Mario 64)

Everyone who keeps saying that the software was better on N64 is loony IMO! Yes there was OOT, PD, MM, Mario 64 & Goldeneye, yadda yadda. That doesn't mean the great efforts on GCN were bested by their N64 counterparts. Anyone who believes that is just using the sales numbers to back this up without looking at the FACT that there's 3 competitor's now as oppossed to only 2 last generation and thusly the GCN had less of a userbase than N64 to sell games to. Nintendo's output was just as good this generation as last...difference being that N64 did better overall 'cos there was less competition. Doesn't mean GCN (or Nintendo's output) sucked, just means that things got more complicated.

We can argue up'n'down all day long what Nintendo did wrong with GCN, but at the end of the day they got more 3RD party support and rebuilt ALOT of burnt bridges with the platform...which is more than can be said for N64. GCN was a step in the right dirrection away from the N64. Nintendo's biggest mistake going into this generation was ignoring MS as a player and that was mainly 'cos of Yamauchi. Going into this next generation though, Nintendo is clearly more focused, is trying to genuinly fix their image problems and they KNOW what their competition is doing and know who they are this time. I really think Nintendo was thrown for a loop by MS's forray into the industry...but I can also garauntee you that Billy Gates can't believe Nintendo didn't just keil over this generation.
 
DrGAKMAN said:
Everyone who keeps saying that the software was better on N64 is loony IMO! Yes there was OOT, PD, MM, Mario 64 & Goldeneye, yadda yadda. That doesn't mean the great efforts on GCN were bested by their N64 counterparts.

Actually it does. If you don't want sales, then we'll use quality as well. Mario 64 and Zelda: OoT were both better than what Nintendo's done this gen as games. Of course, Zelda: TP will have a chance to outshine OoT, something that can't be said about the Mario for this gen.
 
Oblivion said:
Actually it does. If you don't want sales, then we'll use quality as well. Mario 64 and Zelda: OoT were both better than what Nintendo's done this gen as games. Of course, Zelda: TP will have a chance to outshine OoT, something that can't be said about the Mario for this gen.

Goldeneye & Mario 64 were REALLY good...and I'll give you OOT too, but NGC's F-ZERO & SSBros trumped N64's. Then there's FE, 4 Swords, Metroid Prime, Pimin and others. Plus it had more 3RD party support including gems like Super Monkey Ball, RE4 & FF:CC. IMO Nintendo's (and the overall) output on NGC was more/better IMO. Of course...this is all opinion though.

Not saying N64 sucked...I loved PD, Banjo, PokeMon Snap, amoung others, but I think GCN had just as good output, plus more of it.
 
I bought 6 or 7 Nintendo64 games. I bought over 25 GCN games.

GCN was alot more worthwhile to me than N64 with the exception of Pilotwings64, my favorite N64 game by far, with OoT being the 2nd.
 
Leondexter said:
Failure?

Hmm...let's see. The Gamecube:

1. Sold ~19 million units around the world.

2. Has plenty of great games--18 at 90+% at Gamerankings.com, including 2 in the top 5.

3. Made a lot of money for Nintendo, even while being a "budget system" for most of its life.


Now, here's its closest competitor. The Xbox:

1. Sold ~22 million units around the world.

2. Has plenty of great games--22 at 90+% at Gamerankings.com, including 1 in the top 10.

3. Has lost a lot of money for Microsoft--reportedly about $4 billion, even though it spent most of its life at the high end of retail pricing on current-gen consoles.


If the Gamecube is a failure, then by any standard, so is the Xbox. But the Xbox isn't considered a failure. I suppose Nintendo gets a harsher judgement because it has some history to live up to.
But judging the Gamecube on its own merits, rather than through fanboy glasses or via unrealistic comparison with its predecessors, it's a successful console. It has everything a successful console should have--great games, good sales, a large/diverse library, strong retail presence/availability, and it turned a healthy profit for its company.
Gamecube is so the "Distance" third ... :lol :lol
 
xsarien said:
Attention Nintendo fans and Nintendo critics, here's your homework.

Reconcile the following:
1) Nintendo didn't offer up a consistent flow of 1st party games, giving the appearance that even they didn't support their own system as much as they should have.

2) Nintendo fans only buy Nintendo games, so why should 3rd parties even bother developing for the platform?


So, for a moment let's say that 1 is true. The rationale would be to allow plenty of elbow room for 3rd parties to make some inroads into Nintendo's market. The result is that Nintendo is criticized for not producing enough.

Now let's say that 2 is true. The rationale for not bothering with GCN ports of games becomes "No one would buy it anyway," because the system's userbase is just buying Nintendo games. The result, again, is that Nintendo is criticized for constantly stealing the spotlight from the very companies that they need for the system's survival.


I've never, ever seen a more clear-cut case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Microsoft and Sony don't have internal development studios and 2nd parties on the scale that Nintendo does, so they need to make virtually all of their income though 3rd party licensing fees. Nintendo basically makes all of its income from its own software and hardware sales, and supplements it with licensing income.

Here's the problem for Nintendo. On the one hand, since they're a giant software publisher they would very much like it if all of their software publishing competition went away so everyone would buy their games and only their games to make maximum profit. On the other hand, since they're a giant hardware manufacturer they would very much like it if all of the third parties wanted to publish a lot of games on their hardware to collect licensing fees.

The more games that are available for a system, the more competition there is among the publishers. That's good for the consumer, but that's not as good for the publisher. Nintendo is a publisher just like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft, but they are in the odd position of also developing the hardware like Sony or Microsoft.

What Nintendo needs to do with Revolution is strike a balance between either extreme. With the GameCube, they were leaned way toward the publishing aspect of their business, essentially implying to third party publishers to bugger off and take their games elsewhere. The big reason Nintendo made as much money as they did with the GC is that Nintendo's games were the only ones worth getting, so Nintendo gets all of the profit from them.

If Nintendo would open up to third parties in the same way Microsoft has, which is tantamount to letting pubs to put games on your system for free, it would be worth the short-term dip in profits to ensure the long-term profitability and (more critically) longevity of the the hardware. The PS2 is going to be a viable console for another 3 or 4 years at least, yet Nintendo is lucky for a console to be around for 5. That needs to change.

If this Ubisoft thing is legit (I don't doubt it is), I would hope he's talking about the internal practices at Nintendo, and not just how well the Revolution hardware is coming along.
 
WindyMan said:
What Nintendo needs to do with Revolution is strike a balance between either extreme. With the GameCube, they were leaned way toward the publishing aspect of their business, essentially implying to third party publishers to bugger off and take their games elsewhere. The big reason Nintendo made as much money as they did with the GC is that Nintendo's games were the only ones worth getting, so Nintendo gets all of the profit from them.

Yeah, which would make sense with the N64 being the most profitable (or 2nd profitable, I think) Nintendo console, cause pretty much all of the games, to a much higher extent than the GC, were Nintendo published games, and they sold a fuckton as well. Somebody compiled a list a while ago, and Nintendo sold over 120 million software units (more than the SNES, and I THINK NES as well), compared to the GC's 20-30 million, I believe.
 
GC wasn't a failure....
(failure = red ink)

However, if Rev sells less than GC, according to Nintendo, not only does Rev = failure, but Nintendo = failure.
 
Oblivion said:
Yeah, which would make sense with the N64 being the most profitable (or 2nd profitable, I think) Nintendo console, cause pretty much all of the games, to a much higher extent than the GC, were Nintendo published games, and they sold a fuckton as well. Somebody compiled a list a while ago, and Nintendo sold over 120 million software units (more than the SNES, and I THINK NES as well), compared to the GC's 20-30 million, I believe.
What??
Nintendo sold 20-30 million software units on GC?
Super Smash Bros. melee ~ 6 million
Super Mario Sunshine ~ 5 million
Zelda Wind Waker ~ 5 million
Mario Kart Double Dash ~ 5 million

Nintendo sold more than 20 million units of these four games, add to these all Mario Party games, Mario sport games, Metroid Games, Pikmin games, Pokemon games, Luigi's mansion, Animal Crossing, Star Fox games, ....
 
kia said:
What??
Nintendo sold 20-30 million software units on GC?
Super Smash Bros. melee ~ 6 million
Super Mario Sunshine ~ 5 million
Zelda Wind Waker ~ 5 million
Mario Kart Double Dash ~ 5 million

Nintendo sold more than 20 million units of these four games, add to these all Mario Party games, Mario sport games, Metroid Games, Pikmin games, Pokemon games, Luigi's mansion, Animal Crossing, Star Fox games, ....

Now that I think about it, the guy who made the list did it for every GC game up to October 2003, so I guess we can change that to 40-50 million by now. My bad :P.
 
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