We were mainly discussing gen 5 I think, but yeah I guess it did. Similar to how N64 probably wiped out a lot of the SNES profits.
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What do you consider Nintendo's most illogical or baffling decision?
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We were mainly discussing gen 5 I think, but yeah I guess it did. Similar to how N64 probably wiped out a lot of the SNES profits.
killatopak
Gold Member
Very ironic.
What? The question is only stated for gen 5. No matter what happened in the future gens had no bearing with the question. Even if Nintendo did make more money on gen 5 or not.
Oh and PS plus.
Boy Wander
Member
There's loads.
Two that stick out are staying with carts for N64 and going with those stupid mini discs for GC.
Two that stick out are staying with carts for N64 and going with those stupid mini discs for GC.
iceblade997
Member
I'm not so familiar with Nintendo so would go with one that has had massive ramifications for them and everyone else - failing to hash out a deal they felt comfortable with with Sony re CD support, and thus announcing a partnership with Phillips for CD support the day before Sony was set to make the announcement with Nintendo. IMO it wound up doing more damage than just Nintendo sticking with carts on the N64 as it laid the seed for Sony to come in later with the PS1, when perhaps they wouldn't have bothered to try at all, and we all know how things have played out since then.
It's not so much baffling, but if you have *a* deal and don't like it, at least tell the other party you want to renegotiate...
It's not so much baffling, but if you have *a* deal and don't like it, at least tell the other party you want to renegotiate...
Prince of Space
Banned
The Wii U reveal.
Focusing entirely on the controller, showing a handful of incredibly vague concepts that looked genuinely boring and other titles that looked exactly like pre-existing Wii games, that stupid name. Everything about the Wii U was half-assed.
Focusing entirely on the controller, showing a handful of incredibly vague concepts that looked genuinely boring and other titles that looked exactly like pre-existing Wii games, that stupid name. Everything about the Wii U was half-assed.
chronic_archaic
Member
Must not be that important if they let you play all your DS games
And yeah, the ambassador games do look like ass - but hacks have shown us you can improve this a ton.
2Smashed4U
Banned
Will never happen, let it go.
Zombi U was about the only thing to use it well, but it was very game-specific and actually played on its inherent disadvantage of having to look away from the screen.
The GamePad was a dead duck, the fact they were still considering dropping it for cost reasons late on in the console's development says how little they considered it integral to the games they wanted to make. Unlike the Wii which was built around the Wiimote and Wii Sports.
When Nintendo Land was unveiled it was blatantly obvious they did not have a clue how to build a compelling game round it and were just throwing everything at a wall.
The only good thing to say about the Wii U, ignoring the library, is it's only compelling feature was spun-off into the Switch and that system made to make sense. The learned hard from it.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I don't think Nintendo lost any money on the N64, so it wouldn't have affected the SNES' profits.
killatopak
Gold Member
The hell? The very first sentence states that it was a good thing Nintendo doesn't only make consoles. Who's the one forgetting what now?
Neff
Member
Nope, N64 was highly successful for them.
PS3 and 360 were, believe it or not, unprecedented financial disasters, both desperate attempts to decisively win market share (and in Sony's case establish a proprietary format) at tremendous cost.
jts
...hate me...
The deal was extremely unfavourable to Nintendo IIRC, so we would probably be living in a world without Nintendo or Nintendo games.
No thanks.
It was idiotic the way they agreed to that deal and the way they bailed, but bailing was necessary.
I don't think it's necessarily the most baffling, but it's the most baffling that affected me a lot. And that is region locking 3DS. It soured me on the whole platform. DS was import heaven, I loved it that I could just order anything from anywhere the world, never had to worry if something is available or going to be made available in Europe (of course the language barrier still limited my purchases, but a lot of games don't need language to enjoy). I could import all the Ouendans and Jump Superstars and Daigassoo! Band Brothers that I wanted. 3DS was a huge FUCK YOU for someone who considers DS one of the best gaming platforms of all time because of that
Composite cables for Gamecube and Wii is way up there. Original post had a good choice.
Trying to bring Japan's artificial rarity market to the US starting with Amiibos. Maybe it's a success with a small audience but it ticks me right off. Now I can't buy half the 3DS games I want because they're all out of print and going for $70 or more. I do not see how this is a smart move.
Trying to bring Japan's artificial rarity market to the US starting with Amiibos. Maybe it's a success with a small audience but it ticks me right off. Now I can't buy half the 3DS games I want because they're all out of print and going for $70 or more. I do not see how this is a smart move.
Sorry, thought we were talking gen 5
and yes, n64 was not sold at a loss, so no profits squandered
Hey we don't know how bizarre the phone app/voice chat will be yet, it could be even more baffling than we think!
Not regularly releasing a Pokemon RPG for their home consoles.
I'm not convinced it would have damaged sales of the handheld versions (and even if it did, it would have boosted the console version sales). If the GC, Wii and Wii U had these it would have boosted sales even further. Hopefully they fix this with the Switch.
I'm not convinced it would have damaged sales of the handheld versions (and even if it did, it would have boosted the console version sales). If the GC, Wii and Wii U had these it would have boosted sales even further. Hopefully they fix this with the Switch.
-shadow-
Member
The topic already has summed up most of what I was thinking, so good on that.
The game most certainly wasn't released in a very limited quantity in Europe. A Media Markt here at One point was selling copies for 10 because they had too many of them. The game was only ever truly limited in the US. That story just ended up blowing over here and scalpers assumed it was also rare here.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Those are probably it. Their shitty and super behind the others approach to online in general.
I get that they're the top choice for parents and families, but there are much better ways to go about it with good parental controls, having online features disabled by default if they wanted etc.
Most other things that annoyed me like sticking with carts with N64 and alienating third parties, the Wii not being HD at least made business sense (licensing fees for the carts, keeping costs down on a console that they were marking to casuals and non-gamers that weren't HDTV early adopters) so I can get why they did them.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I'd love an update to this image all the way out to 2016.
Tavernacle12
Member
Killing the RPG features in the Paper Mario series would be the most baffling for me. A lot of the other ones (Wii Music, Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival) at least make sense as to why they exist.
TreasureHunterG
Banned
- Carts for N64 (64DD was pretty much a confession of a mistake).
- Making N64 hardware intentionally hard to develop (according to Hiroshi Yamauchi).
- Not giving Squaresoft the same treatment they gave to Enix, the major reason why they split, thus moved to Sony. Reason why it started a third-party exodus in Japan.
- Mini-DVDs for GCN.
- Purple box design for GCN.
- Ignoring the offspring of the online market in the GCN days, which gave both Sony and Microsoft a head start both in market and infrastructure wise.
- Shutting down the western development divisions, stripping away the autonomy of western's branches, ending second-party and publishing deals with western publishers and burning bridges with most western third-parties during Iwata's ternure. Selling Rare was the most infamous example.
- Decision making and market appealing being concentrated on Japan mostly.
- Abandoning hardware race in the Wii and Wii U days for market darwinism and economic austerity.
- Mandatory gimmicky controller for Wii.
- Shafting or mismanaging once major and well-known IP's like Donkey Kong, Metroid, F-Zero, Star Fox, Wave Race, etc..
- Relying too heavily on nostalgia of their IPs like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong instead evolving their formula to modern standards.
- Excessive focus on simplicity geared toward casuals and family during Wii and Wii U days.
- Inability to support two systems at once, causing significant droughts during the system's life time as they don't enough internal studios to handle it.
- Making N64 hardware intentionally hard to develop (according to Hiroshi Yamauchi).
- Not giving Squaresoft the same treatment they gave to Enix, the major reason why they split, thus moved to Sony. Reason why it started a third-party exodus in Japan.
- Mini-DVDs for GCN.
- Purple box design for GCN.
- Ignoring the offspring of the online market in the GCN days, which gave both Sony and Microsoft a head start both in market and infrastructure wise.
- Shutting down the western development divisions, stripping away the autonomy of western's branches, ending second-party and publishing deals with western publishers and burning bridges with most western third-parties during Iwata's ternure. Selling Rare was the most infamous example.
- Decision making and market appealing being concentrated on Japan mostly.
- Abandoning hardware race in the Wii and Wii U days for market darwinism and economic austerity.
- Mandatory gimmicky controller for Wii.
- Shafting or mismanaging once major and well-known IP's like Donkey Kong, Metroid, F-Zero, Star Fox, Wave Race, etc..
- Relying too heavily on nostalgia of their IPs like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong instead evolving their formula to modern standards.
- Excessive focus on simplicity geared toward casuals and family during Wii and Wii U days.
- Inability to support two systems at once, causing significant droughts during the system's life time as they don't enough internal studios to handle it.
Stallion Dan
Member
Tough to call, because Ninty have made so many baffling and illogical decisions.
TheUntamedLegend
Member
Nintendo Land secretly contained the best Metroid game in a long time. Seriously disappointed they never made a full game based off the controls of Metroid Blast.
killatopak
Gold Member
I'd be surprised if it was sold at a loss. Even if they weren't having a larger amount of game sales, the profit they made with the cartridge was still a lot.
Playstation on the other hand was plagued by piracy so I imagine that would also be a bit of a loss.
TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared
Member
I wanna say leaving metroid on practicaly hiatus* for so long, but I don't know if thats just a bad creative decision.
*Put your hand down, Other M and Federation Force aren't real.
*Put your hand down, Other M and Federation Force aren't real.
ss_lemonade
Member
What was the reason for going with the mini dvd format on the gamecube, when it could read full size DVDs just fine?
Shadax the wizard
Member
Yes, this. Metroid Prime franchise I'm assuming?
Toss up between the terrible communication about the Switch's online service and the service itself.
Nintendo have been incredibly poor at communicating about the online functionality of the switch, leading people to assume that basic functionality like messaging friends or adding friends based on something less archaic than fucking friend codes.
Then there's the plans for the App which if the functionality it gives really isn't going to be available in the system itself is without a doubt one of the worst ideas any company has come up with in this industry. The idea that nobody at Nintendo understands the popularity of headsets which allow you to hear both the game and voice chat is absurd.
If it were any other company id expect them to backtrack but as it's Nintendo, the Switch will probably just never be a fully capable online console.
Nintendo have been incredibly poor at communicating about the online functionality of the switch, leading people to assume that basic functionality like messaging friends or adding friends based on something less archaic than fucking friend codes.
Then there's the plans for the App which if the functionality it gives really isn't going to be available in the system itself is without a doubt one of the worst ideas any company has come up with in this industry. The idea that nobody at Nintendo understands the popularity of headsets which allow you to hear both the game and voice chat is absurd.
If it were any other company id expect them to backtrack but as it's Nintendo, the Switch will probably just never be a fully capable online console.
killatopak
Gold Member
Maybe they were just hell bent on the form factor.
Neff
Member
Council Pop
Member
Maybe they serve Japanese audiences because they're a Japanese company, based in Japan, and most of the creative leads and decision makers are they themselves Japanese? It's like saying that all films should either be American or Chinese cos that's where the money is.
Irishonion
Member
Probably not the worst but me having to buy a power cord for my brand new 3ds was really annoying. Even if it wasn't the most expensive thing.
No lies detected.
The perfect Dark
Banned
The WiiU itself
Selling Rare (or let MS buy Rare)
Not developing another F-Zero or Wave Race
Selling Rare (or let MS buy Rare)
Not developing another F-Zero or Wave Race
Sword Of Doom
Member
Announcing paid online coming off of one of the worst selling home consoles of all time. You'd think they'd avoid it for now and try to make the Switch as welcoming and affordable as possible. I think it's a stupid decision.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Where on earth did you get that impression. N64 didn't do anything like that.
fatal frame zero's release kinda proved them right