Wii U Speculation Thread The Third: Casting Dreams in The Castle of Miyamoto

Hero of Legend said:
Can you elaborate on said clues? :(

I wanted so badly for Headstrong to revive it on Wii U, and we may have just lost that opportunity. :'( :'( :'(
Click to expand...

I had heard they were tapping Headstrong for a reboot of one of their Dreamcast franchises and it had to do with an XBLA port.

Considering that it's Headstrong, the only choices there really are Space Channel, Crazy Taxi (which has only really been dead in terms of quality), and JSF.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I don't think concern should be about variety or creativity.

DICE isn't going to suddenly start making 3D platformers even if we stayed at this level of tech.

But there's a ceiling to this stuff and, as that ceiling raises, the middle gets stretched further and further.

AddEj.jpg


Let's say the top cookie is Activision, EA, Epic, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc., the companies that can afford AAA games. They might not like spending that money, but they can.

The bottom cookie are the lower-tier developers (in terms of budget, mind you). They might work with bigger publishers as developer farms, they might be digital distribution only, they could be looking at worldwide sales of 100,000 and being happy as fuck because that's better than they ever imagined.

The creamy middle is everyone else. THQ to Konami (though I think this may no longer be true of either of them for different reasons and directions), Tecmo to Koei, Atlus to Zoo Games. This was, at one point, the biggest part of the industry.

Then comes us.

01coj.jpg


We twist and pull the top cookie off, lick off the cream, and demand more. The cream that gets attached to the top cookie is gone. The rest can't compete. And all we have is a hunger for more of the highest budget stuff.

When I see "Microsoft is making a AAAA game," I get genuinely concerned. Not because I don't want high budget games, high budgets can be awesome! Uncharted 2 would have been a worse game without the money they threw at it (and UC3 was a worse game with more, so it's not always a direct correlation both ways). But as graphics capability rises, the consumer is going to want things that take full advantage of that, and the top of the industry is going to supply it to them.

And when that becomes commonplace, we'll suffer with greater prices, more lost jobs, more cut corners, and more content stripped away to become DLC on the first day because they want to raise the effective game price to $70 but can't because the market won't bear it.

tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.
Click to expand...

Wonderfully stated.
It's just confounding that companies think this is a good idea. It's so short sighted. No other industry thrives on just high budget outings. None.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
When I see "Microsoft is making a AAAA game," I get genuinely concerned. Not because I don't want high budget games, high budgets can be awesome! Uncharted 2 would have been a worse game without the money they threw at it (and UC3 was a worse game with more, so it's not always a direct correlation both ways). But as graphics capability rises, the consumer is going to want things that take full advantage of that, and the top of the industry is going to supply it to them.

And when that becomes commonplace, we'll suffer with greater prices, more lost jobs, more cut corners, and more content stripped away to become DLC on the first day because they want to raise the effective game price to $70 but can't because the market won't bear it.

tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.
Click to expand...

What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.
 
I Stalk Alone said:
What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.
Click to expand...

We already did.
It was called Too Human.
It did shit to stop this stupidity.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
tl;dr Raising the graphical ceiling is all fine and dandy until the budgetary high-end becomes the middle and it's absolutely inevitable that it will happen.
Click to expand...
the only thing that can possibly stop it would be the lowest end device (wii-u) becoming the de-facto console of the generation, just like PS2 was.

And lets face it, long shot is an understatement of the year on that one.
 
AceBandage said:
We already did.
It was called Too Human.
It did shit to stop this stupidity.
Click to expand...

I dunno, you can't really use Too Human as proof of failure for anything besides Silicon Knights or Microsoft's ability to gauge developers well.

They were just inefficient developers that had to write their own engine rather than use UE3.
 
I Stalk Alone said:
What the industry needs is a 150 million dollar flop of a AAAA game so that it will serve as a warning for those in the future. Heck even a massive 50 million dollar flop is good enough. It seems people aren't learning from the smaller 10-20 million dollar failures yet.
Click to expand...

The problem is often that those "AAAA games" are also backed by AAAA marketing money and time slots, which makes it very hard to be a complete flop. That's also the reason we see the same type of gameplay as well as mechanics (and even button mapping in some cases) regurgitated over and over. Eventually it falls off, but while the money is good and guaranteed no changes will be made. All we can be sure of, is the next "hit" or innovation or ballpark new IP will be xeroxed and copied the same way.

The games industry, round and round we go.
 
The current state of the industry still scares the hell out of me.

Especially with the whole Oreo analogy from Alberto. At times I wonder what the industry is thinking. I mean, a AAAA game. Sounds to me that only a handful of games can afford such a business model including Call of Duty.

I wish I could see into the future.
 
So, for April this is what's in store regarding conferences and events Nintendo will in one way or another be at. Note that not all of these are game related events, some are IR events and some concern specific technology.

Conferences/events Nintendo will attend/exhibit at in April:

In chronological order.

CMMA Professional Development Conference

Date(s): March 31 - April 3
Venue(s): Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond Marriott Town Center, Redmond, WA
Topic: Media management
Probability of news: Very unlikely

Nintendo of America's Charles Nishida (AV production manager) attends as co-chair together with Microsoft Studios' Brian Honey (director/group manager). The CMMA Conference concerns mainly the creation, distribution and utilization of communications media for corporations and probably won't feature any news about Wii U (or Durango) released publicly anyway. On Monday there is an opening presentation at 9:00AM followed by a Tour Nintendo/Microsoft Studios at 5:15PM. I'm not expecting any news from this, but I'm expecting people to talk much about Wii U at least, perhaps there will be some buzz about Durango as well. It's not every day Microsoft and Nintendo walk so closely.

http://www.cmma.org/

PAX East

Date(s): April 6 - 8
Venue(s): The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA
Topic: Public video game expo
Probability of news: Moderate

Nintendo will be exhibiting at this show. If they will demonstrate the Wii U or only offer demos of upcoming and current Nintendo 3DS games is unknown though. I've suggested previously that due to the show being open to the public Nintendo may provide something about Wii U to prevent an angry mob from being established, and also to not have to answer questions about Wii U all day with "I'm sorry, I can't comment on that at this time".

http://east.paxsite.com/

2012 NAB Show

Date(s): April 14 - 19
Venue(s):Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Hotel and Casino
Topic: Audio and video content creation
Probability of news: Unlikely

Nintendo of America is not exhibiting at this show, but attending. What they will do there I don't know, but perhaps they are attending to find some interesting technologies to license for Wii U, or they are attending to talk with a company whose technologies or services they have already licensed but not announced yet. Major companies exhibiting at this show include Adobe Systems, Advantech, Akamai, Autodesk, Dolby, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Red Digital Cinema, Sony and THX to name a few. At it's height we'll get an announcement of some licensing deal, similar to that of Autodesk and Havok.

http://www.nabshow.com/2012/default.asp

IBM 1Q 2012 Earnings Announcement

Date(s): April 17, 04:30 p.m. ET
Venue(s): IBM HQ, Armonk, NY
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Unlikely

I'm not expecting any comments or remarks on Wii U during the presentation, though anything could happen, if anything will come from this it will be via the Q&A session after the presentation. This usually takes an hour (Q&A session included) and is rather boring if you don't happen to own shares in IBM; though sometimes they provide some details about upcoming tech, in vague language. Why this presentation could be of importance is that it reflects the first quarter of IBM's business and I would think it is in their interest to brief investors about new initiatives within the fiscal year, and Wii U is included in that. I do not know what companies will participate, but hopefully someone us eager to know more about Nintendo's new console and will ask about it.

http://www.ibm.com/investor/events/

Q1 2012 Advanced Micro Devices Earnings Conference Call

Date(s): April 19, 02:00 p.m. PT
Venue(s): AMD HQ, Sunnyvale, CA
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Moderate

Much like IBM's presentation will this focus on financials, but AMD always provides quite much information about upcoming and current systems and technologies. And like with IBM, this presentation reflects AMD's business in the first quarter of 2012 and more than likely is briefing investors on new initiatives in the fiscal year something on the agenda. On the 2012 Analyst Day, AMD spoke about their increased involvement with the video game industry, maybe they are going to elaborate on this further. Most likely there will be a Q&A session to this. As I see it, interest in Wii U's GPU appears heavier than interest in the CPU, so with little effort could AMD create some hype here even without actually telling something specific about the chip.

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-eventDetails&EventId=4723953

COLLABORATE 12 - OAUG Forum

Date(s): April 22 - 26
Venue(s): Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
Topic: Technology and applications for the Oracle community
Probability of news: Very unlikely

Like the NAB Show, Nintendo is just attending and is probably seeking technologies to license or business partners. Notable exhibitors include AT&T, Cisco, Comdata, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Thomson Reuters to name a few. Not expecting any news from here.

http://collaborate.oaug.org/

Nintendo Fiscal Year Earnings Release

Date(s): April 26
Venue(s): Nintendo HQ, Minami-ku, Kyoto
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Very likely, almost guaranteed

This is what we are all waiting for. Wii U news will most likely come here; if it will be more info about NFC and similar I don't know though.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/

To summarize, in April we've got three events that may provide some new information about Wii U, the most likely being Nintendo's IR event on the 26th of April.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I dunno, you can't really use Too Human as proof of failure for anything besides Silicon Knights or Microsoft's ability to gauge developers well.

They were just inefficient developers that had to write their own engine rather than use UE3.
Click to expand...

More like Microsoft's inability to manage developers well. Silicon Knights didn't have any problems when they were being watched over by Nintendo...
 
I hate the AAAA term. The only good thing about those games are presentation and marketing - but reading through recent threads proved me that this is more than enough to convince most people.
 
Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.
 
Sadist said:
The current state of the industry still scares the hell out of me.

Especially with the whole Oreo analogy from Alberto. At times I wonder what the industry is thinking. I mean, a AAAA game. Sounds to me that only a handful of games can afford such a business model including Call of Duty.

I wish I could see into the future.
Click to expand...

It boggles the mind how people clamoring for a super-powered costly next gen really can't seem to connect the dots. The question at this point should be about how we can further expand the market, not make it more costly and thus smaller.

Things are only going to get worse. We've gone from smaller dev houses suffering under the sins of this gen to the likes of THQ, Hudson, and Sega. Sad times ahead indeed.
 
Cabbie said:
Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.
Click to expand...

AAAAA take a lot of talent, man
 
Cabbie said:
Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but shouldn't Nintendo have already locked down technology partnerships last year? I mean, it's great to hear they are shopping, and I can imagine that these technologies will be ongoing ones in regards to the Wii U.
Click to expand...

They aren't shopping.
They've had who was going to make their parts down for a while now.
All they're doing is tweaking already designed parts.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Also, yeah, I've heard the Sega rumor, too.

They had a reboot of something planned (honestly don't know what, but going by context clues, I am guessing JSR) for Wii U that's been cancelled.
Click to expand...

You know, you're really cool for getting us info like this, but shit like this is just NO_GOD_NOOO.gif for me.

Jet Set Radio on top of everything? That franchise is like right after StarTropics for me in regards to my unrelenting desire to see a sequel to.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
I had heard they were tapping Headstrong for a reboot of one of their Dreamcast franchises and it had to do with an XBLA port.

Considering that it's Headstrong, the only choices there really are Space Channel, Crazy Taxi (which has only really been dead in terms of quality), and JSF.
Click to expand...

I know it won't make a difference, but was it said if it was dead, or just being considered for the chopping block, and is there anyway for it to be kept alive? :(

...

How about a kickstarter? Fund JSR Wii U by Headstrong! :D
 
Ah, I see. It is especially exciting to see them pitching to upstarts, I could care less about most big devs today. We've done this to death, but it's true: they'll always cop out of exclusives and even ports so fuck em. I am fully expecting any wild Nintendo success this gen to be hinged upon a combination of brilliant new second parties and Nintendo's own.
 
guek said:
It boggles the mind how people clamoring for a super-powered costly next gen really can't seem to connect the dots. The question at this point should be about how we can further expand the market, not make it more costly and thus smaller.
Click to expand...

Just imagine the meltdowns that will happen when either MS or Sony will not release some power house of a console next gen, that so many are already expecting.
 
Rösti;36529045 said:
Date(s): April 26
Venue(s): Nintendo HQ, Minami-ku, Kyoto
Topic: IR event
Probability of news: Very likely, almost guaranteed

This is what we are all waiting for. Wii U news will most likely come here; if it will be more info about NFC and similar I don't know though.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/

To summarize, in April we've got three events that may provide some new information about Wii U, the most likely being Nintendo's IR event on the 26th of April.
Click to expand...

Thanks so very muchh Rösti, I am expecting some news on April 26th. No specs or anything, but *perhaps* some kind of update on the status of the dev-kits

Thanks again for your exellent post..
 
herzogzwei1989 said:
Thanks so very muchh Rösti, I am expecting some news on April 26th. No specs or anything, but *perhaps* some kind of update on the status of the dev-kits

Thanks again for your exellent post..
Click to expand...

Since it's aimed at investors, anything about the Wii U will be in one of two categories:

1. Partnerships with third parties.

2. Features of the console (such as NN).
 
Hero of Legend said:
I know it won't make a difference, but was it said if it was dead, or just being considered for the chopping block, and is there anyway for it to be kept alive? :(

...

How about a kickstarter? Fund JSR Wii U by Headstrong! :D
Click to expand...

I don't know that it's canceled, but a lot of unnanounced stuff got the axe this past week at Sega.

Combined with the rumors that Sega axed "an important Wii U game" but with strict clarification from Sega that Sonic is going to stay one of their major franchises, it seems logical.
 
TheExplodingHead said:
When is E3 this year anyway, is it going to be in June again?
Click to expand...
E3 takes place June 5 - 7 this year, though it technically starts on the 3rd of June 1:00PM as media can start collecting their expo badges then. Nintendo's media briefing will most likely be held on the 5th of June.
 
guek said:
It boggles the mind how people clamoring for a super-powered costly next gen really can't seem to connect the dots. The question at this point should be about how we can further expand the market, not make it more costly and thus smaller.

Things are only going to get worse. We've gone from smaller dev houses suffering under the sins of this gen to the likes of THQ, Hudson, and Sega. Sad times ahead indeed.
Click to expand...

Because they tend to have a myopic, self-serving view of the industry so as long as their wants are fulfilled, the rest is irrelevant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Castle of Heart: Retold announced
1
92
RedC replied
Switch 2 version of Hogwarts Legacy removes region loading and improves the castle
9
2K
Mr Hyde replied
The Switch 2 contains the local streaming tech of the Wii U GamePad, which is how GameShare works
11
775
jshackles replied
Name a franchise where the third game was the best.
2 3
143
4K
Shubh_C63 replied
Revenge of the Savage Planet | Review Thread
Review 
16
412
Aguero9320 replied
Top Bottom