Nintendo Is Hurting :(

[Flake]

What are you going on about 'influenced the direction of the medium'? That's a fancy way of saying 'inspired derivative knockoffs' which is hardly innovation and invalidates your criticism. All Sony and Microsoft have ever done from day one is mimic Nintendo.

[dsheinem]

What are you going on about 'influenced the direction of the medium'? That's a fancy way of saying 'inspired derivative knockoffs' which is hardly innovation and invalidates your criticism. All Sony and Microsoft have ever done from day one is mimic Nintendo.

I don't know how you can't see that in-house/exclusive Sony and MS developers have produced a lot of titles in the past decade or more that have shaped the direction of the medium, and that they have done so at a level that Nintendo once did (especially in the 8/16-bit eras) but doesn't do anymore. They also attracted a lot more big and small third party developers to launch influential games on their platforms than Nintendo did on the Gamecube, Wii, or Wii U. I think it is a fairly safe bet to say that these games, for example, are extremely influential today:

Ico/Shadow of the Colossus
Devil May Cry
Halo
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Grand Theft Auto III

These games did not appear on Nintendo consoles (gimped COD games aside). In addition, you have many critically heralded experiments in storytelling like David Cage's games (Sony), early retro-rebirth stuff on XBLA (Castle Crashers and Geometry Wars), art games (Rez, Journey), genre evolutions (Demon's Souls, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Uncharted), etc. that haven't been associated with Nintendo consoles. These are the kinds of games that have influenced the medium in the past 2-3 generations and whose innovations or ideas have had real staying power. Nintendo still makes great games, but their games aren't associated with the kind of design influence they once were.

[GSZX1337]

What are you going on about 'influenced the direction of the medium'? That's a fancy way of saying 'inspired derivative knockoffs' which is hardly innovation and invalidates your criticism.

That's not what dsh is saying at all. A game can introduce a new aesthetic that other games would use and make minor tweaks to. The example that comes to mind is the way many of the games on Unreal Engine 3 look similar. Would you say that Hard Reset is a rip off of Unreal Tournament 3? Also, a game can introduce a game mechanic that absolutely improves how a game genre plays and lead to mass adoption. Would you say that Battlefield is knocking off Counter Strike because it also has gun recoil?

EDIT: I know that dsheinem already made his response, but I still wanted to post this.

[corn619]

(Regarding innovation)...that it is also reasonable to think it won't be there on the Wii U given Nintendo's recent console history (esp. of the past 10 years).

I'm sorry. I know sometimes you run towards the hyperbolic end of an argument in order to stoke a good discussion but how can you expect anyone to take a statement like that seriously?

It isn't hyperbolic at all. Outside of WiiSports, whose legacy is tied to a gameplay mechanic that is (for now) seen as gimmicky, faddish, and unsuccessful on other platforms, no one has named a post-N64 Nintendo-backed console game that has had a strong influence on the direction of the medium or even particular genres (in terms of storytelling, aesthetics, level design, mechanics, etc.). They used to churn those kinds of games out all the time.

And, again, I'm referring strictly to Nintendo software.

I'm glad developers aren't copying Nintendo nowadays. Historically speaking, we usually got bad games that copied Nintendo's ideas, minus all of the magic. So yeah, I hope Nintendo keeps all of their influence to themselves.

[noiseredux]

All of this Western "AAA" stuff doesn't excite me in the slightest.

spoken like a man who has not cried over Bioshock Infinite.

Don't get me wrong, at this point the Wii U is the only current console that interests me in the slightest, but don't get it twisted, guy.

[Jmustang1968]

I like the Wii U as a system much more than the Wii. I do think they made a mistake with the naming, and could've made the specs a bit more powerful. But again, they need games, and it would help if they had some better 3rd party support. Problem is, some of the big sellers, FPS and sports titles, are basically inferior on the Wii U. You have a certain look and feel with Nintendo games that are different than the others.

[Violent By Design]

What are you going on about 'influenced the direction of the medium'? That's a fancy way of saying 'inspired derivative knockoffs' which is hardly innovation and invalidates your criticism. All Sony and Microsoft have ever done from day one is mimic Nintendo.

Certainly not their games, their games are pretty different from Nintendo's.

[Violent By Design]

Where is all this innovation and mind-warping influence you speak of?

It isn't there yet. My point was that it is reasonable to think it will be there given Sony's recent history (esp in the last 10 years) and that it is also reasonable to think it won't be there on the Wii U given Nintendo's recent console history (esp. of the past 10 years).

I also don't think that "innovation and influence" in software is the be-all, end-all of why the PS4 and Xbox One sales are so rapidly closing the gap on the Wii U, but I think there's a segment of the audience that feels as I do about where to put their money: towards new software design ideas, new graphics, etc.

That innovation is not coming from Sony and Microsoft. It comes from the same 3rd party developers that say "WiiU releases never sell well" while at the same time delaying and short changing the WiiU versions of their products.

The developers I listed are all in-house Sony devs. As for MS, I think it is safe to say that Bungie did a lot more to influence gaming (and especially a genre) than any Nintendo developer has for console gaming since the N64. Nintendo developers used to wield that kind of influence.

I'm confused by your standards. Are you asking for

- A game that is influential

- A game that is innovative

- A game that is both influential and innovative?

Also, you'd have to actually describe what "influential" means here.

What you're asking is very broad.


For instance, you claim Shadow of the Colossus to be influential? Is it?


Where are the Shadow of Colossus clones? What games are even similar to that game? It being unique or highly well received doesn't make it influential. The game has been out for 10 years, and you don't see its imprint in any games that I can think of.

Uncharted 2? It is a sequel that literally is just a better version of its predecessor. It isn't even wildly different from the original Uncharted. Uncharted in general is not innovative at all. It's well made and directed, but there is nothing unique about Uncharted. So it's certainly not innovative.


If it's an either or type of thing, why wouldn't Skyward Sword fall under this criteria? Or Link's Crossbow training? Nintendogs, Super Paper Mario, Wii Fit, Professor Layton, 4 Swords Adven, Waro Ware. All either unique or influential in some way.

[dsheinem]

I'm confused by your standards. Are you asking for

- A game that is influential

- A game that is innovative

- A game that is both influential and innovative?

Also, you'd have to actually describe what "influential" means here.

What you're asking is very broad.


For instance, you claim Shadow of the Colossus to be influential? Is it?


Where are the Shadow of Colossus clones? What games are even similar to that game? It being unique or highly well received doesn't make it influential. The game has been out for 10 years, and you don't see its imprint in any games that I can think of.

Uncharted 2? It is a sequel that literally is just a better version of its predecessor. It isn't even wildly different from the original Uncharted. Uncharted in general is not innovative at all. It's well made and directed, but there is nothing unique about Uncharted. So it's certainly not innovative.


If it's an either or type of thing, why wouldn't Skyward Sword fall under this criteria? Or Link's Crossbow training? Nintendogs, Super Paper Mario, Wii Fit, Professor Layton, 4 Swords Adven, Waro Ware. All either unique or influential in some way.

Here's how I explained it earlier:

Nintendo has ceased to be what they were up until the N64: a leader in influential game creation (visual effects, design, narrative ideas, various gameplay elements, etc.). Nintendo was a company that made games which influenced the industry and created buzz about the evolution of the medium (at the level of software).

and games that

[contemporary] game creators [would cite]...as key games that introduced them to new ideas or refined concepts in such a way as to influence their own work.

TeamIco's work gets mentioned all the time by contemporary developers as having influenced their ideas about game creation. Many others have cited Naughty Dog's games as shaping their ideas about contemporary design. "Influence" isn't strictly about generating knock-offs or games that borrow the exact same elements.

As for "innovation" - that term keeps coming up as it is a frequent characteristic of games that are later seen as influential, thought it also isn't a strict condition that must be present for a game to have wide influence (Uncharted 2, for example, gets more praise for things like "refinement" and "being well-thought out" than it does for innovating as such).

Skyward Sword...Link's Crossbow training...Nintendogs, Super Paper Mario, Wii Fit, Professor Layton, 4 Swords Adven, Waro Ware

I'd be interested to see/read about developers that cite any of the console games you listed (some are handheld titles) as influencing the direction of their work or to find examples of games that clearly draw on some key innovation found in those titles.

[Erik_Twice]

A game doesn't need to spawn clones to be influential, The Tower of Druaga is one of the cornerpieces of Japanese game design, it's cited as an influence by practically everyone and yet there isn't a game quite like it.

Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the referent as far as aural design is concerned. The focus on the environment as opposed to level design or explicit narratives to drive the game foward got popular after these two games were released.

I however disagree with Dsheinem's assertion that Nintendo has always been influential, I think they have always been a very conservative company and nowhere as influential as Sega and Namco have been. High bar, for sure, but these are the Nintendo games that come to me as influential from the top of my head:

Donkey Kong (1981)
Super Mario Bros (1985)
The Legend of Zelda (1986) & Metroid (1986) [Both heavily based on Namco games]
Super Mario 64 (1996)

Heavy hitters, for sure, but while there are very few games that can compare head-on against them they are greatly outnumbered. Nintendo didn't engage in the building of beat'em ups, shooters, racing games or fighters. They never pushed the technological envelope or created big trends in genres beyond the games mentioned.