Gizmo

I'm mad at myself for buying an XBox One. No games for it. I saw it, it was shiny, I succumbed. I play my Wii U and 3DS a lot and would be happy with just those two. No interest in a PS4 (Infamous 1/2 were fun though) and I'm not a PC Gamer. But as I get older I just get less and less interested. Games can barely hold my interest after the first few hours.

I'm sure I'll grab the next AppleTV and be happy.

Adam Tyner

Pachter is definitely a broken record about Nintendo going third party and/or going all-in on mobile. That's been his mantra for years now.

Nintendo defines itself so much in terms of the ecosystem it controls, and that gives them the freedom to indulge in crazy experiences or give a title an extra bit of polish. One of the biggest disappointments of the Wii U for me is that Nintendo has largely stopped experimenting, is sticking largely to "safe" franchises, and is releasing generally the same sorts of games for the console as they are for the 3DS...to the point where it's almost redundant to own both. As lackluster as things are now, they'd be even worse if Nintendo were to go third-party. The games would be less imaginative and would take no risks. They might be Nintendo franchises, and I don't think they'd feel like Nintendo games.

There is discussion about it. The conversations about financials tend to be oriented more around the gaming side of things, so you probably won't hear about Vaio or Sony Stores closing, but you will about the layoffs at the Santa Monica studio, the turnover at Naughty Dog, etc. Ditto for Microsoft.

fumanstan

I hate Patcher too, but wasn't this the same argument you made when the Wii U sales dropped and you kept saying that the PS4 and XBox One sales were going to be similar? As much as you might be losing interest in gaming, little devices like the FireTV and AppleTV won't be powerful enough anytime soon and current sales of Microsoft and Sony consoles sure don't seem to indicate that the general populous share your feeling about phone games taking over.

Adam Tyner

Exactly.

Michael Corvin

Two examples out dozens. Good job. First, both are barely a year old and not 10+ year old games. Second, Tomb Raider has already seen numerous sales(both retail and digital). Meanwhile Wind Waker will sit at SRP for another 18 months.

Gizmo

Yeah, the two examples of current gen titles with remasters/releases. Exactly what I was saying. Sorry if you were proven wrong. Last of Us is the perfect example (except its 1 year old) and it's full pop. But it's cool because it's not Nintendo.

Zelda has been $40ish several times. It's a Nintendo title, they don't really price drop very often as history has told us since the SNES days.

Adam Tyner

To be fair, Wind Waker HD was pretty much unprecedented when it came out. All other remakes/remasters up to that point were anthologies and/or quite a bit less expensive. The tide is starting to turn in that direction, and you're right that this is worth noting. For whatever it's worth, WW is the only 6th-gen redux at this price point. It can be argued that Tomb Raider and The Last of Us required more time and money be sunk into them for the re-releases as well.

I feel like all these games are priced $10 too high, but I bought WW and preordered TLoU, so I guess I think it's worth it anyway.

Michael Corvin

Good point. Up until WW all remakes were bargain priced. So we can blame TR and TLoU's full retail pricing on Nintendo.

Gizmo

WW has a MSRP of $49.99 while Mario Bros, Mario World, Pikmin, MK8 etc are $59.99

Guess that kinda screws up your theory again. Sorry.

Next excuse?

Gizmo

WW was discounted $10 from standard Wii U pricing. So you did get a discount

Still does not change Tomb Raider or Last of Us which have normal MSRP when I'm sure less work went into them.

Gizmo

As far as I can tell, the Xbox One has a pretty standard $50 discount along with 2 free games to prop up sales so it must not be doing all that well. When Nintendo did that people shit bricks that the system was a failure.

We're only six months into launch. I'd be more interested next year once Apple launches their game system whatever and the FireTV has a bigger foothold.

Adam Tyner

I know it wasn't full price. I bought it on day one. I think it still should've been $10 less than it was.

Naughty Dog has had a decent chunk of their staff working on The Last of Us for around a year and a half, and they added on some significant goodies that didn't come with the PS3 release out of the box. Tomb Raider also got a hefty graphical upgrade.

Interviews with the WW team bragged about how little manpower it took and how it was something like a 6 month project. It's a gorgeous game, but its visual style doesn't require remotely as many resources to upgrade, and the GameCube and Wii U still have similar underlying architecture to make it easier.

Again, I think they're all overpriced, but I think there legitimately has been a good bit more investment in TR and TLoU.

The Xbox One and PS4 are both substantially outselling their processors at this stage in their life cycles.

The Wii U, meanwhile, is somewhere around half the sales of the GameCube at the same point in its lifecycle.. It's failing to clear the very low bar set by a console widely acknowledged as being a financial disappointment.

I'm sure Microsoft was eyeing greater sales still, and they didn't get them. Comparing Microsoft's stabs at closing the gap with Sony -- trying to elevate their successful console into the number one spot -- with a flop like the Wii U is wildly disingenuous. I really like my Wii U. I really like a bunch of the games. Doesn't change the fact that Nintendo blew it in pretty much every conceivable way, full stop. It is a failure. Deal with it. Microsoft made a ton of mistakes with the Xbox One, but at least they can be bothered to put forth an effort.

fumanstan

I would say that's more in reaction to the staggering Playstation 4 sales figures, given that Microsoft's Februrary NPD numbers for the XBox One prior to the discounts and offers were still higher then the 360's comparable time frame. Nintendo did that after their sales figures tanked after the holidays with no competition, so the context was significantly different. Frame it however you like, but this generation hasn't shown any signs of slowing down like you predicted with the Wii U. Given your complaint about the lack of games, i'd say that's an even better sign.

And again, I really don't see an under powered gaming device from Apple or Amazon winning over that many people as a direct replacement for a dedicated gaming console. I could be wrong, but I just don't think the market for that overlaps the way you think it will; especially since the PS4 sales show how much people still love dedicated consoles and the gaming experience they deliver. If phone games were poised for such a big takeover, I would have guessed their closest competitor in the 3DS would have taken a much bigger hit over the last few years. In fact, it's telling that the growth of the App Store and Google Play store hasn't made a dent in console gaming; both markets have grown independently and there's been no hint of one actually affecting the other.

For what it's worth, I agree with you that the initial mention of remakes/remasters as far as Zelda goes was wrong and misguided.

Michael Corvin

Donkey Kong has an SRP of $50. So yeah, full price is in that range. At the end of the day it's still a decade old game from two generations ago. Charging that much was absurd. Last of Us on the other hand is only 10 months old and still $60 for the PS3 version. They are not analogous no matter how much snark you keep adding with every post.

At least compare games from the same generation. Halo:Anniversary -$30, BG&E:HD - $15. Simply put, you're not gonna find a remake that old garnering "Nintendo pricing."

Brack

You can find these games on physical discs for much cheaper than $49.99-$59.99 if you just wait a month or pay attention to stores like Amazon or Target sales.

Case in point, Target sold Super Mario 3D World for $39.99 about two months ago. And of course there's the used game market, and you can pretty much find an game you want on eBay.

stingermck

Well yeah, but you are still working off a high base price of $50-$60. If a game starts off at $40 then sale and uses prices are even better.

A friend and I recently sold our Wii U's. I had fun with it early on, but started spending more time with the PS4 and Xbox One. The lack of support and features we enjoy on the other systems such as game share, larger hard drive, better online play, etc. and it just felt like it was time to abandon ship, rather than stick around for a titles here and there.

I want to support Nintendo but they make it so damn hard.

Brack

Oh I agree, Nintendo hasn't had a slew of great games for a couple of generations. The games that are coming out now or 6 months ago should've been out closer to launch. But even so, Mario and Mario Kart can't carry a system. They're old news for a lot of gamers. New versions of old games can only go so far. New IP is lacking.

The hard drive issue is a non-issue. It's the only console of the big 3 that supports an external hard drive.

Schloob1

Guessing the answer is yes, but say someone is selling their system and they have retail games downloaded to it. When the seller wipes their account off the system, will this mean the games are gone as well or will they possibly still be there?

Noonan

Everything will be wiped.

Brack

Yeah, I think initially there was a glitch that kept the downloads connected with the system, but I'm pretty sure updates have made that impossible.

Gizmo

LOL. OK, DK was $50 while standard Nintendo pricing is $60. I'm sure the next "real" Zelda will be $59.99. So Nintendo DID offer a discount for a 10 year old remake. I was right. Thanks.

Last of Us is still a remaster/remake (whatever you want to call it) from a previous generation. It doesn't matter how old it is. It was a title that came out for the previous gens console which is no longer playable on the new one. WW is the same way. Can't play GameCube games on the Wii U.

You can't go back in time and talk about previous generation. There are way too many factors to involve. The consoles were out for YEARS, so charging full price would be crazy. We are in a new generation. They CAN charge full price and get away with it because frankly there is nothing else to play. They know consumers will pay. Would I pay $60 for a triple pack of Ratchet and Clank in 2013? No. Would I pay $30? Yeah, probably.

I know you want to be right just because Nintendo is evil and they get away with pricing their titles higher then the competition, but it doesn't really change the facts about WW pricing. It had a $10 discount. Nintendo didn't bank the skies on it. It was another release to help fill the gap until new titles came out, which is EXACTLY what Last of Us is (except that one is coming out earlier in that consoles cycle, oops!).

Gizmo

You know how many coopies of Mario Kart Wii (I think it was the 5th version of that came) sold? A LOT. So gamers were willing to play a rehash of that.

Gizmo

I bought it two weeks early digitally. A fantastic, overlooked game that Nintendo did a lot of work on. Probably the most amount of work on a 're-release' ever. I did miss the Tingle Tuner though.

slop101

Just because you say that, it doesn't make it so. It's like saying "everything Gizmo says is bullshit", which may be correct, but just because I say it, doesn't make it so.

By your logic, they can re-release Pong for $40, and they'd be justified doing so. Or heck, re-release it at an adjusted for inflation price of $100 - why not, it doesn't matter how old it is, right?

Rob V

WW should have been $59.99... it went from 480i to 480p in only 10 years!