Nintendo is arguably the only console producer which didn't forget the importance of gameplay

Even if they kept shooting themselves in the feet with odd hardware decisions ever since N64, one thing that I actually have realized just recently is they have been consistently putting gameplay ahead of everything else (except for occasional gimmick or two) and they continue to do so. On the other hand, talking strictly about this gen, most Sony's high-profile exclusives this gen had been heavily reliant on presentation alone (Killzone: Shadow Fall, The Order 1886, DriveClub, Until Dawn and to a lesser extent Infamous: Second Son). To a lesser extent, Microsoft hadn't also forgot about the significance of gameplay this gen, however not nearly as much as Ninty but most of their major titles had some kind of a multiplayer component.

To reinstate: Nintendo had consistently been putting graphics ahead of gameplay and still does whereas this gen Sony does something totally opposite.

This thread is more or less about major exclusives or console exclusives, not niche downloadable games made by 3rd parties with the help of a moneyhat by the way.

Basically, get an Xbone. You get exclusives with great gameplay like Forza 6, and 3rd party games.

Better yet, get a PC and get everything.

Performance sure, their aiming for 60 FPS is great for games all around the board.

Saying they're the only ones who put gameplay first is just Nintendo apologism, and frankly bullshit. Because they're are plenty of great playing games on either other platform, and their presentation being able to be better on other platforms doesn't mean that it's put first.

And for what it's worth, I'd rather take new IPs that allow for some great presentation than the same Nintendo franchises every damn generation.

Honestly, why even post?

i kinda agree.

nintendo is one of a very select few developers that appreciate that gameplay is not art, its craftsmanship. its a series of different systems working together to entertain the player and it has to work. any time these systems dont work well together it makes the game look bad.

...but i kinda wish they had a bit more spectacle and that they played around with gameplay more. they last time they did it was with pikmin and it worked brilliantly. they do turn based strategy and do it very very well....but they dont play around with it much. same with turn based jrpg like mechanics. they are the masters of the platformer of course but this gen their platformers have been a bit flat (get it?...ill get my coat :( ).

as i say my perfect game would be a successful merge of zelda and elder scrolls. elder scrolls is great with the whole world and cannon and culture and sense of exploration and theres lots to do. but the nuts and bolts game mechancis are awful. the level design of the world is poor, the movement is sloppy, the whole levelling system is pointless (well it has been since oblivion. in fact in oblivion not levelling up was actually a good idea. thats really bad game design).

zelda has the level design, and game mechanics (the combat could probably do with a bit of mixing up....though skyward sword was pretty darn cool on that front). but the world feels a bit follow. i mean in twilight princess the world was pointlessly big. you didnt go on adventures...you just ran to the next dungeon. nothing interesting would happen on the way or anything.

im not saying nintendo should put spectacle before game mechanics of course..thats silly. but it would be nice to have a bit more of that from them also.

There are*

Blab you idiot. WHERE'S MY EDIT BUTTON

Nintendo exclusives have always been the best, while their hardware is almost always the worst. Guess you can't have everything.

Adorable

Last two Mario Kart games = broken

Last two Metroid console games = broken

Most recent Zelda game = broken

Yup, that gameplay, never forget

How were Metroid Prime Corruption and Skyward Sword "broken"

Anywho, generally speaking, yes Nintendo has always been true to their gameplay focus compared to most other major developers.

Skyward Sword was broken, horrible controls between bomb rolling and swimming

So the patches Nintendo released for the games that they said "fixed game breaking problems" were for something else?

The controls were always spot on with me and are what made it one of the best Wii games last gen...

Yeah that's true, but they were quick to fix those issues and that has nothing to do with Nintendo's focus on gameplay driven experiences.

Having to recalibrate the Wii Motion Plus constantly isn't broken? Having Fi pop up to remind you that your batteries are low isn't broken? Not having to skip cut-scenes the first time isn't broken?

Its why i love Nintendo games so much, you always get awesome fun gameplay that doesnt age like the others seem to be having problems with. I go back and play a bunch of Nintendo made games and i think, wow, how is this still so fun.

Why did you have to re-calibrate your controls so much? It only asked me to do that before I started the game.

You don't have to have Fi Pop up about the batteries either.

Not being able to skip cutscenes on your first play through isn't broken, it's just annoying.

The usual stupid, biased Nintendo exceptionalism. The only ones concentrating on gameplay...except basically everyone else.

To say that they're the only game company to care about gameplay is to discount all the great games that Sony and MS have put out, and that's bullshit. They've all put out great games and they've all put bad games. Quit putting Nintendo on a pedestal.

What BS.

If you mean traditional style gameplay, sure, but if you're saying other games are less fun because they adopt different styles of gameplay then that is just a preference issue and not a problem with the games themselves.

FWIW, I had more fun playing Until Dawn than any Wii U game I've tried thus far. Nintendo has been putting out the same 6-7 games since the SNES days. It gets tiring after awhile. I just have Nintendo fatigue and another Mario Bros, Zelda, Smash, Kart, Starfox, Kirby and Metroid aren't gonna cut it for me anymore.

Nintendo fanboys really need to stop this myth that nintendo makes amazing games.

The gameplay of a nintendo game is easy, simplistic and treating the player like a 5 year old by holding their hand in everything.

The AI in nintendos games are non existent. They just walk back and forth waiting for the player to kill them by jumping on them, shooting them or swinging a sword. The "amazing gameplay" you praise is yawn inducing.

The games on wii, wii u and to a lesser extent the 3DS have horrible controls which break the games. Motion controls are horrid and makes their games unplayable.

I really wish the nintendo faithful would just stop lying to themselves and others. Nintendo is a mid tier developer at best. They make $20 bargain bin games but charge $60-70 AAA prices.

I don't understand how anyone can spend so much on wii u games when they are all Gamecube or DS ports in HD.

The truth is, nintendo is cheap and lazy, but their shrinking delusional fanbase eats everything up like its still 1985 and overrates everything.

Don't even dare claim mario/zelda are even in the same league as REAL amazing AAAA games like MGSV.

Every time I ask a nintendo fan to describe the amazinn gameplay of nintendo games....they say nothing.

But I can easily tell you about amazing stuff that you are able to do in a game like MGSV, Halo, Witcher etc because they have tons of amazing REAL gameplay.

Let's be honest here this is a stealth anti sony thread and TC is just using Nintendo as a cover.

Dude no offense but you write completely inarticulate fanboy drivel. You should stop.

True...

@Salt_The_Fries: sunset overdrive and until dawn are 2 of my favorite games in a long time though.

I would say my favorite exclusives of the gen so far are a mixture between all 3:

1. Super mario 3d world

2. Mario kart 8

3. Infamous second son

4. Until dawn

5. Sunset overdrive

6. Forza horizon 2

I've been playing games since the early 80's.

I've done my share of *nothing but mechanics in a game*.

Mario WiiU looks ok...but I've done that plenty of times. Now I want more....like story and characters. The experience is what I like most about games now...not just gameplay.

So when a game like Mario Maker comes along...I think it looks like blast...and if I had a WiiU I would play it a lot. But it's not enough to warrant buying a WiiU for. Neither is Smash, Mario Kart or Splatoon.

If Nintendo games are 10/10 in gameplay....they get 0's for everything else.

So I don't think sacrificing 7 or 8 out of 10 gamesply and also getting 7's in story, or experience, or characters or scripted events (not ones you can't die in)......then it's fine with me.

@Bigboi500:
Hardly. I'll take the X1's exclusives over the Wii U's every day.

@mr_huggles_dog: this, basically (though I do own a wii u)

Spoil sport... I was about to Grammar Nazi your' arse! ;) (I still don't get why GS took out the edit option)

On topic: I think it's more a case of the Wii U not getting much in the way of third party multi-platform games than them being 'true to gameplay'. If the Wii U had enough power you can bet you're bottom dollar Nintendo would be all over the big commercial AAA's like a rash.

Yes, because they keep releasing the same thing over and over again.

Mario Party, Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash Brothers, etc.

We've yet to see their IP do anything other than what it's been doing since 1985.

^^^This. Nintendo in a nutshell.

A lot of salt and misinformation in this thread. Nintendo just made a new ip splatoon. Lol

It's true. You want a machine that plays classics and not casual shit then buy Nintendo.

Lol@Witcher3 having real gameplay. In fact, its praise is the perfect example. That game is incredibly shallow. Like most games nowadays, there's a push for some bullshit storytelling, watch my character walk slow as he talks all dramatic, then que wanked on game.

There's some good stuff out there...MGS, Forza, Halo........the bulk of it though is just clumsy interactive stories that are more in line with a full motion video game.

I would argue that everyone is trying to create a good experience in their games, it's just that Nintendo seems to have the right people and find good ways to make our experiences be pretty fun.

On the flip side, the lack of online multiplayer in some games has hurt some of Nintendo's games in the long run I'd say.

Here we go with the "Nintendo only makes the same Mario/Zelda!" bs.

@93BlackHawk93:

The people that say that can't seem to grasp what the gameplay is. Instead they look to hdr lighting(lol), poor framerates(lol), and one dimensional on-rails open world(lol) games.

Well. I guess you could argue that...They have always put more work on gameplay than visuals or story telling. They usually deliver polished products on launch, unlike some others.

The vast majority of gamers are obviously not interested in Nintendo games, so as great as the gameplay might be for the games they create, it means nothing if only a small group of people enjoy them, especially a dwindling one.

Mario Kart 8 sold 5 million plus. Yeah, small group indeed.

How many copies did Mario Kart Wii sold in its life time? That dwarfs MK8 sales! So yeah, 5 mills is a small group compared.

@FireEmblem_Man: Lets see, since it was bundled with the Wii, it sold 35 million. Mario Kart Dash was bundled with the Gamecube and sold what 7 million?

Mario Kart 8, not bundled and sold 5 million plus, like a boss.

Well there you have it! Now what did we learn in Elementary school math? 35 Mills > 5 Mills or 5 Mills < 35 Mills

Aww, thats cute, what else did we learn in class, 5 million plus is no small number. Its an amazing install rate.

Seems to me that you don't like eating your own words

@FireEmblem_Man: And which words would that be? Teach me sensei.

That I'm right and you're wrong! Mario Kart is Nintendo's biggest selling franchise. When you have a huge franchise that sells over 30 Mills, you want the next game to at least be greater than or equal to the amount of sales that the last game made. If it doesn't, then something is wrong! Mario Kart Wii sold consoles, and like you said, were bundled with Wii's. However, so was Mario Kart 8, but it didn't affect Wii U sales at all. So yeah, a big franchise like Mario Kart only making 5 million copies including bundles with the Wii U is a Small Number compared to the last iteration and that spells trouble with the franchise and marketing power it had.

yup and it only took a good while for the nintendo to actually give a full complete game. With common features everyone has. Thats more of a scary thing then good thing.

Sorry mate, but it was Wii Sports that sold majority of them Mario Kart copies. Mario Kart 8 had no bundle, i repeat, no bundle and sold 5 million plus out of a 10 million install base, please step aside and bow, your King is coming through.

*face palm......

@FireEmblem_Man: Jokes on you mate, as always.