@augmira @nate1222 To be clear, I didn't say that I thought that console gaming is on its lasts legs, my main point is that Nintendos market has been massively marginalised.
Let's say, for a moment, that the amount of casual gamers grows due to their exposure to free smartphone and tablet games, but that the majority of casual gamers are unhappy to convert to purchasing $60 games, although a minority of casual gamers will convert to purchasing $60 games in order to develop their gaming interest.Sounds reasonable? (Does to me).
If this is the case, then Android and iOS will continue their stranglehold on casual gamers. And who can challenge them? Who can better free casual games? There's only one answer, PC gaming - with the development of big budget F2P games.
So personally I don't see that the major consoles can win the casual market. Even if the Wii Us casual games are significantly better than iOS / Android games, will casual gamers go out and buy a $400 console to then have to pay $60 a game? No, they won't. Sure some will, and the more extra services the Wii U offers, the better. And the more the gamepad proves itself the better, but ultimately it will come down to the cost of the games and the fact that the casual gamer already owns one or more iOS / Android devices and if anything are probably excited about the next iOS / Android device they'll buy. Which will be a massively mutl-functional and portable device, far more so than the Wii U will ever be.
So what about those casual gamers that do want to get into more demanding games - what will they do? Well they might go to PC gaming, given the upcoming proliferation of F2P games, or they might choose to go to console gaming as many of us do. They could look at MS and Sony, who offer sexy machines, the excitement of online gaming and a massive range of big name genre leading games. Or they could look at Nintendo, who clearly present themselves as a cutesy-kidding game company. Many of the games and franchises appear, on the surface, to be simplistic and designed for children. Are these the types of games that will attract those graduating away from casual games? Maybe, but I'm not convinced.
I bought a Wii as I wanted to try Nintendos games for the first time and I have to say I was massively disapointed. I then got a PS3 and virtually every game has been a joy. The "hardcore" games that you find on 360/PS3 with ultra-violence and high adrenalin action is where I'm at as a gamer. Casual games are for casual gamers. Those graduating away from casual games will gravitate towards those console manufacturers that present a range of genres that will excite them. Or they'll get embedded with F2P on PC.
Nintendo can't fully embrace the casual gamer, any more. The casual gamer is too much of a cheap-skate. They need to embrace the hardcore gamer but they're too far behind the 8 ball, and too reluctant to besmirch the wonderful franchises that they've been milking for the last 20 to 30 years.
Personally I think Nintendo need to sell to Disney or Pixar, At the end of the day, all Nintendo has is a massive family of extremely cute characters. They don't have an overly impressive hardware manufacturing organisation, certainly not on the scale of say Samsung or LG. They don't have genre leading games, except for dead genres such as 2D and 3D platformers.
Yes Nintendo does have an excellent track record for gaming but that has been based on simplistic genres on relatively simplistic technology which has now been well and truly super-seded.
@deathstream @Albaficas I agree with most of what you say there. MS have done extremely well to become a legitimate and strong competitor.
I'm surprised the 360 has done so well when it charges for online, had very bad reliability, didn't have the track record of Sony or Nintendo, was technically inferior to the PS3, lacked blu-ray. But it has done that well and is in a great position moving forward. It looks like MS has done a lot right. MS Live, Kinect, I presume the controller is good,
For me, as a PS3 owner, Sony have been impressing of late. PSN+ is amazing. It keeps giving us free games every month. Since June i've downloaded about 15 or more full retail games, most of which are little more than a year old. Now it's giving us Vita games for free too, if I understand correctly, PS Store has been re-vamped and seems to work well. For $69 a year or so including plenty of free games it has me sold and booked in for the next generations to come.
For me, Sony have been the best for this generation and i've been surprised by their lack of success, but it looks to me like they've started thinking competitively again.
I bet Nintendo wished we were still in the 80s. Or even the 90s or early 2000s.
During those periods Nintendo was a the fore-front of a highly profitable industry and was capitalising on their ability to churn out hit after hit.It didn't have to dominate the market, although at times it did, it just needed to maintain a significant proportion of the market and to develop and protect the reputation of its franchises.
Now, they're at the mercy of a market that is being extremely well served by virtually free games. How can they compete? Well I don't see that they can.
Selling 99c games wouldn't suit them. If you're a small, independent developer and you make $1 million off a game or two then you're set for life, or for a few years at least. But for Nintendo to risk the credibility of itself and its franchises it'd have to be confident of making much more than a mill or two, so it just won't happen.
With the Wii they've chosen to target the casual market, but that market has now perhaps been hooked by iOS and Android.
So what to do with the Wii U? Try to target both casual players and hardcore players.
Bit late for that strategy. MS and Sony already have their hands in both pies, and Nintendo do not appear to have served hardcore players at all well in recent years.
Moving forward Nintendo are in no mans land. I can't see them recovering.
@ElectronReviews Oh no, perhaps you've misunderstood. I'm not suggesting that I'm losing interest because of the annoying presenter, although he made the article difficult to watch.
I'm just saying that i'm losing interest in the game as an additional, but entirely seperate comment to the one about the annoying presenter.
I was very interested in this game. I never played Far Cry 1 but to me it looks really good, and I've only just started dabbling with Far Cry 2. It looked like Ubisoft (there's not a specific development team?) has got the gameplay sussed and that this could be great fun, but a different flavour to most other FPSs.
But the need to hunt doesnt strike me as fun. The get eaten by sharks doesnt strike me as fun.
I think Black Ops 2 has taken my interest for now, although I think that will be largely derivative of previous CoDs, naturally.
I think perhaps its hard to get excited for games now when they funamentally look and play like dozens of games that we've played before.
Of course Sutter would want Rockstar to make their game, who wouldn't.
I watch SoA, but it's pretty ridiculous, pretty over gruesome too. I think it was exciting at first, especially with the relationship between Jacks and Hellboy, but it's getting silly now.
They all hate each other, they're all willing to kill in extremely gruesome ways, they're all back stabbing murderers, they're all scum. I don't see how we can continue to be surprised or continue to care that much.
Next episode:- you'll see Jacks being tender, then being violent, and he'll do some shouting. We'll hear "Pope" mentioned 20 times. Hellboy will do something evil. Hellboys wife will do something callous. One, or two, of the Sons will get killed and will be forgotten about by the next episode. A secret will be made, a secret will be broken. This series it seems there has to be a car chase, or shoot out sequence, lots of bang bang A Team style. Kill rate and gruesomeness seems to have gone up a notch or two too.
1943 is the only multiplayer game i've gotten into, other than FEAR Combat on the PC.
At the beginning of this gen I considered myself fairly new to FPSs, certainly modern console based FPSs so I've not had much confidence going to multiplayer.
I've been able to crack the 1943 nut eventually though. It seems simpler than most FPSs and so i've been able to get my head around it.
I've had a peak at MW2 and B3 multiplayer but they both seem jolly complicated.
I'm not really a fan of team-talk, although I am interested in playing in a team. I'm a lone wolf in 1943 and it'd be fun to have someone cover me once in a while but it;'s never happened. I can't bear to listen to people on their MICS, it just sounds like waffle most of the time. Having said that, FEAR Combat had lots of talk via typing and that was a lot of fun.
I'm considering hanging up 1943 for a while and venturing into CoD and B3 territory. Not sure how i'll go.
@Rufus_the_rat A lot of these articles are just repeating some soundbyte that was released. There's no real journalistic input, it's just repeating what's been spoon-fed to them. Writing about Okami might require some creative input.
@toshineon @Aria1368 @myungish I really like Battlefield 1943 - is that very much like Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2? I've not really got into to Battlefiedl 3 or Bad Company 2, although I've dabbled a bit.
Why do you prefer B1942 and B2 and not the others?
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