tech

Holidays key test for Nintendo as Wii U struggles

3 Comments
By YURIKO NAGANO

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

3 Comments
Login to comment

I've always been a big fan of Nintendo, but lately they've been flagging. They've put too much emphasis on family oriented gaming, leaving a shortage of content for the key demographics: people aged 12-24 seem to be the most avid gamers, but Nintendo has too many games that are designed for the whole family, and there isn't all that much demand for it really. Since the Wii U came out, I've been losing interest. It's not a console I feel the need to add to my collection. It's rather pricey, considering that it isn't much of an improvement on the Wii. HD graphics have never been of any importance to me personally, and the Augmented Reality sounds like more trouble than it's worth. That's certainly true of the AR feature on the 3DS. Apart from that, it's essentially the same. console. Even the new games aren't enough to tempt me to buy a Wii U. They just don't seem to be up to Nintendo's usual standards.

I've always liked the fact that Nintendo has been consistently on the cutting edge of technology for their consoles, from the mini discs of the Gamecube designed to counter pirating, to the touch screen DS series, to the motion controlled Wii and the 3D capacity of the 3DS, that doesn't require those damnable 3D glasses for play. But Nintendo could do with focusing less on family oriented gaming. It worked well to begin with, but it was a novelty really, and opened the floodgates for two-bit developers to churn out "party games" that ripped off other party games, which in turn ripped off the Nintendo originals such as Wii Play, Wii Sports, and the WarioWare series. These rip-offs were frankly atrocious. But a great many of them were released, and flooded the shops, obscurring the truly great games such as the Legend of Zelda series, Mario series, Goldeneye Wii, and so many more. Nintendo should focus more on these key game series', their big hitters, and they should include more of those in the launch line up. Don't get me wrong, Wii Sports and Wii Fit were good games, but they weren't all that fun really.

Nintendo ought to see quite the profit next year with the release of the new Smash Bros game, which is finally going portable as it sees a 3DS release in addition to the Wii U release. Another idea they should look into is rebooting some of their older games. Goldeneye was quite the successful reboot, but it wasn't the best FPS of the Nintendo 64. The should also look into rebooting Perfect Dark and Jet Force Gemini (Yes, I know JFG isn't an FPS, but it was still a legendary cooperative game). Both of those would go very well on the 3DS, although Jet Force Gemini might be better suited to the Wii U. Perfect Dark would certainly sell massively well with updated graphics and 3D visuals. Ocarina of Time 3D proved to be popular, but it could have done with more bonus features taking advantage of the 3DS two screens. Perhaps that mistake can be rectified in Perfect Dark, if it were to be rebooted that is.

I sure hope Nintendo manages to turn things around though. They have always been and always will be my favourite console giants. I have no intention of ever defecting to Playstation or XBox, but Nintendo really needs to get back in the game (pun not intended). I will continue to keep an eye on the corporation and see what it comes out with in the future.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Well based on the heavily clogged servers, Nintendo has sold plenty of WiiU this Christmas. Annoying system they have, you can barely do a damn thing until you have made an account. So currently we have a brick in our house with unhappy children wanting to play with their present. Thanks nintendo.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites