"When Satoru Iwata died so did Nintendo's soul."

Do you agree with this comment?

Nintendo was never really consumer friendly

Iwata definitely gave a better vibe in public appearances than Furukawa does, but otherwise I don't feel like there's been a major shift in business philosophy since the early Switch days (while Iwata died in 2015, I can't imagine he didn't have some influence over what was happening in 2017). Their games still offer roughly the same vibes and follow the same design principles as always, they still haven't gotten into the aggressive monetization strategies in paid games typified by the rest of the AAA industry, the Switch 2 has been designed with the philosophy of enhancing the ways people play games and not pushing performance as far as possible... The only things people can really point as examples of Nintendo being cynically corporate are charging for online (which was the plan right out of the gate with the Switch, so I don't think that was a post-Iwata thing), the monetization in their F2P games (which is fair), and the price hike for Switch 2 games (which I'm a lot more willing to accept as "we haven't kept up with inflation" than I am with other companies because Nintendo's games actually cost $60 instead of claiming to cost $60 then trying to squeeze hundreds more out through manipulative microtransactions). None of those really make it into "you used to be cool but now you're just a corporate sellout" territory.

MomSpringfield posted...

Nintendo was never really consumer friendly

Also this. They've prioritized making fun games, but their philosophy has always been to ensure that those games are enjoyed on their terms, fiercely protecting their IPs in ways that haven't necessarily reflected the way the medium has evolved. One could argue that actually qualifies as having more of a soul than most corporations, since it prioritizes the pride they take in their work over customer happiness, but it does mean that Nintendo has never been an exception to the saying "corporations are not your friends."

Yeah, if you were in it and have been a Nintendo fan for a long while, the change in scenery is very clear within a few eras. Gamecube/GBA through the end of Wii U and 3DS really was the golden years for Nintendo IMO. They still retained the all of the best qualities from their 80s and 90s era, while drastically branching out with all sorts of neat tech and really cool gimmicks. The fact that we've never just seen a "sequel" system outright before is a bit of proof that they've lost their old vision of always trying to shake things up a bit. Bringing a mouse controller to a console that maybe 15% of users will regularly utilize is nothing to write home about.

To put it better, the early 2000s brought us the Gamecube to GBA link cable, which gave you lots of interesting unlockables and secrets as well as games that revolved around it, the e-Reader (maybe not too fondly remembered now), a vareity of GBA upgrades and options, AND a third pillar system with the DS, that later also had a great level of functionality with the Wii. Not to mention the DS to GBA interactivity as well. Then there's Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is still one of the craziest games I've played to date.

The Switch brought us Nintendo Labo and Ring Fit. That's it. I think homogenizing their entire 2+ system method that worked well for the last 30 years may have done them great numbers and brought success, but at a huge loss to innovation and interesting ideas. I'd take a single year of the Gamecube, GBA, DS catalog over everything the Switch has to offer.

GanglyKhan posted...

The fact that we've never just seen a "sequel" system outright before is a bit of proof that they've lost their old vision of always trying to shake things up a bit.

the fucking super Nintendo was a sequel to the Nintendo

the fucking wii was a sequel to the gamecube and the wii u was a sequel to that

gameboy, gameboy color, gameboy advance

ds, dsi, 3ds

what the fuck are you talking about about nephew

Super Nintendo added two face buttons and shoulder buttons. The increase in hardware power also allowed them to make games that could never have been done on the NES.

The Wii and the Gamecube were nothing alike in design or function, you had full internet connectivity and motion controls with the Wii, as well as digital only games.

Same goes for each DS iteration, they continued to add functionality, first with DSiWare then later with the eShop and the slide pads.

I think the Gameboy line (not Advanced) is probably the closest thing to a sequel system, since GBC did have some exclusives on it that took advantage of a few hardware upgrades, but you still had the MASSIVE leap from the SNES to the N64 in that timespan, which was revolutionary for mainstream gaming.

Switch 2 is just a juiced up Switch with mouse controls and a button that you need a subscription to activate.

GanglyKhan posted...

Super Nintendo added two face buttons and shoulder buttons. The increase in hardware power also allowed them to make games that could never have been done on the NES.

so...a sequel then.

GanglyKhan posted...

The Wii and the Gamecube were nothing alike in design or function, you had full internet connectivity and motion controls with the Wii, as well as digital only games.

the wii was just a gamecube with a network card lol

GanglyKhan posted...

Same goes for each DS iteration, they continued to add functionality

so like a fucking sequel?

do you think sequels aren't supposed to add anything new or different?

All previous Nintendo consoles that weren't just spinoffs like the 2DS were early enough where technological upgrades were substantial enough to warrant a new console, leaving aside Nintendo's long precedent for straight up innovative technology. The Wii inspired a whole generation of motion controls with their competitors and the Switch led to a revolution in portable gaming. Switch 2 is just "Hey, we know our last console is outdated af, now those games that ran like shit run a bit better". Better resolution and FPS isn't exactly new to the market. Also all proud of themselves for copying a worse version of Discord from a decade ago...

ConfusedTorchic posted...

the wii was just a gamecube with a network card lol

Lol, that's massive cope there!

i guess the playstation 5 isn't a sequel to the playstation 4 with the logic going on in this topic

Shrek posted...

i guess the playstation 5 isn't a sequel to the playstation 4 with the logic going on in this topic

Yes

I mean.. he was part of what made it Nintendo

No individual is the soul of the company by themselves.. even Miyamoto is like maybe

JixHedgehog posted...

I mean.. he was part of what made it Nintendo

No individual is the soul of the company by themselves.. even Miyamoto is like maybe

I see it as rose tinted glasses as they put the guy on a pedestal. I don't think Iwata was that special and wound up getting very lucky the DS and especially the Wii caught on.

I'm curious as to what year some people think the soul of Nintendo dwindled away. I feel it was at the start of the 2010s.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

do you think sequels aren't supposed to add anything new or different?

Go compare PS1 to PS2 to PS3 etc; and then compare N64 to Gamecube to Wii etc;

Every single Sony (and Xbox) home console has been sequel after sequel (ignoring the system names here btw) when you look at what they did differently each time. Which was nothing besides a few controller changes here and there, but the same button layout and everything else. The consoles all did the same thing that the last ones did and arguably even got worse and simpler over time with all 3 companies. The old PSN and XBL systems were way cooler and felt unique, as did the Wii Channels and Miiverse.

When I say "sequel console" I mean that they simply upgraded the specs and called it a day, which is exactly what Sony has done since PS2 through PS5 and for the first time, Nintendo with the Switch to Switch 2.

sull56ivan2010 posted...

I'm curious as to what year some people think the soul of Nintendo dwindled away. I feel it was at the start of the 2010s.

Yoshi's New Island felt like actual betrayal lol I have been very cautious of Nintendo games since then.

I personally don't think so. I mean, sure; Nintendo had some popular gimmicks the last couple decades, but I feel Nintendo was at its best pre-2000.

GanglyKhan posted...

Switch 2 is just a juiced up Switch with mouse controls

That's about as much as you can say for any console jump. The SNES is just a juiced up NES with a few extra buttons. The N64 was just a juiced up SNES with a joystick. The GC was just a juiced up N64. The Wii was just a juiced up GC with motion controls. The WiiU was just a juiced up Wii with a touch screen. The Switch was just a juiced up WiiU that could power its own screen for proper portability.

The Switch 2 is pretty clearly not as large a paradigm shift as the Switch 1 was (eliminating the distinction between console and handheld gaming was a big deal and has driven things like the Steam Deck trying to create similar bridges for PC gaming), but it doesn't really have to be. Mouse controls will be handy for some games, useless for others, and indispensible for a few, exactly as was the case with the Wii's motion controls and the DS' touch screen. Notably, they mean that genres like RTS that are unambiguously better on a PC with a mouse can be effectively played on a console, and a portable one at that. They don't need to feature in every single game and be used by every player to be a meaningful addition with will open up new possibilities for the games that can be played on the system.

GanglyKhan posted...

I'd take a single year of the Gamecube, GBA, DS catalog over everything the Switch has to offer.

I wouldn't. The Switch has some fantastic games. A smaller percentage of its library is exclusive than the GC's, GBA's, or DS', but that's not the fault of the Switch itself so much as it's just the way the industry has shifted since then (namely, that third-party exclusives kind of stopped being a thing over the course of the PSWii60 gen).

Tbqh I agree.

Nintendo was at its best when it was pushing gaming forward. Look at the SNES controller compared to its competitors. The N64's controller is incredibly silly but it was more forward thinking than we give it credit for. The playstation controller and saturn controller were SNES controllers with two extra buttons. The Wii foresaw the move of gaming out of "gaming circles" and into the mainstream. The Switch was so innovative that it made PC gamers jealous.

Then there's the switch 2 and it basically gives us nothing. The screen is a giant disappointment, the joycons weren't updated to fix the drift issue at all. What's left, really? More power? Who gives a crap? The switch was powerful enough to do basically anything you wanted already.

Honestly Nintendo was pretty horrible from about 2006 until 2016, the bulk of which was under Iwata.

VioletZer0 posted...

The switch was powerful enough to do basically anything you wanted already.

Except play any higher-budget third-party game that came out in the last five years. Admittedly, the AAA market is such a festering pile of manure at this point that it's pretty easy not to care about most of that, but that includes some pretty major games like Elden Ring, BG3, and Expedition 33 that are well worth playing.

The Switch is really only "powerful enough" if you're using it as a second system to supplement a more powerful one that doesn't lock you out of more demanding titles. The Switch 2 closes at least most of that gap, solving the only thing that was really preventing the Switch from being a Forever Console. I don't know that there's going to be much value in pushing console specs any further than what's already been achieved, so the Switch 2 achieving rough parity with that is a pretty important step.

VioletZer0 posted...

Then there's the switch 2 and it basically gives us nothing. The screen is a giant disappointment, the joycons weren't updated to fix the drift issue at all. What's left, really? More power? Who gives a crap? The switch was powerful enough to do basically anything you wanted already.

Because switching (heh) away from the design of the Switch would be just dumb. It's a winning formula, and basically what the Wii and Wii U were working towards all along. Obviously, the mouse and other mouse functionality are going to seem just incremental compared to the radical prior jumps, but that's because this is basically the final form of a decade plus of design choices.

And it's a winning formula. Predictably, MS and Sony have copied the handheld trend (albeit not built-in the whole console), and the Steam Deck is a thing.

adjl posted...

That's about as much as you can say for any console jump. The SNES is just a juiced up NES with a few extra buttons. The N64 was just a juiced up SNES with a joystick. The GC was just a juiced up N64. The Wii was just a juiced up GC with motion controls. The WiiU was just a juiced up Wii with a touch screen. The Switch was just a juiced up WiiU that could power its own screen for proper portability.

You could have never in a million years get SM64 to work on an SNES in any acceptable manner. Look at how poorly SM64DS has been remembered now that time has passed, you just need a joystick to make that game, well, enjoyable lol

Then each system had unique additional hardware that made it stand out even more. The NES did not have the Super Gameboy and the SNES didn't have the GB connector that the N64 controllers had. They took that a step further with the GBA/GCN link cable, too.

The crux of this outlook is that you couldn't do everything the next system did on the previous system. They all have their own niche that they carved out in some meaningful way. Anything PS4 could do, the PS3 also could have pulled off with a minor hit to graphics, which we completely saw happen time and again with multigen games launching same day.

Have previous Nintendo systems done this as well? Yes, however, they also had to re-adapt those games to make them work with the newer functionality. Wind Waker HD was a great example of this, they simply could not do a 1:1 port because of how the OG Tingle Tuner worked.

Over on PS5, you get The Last of Us and GTAV being re-released for a decade straight without any significant revisions because each of those systems (PS3 through PS5) are pretty much the same system. The Switch absolutely could have ran Mario Kart World at lower specs because nothing unique about the hardware prevented it. The same can't be said about trying to make Star Fox Zero work on the Wii or making Mario Galaxy work on the Gamecube, the hardware innovations were baked into the game design.

psshhh I think you mean Gunpei Yokoi

GanglyKhan posted...

The crux of this outlook is that you couldn't do everything the next system did on the previous system.

Why do you think that won't be the case for the Switch 2? Already, there's that wheelchair basketball game that will be using the mouse controls the same way ARMS used the Switch's Joycons, or Wii Sports used the Wiimote. I fully expect we'll be seeing another Mario Paint as a throwback to the last time a Nintendo system had a mouse controller, mouse controls will likely be put to good use in the inevitable Mario Maker 3, we're already seeing that some FPS games will make use of the mouse (and mouse+joystick is arguably even better for shooters than mouse+WASD), as will games like Civ that just feel better with a mouse...

We're not going to see every game make use of the mouse controls or any other unique Switch 2 features, certainly, but there's less than zero reason to believe that no games will. Given that you're bringing up the goddamn Tingle Tuner as an example of the sort of unique innovation you're pining for, you've set the bar low enough that the Switch 2 isn't going to have any difficulty clearing it.

GanglyKhan posted...

Over on PS5, you get The Last of Us and GTAV being re-released for a decade straight without any significant revisions because each of those systems (PS3 through PS5) are pretty much the same system. The Switch absolutely could have ran Mario Kart World at lower specs because nothing unique about the hardware prevented it. The same can't be said about trying to make Star Fox Zero work on the Wii or making Mario Galaxy work on the Gamecube, the hardware innovations were baked into the game design.

You're comparing porting an older game to newer systems to porting newer games to previous systems. That's not really valid. Porting TLoU to PS4 and PS5 would be more analogous to porting SF0 to Switch/Switch 2 (which could work, with some concessions) or porting SMG to WiiU/Switch (which they did).

Also, cherry-picking games that use unique hardware features and comparing them to games that don't says nothing about whether or not the systems in question have unique hardware features. Xenoblade Chronicles was ported from the Wii to the 3DS, WiiU, and Switch, with no meaningful changes in how the game plays (though I'm one of the few people that preferred the Wiichuck controls for it over the Classic Controller scheme that was used in all subsequent releases). Surely you wouldn't suggest that that means the 3DS, WiiU, and Switch are all essentially the same as the Wii.

adjl posted...

Surely you wouldn't suggest that that means the 3DS, WiiU, and Switch are all essentially the same as the Wii.

tetris has been on everything, so everything is just the same, obv

I feel like there must be something that doesn't have tetris, but I have no idea how I'd even go about confirming that.

VioletZer0 posted...

The switch was powerful enough to do basically anything you wanted already.

lol

it's fine for a lot of games but its limitations are pretty evident if you've ever played ports of the same game on multiple consoles. like monster hunter rise, a time-limited switch exclusive that actually relatively ran pretty good, took like 20 seconds to load a quest on the switch. it's pretty much instant on other consoles (3-5s~ or so) and PC, and the switch 2 takes about 6 seconds

adjl posted...

Except play any higher-budget third-party game that came out in the last five years. Admittedly, the AAA market is such a festering pile of manure at this point that it's pretty easy not to care about most of that, but that includes some pretty major games like Elden Ring, BG3, and Expedition 33 that are well worth playing.

The Switch is really only "powerful enough" if you're using it as a second system to supplement a more powerful one that doesn't lock you out of more demanding titles. The Switch 2 closes at least most of that gap, solving the only thing that was really preventing the Switch from being a Forever Console. I don't know that there's going to be much value in pushing console specs any further than what's already been achieved, so the Switch 2 achieving rough parity with that is a pretty important step.

The big problem is that devs should have designed for the switch first then port to other systems.

Practically gauranteeing a 8k 60fps upgrade on other systems.

that is an incredibly optimistic understanding of how ports and game development work

VioletZer0 posted...

The big problem is that devs should have designed for the switch first then port to other systems.

Practically gauranteeing a 8k 60fps upgrade on other systems.

Some did (like the aforementioned MH Rise), but the modern market just isn't imbalanced enough for that to be a great idea. The Switch's install base is huge, but it's not like the GC/PS2/Xbox generation where making a multiplat game that couldn't run on the PS2 locked you out of 80% of that generation's install base (pretending for a moment that every console sold belonged to a different user because the actual math doesn't matter). The Switch has only sold about 35% better than the PS4, so while catering to it as the lowest common denominator does tap into a large market, you're not going to drastically suffer for skipping it (particularly where it's common to own a Switch as a supplementary console and many Switch owners are more casual gamers that aren't interested in a lot of AAA stuff). Toss in that the Switch demands that developers put more effort into optimization (and in particular, I believe Unity doesn't play nicely with it and that's a big deal in the modern development sphere), games that are designed from the ground up to be more demanding look better than upscaled Switch games, and those upscaled Switch games would be competing with bespoke PS5/Series exclusives that made proper use of those systems' specs, and it's just not that attractive a proposition.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, given that I personally don't feel that games have really *needed* graphical improvements for 20+ years now (and, in that regard, I've been quite happy with Nintendo's philosophy of focusing on making new experiences over just pumping up their benchmark numbers, even if those efforts have been a little hit-or-miss), but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that the Switch isn't quite strong enough to actually say that there's no point in upgrading the specs. Some manner of successor that beefed it up was necessary to keep up with the current market. Now, this could really be the last console generation, given the extreme diminishing returns we're getting into for performance improvements, and that's just not something that you could really say about the Switch.

Consoles don't have "sequels".

adjl posted...

Why do you think that won't be the case for the Switch 2? Already, there's that wheelchair basketball game that will be using the mouse controls the same way ARMS used the Switch's Joycons, or Wii Sports used the Wiimote. I fully expect we'll be seeing another Mario Paint as a throwback to the last time a Nintendo system had a mouse controller......

That's what I'm getting at though, the twist/gimmick of this system is pretty much the same as the one prior. And regarding the Tingle Tuner and other Gamecube games with link cable features, I'm not concerned with the level or intensity of the gimmick and innovation, just the fact that we can observe one being there at all that was unique to that platform.

Switch and Switch 2 have very little going for it in that department, and Nintendo used to be known for having some cool, albeit sometimes not so popular, spins on gaming. They just doubled down with Switch 2 and felt content to give us another 8 years of the same experience.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

tetris has been on everything, so everything is just the same, obv

This is so mentally lazy lol We both know you are capable of writing out something of actual value

it's literally your dumb fuck argument, so get upset at yourself

GanglyKhan posted...

That's what I'm getting at though, the twist/gimmick of this system is pretty much the same as the one prior.

Except that's literally the opposite of what I said. The broad concept of there being a twist/gimmick that a handful of games demonstrate is the same, but that's exactly what you're asking for. The gimmicks themselves are in fact different (one could very easily argue that ARMS was just an evolution of Wii Boxing, but building a game around using multiple mice is new).

GanglyKhan posted...

And regarding the Tingle Tuner and other Gamecube games with link cable features, I'm not concerned with the level or intensity of the gimmick and innovation, just the fact that we can observe one being there at all that was unique to that platform.

The Switch had a cardboard mech suit that you incorporated the controllers into to provide a pseudo-VR experience controlling a robot in-game. If you don't think that's more unique than "you could connect a gameboy to the gamecube," I'm not really sure what to tell you, especially given that functional equivalents to the GBA-GC connectivity have shown up in subsequent systems (the additional display in the DS, 3DS, and WiiU, the asymmetric console gameplay on the WiiU, miscellaneous supplementary information via smartphone integration on the Switch 2) and it's therefore no longer all that unique.

Quite simply, you cannot claim that the Switch 2 doesn't have any new gimmicks. You can claim that you don't care about its gimmicks as much as you have previous ones, because that's just an opinion, but you've explicitly indicated that you are claiming the former and not the latter, and that means you're just objectively wrong.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

it's literally your dumb fuck argument, so get upset at yourself

Indeed. "TLoU being on so many systems means those systems are all the same" is logically identical to "Tetris being on so many systems means those systems are all the same." The PS3, 4, and 5 are functionally very similar systems (at least, more similar than Nintendo's post-GC systems have been to each other), but arriving at a correct conclusion doesn't necessarily mean your thought process was correct, especially when it's pretty clear that you started from that conclusion and just tried to make up a rationale that you thought would support it.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

it's literally your dumb fuck argument, so get upset at yourself

You're being kind of nasty, go take a break. I fucking hate this website because of people like you.

I'd genuinely enjoy continuing the conversation but I'm so upset with how people act on here that I can't even think straight.

I think they really lost their soul when Fusajiro Yamauchi died

GanglyKhan posted...

You're being kind of nasty, go take a break. I fucking hate this website because of people like you.

I'd genuinely enjoy continuing the conversation but I'm so upset with how people act on here that I can't even think straight.

might be a you problem and not this site. You can't take some conversation about video games so seriously. you said something and other people disagreed. sounds pretty average.

GanglyKhan posted...

To put it better, the early 2000s brought us the Gamecube to GBA link cable, which gave you lots of interesting unlockables and secrets as well as games that revolved around i

This is about where I started disagreeing. no big deal of course. My friends and I loved using those cables, but they were really only used for a handful of games. It usually just meant having to spend more money to be able to play the game how it was intended (Crystal Chronicles, Four Swords Adventures). Even though I had tons of fun with that stuff, it was still way less consumer-friendly in comparison to just providing an improved iteration of a popular console. In my opinion. I bear no ill will my friend.