Do you think the Wii U will make nintendo go Sega?

I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo posted it's first real loss since the 1800's. That's ONE loss in over a hundred years the company has been around.

The Wii U definitely won't kill Nintendo, and the 3DS/etc is selling like hotcakes and has amazing third-party support, and backwards compatibility. I think it will take another year or so to really see interesting stuff come out of the WiiU (they said they're going to start porting massive amounts of DS games to the Shop Channel). I also think that as time goes on people will start warming to actual games that Nintendo provides than the shit that gets cross-ported on the two other consoles...eventually people will just find it cheaper to upgrade the PC and play on it (Steam/Valve is what kept PC gaming afloat to the masses, imo). For instance, Microsoft already announced they'll be selling a Kinect-less 720 - and I understand why, the peripheral is absolute shit and works only half the time. I'm pretty sure Nintendo's future is safe, especially now that Sega became exclusive to them - Sega has a lot of killer franchises that are pretty valuable.

Ultimately I'll mirror what others have said: It's the lack of marketing that's hurting Nintendo. I'm not sure if they are embarrassed or whatever but they used to be all over the place...maybe they thought the leading-generation Wii would pick up the slack (hence naming it the WiiU), but honestly, they need to push it out a little harder. And I don't agree with the Mobile gaming sentiment - leave that to Apple, Google, and RIM. Nintendo's quality is 10000x better than any of the shit I've seen put out from them or their developers.

I also don't think Iwata deserves to get the boot or shamed like a lot of people want (i.e. Muricans), because he actually invests himself in the marketing/ads/games/etc. Honestly if I was Nintendo I probably would have done the same thing. And I think Reggie is super-badass, whatever he says or does is pure Gold and you can tell he really cares about the company. They are going through a rough patch, but I'm fairly certain that they'll bounce back eventually and reclaim the top spot.

Gamecube rocked, but I still thought the Dreamcast was the better system out of Xbox, PS2, and GCN.

I still think the Gamecube is better than the Dreamcast, Dreamcast just feels like nostalgia to me. :P

Chu said:

I'm pretty sure Nintendo's future is safe, especially now that Sega became exclusive to them - Sega has a lot of killer franchises that are pretty valuable.

Source? The only thing I've heard along those lines is that Sega agreed to make 3 Nintendo exclusive Sonic titles.

Chu said:

And I don't agree with the Mobile gaming sentiment - leave that to Apple, Google, and RIM. Nintendo's quality is 10000x better than any of the shit I've seen put out from them or their developers.

You're not being very clear here. Software? Hardware? If software, I would assume the OS, since they don't make the games. If the hardware, what's wrong with it? It can run Unreal Engine 3 pretty well. I don't see why something with the look and feel of a 3DS couldn't be made from Android stuff. It's forward thinking because it would be easier to develop for, and would have plenty of more functionality. I don't see why a dedicated device is remotely a good idea these days.

Chu said:

I also don't think Iwata deserves to get the boot or shamed like a lot of people want (i.e. Muricans), because he actually invests himself in the marketing/ads

I haven't seen this. I haven't seen a Wii U ad ever unless it's been pointed out to me and I have to look for it. Nintendo just isn't advertising, period. And what do stereotypical lower class Americans have anything to do with it?

Maes said:

Compare e.g. the NES with the Sega Master System: the latter is a quite "clean" Z80-based design with nothing too exceptional about it, the NES runs on a hacked 6502 (itself a very hackish CPU) and a bunch of equally hacky PPU, SPU, etc.

The SNES vs the Genesis: again, the Genesis was a quite conventional contemporary design, with a 68000 and a Z80, while the SNES used a CPU with a twist and tons of hardware tricks. Despite that, and unlike e.g. the Jaguar, it was a success.

Agree about the Nintendo systems being a success, but I disagree about the reasons given. Nintendo has always had basic hardware designs with assistance, just like Sony. This doesn't give developers much freedom IMO (hardware speaking); especially if it's hacky hardware (how is one able to avoid the SDK all together that way?). It's possible for a child to make a game using a devlopment kit. Heck why not port Doom 3 to PlayStation and fragment each room into sublevels so it can fit into 1mb of ram (no shadows or bump mapping of course).

Sega machines on the other hand, typically allowed custom programs (with good hardware at that). You could write a custom program to run off whatever was available in the machine; this is hardly possible with Nintendo and Sony machines. Many games show a good example of this; Contra Hard Corps has scaling and rotation programs running off the 68000 CPU already available in the console, and it's done in software without slowdown. Most SNES programs use hardware assistance or add-on chips that most games had on cartridge (Mega Man X games e.g.). Ironically, this caused many Sega titles to appear low quality from inefficient programming. Sega provided top quality hardware and flexibility for game development (or programming in general). Early Saturn titles also show custom programs in use (software transparency in Robotica); Saturn was built for custom software but was hardly used for that purpose. BTW Sega themselves didn't even write custom programs but relied on hardware and SDK (most of their Saturn titles use hardware tricks that don't work too well; can you say mesh transparency?). Heard most say writing sh2 or 68000 is a lot more satisfying than x86 haha (would've been interesting to see Carmageddon (first DOS release) run with 24MB Ram cart on Saturn. Wait a minute, there's no floating point unit). Heck even Capcom (which is no small in house developer), used sh2's in their arcade machines. Sega used hardware that was more future proof (68000 cpus are still being used btw. Actually have one in my older line conditioner).

EDIT:
@Males:
Okay I can see what you were saying (especially Sega having good clean hardware) and I agree with that, but you can't say Nintendo allowed flexibility and longevity (they were basic at best, and hacky hardware has no future whatsoever).

hardcore_gamer said:

I suppose the SNES and to a lesser degree the NES were very good consoles, but for the most part Nintendo consoles (Gameboy doesn't count since it is not a console) have been pieces of shit.

I suppse the NES wasn't amazing compared to the Master System, which was newer tech, to be fair to Nintendo. Master System could pull of stff that even looked 16 bit-ish, which was really nice for the time. The NES just had practically all the games, so I see what you mean about the fond memories being of the software, not the hardware.

The SNES takes a shit on the Genesis in terms of specs though. I loved my SNES, though I love the Genesis and it's library too. (I'm sure others will debate this, but I'll take Mode 7 + exponentially more colors + better sound any day of the week. Or, more accurately, I'll take both! I recently bought an adapter that allows Megadrive/Gen games to be played through my SNES anyway.)

hardcore_gamer said:

The N64 had one of the worst controllers ever to grace a major game console.

Not sure why they stuck with the controller design, but the N64 was originally going to be a Wii-like system. Where the cable is now is where the motion sensor was going to be placed. Holding the 2 outer grips would have been great for racing games, where you turn the wheel. Using one hand to grip the middle stick and using the Z button as a trigger would have been perfect for on-rails shooting games. The controller was a great idea IF they were able to get the motion control right, which they simply couldn't back then. As it is, it's pretty bad; as it was intended, it woulda been damn good.

hardcore_gamer said:

The Gamecube was a gloryfied purple lunchbox with a wierd controller

The Gamecube controller is still one of the most comfortable controllers ever made, as far as I'm concerned. The Xbox 360 controller is more or less the exact same, though the main 4 buttons are laid out much better on the 360. (Exact same as the SNES layout, no surprise there.) Here's a breif video where I compare the two, actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smp4xDtOmW8 - I made this because people were accusing Nintendo of "stealing" the 360 layout for their Wii U pro controllers. Ha.

hardcore_gamer said:

the Wii was basically just one big gimick that became extremely popular because it appealed to lots of casual gamers, and now we have the Wii U which is like the Wii just more expensive and with an even more stupid controller.

I agree entirely. Compared to the Gamecube, the Wii was a major disappointment. The graphics were no better, and the motion control was only so-so. There were only a few games, and they weren't as good as their Gamecube counterparts (Smash Bros. Melee is WAY better than Brawl, in my opinion, Mario Kart: Double Dash is better than MKWii, other than the internet option..)

I'm not really sure where I stand about the whole console thing. I'm never getting a Wii U, and I'd love to have Mario games on XBox, but is it a good business decision for them to do so? Hard to say. Great topic for a thread, by the way!

Holering said:

@Males:

He may be into manly-man things like fisting cyberdemons and pumping white trash ass-chap-wearing shotgun zombies full of hot manly lead, but his username is Maes, not Males.

Doomkid92 said:

I suppse the NES wasn't amazing

Heh, it was so anemic that most of the game cartridges themselves had to pick up the slack with bankswitchers and extra RAM. The NES as-is without hardware addons is a joke compared the the Master System. Its case design was a perfect exercise in wasting space, both the systems and the games. At least the Famicom was sensible in not harboring 99% air inside the plastic.

Doomkid92 said:

The SNES takes a shit on the Genesis in terms of specs though.

Eh. The SNES did have more colors and visual effects, as well as more RAM, but its CPU sucked hard. Look at the SNES version of Wolf 3D, and then go look at the homebrew Mega Drive Wolf 3D. I think that's a perfect example of how the SNES CPU was shit, note that Wolf 3D didn't use the SuperFX chip on there. The Genesis also had a higher resolution. Both could easily do 256-wide pictures, but the Genesis most often used its 320-wide mode. The SNES did have a 512-wide mode, but it was very rarely used.

Ok in this modern world graphics rule all and everything and ever gamer knows this :

1 : snes was graphically more advanced then the genesis.
2 : the gamecube was graphically more advanced then the PS2.

But, nintendo is not about graphics, in the end they are about the games and the fun they could bring. They always have been a company which attempts to do their own thing. The world needs such companies or it would become one giant boring market to buy stuff on.

So it would be insane to claim they should give up on consoles, it would be against every logic.


side note :
-------------
Mega Drive/Genesis : (wiki.)
9 bit rgb, 61 colors on screen at the same time.
a pallete of 512 colors total.

Snes : (wiki.)
15 bit rgb colors, 256 colors on the screen at the same time.
but they can use blending to get more on the screen.

I'm just tired of the bastards that say the Genesis/Megadrive had awful sound hardware. It honestly stomps the NES and TurboGrafX into the dust, and really is a far different beast from the SNES (Sample playback VS actual synthesis).

Although the outcome can be comparable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwUd3RclPUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sX3fjpkFwk

Edit: Colors?
http://segaretro.org/images/9/90/Flora.png
http://segaretro.org/images/3/34/Freon_ristar.png

did i miss a post in here, who wrote anything about sound ?
i cant find it (lol).

That was me :P The Genesis needs a cough drop, comparing samples is specifically what I was referring to. Of course it shits on the NES, it's a few years younger and the NES has never really been praised for it's sound capabilities, unlike the SNES.

AS for the music, everything sounded like a DOS game, which obviously as a Doomer I don't mind, but the SNES was capable of much smoother, more orchestral tones.

If people want to hear amazing Genny music, they need not look further than the Sonic series. AMAZING music, but it's a more rigid, computer like sound than the SNES, there's no denying that. They both have their strengths.

hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think the Wii U will make nintendo go Sega?

With the bank that Nintendo has? Fuck no. Besides, do people really want to have only two, virtually identical consoles competing with each other?

[url]http://www.doomworld.com/vb/everything-else/40917-nes-doom/[/URL]

:O

Heh, the guy who made that NES Doom thing admitted quite a while back that it wasn't actually done with NES restrictions or anything. The smooth scaling of sprites just isn't possible on the hardware which is what debunked that video and got him to admit it.

Technically though, a Wolf3D clone would have been possible, there's a video on YouTube where's the HUD face is a disappointed Mario. I think it was called "Stuck" or something, just a homebrew title, but interesting nonetheless! If someone can find it, I'd love to see it again, it's been a long time.