Sheikah

Is this not a full price game? If it isn't, I was probably just going to wait to see if there would be a Plus version.

That looks amazing.

Maybe it's an ambitious undertaking, as in, "boy, that's a lot of work to balance all them characters". But the end result does not feel ambitious to me. Melee is still my favourite Smash game and I do not see that any game since has improved it in any remarkable way, certainly not in a way that has struck me as ambitious. The same goes for Pikmin. It's nice you can switch characters but the game overall feels...like more of the same to me. A good same, but still not the kind of new content I'd like to see from Nintendo. Or, an existing franchise improved remarkably. Remember Metroid Prime? Wasn't that a swell thing for Nintendo to do with Samus. Man, reading this bit was just painful. :p I know you are fighting the good fight for Nintendo and all, but it seems clear you don't actually know and are...asking me? Bloodborne was quite a departure from Dark Souls in terms of gameplay and style - it went from a slow and steady shieldy castle crawler to fast paced, lovecraftian themed game. Yeah it had Dark Souls things to it but it was more ambitious a departure because of all the gameplay differences. Some of those games you mentioned aren't that ambitious, I acknowledge. But like I said, for me the problem is the balance of ambitious to non-ambitious. My personal opinion why Sunshine was ambitious: - FLUDD had its own mechanics and unique feel to it - it made tackling platforms really quite different - The scope of levels was big like Mario 64 - The levels where you lost the FLUDD were nothing short of genius, and were clearly the inspiration for many levels in Galaxy.

Pikmin 3 isn't unambitious because there are other Pikmin. It's unambitious because it's very similar in scope and gameplay to the previous games. Witcher 2 and 3 couldn't be more different. For the record, I am not saying there is anything wrong with unambitious games, as they can scratch an itch; just that I have not seen enough ambitious games from Nintendo in recent years. A lot of safe plays. Maybe you and I work on different definitions of "amibition". To me, ambition isn't just adding a multiplier to the number of characters, levels, music tracks, etc. True, ambitious games can fail (not that I think LBP did). But unambitious games can fail too - fail to keep people's attention after a while. Then use Mario Galaxy as your example, or even Mario Sunshine. They both felt a lot more ambitious. They had something unique about them that genuinely made the games feel quite unique and fresh, at least to me.

It's all not very ambitious because it's mostly all that has gone before. Pikmin is a very good example of that, actually, while Smash is a very safe bet. Super Mario 3D World felt like it could have been a properly ambitious 3D adventure in the league of SM64 instead of the 2.5D world-based structure it had. There are more examples...basically, I just haven't been all that impressed. Ambitious is Splatoon - but that was only one game. One game that I consider pretty amibitious over a very long period of time, in my opinion. As cool an idea Mario Maker is, it's not the kind of ambition I'm talking about (it's still centered around another 2D platformer). I'm sure I remember in discussions @Serebii would explain that new IPs were probably not worth pursuing, or too risky (something to that effect). Splatoon sales should surely show what Nintendo need to do. Keep a continuously updated Smash in the sideline and move focus to new IP.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Nintendo clearly make good games but for me there has been a definite lack of ambition with their games this generation.

Really, nobody is upset about it. It was just a really poor comparison dude - I don't think the people who pointed this out are in any way getting riled about his comment. I also don't think there's one person here who dislikes Nintendo. I'm willing to bet most people you could probably name have a current Nintendo system of some sort.

Allow someone who has both played the game and rinsed it of all its content to tell you what it is like, rather than just guessing. It's niche. Bloodborne is niche for 2 main reasons: - It is very difficult compared to most games. A lot of people won't try it for that reason alone. - It is obscure - communities assemble on message boards to figure out what the hell is going on. Just because it looks good, it doesn't mean it isn't a niche game. They can afford to spend a lot on it because even though it's niche, it will still sell a lot and draw in customers to the console. It just won't sell anywhere near like what another big game made by a big developer will have the opportunity to sell.

I don't mind anyone expressing an opinion but his comparison was just a poor one. Like I said, Bloodborne and Bayonetta 2 would be an actually fair comparison in terms of audience/gameplay as Bloodborne is just a very niche game whereas Splatoon isn't.

One which quite clearly wasn't very funny. To be honest Dazzy, you call it a joke but it's essentially the same thing you always say about me on this forum, again and again. I absolutely cannot stand when people behave like jerks and then try to brush it off as "just a joke". Conversely, I have nothing but respect for people who put their hands up and admit to poor judgement.

Wahey! I will get to play it.

It's pretty obvious why, and yeah, it's rather sad. Obviously both games have done well but Bloodborne is a much more niche game that is quite challenging (which itself can be offputtig to many) - a better comparison would be Bayonetta 2 and Bloodborne.

April be cray.

You're forgetting the 5th group for judgemental fellows like yourself there. I mean, really, does it make you feel good to troll people so blatantly? Yay, labeling.

The inconvenience. Come on, if Skype was good enough for people on the Wii U then nobody would be demanding voice chat, would they? People have to arrange it, have a second device, etc. It's inconvenient enough that most people probably won't do it.

@Nicktendo this seems to be completely at odds with the message you originally put across: If you read what you originally said it seems pretty clear that you are dismissing voice chat (particularly the bolded bits) and arguing that people on PC weren't really doing it because it wasn't "built in", as a means to say it wasn't really all that important. Yet now you are agreeing with me that actually, the PC kids are probably all doing it on Skype; ergo it is very much valued in the Minecraft community. Just as, I'm arguing, it is on the extremely popular console versions too. The key difference is that Minecraft PC doesn't need voice chat as people can Skype from the same system. People on Wii U would need voice chat as there is no Skype. That's why it was so important Nintendo had it, just as the other consoles did. Without it, you offer just a lite experience relative to your competitors. I think the piracy issue has sidetracked the original point I was trying to make (and ultimately is just completely theoretical guessing). My personal opinion is that most people on modded Minecraft servers have probably bought the game, owing to the fact most people probably jump in at Vanilla minecraft before going down the modded route (plus, it's super cheap).

Well we will have no idea how many pirate it and how many don't. Just as we won't for the 360 version. The only thing I can tell you is that, as the figures show, Minecraft console is a massive deal and that kids/teens are the biggest audience. In addition to that, you don't have any information pertaining to whether 10 year olds generally know how to Skype or not; thus, the kids playing PC may well be skyping too. Your argument about what Nintendo should do was very much based on your own personal feeling/limited anecdotes and generally conflicts with what available data we really have.

But it isn't more popular on PC than consoles collectively. The PC has the definitive version, but Minecraft is more popular on consoles (which is reflected by the fact more people have bought it). Not sure where you are going with the point about piracy. Piracy is also rife on the 360, the console with the most Minecraft console sales. But even then, Minecraft is a dirt cheap game and the nature of how it is updated means most people that have modded it have almost certainly bought a legit copy too. I don't think this matters so much anyway, other than to point out that your argument that "Nintendo needn't do this" due to it being relatively unpopular on consoles was way off the mark. I also don't think you understand how ridiculously easy it is to Skype on PC for PC players, too. Kids are most definitely doing this.

I don't think the one third of Wii U owners statistic itself is an impressive figure - there has already been considerable selection taking place (many of the people who have bothered to pick up the Wii U and stick to it have been the dedicated fanbase; contrast this to the Wii where there would not be a chance in hell of a game like this selling to a third of owners of the system). It is by no means a normal population to draw conclusions based on percentages from. That said, 4 million is an impressive figure regardless and Nintendo would do well to look at how a new franchise has done rather well for them.

I read this and literally had to post. Not trying to be snarky, but it's quite important that if you engage in really long posts like this that you really know what you're talking about, because people will tune out from the rest of your post if they read something like this. Minecraft console sales surpassed PC sales long ago. It's not hard to see why - it's so much more simple with a controller, it's typically cheaper, social is built in (and your friends there), and it's much easier to play on a TV. Then for the PC users, Skype itself is a piece of piss. My much younger brother was doing it at 10. Then, a quick look at YouTube. You don't need to look far to see that Minecraft is without doubt one of the most streamed and watched games, even topics, on the whole of the site. Most of that is children and early teens. Predictably this argument has been misinterpreted; from suggesting that Nintendo should take up features that people want, to claiming that people are arguing they want Nintendo to churn out COD. I mean, really? Come on. People demanding Nintendo introduce features they want that other consoles have does not mean people want Nintendo to literally become the same as the competition. Nintendo will never become the same as the rest because of their USP - their software. Nobody should apologise for Nintendo's choices here because frankly, they are shit. And yeah, that is reflected in the way that loads of people are turning away from their home console.

Honestly, this mentality needs to stop. This very mentality underlies why Nintendo find themselves in their current situation with regards to social elements. They need to stop taking such a level of responsibility for this kind of thing - so long as you give people the level of freedom they want (direct messaging, voice chat) - there will always be abuse. What they need to do is simple - lock these features behind parental controls and have parents enable them. It's what Sony and MS do and you don't see parents vetoing their console based on this decision. It is not their fault that there are bad parents; no more so than if a parent buys their young kid a copy of GTA or Bayonetta. They should not be be nannying in such a way that hurts their feature set. Regarding losing the kids of today, I honestly don't see what Nintendo can do. Parents already have tablets and phones that they let their kids use so in terms of install base iOS games absolutely murder Nintendo's in terms of penetration. They are also dirt cheap and naturally, just because of the devices they feature on, they are socially wired. The main problem is that younger kids don't buy their own system - their parents buy it. If it's a toss up between a £300 system and then buying £40 games on top versus handing a kid an existing tablet and some very cheap games then it's a no brainer which one is unlikely to get a look in with that particular audience. It's almost cruel. About all I can see working is Nintendo having a eureka moment - making something like its own Minecraft in terms of impact and appeal. Something that would sell their system alone.

This looks so. Cool. Just watching that video you can also see a considerable level of complexity in the range of attack options/flexibility while fighting enemies.

I completed Okami on both PS2 and Wii (and Okamiden on DS). I preferred the PS2 version - the motion controls (for instance, drawing a bomb) could be very frustrating. Wonderful game though.

Amen. What a game it was, absolutely loved it. Shame I never gave the sequel much due.

Out of EA's message comes something interesting regarding sales of the two big consoles. Eurogamer have picked up on the fact EA said 55 million PS4s and X1s combined have been sold. Since Sony do report PS4 console sales; 35.9 million as of early January, this puts X1 sales at 19 million. It's no wonder Microsoft won't release X1 sales...half the sales of the PS4. Actually quite shocking.