What the hell, Nintendo?

Part of the reason for their software success is because of their hardware. People don't seem to realize how wholly intertwined their hardware and software businesses are. They aren't like Sony or Microsoft, whose business are split among numerous businesses and audiences. Nintendo doesn't sell TVs or PC operating systems. Every bit of profit they earn is tied directly to the video game market, and if they were to lose what they earn in hardware, their software would take a major hit.

Oh my, the internet just needs to take a collective chill-pill and shut up about Nintendo for a while.

It's so tiring to read the same ol' nonsense every damn day. Nothing is gonna change until E3. They are gonna bring all their big guns. They messed up and basically from launch until E3 it has been a WiiU preview/beta experience. All this doom nonsense means nothing right now. Let them blow minds at E3 and call doom next year if the system is still circling the toilet.

@demoskinos:This is a terrible idea which has been pointed out by countless people countless of times. Nintendo is great because it designs both its hardware and software. Period. Let's end it there.

I'm disappointed at the Wii U as much as the next guy, but can we wait another year or two until we declare the console dead in the water? E3 is coming and although Nintendo is not doing their usual big extravaganza, games will be announced and shown.

Let's wait and see, guys.

@hailinel: Every Zelda game I've ever tried to play has had wonky controls. And they weren't just because of motion controls, they were just clumsy. Did they work? Sure. And lets face it, the Wii's motion controls are pretty bad. Skyward Sword was ridiculously unresponsive, had an absolutely dismal camera (a very strong pattern in Nintendo games, and Wii games in general). Sure, most Mario games control pretty well (except when they want you to shake a Wii-mote, which works about 80% of the time, which is about 20% too infrequently), but plenty of the games that come out of nintendo involving more than running left and right and jumping have pretty clumsy controls. Mostly because they hamstring themselves with shitty control options like the Wii-mote, but there are plenty of examples of just poorly designed inputs.

Also, Skyward Sword didn't innovate, it just took a mechanic that was already done elsewhere, and it did it poorly. The responsiveness and behavior of the swings in Skyward Sword were poor, at least in my experience, with a brand spanking new Wii, and rarely felt like they gave me any actual added control. It was kind of neat at first having to spin your damn arm around like a clock arm just to attack from a different direction, because the game doesn't let you adjust for a strike any other way is completely counter to how the strikes play into the gameplay. Not to mention having to recalibrate the fucking controller when it got all wonky, hopefully something that didn't happen in the middle of combat.

Maybe I look like I'm an ignorant asshole to you, but you just look like a fanboy, something I've experience with you on a number of occasions. There is no way in hell you can tell me that anything on the Wii controls any better than "mediocre" that actually uses the selling point of the Wii: motion. Or that Nintendo is in any way innovating by letting you swing a sword accurately instead of as an analogue for button presses, especially when it barely functions as such. Or that Nintendo has done much of anything but either literally remake or practically remake their core franchises over and over. The Galaxy games were awesome, even with a bit of Wii-mote-itis. But even those just made a 3D platformer with some interesting structure and neat mechanics. Mostly, those games succeeded on the fact that MARIO hadn't gone in that direction and that the execution was pretty damn good. Not because they were innovative or spectacular, just because they were made very well and gave a twist on past 3D Mario platformers.

@grantheaslip: Yet if someone says "fuck EA" or "man Call of Duty never changes and sucks" they aren't a troll, they are "right."

Christ, what is it with gamers and refusing to see past their own freakin' nose? They complain about one franchise for reason A, then turn around and totally ignore the exact same fault in something just because it's made by one of the "good" guys.

Nintendo releases a pretty lackluster chunk of hardware with features that barely stand up to current gen consoles, and a pretty lackluster launch line-up, bring about the evil "motion control" fad, and just remake the same games over and over with a few little twists if you're really really lucky, and they get less shit than Black Ops 2 which actually did innovate or got as close as anyone can to innovating with the way it handled not player choice but player agency. Sure, the game is still Call of Duty, but at least it's constructed like a modern game and at least it pushed what we thought was possible with video game storytelling. The next best thing we have for player choice in games is a guy sitting staring blankly at you as you sit there and ponder which dialogue choice will get your bone on fastest.

Just a bunch of hypocrites who care more about nostalgia and loyalty than about actual quality half of the time.

Nintendo always comes out fine.

@mordeaniischaos: If you were trying to attack by spinning your arm around like a clock in order to position yourself, then you were playing the game wrong. It's not about the placement of the arms, it's about the direction of your swings. You can play that game fine without really moving your arm at all. Also, if you needed to calibrate your remote a lot, then that's just you being unnecessarily wild with said arm movements. It really doesn't require that much effort and worked fine. I actually can't even remember having to calibrate it. It sounds like you went into that game with a stigma and let it overcome your experience.

@mordeaniischaos: How are these Zelda games you've played clumsy? You're just rambling without providing solid examples. How exactly am I supposed to interpret "Every Zelda game I've ever tried to play has had wonky controls. And they weren't just because of motion controls, they were just clumsy. Did they work? Sure." You go from criticizing the controls for their clumsiness to admitting that they worked without even stating how they were clumsy or why they worked. I mean, really:

• What Zelda games have you played?
• In what ways were the controls wonky?
• In what ways did they work?

And in regarding EA and Call of Duty, I've seen plenty of people on these forums come to the defense of both. I have no real interest in criticizing Call of Duty because I'm just not an FPS fan. I don't play such games very often, though the last one that I played and that I enjoyed happened to be Activision's Call of Duty-esque GoldenEye 007.

Honestly, you seem more intent on just antagonizing people for not agreeing with your ill-stated viewpoint than actually taking the time to make any sort of coherent, logical argument that isn't steeped in vitriol.

They'll release Super Smash Bros, Mario, and Zelda and they will make enough to get to the end of the generation.

@grantheaslip: I fail to see why me really disliking the products and practices of Nintendo makes me an asshole. I really dislike their games and the way they hold back their employees. Not really sure of a better way to say it, because it's exactly that: I fuckin' hate the way they do business and the way they make games. It harms creativity in the industry and prevents a lot of truly great minds from actually being utilized. But hey, for your sake, I'll just say "I dislike" regardless of how I actually feel. Nintendo is a great business but a really poor creative environment. And that sucks majorly for all involved.

@hailinel: I did give examples. Such as the lack of camera control, the lack of responsiveness from striking, the need to fucking recalibrate. Multiple times. In one play session. You just seem to be ignoring these examples

Just because they work doesn't mean they are good. When I say "they work" what I mean is exactly that and nothing more. Plenty of games have functioning mechanics that aren't completely broken without those mechanics being excellent. You can beat Skyward Sword. But not without running into issues with the controls. You may be used to those controls and care less, but I came to Zelda without any prior experience with the franchise or any similar franchises. I haven't played many games that don't have camera control in the last generation of games, and the few times I did, it wasn't usually an issue. I'm used to having things like that work. When you're used to modern standards and approach a franchise like Zelda, and they suddenly aren't there, it's pretty damn jarring, and unpleasantly so. Not only because it's "different" but because it's inferior. There is no way not having good camera control is a good thing.

I played another Wii Zelda, and I remember finding the controls just feeling like a novelty, and a lot of the same issues were present. Camera controls, lack of responsiveness, etc. Because the damn games never change. They never improve upon things they just add a new twist and fail to iterate, just add a couple things on top.

I think if Skyward Sword were a tighter, more responsive game, it'd be awesome. If the writing had voice acting and animation to really utilize the story, it'd be so very much better. I was super excited to play the game initially, after everything Patrick said about it. It was pretty much the reason I picked up a Wii finally, that and SMGalaxy. And it was a huge letdown. Other than the cool art style and some neat dungeon mechanics, it felt clunky, old, and even for someone who barely even touched Zelda prior to that point, already pretty repetitive.

@xyzygy: I must be lying, hated the game to begin with, and that's totally how swords work.

You need to reposition to be able to strike. If you don't, you just end up jerking the wii mote in random directions, which doesn't work well. My issue was that the game tended, in the heat of battle, to see me moving a bit to be able to swing again as a swing of it's own, thus causing me to get stunned or shocked or whatever else. The game was pitched as having a natural and intuitive combat system. It was not that at all. I was using a bit of a hyperbole about the whole windmill arm thing, but it wasn't far off. It was absolutely not just the direction of the movement, it also mattered where your sword started. Which was finicky to get to respond quickly enough to respond to enemy behavior without just, as I said before, it being read as a strike.

And even if it is entirely based on the direction your wiimote moves in, regardless of where the sword is in virtual space (not at all the experience I had, and I put a good bit of time trying to figure out exactly how the sword did react to different movements), it just means that the game isn't really all that tactile but just another example of cheezy motion controls that have little connection to the actual gameplay. You're basically describing Fruit Ninja, but without being able to differentiate between touching and not touching. If I strike from left to right, and then want to strike again left to right because any other attack would be bad news for me, I have to reposition. I can't just make another movement to continue the same path, that's just not intuitive at all. You have to reset and come back to a place to strike from, not just strike without any relation to a point of impact.

@mordeaniischaos: You gave examples from Skyward Sword specifically, but you mentioned you had issues with every Zelda game you've played. Skyward Sword is an outlier because of its motion controls. What about the others? Are the only Zelda games you've played Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess (the other Wii Zelda)? You seemed to previously indicate you had a lot more experience with the franchise than those two games.

Your opinion is not an absolute. There are plenty of people that enjoy Skyward Sword for what they perceive as its qualities; not out of some misguided sense of nostalgia, but because they find the game to be legitimately well made and as a result, fun and entertaining. If it's not your thing, then that's fine, but that's no reason to denigrate others that do enjoy the game as being sheep blinded by console loyalty.

Nintendo is still making bank in the Japanese market. They might still do that by continuing to develop the handheld side of their business and sweeping the WiiU mess under the rug.

I would argue that the Game Boy was competitive with the SNES and better than the N64, at least. And the GBA was better than the Gamecube, and the DS was waaaay better than the Wii. So not really that hard to imagine. I enjoy my Wii U relatively well; Nintendo Land is fantastic. I haven't had time to buy MonHun yet, but I plan to.

Also, why are you so mad, exactly? Did you buy a Wii U and find yourself disappointed? If not, why are you so upset?