September 14th

[Paco]

Right now, Nintendo is beating PS2, PSP and XBox 360 around the globe with a handheld. They're not a distant third and never were, they're directly competing with any and all console and handheld manufacturers. Now, you bring up that Nintendo said they want to make smaller games. So, show me one. Any of the Mario games, Zelda games, Metroid, (although that's a second party it's still very much dictated by NCL) etc. We could look at Excitetruck which is a racing game, it wont be 'smaller' than other racing games. Here's why that quote came in to being. Years ago Niuntendo had a second party called Silicon Knights who teamed up to make a game called Eternal Darkness which had great success. The next game SK wanted to make is called Too Human. SK said in an interview that Too Human will be on 5 (!!) disks. Shortly after, SK broke away from Nintendo: ""Nintendo wants to focus on smaller games". This was a dig at Nintendo because they didn't want to produce a 5 disk game.

Now fast forward, you have games like Nintendogs which is actually a simulator of sorts. The game isn't 'small' by any means, it's just not a platformer or adventure game with landscapes and whatnot. Warioware for GC and the handhelds is also not 'small', and has recieved acclaim from every reviewer out there for it's gameplay and multiplayer goodness. These are games that aren't focusing on play as X character and save the world, their games that can be played as a quick pick up and play fix, and that's what Nintendo was getting at. And to show their good faith towards this new type of game, Nintendogs, Warioware, etc were released at slightly lower prices. Nintendogs retailed for 25 bucks, Warioware retailed for 39. That trend will continue. Twlight princess probably costs upwards of 20 million to make, OoT had a cost of 13 million. Production investments like this warrant a larger sticker price.

I hope so. I just can't see myself paying $50 for Nintendogs or Warioware. I've played both and...just no. Zelda, Metroid, Mario; I'm perfectly fine with $50.

So again, next gen system, graphics as good as 360, more features built in than what the 360 or PS3 offers all for 250 bucks and games that are cheaper than the competition.

And you STILL want a price drop when you get to play games that look like this? (and it's not even optimized graphically for Wii, it's a port from GC!)

The graphics are not as good as 360. They just aren't. Show me something looks close to Gears of War, Mass Effect, Kane & Lynch, Viva Pinata, Lost Planet...there's a huge difference right now.

Those textures look flat, the environment looks bland.