28th November 2012, 9:53 PM
Indeed. Now, they make a point that mobile games are selling by crazy margins at this point. If your goal is outselling the competition, then yes, a lot of those names have done that. However, the consoles and handhelds are still selling at the levels they were before. They really haven't dropped in any significant way. In other words, they're still doing just fine. The console makers don't need to actually beat the competition, they just need to maintain solid sales. They certainly HAVE. The PC is even coming back pretty strong these last two years or so. Nintendo did post pretty strong losses last year though. It remains to be seen if the 3DS turnaround and the Wii U launch will be able to make them profitable again this year.
I've also heard that "a strong yen is hurting them", but I've got no idea what that means. How does currency having MORE value HURT a company using that currency? I'm sure the answer is obvious, but it escapes me. I've heard that for Nintendo, Sony, Sharp, and a number of other companies though.
Smart phones (and to a lesser extent tablets) are selling a lot of games. There are a handful of very addictive titles that I wouldn't call "casual" any more than I would call Tetris casual. Angry Birds is actually incredibly fun and makes great use of a touch only interface (and has been ported to various handhelds like the DS already, though inferior there oddly enough), and there's a handful of others that reach that level of good design, but the vast majority of them are utter garbage. Some are simplified cheapened versions of older console/handheld games, but they're incredibly inexpensive. Heck I get that. I've bought a dozen Atari games from a used game store on a whim before because they were all 50 cents. Now that bargain bin is with you wherever you go, so of course it's tempting. Some companies try to put some deep quality games but have a hard time competing because they attempt to price them at a level that lets them actually maintain a profit from that added investment. Square Enix... well okay that's more of an idealized description of what they do. Most of what they've put up are ports of their games from other systems. The unfortunate reality is the majority of their games just don't work with a touch screen. Now, some of them COULD. Final Fantasy 1 on a touch screen COULD be as simple as a point and click RPG if the whole interface was redone. In practice, all they do is let you "point and click" at the old menu interface buttons. Done that way, it would be quicker with a control pad. Other games... They just don't work at all. Chrono Trigger has a number of action sequences such as the climb up the Mountain of Woe where you need to hide behind trees when the wind blows or the racing sequence in the future. These just don't work at all with the touch screen. (For reference, my friend has bought some of these games on a whim. The complaints came in rather fast.) Secret of Mana is a far worse example. The game is nearly unplayable. "Nearly" simply means that some have actually suffered through the terrible touch screen controls. Their reviews were unkind, and thus marred the whole game with a poor reputation among the younger crowd who's only experience is this version. (On another note, these versions have some improved graphics here and there, like water reflections in Secret of Mana. It sure would be nice of Squeenix to port those improvements over to a 3DS release. Oh, and put Seiken Densetsu 3 in there fully translated while you're at it.)
The bizarre subsidized phone contract nature of the smart phones leads to phones of incredible power than can seemingly be had for a pittance (seemingly because of the money made back in vastly overpriced (in America) monthly contract bills). So yes, they can actually outstrip the 3DS and be on par with Vita power already, and at a fraction of the size with higher quality screens. Too bad they took out the buttons. Certain games will play perfectly well without them (Sony needs to release a new Lemmings for these things and let it dominate the minds of children once again), but a vast majority of genres won't play well at all without them (no FPS games of any note have come out on these devices, for example). The lack of buttons alone prevents these systems from ever really being able to compete with proper handhelds, in spite of what some doomsayers argue. Yes, those smartphone sales will continue to wrack up, but it's only the price point that's doing it. No one would be buying those games at full price like they would a Mario game or a Call of Duty title.
It sure is hard to be an all inclusive gamer at a time like this though. I was barely able to keep up with having all current generation consoles and handhelds and maintaining a decently powerful PC. Now there's Apple, Google, and even Microsoft ARM devices, each their own ecosystem with their own exclusives. Each one costs an arm and a leg, or a contract, in order to get something powerful enough to play all the interesting titles that could come out. (Not to mention that iPads are even more conservatively designed than Nintendo's systems when it comes to internal storage, raising tiers by $100 for even more incremental storage increases.) Even with the PC, I could always just multiboot if I wanted something Linux exclusive, and could hack together a working Mac OS for the 5 or so exclusive Mac OS games I might want. These smart devices are so locked down though that it isn't really an option. Apple has decided on a "no freedom" policy bordering on console level. Google is far more open but has failed to provide a singular driver architecture so their Android OS can be installed on any system without worrying about it being "customized" for each individual bit of hardware (it SHOULD be as simple as just getting the drivers from the manufacturer's web site without needing them to compile the whole thing. Related to this is the major issue of how much control cell phone companies want over their hand sets even when they don't make the OS.) Microsoft's solution hasn't been very good. Their latest one might actually be awesome, and MS has been working to find a sort of middle ground between Apple and Google approaches, but unless their ARM OS version really can run x86 code somehow, they basically have NO back catalog of software to go on and are late enough comers to the party they may never really get one in that lovely "need an audience to get developers, need developers to get an audience" catch 22.
Oh, back on to the Wii U. I think if these trends keep up, Nintendo should seriously consider dropping the "value package" entirely and just selling the "pro" set as the only option. Most people WANT to spend that extra $50 for the extra storage space and "free" game (plus there's that two year discount on eShop purchases), so once the current stock of "bad Wii Us that are bad" sells through, they should just make the white color Us into "pro" models as well.
I've also heard that "a strong yen is hurting them", but I've got no idea what that means. How does currency having MORE value HURT a company using that currency? I'm sure the answer is obvious, but it escapes me. I've heard that for Nintendo, Sony, Sharp, and a number of other companies though.
Smart phones (and to a lesser extent tablets) are selling a lot of games. There are a handful of very addictive titles that I wouldn't call "casual" any more than I would call Tetris casual. Angry Birds is actually incredibly fun and makes great use of a touch only interface (and has been ported to various handhelds like the DS already, though inferior there oddly enough), and there's a handful of others that reach that level of good design, but the vast majority of them are utter garbage. Some are simplified cheapened versions of older console/handheld games, but they're incredibly inexpensive. Heck I get that. I've bought a dozen Atari games from a used game store on a whim before because they were all 50 cents. Now that bargain bin is with you wherever you go, so of course it's tempting. Some companies try to put some deep quality games but have a hard time competing because they attempt to price them at a level that lets them actually maintain a profit from that added investment. Square Enix... well okay that's more of an idealized description of what they do. Most of what they've put up are ports of their games from other systems. The unfortunate reality is the majority of their games just don't work with a touch screen. Now, some of them COULD. Final Fantasy 1 on a touch screen COULD be as simple as a point and click RPG if the whole interface was redone. In practice, all they do is let you "point and click" at the old menu interface buttons. Done that way, it would be quicker with a control pad. Other games... They just don't work at all. Chrono Trigger has a number of action sequences such as the climb up the Mountain of Woe where you need to hide behind trees when the wind blows or the racing sequence in the future. These just don't work at all with the touch screen. (For reference, my friend has bought some of these games on a whim. The complaints came in rather fast.) Secret of Mana is a far worse example. The game is nearly unplayable. "Nearly" simply means that some have actually suffered through the terrible touch screen controls. Their reviews were unkind, and thus marred the whole game with a poor reputation among the younger crowd who's only experience is this version. (On another note, these versions have some improved graphics here and there, like water reflections in Secret of Mana. It sure would be nice of Squeenix to port those improvements over to a 3DS release. Oh, and put Seiken Densetsu 3 in there fully translated while you're at it.)
The bizarre subsidized phone contract nature of the smart phones leads to phones of incredible power than can seemingly be had for a pittance (seemingly because of the money made back in vastly overpriced (in America) monthly contract bills). So yes, they can actually outstrip the 3DS and be on par with Vita power already, and at a fraction of the size with higher quality screens. Too bad they took out the buttons. Certain games will play perfectly well without them (Sony needs to release a new Lemmings for these things and let it dominate the minds of children once again), but a vast majority of genres won't play well at all without them (no FPS games of any note have come out on these devices, for example). The lack of buttons alone prevents these systems from ever really being able to compete with proper handhelds, in spite of what some doomsayers argue. Yes, those smartphone sales will continue to wrack up, but it's only the price point that's doing it. No one would be buying those games at full price like they would a Mario game or a Call of Duty title.
It sure is hard to be an all inclusive gamer at a time like this though. I was barely able to keep up with having all current generation consoles and handhelds and maintaining a decently powerful PC. Now there's Apple, Google, and even Microsoft ARM devices, each their own ecosystem with their own exclusives. Each one costs an arm and a leg, or a contract, in order to get something powerful enough to play all the interesting titles that could come out. (Not to mention that iPads are even more conservatively designed than Nintendo's systems when it comes to internal storage, raising tiers by $100 for even more incremental storage increases.) Even with the PC, I could always just multiboot if I wanted something Linux exclusive, and could hack together a working Mac OS for the 5 or so exclusive Mac OS games I might want. These smart devices are so locked down though that it isn't really an option. Apple has decided on a "no freedom" policy bordering on console level. Google is far more open but has failed to provide a singular driver architecture so their Android OS can be installed on any system without worrying about it being "customized" for each individual bit of hardware (it SHOULD be as simple as just getting the drivers from the manufacturer's web site without needing them to compile the whole thing. Related to this is the major issue of how much control cell phone companies want over their hand sets even when they don't make the OS.) Microsoft's solution hasn't been very good. Their latest one might actually be awesome, and MS has been working to find a sort of middle ground between Apple and Google approaches, but unless their ARM OS version really can run x86 code somehow, they basically have NO back catalog of software to go on and are late enough comers to the party they may never really get one in that lovely "need an audience to get developers, need developers to get an audience" catch 22.
Oh, back on to the Wii U. I think if these trends keep up, Nintendo should seriously consider dropping the "value package" entirely and just selling the "pro" set as the only option. Most people WANT to spend that extra $50 for the extra storage space and "free" game (plus there's that two year discount on eShop purchases), so once the current stock of "bad Wii Us that are bad" sells through, they should just make the white color Us into "pro" models as well.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)