Nintendo Download for March 22, 2012. [news]

on: 03/22/12, 15:54:39

Thursdays make me want to slit my wrists.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 16:09:12

Yeah, nothing that's piquing my interest here. I recently got back into Mario Kart 7 though, plus Final Fantasy XIII is keeping me busy, so I'm good.

Posted by

ludist210

on: 03/22/12, 16:12:39

This week's Nintendo Download is yawn-themed.

Posted by

Davoid

on: 03/22/12, 16:17:21

We were on such a good roll, Pushmo, Mighty Switch Force, Sakura Samurai, Mutant Mudds, Dillon's, not all those games were masterpieces but they were high quality and interesting. Guess Nintendo only planned for the first wave of eShop titles and now they're letting it die on the vine.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 16:29:02

I guess I should give up on seeing Double Dragon 2. I know Aksys got the rights to it a while back... but damn. The wait is ridiculous.

Posted by

Cryojin

on: 03/22/12, 16:40:44

@deathly_hallows Realistically speaking though, you're not going to get games of that quality as often as they were releasing. I definitely expected a slowdown at some point.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 16:45:58

I don't understand Nintendo. If a week could have Wario Land, it's this week.

Then again, if Rebonack is to be trusted (is he?), people on Neogaf all claim that there are no good Game Boy games anyway. If Neogaf is representative of most gamers (lol), perhaps Game Boy games sell horribly on the service.

I find it hard to believe that the better first party games aren't selling, though. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, all those should be doing well. And so would Wario Land. And so would 3rd party stuff like the Final Fantasy titles.

You can't look at the sales of Lock N' Chase and determine that the problem is "Game Boy games don't sell".

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 16:49:20

- Edited by

on: 03/22/12, 16:53:28

Nintendo can shove this up their ass.

Posted by

anon_mastermind

on: 03/22/12, 16:52:03

Nintendo doesn't get that the Virtual Console should be complementary to the WiiWare/eShop releases every week, not just filler if there aren't any new releases. Don't give us one or the other, give us both! I mean, I get the slowdown on the Wii VC (sort of), but the eShop is less than a year old and we barely get two games a month.

Posted by

ludist210

on: 03/22/12, 16:56:00

@deathly_hallows
I think that's a bit premature. I mean, it's possible, but premature. Nintendo has always been bad about timing their releases. But the eShop seems to have some actual momentum, unlike WiiWare and DSiWare. Plus, journalists aren't all ignoring it completely! Most of them are, but not all.

Anyway, this week sucks. I'm so sick of zombies. I think that even if we had a REAL zombie apocalypse, I'd just yawn.

Posted by

Anand

on: 03/22/12, 16:57:12

@Guillaume Stop calling me out on random things I say on Twitter!

I don't think Neogaf is wrong in that there are fewer good GameBoy games than for most other Nintendo systems, and they're probably right that NES games will sell better than GB games. But I'm sure that big name stuff like Zelda, Mario and Final Fantasy do/would sell pretty well, and they'll certainly do better if they're out there BEFORE their NES counterparts. There are plenty of GB games they should have released before they started re-re-re-releasing NES games.

Hell, it's a big missed opportunity not releasing Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters this week. And we're still waiting on Wario Land...

Posted by

rebonack

on: 03/22/12, 17:05:43

- Edited by

rebonack

on: 03/22/12, 17:07:36

@Zero@Anand
I don't think Nintendo will be able to maintain that momentum or (god forbid) gain any traction if they don't keep up a steady stream of high quality games. Last week they had... nothing. This week, zombie/guitar-hero mash-up? *slaps palm to forehead*

Where the hell is Q-Games? EA? Activision? Capcom? Square Enix? Where are Nintendo's 1st party IPs in tiny, lovable, downloadable chunks? Are we going to have to wait another year for Jools to make a game by himself and self-publish it before we have our next decent eShop title?

You guys are right, it's too soon for doom and gloom, but I don't like the way this is going, I feel another VC WiiWare DSiWare letdown brewing. Nintendo doesn't seem to want to get serious in regards to the download space.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 17:13:54

For downloadable games, I would call Pushmo and co "masterpieces", absolutely. The depth of gameplay and the amount of content is astounding. So I wouldn't say Nintendo isn't taking that space seriously. It sure is taking it more seriously than everyone who's worked on any PSP Mini ever made.

That said, here's a potential reason why there is little content: after the developer of Chtulhu Saves the World tweeted that the iOS version is almost ready, a NWR guy asked him if there was an eShop version coming. The reply was basically "Nintendo isn't very supportive of indie devs so we're not even going to bother".

That Iwata GDC Keynote speech really stuck in indie devs' craw.

@deathly_hallows - DSiware has been pretty phenomenal, man. The gameplay depth found in many of the games rival many retail handheld games. Where does the disappointment come from?

You've looked with envy at iOS games in the past, and I know many releases LOOK good and all, but a lot of the made-for-iPhone games are very, very simple timekillers. There is little to be jealous of.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 17:20:29

- Edited by

on: 03/22/12, 17:23:51

@Guillaume
Well what Iwata said was incredibly dumb and offensive, "garage developer"? Apple fucking computers was started in a garage, it's the American way. Japan just doesn't get the culture, it's not entirely his fault, but yeah... that was a big tactical error on Nintendo's behalf.

And yes I agree Pushmo was amazing, better than every PSP mini ever made put together and better than 99.9% of the crap on the App Store. Nintendo needs a Pushmo-quality game every month though, they can't release one good game and then stagnate for weeks or months and expect people to remain interested. Even if they don't want indie devs on the system then could at least reach out to the big publishers and strike deals, and they should form entire internal development studios devoted to downloadable games. Right now it seems like their focus is 95% retail and 5% download and I think it should be more like 50/50, downloads are the future.

The problem with DSiWare is that they started strong with gems like Trajectile, Starship Defense, and Link N' Launch and then just called it a day and quit releasing games. They have the quality they just lack the quantity and diversity.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 17:31:40

- Edited by

on: 03/22/12, 17:34:09

@deathly_hallows Isn't this how all of these services work though? PSN just got Journey, the first PSN game I have bought in a long, long time. And XBLA just got Sine Mora but what else has it really had this year? Obviously the ideal would be interesting stuff EVERY WEEK but I don't think that is a realistic expectation.

I'm not saying Nintendo couldn't be doing more, mind you. But I think it'd be more along the lines of planning/spacing releases better as opposed to having way more awesome content.

deathly_hallows said:

Right now it seems like their focus is 95% retail and 5% download and I think it should be more like 50/50, downloads are the future.

It has yet to be seen whether "downloads are the future" will happen anytime soon for anything more than $10 or so. And right now Nintendo can still make 2D retail platformers and sell them at $50 and sell millions of copies. It will be a long time before it makes financial sense for Nintendo to fully support digital downloads as equally as they support retail.

Posted by

on: 03/22/12, 17:35:11

- Edited by