Mark get off your high horse- THe article is better written and better researched than 95% of the gamer/internet articles out there – Just because someone is not blowing sunshine up Nintendo and Iwata s ass does not mean the article is not well written-
FYI any opinion piece and or article containing opinion IS speculation – some of it is just done better than others- This one actually does some research and puts some thought into it- unlike most of the super light weight articles out there

Jordan your replies are those of the kind of Nintendo fan that is killing them- the kind that enable Nintendo to continue making the type of decisions that have seen their market share and revenues shrink tremendously over the last several years. (and continue on the downward trend they were on before the Wii ) A mature objective fan of a company or any organization does not act as a cheer leader- Cheer leaders still cheer even if their team is losing by 40 points in the 4th quarter- kind of like The Wii U and Nintendo is right now-

One can tell a well written objective Nintendo article containing sincere and constructive criticism by the type of comments fired back and by the commentators themselves- Chris has written a well researched, meaningful and sincere piece about Nintendo and it is clear he cares about the company- If the cheerleaders quit cheering long enough to consider that Nintendo is in need of constructive feedback and change, they may learn a thing or two.

Keep up the good work Chris – A well done article that deserves praise- but I would also count the volume and inequity of your critics words a success as you have obviously hit a raw nerve and fresh wounds that they are just not ready to acknowledge so they put their fingers in their ears and cheer even louder until reality floats away

Fortunately those free-to-play games are optional and don’t try to hide it. Enjoy buying “The Last of Us” several times over and having to pay mid-game for a decent gun that doesn’t make the first-player campaign a borderline nightmare. Enjoy Dead or Alive 5 and having to pay ten dollars for a pack of costumes when you used to just beat the game to see the women get naked. Enjoy Tekken VS Street Fighter where you can make actual online purchases to get an edge on your opponent. Then enjoy buying all of that DLC, just to have the game released again. Definitive edition. Komplete edition. Capcom’s been doing it since the 90’s. Believe it or not, I enjoyed all of those games. That’s not the point. Here’s the point:

You’re acting like Nintendo is some evil conglomerate while all of these other publishers and developers get away scot-free. YOU’RE the fanboy, fanboy.

If this article is well-researched then I am president of the United States and come from planet Xenu,

Oh, and one more thing: I’ve noticed a trend from recent online personalities: Very few of the people posting on the “dying” Nintendo seem to actually purchase their games. I am a hardcore Nintendo fan, I own a Wii U and 3DS, and I don’t have time to play all their games. That’s first party games. And if I did have time, I couldn’t afford them all. Yes, the company needs 3rd party support, but third parties are struggling. The entire console market is shrinking. That is a statistically backed fact. I’m not saying that Nintendo didn’t take a major hit and aren’t having to deal with it now. That would be a lie. Still, those out there calling the company doomed are a bunch of prematurely-ejaculating soothsayers.

“Instead of investing resources in all this outside research into “Quality of Life” products or mobile games, why the hell isn’t Nintendo making
more games?”

Wii U – two Mario games, two Zelda games (one remake one crossover but still), Wario, Wii Sports, Wii Everything, Pikmin 3, NES Remix 1 and 2, Kirby, Yoshi, Star Fox, Nintendoland, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart 8….No, they haven’t made ANY games have they.

“I don’t care what people think of Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D Land.”

Really? Because I do. Those games are awesome. Super Mario 3D World is still fun. I’m still playing that game. I doubt you’ve played either game for more than five minutes, because I had just as much fun playing them as I did playing Super Mario World on the SNES, and I got that game for Christmas in the early 90’s. I was there. Unlocked every single level until the world turned orange and green. Yes, it can be done. And Mario Maker looks awesome. I will get it day one, and have fun making levels and sharing them online.

“There are other Nintendo IP’s that could use some love.”

I agree. I could use some more F-Zero or Metroid. Or Star-Fox. Oh wait. Star Fox is still on schedule.

Oh wait. What about other IP’s?

Oh, here is a list I borrowed from Ranmaru 2 off of a website, that Nintendo either developed, co-developed, or published. I checked and made sure that each game exists:

Tokyo Crash Mobs
Harmoknight
Dillon’s Rolling Western
Ketzal’s Corridors
Sakura Samurai
Pushmo/Crashmo
Freakyforms
Fluidity
Nintendo Land
SiNG Party
The Wonderful 101
Steel Diver
Snowpack Park
Eco Shooter
The Last Story
Pandora’s Tower
FlingSmash
Wii Party
Xenoblade
Bonsai Barber
Rock N’ Roll Climber
Pop-Up Pursuit
ThruSpace
AquaSpace
You, Me, and the Cubes

But let’s face it. No matter what the company did, or does, people are going to continue to rip them. If the company did leave the gaming industry, people would continue to bitch and complain because that’s all people do. Nintendo made a good console with a problematic launch, they made it better, tried to up the ante with indie titles after third parties (who are also struggling in an ever-shrinking console market), and people still complain.

Also, we get AVGN Adventures this month and Freedom Planet is on its way. We got Shovel Knight early too, and that title is game-of-the-year material if you ask me. Code Name Steam just came out on the 3ds. Another Fire Emblem is on its way and I’m still playing Awakening. I can’t even keep up with all the games on either console, despite lack of third party support. And the Wii U is currently the only current console that doesn’t try to get you to join the Marines or order pizza. Or make you buy a game for sixty bucks, then make you carry on online pass, then make you pay an addition fifty to a hundred bucks for all the outfits – stuff we once got for free. In fact, the Mario Kart DLC was not only cheap, it can with tons of tracks and additional racers, for a fraction of the cost of what I usually download on my PS3. (don’t need a 4 yet since you can barely tell the fucking difference in graphic quality – ooh, look more particles of wind, ooh wow. Guess I’ll shell out half a grand so I can play the “definitive” edition after buying the “complete” edition)

But no, Nintendo is this big evil company. Of course they are. They aren’t a charity. Good games cost money. They have to make money to make games. If all of you hyper-critical “gamers” out there would’ve shelled out and supported the console, then this shit likely wouldn’t have even happened. You’re the same kind of folks who claim to miss Sega but quit buying their stuff. Fortunately, Nintendo isn’t leaving the market. Supporting Mobile may be the best move the company has made in years. Only time will tell. And if you want to rip the company for expanding into other territory, then go rip Microsoft for making Windows 8, which sucked so bad that they might as well have made commercials for Apple and Linux, or Sony who makes TV’s and computers and stuff. They’re all evil companies out for our money, even Nintendo. But they make damn good games and I want them to continue doing so, even if they have to cave in to the blood-sucking beasts that are Mobile and free-to-play.

Differentiation is good. Having options is good. Imagine if the only car you could buy was Ford or Chevy. They could charge you whatever you want, build a giant pile of heaping dogshit, and you, the consumer, would be forced to suck it up. Keeping companies on their toes and fighting against each other is a good thing for the consumer. And every person on the planet is a consumer.

I agree with Adam’s statement: “On the flip side, Nintendo might improve the quality of game software on mobile.” I would love to see Nintendo on different hardware and see what its capable of doing. Not only will it invigorate the mobile gaming standard but it will possibly create new corss plat innovation with their actual console based games. Imagine continuing that dungeon you got stuck on on your iPad or Nexus Tab and if you wanted to? But you have to get the NX in order to use it as a virtual console while on other hardware. Also Lunar, good piece. You do bring the same valid points I’ve been telling fellow Nintendards for years and yes it was full of opinions but opinions come from your own personal thoughts and feelings. I love the Big N to death but this is where they’re heading now because regardless of fans, they’re a corporation and they all say one thing and do another. LET’s hope that this new venture into the mobile market is not a crappy two bit whore attempt to keep the investors but only time will tell. Will they go like Sega? Hopefully, they will just close shop for 20 years and come back with a super hyper console called Nintendo “Classic.”

I made a remark about how the daily gaming aspect sounded like what Nintendo’s goal was with Animal Crossing. Nothing more. And if they actually were to put the next AC on mobile, I would be a little disappointed, as I pay for the full game experience. My remark about the similarity is certainly not to the same calibur as your statement that Nintendo’s decision to move ahead with a tablet NX is a new low.

What you are doing here is pure unprofessionalism. Your reaction to reasoned arguments is to hurl insults at anyone who dares argue against your point. Your article is not bad; it’s a decent piece of opinion, and while I don’t agree with it everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It’s also sparking interest and debate, which is good for any piece of opinion. Left by itself, it really is something to be proud of.

Where it fails is that you lurk on your own post and praise anyone who agrees with you and violently slander anyone who doesn’t. It utterly destroys your credibility as a writer. It negates the illusion that anyone might have had that you are presenting a reasonable, thoughtful opinion piece. I had hoped that there was a chance at some reasonable debate, but your hostile attitude and quick response to every comment make that impossible.

This is pure poison. I regret writing in your comments. I’m not familiar with The Koalition or the standards of its writing, but if this is an example of it, I don’t think I want to be.

I corrected my statement with the proper company title “Game Freak”. Also nice that you didn’t point out Jordan made the same mistake and I simply repeated it. Fanboys stick together when defending their company, right??

Also you drip with fanboy. There is plenty of research that went into the article. Don’t just read the comments and think you know what I’m talking about.

First off you are not living in the real world. You are taking DeNA’s quotes and spinning them into your Nintendo love fantasy.

Nintendo said existing games not going mobile. They have said this multiple times over the years. It’s nice you assume DeNA somehow has your best interests and will make you a mobile Animal Crossing game. In fact, it’s nice you point out my “speculation”, but yet you think that DeNA is making Animal Crossing for you? Nice double standards there. Want to cite the source for DeNA making Animal Crossing mobile??

Also DeNA has made several mobile games already. Fanboys love to ignore history when it will make their points. Go look at DeNA’s library to see what you’re in for. You think that somehow the quality or type of game will somehow drastically improve with this deal? DeNA has made deals with Hasbro and Disney and churns out the same free-to-play, micro transaction filled lackluster titles.

Also thanks for citing the exact source of my quotes for me. That’s awesome that you found exactly what I was talking about from VentureBeat yet fail to see that you just proved that my article is coming from a standpoint in reality and that you are in fanboy LA-LA-Land.

Please keep dreaming that all this news and dealings are somehow for your best interests and for the interest of fans. This was to get shareholders excited and investing right before the Nintendo Annual Shareholders reports hit at the end of March. Nintendo’s stock jumped at this news because this is what shareholders wanted, a revenue stream that was established in the current booming mobile market. I don’t remember any Nintendo fans clamoring for mobile gaming from Nintendo. We wanted more and better games on Nintendo systems.

So it basically boggles my mind that you are so entrenched in your own fantasy and love of a company that you can’t see past their failings and missteps or question anything they do. I question everything and if I’m wrong, I can admit it.

So far all you have proven is that you are just another fanboy on the internet who is butt hurt about my article. I’ll weep for you while playing a tiny violin.

Somehow, again, no one reads the article.

First, Nintendo’s own history shows they have let companies “devalue” their games. I pointed out the ill-fated Nintendo-Phillips deal that led to the CD-I Nintendo games.

Second, go check out DeNA’s mobile games at “http://www.mobage.com” and tell me what you think they are going to put out for Nintendo licensed games? How is it speculation when the company has a clear history for “free-to-play” games full of micro transactions. Also, it is amazing you fanboys cannot read between the lines when people say things like day-to-day engagement. You have never worked in marketing or understand the first thing about it and you just assume that the company you love is completely altruistic and honest. It amazes me how simple you are and that somehow you’re assumptions, which are baseless, are better than mine, which are based in facts.

Third, when have they made a pay-to-win game? Go play Pokemon Shuffle. You mentioned it in your own comment. Funny that you mention Rusty’s Read Deal Baseball. Here is a direct quote from the IGN review of that game “Where Real Deal sets itself apart is in selling its baseball minigames individually – for real money – and at prices that can be haggled down. While this microtransaction-based system appears to infuse Real Deal with a mix-and-match, a la carte sort of freedom, in reality, it’s more of a gimmick than an innovative new take on in-game purchases.” (http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/09/rustyas-real-deal-baseball-review). Again, this is Nintendo testing the waters for micro-transaction based gaming.

The only reason you want to knock down my article is that you are a Nintendo fanboy and you don’t like what I have to say. It is fine if you don’t like it, but don’t come in here with dumb comments and your completely lack of reality and bash my article.

Again, I agree with Jordan. I read that article where DeNA talked about their hopes with Nintendo’s IPs. Shortly after they remarked about how fantastic having 100 million players would be, they actually talked about what kind of game they would make.

“For this, I think the solution is not coming out with 10 or 20 games right away. We should pick the right game. We should actually create a smartphone-specific game that requires day-to-day social interaction. It’s not just porting a Wii U game out to smartphones. But actually properly design a smartphone game. ” [1]

Sounds like they’re being thoughtful, smart, and trying to consider something that’s actually going to make something that will cause people to come every day for a little bit. They’re not going to just flood the market with crap. They’re not going to just copy some already existing formula. And when you think about their hopes for the first game, it actually sounds a lot like Animal Crossing. Hm.

Oh, and by the way – this is how you cite. Standard Turabian. It’s just one of many ways. But you really need to cite so that, you know, your readers have the option to go and see where you’re getting your quotes from and can see if you’re just trying to use quotes to make yourself sound credible, rather than be credible.

—————-

1 Dale North, “Dena West Ceo: ‘Nintendo Became Ready to Do This. and We Were Ready the
Whole Time’,” http://www.venturebeat.com, March 17, 2015, accessed March 24, 2015,
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/17/dena-west-ceo-nintendo-became-ready-to-do-this-and-we-were-ready-the-whole-time/.

The ‘speculation’ bit is where you speak about the NX. You, and we, have absolutely no idea what Nintendo is planning on it, but you’ve already assumed that they’re going in the absolute worst direction that they could possibly take. Besides why on earth would Nintendo make another tablet gaming system? They already tried that once, and I’m dead positive you know that it’s not performing as well as they would have liked… you might have mentioned it once or twice in your article.

Another bit of speculation is your assumption on what calibur of mobile games they’re going to do with DeNA. Nintendo’s had a LOT of free-to-play games, but you pick the most IPad-y game, Pokemon Shuffle, to show how awful this is bound to be. What about Rusty’s Real Deal, or Steel Diver, or even the Streetpass games? Most of Nintendo’s FTP games have had a small game experience that you can try and enjoy, but pay more for additional content. Nintendo has said again and again that when they get into mobile they’re going to give the public small experiences that will direct them to their consoles. But suddenly that’s thrown out the window when they detail how they’re going to give the public those small experiences?

This is absolutely annoying me to no end. “Game Freak” (singular) is the company that makes Pokemon. “Games Freak” (plural) is, according to Google, some website that you can play games on.
I agree with Jordan. Research. This article drips with the lack of it.

On the flip side, Nintendo might improve the quality of game software on mobile. I play a lot of Free to Play games on iOS and they aren’t that bad, but there is a lot of junk out there. That’s what was disappointing about Pokemon Shuffle. It could have been a lot better, more like Puzzle & Dragons or something like Terra Battle, but they took the lazy approach, slapped Pokemon onto bejeweled. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, I’ll just wait for new Zelda and Splatoon.

and at it’s worst…I saw something posted online joking about how we’d have to pay more to make Mario jump higher or something. Oh Hell No Nintendo! And as true Nintendo fans, it’s our duty to critique because we always want things to be better.

That’s ignorant? No it isn’t.
Not all sources are reliable. I would think you learned that in journalism school.

Well hopefully they would want to take advantage of the streaming market as physical consoles and media go the way of the dodo. This or the next may be the last generation of physical consoles and streaming has the ability to not only hit the mobile market, but also other physical devices such as TV’s, tablets, etc. Also considering that Nintendo’s consoles and software haven’t been graphically “beefy” of late they would probably be a better fit for variable quality available over streaming. Going to be interesting watching where this all ends up… as long as I get my Zelda fix I could care less, lol

Thank you for being a thinking human being!! I own a 3DS as well and I love it. I don’t want Nintendo to stoop to making micro transaction filled mobile games either.

Your still not getting my point. Also, you called me an “idiot” and somehow I am snarky?

Yes Game Freaks made Harmoknights in 2013 and they made Drill Dozer back in 2005. I actually played Drill Dozer and it’s one on my favorite games. I want to see them do more and different things. Pokemon will always be there, they have made tons of games just of Pokemon. My point was give Pokemon a break and focus Game Freaks devs on new IP’s.

How exactly is pointing this out make me an idiot? You don’t want them to make anything else?? I’m not sure why you are attacking me because I want some variety.

Making one game outside of Pokemon in the last 10 years for a Nintendo system isn’t much variety.

Ok on the point of Mickey Mouse. He exists on new shorts, the first set of shorts in like 50 years? Also Clubhouse is the other place he exists, and that is for small kids. He isn’t crammed into Marvel, Disney Infinity, Gravity Falls, Slugterra, Penn Zero, Star Wars Rebels, The 7D, Max Steel, Wander Over Yonder, Phineas and Ferb, or any of the other Disney shows out now. He also hasn’t had a crossover with any of them.

Mario has crossed over with practically EVERY Nintendo franchise and is mega franchise in himself with Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Mario Golf, Super Smash Bros., Mario Hoops, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, and so on. Mario has been franchised almost to death and he honestly needs to be treated as an ICON similar to Mickey Mouse and not a cash cow to be milked. He doesn’t have to be crammed into a million titles. Again you missed this point entirely.

Shush! Don’t say things like this. It’s crazy talk. Nintendo must fail at mobile! They must! *plays more Pokemon Shuffle on 3Ds