Nintendo: No More Titles for '08

Just saw this up on Wired: http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/nintendos-cammi.html

[quote name='Wired']Have we seen the extent, now, of Nintendo's 2008 holiday lineup?

You have seen the extent of Nintendo's 2008 holiday lineup. Also items that we didn't talk about yesterday, like Wario Land: Shake It. Which is a great franchise for the core. It's Wario in all his gross wonderfulness, shaking the Wii remote, and that's going to be tons of fun.[/quote]


If Nintendo did not have any other titles planned for holiday '08, why not focus on some of the titles we already knew about at their E3 conference? There's Wario Land for the Wii, Kirby Superstar for the DS, not to mention very intriguing titles like the Conduit and De Blob and the Chrono Trigger port to the DS.

This shows really piss poor planning on Nintendo's part. I don't know how this is going to affect their holiday sales this year, but I imagine it will be greatly diminished from last year's showing.

[quote name='Wired']So let's talk about downloadable games, Virtual Console. Right now, looking at the Japanese versus American Virtual Consoles, Japan gets about four games a week, four new retro games to download. Whereas in America it's been pared down to about one, maybe two games a week. What's the reasoning behind this decision?

It's just filling the pipeline with games, particularly for WiiWare. There's lots of games in development, so it's not an explicit decision to only release one a week, it's taking a while to get a full pipeline of games that are ready to be released.[/quote]


I'm calling bullshit here. I think NOA just likes to see how much they can screw with our minds. I'll cut WiiWare some slack since it's relatively new, but the ignorance on the virtual console is just insane. If Wikipedia is to be believed, Japan has over 100 titles more than the US. I don't know why they claim that they're shifting the focus to WiiWare when it hasn't stopped the pace of Japan's weekly VC releases.

It's really kind of sad how Nintendo can make a mockery of their fanbase and still remain so profitable...

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been a Mario Party 9 announcement.

I guess they are saving other franchises for 2009, like Kirby, StarFox, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf..and I'm sure there'll be another WarioWare game.

With this motion plus thing, makes me wonder if they will make a seuqel to Wii Play.

Wait, a Nintendo console with long spells of no games to play? Imagine that!

So, who wants to buy my wii?

F'n Suda 51 made me all optimistic about phrases that begin with "No More," making this news even more devastating.

;-;

like lilboo said, just be optimistic, and wait, right?

....

So they're giving 3rd parties a chance to runaway with the holiday. Sounds fine to me. I only buy my consoles for 3rd party games anyway.

Yeah its like they are giving 3rd parties a chacne... and did the 3rd parties know about this long enough ahead of time to get their games ready for the holiday? I hope so.

Then in 09-10 they can drop a bunch of the missing franchises and really turn up the heat with the installed base at that point.

There's Madworld, de Blob, Tales 2, and maybe Sonic Unleashed that I'm interested in for Wii this holiday. Sonic Unleashed will probably be 360 or no sale for anything.

Do 3rd parties even have games scheduled for the rest of the year? There's Tales of Symphonia 2 and...? Maybe those shitty Sonic games?

This is what we know of the Nintendo teams (1st+2nd party):

Nintendo-owned developers:
SPD1 - No active projects, last did Card Hero
SPD2 - No active projects, last cooperated with Arika on Dr. Mario WiiWare
SPD3 - No active projects, last cooperated with Retro on MP3
SPD4 - No active projects, they do all the Wii Channels

EAD1 (Hideki Konno) last did Mario Kart Wii, currently working on Pikmin 3

EAD2 (Katsuya Eguchi) - last did Wii Play, currently doing Animal Crossing, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music, most likely with collaboration with NST as well as EAD5

EAD3 (Aonuma) - last did Link's Crossbow Training, currently working on new Zelda

EAD4 (Hiroyuki Kimura) - last did NSMB, currently rumored to be working on new DS game (based on a hint from Miyamoto)

EAD5 (Tadashi Sugiyama) - last did Wii Fit, currently working on Wii Motion+/Wii Sports Resort

EAD Tokyo - last did SMG, currently working on new Mario

NST - No active projects, last did Mario vs DK2
Retro - No active projects, last did Metroid Prime 3
MonolithSoft - Two active projects; Disaster: Day of Crisis, and Super Robot Wars OG Mugen Frontier. Last did Soma Bringer. Probably not working on much else.
Brownie Brown - No active projects for Nintendo, working on Blue Dragon Plus. Probably not working on much else.
Intelligent Systems - One active project, Fire Emblem DS. Bare minimum 3 teams total.

Second Party:
HAL Laboratory - Two active projects; Kirby Superstar DS, Kirby Wii. Last did Pokemon Ranger 2 and Smash Bros Brawl. Probably not working on much else.
Noise - No active projects. Last did Custom Robo Arena.
GameFreak - One active project; Pokemon Platinum. Probably not working on much else.
Ambrella - No active projects. Last did Everybody's Pokemon Ranch.
AlphaDream - No active projects; may have folded. Last did Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

It looks like most of the first party teams are accounted for. Retro is working on something for sure but they shouldnt have enough time to put something together for the holidays. SPD is always small stuff. A side note: I wonder what Sora LTD is up to.

[quote name='Chacrana']Do 3rd parties even have games scheduled for the rest of the year? There's Tales of Symphonia 2 and...? Maybe those shitty Sonic games?[/QUOTE]

De Blob and Samba De Amigo are the only others that come to mind. I think that Deadly Creatures game comes out this year too.

I wonder whatever happened to that PS2 port of Rygar that's supposed to come out?

That monster lab game is coming out as well. I'll probably pick up Force Unleashed too.

the large numbers of employees who would be working on 1st party wii games releasing in the next 6 months- what are they doing now if they don't have active projects?

They're either working on things we dont know about yet, or they are helping out one of the other teams.

Well Wii sales will still be going strong, regardless of software and thats all they care about. If it becomes more available, theres still a lot of mothers out there who haven't got their hands on one. Meanwhile, all the current Wii owners who are getting bored and will have to pick up a 360 or that triple.

Perhaps they are saving the games for when sales dip.

[quote name='Chacrana']Do 3rd parties even have games scheduled for the rest of the year? There's Tales of Symphonia 2 and...? Maybe those shitty Sonic games?[/quote]

There's Little King's Story, Ultimate Shooting Collection, and Dokapon Kingdom.

[quote name='vherub']the large numbers of employees who would be working on 1st party wii games releasing in the next 6 months- what are they doing now if they don't have active projects?[/QUOTE]

they are probably counting the money nintendo is making

i do bet that that's a lie. a whole summer without any new game announcements? i doubt that. that said, it is looking like a less then stellar year. hopefully the 3rd parties can pick up the slack.

[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']So they're giving 3rd parties a chance to runaway with the holiday. Sounds fine to me. I only buy my consoles for 3rd party games anyway.[/QUOTE]

:lol: That's an interesting way to put it.

I'm really hoping Tomb Raider: Underworld is as much fun as Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the Wii, because TRA was great.

--R.J.

[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']This is what we know of the Nintendo teams (1st+2nd party):

Nintendo-owned developers:
SPD1 - No active projects, last did Card Hero
SPD2 - No active projects, last cooperated with Arika on Dr. Mario WiiWare
SPD3 - No active projects, last cooperated with Retro on MP3
SPD4 - No active projects, they do all the Wii Channels

EAD1 (Hideki Konno) last did Mario Kart Wii, currently working on Pikmin 3

EAD2 (Katsuya Eguchi) - last did Wii Play, currently doing Animal Crossing, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music, most likely with collaboration with NST as well as EAD5

EAD3 (Aonuma) - last did Link's Crossbow Training, currently working on new Zelda

EAD4 (Hiroyuki Kimura) - last did NSMB, currently rumored to be working on new DS game (based on a hint from Miyamoto)

EAD5 (Tadashi Sugiyama) - last did Wii Fit, currently working on Wii Motion+/Wii Sports Resort

EAD Tokyo - last did SMG, currently working on new Mario

NST - No active projects, last did Mario vs DK2
Retro - No active projects, last did Metroid Prime 3
MonolithSoft - Two active projects; Disaster: Day of Crisis, and Super Robot Wars OG Mugen Frontier. Last did Soma Bringer. Probably not working on much else.
Brownie Brown - No active projects for Nintendo, working on Blue Dragon Plus. Probably not working on much else.
Intelligent Systems - One active project, Fire Emblem DS. Bare minimum 3 teams total.

Second Party:
HAL Laboratory - Two active projects; Kirby Superstar DS, Kirby Wii. Last did Pokemon Ranger 2 and Smash Bros Brawl. Probably not working on much else.
Noise - No active projects. Last did Custom Robo Arena.
GameFreak - One active project; Pokemon Platinum. Probably not working on much else.
Ambrella - No active projects. Last did Everybody's Pokemon Ranch.
AlphaDream - No active projects; may have folded. Last did Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

It looks like most of the first party teams are accounted for. Retro is working on something for sure but they shouldnt have enough time to put something together for the holidays. SPD is always small stuff. A side note: I wonder what Sora LTD is up to.[/QUOTE]


I'm slightly annoyed that there's nothing else for '08 besides Animal Crossing and Wario Land from Nintendo, I'm okay with that. I'm just still annoyed at their conference not passing the baton onto 3rd parties for the rest of '08 and giving credit where credit is due. Not to mention, they could have at least non-conference wise said that the titles we are interested in aren't planned for '08, I don't think it was ever a question of if but more of a matter of when.

I am deeply disappointed if this means no more first party WiiWare titles before the end of the year, I would have wanted to at least seen one or two ideas develop from there.

Is EAD2 & EAD5 both doing WiiSports Resort? I don't believe we've seen anything from EAD5 other than WiiFit. I'm assuming part of that list is speculative, although within reason.

Besides the new Animal Crossing game, I couldn't give a about their non-existent attempts to please their core fan base.

It's still kind of sad that in spite of a bunch of weak games coming out for the winter, the Wii will still be selling like crack at the Betty Ford clinic.

[quote name='Syraxis']Besides the new Animal Crossing game, I couldn't give a about their non-existent attempts to please their core fan base. [/QUOTE]
No love for Wario Land? What do you have against old-school 2D platformers???

--R.J.

Hmm Mad World, Tales 2 and Wario Land for me.

Really worried about Wario Land though, because well the Sonic games for the GBA and DS didn't really do it for me (they just didn't feel old school). I hope this game brings back the nostalgic factor. I am happy with my three game holiday lineup, what I am not happy about is though that my last game purchase was Mario Kart and probably will be until one of these come out.

From the WIRED.com interview

Wired.com: So let's talk about downloadable games, Virtual Console. Right now, looking at the Japanese versus American Virtual Consoles, Japan gets about four games a week, four new retro games to download. Whereas in America it's been pared down to about one, maybe two games a week. What's the reasoning behind this decision?

Dunaway: It's just filling the pipeline with games, particularly for WiiWare. There's lots of games in development, so it's not an explicit decision to only release one a week, it's taking a while to get a full pipeline of games that are ready to be released.

Wired.com: Well, at one point, we had four games hitting every week in the first year of the Wii's life cycle. That hasn't slowed down in other territories. But it really has been ratcheted back in the U.S., and I'm trying to understand what's behind that decision process.

Dunaway: We've been shifting to a little more focus on WiiWare. As I understand it, we're trying to get as many WiiWare games out into the marketplace as possible, and waiting for more of the games to [pass the checking process] and be ready to go. So it's been a bit more of a focus on WiiWare, but we'll continue to do Virtual Console as well.


So you want to get all of this Wiiware out, but if you keep releasing WiiWare wouldn't that hurt sales because of no storage and the cost of a Wiiware title. People are not going to spend 800-1000 points every week on a mediocre WiiWare title (or atleast I think not), and with one-two Wii Ware games a week, yeah...

Only Wii game I'm looking forward to for the rest of the year is Tales of Symphonia 2, though I'm still not sure about the monster aspect. Animal Crossing is going to have to do a lot to convince me I won't get bored in a hurry due to it looking similar to the GCN one which I already played the crap out of.

Kobe: Like omg. I'm gonna pass you guys the ball!
Rest of the Lakers: ...mmkay thanks
Fail.

We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about Super Mario or Legend of Zelda, If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it's a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means," he continued. The so-called big titles need a long, long development period...we really didn't think this year's E3 media briefing was the time to do so.

Satoru Iwata [President and CEO of Nintendo]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53803

Click to expand...

How often do you hear presidents of gaming companies admit that they messed up?

Also:

[quote name='Mad D']How often do you hear presidents of gaming companies admit that they messed up?
[/QUOTE]

i thought that this was really cool. it was a very nice gesture.

My take is this: Nintendo titles take a LONG time to develop... which *usually* means they're good. However, since they do take a long time, I'd personally rather not hear about them until closer to release. I mean, I don't want to hear 'hey, new Zelda... in 2010!'. I assume they're working on stuff, which is good enough for me.

Second, let's be fair... we've hit a LOT of the core franchises in the Wii's life already. Zelda, Mario (a real one!), Metroid, WarioWare, MarioKart, Smash Bros, Mario Baseball, Battalion Wars, Paper Mario... and we've already been shown Animal Crossing and were told that Pikmin exists. What else is there, aside from things we would be surprised by (say, a new Kid Icarus)? Considering that we've got most of those in the past year, what big franchises are left? Star Fox? We just got new games from the heavy hitters, so it'll be a while before we get more. Me, I'd be WORRIED if they told us something like a new Mario or Zelda was coming in 2009. Nintendo rushing things is never good.

Third, WiiSports 2: Resort. Let's not discount this. If this comes out, sales will continue. How many people bought the system JUST for WiiSports? WS2 will be huge. So, in essence, who we see as the 'hardcore' crowd aren't getting 'their' games, but let's NEVER labor under the false impression that Nintendo is going to crash and burn. Not with WiiSports 2. No chance.

... oh, and seriously... new Animal Crossing. Personally, I didn't *need* anything else.

^OMG 007, that was an extremely rational and level-headed post. You best be careful or you'll get kick off "teh interwebz" (lol).

Seriously though, I was just thinking like you about the Mario/Zelda/Metroid already having games out so what *really* were people expecting for this year. Hell I remember when they announced Twilight Princess back in 2003 I ran out and bought a Gamecube and the game didnt show up until 2007, over 4 years after the first trailer. I'm rather pleased that they arent showning things till they are closer to release.

Like last year, I was really impressed with Microsoft's E307 presser as it was a showcase not of vaporware, but games that you could buy that year. But I understand that the hardcore-internet-chatting-gamer wants to hear something they've never heard before.

Anyway, Animal Crossing was the only thing I wanted to know was coming. Sure, they could have shown some Balance Board / Punchout functionality, but I trust it's coming. No need to go all
lata

I think it's more that the core gamer was told that there would be something for them/us at E3, and what was shown that could be termed "hard core" at all I guess would be Animal Crossing, which isn't everyones idea of a good game, and Grand Theft Auto on the DS, with absolutely no video of the latter.

I don't know if it was mentioned yet, but in regards to the lack of VC games, I'm calling BS on Nintendo saying it's because of the WiiWare titles for a different reason.

WAAAAAAAAAAY before WiiWare was even launched, Nintendo started slowly dropping the amount of games we got. Hell, there were times where they took a note on trolling from Sakurai by giving us small amounts of games to download meanwhile giving us "gems" like King's Knight and Power Ball.

Wow great, now I have 0.5 games to look forward to (Animal Crossing, and if they put some more effort into it, then 0.75). I can't believe how badly they are abusing the core gamer. This E3 was just a mess and a really bad sign as of what's to come. It really makes you think how Nintendo just dumps you for where the money is. I can only imagine the tough times that a Nintendo fanboy is going through. The fact that they were LIED to by Nintendo's own executive, Reggie Fils-Aime.

[quote name='XTommyDonX']I can only imagine the tough times that a Nintendo fanboy is going through.[/quote]
The answer to that would be none.
a) because we know that Nintendo's first party core offerings have never changed in 20 years
b) there are more to Nintendo consoles than first party games
c) We have the DS

[quote name='VanillaGorilla']Wait, a Nintendo console with long spells of no games to play? Imagine that![/QUOTE]

I was little bit optimistic considering it is the number one console... I had twice as many games for Gamecube at this point in its lifespan as I do for Wii.

I find this sort of funny. Wasn't this slightly predictable when they ran Mario Kart and SSBB within a couple months of each other. I was really surprised at the time that they would do this, running 2 big sellers during the non holdays, when they could have released SSBB in May and then held Mario Kart on for a holday release.

I really think this means that one of these games (Animal Crossings, Wario, Wil Sports etc) is going to sneak up and be a monster hit (or at least a great game). They are betting that one of these games will take off with the gamers.

In defense of Nintendo against the hardcore gamers, really, is the Wii that much different than the Gamecube. Sure, there are more casual games out, but that's partly due to Wii Ware and partly due to more games being out. How many harcore games was the Nintendo 64 or Gamecube giving you per year? If anything, hardcore gamers who are willing to sift through the games have it better now. If you are expecting Nintendo to turn into what Sony or MS is doing, give it up. It isn't their niche (they gave that up after the SNES era), and they aren't trying to fill it.

Meanwhile, I'm occupied enough with my Wii that I'm looking to finish up my few remaining PS2 games and sell that (which is partially because the disk drive seems to be dying), along with having no plans to buy another console anytime soon. There are half a dozen games I'm keeping my eye on, and a couple that are out that I'm looking to buy. The only time I've been really bored with it was earlier this year, in the time between holidays and SSBB, and that's partially because I hadn't decided on whether or not to buy a couple titles that were out. The only first party game I'm looking forward to Resort, and that's mainly because of the motionplus attachment. Of course, Wii Zelda and Pikmin 3 should be interesting (especially to see an RTS like Pikmin with the Wiimote's pointer), but they're too far off right now to get excited about.

For me, personally, the Wii has plenty of good titles out and upcoming to keep me occupied. That might just be me; I also have very few DS games, despite all the praise its library gets. I am somewhat confused, though, as I would've figured Nintendo would release Fatal Frame IV here quickly, as well as having plenty in WiiWare titles. I'm wondering if they really mean the titles they're banking on for holiday sales, and do intend to release more first party games throughout the year. Either way, I'm perfectly satisfied for now, and given that Wii development is improving and increasing (EA's admission that they underestimated the Wii is pretty huge) I don't see that changing any time soon.

[quote name='XTommyDonX'] I can only imagine the tough times that a Nintendo fanboy is going through. The fact that they were LIED to by Nintendo's own executive, Reggie Fils-Aime.[/quote] I actually talked to a die hard Nintendo fanboy recently and he was like ok they didn't give us everything whatever, Wii music looks fun because you don't need to know how to play sax to play a saxaphone. So yes the true fanboys are still eating this shit up.

Meh, I know a large number of die-hard Nintendo fanboys and they are not exactly happy about it. Now, if you want to count the insane....

At least there are a handful of games I'll buy for the Wii coming up. Wario Land, Animal Crossing, and Call of Duty: World at War for sure. Tales of Symphonia 2 is looking to also be sure-fire as well. I also still have to catch up with Fire Emblem and Battallion Wars 2 so it'll be alright. I wish there was more but I have other systems I can play or mooch off of so whatever.

[quote name='gaxur']For me, personally, the Wii has plenty of good titles out and upcoming to keep me occupied.[/QUOTE]
This. I could easily name another 3-5 games that I could buy right now if I needed to scratch my "new game" itch (not counting We Ski which arrived the other day), and there's enough third-party stuff coming out later this year that I could pick up another 5-7 titles without even breaking a sweat. I really wonder about the folks who say there's nothing to get for the Wii, while I'm drowning from an excess in temptation.

I've almost considered cancelling my account at CAG simply because reading about all these sales and deals makes it that much harder for me to not run out and buy more games already...

--R.J.

i believe what they're trying to do is make third parties the priority for this year. last year was probably for third parties to get a better understanding of the system, maybe that's why nintendo released more games last year then this year. this year you'll have,

star wars force unleased
samba de amigo
de blob
deadly creatures [hopefully it's good]
shaun white snowboarding
skate it wii
ghostbusters [still questionable]
spider-man web of shadows
mushroom men
star wars clone wars
castlevania judgement
tales of symphonia 2
tomb raider underworld
rygar