Thank you for calling out the elephant in the room, Donkey Kong Returns Tropical Freeze.You guys have been hyping Retro's new game and making me excited because it was a mystery for so long and now that it's announced a DKCR sequel is a big letdown. I'm not a Wii U owner, and I may not be for a long long time. I got a Wii on launch day and was bit in the ass. I only not played Mario Galaxy 2, Blaster Master: Overdrive, and Xenogears (on RFN recommendation). The only game remotely interesting corn Wii U is the new Monolithsoft title.

Can we also talk about the lack of 3DS support? I know AC:NL came out along with E3 but I feel like the release schedule for 3DS is looking kinda dry. I've said it before, I'll say it again -- Where's my Advance Wars title? Help me Intelligent Systems! You're my only hope!

Hmm the eshop DLC sounds like a pain in the ass to use. Any reason why Nintendo Handles DLC this way instead of how Microsoft/Sony do it. (buying it from the game or the store.)

Glad you like the game Jonny.

Sorry I couldn't help you with some stuff! I've been playing this franchise for so long that I only know how to explain stuff in my way.

P.S. Villagers moving in is pretty much completely random. I know you could fudge it a bit in the Gamecube game if you had other towns you could go to, but I have no idea if that's still the case.

Great show; the emails section was one for the ages (or seasons).


I'm afraid I can offer no words to lift the mood on Nintendo and the Wii U as I'm in the same boat as three of the panelists in this episode. Nintendo's E3 2013 presentation and presence left me disappointed and unexcited. I desperately want Nintendo to give me reasons to buy a Wii U and a bunch of games and the response I received was, "2014 and a price cut."


That said, the seven developer interview videos (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2JiZAV5BmDXIoXMyc63l2Yn2saUA4SB8) for seven Wii U games made me a bit more interested in the games shown. I wish they streamed these right after the Direct as they are neat to watch.


As for the 3DS's lack of presence in E3, it is worrying. I don't know what Nintendo can do to have western/non-Japanese third-party developers to make games for the system. Those developers all seem to rather try their luck with mobile and social games. Money hats or contract work might do the trick, but that is not Nintendo's style.


Many thoughts were said how Nintendo seems to recognize the problems they have yet the answers they have seem to wrong in the eyes of their fans. I struggle determining whether Nintendo truly believes that their 2013/2014 slate is adequate (especially against their competitors), that they resign themselves to being unable to address the lack of variety and third-party support (for now and possible forever), or some line of thought or philosophy that I haven't thought of. Despite the many Nintendo Directs, it is unclear what Nintendo plans to do with the Wii U beside it being the place for sequels of Nintendo games.

Nintendo doesn't believe in their 2013 lineup to have a press conference. That said, the kinds of games they have coming out are unlike anything PS4 and XB1 will have this fall. Most of them are focused on the general Wii audience. Pikmin 3, W101 and Mario 3D World look great to me. I have bought Nintendo systems for 5-10 exclusives per year. Wii U is giving me that.

I'd like to see the Gamepad given less focus. Just like 3D on 3DS, it should be secondary.

Weekend Confirmed is pretty far from great.

If I were able to wager a guess as to why there are so many platformers on the horizon, it would be because the examples they revealed (Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong) look like they could be games they can easily push out in a shortened time frame. 

Both of those games don't look like they would necessarily take that long for them to produce; could it be that these are simply attempts to fill a gap in this fall/holiday schedule?  It's almost as if Nintendo got caught with their pants down during the console release window, and stood there in their boxers for a handful of months before realizing that their release window titles were slipping, and realized how pathetic it would be if their fall lineup would consist of Rayman Legends and Pikmin 3.

While I'm no expert, I could see how them re-using similar themes for platforming games could yield a quick development timeframe, and allowed them to churn out a "new 3D Mario!" and "New Donkey Kong game!". 

And a month from now someone will interview Reggie so he can come out and exclaim how gamers are insatiable again, because we're coming out with these great games this year!

I have to echo everyone (excluding Gui) on the podcast who stated the big problem is a lack of variety from Nintendo.  I don't think Nintendo's going to get that mass-market they got with Wii, they need to start courting the people who are sitting-out on Nintendo until the new Zelda, Smash, Metroid, or Starfox come out.

Going back to the cost angle, that's one area Nintendo could use, since neither of the other consoles have backwards compatibility (less important if you already have the prior system) and both require an external device to do off-TV play or touchscreen controls, Nintendo could really make the other guys look expensive if they wanted to.

Yo, Jonny! You promised us answers about the recent Dragon Quest games coming to NA.

So, where are these answers?

Tell the people!

I don't think I promised answers, just questions. And I did ask some people at Square Enix, but of course it got a blank stare.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/animalcross.html

I look forward to the podcast 3 months down the road where Johnny Metts comes to this conclusion.

On 3DS on E3

I think Nintendo is simply treating E3 just as opportunity to release one of their bi-monthly Directs. Of course there will be still demo events, but i mean in general media sense. It's not THE event of 2013 anymore. Now it's a gradual process with Directs each giving a piece of new info, portion after portion. Just like last year, they announced 3DS XL (a HUGE deal!) in their Nintendo Direct merely a week or so after E3. That's how much importance they give to E3 now.

I believe we will see the same this year -- we've already seen better Directs than E3 one and there will be better ones after (with more announcements), i'm sure. They already did Directs and events for Link to the Past 2 (imagine what kind of crowd reaction that could have had on stage if they did press conference, but nope, we reveal it just before E3), Mario & Luigi, Sonic game. They already dropped their bombs with Earthbound, Bravely Default, X earlier this year.

Their E3 Direct this year was just Wii U themed. Major 3DS Direct and event dedicated to it was before.

On third parties on 3DS
It's bad that Nintendo lost western third parties on portables, but what are you going to do? They just don't want to. Those who even bothered to do something went mobile. I was disappointed to see new Trials game going to tablets but not on 3DS. Of course there will still be token WayForward games and 5th Cell games but major publishers are going to ignore it now instead of flooding it with shovelware like they did before.

I still believe Koizumi's big game was not Super Mario 3d World and it will be revealed later. I don't buy that he was sitting on his hands all these years, just assisting on random projects, after he shipped SMG1. He's too young to become all producer figure, like Shiggy.

Stopped reading after this:

hg101 is the last site on earth from i expected to hear statements like "japanese games suck".

And whose fault is this? Why is this company is even hyped that much? Half of Nintendo's internal studios have put twice the games during the same or shorter timespan. And not just shovelware mind you, those were absolute top tier stuff like Galaxy games, Wario titles and Rhythm Heaven titles (just personal favorites from the top of my head). Is this because this company is located in US?

Last letter with words like "non-games" reminded me of neogaf 2005 edition with absolute non-conditional hatred of anything wii-related.

On not using gamepad well. Remember that leak from Ubisoft from three years ago? When leaker said that said Nintendo is more or less dropping 3d as a major selling point and 3ds platform is getting rebooted after bleak launch? It looks the same is happening with Wii U: they tried the gimmick, it didn't fly, so they're rethinking what to do next.

By the way, i remember something about Bayonetta 2 having co-op mode with gamepad and screen as two separate screens. And in general it looks like the best use for it for now. I would also like if could be able to play, say, Mario Kart each on their own screen.

On ads.

A week ago i saw NSMB U ad on Nickelodeon (russian version). First time i saw Wii U ad on tv. I also remember seeing ads for 3DS and Mario Tennis on Eurosport two years ago... It's kinda exciting to see Nintendo officially coming to Russia's market. Someday, hopefully they will come to my country as well.

The problem with that is the vast majority of the populous buying the new consoles already probably own multiple devices that allows touch screen controls for Xbone and PS4.


How much of a price difference is the Wii U really when you consider needing a HDD among other things.

I know, right? It's kinda one of the more strange articles there, and perhaps it's a bit harsher than I feel, but Animal Crossing NPCs just hit this really sour uncanny valley for me where it upsets me that they're just robotic enough to where they spout out all sorts of canned dialogue  about each other in a semi-unscripted fashion, but really could give a rat's ass about you outside of your utility as an errand boy.

Your neighbors are shallow people that use you as a means to an end. There's no way for you to communicate with them that they'll truly be able to grasp on any sort of basic level. It's not like they truly appreciate the various shiny, useless trinkets that you litter your house with or just... care about you... the guy who goes around town busting his ass doing chores for himself and others to try and pay off the endless stream of debt he's hopelessly trapped in.

I'm almost morbidly curious If the mayor activities and the more sophisticated hardware do change this. People I associate with have been pushing out Animal Crossing New Leaf fan art ad nauseam into my Tumblr dash and melting away my own icy trepidation to the series, making me think this one is going to be different; this one isn't just an N64 ROM Plopped onto a 3DS Cart with a few extra SimTown bells and whistles tacked on...! Then I have to remind myself of how totally sick and disgusted I was with Animal Crossing and Animal Crossing Wild World before I sold them back to profit a company that has a core as black and depressing as Animal Crossing's themselves... Ironically enough, they cover it up with a cute chibi bunny just like Animal Crossing does too!
 

I actually found myself purchasing a digital copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf for myself after a few days of my wife playing it and expressing how much she wished I would play with her (much how I ended up with piles of Skylander plastic). 

On one hand, I feel like every hour I spend in the game doing remedial tasks like fishing, digging, or capturing bugs is a great big grindfest, something which caused me to abandon games like World of Warcraft once my friends and I stopped playing together.  I also haven't found much benefit from playing cooperatively with my wife, other than her popping into my town when I'm not playing to leave me mail & presents, or me jokingly hitting her with the bug net while she's trying to do something.

But on the other hand, there's this odd satisfaction with building up your house, regardless of how ridiculous the loans get with every house expansion.  Something about completing the public works projects and seeing this town you're the mayor of develop and thrive is strangely compelling.  There's some inane thrill with catching bugs off the island, and coming back to re-tail to find that your haul netted over 100,000 bells. 

And the reason I keep finding myself using as to why it's becoming such a time sink is that the game makes you feel a strange sense of accomplishment for each milestone you reach, which makes you want to push towards the next milestone.  I think there's probably this odd escapism that's compelling some people to sink so much time into a game like this.  My life isn't in shambles or anything, but like most people, there are certain things I could improve upon that can sometimes take weeks/months/years.  A game like this can allow you to feel like you've accomplished a lot in the span of an hour or two.

I got the chance to play New Super Luigi U co-op this week-end. On the podcast, Jonny asked it there was a story explanation for Mario's absence. There isn't.

Mario not being playable isn't because this is "Luigi's adventure", but really because the levels are designed for Luigi physics. The Toads now have Luigi physics, and so does Nabbit, and I guess Nintendo felt they could get away with that, but not with changing Mario's physics.

I love my Wii-U.  I may not be able to justify it's purchase to others but I knew I HAD to have it based on 3 games.

Zombie-U (I love the use of the pad to slow gameplay from a shooter to a survival)
Monster Hunter 3U (total monster hunter fan through and through and I figured it'd be on WiiU since Tri was on wii)
Pikmin 3 (amazing game that makes me smile)

THEN more games are coming to further confirm my purchase
Watch Dogs
Mario Kart (I haven't owned one since double dash)
Donkey Kong (DKC Returns just got me pumped for another one)
Oddworld (nerdgasms is all I can say from seeing that come back and then later on in the direct)

I'm a nintendo fan sure but I see the points that they need to use the gamepad more and honestly I agree.  I do however love that it can also function as a stand alone controller it's just a large pro with a screen one of the reasons I like it is that it can disclude this stuff.

Perhaps-it'll be interesting to see how it actually pans out having a wide array of third-party devices that need to interface with a console.