Episode 219: In which the assault on Assault continues.

It is very rare that I get to download RFN and listen to it with fresh ears. This is a nice little taste of the excitement that other listeners have every weekend, and I am relishing it. Thank you guys very much for holding down the fort -- I can't wait to record this week!

James absolutely nails the analogy about Nintendo points, DSi points and Wii points in the stinger. Brilliant, Mr Jones.

I am one of those gamers that would love to have PS360 third party titles on the same console as Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Call me crazy, but I would to have the feeling of being able to play a game like Mass Effect 2 or GTA 4 and then put in Skyward Sword and Galaxy 2 to play. This is why I am hoping that the Wii 2 is comparable to the 360 in performance so that third parties can give a more diverse set of games. However, I would miss out on the God of War series and Uncharted series.

I disagree that a more powerful Nintendo console would be able to provide all of the games I want.

Just looking at this console generation, the Halo games, Fable II, the Uncharteds, MGS4 and LittleBigPlanet are just a few of the great games that a more powerful Wii wouldn't have seen anyways. As a gamer that wants to play the best of what is out there, I don't think I will be happy with just one console so long as the first parties continue to secure high-quality platform exclusive experiences.

I remember Greg talking about how poeple out grow Nintendo and that some would wish to be able to have their beloved Nintendo games and bigger franchises on a single console.

Jon nailed it with his psychoanalysis of gamers who grew up with Nintendo and now stick to other consoles.

...and what I am saying is that first party exclusives make it so that I will need to own the other consoles anyways, meaning that I don't care if Nintendo gets these big third party franchises.

Tangent: What is this business about "The other guy fumbling on the first play?" A not-so-subtle jab there Mr. Leahy, it stings!

I consider myself to be the opposite. I grew up playing a NES and Genesis in the mid-ninties (1997 and 98). I eventually got a PS1 for christmas. I remeber me and my friends playing Twisted Metal and Resident Evil 1 and 2 and thise games were the top dogs in thier day. Especielly to nine and ten-year-olds. Eventually I out grew my PS1 and bought a PS2. At that time I was stricly brand loyal to Sony until I bought a GBA and eventually a DS.

These handhelds help towards buying a Gamecube mainly because of Twilight Princess. When I graduated, the PS360 was way too expensive for me and so I eventually bought a Wii because of Brawl, Madworld and No More Heroes. Those games were good, but now after two years I find my brand loyalty on Nintendo's side, or atleast until the PS3 gets down to the $150 mark.

Here is a disturbing comment from the Sonic Colors review on Destructoid:

"It's the real GotY to real gamers. Now if you're a casual gamer that likes kid's games (Kirby), interactive movies (Enslaved), or the FPS flavor of the month (Black Ops), then you won't understand, and you likely never will. I've been a hardcore gamer since the Atari 2600, and I've played everything you can possibly imagine, and Vanquish is one of the best games I've ever played; a true evolution of the action game. And unlike most popular games today, it will be remembered 20 years from now, worshiped even, because we'll likely never see anything like it again, because most people aren't smart enough to recognize superior gameplay when it slaps them right in the face, or they don't care for it when they do, because they're playing for other reasons (social gaming, graphics whoring, or to just experience something different), and most gamers today are playing for the novelty of it all and my guess is 5 years from now they'll get bored of video games and move on. But we real gamers will still be here long after that day comes, and we'll remember Vanquish."

Most gamers are very protective and don't want anyone else to be in their little club. Remember, he is a "real gamer".

@ happyastoria

I don't want to say anything bad about Destructoid reviewer Jim Sterling, so instead I will just quote one of his recent articles:

No joke.

That was nothing to do with you Nathan - it was part of a running joke about the Redskins benching Donovan McNabb for Rex Grossman at the end of their game against the Lions a couple of weeks ago (James is a 'Skins fan), which quickly saw Rex yield the ball to Detroit to seal the win for them. I thought it was fairly clear we were really talking about sport when James said "yes, I bet against Rex Grossman", but alas it seems I overestimated Sexy Rexy's notoriety.

I gathered that it was a football reference, but thought I would feign offense anyways considering the context of the joke.

Just some input on the shape of console sales in Japan.

You mentioned Wii is at 11 and PS3 is at 5ish.  Whereas last gen PS2 is 22 and GCN 4ish.  So PS3 is a "better" 2nd place than cube was.  However, Wii is way behind ps2 as a first place.  In addition 360 is at about 1.5 mil which is triple what xbox did in japan.  Still niche but not as absmal.  But all the 3 of those combined is still behind where japanese consoles were last generation by a bunch.  Also Wii software isn't that great.  PS3 software does decnetly for a 2nd place, better than GCN, but still I beleive Saturn and N64 had better software sales in japan.  Look at the number of 64 and Saturn million sellers and PS3 has eyt to have 1.  360 games sell to a niche audience and non exclusives sell 1/3-1/10 what they do on PS3 so the software market is hurting a lot.  The consoles market may be at 2/3 - 3/4 it was in japan in terms of ahrdware last year but I believe the software market is even further behind.  Would love to see sales data on that.

I just take any excuse to use the phrase Sexy Rexy, if only to remind myself and anyone else that he started the Super Bowl less than four years ago (yes, the Bears team apart from him was THAT good).

One of my best friends is a 'Skins fan, and I've gotten into a habit of referencing Rex Grossman as much as possible. "You look a little tired, Joe. Do we need to sub in Rex?" "Man, you keep on dying in Super Meat Boy. I guess it's time to bring in Grossman."

Is it wrong that I have MGS4, Fallout New Vegas, Civ V, and Valkyria Chronicles all virtually untouched and I continue to just play Super Meat Boy?

Don't forget that PS2 has been out on Japan for almost 11 years now (March 2000) while Wii has been out for about 4 (December 2006), if Nintendo keeps Wii around for as long as the PS2 then I have no doubt it can catch up and even surpass it.

During this episode, I noted the fact that the PS2 had already reached up into the high teens of millions sold in Japan by the end of 2004, so Wii at 11 million is very significantly behind the PS2 at roughly the same point of its life cycle, and appears unlikely to catch up unless a hardware refresh radically alters the current sales trends. Contrast this with the global picture where Wii is still trending similarly to the PS2, and you see how much more vibrant the Western console markets are today than Japan (especially when you consider the truly massive East-West disparity in the 360's success as well). 

So are western developers going to dominate the industry?

They already are.

In regards to third party Club Nintendo rewards, I can confirm that in Europe, both Resident Evil 4 and Zack & Wiki come with Star Points cards. Strange how it only seems to be Capcom games that earn this privilege.
Also, to Greg, if you want the soundtrack to the Mario Galaxy games (or any other), you could just search them on YouTube and paste the links into an mp3 converter.

Nintendo distributed Zack & Wiki in Europe, and they published the GameCube version of RE4, maybe that is why?

How so?

Maybe in overall totals, but not if you look at the best selling games. Four of the five best selling games in 2009 worldwide were from Nintendo (Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Fit. The only non-Japanese game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from Activision Blizzard, which was the best selling game of 2009 (at least if you combine the SKUs from all three versions).

It's also very unlikely that Nintendo will repeat Sony's foolish mistake of pricing itself out of the market with the Wii's successor.  Sony let the PS2 stick around because it was the only system that was making money for them at that point.  Nintendo will more or less completely abandon the Wii once it's successor hits the shelves.

What, none of you played GoldenEye? Weaklings!

You can practically separate Nintendo from the Japanese game industry because they are a massive outlier.

I don't know if any of you guys listen to Warning A Huge Podcast, it's a podcast by Nick Rox and other Gamefan alumni about Japanese gaming. It gets really depressing when they read the release lists for Japan: 5 week gaps between Wii title releases are not uncommon.

And I don't mean "5 week gap between worthwhile releases" here, I mean 5 weeks without any new Wii games, usually shovelware.

The Wii is already dead in the water over there. It has absolutely no chance of having the PS2's longevity.

The thing to keep in mind when reading the comments to a Jim Sterling article is that 90% of the posts there are made to troll him.

If the guy took shots at Kirby and Enslaved, it wasn't at random: his comment was tailored specifically because Sterling gave those games high scores.

In short: you're better off not reading comments on Destructoid.

You didn't get enough of that last week? At the very least, the hopefully-soon-to-be Dr Metts will have more details next week.

I fixed that for you.

When I was listening to the discussion about remakes, re-imaginings, etc., I couldn't help but think of Resident Evil 4 for the Wii. From what I've heard of it, while being the same game, it had the bonus "Ada" missions and new controls. I think thats a pretty good example of a game showing up again in a new form.

Yeah, listening to the podcast today I'm surprised we didn't mention the Wii remakes.... I'm a fan of those that used the pointee well, but DKJB and a clumsy Mario Tennis didn't make sense.

If the Wii had more horsepower, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop would have been a great reimagining. I really liked the gameplay changes they made, but the Wii hardware just wasn't capable of running it.

My review of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Wiimake is deceiving. It only has a decent score because the core of the game is so good. The GameCube version is infinitely better than the stupid ill-advised remake.

Also, where's my Pikmin 2 NPC? Dammit Nintendo!


EDIT: I heard they took out the camera in Dead Rising CTYD. I never liked that in the original. I've always been secretly interested in trying out CTYD.

Not only that, they changed it up so there was more of a focus on gunplay, in the style of RE4 Wii Edition, in addition to melee combat. That made for more interesting combat than the 360 version. They also streamlined the story so that it was less open-ended and more focused. The Wii's hardware limitations meant fewer zombies on screen and worse AI (though it's zombies, how much AI do you really need?), but I still had a lot more fun with it than I had with either HD Dead Rising.

That paragraph made me more interested in that game than I ever have been before.

I really don't like the HD Dead Risings. I feel like I should, but I just don't.

I didn't like the HD Dead Risings either; I bought Chop Till You Drop (not right away, mind you; I think I paid about $13 to keep it from GameFly) because it let me shoot zombies in the RE4 engine. If you take it for what it is and not just compare it to the 360 game I think it's an underrated, fun game.

Last week was all about the N64 game, not the current one.

fixed

This week's podcast inspired me to go back to Super Mario Sunshine after almost three years to find the last blue coin in Noki Bay that eluded me for hours. I refused to move forward without that blue coin. I'm happy to say, I found that blue coin within five minutes (three minutes of that time spent getting used to the control scheme again).

Call of Duty? Halo? Grand Theft Auto?

After having played some Super Meat Boy, I can say with confidence that it's definitely a game in which you'll beat your head against a wall, then come back to a level and see the "solution" almost immediately.

Good to hear that Jon is playing games again!

By the way, I have indeed been playing the new Goldeneye and will have lots of thoughts on it for the next episode. I haven't played deeply into any one mode, but I have tried all three main parts of the game for at least an hour or two each. Would have liked to get in more of it already, but certain people keep voting for RPGs on RetroActive.

There's precedent to the contrary.  The SNES was released in Japan in 1990, but NES games continued to see release until 1994.  In fact, the last two games officially published for the system were both made by Nintendo.

Just to be clear, I actually have bet against Rex Grossman simply because he is Rex Grossman.

I would like to invite the RFN and NWR crew over to my topic "Wii Successor and Glasses Free 3D" to read their opinions on the subject. If you are interested, you are more than welcome to comment. 

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=32069.msg644076#new

In Japan, the Famicom (NES) was manufactured up until 2003, which makes a total of 20 years on the market, although it was available only in specialty shops for half of that time.