esper

For me, it's a Love/Hate relationship with Sony. And the love is not even that much, but with games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, they amaze me, but when they get cocky and use the "Bad Boy" attitude it makes me want to throw my PlayStation 2 out the window.
Jack Tretton is an Idiot and really needs to be more professional in the way he states his OPINION.

They say that brevity is the wit of the soul. Unfortunately, I took a shovel to my soul somewhere along the way. So long, wit!

I see Grand theft Auto 5, Metal Gear Rising, Revengance, tales of the World which mean a Tales of game, beat the Beat Rhythm Paradise, and Spirit Camera. If this is what I think it is my reaction will be the same as George Takei's reaction in this commercial:


Wait are all of those being trademark with the Wii U name, as well.

Everyone's pretty much said what's worth saying on this subject, and there was a thread about this pretty recently, though it got derailed later on, unfortunately.

But yeah, Miis aren't going anywhere, and rightly so, as they're still by far the most popular and fully standardized avatar system in gaming. The more they can do to expand their use in games - whether appearing in icon form on your save file, as playable characters in games built for Miis exploring more of the Mii world, as playable characters or bonus content or cameo characters (As in Metroid Prime 3's ship dashboard Mii bobblehead or the Japan-only Sorcery Blade WiiWare RPG, which had an entire Mii village in it, or even the Japan-only retail Bomberman version of the WiiWare game, which featured a full story mode in which you were rescuing your Miis as Bomberman), collectibles, and so on - and expand them further into being our personal profile figurehead and general online representation across friend lists, gaming stat cards/sigs, profiles, social virtual worlds like in my Miitropolis thread from a while back, the better.

There's so much that can be done with Miis as a concept to personalize one's gaming experiences and online social presence to make it all your own, and Nintendo hasn't even really fully explored the tip of the icberg, as they say. The only real aesthetic updates, as already mentioned by many were, would probably be simply to update them to be a bit sharper looking to appropriately fit in with the higher-end Wii U visuals - where the lower end appearance still works fine on the 3DS, but would need a bump up on its successor - and more customization features, more varieties of hair, eyes, noses, mouths, and other facial features. And of course, as others have mentioned, clothing and accessories, which would work well as potential unlocks to tie in with whatever achievement system is coming to the Wii U and 3DS. Likewise, rather than charging microtransactions like the competition for avatar clothing, taking a StreetPass Mii Plaza and play coin type approach would be the better way to go - include some online and offline minigames and metagames like those in the StreetPass Mii Plaza to unlock some standard basic clothing with, and bring in a means of earning a simple little meta-currency for the Wii U's play coins, probably going ahead and keeping the game, with a variety of means by which to earn them. Then rather than charging and spending real money on Mii clothing and accessories, you could spend play coins on them instead, in addition to earning them from games, with new updates (Via whatever passive online connection service name they use on there akin to WiiConnect24 and SpotPass - WiiUConnect24, perhaps.) every few weeks to months bringing some more clothing and accessories to purchase to personalize your Mii as much as possible.

It'd be nice to see Nintendo do something with all their numerous other mascots too, if only to add some basic achievements to all 3DS and Wii U 'channels' and apps of sorts to fully encourage exploration and use of these features (As well as to add more content and some more replay value to the AR Games and Face Raiders), to perhaps earn little badges for the little internet mascot on the 3DS (Perhaps by simply connecting to the internet for the first time), 3DS Camera and Sound parakeets, the Wii's help cats (Assuming they're carried over to the Wii U, like the parakeets were from the DSi to the 3DS, as I'd imagine the Wii U will bring even more little mascots like that, considering the huge explosion in their growth on the 3DS), the 3DS's little shopping bag mascot, Mr. AR, Swapnote's Nikki (Perhaps having her show up as part of the population or your personal population in an online virtual Mii world like in my Miitropolis concept), the Face Raiders UFO, and so on.

Considering how Nintendo Network officially launches on the 16th when Theatrhythm comes out in Japan, too, and that we may potentially see first Nintendo Network detailed for the west at the GDC, we could potentially have accounts and logins set up on the new network with some little badge or achievement systems and our Miis on there within the next few months, by the end of winter or perhaps sometime in the spring. I wouldn't be surprised if they set things up for us to watch E3 content and the conference itself through Nintendo Network too, whether through the 3DS or on your web browser - like their past E3 livestream and content page networks - and perhaps doling out little E3 2012 badges to users who watch their conference and otherwise check out the new media, demos, and offerings on their E3 network once the Nintendo Network is fully rolled out and we're all using it. I suspect the next big 3DS firmware update will be bringing Nintendo Network, presumably username connection - though I don't expect we'll lose friend codes on our Nintendo portables entirely until the 3DS's successor launches many years off - and more. As it stands, there is already a username and login system on the only Nintendo Network website in Japan, for their 3D Photo Contests. Through that, you can see what photos people have uploaded for the latest contests and view simple profile pages displaying their uploaded photos. Presumably, the aesthetic layout used for that can be taken as a preview of what our official Nintendo Network webpage, profile pages, and user login will be like when all these things launch in the coming months. From what I've seen firsthand, they're simple, but nice.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic, and I've been fairly redundant after all the good things others have said here. Miis good, enough said.

Fire and stops 3 attacks. Fire basically is overpowered in every RPG, and the stop 3 attacks will make a stat booster/healer much more efficent to have on your team

Considering how beloved the Miis are, they should definitely stick around, but all the more improvements they can make to them, the better. They should be central in our online identity - just as we have a Mii set as our personal identity on the 3DS too - and they should definitely make sure that they retain the kind of charm they have now and the same level of creativity in design.

Going for an ultra-realistic push and basically trying to follow Sony and Microsoft - which went off a cliff together financially in pursuit of the so-called 'hardcore' - would be one of the biggest mistakes Nintendo could make. As would be a full on refocus away from the Wii remote, nunchuk, and motion controls that made the Wii so popular this generation - they've already confirmed they'll still be used, which is a first positive - to instead fixate on a return to 'traditional' game controls with some basic touchscreen enhancements with the new tablet controller. We've seen for some time now how traditional controls and increasingly conservative adherence to them - as we've seen with Sony and Microsoft - lead to inevitably unintuitive and intimidating controllers with too many buttons and a distinct lack of real progress in gameplay design.

Refocusing on the so-called 'hardcore' and trying to follow Sony and Microsoft's current self-destructive path with a return to traditional controls over forward-thinking ones - and even the Wii U unveil trailer focused on trying to find forward-thinking ways to use the new tablet controller as opposed to the same old - would be the worst turn Nintendo could take going into this next generation. The 'hardcore' can complain about Nintendo all they want, but appealing to the mass market is far more important with a broad variety of games, gameplay styles, and visual styles, as well as appealing, accessible controls. Rather than pursuing the PS3 and 360's destructive, conservative path, the Wii U definitely needs to follow a path much like the 3DS is - pursuing 'core' gamers more aggressively, certainly, and working on getting the third party support that the Wii earned but never received (Hence the awful financial state much of the video game industry is now in, the average PS3 and 360 title these days not making a profit, where a small number of major western blockbusters actually do each year), but essentially continuing the spirit of the Wii and DS going forward and retaining their mass appeal while working to bring the competition's support on board.

We're already seeing this with the 3DS visibly taking off in the mainstream now with more mass market titles hitting and the 3DS functioning as not just a successor for the DS, but the PSP as well in Japan - the only region where the PSP ever actually took off. The 'core' or 'hardcore' audience and 'casual' or otherwise mass market audience are in no way mutually exclusive as they're often treated. DS game sales and even Wii game sales - as little credit as they ever get for the fact that 'core' games made money far more consistently on the Wii than PS3 and Xbox 360 - proved this, as did PS2 software sales (Though the system suffered a relatively low attach rate despite its massive market penetration, in clear part due to the average person's discomfort with how clunky and unintuitive the Dualshock controller was - a clear example of the traditional controller becoming too complicated for the mass market. Simplicity is always important in controller design - the Wii in particular reminded of that.), and the PSX, SNES, and NES. The mass market is always the most important market, and it wasn't until this generation that we saw the industry trying to artificially divide itself while sneering at so many of its potential customers in the process with all the 'hardcore' and 'casual' nonsense we've heard this generation.

So, in summation, what Nintendo needs to do is not to 'focus on the hardcore,' but simply work themselves and with third parties to absorb an even larger audience from the competition again - like they are with the 3DS - but to continue to focus on the same mass market appeal the Wii and DS have enjoyed and figure out new ways to keep the mass market engaged. And making bolder use of Miis in all sorts of games and allowing people to socialize more online through them - as in my Miitropolis idea in a previous thread on this board - would definitely be a good leap forward to take with the huge leap they're preparing to take with their online services this year. The Miis should be an evolving concept, and the more they can be used to appeal to the mass market audience that loves them, the better.

Nintendo pulled off mass market motion controls where Move was pretty much dead on arrival and Kinect saw very mixed results and less than a full year of real mass market interest. Nintendo pulled off the only avatar system that really endeared itself to the mass market and saw meaningful extensive use this generation with Miis, where avatars were a largely unwanted feature on the 360 and Home didn't exactly take off in any big way on the PS3 either. Going into this next generation, as with the DS, Nintendo has the brand advantage and a good impression on the mass market all around - we've already seen that Sony hasn't learned anything from their mistakes with the Vita's dire opening, and Microsoft hasn't exactly demonstrated that they have any understanding of how to make money in the industry either, with the Xbox brand a little over a decade old now and still without any actual profit to show for it, and only a very narrow audience. Both are launching into next generation without a hint of understanding how to appeal to - or any real evident respect for - the wider market after their cynical attempts to draw their interest with Move and Kinect this generation didn't take long to go south, and they're caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of hardware design: PS3 and 360 game development was simply too expensive, demanding far too many millions of dollars in investment per game and game sales that both platforms' narrow audiences could not keep high enough to make the majority of games profitable, with very few types of games actually seeing the 1.5+ million copies sold needed on average to break even, let alone turn a profit.

Similarly, the Vita's facing the burden of raising costs dramatically on both developers and customers at a point at which much of the industry is absolutely battered by all the money lost across the PS3 and Xbox 360, as they attempted to work with Sony and Microsoft respectively to force customers away from the Wii, with financially catastrophic results instead. The industry as a whole isn't in a good position to start supporting a very expensive new portable - as we're seeing with incredibly little proven Vita support - let alone one with extremely little audience. Sony and Microsoft are under incredible pressure from their current followings to launch new consoles that take another gigantic leap forward in hardware power, ensuring many billions in losses for both companies and another huge surge in development costs, the likes of which the industry cannot afford when it couldn't even afford the PS3 and 360's costs on average this generation. Thus, all the developer collapses we saw this generation, as well as all the mergers, and the financial reports with many companies formerly thought to always be healthy crumbling internally and laying off tons of employees thanks to the losses incurred through Sony and Microsoft support that few had the wisdom to halt. This generation became a losing war of brandname loyalty and 'hardcore' identity nonsense fought against the mass market and sustainable budgets - hence the average Wii game actually making money, and for a long time, Wii development being used to finance big budget PS3 and 360 flops. When that stopped happening and most third parties tried to drop the Wii entirely over the past couple of years, developer and publisher bottom lines fell through the floor as they still failed to actually make money on most PS3 and 360 releases.

For the first time, the industry's getting ready to move into a new generation wherein the industry as a whole is in very rough shape, in no way enjoying the surplusses the PS2 era ended with. If Sony and Microsoft launch the incredible powerhouses their followings demand, they would be too expensive for both developers and customers - much as we're already seeing with Sony's Vita falling on its face right out the door - especially taking into account the awful state of the global economy. Gaming platforms are in no way sustainable as 'premium' or 'luxury' items, like Sony and Microsoft have tried to make them, and the financial catastrophe this generation has been for pretty much everyone but Nintendo and the few companies more focused on supporting them has made that very clear. After a straight decade of billions in losses with the Xbox line so far, one has to wonder how much more Microsoft's shareholders will take before the product line is eventually ended - much like the Zune was last year - and in Sony's case, between the PS3 eating the PSX and PS2's profits and the PSP in no way subsidizing the rest of their losses (The company has more debt than they're bringing in money by miles), it would be incredibly foolish to launch a PS4 anytime soon with the current state they're in, and the Vita's visible trajectory.

If Sony and Microsoft try to launch another pair of huge-leap-forward 'premium' consoles like the PS3 and 360, we're going to see third parties devastated further and more companies go out of business, while surging development costs set virtually impossible to meet sales requirements for profitability.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has made clear that while the Wii U will be more powerful than the PS3 and 360, they're designing it to keep development on lower budgets than on the PS3 and 360 viable, and to allow a place for small companies to continue onward on consoles, where the PS3 and 360 shut them out. At this point, the next generation is pretty much Nintendo's to lose so long as they continue to learn from both their own mistakes and those of the competition, forging their own path forward with the 3DS and Wii U like they did with the DS and Wii. Affordability to both developers and customers is vital, as is avoiding the ridiculous image bickering over nonsense like 'casual' and 'hardcore' labels. We're already seeing a surprising number of major western PS3 and 360 titles slated for the Wii U this year, many developers and publishers visibly eager for what Nintendo's powerful new platform represents in contrast to Sony and Microsoft - the possibility of a huge HD console that has a definite good shot at being the market leader this next generation too, allowing a lot of the kinds of games made for the PS3 and 360 this gen to find a full-on mass market audience at last with Nintendo. As for the rest of the third parties, it's largely a matter of letting go of the 'casual' and 'kiddy' nonsense they tried to cling to with the Wii while the PS3 and 360 were burning them and refocusing on where the market actually is - just as we're seeing with many titles expected for the PSP and Vita audiences instead going exclusively to the 3DS now. If Sony and Microsoft try to launch new consoles in 2013 or 2014 that aren't premium, but a slight jump ahead to try to match the Wii U's hardware, they'll inevitably arrive too late to compete or make much of a difference, and they'll see their own respective audiences furious that they didn't push the graphical ceiling as high as they could again, suicidal cost to developers be damned. Going into this next generation, both are in a significantly worse position than Nintendo, just as we've seen playing out with the new portables already.

The new generation is, in many ways, Nintendo's to lose.