I like The Grinder.

Hey,ya... I was gonna mention The Grinder, too. From the look of it, at least, I'm likin' that game a lot.

The Conduit will NOT bring anyone to a system. People are right when they say we only accepted it because we had no alternative on Wii. It is a pretty fun game when considered as a "Wii game", but it is a lackluster, boring game on pretty much every level when compared to sci-fi FPS on other systems.

Actually, it's a pretty cool idea. Like the DCL distribution in City Folk, but it could be like an ARG and there are QR codes on posters advertising the game and things.

I agree that this kind of content delivery would be very cool... maybe the potential exists for it to get a bit gimmicky, but it doesn't have to be. What Dementis describes would add a lot to the game.

I would just really love to see them go MMO with this franchise. It seems like Animal Crossing was MADE for social interaction, and a persistent online world with the Animal Crossing flavor would definitely become an online hub for gamers like myself - a place to display my style, hang out and chat with friends, collect and trade items/designs with friends, etc. They could still keep privacy in place (Nintendo-style) by allowing access restriction levels via user menus, depending on your personal privacy preferences.

Ok, so... does anyone feel up to explaining what, exactly, made the original Mario so great?  I mean, it is GREAT.  I played it into the ground when it came out, and I love it to this day.  But why?  It's not like the jumping is just that much fun, or that everyone identifies with a fat plumber, or that the environments and challenges were all that awe-inspiring.  WHAT IS IT?

Looking over the true classics, it's pretty universally difficult to explain the appeal.  In plenty of ways, there have been more "interesting" block games than Tetris... but Tetris is still the best.  There have been more varied, nuanced, and deep experiences than the old text-based dungeon adventures, but I would go and replay those (or even King's Quest) long before I would replay, say, Fable III.

Recently I downloaded Superbrothers:Sword&SworceryEP for my iPhone, and it reminded me about the awesomeness of those 8-bit days... and reminded me that we've been pretty much stuck in a gaming box for many, many years, still playing by the rules that Miyamoto and others like him helped to write back in the 80s.  It wasn't the particular presentations that made those games great... it was something else.

It seems that we're still trying to make games either more like movies or more like carnival games or more like a very interesting pop-up book... but is there something else we could be doing with them (and isn't it something else that those early creators were tapping into, albeit unconsciously)?  Couldn't we be messing, somehow, with interactivity itself - with the fact that we are both manipulating and being manipulated by our environment in electronic media?  Couldn't we make a game that lived in the tension between narrative (what the story is doing to you) and personal responsibility (what you are doing to the story and the characters), and asked us to find a real equilibrium with that dynamic through our in-game actions?

Maybe this is just too "heady" or esoteric for the average gamer... but if we aren't asking ourselves what makes games great, then don't we simply run the risk of games hitting the same cultural arc as film (basically peaking early as art, then becoming a special effects arms race, then devolving into formulaic blockbuster attempts in the interest of making money)?  If NO ONE cares about this question, then I'm afraid that, like the film industry, the games industry will soon be left with nothing but the polar opposites of Call of Duty blockbusters and tiny indie offerings like World of Goo... and I, for one, find that a depressing prospect.

It is more likely that Microsoft will release a new console first, but that is not going to be a "super-machine". It will probably be an upgrade of the 360; with Kinect built-in, more ram and use a bigger optical disc capacity. Anything "extra" is likely to be little more than "tweaks".

This seems likely to me, as well.... "elite" editions with some better individual parts (like storage or RAM) or new bundle options for the 360 would make more sense than a new console at a time when anything they could sell for less than $1000 would be only marginally more powerful than WiiU.

As far as the "worry", however... I wouldn't be worried even if MS or PS announced a new console at E32012.  Why in the world would that be worrisome?  If they want to try to force their install base to purchase a new piece of tech that offers them no real, new play experiences (other than, perhaps, a few more assets from current generation game engines), then good on them.  Wii owners have a reason to upgrade, as do the owners of other consoles (due to the controller and the prospect of some truly great IPs in HD for the first time), but PS or MS owners really don't.

Man, I have to register a pretty emphatic "no" to this thought, for a few reasons.

1st, while the game is fun... it's pretty much one of those games that, I hate to say, is "good for a Wii game"... Conduit 2 was not a significant improvement in terms of story, features, tone, or game engine either (and I think that's why it suffered from fairly universal "so-so" reviews). The scale of the game is hardly "epic", the premise is neither original nor particularly compelling, and the play dynamics are not really anything to write home about in terms of innovation or deep immersion.

2nd, and this perhaps helps to explain the first point, High Voltage has said in interviews with IGN (GameScoop) that they really had (and have) no interest in making a "killer app" for Nintendo - that they were not out to make the "Halo killer"... rather, with the Conduit, they were just trying to "have fun" and to push the limits of the Wii's hardware.

With this in mind, I think that the Conduit is hardly the franchise to be Nintendo's flagship FPS. High Voltage may, indeed, produce something great for the big N... but this doesn't seem to be their goal... and I don't think that what they make will be on par with Halo. The studio does good genre pieces... but nothing genre defining (and they seem to be okay with that).

Give me a game where you play as a Pirate commander, commanding ships RTS style on the touch screen, while boarding enemies and shooting them with you flintlock pistol on the TV screen.

This is a really cool idea for improving the workflow on genre-bending games where multitasking is a necessity... it seems like this kind of game will be what really sets the new system apart, providing intense, deep gameplay experiences with intuitive control that is also unparalleled in its precision.

Dementis, man, you make consistently intelligent points on these forums... but at this point you're pretty much just picking on Koopa (and often, purposely it seems, mis-hearing his points).

It seems valid to say (as Koopa clarified to be his original point) that successive Activision iterations of Goldeneye would NOT be what the WiiU needs to move forward... Goldeneye itself would not make a good serial (as you point out), but even worse than a bad serial would be a bad serial produced by an Activision B-studio.  Don't get me wrong, Eurocom did a great job with Dead Space: Extraction, for what it was.  But honestly, this is not the studio to produce the next big thing in gaming.  The thing I really agree with here is that Nintendo needs to look to a GREAT studio to make them a GREAT new IP... what they manifestly don't need is another CoD clone.

As far as the whole Sci-Fi FPS thing goes... I don't think that Koopa is really sold on the genre ideas he tossed out there at first.  He was just providing an example of what he was looking for, and happened to have Halo in mind.  There is nothing "mindless" or particularly "gory" about Halo (or have you, perhaps, not played it?).  I found even Reach to be gripping, exciting, and just plain fun.  Metroid Prime is amazing for what it is... but it is definitely not what Koopa is looking for (nor I).

Interestingly enough, as I'm sure you know, Prime was not what Retro studios developed their engine for in the first place.  Metroid was tossed their way when Nintendo didn't particularly like the direction they were taking with the FPS that was in development at the time.  This adds credence to your suggestion that Nintendo is not really interested in a typical FPS experience from their first parties... so ultimately, I agree with you when you say that if such a thing is to appear on the new system, it will have to come from a non-1st party source.  

This being said, I have seen fruitful collaborations in this vein between Nintendo and a 3rd party studio, such as the Eternal Darkness project, in the past.  So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Nintendo could work with a talented studio to make a real, quality FPS for its new system... and I, for one, hope that it happens.

I would really Prefer The Nintendo Fps to be made by Nintendo and not ActiVision and for it to be a Scifi themed Shooter like Halo instead of Modern like Cod because it would seemed more like Nintendo and it would make the stages alot more funner than lets say Cod and more creative .

Even though I can't get behind the grammar of your post ( ), I couldn't agree more with your sentiment!  Nintendo needs to push a new IP, made by an in-house or 2nd party studio, and it needs to make something distinctive (i.e. not another CoD clone).  I'm done with companies trying to cash in on my nostalgia by offering me "pretty good" reboots, or trying to cash in on my love of great franchises by offering me mildly entertaining clones.  

Where all the mad creativity at?! (Ok... so grammar really isn't that important...)

The only console I ever pre-ordered was the N64, because it gave me Mario 64 and a real Pilotwings game on day one, with Shadows of the Empire right on their heels.  Those games BLEW MY MIND at the time, especially Mario.  I'm just not sure that they could impress me again in the same way, and if they could, it would *probably* take more than a Mario game.

If they give me a game that revolutionizes my play experience, I'll put money down tomorrow.  Until they do, I'll wait and see what the catalog looks like a few months after release.  I have not been genuinely impressed (in the way that Mario 64 impressed me) by a game since Gears of War, and that makes me sad... sad that it was Epic/Microsoft and not Nintendo that impressed me, and sad that Nintendo really hasn't stepped up to the plate in the intervening time.  

The idea of Wii and its motion controls excited me, but the experience itself didn't live up to its promise (though I have had some pretty enjoyable moments with Wii Sports and Red Steel 2)... what I really wanted, a GOOD, realistic baseball experience, never came.  The idea of the 3DS really excited me... but what do I play on it?  Can Nintendo really not come up with anything more revolutionary (in terms of actual gaming experience) than what they did 15 years ago?  I'm not looking for a "good" game... I'm looking for a game that fills me with wonder - a game that transports me.  I would say that I'm being unrealistic if Nintendo hadn't done it before...

Come on big N, impress me!

Thanks for the heads up on this! someone said something the other day about halo "paving the way for the modern fps" and I almost blew a brain gasket, lol... Goldeneye was amazing.

Agreed. We need more games like Secret of Mana. Those were the days...

If by this you mean co-op games... then I think you're in luck.  There are a WIDE array of great co-op games on the current HD consoles, and I imagine we'll be seeing a steady stream from our beloved big N now that they have the horsepower to pull it off without taxing the processor.

btw... I also LOVE Secret of Mana... most nostalgic gaming experience in my memory... played it with my brother on and on until the save file died.

So far, I like what Dementis says best (as in please, people, can we just kill this family of "will the WiiU be powerful enough" threads?)... I think a LOT has been said about this topic already, in a lot of different places... and I think that if people have real, legitimate doubts about the system's power or its value or its ability to perform, that it would be VERY worth their time to find and to read those threads in their entirety.

So as not to be a kill-joy, however, I'd love to add my two cents to this particular flavor of the old rant... Alex makes a great point about the Wii's graphics being distracting - not just "not as good" as the other systems'. The generational gap will, by all accounts, not be as noticeable this coming generation (that is, if you don't listen to the insane people who expect top-tier PC performance from a console for under $500). He has VERY reasonable requests of the new system, and I think that, from the most reputable sources I've read, the WiiU will certainly be able to do what he expects it to do.

Tre also makes a very reasonable point when he says that it is pretty much impossible to consider all the factors that go into consumer choices... and honestly Tron isn't doing himself any favors, because I find it utterly impossible to decipher what he really cares about. Is he one of those Nintendo fans he admits will be fully satisfied with the system? Is he one of the "PS360" fans who would definitely (*read with sarcasm*) switch from making fun of Nintendo to shelling out the cash for one of their consoles if it ONLY offered them blu-ray and a copy of the games they can already buy on their own systems, but with marginally better graphics (how many die-hard console fans choose to buy multi-platform releases on their PC because the graphics are better, anyway)? Whichever of these camps he's in (or even if he's in a totally different camp), it would be pretty hard for him to argue that he has an accurate bead on Nintendo's consumer prospects.

I would love to see cold, hard sales data on who spends the most money on games per year - and on what those people want to play, and what would make them buy a new system. Even then, however, predicting what people will actually buy is near-impossible. As others have pointed out, no one in sales and marketing knew that what EVERYONE wanted was an iPod until Apple made one (and honestly, I doubt that even consumers knew it until Apple made it... there were plenty of cheaper mp3 players on the market at the time, with just as much storage or more and a sizable online music library). It's hard to tell what will change the game... but I think that Nintendo's approach of interface over horsepower makes about as much sense as any strategy out there, especially at this juncture, where processing power is an issue that developers have pretty much universally discounted as a factor holding them back from doing what they want to do. Can you afford a $1000 console just to have the satisfaction of running BF3 with DX11 at 60fps? The jump just isn't that spectacular...

I actually like your idea too, but my vote goes "yes" simply because I LOVE Capcom. If it weren't for them, I would have given up on my Wii long ago. They are a company that just astounds me with the quality of their titles almost every time I pick up something they make.

These people you're talking about? They're the PC gamers.

Kinda hard to keep track of the haters these days, and where they come from (oh, the internet... how I both love and hate you for giving EVERYONE a voice).

While I think that your core comment makes, perhaps, too extensive a use of hyperbole, I get your point. Nintendo's fans tend to look almost gullible in their sycophantic admiration of the big N (mind-bogglingly, almost in direct proportion to how little the company actually gives them to play), and the stereo-typical PS360 fan cares more about how their console makes them look to their friends than about the beauty, depth, and innovation of games as a medium of art/entertainment... yadayadayda.

I don't think that any of these stereotypes invalidate the points that many people are making here... nor the valid doubts that many core gamers have about Nintendo's commitment to making games that push the industry into new territory and actually give them games they want to play. I will pay $400 for a new system... but I want that system to be capable in terms of power (so that I don't HAVE to buy an Xbox720 or PS4 to get the best gaming experiences on market), and I want it to feature games that interest me in terms of theme, scope, immersion, tone, etc.

Isn't there some sort of rule against threads with only two real contributors?  Seems like back and forth posts are a rather inefficient way of having an argument of this nature...

As for the topic, it has been suggested in the past that the sensor strip could replace the separate sensor bar if you were, say, wanting to bring your WiiU over to your friend's house and play some games with only the wiimotes.  I admit that having fewer wires is appealing, but this seems like a pretty limited application. I suppose that it makes sense as a simple perk (being that, as others have said, it's just a matter of a couple of LEDs)... I guess we'll have to wait to see.

I'm sorry but it does matter. ok we know most people on this site loves nintendo exclusives. but if exclusives weren't an issue why pay im sure what will be 350-400 price for a new console that barely does what a ps3 can do.

er... barely does?  I'm sorry, but this is a bit unfair (though I get that you're shouting because you feel that people are ignoring your point).

I agree that graphics matter.  Crisp, detailed visuals (within any art style) absolutely add to the experience of gaming, on multiple levels, from story immersion to raw impact of the events in which you are participating.  I bought an Xbox 360 because of the new gameplay experiences afforded by the more powerful system... and though I have argued in the past that graphics are not the most important thing about a game (and, indeed, still believe this to be absolutely true), I must say that visual power is a major component of the impact that games can have on a person who plays them.

The fact is, however, that the WiiU will certainly be more powerful than the current consoles on the market.  This is not in doubt.  That it mostly likely will not double or treble their power does not concern me, for reasons stated ad nauseum elsewhere and by everyone else here.  The fact that it offers an innovative new controller, the most power on current market, and the support of some excellent franchises (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party) makes it a very appealing prospect to me, as a gamer.

Now, if you are one of those who INSIST that MS and PS have uber-awesome next-gen consoles - super machines 1000x more powerful than their current consoles and able to run spectacular game engines beyond any current developers' wildest imaginings - just waiting to be announced, well then, I just can't think of what to say.  I don't think that this is likely, and I'm not even sure that it is possible from a technological/marketing point of view... but I could always be wrong, and I guess that we'll have to wait until something is actually announced by those companies to know for sure.  

If such an announcement happens... good on them, and well wishing to those who can afford it.  Personally, I am not ready to put down the $1000 that such a tech-beast would have to cost!

I'm agreeing that it's time... the original SNES Star Fox was always billed as a technological powerhouse for the hardcore gamer. The amusing-but-telling tag line was "why go to the next level, when you could go centuries beyond?" - a jab at SEGA's "welcome to the next level" slogan - and the unique take on 3D gaming was really striking (and felt revolutionary) at the time.

Point being, Star Fox was made as a showcase for a system's capabilities... it was made for mind-bending presentational feats. The 64 version may not have felt so revolutionary, but it still wowed gamers of its time with its cinematic flair (of rare depth for Nintendo at that time) and its epic action set-pieces.

What better way could there be to introduce gamers to the nascent possibilities inherent to the new hardware than to blow them away with a spectacular, fast-paced adventure with mind-blowing visuals, epically-captivating and imaginative alien environments, and the kind of immersive control experience that could only be available on the WiiU?

Link to the story on WiiUBlog.com
Sure, Nintendo's late to 'the HD party', but, in a certain sense, Sony should have respect for its 'elders'. Nintendo's been part of this business since 1985. Sony came along like ten years later after WORKING with Nintendo in the first place. Welcome to the party? I think that this is honestly the first time Sony can tell Nintendo that about ANYTHING. I love the PlayStation brand, but I have to say that I hate its bigwigs.

Oh man, don't tempt me to go hating on Sony... the 12 steps have been going so well.

Honestly, though, it seems that this interview has been getting pretty universally negative press, as opposed to the interview with Shuhei Yoshida about the PSV, which impressed me with its earnestness, its positive tone, its concerted avoidance of pot shots, etc.  Genuine excitement about innovation and possibilities always makes for a better interview than hip-fired, juvenile bravado.

Lovin' the prequel idea...

Also, just watched the 3DS footage video from StarFox3D on the nintendo3dsblog, and it got me pretty stoked... hopefully it will be well enough received that it will encourage Nintendo to push for a new entry in the franchise!

The reason I asked is because I've never really seen a problem with AIs being unintelligent. Then again, I've never really played an FPS where I presume those things would be important.

Yeah, but not just FPS (though that would be good... anyone ever played Crysis?). If you've played an RPG/Adventure like Fable III on the Xbox, you know that any time there are more than a few NPCs on screen, there are severe framerate issues and even some inexcusable rubber-banding. Fable III doesn't look all that awesome in terms of HD graphics... but the NPC AI in an environment like an RPG town, where each character is reacting to a number of variables regarding your character, his reputation, his current clothing and equipment, his actions, the actions of others, their own jobs and relationships to one another, etc., can get VERY demanding on a processor!

Im pretty sure hes talking about increasing the intelligence of AI.

Mostly this, but the former as well (more characters on screen). Currently, the complexity of AI routines are severely hampered by available processing power. This doesn't much matter in a game like Zelda, which seems to focus on duels rather than big battles with crowds... but I could see it doing great things for a franchise like Pikmin, where enemies (and player-directed AIs) are required to coordinate with/react to one another. Big AI breakthroughs are a while down the line... but improved NPC coordination/interaction is an improvement we could see right away with a little more processing oomph in the hands of developers.

I would LOVE a horror game.

Me too, tbh... Apparently there's more interest in this than I thought, though thmajority of people still look to be interested in a Zelda-esque adventure or an rpg... Looks like nintendo actually knows their fan base very well!

Sparrow and dementis make really good points that deserve attention... The hardware worries are a real red herring, and nintendo is really putting their energy where it matters (ai is a great place to focus the extra processing power, IMO)...

Give me some insane speed, some mind-bending tracks, and some killer music and I am SO THERE!!!