Oh boy, it's time for another monster post! I'll break it down by genre categories, and as usual, there will be relevant YouTube links and so forth. Lots of industry commentary and context too. Most of this list probably has little to no shot at happening, but a man can dream, eh? It's all written from the perspective of an ideal industry that breaks away from its current dangerous lull in creativity and fixation on Sony and Microsoft where profits have largely vanished, getting back in touch with their roots and returning to Nintendo, where they're actually making an effort to create profitable platforms friendly to third parties as can be.
As an initial aside - way to stay on topic, me - Mega Man Legends 3 was just cancelled, as we know. Fans are already starting to campaign for it to have another shot, considering how far into development it was - I suspect their pleas will fall on deaf ears, and that they have much less of a chance than Operation Rainfall. Still, I can only wish them the best, since as someone who missed out on Mega Man Legends 1-2 (Only renting the first one ages ago) and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, I really wanted to play 3 and for remakes of the original PSX/N64/PC games to hit the 3DS. Disappointing. But this leads to my next point.
Conservative development attitudes and a self-destructive tendency to cling to the platforms and brands killing them is wrecking the industry right now. We need bold, courageous, creative development like Nintendo's been trying to push and encourage since the DS and Wii, which the industry has by and large not been rising to the occasion of, and Nintendo themselves often aren't there enough either, though it's understandable that they can't just discard their main properties either - they're their bread and butter. They launched the 3DS intending for third parties to shine, and instead third parties dropped the ball and now we're seeing a bunch of them getting antsy about the 3DS when they SHOULD be pushing BIG, AMBITIOUS games on it and giving people more reasons to BUY the system. This is where they need to be as portables go - there aren't other viable options. Sony's self-destructing in portables and they know it. A competitive price point set to make Sony bleed billions like with the PS3 does not ensure it'll be a hit when the software lineup has no titles that indicate any kind of reaching out to a wider market, only shrinking like with the PS3 - and minimal third party support, reflecting third parties realizing they shouldn't be touching the Vita - and development costs are BEYOND merely unreasonable for a portable. Portables are SUPPOSED to cost significantly less than their console counterparts.
At any rate, enough industry rambling - there's a long list and tons of links ahead here. And some more industry lamentations at the bottom. Dig in! (And try not to choke on all the horrifying text.)
Action/ArcadeSandlot games - We didn't get
Zangeki no Reginleiv, sadly, or
Chousouju Mecha MG (Though that had a little content featured in Brawl.), nor have we seen an
Earth Defense Force game make it to a Nintendo platform yet. I'd love to see that changed. Sandlot's games are pretty much crazy arcade-style fun with a relatively low budget. Their only game to make it west this gen was the first EDF on the XBox 360 - which sold incredibly poorly and got a western-developed sequel recently, which is also predictably bombing - and then prior to that, Enix's last solo game released in the west before they bought the collapsing Squaresoft was Sandlot's R.A.D.: Robot Alchemic Drive, which was a ton of fun. I suspect their games would have luck finding at least something of a profitable cult audience on Nintendo platforms if given a little more backing, given their arcade-style nature and that arcade-style games do have a history of doing better on Nintendo platforms than the competition's. It's a shame Zangeki didn't get the shot it deserved. They're close with Nintendo, anyway, so more support from them is likely and welcome - their games just need more of a shot outside of Japan.
Koei's Musou games - Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, DW: Gundam, Mystic Heroes, and so on. Koei needs to stop being conservative about building a new fanbase, and stop axing exclusives for PS3 ports in Japan - that's not courageous or bold development, that's falling back on a platform that's failing you. The Musou series isn't nearly as popular as it used to be - sales are down dramatically on the PS3 and 360 from the comfortably high sales they enjoyed on the PS2 - and while Koei's made some praiseworthy strides in releasing some serious and profitable Nintendo efforts with
Samurai Warriors 3 and
Samurai Warriors Chronicles to start building a new base for the series, they need to focus on that even more heavily. The sales numbers don't really back development costs on the PS3 or 360, and those have been anything but rosy - lowering dev costs by focusing on the 3DS and Wii U and working on building on this newer - and platform-switching - base on Nintendo platforms (Now that Nintendo's the market leader, where neither the PS3 nor 360 enjoys the kind of market the PS2 did, when the Musou series thrived most.) that can be profitable, as it's shown it can be, would be the wisest thing they could do. As it stands, Koei and Tecmo together have been growing closer to Nintendo lately. Some non-Musou Omega Force adventures from Koei would be welcome too.
Crimson Sea 2 on the PS2 was a lot of fun.
Star Fox game in the vein of Assault - With online co-op campaign battles and competitive battle modes, epic flying/dog fights and ground combat a la EDF and Kid Icarus, which seems a spiritual successor. Assault was a blast, and I'm looking forward to Kid Icarus being in a similar vein. I'd love to see the concept evolved further to reach its true potential. The more battles - and larger scale battles - the better. Something we can't finish in a day or two, with some depth, and a focus on the fun of the arcade-style action.
Onechanbara - The
Wii game was some simple, cheesy arcade-style fun. 3DS and Wii U installments would be welcome.
Sengoku Basara - I'd love to see more of this Musou-esque crazy action series with its RPG elements on the 3DS and Wii U, but after the original bombed on the PS2 as "Devil Kings" and Sengoku Basara 3 tanked on both the PS3 and Wii in the west as
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, I suspect that if more games are made (A revamp of 3 is already in the works for the Wii/PS3 in Japan now), the series will never leave Japan again.
Action/AdventureMonster Hunter - Doesn't need too much explanation. Monster Hunter Tri was the most successful console release Monster Hunter game in the series' history and the most successful game in the series outside of Japan. Wii U installments just seem like common sense. Likewise, they've wanted to take the series to the DS line for some time - it was only hardware power that held them back. They wanted to tap into the mass market the DS line offered, but since they couldn't make a reasonable one with the DS's hardware power limitations, they went to the PSP instead, the series going on to be one of the few major successes on that platform. There've been numerous hints at 3DS plans for the series, and it's undoubtedly something Nintendo wants too, after they directly backed Monster Hunter Tri in the west. Both Capcom and Nintendo would benefit tremendously from Wii U and 3DS Monster Hunter installments.
One Piece - More Ganbarion action-adventure games in general would be nice. (Hopefully Pandora's Tower will have a shot at hitting in North America too after signs that it may see European release now.) Namco Bandai oddly complained about Unlimited Adventure's sales on the Wii in North America after it
completely sold out, and literally could not have sold better than it did. There's no question that they made money on it. Unlimited Cruise Episodes 1 & 2 saw European releases as separate budget titles and even a special 2-disc consolidated release, and now they're getting
Unlimited Cruise SP on the 3DS. It would be nice for Namco to not thumb their nose at their North American One Piece fanbase with SP, at least. Operation Rainfall really should take them to task over Tales of Graces, considering that they have no excuse for not bringing that here too, and with F not hitting the PS3 here until next summer, there's plenty of time to hammer them in a campaign. Action adventures with some light RPG elements like this are always welcome.
Castlevania - Konami has severely dropped the ball as of late. After the embarrassing mess of a reboot that Lords of Shadow was, they sorely need to get Koji Igarashi back on this series. Trying to tap the PS3/360 was a poor call, especially after the rather mixed-at-best reception the 3D Castlevania games got on the PS2 and XBox last generation. Just as Mega Man's fanbase these days is largely on Nintendo portables, Castlevania's is as well, and the series is best as 2D platforming action RPGs. It stumbles in every other form. This would be more of a 3DS title, though - I'd welcome a carefully budgeted 3D Igarashi game on the Wii U, though, if it were an evolution on
Curse of Darkness. Flawed as that game was, it was still pretty fun.
Jet Grind Radio/Jet Set Radio - This is a series that Sega should absolutely bring back. Samba de Amigo was very profitable for them in its definitive release on the Wii. Sega's games have a very visible track record of selling better on Nintendo platforms than anywhere else - that's where their base of old largely migrated post-Dreamcast. All things considered, the Wii U or 3DS would function as a very natural home for a new Jet Grind/Jet Set game and undoubtedly find a profitable audience.
Suda 51/Grasshopper games - Hopefully more than just No More Heroes 3, with more ambition. Shadows of the Damned was a mess and never should have been on anything but the Wii if made at all - its sales already collapsed on the PS3 and 360, while a Wii version was announced and then never made, the game ultimately suffering a similar fate to Child of Eden (Niche games die painful deaths on the PS3 and 360 consistently.) - wasting time on Kinect won't help them either. It's rather visible that little other than dance games sell on the peripheral as is, and Suda's games are incredibly niche to begin with. He already
has an established fanbase on Nintendo platforms and outright admits to preferring to work on those. The sooner he can get cracking on Wii U and 3DS games - and Grasshopper hasn't confirmed or denied 3DS plans just yet, only teased a bit - the better. I'd love to see some new games on the same level of craziness and ambition as
Killer7. That game is Suda's masterpiece so far. NMH is fun, but not Suda's best - those are easily among his more shallow games. Flower, Sun, and Rain's DS release years back made XSeed some money when it hit too, though the game's base is as small as it comes since the game actually makes a point of being difficult and painful to get through. I've always thought it'd be interesting to see Suda take on a sandbox game of some kind after driving around Santa Destroy in the first No More Heroes. An RPG from Grasshopper - aside from the brilliant Contact, which Audio Inc. actually made - could be interesting, too. And Suda's said he'd like to make a light, cute mascot game sometime too, just to do something totally unexpected after all of their punk-like ultra-violent games.
Metroid - Katsuya Eguchi has already said that it's likely coming for the Wii U. I'd love to see a true 2D 3DS Metroid happen, but ideally with less Sakamoto input. Gunpei Yokoi was the Metroid creator, and he's long deceased, sadly. Sakamoto was a sprite artist on the original, and often talks as though he has no idea what Metroid is supposed to be about. Other M was a mess and Nintendo knows it - they've openly acknowledged that and that the sales disappointed them greatly. Sakamoto should stick to WarioWare and ambitious Mii games like Tomodachi Collection - he's great at those, and new WarioWare would be welcome, as would be much more ambitious Mii games. (Hence my MiiTropolis thread.)
Deadly Premonition - The original game was a huge XBox 360 flop, and the director - SWERY at Access Games - has mentioned possibly porting it to the 3DS. A Nintendo crowd would likely be more receptive and less graphics obsessed. We don't get nearly as many games in this vein. At heart, it's a sandbox action/adventure game inspired by Twin Peaks. Original games in this vein would be cool too. The Resident Evil crowd would eat it up.
Mega Man Legends 1-2 / Tron Bonne Collection - Now that MML3 is cancelled, I have no hope for this, and my overall expectations of Capcom are very low. They're a mess, and I am worried about their future. Still, if there was any chance, I would love to see Mega Man Legends 3 resurface on the 3DS in the future and to someday have a collection of the first two games and the Misadventures of Tron Bonne, whether ported or completely remake - the latter being more ideal. I only rented the original on my Playstation ages ago and loved it, but missed out on owning these games, so Mega Man Legends 3's cancellation has seriously disappointed me. It's gonna take a lot for Capcom to get any confidence in them back from me.
Okami 3 - This may have a chance on the 3DS, but as much as I'd love to see a Wii U one, I'm not counting on it due to the much higher development costs than the 3DS and cult nature of Okami's popularity. I'd still love it, though.
Something appropriately fresh and fun but not necessarily dark or violent for the Halloween season - Ideally something in the atmospheric vein of Luigi's Mansion, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Ghoul Patrol, Costume Quest, etc. A new sequel to ZAMN on the 3DS or Wii U - or even download services - with online co-op would be brilliant.
Gargoyle's Quest 4 - Whether they called it Gargoyle's Quest or Demon's Crest or made it more of a platforming action RPG like the first two games or a straight action platformer like Demon's Crest, I'd absolutely buy another of these. The music and creepy backgrounds and atmosphere gave me the chills in an amazing way as a kid. And Muramasa's amazing backgrounds made me think of how incredible a 3DS or Wii U revival for Gargoyle's Quest could be, as much of a long shot as that is.
NiGHTS 3 - This has been hinted at repeatedly, and after thoroughly enjoying NiGHTS 2 on the Wii and having fond memories of the original, I'd love for a third to hit the Wii U or 3DS, ideally smoothing out some of the kinks that 2 had and giving us more of that wonderful, magical atmosphere to immerse ourselves in while collecting and building things in the A-Life mode online. Bringing back more Saturn era franchises would be great too. Clockwork Knight, Bug, Burning Rangers, and more. A Virtua Fighter would be great, too. I'd love to see Saturn games hit the Virtual Console, along with Dreamcast ones.
PROPE games - The more genres and gameplay varieties, the better. Things as slick as
Let's Tap - which had one of the slickest interfaces and some of the best music on the Wii - would be wonderful.
Rodea the Sky Soldier looks like a blast on the Wii and 3DS and I can't wait to see which it's worth buying on more.
Family Fishing is coming in a similar vein to Namco's Go Vacation, We Ski, and We Ski & Snowboard games too. I'd love to see PROPE do some more games with that kind of open environment on the 3DS and Wii U, and for them to make it west. This is the kind of stuff I can absolutely get behind.
Double Fine games - Psychonauts was very cult, Brutal Legend outright bombed on the PS3 and 360, and Costume Quest is the last kind of game the PS3/360 crowd buys. They need to change focus badly if they want to stick around in the long term. I'd love to see
Costume Quest hit the Wii U download service, and for them to start giving Nintendo some love - I'm confident Nintendo fans would return that in kind.
Open world Naruto games - Like the Ninja Storm games from CyberConnect. Those would undoubtedly sell hardware and make money. Anime games have a better track record on Nintendo platforms these days. Naruto Wii games have a history of selling better and making more money than PS3/360 ones by quite a bit, yet the system still got the less ambitious and mostly fighting focused games. Time to up the respect. More CyberConnect Nintendo platform games on the Wii U and 3DS would be nice in general - Solatorobo looks like a fantastic first in far too long on the DS. I can't wait to play that.
Adventure/PlatformingOpen World Mario - Just as a thought, in contrast to the increasingly linear 3D Mario games, a fully open world Mario adventure could make for something experimental and interesting. Not sure if it would happen, but I'd be down for it.
Sonic Adventure 3 -
Open world aspects like the first and Unleashed would be great, with perhaps Sonic Colors style in-level 2D and 3D platforming. A little RPGish depth with sidequests and such like Unleashed had on the HD consoles would be welcome.
Banjo Kazooie/Tooie collection - Rare could at least port these to the 3DS, perhaps give them a little extra graphical shine. I wouldn't trust current Rare to do much more at this point, since all the talent of old that made the games we knew and loved in the past has left over the past five years. Rare today is not Rare of old, sadly.
Virtual Boy Wario Land - Perhaps a colorized 3DS download release or straight VC release on there, just a wish for that.
More N64/PS2/Gamecube style collectathon collection-based platformers - Ideally with big environments to explore and lots to pick up. I'd suggest something like maybe a Ty the Tasmanian Tiger trilogy release, but Krome is dead now too after releasing a PS3/360/PC download game the other day.
WayForward games - The more we get from them, the better. We've gotten some memorable gems from them this past gen as is, between Shantae: Risky's Revenge, A Boy and His Blob, the
Mighty games on DSiWare (We've already got a first Mighty 3DS download game in the works.),
Batman: The Brave and the Bold and more.
RPGsMonolith games - More
Baten Kaitos would be wonderful, but anything more in the vein of Xenoblade and even more ambitious would be welcome too. We know they're working on a Wii U game now, and they recently got a big new building near Nintendo's HQ in Kyoto. They're obviously being invested in, and Xenoblade was already a financial success that paid off - Nintendo's investing in them to make them an even bigger part of the JRPG picture in the future. We just need to see more of their games come west. I'm also curious to see what the game we've seen teased with art featuring a crashed UFO is - perhaps some kind of modern day set RPG. The more they bring to the Wii U and 3DS and the more of that makes it west, the better, anyway. Disaster was a bit of a mess, I'v heard, but I think it'd at least be interesting to see them take a crack at Zelda/Okami/Rune Factory/Yakuza style open world action RPGs or adventures, or even something in the vein of Shenmue. Baten Kaitos showed how good they are at gorgeous settings, Xenoblade showed how amazing they can make insanely content-heavy open worlds, and all those games showcased how polished their gameplay design is. It's heartening to see Nintendo making them a cornerstone of their JRPG future. As is, for all the complaints about the Operation Rainfall games, Nintendo's starting to acquire a massive portion of today's JRPG releases. One cannot honestly say that Nintendo hates RPGs or JRPGs - they're pretty much the biggest JRPG publisher these days and the only major company spearheading the genre aggressively in a big way these days, as even companies in Japan outside of Enix aren't pushing them too hard anymore.
Level-5 - Their non-Nintendo support and sales have both been shrinking in recent years. They peaked with Sony on the PS2 and have developed a pretty massive fanbase on Nintendo systems quite successfully. Professor Layton and Dragon Quest IX were smash hits, and Dragon Quest X should be too. Then there's the Inazuma Eleven games, not to be forgotten. And now they have Fantasy Life, Time Travelers, Girls RPG: Cinderella Life, and Layton x Gyakuten coming to the 3DS, in an aggressive expansion of their increasingly brilliant Nintendo platform support. While they've released few Wii games, I'd love to see them up their Wii U support and follow Fantasy Life and Time Travelers - which I can't wait for - with more strong 3DS titles in all sorts of adventure and RPG veins. I'd love to see them do an ambitious massive world action RPG like Rogue Galaxy on either platform. The more love Level-5 gives Nintendo platforms and fans, the better for all. They're well at home there.
Mistwalker - After breaking free of Microsoft after their two XBox 360 flops, they've gone on to make a good bit of money on all their Nintendo platform releases between the DS and Wii, though the
Blue Dragon DS games and the sorely underrated
AWAY: Shuffle Dungeon (Which is very Soul Blazer-esque) are the only ones to make it here so far, though hopefully The Last Story will make it to North America too yet. Sakaguchi was ecstatic to be working with Nintendo again and has been singing the praises of Nintendo's platforms for a while now, having left Microsoft and not looked back. It would make sense for the father of Final Fantasy to continue to up his Nintendo support on the Wii U and 3DS, given that the Wii and DS proved to be a very comfy home for the kinds of games he likes to make. More Blue Dragon would be welcome, but more completely new, fresh properties would be great too. Perhaps a Last Story sequel if he feels like making one.
Intelligent Systems games - More Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Advance Wars, and the like. I'd be curious to see anything non-franchise new from them too, though I don't expect it.
Irem games - Ideally something in the vein of the PS2's brilliant, lovingly crafted open world RPG
Steambot Chronicles. Sadly, as a company, Irem barely exists now thanks to their focus on the PS3 and PSP after last generation. If Irem wants to stick around much longer, it's pretty much Nintendo platform or bust - they're far too small for the dev costs on the PS3, and the PSP didn't provide much of an audience for their games. The 3DS is probably the safest shot they've got at this point.
ArtePiazza originals - Underrated as it is,
Opoona is easily one of the very best, most imaginative and lovingly crafted JRPGs of this past generation. I would kill for a sequel on the Wii U or 3DS, or more games with this kind of love and ambition put into them from ArtePiazza. The game was basically the lovechild of Dragon Quest, EarthBound/Mother, and Phantasy Star with an absolutely amazing score by Hitoshi Sakimoto/Basiscape, which also worked on Muramasa. I'd kill for them to score more RPGs on the 3DS and Wii U too. But yes, EVERYBODY should play Opoona, and ArtePiazza should get to make more games like it.
Tri-Crescendo games - I'd love to see Nintendo buy them like they did Monolith. They're the other half of the team behind the brilliant Baten Kaitos games, and they made
Fragile. That alone says it. Gaming needs more developers like them, and they're a perfect fit with Nintendo. Having them under Nintendo's wing as another JRPG team alongside Monolith and Camelot just makes sense.
Camelot - Speaking of! I'd love to see them reunite with Sega for some
Shining Force/
The Holy Ark/In the Darkness games or something similar. I'd really like to see them do more than Golden Sun and Mario Sports RPGs. Those games are great, for sure, but they don't match Camelot's Genesis and Saturn RPGs from back when they were Sonic Software Planning, and I'd love to see them branch out and give us more RPGs in that vein, with or without Sega. It'd make Shining fans of old so, so happy. First person combat like Shining the Holy Ark's would look amazing on the 3DS, too.
Sting RPGs - They've ported every Gameboy Advance and DS RPG they made to the PSP, while giving Nintendo fans no exclusive love in return despite making a ton of money there. I say it's time they ported the PSP's exclusive
Hexyz Force - which Atlus could easily rerelease here - to the 3DS with a little new content, and started working on some new 3DS RPGs. They're too small to make Wii U games or anything on current consoles anymore. Their only console release this gen was the Wii port of Baroque, which was made on a low budget on the PS2 to begin with.
3D Mario RPG - Just for the sake of something different, a new take on a Mario RPG, whether a one-shot or new series could be interesting. We've got 2D aesthetics in a 3D world with Paper Mario and fully 2D gameplay and worlds with some minor 3D bits in the animation in the 3rd installment in Mario & Luigi. A fully 3D Mario RPG of some kind could be interesting, as a possibility.
Parasite Eve-esque urban RPG - As of The 3rd Birthday,
Parasite Eve is effectively dead and a mess. But I'd still love to see some new urban-set JRPGs hit the Wii U and 3DS, since we don't see those often. The World Ends with You was a hit in an urban setting - the demand's certainly there. And Parasite Eve itself was a fantastic, very fresh game when it hit and is still a ton of fun with its fantastic creepy New York holiday atmosphere and very interesting combat system that mixed action and turn-based elements. Yoko Shimomura's score was amazing, too. It's a shame the sequels were steps backward. I'd love to see a new Parasite Eve or Parasite Eve-esque RPG in the vein of the original, though.
Suikoden - Probably not viable on anything but the 3DS, cost-wise. Rumor has it that one may have been in the works that was cancelled, though that may have been on the Wii - Konami did announce that they cancelled not one, but TWO unannounced Wii RPGs earlier this year. Absolute failure - Konami's a wreck right now, trying to rely entirely on MGS while everything else loses money on the HD consoles.
Rune Factory and Harvest Moon - Of course, but those are already coming to the 3DS, as is a Dragon Quest Rocket Slime game. I'd love to see carefully budgeted Wii U entries too, given that Nintendo's fanbase is pretty much the only one where these franchises sell too, and Marvelous and Natsume know this.
Space*Agency - Audio Inc. games like
Contact and
Sakura Note would be wonderful on the 3DS. They're too tiny to work on consoles even now, let alone the Wii U. Hopefully Space*Agency goes into full production yet after the concept trailers they put out. More Japanese sci-fi RPGs are always a good thing, and Contact was brilliant.
Breath of Fire - Probably won't have a shot, sadly, with today's Capcom. Still, I'd love to see the franchise finally revive, whether on Wii U or 3DS.
Sepas Channel on DSiWare - An EarthBound/Mother-esque DSiWare RPG that hit DSiWare and mobile phones from G-Mode in Japan late last year. I contacted Gamebridge about it on Twitter and they said that they couldn't get it, unfortunately. I'd love to see someone bring it here. Gamebridge also released another quirky RPG, Picdun, on DSiWare in the west just weeks ago.
PSO/PSU - Or even like Phantasy Star Portable. Some good Phantasy Star RPGs with an online home to build up and things to collect, 4-player online co-op, and tons of quests would be wonderful on either the Wii U or 3DS, or even both. The PSO creator said he thought the Wii was a prefect fit for the series, but never did bring it, in the end. With the Dreamcast-esque Wii U controller and stronger online, it makes even more sense now, and Phantasy Star Portable'd be right at home on the 3DS. I'd ask for old school Phantasy Star to return, having loved all of those games, but I doubt we'll ever see that in Phantasy Star again.
StarTropics - Either as an action RPG or a flat out RPG revival to fill Mother gap. Finally bring the franchise to Japan and fully reviving StarTropics could be perfect for filling the Mother series void. They could easily set it in a modern world with tropical, urban, and a variety of other surreal settings like the NES games and either do an action RPG or full-on more traditional RPG.
More Marvelous support - They're not off to a bad start on 3DS with Animal Resort/Zoo Resort, Harvest Moon, and Rune Factory, though Senran Kaugra's kinda embarrassing. The more they unveil for the 3DS, the better, and any Wii U support will be appreciated. Their games are ultra-niche and rarely sell well, so they have to be carefully budgeted - their PS3/360 ventures have been disastrous for them. But they've gotten by on the Wii, and the DS has been incredible for them. Nintendo portables are crucial for them, and I'm sure they'll make money on the 3DS and at least have a shot on the Wii U. One of my favorite Japanese publihers.
More Vanillaware RPGs/Action RPGs - I hope they survive the games coming after Muramasa. Considering how tiny they are and the deep financial risk, a PS3/Vita cross platform release is ill-advised from every angle given the massive development costs. I'd definitely love to see them survive to find a good home on the 3DS.
Tales Of RPGs - I expect nothing of Namco, they've sunk so low in regard to much of their treatment of Nintendo fans. They're deep in the red these days thanks to their yearly streams of PS3/360 bombs, which they only continue to reward, while punishing their Nintendo successes. If they collapse, they had it coming. I hope Operation Rainfall goes after them for Tales of Graces yet, though. That was our game, and Namco has no reason to keep rewarding the PS3 crowd after how awful they've been for them. Symphonia 2 made good money. I'd definitely support any other Tales releases on Nintendo systems yet - I missed out on Abyss on the PS2, so I'll definitely be grabbing it on the 3DS.
More fresh old school values-heavy RPGs from Imageepoch - The Luminous Arc games and Arc Rise Fantasia were great, so I'd absolutely support anything else from them. They're already working on a strategy RPG for the 3DS.
Overworks RPGs - The Skies of Arcadia/Valkyria team. The Valkyria Chronicles series has been on the wrong platforms. I'd love to see a Skies sequel on the 3DS or Wii U, and otherwise for their development focus to shift away from the PSP again as that's phased out - the Vita will be a completely different beast and just as unprofitable as the PS3 was for them after the big investment they made in pushing Valkyria. Most of its sales didn't come until after a huge price cut.
Square games - They're not off to a bad start with Heroes of Ruin, Chocobo Racing (Which they need to show more of.), Theatrhythm, and Kingdom Hearts for those into that. They could use more classic style RPGs like 4 Heroes of Light. A huge shame we missed out on the SaGa 2 and 3 DS remakes - Square's acknowledged they're currently suffering catastrophic losses. They need to get back to the strategies and game design focuses that made them big on the NES, SNES, and PSX. They've only gone downhill since - they got more conservative on the PS2 and DS, and they've gone fiercely downhill since. They released a few good, profitable Wii games this gen, but instead of rewarding that, they keep pumping out PS3/360 bomb after bomb.
A Harry Potter RPG or adventure of some kind - Following the whole story, with a huge ambitious world to explore, not unlike Order of the Phoenix's huge open world Hogwarts and Lord of the Rings's Aragorn's Quest and The Third Age. More new ambitious Lord of the Rings RPGs and adventures would be nice, too. Some of the early portable Harry Potter games were very fun RPGs, and it'd be nice to see that sort of thing returned to. The franchise has tons of potential, much like Lord of the Rings, and a fanbase that'd make pursuing these games very profitable, especially on Nintendo platforms, as proven repeatedly by sales numbers.
Brave Fencer Musashi - The original Zelda-esque PSX action-RPG was a blast with a fantastic soundtrack and great sense of humor. It had some definite similarities in terms of vibe to Mega Man Legends as well. The game had a lackluster PS2 sequel, but it'd be great to see a revival closer to the original, or for the 3DS and Wii U to see any similar sort of action/adventure/RPG type games.
Threads of Fate was in a similar game. Light, cute action RPGs like this would play very well with the Nintendo crowd - much like Rune Factory has repeatedly, and Rocket Slime, both of which have 3DS games coming now. Outside of Nintendo platforms, there's not much of a base for games like these anymore, as much as Sony and Microsoft's audiences have rejected most Japanese style games these days, and most lighter hearted games in general. Square needs to branch out and get back to their roots again, badly. That would entail making more games like these and less western-style bombs like they're currently wrecking themselves with.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - This series has a flavor sort of like what I'm referring to above. What little Square puts out true to their older ways tends to come with this franchise. I'd love to see both Wii U and 3DS installments in the series - entries in the vein of the Gamecube original and Echoes of Time with a big focus on online that get that right where Echoes of Time was a solid game, but extremely laggy online, and I'd kill for some
Crystal Bearers style sandbox action-RPG sequels. That game was one of the most underrated Wii games this generation. I couldn't put it down last fall until I'd sunk an insane number of hours in and scored over 300 medals in my first run through the game alone. I'd love to see more games like that.
Final Fantasy - Excluding IX, as an old school Final Fantasy fan, the main series has largely depressed me from VII onward. I'd love to see more of a return to roots with some turn-based games and writing more inspired by the likes of Crystal Chronicles and Final Fantasy I-VI again, even something like IX again would be very welcome.
4 Heroes of Light on the DS was a step in the right direction, and more like it on the Wii U and 3DS would make me happy to purchase Final Fantasy again. I enjoyed IV: The After Years on WiiWare, and Chocobo's Dungeon was a lot of fun too. I'd be happy to see a mainline game come home to Nintendo and return to the franchise's roots, but I can settle for the mainline staying messy for those who enjoy it - no excuses for lack of Nintendo support given that JRPGs don't sell elsewhere these days, and XIII and XIV were catastrophic for Square - so long as we keep getting quality spinoffs and Dragon Quest games. I wish Square had brought the SaGa 2 and 3 DS remakes west too, but sadly, those were left behind in Japan.
Dragon Quest - Goes without saying. The more, the better.
AdventureShenmue - Budget-wise, these platforms are probably Sega's last real chance to make their base happy with these games. Let's hope they don't fudge this like Capcom has with Mega Man Legends 3. The Wii and DS, as innovation go, were basically the successors to the Dreamcast in spirit. In terms of power and VMU-like additional handheld screens, the Wii U and 3DS are as close to the Dreamcast as we've gotten since - it would be a dream come true for fans to see the original two games rereleased on either of these platforms and a final sequel to bring the story to a close. Yu Suzuki, now effectively retired, has said he'd still like to make the game and that he'd come out of retirement to do just that if Sega would greenlight it for him. The Wii would have been a nice place to do that, but the Wii U and 3DS are, in terms of reasonable budgeting to make ports of the original games profitable and a third game viable, Sega and Yu Suzuki's last real chance to bring Shenmue back and bring it to a close. After this generation, even with Nintendo, it's hard to say if we'll see any viable dedicated gaming devices again where smaller developers and more niche games will have any kind of shot at affordable game development and profitability. The ever-rising costs of modern game development are a problem the whole industry has to reckon with, and in Sony and Microsoft's cases, have led to near-insurmountable walls of costs, as multimillion dollar game budgets targeting smaller audiences fail time and time again to find the kind of massive audience they need - at their heightened cost to consumers, no less - to turn any kind of profit and the industry visibly ails for it. Here's hoping Sega will get things right with Shenmue while they still have a chance, where Capcom just wrecked Mega Man Legends fans' hopes and dreams and has seemingly retired their very own mascot in the Blue Bomber, with no planned games involving him anymore.
Spike games - After the Wii and PSP, as the tiny company they are, they really don't have anywhere else they can afford to go now. They're like a lot of companies I've mentioned here. Sony shut the door on them with the Vita's dev costs. That system has shut out the PSP's small name dev support, just as the PS3 shut out pretty much all non-major devs. At this point, Nintendo's the only major hardware producer putting out systems intended to be viable for tiny developers and publishers like Spike, Marvelous, D3, Sting, Paon, G-Mode, Atlus, and so on. I believe Escape from Bug Island was the only Spike game that made it west on the Wii, though they had another I'll mention and link to in a bit that I wish had made it west. They also put out a pretty cool series of PSP brawlers that would be perfect on the 3DS - I'll be talking about those in a bit too.
Shibuya/Urban Japan based adventures - More open world games in the vein of Yakuza, Shenmue, Time Travelers (Assuming some things here - it's going to be a huge, open world game, from what Level-5 has said. They're banking on it being a smash hit and selling over a million copies.), River City Ransom, Kenka Bancho, and so on are always welcome.
Skip games - We haven't seen any more from this Nintendo-owned remnant of Love-de-Lic (Another offshoot of which made Chulip on the PS2) since Snowpack Park, the Art Style series, and Chibi-Robo Park Patrol,. Captain Rainbow was a massive dud in Japan and understandably didn't come west. It'd be nice to see new Chibi-Robo games get made and come west, and Skip otherwise have a shot at getting some more ambitious non-download titles out and released in the west. They're a brilliant lot.
An open-world caveman adventure - Something like Artdink's long-forgotten Tail of the Sun on the PSX, or Spike's
Jawa: Mammoth to Himitsu no Ishi (Jawa: The Mammoth and the Secret Rock) on the Wii, which I was referring to earlier. The game looks like a blast in motion, but sadly never had a shot at coming west. Games like this would be great projects for Spike on the 3DS.
More Warren Spector/Junction Point Disney RPGs and adventures - After the smash hit that was Epic Mickey, the more adventures and RPGs Spector can put out on both the 3DS and Wii U, the better. Ideally with a stronger camera system based on the improved one Nintendo made for when they published Epic Mickey in Japan not too long ago. More Mickey games would be fun, or perhaps the Ducktales game Spector has long wanted to make.
Mega Man Legends 3/Zelda/FFCC Crystal Bearers-esque resurgence of open world action/adventure games - Or "free-running RPGs" Capcom calls the Mega Man Legends games. That sort of genre can always use more love. And Solatorobo on the DS seems to be in that vein, fantastically.
Open Rabbids Adventure - Rabbids Go Home took the Rabbids series to a whole new level, and with its amazingly developed, personality-filled human world it took place in, loaded with humor at every turn, I can't help but feel like it would be amazing for Ubisoft and Michel Ancel to build an entire massive sandbox-style open world city for the Rabbids on the Wii U, as well as some more ambitious 3DS games. You could customize a Rabbid again and take on all kinds of unusual tasks to create chaos throughout the human world, and it'd make for an impressive evolution after the brilliance that was Rabbids Go Home. That game was easily one of the funniest of this generation.
Aquatic/undersea gaming from Arika - After the Endless Ocean games and their Everblue games on the PS2 - which were basically deep sea diving RPGs - this kind of explains itself. These games are wonderful, and everyone should play them. Hopefully more on the Wii U, at least, should be a lock, after how successful both Endless Ocean games were. I'd welcome Arika 3DS support too. They recently demoed a fighting game - based on a mobile fighter they've been working on - on the 3DS hardware as is, so they're definitely working with it.
Time Travelers - The more on this we get to see and hear, the better. I'd love to see more like it in urban Japanese settings on the Wii U from Level-5 too.
Acquire games - Tenchu perhaps, and maybe something in the vein of Akiba's Trip but less creepy that might have a shot at leaving Japan. They're a tiny dev with no real dev future on Sony systems anymore with the high costs as well. Some definite talent there, and a history of some Nintendo support too, but at this point, they're running out of options as development costs continue to balloon. The PS3 and 360 are already beyond them and the Wii U will be too, while the PSP's days are running out, much like the DS's. It's pretty much 3DS or bust, like Spike.
More light-hearted open world adventures and sandbox games like Lego City Stories - I'm really looking forward to both the Wii U and 3DS versions of that. The industry has needed this kind of response to the likes of GTA and Saint's Row, and Travelers Tales working with Nintendo like this on first party Lego projects is great to see. They've acknowledged for some time that they've wanted to go Nintendo exclusive - their platforms are the only ones the Lego games sell well on - as that's where their base is, and now they're getting to make their most ambitious Lego universe games yet with Nintendo themselves as flagship 3DS and Wii U titles. Fantastic. I can't wait to see how these games turn out and what lies ahead for the Nintendo-Travelers Tales partnership over these games as the Lego series gets much more ambitious.
Beat 'Em Up/Brawler (Sort of a sub-genre to action/arcade above)
Streets of Rage revival - We haven't seen a new Streets of Rage from Sega since the Genesis. The closest we got was Die Hard arcade/Dynamite Cop, which started as a new 3D sequel. Yakuza's sort of a partial spiritual successor, though also action RPG in many ways. The fanbase for that is pretty restricted too. I'd love to see Streets of Rage return as an open world 3D brawler or a Genesis-style download sequel with online modes, with a new Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack.
Urban Champion revival - Seeing groaning everywhere over Urban Champion's slightly enhanced (Newer touched up graphics, new grades/titles like achievements to earn) 3D Classics rendition coming for the 3DS has made me think it would be neat to see Nintendo turn that into a positive by making this a prelude to a new, fully reconceptualized sequel. An open world brawler in the vein of Yakuza or Kenka Bancho or even River City Ransom where you get to lay down some street justice, perhaps with some light RPG elements. That could bring a whole new meaning to Urban Champion and make for a great revival of a generally reviled classic IP. I doubt this would happen, but I'd love if it did.
Yakuza - Sega keeps bleeding money on it in the name of a Playstation fanbase they haven't made money on since the PS2. Toshiro Nagoshi has talked about a variety of plans for the 3DS in particular (But hasn't commented on the Wii U yet), but hasn't shown anything beyond Super Monkey Ball, which he's more or less run into the ground with release after release on Nintendo platforms. Sega needs to diversify, and Yazuka sorely needs to expand its fanbase. Porting the first two to the 3DS and bringing 3, 4, and Of The End to Wii U could certainly build a new audience. Or perhaps a new story with a new cast in Kamuro-cho, their Shibuya-inspired setting in Tokyo. Either way, Nagoshi needs to get away from his Sony fixation, as it's done him and Sega no good. It's all well and good to talk about a 'fanbase,' but not so much when you haven't made money on them in years. It's been extremely established by now that Sega's games tend to only sell well on Nintendo systems these days, much of the Sega base of old having moved to Nintendo platforms. And it was weird that Sega complained about their M-rated games' Wii sales this past gen, when they all actually sold
well and made money, while their PS3/360 M-rated releases have rather consistently failed to turn a profit. Sega has a lot of fantastic properties, both past and present - they could stand to take their actual main fanbase more seriously. Getting closer with Nintendo and bringing a franchise like Yakuza on board could do them wonders. As the spiritual successor of sorts to both Streets of Rage and Shenmue, Yakuza deserves better than to keep bleeding lots of money for Sega on the PS3. Games like this are underrepresented on Nintendo platforms these days, and there's a lot to be gained from this excellent franchise - like actual enthusiasm, for one.
Kenka Bancho - More of a 3DS suggestion than Wii U. The other Spike franchise I've alluded to a few times. Spike can't really afford to go anywhere else but the 3DS now, and the 3DS can use more good beat 'em ups/brawlers, considering how few the DS got. So far, the 3DS just has Dynasty Warriors, a future Ninja Gaiden (Both of these games are more hack and slash anyway), and an announced Dynasty Warriors game. Only the
third game made it west on the PSP, and there's been five of them altogether, along with similar titles like Gachitora and Shinjuku no Ookami. Where the Vita's high dev costs are pushing the smaller devs who mostly focused on the PSP this past gen away entirely, Spike could definitely thrive on the 3DS if they made an effort. A series like Kenka Bancho would be welcome, and would be wonderful to see more of come west, in its sort of action-RPG cross between Yakuza and River City Ransom spirit that it embodies, with lots of humor.
River City/Downtown Nekketsu/Kunio Series - Probably more viable on the 3DS and WiiWare. The series
went 3D with a couple of River City games on the DS got barely got any attention when they were released in the west, and I've never even seen them on shelves here, personally. I'd be curious to see a 3D take on the series with perhaps PS2 level visuals on the 3DS. That might have a shot at reinvigorating interest, and could make for an interesting alternative to the similar Kenka Bancho as well, which took a lot of inspiration from the Kunio series.
Guardian Heroes style brawler/Treasure game - Pretty much speaks for itself. As Treasure reminded with Wario World on the Gamecube and Advance Guardian Heroes on the Gameboy Advance, they're brilliant at brawlers, just as we've seen with their arcade shooters like Sin & Punishment and Ikaruga. I'd love to see the upcoming PS3/360 download Guardian Heroes also make its way to Wii U download next year. Like Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons games - which I'd love to see hit the Virtual Console Arcade - Magic Sword, King of Dragons, and Knights of the Round (All of which should hit the VC at some point), Guardian Heroes is another reminder that old school arcade brawler plus RPG elements equals fantastic.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game - There's no reason for this to have not hit the Wii in the first place. They just had to compress the audio a bit - the game was even smaller on the HD consoles than Mega Man 10, which easily fit on WiiWare. Retro style sprite-based games have always done well on WiiWare. One has to hope that there's someone at Ubisoft with the wisdom to get this onto either the 3DS eShop or prepare a Wii U download port for launch next year, when it'd have the best shot at getting attention.
SportsWe Ski /
Go Vacation open world fun - This 'casual' sleeper hit producing team is one of Namco's very best and most underrated. I played through We Ski just recently after picking it up on the cheap, and it made for a good eight days of incredibly addictive, immersive, relaxing virtual ski vacation that I really couldn't put down. The sequel and Go Vacation look to be just as brilliant. I would love to see this team tackle an adventure game with similar aesthetics and a big, warm, friendly open world where you could enter the buildings and explore inside. Or even something in the RPG vein from them in this style could be great. Like a modern EarthBound successor. The games are atmospheric mood pieces, beautiful to immerse yourself in and relax. Highly recommended. I really hope this team keeps this up on the 3DS and Wii U, and ideally gives us some online modes too - to meet up in a ski lodge with friends and then grab your gear and go skiing and snowboarding, or run around exploring a huge environment like in Go Vacation with all the activities to do together in the open world.
SSX3 style open world snowboarding - Also very addictive when I played SSX3 on the Gamecube. I'd be all for more SSX on the Wii U and 3DS with big open mountains to snowboard down with plenty of collectibles and online modes to snowboard freely with friends.
SimulationMetropolisMania - This series is pure relaxation and addiction. There was a DS sequel that Natsume sadly never brought west. The series would undoubtedly find more of an audience on Nintendo platforms than any other, especially in the west, where sim type and city building games have a track record of selling. The aesthetics and easy to get into gameplay could make MetropolisMania into a sleeper hit for reasons not unlike We Ski and Go Vacation.
Seaman 3DS - A sequel to the Dreamcast classic has indeed been hinted at by Yoot Saito.
More Animal Crossing and such games go without saying. Again, the MiiTropolis channel idea from my other thread.
Fantasy Life - I can't wait to hear more on this 3DS game, period.
Magician's Quest - The original DS Animal Crossing-meets-Harry Potter title was incredibly addictive. The DS sequel doesn't seem to be western-bound, though I'm not sure if the original sold well enough for Konami to bring it. Still, I'd love to see a massively evolved 3DS entry in the series, and to see that make it west, considering how impressive Animal Crossing 3DS looks.
Party/Board GamesDokapon series / Culdcept / Wii Party / Mario Party series - It'd be great to see these brought to the Wii U/3DS with online play in Nintendo's forthcoming new online system. They seem like they could make some great online multiplayer party and board games with the new online system, with some unlockables and rewards to collect and so on to link to your save file / Mii profile as encouragement to keep playing game after game like an RPG or anything else. That sort of thing could make it easy for families and friends to play digital board games across all distances and collect lots of little things in the process to keep players addicted and playing online together regularly. It seems like that's the kind of social experience Nintendo would want to promote.
Likewise, anything like Wii Sports and that series - packed in or otherwise - should also have online as so to give everyone an online game right out the door, and give the mass market some incentive to finally start getting online early on.
Hard to CategorizeKatamari Damacy - Nintendo fans have been asking for this insane,
wonderful series since its inception. Namco actually announced a DS game at one point this generation and cancelled it, then promised a Wii release after Beautiful Katamari went 360 exclusive. Then the PS3 saw Katamari Forever, and the PSP saw Me & My Katamari, and the games went largely ignored and flopped. What did we get? Katamari music in We Ski, and a Japan only DSiWare Katamari puzzle game. And the Nintendo crowd was the only one vocally calling for Katamari this gen. Namco owes us big time on many fronts, and this is one of them. I'd love to see them finally get that right and bring us separate Katamari games for the 3DS and Wii U, perhaps with the ability to connect and unlock an extra level in each as an incentive to own both. Katamari's a fantastic, ridiculously fun series that would fit perfectly on any Nintendo platform. I'm hoping that for once, Namco might not let us down on this.
Elebits/Shingo Mukaitoge games - Elebits/Dewy's Adventure director Shingo Mukaitoge's apparently working on Beyond the Labyrinth on the 3DS with Tri-Ace for Konami now. Mukaitoge had some of the highest ambitions at Konami this generation, being their designated "Wii guy," when the company otherwise made every effort to shrug at the system and lost a lot of money on most of their PS3/360 releases. Mukaitoge delivered,
Elebits being one of the freshest and best early Wii games, with a very similar vibe and addictiveness to Katamari, complete with the same kinds of nerdy fanservice references to other games and a massive collection of 1,000+ items to unlock as you played through the game. Then we got an awkward DS Zelda clone for the sequel, and Mukaitoge disappeared for years. I'd like to see him have a shot at returning to the spotlight on the Wii U or 3DS, and for Elebits to have a shot at a stronger sequel in the vein of the original, or at least something in a similar vein to Elebits from Mukaitoge. He was quoted on that he wanted to make a more ambitious RPG than Zelda in the past, too - I'd love to see him get that opportunity, whether or not Beyond the Labyrinth ends up being it. The industry is presently in desperate need of this kind of creativity as we continue to sink into a mire of shooters and game design lacking imagination and heart.
Given that Nintendo platforms have been
the places for strange niche Japanese games as of late, I'd love to see that continue on the Wii U and 3DS too, with more obscure, quirky, unusual games being made and crossing the pond. The more that can keep Ignition, Atlus (Which hasn't focused on Nintendo platforms nearly enough in recent years, when they don't have a viable market anywhere else, sales numbers have shown time and time again.), XSeed, Aksys, Rising Star, Natsume, Gamebridge, and so on in business and thriving, the better. XSeed has already made their interest in the Wii U and 3DS clear, and Ignition has shown some interest in the 3DS so far too, while Aksys has already released their first 3DS game in BlazBlue Continuum Shift II, and Natsume has multiple titles on the way. I suspect they'll be bringing us Rune Factory 4 too, which looks great.
I also like the idea of what I call 'organic single player' games. Dragon Quest IX and Animal Crossing are examples of this: games you mostly play in single player, with a lot of focus on atmosphere, weather, day/night cycles, and so on, but in particular, the ability for players to influence one another's game experiences passively, like through canvassing in Dragon Quest IX and Bark Mode in Nintendogs - StreetPass on the 3DS as a whole. The idea of games where you get tons of quests to do and more to download, and special seasonal content based on the internal clock and online. But at heart, 'organic single player' is all about passive social interaction. You're playing Animal Crossing and an animal from a friend's town moves to your town and talks about their town and your friend all the time - passive contributions to game content from one friend to another. Organic growth and development of your gameplay experience in single-player in a passive, social manner. Imagine playing Yakuza and Kenka Bancho and running into your friend's character and fighting them and their gang, or playing Jet Grind Radio and seeing a friend's graffiti design turn up in your game world, exchanging things passively over StreetPass and SpotPass with people you pass on the street and friends on your friend list. 'Organic single player.' This kind of concept deserves to be explored more and get more focus in more games, I feel. It could do wonders for extending their life - kind of like the likes of the Farmville phenomenon, where people play a largely single player game, but can impact friends' farms and have friends impact their own. They passively, indirectly interact with each other to exchange and grow their content, adding to the depth of their experience. Something I can see Nintendo spearheading more.
And finally, FRESH NEW UNEXPECTED GAMES. We NEED these, both from Nintendo and the rest of the industry. The Rolling Western and Picture Lives on the 3DS look fun, at least. Both the Wii U and 3DS need lots of new, fresh, exclusive releases and franchises to set themselves apart from their predecessors. And obviously, while my own tastes are pretty well outlined above, the systems need plenty of mass appeal titles - more New Super Mario Bros. (Which I'm expecting for Wii U launch.), ideally a revival of old school 2D Zelda (New Legend of Zelda?) as that would undoubtedly be a huge hit with larger appeal than the current 3D Zelda focus, mass appeal Mii titles like Wii Sports that draw in a huge market, Mario Party, Mario Kart, and more. Both platforms need the broadest software libraries imaginable to truly succeed the Wii and DS, with something for everybody. With the Wii U concept video, seeming strong focus on mass appeal social online features for normal people to integrate into their lives - like video calling - and game demos shown like Chase Mii, they seem to be on the right track. The 3DS, unfortunately, has lacked software and a software focus like that so far - a 2D Mario game has been announced in the works, and really should be coming sooner than it is, Nintendogs should be getting much more promotion than it is, Professor Layton 5 won't be out in the west for a while, and Pilotwings still ended up being niche as ever.
Likewise, as third party games go, the likes of Marvelous's Zoo Resort 3D probably won't move too much hardware at this point either. As key as games like New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, and Brain Age were in making the DS explode, the 3DS needs more software in that vein for the wider audience too. All the talk of winning back the 'core' has led to some serious mass market neglect right out the door on the 3DS - I expect that to change significantly in the coming year for more of an appropriate balance, and for Nintendo to have more of a software balance for the Wii U right out the door. They need to get people excited again, like they did with the Wii. The 3DS has, as of far, been a repeat of the DS's early months, with very little focus on the mass market, and not enough to energize the 'core' after third parties opted not to deliver big titles when Nintendo made a point of giving them the focus at the 3DS's launch. Gotta be lots of games for all kinds of audiences, and a lot of effective marketing to reach every audience you can imagine. Nintendo's proven this past generation just how amazing they are at that, but their latest steps forward have flubbed that a bit in their efforts to win over the whole 'core' audience. They can pull off this strategy in time, but their mass market focus definitely shouldn't diminish - they should
always be searching for the 'next Wii Sports/Brain Age/etc.' Still, Iwata and Nintendo as a whole have acknowledged mistakes repeatedly even just in recent weeks and are continuing to course correct. I suspect they'll bring the 3DS to better places sooner than later - the holiday lineup including the next big Mario Kart should certainly help - and handle the Wii U very carefully to balance the system's focus and turn the hype up to overdrive again. I'm fairly confident we'll see at least two of the three games that Operation Rainfall's campaigning for by sometime next year too, before Dragon Quest X brings the Wii to a close. It's a very different situation from the competition, where they tend to go back and forth between not seeming like they have any grasp of what they're really doing in video gaming and open arrogance in the face of incredible losses, acknowledging no mistakes and continually failing to course respect, often displaying contempt toward the same mass market they're cynically trying to woo with things like Move and Kinect.
Sadly, writing about this - as wishful thinking it all is - has really only made me reflect further on how bad of shape most of the video game industry really is right now. And that all comes down to increasingly conservative game design practices at a time when the industry needs to be BOLD, and an incredibly unwise tendency by many third parties to cling to Sony and Microsoft, even as their platforms are impossible for them to make money on, providing nearly no Japanese game audience to speak of, and otherwise having driven development costs too high for most companies and games to stand a fair shot at making a profit at all after they divided their audience too much over too many platforms this generation. The industry needs very much to get back to Nintendo platforms, which Nintendo has been consciously designing to keep development costs lower on than the competition as so to remain viable for Japanese and otherwise small development houses these days. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that most developers will continue on their current self destructive paths, and most of the industry - along with Sony and Microsoft's gaming presences - will collapse sooner than later. The Playstation brand has turned into a net loss in billions for Sony post-PS2, their PSX and PS2 profits having been eaten by the PS3, and the Vita looking to take them even lower with the massive loss they're selling every unit at. Microsoft has never made a net profit in gaming - the entire XBox line has been a financial disaster for the company, and considering that they axed the Zune not too long ago, I could see the XBox line going eventually too, and the company instead going third party and focusing on PC gaming too.
As it stands right now - and as this year's E3 lineups and shows outside of Nintendo's largely reflected - the video game industry isn't a healthy one. We're going to see a second crash sooner than we realize unless we see some significant changes in focus and management style for much of the industry, and third parties end their self-destructive love affair with the Playstation and XBox brands, now that it's eating them. Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm optimistic. Only that whatever happens, Nintendo's going to pull through and keep moving forward - they're in a tough spot right now, though, with the need to push the 3DS much harder and get major hardware-moving games out for both the 'core' and mass market audiences since they left the launch to third parties, and those third parties dropped the ball. All the while, we're only just finally starting to see third parties change their tune on Nintendo with the Wii U and 3DS after years of Nintendo bending over backward to appease them while Sony and MS platforms' poor sales for their games should have been significant encouragement to go back to Nintendo platforms and market games on them. Monster Hunter Tri's huge sales were a wake-up call to Japan on the Wii, as were Epic Mickey and GoldenEye's western release sales last year. A second crash may be necessary for the industry to be reborn from its ashes and forge a new path forward with Nintendo, but I'd like to think it could be avoided. In the end, one can only hope for the best, and if we see even a few of the above games, I'll be happy. That said, things like Ubisoft bailing on Assassin's Creed 3DS and Capcom dropping Mega Man Legends 3 after a good year-plus of rabid fan hype are the sorts of things that should
not be happening.
While many are crediting Inafune's departure for MML3's cancellation - and that may very possibly be the case - I have to wonder about Inafune's future in the industry, too. He's done nothing in recent years but push the notion that Japanese developers should emulate western developers and publishers - something Mega Man Legends 3 thankfully ran counter to by design - when we've seen a very distinct trend this generation of Japanese developers struggling and failing with games designed to basically ignore the Japanese market and game design identity and focus on emulating major western titles, which these days are mostly extremely high budget shooters. The Japanese industry cannot and should not worry about competing with that, but continuing to set themselves apart. Japanese games have sold poorly on the whole on the PS3 and 360 this generation - this has signaled clearly where the Japanese market in the west isn't, where Japanese games released on the Wii have made money on average, and the same has been reliable on Nintendo's portables. The Japanese industry really doesn't have any reason to cling to Sony or Microsoft now, with the PS3 and 360 having been disastrous for them and the PSP on its way out now, after most releases on that didn't do well as well. Nintendo retook the market in a huge way this past generation, and the industry joined with Sony and Microsoft to fight back
against this market shift. That backfired on them horribly. If they keep fighting this fight against Nintendo, we
will see another crash, no question.
The times have changed significantly in the past five years and the industry has consciously resisted adaptation to the new state of the industry - arguments over 'casual' and 'hardcore' gaming have arisen as a ridiculous symptom of this - and all that one can really do is hope that the industry does stop resisting and adapt, just as they did when Sony took the mass market position from Nintendo back in the latter half of the '90s. A healthy industry with a future does not run itself conservatively or defensively - it needs to identify where the mass market audience is, respect that audience, bring bold, fresh, and well-designed games to them, and to market to them. The industry hasn't been doing that for quite a few years now. They can do better, and as gaming consumers, we all deserve better from them. They need to be smarter about the Nintendo audience instead of making excuses to sneer at them, to work with Nintendo to give us the best online experiences possible and create compelling reasons to get the mass market on board with online and more like never before, and they need to make strong gameplay fundamentals the core of their development focus, over the graphics that have rather unquestionably damaged gameplay design in recent years.
A troubled industry does not recover by contracting and turning as conservative in its practices as possible - particularly when that means clustering around the platforms on which most games cannot and do not turn a profit. Desperate, dark times call for bold leadership, as Nintendo is at least attempting to provide, and a real vision forward - which at this point, Nintendo only has out of the three major hardware players. The correct response to suffering sales is not to ignore where the mass market is and focus on flooding the market with extremely expensive realistic shooters and trying to appease a crowd that buys little else - especially in Japan's case, where they shouldn't be sprinting to discard their cultural identity in game development - nor to cluster around the non-mass-market platforms driving development costs through the roof and sneering at the mass market as 'inferior' like we saw over the course of this last gen. The industry needs to grow up and pay attention to both where the customers and actual industry leadership are, rather than focusing on the platforms that have actually shrunk the market, and even the Vita looks very poised to follow that exact same market-shrinking minimal-appeal model that turned the PS3 into the outright disaster it's ended up being for gaming. We do NOT need more E3s where barely any games are shown and those that are are mostly tired and derivative, like this year's.
Just as Operation Rainfall seeks to water Nintendo and encourage Nintendo to water their customers, it's up to the industry to water itself on fertile soil - they haven't been doing that, and that practice needs to stop. No question.
At any rate, that's my latest epic gaming ramble.
