EA engineer says 'the Wii U is crap'

Interesting. I would very much enjoy a more in-depth explanation of how Android's presence will reduce the margin for error.

In my mind, Android provides a common development architecture across multiple devices. It also provides an OS that doesn't require licensing fees. The existence of Android-based consoles could do for the console gaming industry what iOS began in the mobile space. A relatively open venue for console development could help to introduce even more small, independent developers with a viable option for selling and promoting their wares. The existing mobile space for Android only helps to provide a foundation for this new approach to development. An ecosystem like this could lead to a lot more experimentation for the video game industry.

 

The difference is I am not talking out of guesswork or opinion but education and research.

Stock market pricing IS driven by speculation and guesswork, combined with one big question: is there any chance this company will grow by X percentage in the next week? And what is the chance this company will shrink by X percentage in the next week? (because it can go both ways.)

Many companies are seen to either grow too big, to a point where they will never grow in significant percentage, and others are seen to be simply too stalled (meaning they will not grow.)

Based on these things, bids take place to trade stock (there is always some one willing to sell some.)

A perfectly healthy company will be seen as a bad investment simply for staying at the same economical health.

This brings around another odd intricacy about the stock market.

Lets say that I sell home made bubble gum. Lets say I'm selling 5 units a day and want investment to be able to do and sell more. I may sell a percentage of my business for pennies or whatever. Now, since my market is so small, now I may easily be able to start making and selling 10 units a day. That doubles my performance and my stock price may double in turn. Given the very low numbers, I may be able to double my per/day unit sales every quarter vey easily. However, a company like Trident, at the same time, is doing way better than me, but... they are so large its not possible to just double your business every quarter. They increase their volume much much slower, and therefore their stock increases much more slower than mine. You set my stock over a year (doubling every quarter) against theirs gaining perhaps 5%, year over year, and mine will seem to be performing way better.

Now that's a bit of a tangent there, but it goes to show another bit: Nintendo grew up extremely fast when the Wii launched. It became huge thanks to the unexpected success. However, due to the company structure, it was never possible for them to pull another such burst of growth again. This disappoints the stock market, stock price goes down even when the company was doing very well and had multiple titles in the top charts.

The case with Apple stock is slightly different. They keep "defying physics", so to speak. Every quarter they grow insanely, but at the same time, no one thinks its possible to grow anymore, so this speculation drives price down... and then boom, another record is broken in the next quarter and the cycle repeats.

Then there are the crazy ones: the ones that don't make any profit. Companies that rely purely on huge market share, gathering a huge customer base that can potentially be milked later. Those are so full of juicy potential... who cares if there is no actual payoff, everyone thinks the potential for payoff is there. So we get the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, with huge user bases, surviving almost entirely on investor money, investors that keep seeing the platforms grow and think "eventually we will milk these cows and make huge money back". Sometimes these pay off, not by actual revenue but because a giant company decides to buy up the services (like Microsoft buying Skype or Yahoo buying Tumbler.)

The stock market is entirely driven by speculation and guesswork, but its no guesswork nor opinion to say this.

 

Its actually quite simple. Android based gaming devices represent new competition to traditional console makers. More competitors = less margin for error for traditional consoles

 

In the long run, perhaps. Initially I believe that Android based consoles are going to eat up a lot of the market for lower-priced game consoles. This will keep them out of direct competition with major consoles like the 360 and PS3 for the first year or two. Once those consoles start moving down into the $100 - $200 price range, they will begin to feel the pressure from this new sector. There is also going to be a lot of potential for Android consoles to make major inroads into emerging markets, where physical-media consoles like the 360 and PS3 have had greater difficulty finding an audience.

The margin for error on Android consoles themselves will be relatively low. The general expectations are just much lower for Android-based development.

 

There are lot of statements you make in that post I agree with and some I disagree with that cycle back to the the fundamental difference in views on the stock market. Speculation is indeed at the heart of the stock market. I then could go on how about some speculation is derived from quality research and some are not depending on the people doing the speculating.

The point is there are strong views on either side of the spectrum. I just dont like indulging in an intense discussion about the stock market here.

 

Well, it is somewhat applicable to this thread. You have to assume that EA's decision to abandon Wii U development was influenced by the current performance of the platform, and possibly by what they view as Nintendo's financial prospects. As I've pointed out, going purely by the Wii U's current performance isn't enough. To be fair, the Wii U isn't going to be getting much more support or sales this year, so shifting out of the development pipeline isn't going to be a huge loss. At the same time, moving out of the pipeline entirely means no ports, and that IS a mistake. EA doesn't lose that much in terms of development from porting titles over to the Wii U.

What EA ought to be doing is targeting a series of low-budget titles at the Wii U, and selling them initially for a mid-market price. Something more along the lines of Boom Blox, and releasing it in the $30 - $40 range. That type of title could do well on the Wii U, without committing major development resources.

At the end of the day, EA is being bone-headed once again, no real surprise.

 

Almost none. Most "research" is very crude and high level. Most are done by automated computers scanning news sources that are considered "reliable".

But that's actually not too relevant here, even if you do some true solid research on Nintendo, the truth is that it was not growing. There is no more to ask from a stock exchange point of view. Not growing? Not worth the time, therefore value starts to gradually fade away. The stock market does not care about sustained economical health, only about sustained growth. No sustained growth means the stock exchange turns its back on you.

You realize that pulling out a gun, shooting it, and then telling the police "I don't like indulging in firefights" is a poor attempt at an exit?

I'm mostly posting not to change your mind, but so everyone else reading gets a bit more information.

 

Essentially, what the stock market is, as others have said, is the confidence that people have in the company's growth, or lack thereof (or, worst case, it's survival). It is a reflection of financial and industry experts, as well as the media.

The fact that Nintendo showed profit 5 years ago, and 4 years ago, and even 3 years ago, yet its stocks continued to decline is even more foreboding than financial losses for the last 2 years. It means that the market is losing faith in Nintendo. They believed that Nintendo was on a downward spiral (despite their profits).

Now, the net losses over the last 2 years is just confirming that belief and reinforcing the fact that these industry experts do, in fact, know what they're talking about. Nintendo needs to get with the times, or they will fail, and that has already begun to happen.

 

Doubtful. They simply didn't believe Nintendo was growing as fast as they require to break a profit in day to day trading.

 

As far as a company, its actually the opposite. They are growing faster than their profits. (This typically leads to a company collapsing under its own weight, usually due to poor management or business strategy.)

Financially though, that's true. They aren't growing fast enough to break profit. They've been on a decline for a while, and have now started showing up in the red.

 

Um, again, no. Even the media has no real control or even significant influence over the stock market. And industry "experts" have even less control/influence. A lot of the fluctuations in the stock market are due to gut-level reactions from the traders in the street, and are rarely ever based on common sense or reasoned predictions. At the end of the day, the stock market is very difficult to accurately predict. Any and all trades are essentially gambling. The best way to hedge against such throws of the dice is to have an intimate understanding of the industry you are investing in, and the past trends.

Now, based on all of this I would agree that Nintendo is not a company to be investing in at the moment. But that's just from the perspective of a market trader. It has little to nothing to do with what I consider to be the future prospects of the company, or its long-term health. From a long-term perspective, Nintendo is actually a very safe investment. But short-term stock trading has very little bearing on long-term industry health.

My personal theory is that Nintendo's financial station is simply normalizing after an unexpected upwards spike with the success of the Wii. They had a big boom, and are now trending back to a more normal state. Once things calm down a bit, they will be roughly where they were around the GameCube era. Of course, they were profitable and financially stable then, too.

 

LOL

 

This is not at all true. The media and industry experts (you don't need the quotes, they really are the experts) have a huge impact on the market.

 

Then why doesn't the market always follow their lead? There have been any number of instances when the "experts" have turned out to be dead wrong. It's quite common for savvy traders to take advantage of these mistakes to earn a sizable profit. If the market were as easy to predict as you seem to think, short-term trading would dwindle to almost nothing.

The "experts" all predicted that Nintendo was going to crash and burn with the DS and the Wii. Instead Nintendo completely defied all expectations, and their stock skyrocketed. Sony had been the analyst favorite at the time, and their fortunes have plummeted. Now you're pointing to a five-year graph and calling it Nintendo's "downward sprial" without taking all of the facts into account. (R&D buildup to new hardware releases, yen trading disparity)

 

I'm not saying that the experts will always be right (Again, your condescending quotes aren't necessary. They are the experts. Accept it.) Sure, any company can grab an unseen opportunity, turn things around and make a complete 180 with their profits and their stock value.

However, the Wii-U is not doing that. Nintendo is losing money. Those are numbers, not opinions. And considering that Nintendo won't likely be coming out with another console for at least another 5 years now, things look incredibly bleak for them.

If they continue down this path, they will not be able to afford to enter the next generation of consoles. The XBox 1080 and PS5 (or whoever remains) will roll right over them.

 

Just like the 360 and PS3 rolled over the Wii? Or like the XBox and PS2 rolled over the GameCube? A lot of analysts forget that the GameCube was both profitable, and sustainable despite coming in at third place for world-wide marketshare.

Yes, Nintendo is losing money right now. And yes, that hasn't happened in a long-ass time. But just as the Wii's success involved extenuating circumstances, so too does their current situation. Nintendo's current loss has far more to do with the present state of the Japanese economy and exchange rates than it does with the Wii U. The biggest contribution that the Wii U has made ot their current loss was in the production expense of the system, as well as the R&D for the system making its way onto the books. It's worth noting that due to the fact that the Wii U is being sold at a loss, Nintendo's reported loss would have actually been larger if the Wii U had enjoyed stellar sales.

Next year's financials for Nintendo are going to be a lot more reasonable. They're past the R&D expenses for both the 3DS and Wii U. The production costs for the Wii U will be a lot more positive, so additional hardware units won't be accruing a loss anymore. The 3DS has been doing a lot better in the portable space worldwide. And the yen is finally swinging back toward a more comfortable exchange rate for exporting companies. In short, the circumstances that lead to their current reported loss will NOT continue.

 

I've always hated all the crap that comes out of EA, so for them to talk smack about Nintendo rustles my jimmies.

 

He didn't say it'd roll over their console, he said it'd roll over them - because they won't have a console to even be in the competition.

I don't think that's necessarily the case, though. For starters, who knows where we'll be in another 7 years or so when it's time for the next round of consoles to come out? By that time gaming systems may not even predominantly come in the console form.

I also seriously doubt that the lack of power in a Wii U is a genuine issue on the consumer front. Coders have been complaining about that in console hardware since forever. Does anyone remember the Wii? That was a pretty similar case of being no more powerful than the competitors of the last round of consoles. This seems to be a strategy with Nintendo, though, because they don't seem to want people to make games based on increased computational power alone. They'd prefer to have games that shine through design rather than technology, and their hardware more or less forces the hand in that regard.

Also consider that it's not just Nintendo having trouble pushing new consoles. There's not a lot else out there to compare to, but the PS Vita's commercial success wasn't exactly stellar in the opening year despite it being a great piece of hardware. The market has been disrupted like crazy by mobile devices, because they're taking up a significant amount of people's gaming time and budget. It may be telling in Nintendo first (makes sense because their market is most aligned with the mobile gaming market) but I think everyone's in for a huge change over the next few years. And with their track record of innovation, I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo be the ones to pull ahead first.

 

I'm a little surprised at all the doom and gloom. I'm just thinking we've seen this exact same story with the 3DS; 3DS is weak, inferior hardware, it's not selling very well, has no games, Nintendo losing money, gimmick, etc.. And just look at it now, I mean it sure is struggling, right?

Bottom line, predicting the end of Nintendo is like predicting the apocalypse. People keep saying it's going to happen, that it's just right around the corner. And then it never happens. So then there's a new date when the world is going to end, rinse and repeat. I have a Gamepro magazine from 2001 with a comment about how Nintendo is doomed and should go the route of Sega and just make software and stuff.


Thing is, sometimes you have to spend money now to make money later. Just because Nintendo is spending more money than they're earning at the moment doesn't mean they're doing poorly in the grand scheme. If anything it should indicate their confidence that they'll be making that money back and then some, given how Nintendo's always been about the long term, they're about sustainability more than anything else.

I imagine they're saving all the heavy stuff for when MS/Sony release their consoles. Assuming a Fall/Winter 2013 release, PS4/Xbox Infinity come out at likely high initial price points and with limited launch titles. Knowing this, what is the smartest strategy for Nintendo?

Near the time of their release, slash the price of the WiiU, release polished Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Star Fox/F-Zero/Whatever system seller games, release good third-party games (that would have been in development for over a year) and then market the hell out of it. That's what I would do anyways.

There is some evidence to support that this is their strategy. For one thing they've barely advertised it, most likely saving that money for later. Then there's the fact that Rayman Legends is being delayed until fall, despite being pretty much complete (but getting more content and polish in the process). Pikmin 3 is coming out in fall (in the US), Windwaker HD also in the fall, Wonderful 101 fall. That's in addition to whatever they're cooking up that they haven't shown yet, and 3rd party ports. At my guess, Nintendo's strategy is to roll out as many top quality and highly polished games as possible at a constant rate, starting right around the time the MS/Sony consoles release. This way they can say "hey look at all the games we have right now and that will be coming out soon"

If that doesn't hurt MS/Sony, the lull in xbox/ps4 titles immediately afterwards will because at that time Nintendo and any third party developers will be releasing more and more games (given that they'd have been in development for a year or two).

Or Nintendo could worry about short term profits and do that stuff now, and let MS/Sony steamroll them later.

 

It's amusing how EA bang on about frostbite sucking on Wii U but they've ported it to mobile and last I checked mobile hasn't quite eclipsed xbox 360 in raw performance. Assuming that Wii U is slightly better than the 360, it sounds like someone is a) talking out of his ass or b) having a good moan or c) it's all just bollocks because they didn't wan't to do more work or someone had pee in his cornflakes.

 

Well pretty much everything runs like crap on a new platform until it's been optimised for that platform. I wouldn't expect it to work well on there without some significant work put into it, regardless of what the raw numbers say.

 

I don't really care too much about this topic. I'd just like to say that I'm adding both of these expressions to my rotation.

 

Ditto, they can just keep arguing about Nintendo's profits with almost no facts while I laugh at these statements.

 

Just like these forums are full of developers that love to mock the "S***ty performance" of consoles compared to PCs, there are lots of developers working for companies like EA that do the same. Sometimes, they forget their names are tied up to paycheck signer and dare risk their entire family's economic stability on a twitter post.

Just like these tweets got deleted, I am certain the guy will be either forced to apologize, fired or maybe both.

 

The other thing worth mentioning I think is the rumor floating around that EA was pushing Nintendo to make Origin the WiiU's primary online store...and Nintendo turned them down. Which if true would explain a number of things...

 

Lets make games and be happy guys, Nintendo is probably not SPOT on when they're trying new things, but what can u do.

Personally i love Nintendo and i always will, theyre the reason im even happy to make games.

They arent going nowhere anbd i'll be as if they do, that emans no more Mario,Zelda,Kirby or Pokemon(im not a fan of that tho), the very characters my generation grew up with.

Now go make a game instead of wasting time in here and show em how its done.

 

So essentially gaming is doomed:

1. reviewers dictate what kind of game EA makes (due to metacritic scores)
2. EA responds by trying to control the market (online stores) and now control hardware (nintendo)
3. everyone gets a totalitarian online-only game experience based on what a sweaty writer wants.

Thank goodness for indie, it's never been a better time to be free in what you make. So make the most of it.

 

I want to see more strange, yet hilarious, one-liners. This thread is getting good!

 

Its true, I am a Nintendo fanboy I love what they do, and yes I dislike both Xbox and PS but that is purely because they ONLY care about graphics and processing power, gameplay possibilities are just not on the agenda that is why I like Nintendo I think it is obvious that there hardware is made around the games(IE I think Wii-U was made around NSMB-U, SSB-U and Pikmin 3(as well as lots of tests for zelda, mario's etc.)) On the other hand games on PS and Xbox are made around the hardware, this IMO is not the way games should be made and leads to a whole lot of games that are less than ideal due to workarounds with controls.

 

I have worked with the Wii in the past so I can't speak for the Wii U. But what I do know is that the IDE was an old version of code warrior which felt like I was back in the 90's. There is so little memory on the device that you have to use all kind of trickery to get you game to run on MEM1 and MEM2 by swapping all kinds of data all the time. Nintendo does not do a good job in making game programming an easy task for developers. That said I don't believe that having the best hardware makes the best platform. Better graphics do not make better games and we all know that games by Nintendo self are really great games. And mostly the 3rd party games tend to suck. I haven't touched a Wii U yet and I don't think I will for these reasons. But if Nintendo creates really great games for there own console I stil think the Wii U can be successful, the Wii sold roughly 100 million times...

 

But doesn't the Wii-U come with Unity now?

 

Doesn't compute, Unity does it for you, so I'd assume a pretty good workflow from using Unity.

 

@hippocoder
at the time Unity Wii was not available yet

 

I guees kinect isn't on the agenda nor is little big planet. Your comment defines you as a closed-thinking fanboy. As a developer you should be open minded.

 

I can appreciate what Nintendo attempts to do with their unique (although, often unusual) controls, but I also think it tends to be more restrictive than anything. The controller scheme of the PS and XBox are standard and open-ended, whereas the Wii-U pad requires you to make a game that somehow utilizes that specific controller. While that may be fun, it certainly forces me to create a specific kind of game, rather than run with the ideas I already have.

It can be fun for experimenting, and even an exercise in expanding your design abilities, but doesn't allow the designers to actually focus on what they do best; bring their unique visions to life.

 

Having more options for control inputs is limiting developers? That makes no sense.

I do understand what you're saying. You want to develop for a controller, and having the extra touchscreen is a distraction for the design you're going for. But that doesn't mean that its a limiting factor. Having more control options available gives developers more options for design. The real drawback is the lack of standardization, and the increased difficulty in porting. When everyone uses the same controllers, you get to port your title across platforms with almost no effort. (practically none in the case of Unity-developed games) A more unique device like the Wii U requires more custom development in order to take advantage of the extra control options. The best games for the Wii U will always be the titles that are designed specifically for it.

To be fair, though, the Wii U is far more standard in its control scheme than its predecessor.

 

And more often than not they won't utilize it leading to more crappy titles than usual. It either forces you to come up with a new concept(which can be great) or go with one of your current ideas and end up with a game that wasn't made to utilize that controller to its fullest and ends up a gimmick(which is the most likely scenario) and just be another game that would have been much better on a controller similar to the PS or XBox.

We all know big companies, they don't like to take risks. What is a completely new game concept that was designed around the a non-conventional controller in mind? To me, that's a risk.

 

How true. My wife and I have done some work with the wii controllers and balance board on the PC and they are actually great little devices! It would be great if Nintendo would release official support for their controllers and peripherals on the PC so that more indies could work with them without having to go through the ridiculous circus of becoming a Nintendo licensee.

 

Unity works against OEM custom controllers. If Nintendo did drop HW and focus on SW titles porting and using Unity they could better compete against the boring drivel of EA using their popular characters.

However, it's their culture doesn't like firing people and firing everyone contributing to their HW is considering very uncool; but given the intelligence of the average HW engineer they probably could retrain as SW engineers and the creative ones to design new game play.

 

And that is why Nintendo always has an advantage with first-party development. Nintendo has their own veteran internal studios, and they make games exclusively for their own hardware. Because those games are exclusive, they can take advantage of the custom hardware and control schemes as much as possible. And they do. And they sell really, really well.

And that's your answer for why Nintendo doesn't go multi-platform. Their current approach to hardware + software development gives them a competitive advantage on their own hardware, as well as a justification for people to buy their hardware platforms. The two factors prop each other up. Nintendo would only need to go multi-platform if their internal development and branding wasn't as strong as it is. But that isn't the case. And so they soldier on, and will continue to into the forseeable future.

 

Umm...isn't that what the Pro controller for? You know, the official Nintendo controller for the WiiU that is basically identical to an Xbox 360 controller? The one designed for core games that don't need touch-screen gimmicks?

 

Yep. And then you're only restricted by the 5 year old tech (and the fact that its nearly impossible for an indie to build for Nintendo).

But! On the upside, it looks like the new XBox may actually do worse than the Wii-U... so Nintendo has that going for them.

 

Little big planet is only using normal control methods, nothing fancy there. Kinect is Ok but I think it is to limited to family orientated games, I can't think of any serious games that make use of it a physical controller is better.

I'm not too close minded, I'm open to Ouya, Windows Phone 8 an Oculus rift but all these are of benefit (for Ouya it is price) to me because I could make use of these. In reality it is highly unlikely that I can beat AAA studios, but with different control methods I have that possibility due to them being very conservative on their approach. But kinect I don't feel is a good system do to the lack of being physical or having buttons.

I don't see a problem with Nintendo's hardware it is 1080p and has Unity for it that makes it good IMO but when that is combined with a touch controller it becomes the best. Currently I have no interest in photorealism and nor should anyone else, see it is impossible so why even try? The PS4 and Xbox One will not fix this, even a GTX Titan will not be able to get photorealistic graphics. Games like Mario Galaxy 2 and Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword look very good in 1080p much better than games like Battlefield 3 and COD IMO because they succeed at what they are trying not simply failing at realism.

 

I can understand your point, and certainly see benefits for indies to branch out in different areas, but...

 

That image is clearly set up to have the very most photorealistic looking character, that texture size I doubt would be usable in every aspect and lighting would not be at that level yet. And I think as soon as that character is rotated it will look unrealistic.

 

It still doesn't look real, even the Nvidia demos and stuff are still unrealistic. And that is just a head, I doubt we will see anything like that in game.

When games can look like this then I'll consider realisitic graphics as a true possibility over a cartoony look:

 

That character is running real time on the PS4.

 

So? It doesn't make it look real? Show me a game with characters like that running in real time (not a cutscene) then I'll say "wow that could make a nice effect", but not in a realism game maybe a style like beowulf.