What and When is NX?

The internet has been in an uproar ever since Satoru Iwata casually mentioned the NX. This has resulted in a huge chunk of the gaming community assuming it is a new console and that it will launch in 2016. Some sources even point towards a July 2016 launch. (yes, it sounds just as ridiculous to me as it does to you) Well, I'm here to discuss just what the NX is and When can we expect to see it.

First thing first, we have to define just what the NX is. Both Iwata and Kimishima have stated that it is not a replacement for the Wii U or the 3DS, and its also worth noting that it was first mentioned when talking about the deal between Nintendo and DeNA. So, If it is indeed a third pillar and not at all a replacement, then I could see a 2016 release being feasible. However, If it is a console, a portable, or a hybrid, 2016 (especially July) seems highly unlikely. Nintendo has already announced some of their flagship titles for Wii U coming 2016, and there are even games like Lost Reavers, which have already had a beta in Japan, and not even released yet in the US. Also, Nintendo at the moment seems to be riding a wave of success lead by amiibos, Splatoon, and Mario Maker. It just does not seem like a wise business decision to abruptly end it all right when they're hitting their stride. A new system launch almost always ends in reporting a loss until it catches on or sells enough software to offset the cost. One source even claims Nintendo expects to sell 20 million in the first year. That is a bit ambitious, and does not sound like a console estimate.

So then what is the NX? To be honest, we have no clue. This is Nintendo we're talking about. They aren't exactly easy to predict. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say its the gaming world's equivalent to a smart device (i.e. tablet, ipod, smartphone), as it was announced during a meeting about their mobile games strategy. As far as the rumors for the console goes, maybe those are actually for the next console, but people are combining all the information they find and thinking it all referes to one thing, instead of multiple device. I honestly believe most of this is people mixing together all the news when in reality, some refers to NX, some refers to the next portable, and some refers to the next console. With a stellar line up already for 2016, and a Nintendo Direct still incoming, I expect the next actual comsole to launch in 2018. yes, 2018, not even 2017, because Nintendo has always launched their portable first, and also seem to launch the console 2 years after announcements of developer kits going out. So, Lets just see just how good I am at guessing.

Until next time: Be you. Be true. Be human.

Hardcore Gamers Are Killing Creativity

         Yes, I know reading a title like that may upset, anger, or even confuse some of you, but it's true. The whole hardcore mentality is destroying gaming. I'm not saying we should get rid of hardcore gamers or hardcore games. I'm Just saying that developers are apparently more focused on looking dark, gritty, or edgy, than they are on actually making a fun experience. What happened to games that were just fun for fun's sake? What happened to the talking animals, quirky characters, and nonsensical gameplay that captivated us in gaming's younger days? Gaming is in serious need of a wake up call, but it seems the hardcore crowd would rather tease and mock anything that dares to be different than the standard dark, gritty, edgey, motiff.

   one of the greatest  "What the hell?" moments in gaming came for me with the intro to Nintendo's E3 2014 Direct, but it was not because of the Direct itself. It was because of the saddening reaction it received by the supposed hardcore gamers on the internet. The Direct opened with an over the top, anime styled battle between Reggie Fils-aime, and Satoru Iwata. I personally thought it was very entertaining and funny, but apparently the hardcore crowd thought it was immature, childish, or kiddy. At what point did we decide that anything goofy or funny is kiddy? They are a GAME COMPANY. They create VIDEO GAMES. What is serious about video games? nothing? no matter what game you play, there's nothing serious about it, it's still a game. Lighten up! Why does everything have to be dark and edgey now? Even Epic Mickey felt like it was trying to hard to be dark and edgey, and is most likely why I didn't bother to finish it. Though colorful, the colors felts washed out and faded.

  Another example is creativity being killed off by hardcore, lets look at the Final Fantasy XIV Tokyo Gameshow Trailer. Last Time I checked it was called Final FANTASY. Its right there in the title, so how do you not have fantasy elements? They got rid of the chocobos for a convertible car you drive around. I can drive a car in real life. Give me that weird fantasy creature. The entirety of Final Fantasy XIV looks way more Sci Fi than it does fantasy in my opinion. Its trying to hard to be realistic or believable, but why does a GAME have to be believable? Are not the vast majority of games considered to be the greatest game of all time just unrealistic as can be and full of creativity? That is the beauty of games. You don't have to follow any rules whatsoever.

   So, what can be done to revive the creativity of the gaming industry, so that we can see more than urban environments with dark, gritty, edgey elements? to be honest, I have no earthly Idea. I'm still researching trying to figure out when dark and gritty became so popular even with kids. I think maybe the next big thing will have to pop up out the blue to run off this "hardcore" image. Maybe something like Yu-gi-oh!, Pokemon, or Kingdom Hearts will have to surface. Those three took the gaming world by storm and are full of creativity. Sure we have League of Legends and Hearth Stone on the PC, but Why isn't anything like that on the consoles? It seems like the main console that dares to be creative, is the main one being mocked, Wii U. I'm not going to rant about creative Nintendo games being called kiddy, so I'll stop here. I'll close with this prediction: unless hardcore gamers start showing an interest in games that are nonsensical and fun for fun's sake, console gaming will become stagnant and die a horrible slow death.

Where is the Wii Audience Now?

     It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Wii U is not selling nearly as fast as its predecessor, and one of the main questions people ask is "Where are all those Wii owners?" That very question may seem like it has an easy answer at first, but upon further research, I believed I've found the best way to answer that question. For the most part, the Wii U isn't aimed at them, so they are not buying in to the next generation of gaming.

   Consider this, The Wii was seen by many as the casual console, or the console for the younger audience. In reality in was just the console for the masses, be they casual, hardcore, or nongamer. To first begin answering this question, let us first examine the Playstation 2 and the Playstation 3. The common view is that the Playstation 3 is a hardcore gamer's console, and I'm not going to argue with that, but was the Playstation 2 a hardcore console? If so, why didn't that crowd migrate to Playstation 3? The answer is simple. he Playstation 2 was the same thing as the Wii. It was the console for the masses for it's respective gen. Yes, we often get the argument that the Playstation 2 was more hardcore than the Wii, but when you look at it's staggering install base, and the comparatively small amount of hardcore titles sold, that doesn't seem to be the case. The Wii's Hardcore titles actually sold more than the Playstation 2's, and it did it with a smaller install base. Why? Because it was the console for the masses, as well as for the Nintendo fans. The reason why Wii sold so well, is because those Playstation 2 owners who did not get a Playstation 3, were nongamers and casuals who instead got a Wii. 

       Yes, though the media, your best friend, your brother, and everybody wants you to believe thateveryone who owned a Playstation 2 was playing Hardcore games, thats simply not true. A prime example is  the Guitar Heroes games, Those gamers moved over to Wii. There was also a ton of people who played games like Jambo Safari, Katamari Demacy, and Mr.Mosquito, that migrated to the Wii and began to play games like Wii Sports, Cooking Mama, Just Dance, and Wii Fit. So I would argue that those Wii owners stayed on their Wii. Who could blame them? They moved from Playstation 2 to Wii, so they could play the games that Hardcore and the media call casual and shovelware, but surprisingly, the successor to the Wii has slim picking for people who are into those kinds of games. The Wii U is rather hardcore whether we want to admit it or not. That is one of the main things holding back the Wii owners. Even the Gamepad has a bigger learning curve than the Wii Remote. Its not that they vanished, It's that they have no console to call home this generation. No console has their Cooking Mama, Their Boom Blox, Their Boogie. But even that is just half of the fanbase

     The other half of the Wii owners are those who like Nintendo games, and Exclusives that you can only get on Nintendo Consoles, such as No more Heroes, DragonQuest, Monster Hunter (yea.. it counts now), and this time around even Bayonetta joins that list. If you look at the games that sell best on the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One, you will see mostly multiplatform games in their top 10. The Wii U's Top 10, however, is made up entirely of exclusives. So the people who say 3rd party does not sell on Nintendo consoles is right to a certain degree. 3rd Party multiplats don't sell, but Exclusives sell well. A Nice chunk of the Wii owners were fans of the Lego games, so its no surprise that Lego City Undercover caused a sales boost for 2 weeks for the Wii U, and sold nearly as well as Nintendo's own Pikmin 3. Thats because that game caused a few Wii owners to upgrade, because they couldn't play it on their Wii. For comparison sake, The Skylanders and Disney Infinity games have sold better on Wii than any other console. Its a safe bet that if Nintendo discontinued the Wii and forced Activision to only make a Wii U version, that the Skylanders games would have boosted Wii U sales. As it stands Swap Force on Wii U is outselling the PlayStation 4 and XBox One version 2 to 1. Again, that is  Wii owners who migrated to Wii U, maybe even some of the same who migrated over with Lego City. 

  So, What  can Nintendo do to get the rest of the Wii owners back, or at least a decent amount of them? They're already set to do just that. Nintendo will be releasing their own games that use figures, which has been code named NFP. Nintendo must also be aware that the biggest part of the figures and games fanbase is on their console, so if they are to make their own game with figures, those remainders on the Wii and even the other consoles will have to buy a Wii U if they want to play the lastest Figuringe Collection game. Also, Mario Kart 8 will be out shortly after this article is published. The online Mario Kart experience and the new features will only be able to be played on Wii U. Wii's online is going down, so that too will be incentive to upgrade to Wii U. The other thing that Nintendo seems to be doing getting ready to show off the benefits of the gamepad. We all know the Wii audience loves a fancy controller with nice "gimmicks" so that should win back a few of them as well, granted it is not something too complicated. 

   When its all said and done, Nintendo can not win back all of those Wii owners, because a lot of them are happy playing the old Wii Sports every weekend with their parents, friends, or frat buddies, but they can definitely can win back a sizable chunk that gives them a nice sized install base, and possibly even the lead this generation but they will have to shake the hardcore image and once again be the console for the masses like the Wii was, which still was home to some stellar exclusive games. Here's hoping E3 knocks it out of the park.

What the hell, Gamers?

Warning this is an angry rant! Hell, this is beyond angry! What is going on here?! At First glance when I saw the numbers for the launch week of PS4 and XBox One, I was overly excited about it. That was until I noticed something truly disturbing. Call of Duty was the highest seller on both platforms? What the hell, Gamers? Isn't this supposed to be next gen? Why bother with a port? The Call of Duty obsession should die with last gen. A new generation of gaming should mean new things.

 Seriously, Am I the only person who would be completely pissed off if this gen becomes a repeat of last gen, wherein Microsoft and Sony fight over DLC rights to multiplats and shooters, while Nintendo offers the most variety in exclusives, yet is somehow discredited for it and considered casual? I mean Damn! How many different ways can you play Call of Duty? I know Pokemon is released a lot too, but at least there is years between the releases and there is noticable upgrades, and at least those gamers try NEW games and NEW ideas.
 
 I'm not saying that all of the PS4 and XBox One owners are Call  of Duty Dudebro gamers, but it's a sad day in gaming when 2 new consoles launch and they both have the same game as their top seller, and its a damn port that is also on last gen consoles. At least Wii U's top sellers aren't ports. They're NEW games made for the NEW hardware! What's the point of upgrading if you're still just playing what is already on the older systems? is it graphics? no slightly better graphics that the average joe can't even notice give you wood or something? This Gen is upsetting me already. E3 2014 better be a hell of a lot different than the yawnfest that was E3 2013, or I'll have one hell of a rant.

Gamers DON'T determine the winning console

There was once a time where gamers determined what the top selling console was. Yes, in its infancy, game sells relied almost entirely on the gamer. Ever since the days of the Playstation, well before the Wii, casual players and non-gamers entered the market in huge waves. Sure, we as gamers love our action/adventure, RPGs, shooters, Hack and Slash, etc, but its the casuals that boost the sales of any given console into the 100 millions. 

Let's examine the most recent generation of games as an example. The Wii was the clear winner saleswise, yet the average "hardcore" gamer seems to have a serious disdain for it, claiming it to be the casual, or kiddy console. An incorrect view of the console, but if we look at what games sold the most, we see games aimed at casuals, such as Wii Sports and Wii Fit at the top of their charts. I know we can look at the Call of Duty games and say they sell a lot too, but in comparison to a game that both gamers and average joe's play, such as Mario Kart wii, Those numbers are small.

The same thing will happen with this generation. the landscape of gaming has changed. Why else would the XBox One come with Kinect packed in? Though we are the ones who buy more games and keep the industry afloat, we are but the minority when it comes to deciding which console will have the largest install base. Throughout video game history, you can see that the highest seller has always been the one with the most casual games. Us gamers are here to stay, but to think that we are the deciding factor for who wins a supposed console war, is far from the truth. 

Will X mark the spot with this One?

 

XBox oh how you've come a long way. It seems like just yesterday you were that weird little black box with the odd name that I laughed at. Who'd have guessed that Microsoft would create a console that set the gaming world ablaze? Or should I say the western gaming world? Yes, Xbox with all its merits, can't seem to make a dent in the asian markets.
  
      The main thing keeping the XBox brand from making an impact in the east side of the world, is the same thing that makes Nintendo so lovable. That's right. Just as I said Nintendo is unapologetically Japanese, XBox is proudly and painfully American. I have no doubt that XBox One will sell in America, but right now the features and games shown just are not hitting the spot for my admittedly asian-esque taste in games. If microsoft wants to hit it out of the park with this one, they have to be able to appeal to more than America, UK, and Canada. I am convinced that halfway through the 360's run, Microsoft just said "screw it!" and gave up on Japan. To make matters worse, the majority of the fan base agrees with that idea and thinks Japan just hates American products. If that were even remotely true, Apple products wouldn't be so big over there.

   Microsoft has to be able to sell in Japan and other asian countries if they want to be the top console. The Xbox One could possibly be the console that gives the XBox brand a fighting chance in Japan. Granted it still seems aimed more at American s with its features and the majority of its games, there are a few that stand out and seem like they will appeal to an Asian  audience, such as Spark. If Microsoft can get exclusive RPGs, adventure, platform, or even RTS games, it could help their stance. It is imperative that the XBox One sells more than just 1 million in the Asian territories if it wants to be the dominant console, and the only way to do that is with Games!!!! 3's a charm right? Your move, XBox, will X mark the spot this time?