Nintendo GOing Forward.

[zed]

It simply isn't true, by a long shot, and says more about the ignorance about mobile gaming on a console forum than anything else.

I guess youre not including me since I havent owned a console in decades (since atari 2600) and have published mobile games, (new one coming out next week, if anyone wants a job with the marketting for a percentage PM me, you could become a millionare )

Here is the reality, the top 10 mobile games 2013 by revenue

1. Puzzle & Dragons, GungHo Online
2. Candy Crush Saga, King
3. Clash of Clans, Supercell
4. Hay Day, Supercell
5 The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Electronic Arts
6. The Hobbit: Kingdoms, Kabam
7. Slotomania, Caesars Entertainment
8. Megapolis, Social Quantum
9. Pokopang, LINE
10. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North, Kabam

here they are in order in case ppl dont know them

huge variety, not

sure I agree theres heaps of different games/types in the app store but they're not the sort of franchises that nintendo made their cash with
most of their huge franchises are arcade games, which as we've just seen dont make a single entry in the top 10
GTA/call of duty make heaps of cash on consoles they should just put them onto an iphone they'll be rolling in it. IIRC they did try with GTA and it was an absolute disaster

Shifty show your game I would say we're all interested, I've seen you on the unity forums (at least someone with your username)

edit - like I said for ninetdo I believe the best way forward is to come out with their own phone (with controls that work for their games)
make a profit on the hardware and the software (like apple) sure let it run android like most other phones but their games will only be practical on their phones

edit2 - wow on looking closely, that top 10 you can divide into 2 categories
A/ matching tiles
B/ empire building

 

[joker454]

huge variety, not

Ironically, if you show the top selling console games to a casual gamer they will say the exact same thing as you just did, that there is no variety. Or as one girl put it to me, "It's all killing games." Sometimes variety is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[zed]

top 10 selling console games 2013

UK charttrack
1. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
2. FIFA 14 (EA)
3. Call Of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
6. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
7. FIFA 13 (EA)
8. Lego Marvel Super Heroes (WB Games)
9. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
10. The Last Of Us (Sony)

USA npd
1) Grand Theft Auto V
2) Call of Duty: Ghosts
3) Madden NFL 25
4) Battlefield 4
5) Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
6) NBA 2K14
7) Call of Duty: Black Ops II
8) Just Dance 2014
9) Minecraft (Xbox 360 edition)
10) Disney Infinity

sorry couldnt find a worldwide list

now anyonbe want to argue which has the more variety of game types the handhold list or the console list, anyone comeon anyone? no takers

 

[joker454]

top 10 selling console games 2013

UK charttrack
1. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
2. FIFA 14 (EA)
3. Call Of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
6. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
7. FIFA 13 (EA)
8. Lego Marvel Super Heroes (WB Games)
9. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
10. The Last Of Us (Sony)

Yup she was right, lots of killing games. What a lot of core gamers fail to understand is that the list above will be viewed as mostly "games with guns" by casuals, and not variety at all. Just like you don't see any variety in casual game lists.

 

[function]

Mostly first person and third person killing. And sports.

Hard to say that mobile gaming is less varied, based on top selling apps.

GTA did pretty well on mobile. Minecraft was right up there too.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/12/17/apple-reveals-2013s-best-selling-apps-and-goty-picks/

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yup she was right, lots of killing games. What a lot of core gamers fail to understand is that the list above will be viewed as mostly "games with guns" by casuals, and not variety at all. Just like you don't see any variety in casual game lists.

I'm sorry but that's just not true. The comparison because of just guns is just silly. That is the same as saying Silence of the Lambs and Police Academy are seen as movies with guns by the general public.

In that top 10 there are 4 ~ 5 very different genres.

Open world - GTA
Sport - Fifa
Action - Tomb raider, asscreed, Last of us
Shooter - CoD, BF
sandbox - minecraft

 

[sinox]

It seems the new 3ds have 256MB fcram, arm11x2 @536mhz and add 4MB of edram ( for a total of 10MB ). I understand for ram extension and cpu overclock, based on the sell price of this new 3ds it certainly cost nothing to upgrade them but why put another 4MB of edram ? I mean, instead of putting more embeded memory why not put more cpu ( like an arm11x4 or a newer gpu, pica extreme ? ).

 

[Rurouni]

I have a feeling that this upgrade maybe free in a sense that it doesn't cost them more money for producing it. Maybe 6MB VRAM is not as cost effective as 10MB VRAM. Maybe 128MB RAM is not being mass produced anymore and the lowest mass produced RAM they can get is 256MB. Maybe the process is so good right now that up clocking the CPU is very easy performance gain without spending extra cash. Of course if that is the case, they can always artificially limited the spec to be the same as the old one even if it actually contain more. But might as well sell it as a new one with upgraded spec. And maybe, just maybe, the internals might actually be cheaper to make on the new 3DS compared to the old one.
If they really want to upgrade, there are newer and better tech that they can target within their price range (unless they actually make a killing from 3DS hardware, like at least half of the price is pure profit).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Here is the reality, the top 10 mobile games 2013 by revenue

Why are you looking at top revenue titles? Do the same with PC and you'd probably get 10 MMOs, but there's a huge range of titles on PC.

I won't say I agree with those that say there's a great range of software for mobile, because when I've gone looking I've only found shallow, gem-extorting dross, plus that's what I see people playing on it too, but your argument doesn't work.

sure I agree theres heaps of different games/types in the app store but they're not the sort of franchises that nintendo made their cash with
most of their huge franchises are arcade games, which as we've just seen dont make a single entry in the top 10

Because you can't monetise them, so they won't show up in revenue. One can point to Flappy Bird and it's Mario pipes to see that in terms of popularity, any game can make it. Plus a game doesn't have to be in the top 10 or top 100 to be as big as many of Nintendo's titles. Real Racing 3, ranked 54th on top games (so well outside the top ten) has > 50 million downloads. Rank 101, just outside the top 100, has > 10 million downloads (between 10 and 50 M). And these are just Android. Something like double that for all mobile. Layton Brothers has >100k, well below Professor Layton on Nintendo, but it's not a full Layton game, and reviews show people want the full game. There's no telling how well a true Professor Layton game would or wouldn't do.

GTA/call of duty make heaps of cash on consoles they should just put them onto an iphone they'll be rolling in it.

Who has said that? Who has said Nintendo should port their games verbatim to mobile? The argument is Nintendo should target mobile, taking their IP and their ability to design great IO no matter the input method and turn it into mobile games. These will play differently to their handheld games, and people who like super tight, arcade controls may be disappointed, but the audience of people who want to just play something fun in portable form would be 1) vastly larger than Nintendo's handheld audience and 2) mostly inaccessible to Nintendo if they don't target mobile, because these people are no longer interested in a dedicated handheld for their portable gaming fix.

Shifty show your game I would say we're all interested, I've seen you on the unity forums (at least someone with your username)

That'll be me! I will talk about my game but when I'm ready to.

 

[Grall]

I'm sorry but that's just not true.

Well, it is true in the eyes of a person who is disinterested in the whole violent-action-game genre. For me as a non-sports fan, I just don't care about the degrees of difference between say, football, american handegg, rugby and aussie rules handegg; to me it's all a bunch of guys running around chasing a leathery object and utterly out-of-my-mind boring. Calling GTA "open world" doesn't matter, it's open world with guns, and thus inherently not appealing to some people.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well, it is true in the eyes of a person who is disinterested in the whole violent-action-game genre. For me as a non-sports fan, I just don't care about the degrees of difference between say, football, american handegg, rugby and aussie rules handegg; to me it's all a bunch of guys running around chasing a leathery object and utterly out-of-my-mind boring. Calling GTA "open world" doesn't matter, it's open world with guns, and thus inherently not appealing to some people.

But you do know that football is a bunch of prima donnas falling down to earth every other minute like they've been shot. You do know icehockey is a bunch of cavemen on skates beating the crap out of each other from time to time and you do know basketball is a bunch of black dudes running after an orange ball.

So it's not all the same even though the genre is similar.

You can break groups down a small as you want but dues that really make sense? If you don't want to play games with violence, is it really that hard to include e.g. need for speed or mario or clash of clans?

How many people who play games are absolutely opposed to play a game that contains guns/violence? Very few I would say.

 

[tuna]

These will play differently to their handheld games, and people who like super tight, arcade controls may be disappointed, ....

What exactly does "arcade controls" mean. Regarding the last two arcade games I played, one used a track ball and 3 buttons and the other used five buttons.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Immediate response, direct control. Arcade controls move your avatar by saying, 'go left, jump', whereas indirect controls set a waypoint that your avatar will move towards. A direct control Mario game may not work on mobile due to latency and inaccuracy of virtual buttons (lack of tactile feedback means it's pretty easy to drift off a small button even when you think your thumb is remaining in place), whereas a Mario game where you draw paths or interact with game objects to direct him would work very well on mobile and Nintendo would excel at designing a game to work with that input method.

 

[tuna]

If you mean low latency direct controls why not just write that?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you mean low latency direct controls why not just write that?

'Low latency direct' vs 'arcade'. It's quicker. didn't realise there was any confusion over the meaning of the term (like 'arcade game', although of course there was those who weren't comfortable with that distinction either when talking about 'arcade racers').

 

[zed]

Why are you looking at top revenue titles?

because this discusion is about nintendo and about how they can make money on mobile, nintendo are hardly going to be interested in entering mobile to make some middling profitable game, they will ba aiming at the top

3, ranked 54th on top games (so well outside the top ten) has > 50 million downloads. Rank 101, just outside the top 100, has > 10 million downloads (between 10 and 50 M). And these are just Android.

ditto whilst high # downloads is good, nintendo are chiefly going to want to earn cash. We've read about flappy birds getting ~50k a day during its peak right well (very nice for a single developer) but Puzzle & Dragons gets 3000k a day, theyre not even in the same league.

I will talk about my game but when I'm ready to.

any idea when you'll be finished then?
Man Unity sucks in certain respects (lack of explanations/the docs and it looks very much as if they're gimping the product) Im basically only using it to get my game onto mobile

 

[Shifty Geezer]

because this discusion is about nintendo and about how they can make money on mobile, nintendo are hardly going to be interested in entering mobile to make some middling profitable game, they will ba aiming at the top

A title not being in the top 10 revenue list doesn't mean it makes no money. I'm sure a mobile friendly Pokémon game or somesuch could get 50 million users on Apple and Android, selling Pokégems, and rake in the cash.

ditto whilst high # downloads is good, nintendo are chiefly going to want to earn cash. We've read about flappy birds getting ~50k a day during its peak right well (very nice for a single developer) but Puzzle & Dragons gets 3000k a day, theyre not even in the same league.

Right! Surely Nintendo want a piece of that pie?! They'll probably never hit that much money because I don't think they'd be in favour of mobile's questionable monetising strategies, but I'm sure Nintendo could successfully make loads of cash from a market good for something like a billion devices .

any idea when you'll be finished then?

ASAP. At the start of each month I reckon I'll have a working public beta by the end of the month, and each month ends without!

Man Unity sucks in certain respects (lack of explanations/the docs and it looks very much as if they're gimping the product) Im basically only using it to get my game onto mobile

Overall I'm very pleased with it. By and large it actually works, which is a bit of a novelty. After years of writing code with bugs and not knowing if its my code of the engine/SDK/platform, I can pretty much trust Unity. Although there are aspects I haven't touched. I've heard a few good things about Unreal Engine too.

Which is where Nintendo should be going IMO. They can create a game for their handhelds and, with a little smart planning, have a suitable cross-platform model. They can sell it for £30 a pop on to 50 million 3DSes or whatever, and provide it for free with 1000 gems for $12 to 1000 million mobile users. The only downside to supplying to mobile is losing reason to buy a Nintendo handheld, so they'd lose handheld hardware profits, but that's a tiny drop in the ocean in potential to the mobile market and consumers crazy willingness to buy into digital consumables.

 

[zed]

ASAP. At the start of each month I reckon I'll have a working public beta by the end of the month, and each month ends without!

just release anything, even if its crap (as long as its not too buggy) feedback will give you impetus to improve it, i.e. dont aim for a near perfect first version

By and large it actually works, which is a bit of a novelty.

Yes that part is excellant (though AA aint 100% there yet, I was gonna have the option, like shadows/lighting to disable in the options) but unity on the phone has a tendency to crash, even if you change it in the options and then next time it loads it uses the updated AA settings, it works 90% of the time, but that 10% of the time can piss off some ppl no doubt.
My complaints were with the doc's
eg the cloth (which I added a week or 2 ago)
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-InteractiveCloth.html
the doc's tell you next to nothing, eg
Bending Stiffness Bending stiffness of the cloth.
Stretching Stiffness Stretching Stiffness of the cloth. etc
well thats useful as I would of never known that
How should documention be?
See Microsoft,google,mozilla,unreal,apple etc etc
Unity's doc's are chiefly expanded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxygenfiles
btw I ended up writing my own cloth routine, it was quicker

removed features, their new physics 2d stuff is based on box2d a recent version apparently, but its way less useful than years old versions of box2d, Im guessing they've removed stuff/not added it (for no technical reasons) so they can go in unity 4.8 we're adding weld joints, but a lot of companies do this we theyre not the only ones guilty

 

[RudeCurve]

I'm sorry but that's just not true. The comparison because of just guns is just silly. That is the same as saying Silence of the Lambs and Police Academy are seen as movies with guns by the general public.

In that top 10 there are 4 ~ 5 very different genres.

Open world - GTA
Sport - Fifa
Action - Tomb raider, asscreed, Last of us
Shooter - CoD, BF
sandbox - minecraft

To the average person most of them are "action shooters"...

 

[zed]

Going through old gamasutra articles at present came across this, only first half, can't see it for the whole year

its all just action shooters