Why did it take 19 years for Nintendo—scratch that, Shigeru Miyamoto—to release another 2D Mario platformer on a console? If I didn’t love Nintendo and the Master so much, I’d almost call the whole mess utterly pathetic. Almost. Editor’s Note: Today’s deep thought is not entirely my own.
Why did it take 19 years for Nintendo—scratch that, Shigeru Miyamoto—to release another 2D Mario platformer on a console? If I didn’t love Nintendo and the Master so much, I’d almost call the whole mess utterly pathetic. Almost.
Editor’s Note: Today’s deep thought is not entirely my own.
Share your perspective. Keep it thoughtful, welcoming and on topic.
This discussion is closed to new comments.
Because over the past 19 years gaming has shifted and as a result, 2d games became ignored. Then one day, the Wii came along and changed how games were made, allowing smaller ideas that are good to happen again.
I think its because a game like this wouldn't be as accepted on a console as it is today. Especially with the multiplayer being capable of what is today… it just makes the experience that much more woth it today. I can only hope its worth the wait..
Does Mario World 2 not count as a 2d Mario platformer?
The real question should be why would you expect them to be able to dedicate those resources when they were struggling just to maintain hardware adoption rates?
Malstrom's perspective is unique on the internet. He is a digital prophet who speaks for all the people who don't troll gaming forums. And he knows what he is talking about, most of the time.
The problems with what the industry has become are many. The attempt to make videogame geeks into cool "hardcore gamers" has resulted in a small, vocal online community becoming the target market for the entire industry. This gamersphere has dictated the direction of the videogame market for far too long, demanding more powerful consoles, longer games, cinematic narratives(HA!) and better graphics! And, because they are so passionate and VOCAL about these demands, the entire videogame industry has fought to appease them. Even Nintendo tried to satisfy this market (and we know how that went). Gaming was molded by the elitist gamersphere into the image they demanded; 3D graphics with bump-mapped textures; realistic AI and physics engines and time-sucking epics. And if these were not the kinds of experiences you wanted, then you simply didn't play videogames.
Then, someone at Nintendo realized the shocking truth that the gamersphere does not want revealed: VIDEOGAMES ARE FOR EVERYONE!!!! There were millions of potential customers who were being ignored. They were playing Bejeweled on their cell phones or Flash games in their browser, but they were still gamers, and DS and Wii have succeeded simply by igniting a passion for videogames within these customers.
The success of Wii and DS has spelled the doom of the online gamersphere. Of course they rage aginst the Wii, for Nintendo has taken the sole control of the entire industry away from the online minority that has dictated exactly what a videogame was for far too long. The "hardcore" market is a dying community, soon to be a small niche of a much larger customer base. And that, my friends, is a good thing for videogames.
NSMB for Wii is going to be huge. EVERYONE is going to want to play it; parents and kids and girlfriends and everyone who grew up witn an NES. Nintendo was fooled into trying to appease the gamersphere and still maintain their unique creative vision. Finally, they have realized that the online vocal minority is not worth catering to, and returned to the ideals that made the NES and Gameboy the iconic systems they are.
I don't know how you can stand behind Malstrom anymore, Jack, since all he seems interested in doing these days is trashing Nintendo games prematurely (i.e. the next Zelda and Metroid games) and pretending to know Nintendo's corporate strategy better than Nintendo itself (i.e. declaring that Nintendo is obsessed with user-generated content when less than half of the games they've released this year have been UGC games). As a Nintendo fan, I don't mind when he speaks out against Nintendo, if only his rants would be unbiased and more coherent.
Case in point:
"Super Mario World was becoming a little too much ‘Candy Land'. Bowser in a clown car was impossible to see as a credible villain. The ‘Candy Land' factor increased much fold with Yoshi's Island so much (with the crayon colored world and babies crying) that a Windwaker backlash resulted." – From "Mushroom Kingdom Revisited"
People praise him for his clear, concise, business-oriented approach to writing. As an analyst he has certainly done his homework. But his fans turn a blind eye when he writes uninformed, biased nonsense such as the above. I don't know a single person who thought that Bowser was a less credible villain in the Clown Car–in fact, when I was young it creeped me out when the face on the clown car changed from happy to demonic. And a "Windwaker backlash" to Yoshi's Island's graphics? Um…what? Yoshi's Island had no backlash, it only sold poorly because it was released near the very end of the SNES' lifespan.
And now I see his latest fixation is dropping hints that he might not be alive in 19 years. Cripes, Mal, if you're old, frail and dying just say it. Don't go fishing for sympathy by dropping subtle hints that you might not live to see the next Mario game.
God. I hope this Malstrom guy is actually satire. Can't believe Infendo takes his ideas seriously. Shame.
Another example of Malstrom talking out of his ass:
(in response to a reader suggesting that the reason it took 19 years for a new 2D Mario game was that 3D became the industry standard in 1996)
"Then why did it take sixteen years for a new 2d Mario to appear on handhelds?"
You're absolutely right Malstrom, Super Mario Land was the last 2D Mario game before New Super Mario Brothers was released in 2006. No wait, there was that Super Mario Land 2 thing….and then Donkey Kong, and the very Mario-esque Wario Land. No, surely THOSE don't count!
His business-oriented approach leaves a sour taste in my mouth. New Super Mario Bros. on the DS sold well, but it was uninspiring, a soulless imitation of the classic NES and SNES games. Super Mario Galaxy sold around half as many units, but it was a creative, refreshing and exciting take on the series and I think that, in general, it left a much greater impact on those who did play it.
"In the conventional Nintendo fan universe, Miyamoto is hailed as the genius, as the great game maker, and all. In my Universe of Disinterest, Miyamoto and other Nintendo developers come across more as jerks as they know what we want but have deliberately ignored us for decades."
God forbid, an artist doing what he wants to do rather than pandering to demographics. That doesn't make much business sense, does it? I'm sure if they don't heed your expert advice, Mr. Miyamoto and company will be going to bed hungry any day now. After all, making the games they want to make and not making the games you want them to make is such a jerk move, I don't think the market will tolerate it.
Yes, Anonymous Coward, you're absolutely right. It IS stupid to make games for yourself and not for your customers. It IS a jerk move. Because guess who plays the games? We do. Guess who buys the games? We do. Guess where all the money comes from? Us. If the games aren't being made for us then what the heck's the point in making them? One a large business level, making games for yourself is nothing but a childish display of developers screaming "Ooh, ooh, look at me, look at me, look how talented I am! Look how innovative I am!" Guess what, though? Unless you're game is fun and is something than people want to play, nobody gives a crap. A business' job is to make customers (since after all where else will money come from but from customers), if a product doesn't make any customers than why would you waste the company's money making it. Developers don't have the freedom to make whatever they want. They have to make what sells. That is their job. Wasting millions of dollars just for the sake of "But I want to make THIS game, not THAT game!" is childish and irresponsible.
Phew. I really need to stop looking at posts like this. I get way to carried away. Anyway. Yes. Nintendo needs to make more 2D Mario games. Nintendo's job is to produce games for people to buy and the game that everyone wants to buy is 2D Mario (Well, that and Zelda :P). If Nintendo has half the business sense I expect them too, they won't neglect 2D Mario for another 19 years. It'd just be pissing off their customers.
Malstrom is the only source on the whole internet for a contrary view of the industry. Nearly every other outlet is nothing more than a PR mouthpiece for the gamersphere (Infendo excluded, of course). While I don't agree with everything he says, you cannot deny that he has hit the nail on the head in his analysis of this industry. Developers spending millions making games for themselves, rather than their customers. The hype that supersedes the actual quality of the game it is hyping. Publishers trying to squeeze more revenue out of a shrinking customer base. The push toward digital distribution so unsatisfied customers cannot resell a subpar product. The entire industry pandering to the vocal online minority and ignoring the larger possible customer base. The disconnent between gamers and the game industry. And, yes, the scourge of UGC toolsets that offer no PROFESSIONAL grade content.
His style is erratic, and some of his conclusions are biased by his own preferences, but the very fact that he is the only one on the internet raising this issues is reason enough to listen to what he has to say. The game industry is dying, and that is a good thing for games and gamers.
@Mark
Yes, their job is to create customers and make money, and they've been doing that perfectly well over the last 19 years. To say that you can't be profitable without sacrificing your creative soul and pandering to people who want you to make recycled tat for them just seems silly to me.
Malstrom lost me long ago with the statement " the fishing in WiiPlay is really good". Somehow. He is more clueless than Michael Pachter.
I still think the blog is satire. There's no way someone can be so passionately deluded about the buisness side of games in thier own world of conspiracies theories and an unhealthy amount of reminiscing about his youth.
My guess is Malstrom is simply SurferGirl having some fun.
I'm not saying saying you have to sacrifice creativity. Look at the situation. We have 2D Mario and 3D Mario. 2D Mario is clearly a more popular and well received series than 3D Mario. So why is it that 3D Mario is was continuously made while 2D Mario was tossed aside? The reason is because developers didn't give a crap about their customers. Creating games for customers doesn't mean sacrificing creativity. Donkey Kong was an original and creative game in its day that was developed specifically for American customers. The two can co-exist. But that's not what was happening. What was happening was Nintendo was sacrificing customer satisfaction for sake of fulfilling their own desires. The games were not being made with the mindset of "What will be both creative and appealing to our customers?", but with the mindset of "This is what I want to make, therefore that is what will be made, even if I know that it's not what the customers want." That is the problem. Appealing to customers does not mean sacrificing creativity. Creating new and original games is a very good practice that I wish more companies would do, just as long as you think about the customer experience, instead of thinking about your own experience.
P.S. No Nintendo hasn't been creating customers. Excluding the Wii, Nintendo consoles have been consistently selling less and less since the NES. This indicates customers dropping support Nintendo. If Nintendo was creating new customers and keeping all the old ones satisfied, than sales of console would have been increasing, correct?
>If Nintendo was creating new customers and keeping all the old ones satisfied, than sales of console would have been increasing, correct?
So all the primary school kids consoles like the Gamecube and GBA were most popular among were die-hard Nintendo gamers since the NES?
>Creating new and original games is a very good practice that I wish more companies would do, just as long as you think about the customer experience, instead of thinking about your own experience.
This is what Nintendo does with 3D Mario. These are excellent games and to say that they aren't created with the customer experience in mind is just silly. Thinking about your own experience IS thinking about the customer experience. Super Mario Galaxy sold close to 9 million copies, and is generally regarded as being one of the best games on the Wii. People do want 3D Mario, though perhaps not as many. You can make games for yourself which appeal to mass audiences, such as Super Mario Galaxy, and you can make generic crap explicitly designed to appeal to mass audiences, such as New Super Mario Bros. Donkey Kong was an example of the former. Nintendo has been doing a lot of both for a very long time, and that's okay.
1st part: I'll be honest. I don't get what you're saying here. =P
2nd part: Ah, but really think about this for a second. You yourself admitted that 2D Mario is more popular than 3D Mario to the point that even "generic crap" like New Super Mario Bros. sold more than double what Galaxy did. If Nintendo was thinking "How can we make the best Mario game possible?" than why didn't they ever consider "making it 2D as an answer." Nintendo knew that people would prefer to have 2D Mario over 3D Mario but continued making the latter anyway because they don't enjoy making the former as much. Also looking at "generic crap" like New Super Mario Bros., we have to ask, why is it generic crap. I was lucky enough to play an imported copy of NSMB Wii today, and it's definitely original. Meaning its possible to make an original Mario. Which means that with NSMB they just didn't care enough to make it good. Why? Because they wanted to get it over and done with so that they could go back to making the games they want to, instead of putting the proper effort into creative ideas for the game. I'm not trying to say "3D Mario sucks because Nintendo makes it for themselves". I like 3D Mario games, and I'll agree they're all quite good. What's bugging me is that Nintendo was ignoring the demand for 2D Mario, because acknowledging it would mean giving up precious 3D Mario. That was wrong. If there a market (a huge market) for 2D Mario, Nintendo has a responsibility to serve it. Instead Nintendo went more than a decade without a new game for no reason other than "Eh, we don't feel like. We'd rather do this." That is the mindset that I'm arguing against.
Sorry, missed this comment before and I have to point it out. Galaxy did NOT appeal to the mass audience. For a Mario game Galaxy's sales were sub par. Super Mario 64 was released on a console with roughly half the sales of the Wii and still managed to outsell Galaxy. Galaxy also has yet to top a million sales in Japan, making it clear that the game has not garnered the interest that you would expect from a Mario game. If Galaxy was a truly great game. People would have rushed out and bought a Wii to play it. But that didn't happen. The launch of SMG didn't affect the Wii sales at all. I love Galaxy from a personal standpoint, but objectively speaking, for a Mario game it was bad. Still a good game, but for a MARIO game bad. Otherwise the sales would have been more impressive as is fitting a Mario game.
@Mark
"I love Galaxy from a personal standpoint, but objectively speaking, for a Mario game it was bad. Still a good game, but for a MARIO game bad. Otherwise the sales would have been more impressive as is fitting a Mario game."
Wow. Just wow.
Okay, yeah, replace that with, "the sales were bad for a Mario game". That comment was stupid I'll admit to that. What I was getting at there (or rather what I think I was) was that while 9 Million is very impressive sales, as far as Mario games are concerned, its really just average at best. I believe I was following the train of thought that if Galaxy's sales were average for a Mario game, it can be assumed that objectively the game was average for a Mario game, otherwise more people would have been impressed enough by the game to purchase it. Honestly though I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking. Although I will stand by this much at least. "Bad" might not have been the right word, but the game at least did a terrible job of appealing to the Japanese market. It failed to even break a million over there, which, again for Mario, is downright horrible. As far as Japan is concerned, Galaxy is a bad Mario game. That much at least, I'm sticking to.
Anyway, I think I'm done with this topic. For whatever reason I'm not doing a good job at all of articulating my points. And when comments like that are cropping up you know you're brain is doing something wrong.
@Mark
Gotcha. That makes sense. The sales were indeed not up there with other Mario games, which really stinks. But hey, maybe the sequel will fair better, I doubt it, but you never know.