The most recent one is that Nintendo is considering a name change for the Wii U:

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=170766

I really hope they do change the name.  It’s incredibly stupid and I can’t stand the whole “U” thing because it just reminds me of idiots on the internet who are too lazy to spell “you” correctly.  Also, Wii means everyone, but you means the exact opposite.  Nintendo shouldn’t name a console in a way that contradicts itself.

The other rumor is that the controller isn’t final, and there are other features not yet announced:

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=170747

Personally, I want to see Nintendo take that stupid controller and sell it separately so that you’re not forced to pay extra for it when you buy the system.  Of course, I’m also wondering what Nintendo is doing with the Wii remote.  Aonuma claims he’s going to use Skyward Sword’s controls for the next Zelda game, but you need a Wii remote for that.  So is Nintendo going to bundle Wii remotes with the Wii U?

Nintendo had better show off some damn good games at E3 if they want me to buy this system.

Of course there is a ‘undisclosed feature’ about the Wii U. For the Wii, it was the speaker in the controller. For the DS, it was the touch screen. With the Wii U, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 3d output for the controller’s screen.

As for the name change, that would be Nintendo trying to have the Wii U avoid the fate the 3DS had

I’ve said this six years ago, and I’ll say it again: Video game console brands become toxic over time and need to be dumped. In 2006, every analyst said ‘established brands sell’ and kept telling us how the PlayStation 3 would outsell everything. But what we see is that new brands tend to have a more favorable reaction to the market than established brands.

Atari’s name was golden while it was new. All attempts to take the popular Atari brand in hardware and software following the 2600 have been failures.

Nintendo was a new brand in 1985 to gaming. It had no trouble selling.

Playstation was a new brand when it came out. It had no trouble selling.

Nintendo 64′s brand familiarity did not exactly help the console.

The DS and Wii were marketed without Nintendo’s name in the brand. Neither had trouble selling.

The 3DS used the DS brand to sell, and it did not work. So the marketers’ assumption that using the Wii’s brand to sell the Wii U has no precedence except in marketing fantasy land. How can you sell a new experience by using an old brand?

What’s scary is that the Wii U that was shown off illustrates Nintendo does not understand the Wii success. This hints that Nintendo will be unable to recreate the Wii phenomenon.

During the 16-bit generation, my interest began to wane in console gaming. Some games I really liked (the RPG/adventure games like Final Fantasy IV, VI), some of the arcade ones (Super Mario Kart), but gaming was going full throttle Mortal Kombat and Killer Instict with in your face marketing. I did like Donkey Kong Country but it was not Super Mario Brothers 5. Pokemon came out during this time but its cartoon show and marketing made this adult not want to try it. And color Gameboy and Gameboy Advance seemed more about porting NES and SNES games over which were games I had already played.

The Nintendo’s obsession with 3d turned me into a non-gamer. While Mode 7 and Star Fox were cool, they didn’t force a change with consoles as the Nintendo 64 did (and other consoles that copied it). The Nintendo 64 controller was wacky.

Cracked’s image here perfectly captures my reaction to it:

When I became a non-gamer, I mean non-gamer to consoles. PC gaming was so much fun then with the RTS eruption, the dawn of network and internet gaming, as well as Quake and Unreal. People talk about ‘innovation’ during this period but the console side was extremely stale. All the excitement was on the PC gaming side which Sony and Microsoft rely on for their consoles.

The DS and Wii brought me back to console gaming, but now I am back to only PC gaming. Unless one of the major console companies change their ways, the Wii will be my last game console. It is an update from the SNES being my last game console, but the same problem exists. I have zero desire to play Nintendo games or other console games (inferior versions of PC gaming).

So now that I’ve gone from gamer to Non-gamer twice, there are some common themes in both times. Neither results in a change in my life. I feel like I didn’t cease to be a gamer, I feel like console gaming has ceased to be about gaming. This forces me to find gaming somewhere else so I turn to PC gaming.

The biggest common theme is Nintendo’s sick, sick obsession with 3d. Ramming 3d down people’s throats didn’t work with the Nintendo 64, it imploded with the 3DS, what more is there to say? There is much riding on Wii U’s success for Nintendo. If Nintendo intends to have a long term plan to turn the controller screen into a 3d output screen, they’ll turn away more people. I will never, ever buy a game console based around 3d.

It won’t matter what games appear on it. I will never buy it. And my buying habits prove it that I’d turn into a big console gamer to walking away from console gaming for decades ignoring every ‘fantastic Nintendo game’ released. I do not feel I missed anything by not being there for Super Mario Sunshine or Aonuma Zeldas. Not. One. Thing.

Another common theme is that I keep asking myself the same question as I did after the SNES: “Why did Nintendo intentionally stop doing what works?” Clearly the NES and SNES had good runs. Why totally screw that up with the N64 and Gamecube direction? Or to be more precise, the DS and Wii mission statements were good ones: bringing gaming to the masses. But the 3DS and Wii U are completely different animals and their mission statements are more like the N64 and Gamecube. Nintendo could not have been unhappy with DS and Wii sales performance, so why changed what worked? Why go back to a failed philosophy for gaming?

And this leads to the difference in myself for these two time periods. Before, I thought Nintendo felt pressured to get on the 3d bandwagon. Mario did not HAVE to be 3d. Look at the sales of Smash Brothers and it showed that non-3d games were just as acceptable as before. Going from non-3d to 3d was not like going from 8-bit to 16-bit. 8-bit games  would not sell in 16-bit era. But non-3d games were still hot stuff during all this 3d nonsense. Today, however, I know that Nintendo is intentional in this shift. They cannot claim ignorance.

There is some sort of sick, sick 3d obsession inside Nintendo that, like a disease, keeps twisting their products into something else.

My advice for Nintendo is to drop the 3d obsession and replace that obsession with the Internet. An Internet using Super Mario Brothers would have far more market impact than yet another 3d Mario. Nintendo keeps telling us they are innovators yet they keep repeatedly doing the same things over and over and expecting it to work.

If Nintendo offers a 3DS with no 3d output (normal screens and games can only be played without 3d), I would buy it.

If Nintendo offers a Wii U without the funky controller (a console deck update for the Wii), I would buy it.

Consider where I’m coming from. I would never, ever, use the 3d capability of the 3DS so I don’t see why I should pay so much for that capability in a product. This isn’t like the microphone or even touch screen in the DS. That 3d output screen is a significant cost of the 3DS.

As a Wii gamer, I disliked Gamecube games in part due to the horrible controller. So why would I be interested in the Wii U controller which is a Gamecube controller with a touchscreen? And that Wii U controller will be a SIGNIFICANT COST. The Wii motion controller may have been more expensive than other game controllers, but the difference is nothing like throwing in a freaking touch screen on it.

I do not see ‘integrated hardware and software’. What I see is ‘forced hardware and software’. I love the NES, SNES, and Wii because I could buy the hardware and software differently and suit my tastes. All the funky controllers were sold separately. I wasn’t forced to buy the Power Glove in some deluded corporate mission statement of ‘integrated hardware and software’. In fact, I could replace the NES controller with all sorts of controllers. I could do that with the Wii-mote to a degree. But with that Wii U controller, I will be forced to use that bastard child of Gamecube and DS parents.

When people ask, “Where did that Wii/DS audience go?”, they will be looking at the issue from a bird’s view. I am telling what the issue is on the ground.

There will be a huge myth saying that these Wii/DS audiences are ‘casuals’ who just got tired of gaming and went away. The truth is that Nintendo has zero desire of making games that interest players like myself and is more interested in their sick, sick 3d obsession and gadget-making.

Never forget we had to wait 18 years for a sequel to Super Mario Brothers 4. (It’s like Activision not wanting to make another Modern Warfare because the developers are more obsessed with technology possibilities that don’t translate into better gaming experiences.)

Gliding/Underwater Sections

They technically work fine, and are mostly optional outside the few tracks based around the gimmicks.  There’s nothing particularly stupid about them, and aside from a few courses (such as Shy Guy Bazaar, Wuhu Mountain Loop and Rainbow Road for the glider, Wario’s Galleon/Cheep Cheep Cape/Bowser’s Castle for the underwater mechanics), there’s absolutely nothing forcing you to use them.

Not that flying is particularly new in kart racing games, Diddy Kong Racing had it play a far bigger role back in the Nintendo 64 days, and Banjo Pilot was (sort of unfortunately, considering it was a mediocre GBA game using mode 7) based entirely around flight.

However, if there’s any one flaw with these mechanics, it’s that they really don’t work too well with the items in the game. Red Shells especially, since they can, depending on what angle you’re gliding at still hit you even if you’re holding an item.

Options

As mediocre as you think they are unfortunately.  Yes you can make communities with limited item sets, but no, you can’t disable specific items.  Worse still, there’s also a complete lack of any single player vs or quick race mode, no leaderboards and neither a mission mode nor tournaments.  This means anyone who wants to play this game without going online or playing vs with friends has practically nothing to hold their interest.

Still, it’s good in many respects (you can choose to race against other people you know online, even if they’re playing world wide), and the fact communities exist at all is an improvement.

Content

It’s better than Mario Kart Double Dash and Wii content wise, and on par with the DS game.  You’ll at least be happy to know the tracks in this game are indeed enough like the Mario platformers and spinoffs to be not be overly generic, and that they arguably do expand the Mario series universe.  Shy Guy Bazaar seems to be a homage to Super Mario Bros 2/Doki Doki Panic, with some hints of Wario Land 4′s Arabian Night, Piranha Plant Pipeway is part Super Mario Bros 1 reference, part Super Mario 3D Land reference, and many other tracks are similar.  Wario Galleon apparently remixes Wario Land 1 music, DK Jungle is Donkey Kong Country Returns themed down to being designed by Retro Studios and the returning tracks include Airship Fortress, Luigi’s Mansion, Waluigi Pinball, Maple Treeway and SNES Rainbow Road.

The tracks themselves are also by and large interesting to race on, not being as boxed in by invisible walls as the terrible designs from Double Dash, nor as ridiculously long as some of those from Mario Kart 64.

There are a few problems (two Wuhu Island themed tracks for no particular reason, DK Pass returns and battle mode’s arenas are terrible), but generally the content of the game is decent and the tracks themselves are fun to play.

Other

Items are better (the Tanooki Tail and Fire Flower are fairly decent items, and do arguably fit the Mario Kart series quite well), although the Blue Shell is worse than it’s ever been (now going along the ground, then exploding when it reaches first place) and less common due to only having 8 players.  However, it seems item balance itself doesn’t seem to be held in high regard at Nintendo, I’ve seen cases of people getting triple red shells in second or third place, leaving the unfortunate players in front with only a very slim chance of being able to actually do anything to stop themselves being hit.

The online system and VR is improved, you don’t lose as many points for coming last or in a bad position at the end of the race, hence you can’t lose half your points in a day or two due to random friends and strangers deciding to play online on the same console.
Nintendo stupidly locks away two interesting things and makes you only able to use them with StreetPass, namely custom Grand Prixs and the Golden Glider.  This is even worse for the latter seeing as it requires you to StreetPass with over a hundred people who own Mario Kart 7, which is likely just about impossible in many parts of the world. And the former only being available to people you StreetPass with is pretty stupid too, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be allowed to just race on a custom GP you made yourself, or be able to share it with people on your 3DS friends list or something.

Kart customisation isn’t too bad, it’s pretty much the same as choosing a kart in Mario Kart Double Dash/DS/Wii, and in fact there are probably less designs in Mario Kart 7 despite it.

There’s a really, really broken glitch on Wuhu Mountain Loop which lets you skip a third of the track and gets used near constantly online, yet Nintendo says they won’t fix it in case it ‘disadvantages people who could use the glitch beforehand in time trials/whatever’.  In their own words:

‘We are aware that it is possible to navigate a certain part of the track in Wuhu Island in a way that allows a large part of the course to be bypassed. There are no plans to update the game to remove this shortcut as doing so would create an unfair advantage for the users of the original release of the game. ‘

GP mode is actually a lot better in some regards, you can now only get star ranks and getting three stars is much easier.  Nice for those who felt getting bad ranks due to the AI getting good items was ridiculous.

So yes, those are my thoughts on Mario Kart 7, coming from someone who’s beaten it near enough completely.

Excluding PC gaming, I’ve become a Non-Gamer. Unless one of the major console companies change their current ways, the Wii will be my last video game console.

“I do not believe this,” says a reader.

Very well. History proves the point.

When Richard Garriot was making the Ultima games, he learned that he needed to re-make the game engine with each new Ultima. The draw of Ultima was this massive world (which is the sapling which grew into the tree of Massively Multiplayer Online games with the ascent of Ultima Online).

Garriot talks about the game engine primarily until he gets to Ultima III and talks about ‘craftsmanship’ and Ultima IV about the virtue system and then Ultima V about the ‘story’ and so on. What is the theme of everything being said here?

It is the concept of layers. Alkabeth was just some dungeon crawler (and boy was it primitive!). Garriot’s “genius” (oh, that word!) in this case was taking a successful game and adding another layer. Garriot did not make Alkabeth 2 with ‘more rooms’ and ‘more monsters’. He added another layer. This layer was Ultima I in which Alkabeth was included inside it. And with Ultima II, he added even more layers such as additional planets, a solar system, going backward and forward in time, and so on. With Ultima III, it was an additional layer and this was a craftsmanship. Instead of an ‘epic’ game, he tried to create a more detailed world which, ironically, made the game feel epic to players.

The virtue system of Ultima IV is an additional layer to the game. The “story” of Ultima V was an additional “layer” to the game. And so on, and so forth, up until Ultima Online where the Ultima series ends.

What is interesting is that the complaints about Ultima games revolve around missing layers. Ultima 8 did have additional layers of greater animation and all, but in order to pull that off it shrunk the world and removed the party. Ultima 9 had additional layers as well but those led to removing other layers of the game. Ultima in 3d came at the price of a shrunken game world. The previous Ultima games did not increase layers at the expense of other layers.

“But Malstrom,” asks the reader interrupting this post. “What does this have to do about game engines?”

When you add a new level or new monster or new ability, you usually aren’t changing the game engine. But when you add a new layer, you have to fundamentally alter the game engine (or just make a new one).

Due to the increasing complexity of game engines, it was taking longer and longer to make a new Ultima game due to making a new game engine. A really good idea was the ‘Worlds of Ultima concept was to give players new games using the old engines during the wait. The Savage Empire and Martian Dreams both used the Ultima VI game engine. there was a third WoU game which was cancelled.

Hindsight is 20/20. At this particular point in time, Worlds of Ultima was a brilliant idea. But looking back on it, it didn’t work. Despite being placed on brand new worlds, players did not really warm up to the Worlds of Ultima games. These games were pretty well made. They are Warren Spector games after all.

“But you say content is what compels the gamer,” says the reader. “But the history you presented shows this is not the case.”

But why you assume content is divorced from the game engine? It is like saying a book’s content is divorced from its words.

I believe content and the game engine cannot be separated. In order to add more ‘content’, one must add additional “layers”. Layers require a game engine change. A new layer is not an ‘additional level’ or a ‘new monster’. The game experience is not just ‘more stuff’ but adding new rules to the game.

“What new rules are you talking about, silly Malstrom!”

Alkabeth was a dungeon crawler. But with the additional layers added with Ultima I (e.g. an overworld), the game was the same yet totally different. With the television or computer screen as a window frame, it is as if the developers ZOOMED OUT and expanded the scope of the game. But it wasn’t expanding in the sense of ‘more stuff’ but that the gaming well had become deeper. The addition of virtues, of “story”, and so on are not additions to the game experience but multiplications.

“So why do you not like the Nintendo way of new games? You say it lacks content.”

It lacks layers. Nintendo’s idea is to make game console do something funky. And then they design the game around the hardware’s funkiness. This is totally missing the point. It is saying, “Buy games to experience the console,” where it should be “Buy the console to experience the games.”

Remember when the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 came out and we were told to buy games so we could experience ‘HD graphics’? That didn’t work out too well. When the games became more than just illustrators of the console (e.g. tech demos), then the consoles were sold because people wanted to play the games.

But the concept of layers is the key behind the phenomenon of these early Nintendo games.

Take Super Mario Brothers and look at it from the context of a 1984 gamer. Super Mario Brothers represents the addition of many new layers not really seen in a video game before. These new layers we, gamers, do not know how to articulate so we throw it in a box we call ‘gameplay’. But the layers include precision control, momentum of the jumps and turtle shell bouncing, as well as breaking blocks alters the level and the power-ups affect how you play. I don’t remember Pitfall Harry getting a power-up. No, he had to jump on crocodile mouths to get by.

The Japanese version of Super Mario Brothers 2 could not impress because of the lack of layers. It was the same game engine after all. Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario Brothers 4 had completely new game engines which introduced new layers. Flying, for example, is an additional layer to Super Mario Brothers gameplay. The map screen is an additional layer to the Super Mario Brothers gameplay. And so were the Koopa Kids compared to killing copies of Bowser and getting a “Sorry Mario but our princess is in another castle”. The reason why 3d Mario never receives the same excitement and phenomenon as 2d Mario is because the additional layer of 3d Mario (3d) tends to remove other layers. It is not so much that gamers expect infinite content, but they do expect infinite layers. This is why new ‘retro games’ don’t sell.

And it is why Super Mario Brothers 5 was accepted. The new layer was simultaneous multiplayer (though for the record, Super Mario Brothers 3 had this but it was only in Battle Mode).

Consider Legend of Zelda if you were a 1985 gamer. This was a game of multiple layers. You had the overworld layer, which would have been enough back in that time, but you also had additional layers in the dungeons and caves.

Consider Metroid if you were a 1985 gamer. Metroid was not just a run and shoot game. It had the additional layer of being in a continuous world where you could return to previous areas. Castlevania, which used to be a game of just levels, added the additional laywer of being a large continuous world where you could return to previous areas, i.e. Metroidvania. And gamers were very enthusiastic about that.

My expectations in Nintendo games were caused by my enjoyment of computer game companies such as Origin. I expected a sequel to add new layers. Instead, the sequel has gored the original layers (gameplay) and put in new gameplay which may or may not work. I never liked 3d Mario because it removed the layered gameplay of 2d Mario with an extremely shallow gameplay (“But it’s in 3d! Behold the 3d! Yurk yurk!”).

Part of the reason why Metroid Other M failed was because the additional layer (“MATERNAL INSTINCTS!”) was added while removing all the other layers that we loved about Metroid.

Games do not go backward. We want MORE layers in a game, not LESS.

“But that would mean game engines growing out of control!”

No. Consider Minecraft which was made by one person. Indie games fail because they are so incredibly shallow. Minecraft has so many layers. When Minecraft was being built, Notch had the first few layers (the blocky engine) and slowly built up layers. The random world generator would be one. The monsters would be another.

We keep being presented with two choices. On one side, we are told that a sequel just needs MORE of a current value, of a current layer. This could mean ‘more levels’. Then we have the Nintendo way (which they keep mentioning in every interview in a smug and arrogant way) that ‘new levels’ are not enough, something ‘new’ must be presented because “entertainment is based on surprise”. To be more precise, entertainment is actually based on layers.

Nintendo’s market trends toward younger gamers. However, Nintendo’s market does not grow. Nintendo keeps bleeding its current customers but replaces them with younger ones. Why is this bleeding occur?

It occurs because the Miyamoto idea of ‘doing something new’ is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If Nintendo made their sequels in the context of adding additional layers, they would keep their current games and add new ones. Nintendo wouldn’t have to rely on Wii Sports or Wii Fit to grow the market. These old franchises would grow the market as well.

And we have two examples.

New Super Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers 5 both added additional layers: multiplayer. It gave reason for old gamers and new gamers to pick it up.

The Mario Kart series. Mario Kart keeps the old layers while adding additional ones on top. For Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii, the additions were Internet multiplayer. It turned out extremely well.

This would also explain why games like Ocarina of Time or Metroid Prime performed so well. These games still retained the layers that the older gamers expected while adding new layers. With both of them, the new layer was 3d. However, the old layers were not removed as they were with Super Mario 64. It has been said that Ocarina of Time was Link to the Past in 3d and that Metroid Prime was Super Metroid in 3d. That is why they succeeded. And the reason why Virtual Reality is always a dream is because Virtual Reality represents Infinite Layers.

If we look at content from the context of layers, we find that the game engine has to be fundamentally changed in order to create new content.

And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?

And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they’re panicking , and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.

Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too ……

I did not know SWTOR took more money to make than Avatar.

The 30 days of free playtime for SWTOR should be up fairly soon…

So this brings us to the Wii U. I wouldn’t underestimate the Wii-U… especially since it is launching with the Mother-of-Killer-Apps: 2d Mario. The player I am most interested in seeing is Microsoft’s approach to the 8th Generation. Microsoft’s Xbox is cannibalizing Nintendo’s kid market which means the new Xbox could be in a position to take the entire North American market.

As Nintendo’s resources shift from the 3DS to the Wii U, I expect Vita to again pick up some momentum… somewhere. With the Wii U, I expect it to be ‘re-introduced’ but with emphasis on its game library instead of the controller. I fully expect Nintendo to emphasize the online components of Wii U and use Dragon Quest X as a type of illustration that the system can do MMOs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 8th Generation Console fight revolved around the MMO type games. Microsoft’s new Xbox will have an advantage in this area with its ties to the PC game companies.

First of all, let me point something out. Good entertainment revolves around passion. People passionately hating something is actually a good thing. It means there is a flip side where people passionately love it. Every single entertainment out there that has been successful has a huge legion of haters around it. Grand Theft Auto 3 was a huge success, but it had a ton of haters in it. The NES and Gameboy had its haters when they came out. Of course, we all know how despised the Wii was before and after it was released. There is no entertainment out there that is universally loved. The hit pop singers of the year are viciously despised by other people. The hit movie of the year is despised by many other people. It isn’t so much that people hate what is popular but that good entertainment stirs up passion. Passionate hatred is just as indicative of success as passionate love.

The failing entertainment products stir up no passion. It is like listening to cooking recipes on the radio. Boring. Lifeless. No passionate hatred but no passionate love either. This is also why, young man, the Nice Guy always loses with the ladies. The Bad Boy, whatever his faults, stirs up passion. But who can become passionate about the Nice Guy? If you cannot passionately hate something, you cannot passionately love something. This is why people go from passionate love about someone to passionate hate in a second. The passionate hate is actually good… it shows they are still passionate. The death knell is when there is no passion at all. That is boredom.

So all this passion, for and against, the pandas and pet battles tells me there is some entertainment gold that might come out of them. The lack of passion for the PvE Scenarios and Challenge Dungeons indicates to me that these may become flops.

If Blizzard is, indeed, copying Pokemon, that would be a smart thing to do. Pokemon is an extremely successful series that has withstood the test of time. However, I think the actual reason why Blizzard is incorporating pet battles is because it is easy to implement. All it requires is some User Interface editing and tweaking. It is so simple that even I could program it into the game.

So no, I do not think Blizzard is going after Pokemon or this is some conspiracy marketing scheme to attract younger viewers. I think it is being implemented because it is so easy to implement. Blizzard operates on a ‘bang-for-the-buck’ concept regarding game design as does any other game company. Pet Battles is extremely cheap to implement and may have long term pay-offs. Consider that there requires no raids or dungeons or monsters for pet battles to be implemented unlike the rest of WoW’s content.

I suspect much of the ‘rage’ from WoW players about the pet battle system revolves around the fact that these players don’t have any pets. They were ‘hardcore’ and all the ‘pet collecting’ was for ‘idiots’. So when an expansion feature revolves around pets, suddenly the pet collectors are already WAY AHEAD of these ‘hardcore’ players which rapes their ego. Emotionally, they can’t handle it.

I never really played Pokemon, but I think this looks fun. It is far more interesting than adding yet another profession.

The question is not what Blizzard thinks of all this but what Nintendo thinks of all this. Nintendo is angling to get into the Internet process of gaming. Pokemon would have been a natural candidate for a longterm Internet venture. But Blizzard will get there first.

“But WoW’s way is crappy compared to whatever Nintendo implements.”

Maybe. But ‘good enough’ is enough as we’ve seen. If a Pokemon Online game came out now, WoW players wouldn’t leave for it. They can get a ‘good enough’ experience of that with their current game.

Nintendo must be livid about this. Not because of ‘copying’ or anything like that. It is because Nintendo wants to enter Internet gaming in a serious way and this undercuts them majorly.