Nintendo discontinues games

Why are they doing this? What about the ‘Evergreen Strategy’?

Let us reword what is going on. Nintendo doesn’t “ship” titles. Rather, retailers “buy” them. The software is ‘shipped’ to the retailers.

From my limited viewpoint, I think it is better to say “retailers are not buying any more of these games” because either Nintendo shipped so many or because they are not selling in the stores or a combination of both.

Here is the list:

* Battalion Wars II
* Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
* Donkey Kong Barrel Blast
* Endless Ocean
* Excitebots: Trick Racing
* Excite Truck
* Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
* Mario Strikers Charged
* Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
* Metroid Prime Trilogy
* New Play Control! Pikmin
* Wario Land: Shake It!
* Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
* Wii Fit
* Wii Music

Let us go through these:

* Battalion Wars II

I rented this game. I thought it was a confusing mess. This was strange since I am a RTS gamer. I would rather have a straight up RTS game with the pointer than this on the ground. Ground Control did this somewhat successfully and that game didn’t sell either. Nothing about this game was gripping.

This is a game I would call a “Super Gamecube Game”. A “Super Gamecube Game” is a Gamecube game that only uses the Wii for the additional graphics, ram and all.

* Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree

This is from Wii’s launch. It made sense to put a Brain Age game on the Wii since it did wonders for the DS. But people don’t want to play brain games on their TV. No one will miss this one.

* Donkey Kong Barrel Blast

This is another Super Gamecube game. It must have been a holdover from its development from the Gamecube era. The game is racing with the bongos.

I haven’t played it, and I do not care to. I do not hear anyone else ever talking about it. I don’t think anyone will miss this game.

* Endless Ocean

This one appears that Endless Ocean 2 will make completely obsolete. If the game got a sequel, it must have sold decently. I guess retailers see no reason to order more of Endless Ocean if they are purchasing Endless Ocean 2.

* Excitebots: Trick Racing

Ahh, this one. I sold my copy of Excitebots today.I bought it for $20 when Amazon had their deal. I bought it because I enjoyed Excite Truck.

I hated this game.

This has to be one of the worst producers for a game I have ever seen. There is so much wrong, wrong, wrong with this game that destroys the fun gameplay skeleton inside. Where to start?

First, the cover. The cover is godawful and makes adults ashamed to be purchasing it.

Second, the title. Excitebots!? What the hell is a ‘bot’? Excitetrucks was better because I can associate a “big damn truck”. I cannot associate with a ‘bot’. Mechanical insects just don’t make any freaking sense! I wanted to run away from the game.

Third, this game PUNISHES consumers. You guys know I hate tutorials. This game should illustrate why. I HATE how I cannot even start anything without going through non-fun tutorials. Even the multiplayer is “locked”. What the heck? Imagine the consumer excited to try out a new game and enthusiasm is killed by going through stupid and not fun ‘tutorials’. Bah!

Fourth, this game is not about racing. The game is about tricks. I can come in first and lose. That is stupid. This is not what people want from a racing game. If the game is about tricks, why are we racing in the first place? What is the point?

Fifth, the tricks themselves sucked. I would have to stop what I was doing racing and then do something completely UNRELATED like swirl my wii-mote in circles so my ‘bot’ can swing around a pole. This game was not fun to play.

What is so sad is that there is a fun core arcade gameplay hidden inside. I don’t know who is responsible for making sure small stupid things don’t ruin the entire product, but I guess it is the producer. This game could have worked. I kept getting the feeling that all the stupid stuff in it, from the ‘colorful bots’ to the ‘kick ball in soccer goal’ was as if the makers were trying too hard.

People say that the success of Mario Kart Wii means that there can be no other successful arcade racer on the Wii. That isn’t true. To the contrary, it shows that there are people desiring that type of arcade game experience. But Excitebots has so many problems and is extremely confusing in that it is a race where the first place person doesn’t truly win. It is about doing ‘tricks’. And we don’t have patience to learn these ‘tricks’.

And this brings up my last two major complaints about the game. Why is it only two player multiplayer? And why is it two player multiplayer without the AI? How boring is that! Even Super Mario Kart for the SNES allowed you to have AI to race with when playing multiplayer.

To those in other countries who have not experienced Excite Bots, do not listen to the hype you hear on the message forums. Excite Bots is not that good. Hell, it is the same tracks from Excite Truck.

* Excite Truck

I thought this game was already discontinued. Anyway, it is a launch Wii game, and it is fun. It shares some of the problems with Excite Bots such as goddamn tutorials at the start, bad music, no AI when racing multiplayer, and have to unlock multiplayer through the goddamn tutorial. But most of those flaws I perceived, at the time, as flaws indicative of a launch game.

Apparently, someone higher up thought, “Excite Truck didn’t sell because it needs a brand make-over and needs to sell to kids.” So we got the monstrosity called Excite Bots with none of the Excite Truck’s blemishes solved.

But other than that, Excite Truck is tons of fun in single player. I like driving Reggie’s “big damn truck”. My “big damn truck” and I enjoy flying off cliffs and landing. I found it far more enjoyable driving a truck than a “bot”. I can associate with a truck. I do not know what the hell a bot is.

I am reminded of Sid Meir’s rule concerning game design. He was asked why he didn’t put future technologies in Civilization. He said it was because the player couldn’t associate with it. And that is true. Alpha Centauri is a better game than Civilization 2 but Civilization 2 was more fun because you can associate with the content of the game. Everyone understands inventing the wheel or building the pyramids. No one understands invention genome splicing mutant building or building intelligent fungi citadels.

I can understand a truck. I cannot understand a “bot”. When I cannot associate with something, I cannot have fun with it. People have fun when they are in familiar surroundings. This is why hit games tend to resemble something we are all familiar with outside gaming. Starcraft resembles various science fiction shows. Super Mario Brothers resembles Alice in Wonderland. Metroid resembles Aliens (complete with the future weapon armed girl). Grand Theft Auto resembles the urban lifestyle and gangster cliches. Zelda and various RPGs resemble fantasy fiction.

Now before the ‘unfortunate-employee-at-Nintendo-who-is-assigned-to-read-this-site’ says to Miyamoto that I am saying Alice in Wonderland was an influencer in his games, all I am saying is that the consumer has fun with these games because they feel familiar with the content. They can associate with it.

One easily avoidable mistake I see in games is that they resemble absolutely nothing you’ve seen before. The player cannot associate with the content. And you get something like Dynamite Heady.

Above: While a good game, nothing makes sense at all in Dynamite Heady. This is why the game did not resonate among consumers. If you cannot associate with the game, it can never be ‘fun’.

* Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

It’s a Fire Emblem. Let’s move on…

* Mario Strikers Charged

This game was really fun. I own this game, and I still own it. My nephews who I use to test out games with (behind their mother’s back. This is a brother’s revenge against his sister, tee hee) LOVE playing this game. They never got into games like Excite Bots or Excite Truck (though they did like Excite Truck single player).

What is holding Mario Strikers Charged back is how easy it is to ‘cheese’ the abilities. When people do this (such as with the hammer brothers), the game becomes frustrating when you lose.

But Charged is tons of fun in small doses. It sold pretty well too. I recommend people look into picking this one up before the game disappears. This will be a Wii game people will be wanting in their collections many, many years from now.

* Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

I was shocked that the game had a full price when Trilogy was out. If any game needed a price cut, it was Corruption especially with Trilogy sitting right beside it. Corruption did get a price cut but it was $10 off.

* Metroid Prime Trilogy

Discontinuing this game pissed me off. I just bought Trilogy today as I did did one of my four or five trips to the game store per year (once returning from Gamestop, I immediately take a shower. It takes a long while to get the hardcore stink off you).

Buy this game. This is definitely going to be a game that is going to be in high demand many, many years from now. I believe this game will age well.

* New Play Control! Pikmin

Retailers don’t want any more of these. Is anyone sad over this? I don’t think so.

* Wario Land: Shake It!

This could also become one of those highly prized games in the future. 2d games tend to age very well.

* Wario Ware: Smooth Moves

This is a sure collector’s item. Get it. I thought it was already discontinued as it was a launch game.

This game is well loved by the ladies and good for parties. And the game is very crazy.

Above: Evidence that Nintendo developers are insane.

* Wii Fit

Logical that this game is done. No reason for it to exist since Wii Fit Plus.

* Wii Music

This is major. Wii Music was a flagship game that isn’t much older than a year.

There are two ways to look at this.

Either Nintendo figured that Wii Music wasn’t doing much for the Wii at all and is better to stop it.

OR…

Wii Music Plus is on the way.

The good news are the games that are not on the list:

Super Paper Mario
Zelda: Twilight Princess
Punch-Out
and others. I suppose retailers still want to buy those games.