http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=161550
If kevin ‘gonintendo’ cassidy can’t think of anything nice to say, then it blows. he’s a gentle soul and very positive.
NSMB Mii is to Wii U as Nintendogs and Cats are to the 3DS. Nintendo doesn’t want to make them. But the business side of Nintendo is not giving the creative side a choice. Nintendogs and Mario 5 sold way too much. So they are making the game now so they don’t have to make it later.
What sells more? 3d Mario or Nintendogs? Nintendogs is clearly the hardware selling game. It was phoned in as a launch game because Nintendo developers can get away with phoning it in. They would much rather spend time and effort on 3d Mario which won’t sell as well as Nintendogs (DS).
What sells more? 2d Mario or Zelda HD? Zelda HD wont’ even get close to 2d Mario. In fact, 2d Mario is the flagship game of the entire Nintendo console brand. Yet, they are phoning in 2d Mario and getting it out of the way so they can spend all their time doing the game they would rather do: Zelda HD. How exactly puzzles in HD will be a compelling experience, I don’t know.
The premise I had for watching Nintendo carefully half a decade ago was that Nintendo was a business orientated while successfully being ‘creative’. Now, I am disappointed to say, Nintendo has never fit that definition. The early Wii games like Wii Sports were so well made was because Nintendo felt threatened. Time has shown it was an anomaly as Nintendo resumed going back to their Gamecube direction.
There is absolutely nothing to learn from this company.