So you're saying that the 25 million people who bought this were just "Mario fanboys"?
HAHAHAH!
Sorry, but you're wrong, plain and simple.
Did this guy even play the game?
New levels, WAY more levels, new enemies, new secrets, WAY more bosses, added in 4-player co-op, new powerups...
It was the first Mario sidescroller in 18 years on a console, and it sold like gangbusters. It's still one of the best sidescrollers on the market.
The SNES wasn't like that at ALL. You think that Castlevania IV, Actraiser, F-Zero, Gradius III, Super Mario World, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and Super R-Type (just to name a few) was a bad first year?
PS2 had Timesplitters, Midnight Club, SSX, Tekken Tag Tournament, Unreal Tournament, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Zone of the Enders, Fatal Frame, Burnout, and many more in the first year.
DS had Harvest Moon, Bomberman, Castlevania, Kirby Canvas Curse, Ma...
I don't think the 3DS is going through "business as usual". We are seeing something unprecedented here.
Sure, the DS had a slow start, too. But that's partially due to the fact that it was doing the whole dual-screen, touch-screen thing. Developers love the 3DS. Developers understand the 3DS. It's the customers that don't see the point of the 3DS.
And let's be serious for a second: the 3DS is the sequel to the DS, the freakin'...
The 3DS is in trouble. There's no doubt about it. People are just stating the obvious.
Games are being cancelled and delayed. Sales are stagnant. The "heavy hitters" like Ocarina are failing to ignite interest (and before anyone claims Ocarina was not supposed to be a heavy hitter, Nintendo themselves labeled it as a "system seller" in several interviews).
Plus, there are the numerous hardware issues and the public's overall "...
And they also said it was a great fit on the PS Vita.
EPIC says Unreal Engine is a great fit for everything. That's how they get their $$$.
I hope that the PS Vita upsets the handheld space and Nintendo loses ground. It would wake them up.
What sales surge? From 20k units to 40k units? Hardly.
How am I misunderstanding?
The author is praising ports and re-releases of old games on the 3DS, but then he's worried that the PS Vita will have a lot of ports. What is there to misunderstand? It's an obvious double standard. The only reason why it gets a pass is because - for some reason - Nintendo is allowed to re-release the same exact game ad infinatum without any negative press
How in the world was Fable III not #1 on that list?
I find it odd (and all too typical) that the author says "It's cool to play old console games on the 3DS like Ocarina, SF4, and Starfox. It's slow now, but just wait for games like Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros, and Luigi's Mansion!"
And then on the next page, when talking about the PS Vita the author says "Gee, I hope they don't put a whole bunch of console games on this thing".
The double standard here is rich.
Yeah, and to top that off, several of those games are going to be highly replayable! Sure, there will be those cinematic action games like Uncharted 3, Gears 3, and Darkness II that I'll beat once then be done (not speaking for everyone, just me), but THEN you have several games like Saints Row, Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex, Dark Souls, Arkham City, and Skyrim that simply BEG to be played for dozens and dozens of hours in the single-player alone.
Hahahah!
Oh boy.
Pay attention, folks. THIS is the way our beloved gaming journalists twists numbers.
"3DS sales have doubled in Japan!"
Yeah, but the numbers are still terrible.
This list is terrible. You know what ruined the Wii reputation?
Wii Music. It was such a failure. Not even "teh casualz" bought it. Wii Fit is actually a sweet piece of kit and it's ignorant to say that it somehow "ruined" the Wii's reputation.
The 3D3's dev kit is more than twice that of the PS Vita.
Vita: $3000
3DS: $7000+
Plus, the Vita can port assets from the consoles. 3DS games have to be completely built from the ground up. Countless developers have remarked how the Vita presents a "unique situation" because of how close it is in power to the consoles.
But what's the direction? I agree with these concerns
Where is gaming going? Is it motion controls? Eh....Nintendo is ungracefully dumping the Wii, and Sony and Microsoft's motion control attempts are not exactly setting the world on fire. Or maybe the future is handheld gaming. Oh, but the 3DS isn't selling so well and neither are the games. Maybe it's music games. Oh, but Guitar Hero and Rock Band were sucked dry. Dancing games? Those seem to be gaining in p...
You can bet it will be announced for the 3DS or the Wii U. Nintendo seems to have an obsession with showing off new niche games while ignoring niche games already out (Last Story, Xenoblade, Ace Attorney Investigations).
Or, ya know, SEGA could have just announced the game, gotten the fans involved, had thousands of fans submit art for the design of a main character, promised a prototype, and then cancelled it ungracefully.
How can anyone...ANYONE...take Pachter's word as unbiased now?
He is becoming more and more blatant with his shilling.
And if someone asks "Gee, how is he shilling?" c'mon now. What other products has he said "go out and buy that", huh? The man is a so-called "professional analyst" (who has been incorrect more times than he'd like to admit). His job isn't to tell us what products to buy. That's the job of an ...
"Games are coming!" Didn't we hear that with the PS3?
But the difference here is that the PS3 had strong 1st party and 3rd party support. Clearly, 3rd parties are jumping ship on the 3DS:
- several cancelled and delayed games from several different developers
- budgets cut on games (like the MGS3 remake)
- a lot of ports and remakes, but no just-for-the-3DS IPs.
Frankly, the situation looks sad....
The question that no one is asking:
What will retailers think?
There are thousands of unpurchased 3DS units sitting on store shelves everywhere, but those retailers bought the system expecting to sell it at $250. Now Nintendo is cutting the price by $80 (in two weeks, no less) and expecting everything to be fine?
I think there might be a bit of backlash.