Super Smash Bros: Nintendo's Undercover PR Machine

You love Super Smash Bros. I love Super Smash Bros. Even people who don't like video games love Super Smash Bros! Everyone loves seeing their favorite Italian plumber and pointy-eared adventurer duke it out. But it's not just the big names like Mario and Link in SSB. The first time many of us played the game, we had no idea who Ness or Captain Falcon were. Heck, some first-time SSB players back when the original was released in 1999 didn't even know Samus was a chick. But those characters have earned a place in our hearts, and their games have gone on to become popular in their own right.

When EarthBound was finally released on the Wii U Virtual Console last year, it was a huge deal. Some of it was due to the game's cult status, but most people rejoicing had never touched the game before. Most players' familiarity with the game and its characters comes from Super Smash Bros. Nintendo, master of nostalgia, has this sneaky way of using Super Smash Bros. to make us nostalgic for games we never even played.

Super Smash Bros. hooks us in with its big-name characters, but it uses the game to introduce the company's more obscure and dormant series. Fire Emblem had never seen a Western release before Marth and Roy showed up in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but once the characters found a devoted fanbase in Melee, suddenly we got a whole slew of Fire Emblem titles released outside Japan. There hadn't been a new Kid Icarus game in over two decades, but once its protagonist Pit appeared in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, his popularity prompted Nintendo to create Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS in 2012.

Super Smash Bros. is, along with Mario Kart, by far the most commercially successful crossover Nintendo franchise. It appeals to both hardcore gamers and the casual crowd. It's a love letter to Nintendo games, with its trophies and extras effectively serving as a Nintendo encyclopedia. But in many ways, Super Smash Bros. is simply a marketing vehicle for Nintendo's B- and C-list franchises. That's not a bad thing. Tons of creative new games have come to fruition due to characters' popularity garnered in SSB.

We're all dying to learn which characters will join the lineup of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. I'm excited for the game itself, but I'm even more excited about what the new SSB lineup means for Nintendo's lesser-known series. Little Mac from Punch-Out!! has already been revealed; what other characters from less famous series would you like to see in the new Super Smash Bros?

Console review: Wii U

The "next generation" of game consoles is in full swing now, but while I wait for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to gain decent libraries, I've just purchased Nintendo's Wii U. It's been called a commercial failure.

But with an affordable price point much lower than the competition and a growing library of great games like Pikmin 3, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, and Super Mario 3D World (along with Virtual Console classics like EarthBound), the Wii U has become a must-have.

The box

One of Nintendo's biggest issues selling the Wii U to mainstream audiences is making people realize it's actually a new console, not just an accessory for the Wii. Part of that is due to the look of the console itself. It's so sleek and compact, it's almost too sleek and compact for its own good. The Wii U GamePad is front and center in all Nintendo's marketing, and the console itself gets lost in the shuffle. To the casual observer it could just look like a fancy external hard drive or wireless router.

It's a beautiful, minimalist design, in stark contrast to Sony and Microsoft's hulking goliaths of gaming boxes. It's about the same size as the original Wii, but with a more rounded, less angular design. Considering how compact it is, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Wii U still has four USB ports, along with the SD card port. And it runs more quietly than any other disc-based console I've ever played.

The GamePad

It looks wonky at first glance. How are you supposed to play regular games on this controller? But then you lay your hands on it. The dual analog sticks are silky smooth, less oversized and cumbersome than PlayStation sticks and better made than cheap rubbery Xbox sticks. I was worried the buttons would be clicky like the 3DS', but they're like knives through creamy butter. The D-pad is perhaps my favorite D-pad of all time.

The PlayStation features analog sticks that both sit below the face buttons. The Xbox features an asymmetrical design, with the right analog stick below the face buttons and the left analog stick above them. Nintendo completes the cycle, with a controller featuring both analog sticks above the face buttons. I was worried it'd be awkward to press the face buttons with this layout, but it works perfectly. With your thumbs on the analog sticks, the middles of your thumbs rest comfortably near the buttons.

A major reason the GamePad avoids being awkward for conventional gaming is the back of the controller, which is ergonomically contoured to feel like any other traditional game controller. And despite its size, the GamePad is surprisingly lightweight.

Speaking of traditional controllers, Nintendo also sells the "pro" controller for multiplayer and for people who want a more standard experience. It's the exact same button layout as the GamePad, minus the screen.

The pro controller's shape is similar to an Xbox controller, although it's slightly wider and more lightweight.

But the GamePad is really the star of the show. Its touch screen is used for secondary game functions, like the touch screen on the DS and 3DS. Showing your map, inventory, and menus while the TV screen shows the real gameplay. You can even use the GamePad to control your TV and your cable box.

Off-TV play

Nintendo hasn't done a very good job of marketing the Wii U GamePad's greatest function, though: off-TV play. You can turn off your TV and play games through the GamePad alone. This works great if you want to play in bed or in the kitchen or anywhere else in your house outside the living room. Or if someone else wants to watch TV and you still want to play games. The GamePad even features its own speaker, volume adjuster, and headphone jack. 

Many people have complained this comes at the expense of the GamePad's battery life, which only lasts five hours. I haven't yet played for five straight hours without charging, though, so it hasn't come up as an issue for me.

Besides, you can play the GamePad while it's charging, and since it uses its own AC adapter separate from the Wii U console, if you really want to you can charge the GamePad in your bedroom and play while the console remains in your living room. It's a non-issue.

The Pro Controller simply charges using a standard USB cable, like the PlayStation controller. It has an 80-hour battery life.

The only downside

Everything about the Wii U design is perfect, except for one thing: the controller's trigger names. The triggers themselves are great. But while the shoulder buttons are called L and R, the triggers are called... ZL and ZR. What sort of button names are those?!

Nintendo has a strange history with triggers.

The legendary Nintendo 64 trigger was the Z button.

The GameCube featured the buttery smooth analog/digital L and R triggers, and an awkwardly-placed Z button.

The Wii remote's trigger was the B button, which was hard to get used to. The Nunchuk's trigger was the Z button, and its shoulder button was the C button. Unusual naming convention.

And now with Wii U, we have L and R for the shoulder buttons, and ZL and ZR for the triggers. When the button is displayed onscreen in a game, I feel like I'm meant to press two buttons.

Why couldn't Nintendo have just taken a page from the competition's book on this? PlayStation controllers have L1/R1/L2/R2, and Xbox controllers have L/R/LB/RB. These both make much more sense than L/R/ZL/ZR.

But aside from that: the Wii U design is perfect.

How to make the Wii U succeed, and the future of Nintendo

John and I got into heated debate over this topic, and it led to this blog post.

We're heading towards electronic device singularity. Smartphones are growing, laptops are shrinking, tablets are available in ten different sizes. "Smart TVs" are the future, as televisions and computers eventually become indistinguishable from one another--the only question is how big you want your screen to be. Standalone game consoles will soon be a thing of the past. They're the doomed arcades of this generation.

Sony already makes TVs, along with tons of other electronics. I could easily see twenty years from now, instead of buying a PlayStation to play games, you can just play them on your Sony television.

Microsoft is already integrating Xbox into its regular computers. Their newest operating system, Windows 8, uses the Xbox brand for its multimedia functions.

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are already evolving from game consoles into entertainment centers, preparing for the inevitable electronics singularity.

Where does this leave Nintendo? They're the only game hardware manufacturer left that doesn't make any non-gaming stuff. And the Wii U is floundering for any sort of cultural relevance.

The Wii U is a well-designed console with great potential. But Nintendo can't seem to figure out how to market it. The huge casual fanbase that bought the Wii isn't sticking around for the Wii U. And "hardcore" gamers flock towards the PS4 and Xbox.

The ace up Nintendo's sleeve that Sony and Microsoft will never have is an epic back catalogue. They've got 30 years' worth of classic games dating back to the Nintendo Entertainment System. And as the average age of gamers goes up, this nostalgia factor becomes increasingly important. There are more and more gamers who don't just want the newest releases, but want the old games that reconnect them with their childhood.

The original Wii boasted a huge Virtual Console library that featured not only old Nintendo consoles, but Sega consoles, as well as more obscure systems like the TurboGrafx, Neo Geo, Commodore 64, and even a few arcade releases.

This is all untapped potential on the Wii U. Its Virtual Console currently features only NES and Super NES games, and even its NES/SNES library is shockingly incomplete. The fact that many major first-party classics like Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past are still unavailable on the Wii U VC is downright embarrassing. Nintendo should be ashamed.

Even if Wii U's new releases are lacking and its third-party support is close to zero, it could compete with Sony and Microsoft if its scant Virtual Console library were expanded. To start, we need what the original Wii had. Nintendo 64 games, and hopefully all the third-party consoles as well.

And what about more recent consoles? What if the Wii U VC sold GameCube games? What about Sega Dreamcast games? I salivate at the thought of Metroid Prime and Shenmue on my Wii U.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata acknowledged back in November that they need to step up their Virtual Console offerings. I hope he carries through on this promise.

I was skeptical of Nintendo's newest portable console, the 3DS, when it first came out as well. Like the Wii U, it seemed gimmicky and lacking a real library of games. And in our smartphone-filled world, are portable consoles already obsolete?

But the 3DS proved me wrong. It eventually stood up on its own two (figurative) feet and now boasts an impressive catalogue of titles. And it's sold dozens of millions of units worldwide.

The Wii U could do the same thing. Despite all Nintendo's shortcomings, they have a core fanbase of Nintendo fans who continue to support them through thick and thin.

No matter what Nintendo does with their hardware, fans know there'll always be a good Mario game, a good Zelda game, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and hopefully a good Metroid game. This commitment to consistent first-party releases is what's keeping the company alive, even as third-party publishers abandon the Wii U.

But this is the same thing that happened a decade ago to Sega, another gaming-only hardware/software manufacturer. Will the Wii U be Nintendo's Dreamcast? Ten years from now, will Nintendo simply make software for Sony and Microsoft consoles?

Maybe I'm short-sighted, but I can't see it happening. I'm optimistic Nintendo will eventually capitalize on its Virtual Console, and along with a steady stream of quality first-party releases, they'll weather the storm and continue to find their own niche in the gaming landscape. As Sony and Microsoft move away from the game console concept, Nintendo will continue to chug along as a gaming hardware/software manufacturer like it has for the last 30 years. I hope.

Sony can win the next console war for me with one thing: international awareness

This doesn't address my concerns. At all.

Like anyone, I was interested to see what Sony had in store with the PlayStation 4 when they announced it last week. For me, though, there were two glaring omissions that were even more important than the whole will-it-or-won’t-it-play-used-games thing (which doesn’t matter to me in the slightest, honestly; I’m not an impulsive game shopper: I wait for sales): the console itself, which I not only hope looks cool, but won’t take up an immense amount of my precious floor space, and will-it-or-won’t-it be region free.

For example, before it came out only about a month ago in the US, I played about 15 hours of the Japanese version of Ni No Kuni (fantastic game, btw). I am good enough at Japanese that I can read the two basic alphabets at lightning speed, but my understanding of Japanese vocabulary and grammar is more than a little suspect. As is my general familiarity with the casual spoken language. The character Drippy, named Shizuku in Japan, is nearly indecipherable in the English version of the game with his wacky Cockney-like tongue and ridiculous speed of speech, but it’s a perfect adaptation of the Japanese Shizuku, who uses un-dictionary-able slang and a speaking voice that makes you wish you had digital hands that could wring his neck through the screen. It was a very slow and difficult 15 hours and it turns out, as I discovered only a few days after receiving my American Ni No Kuni, only about five hours of actual gameplay. I’d spent around ten hours just listening to the cutscenes and reading the subtitles on pause, looking up what I could in the dictionary, and, in many cases, giving it up for slang or idiom I simply had no knowledge of and moving on. Needless to say, that was not an especially fun way to spend my time.

This whole scene was a particularly frustrating hour of attempted translation.

This is by far my most pressing concern. As some of you may recall, I live and work near Nagoya, Japan, but I am not fluent in Japanese, speaking, reading, or writing. This is an issue when it comes to games that require any amount of effort outside of platforming, sports, or music games. Role-playing games are a favorite genre of mine, but playing them with a dictionary in front of me is so ridiculously slow that it kills the game experience.

Nintendo of America's Marketing Failure, Part 2

   The entirety of my focus here in regards to the Wii U is completely devoted to its marketing problems. If you had the chance to read my last post on some of the wrong-doings performed by Nintendo and their latest Wii U commercial, you should get a clear enough picture on what can go awry in their campaign.

    It is already bad enough for Nintendo to be bombarded with numerous complaints on technical issues with 3rd party ports, having a slow RAM and CPU, locking Nintendo Network accounts to only one system, and having their top promotional title for the system lock-up frequently for a lot of players. I do not want to take my focus on the mentioned factors of the system's gloomy kick-off because it is not the biggest problem Nintendo has to work around with.

   Be prepared for a colossal plethora of Nintendo of America's marketing results (click on the image for full size):

 

   I am currently struggling to find out who gets the well-deserved credit for finding all these examples of Nintendo's astounding success in delivering the right message. It's a good thing, though, that I will always have a GIF that was made back in 2011 after the company's E3 showing that year.

Yes, this GIF was made over a year-and-a-half ago.

Tou-fucking-che.

The Factors of Nintendo of America's Marketing Failure (As Shown on the New Wii U Commercial)

      I was a really late bloomer as a gamer. It wouldn't be uncommon to hear about a 5-year-old obtaining all 121 stars in any 3D Mario platformer, or an 8-year-old being one of the dozens of people in line for the release of the next Call of Duty. It wasn't until I was 12, late in the N64 and PS1 lifecycle when I became relatively interested in the unity of various Nintendo franchises celebrating their fame and legacy by beating each other to a pulp. What could have given me that spontaneous moment of interest? Nothing else but this famed and cherished commercial. 

  With a clever choice in music and a hilarious live-action premise, my attention was drawn into Super Smash Bros. This commercial followed a formula: showing something that is memorable and not too vague. Following the N64, the GameCube had hits and a few misses. When a good commercial came on in promotion for a GameCube title though, it not only followed suit, but even exceeded at times compared to the N64 ads. Pikmin 2 was a great example of how Nintendo of America's marketing team can develop a gem.