How Smash and Nintendo is evolving and what that means for the future of both Nintendo and Smash.

[saviorslegacy]

Clearly Nintendo knows I've been playing Super Smash bros. since the N64 days and have been a fan of Nintendo for about 16 years now.
A lot of the veteran players of Smash complained about how much Smash changed from Melee to Brawl. There honestly weren't that many changes, except for one; it was made easier. Honestly if you threw the old air dodge, increased gravity and longer hit stun into Brawl you would have Melee. This isn't that much of a difference on the programming side.

The thing that changed is as I said, it was made to be easy to play and easy to pick up and jump into a "Brawl" with a bunch of friends from school. Nintendo has been targeting kids and adults alike with the Wii while letting the more hardcore games go to systems like Xbox. Just look at some of their most popular releases like Wii Sports 2 and Wii Fit. When I was growing up none of the adults went near video games until the Nintendo Wii. Then I had my great uncle, father, grandfather and all of the other older men in the n family playing golf on the TV at Christmas. A lot of them even bought their own systems. Just look at Nintendo's sales compared to the supposed gaming system titan, the Xbox 360:
Worldwide sales figures

1. Wii – 99.84 million as of 31 March 2013[8]
2. PlayStation 3 – 70 million as of 4 November 2012[53] (IDC January 2013 estimate: "about 77 million")[54][55]
3. Xbox 360 – 74.94 million as of 31 December 2012[56]

Japan sales figures

1. Wii – 12.71 million as of 31 March 2013[8]
2. PlayStation 3 – 6.3 million as of 1 April 2011[57]
3. Xbox 360 – 1.6 million

Europe sales figures

1. Wii – 49.37 million as of 31 March 2013[8]
2. PlayStation 3 – 24.23 million as of December 2010[58]
3. Xbox 360 – 23.73 million as of December 2010[58]

United States sales figures

1. Wii – 47.75 million as of 10 August 2010[59]
2. PlayStation 3 - 39.6 million as of 14 April 2010[60]
3. Xbox 360 – 39.4 million as of 31 December 2009[61]

Clearly Nintendo knows what they are doing. They have turned an amazing profit from their unintuitive controls and approach to gaming. I honestly don't see this changing. Nintendo will continue to target the same group of casual gamers. What does this mean? This means that their games will continue to be incredibly easy. The old days of Nintendo is gone for good.

Now as for characters going into this new Smash bors. game I honestly see Nintendo being very open minded between including both favorite retro characters from many years ago as well as characters that will appeal to the casual players who have been playing the Nintendo Wii for the past 6 years. A perfect example of this is old school Megaman and new school Wii Fit Trainer. Now honestly I think Trainer is a cool idea. As long as she doesn't count reps and say feel the burn I wont have a problem with her. Either that or they could include an optional boot camp style trainer but I don't think Nintendo could include all of the stuff that those guys would say. lol
I just pray to God that they don't add Mii's. I wouldn't be surprised though. The Mii's would represent Wii Sports, which again is a very big seller and popular game with casual players. Iwata wanted them included in SSBB, they just didn't make it.

If people want to know who all will be in I would say everyone in Brawl minus maybe Lucario, PT Trainer as we know him and Toon Link. I mention Pokemon not only because it would be following a trend but because there are so many Pokemon I think that they would want to include new ones probably from gen 6 not gen 5. To bad too, I wanted to play as Zoroak. This would appeal to what people are playing at the time of SSB4's release.
I say Toon Link because in the trailer you can see him as part of the stage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_5jb9nggGs Forward to 0:47. I doubt that he would both be playable and in a stage, it would be redundant. Who knows, I could be wrong.
Just so all of you know in SSB Bowser, Mewtwo and King Dedede were all supposed to be playable but were cut. King Dedede did not make it to Melee because Sakurai was the creator of Kirby and did not want to over support his own franchise. Everyone else above made it.
In SSBB Dixie Kong, Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, Roy and Toon Zelda/Toon Sheik or Tetra was supposed to be included but were cut due to time constraints. From this list I bet Dixie will make it. I dunno about any of the others.

As for adding new moves......
Don't count on it. The only new moves that have ever been included in Smash minus final smashes was side B and more throw options. That's IT! There were no new moves from Melee to Brawl and I highly highly highly doubt that there will be ANY new moves in this new Smash.


Final conclusion:
The games focus will be split half way down the middle between casual and retro fans of Smash. This means that the new Smash will be more like Brawl, not Melee. The game will be easy to play like Brawl but it will also have a cool retro side as far as music, characters and stages goes (as it always has had).

 

[dRevan64]

comments in red

Clearly Nintendo knows I've been playing Super Smash bros. since the N64 days and have been a fan of Nintendo for about 16 years now.
A lot of the veteran players of Smash complained about how much Smash changed from Melee to Brawl. There honestly weren't that many changes, except for one; it was made easier. This is one of the most unrealistic assertions I've heard in awhile. Brawl was easier in that it was more forgiving to mistakes, certainly, but it was much more difficult to actually get a character to do what you wanted with it. It had all sorts of issues, not the least of which being input lag and idiotic dead frames during jumps. The game was far less responsive than 64 and melee. Honestly if you threw the old air dodge, increased gravity and longer hit stun into Brawl you would have Melee. I don't know about you but I don't think of these as being things that made brawl easier. Simpler, maybe, but not easier, and you seem to play down the significance of them too.. There are also a whole slew of other, more subtle differences but those are mostly irrelevant here. This isn't that much of a difference on the programming side.

The thing that changed is as I said, it was made to be easy to play and easy to pick up and jump into a "Brawl" with a bunch of friends from school. I have yet to hear a single anecdote about people who picked up and played Melee or smash 64 with friends and didn't have fun because it was too hard. It's not a difficult franchise to get into: low skill floor, high skill ceiling.

Clearly Nintendo knows what they are doing. They have turned an amazing profit from their unintuitive controls and approach to gaming. Correlation does not imply causation here. Simplifying mechanics that are already very easy to grasp on a surface level does not sell games. Brawl sold very well off of hype from melee, had they straight ported melee's physics and added content it would not have sold any worse than it did. Brawl sold incredibly well because the console market grew from sixth to seventh gen, and the wii was able to appeal to the greatest number of people not because it was simple, but because it was family friendly. Those are not synonyms. I honestly don't see this changing. Nintendo will continue to target the same group of casual gamers. What does this mean? This means that their games will continue to be incredibly easy. The old days of Nintendo is gone for good.

Basically what this comes down to is the idea that brawl was easier than the previous titles, and the thing is it really wasn't. It was just as easy to get straight into melee or 64 as brawl, I played melee with my entire family when I was like 6 and we had a ball with it. All brawl served to do was lower the skill ceiling, not the skill floor. Those are important to distinguish between.