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Comment by FrankenPC | Hacker News Reader

I love that. All that corporate maturity and yet the young gamer lived on. He was the perfect Nintendo president. How are they going to fill those shoes?

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> perfect Nintendo president

Not talking about him as a human being, but his decisions in the past few years have put Nintendo in trouble, actually.

The man was the perfect "Nintendo president".

It's hard to understand Nintendo state, money wise they're doing better than others, but on the game/machine level they're a bit off.

I'm not so sure. I spent the last few nights with my 14 and 16 year old kids, playing Mario Cart, Mario Party, and Mario Bros, and loved every second. Maybe it's our expectations that are off.

I agree. Mario Kart 8 is absolutely, hands-down one of the best games ever made. The controls are perfect, it has an insanely high replay value, the challenges are well-balanced, and it's absolutely gorgeous. They did a fantastic job.

The splitscreen is a vertical split, as opposed to a horizontal split, so both players become unable to accurately drift turns because you can't actually see where you are going. Half of your camera is your Kart and the other half is the sky. Rather than being able to see the road.

That's my own gripe with the game. Why offer splitscreen if the game becomes unplayable?

If it was split the other way it would be worse, vertical FOV is just as important as horizontal FOV on most of the tracks in MK8. I cannot imagine Rainbow Road with horizontal split, it would be terrible.

They made the right call.

That's the only track where I could see it being worse. I'd gladly have difficulty on one track than every other track in the game.

Being unable to take any turn without having the track memorized by-heart is a large issue.

I still enjoy Nintendo's games the most by far, even at 31. They don't usually try to be edgy or contrived, or mask mediocre gameplay with ridiculous stories - they are usually light on story, and mostly about the fundamentals of player interaction.

I know many who agree with me, including plenty of friends at their 20s up to their 50s - Nintendo's legacy often shows up in their works today, whether it be in the game industry, or the music industry. Iwata had a large part in that, from the Mother series (Earthbound), Kirby series, and Smash Bros. games - I think he was also involved in my favorite game series, the Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack/Puzzle League/etc. series. It is a sad day :( .

Well, the games they make are undoubtedly fantastic. But....as a company they lose money. So there are two sides to that coin. I think the most common argument at the moment is that they could have easily released a game like Mario Kart 8 on PS4/Xbox One and they would have made many many times more money, but because they have released it on a platform that sold incredibly poorly they are not doing as well as they could have been doing.

> as a company they lose money

Actually no, they went back to profit in the 2014-2015 period (and since their first report in 1981, the 3 years period 2011-2014 is the only time they had yearly losses)

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8564303/nintendo-fy-2014-ea...

Maybe it's just that your expectations don't match what Nintendo is aiming for. If you're looking for high-end graphics, you'll have to go elsewhere.

It's not that either, they're really not edgy enough these days. I don't mind last-gen graphics, but I'd love to see something else rather than franchise sequels. The wii move made them going a weird road of 'family, fun and simple' (and profitable); the wii u attempted to get back into capable hardware but failed to bring money. Maybe the NX will be the right blend.

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