DS bubble may have burst - Matsuura Comments by Ellie Gibson

There is so much available on DS that this makes sense.... plenty of choice.

Time for a new revamped DS?

Nooo! I will fight to defend my beautiful DS!

Well, it seems like today every developer wants to make a brain training game. And once you've bought Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, there really isn't any point to buying another, certainly not in the eyes of joe the average consumer.

Give it a year and there'll be a similar story about the Wii.

Parappa wasnt too great as well guys...

Maybe if someone made some games of any worth on the DS. Yes I know everyone bangs on about the excellent games available on the DS, but lets face it, last year was a shit year for the DS, with a couple of highlights. I mean I dont know whats surprising, "WOW, PEOPLE HAVE STOPPED SPENDING £20 ON FLASH GAMES THAT ARENT EVEN GAMES BUT "HUMAN IMPROVEMENT SOFTWARE"

fucking newsflash required for that lol

What was the last truly great DS game? Zelda? And before that? Mario Kart maybe? New Super Mario Bros.? I dunno what point I'm trying to make here, but there's not a huge amount of amazing games out there and everyone's churning out 'My Baby Training in an African Veterinarians' and such shovelware.

Is there anything due that looks great? Kingdom Hearts, Revenant Wings, Professor Layton, Apollo Justicet...OK there ARE great games but they get lost in amongst all the shit. And shit sells so the shops stack 'em high.

Damnit, beaten to it...

last year was a shit year for the DS, with a couple of highlights

it's only been a shit year if you don't look past the big-name games like zelda, or if the only place you go to find out about new DS games is the shelves of asda. the problem with popular consoles is the hidden gems always get buried under mountains of games about horses.

So stop making shitty brain training clones and make something that isnt copying a Nintendo million seller. The DS has a userbase big enough to support niche titles (Electroplankton case in point).

...and yet it keeps selling like hot cakes!!

Whats that all about?

Most developers put out crap shovel ware that dilutes the greatness of this excellent and accessible little machine. What I see here are developers that are running scared because they can't decide which demographic to design their games for. Its been a long time since there was a games console that crossed so many demographic borders and thats where the challenge is. Surely the variety of the demographic should make the machine easier to develop for. Thats a lot more targets to hit.

And anyway lets face it what purpose does buying 'super duper brain enlarging challenge funtime 2' have if you already have 'Super duper brain enlarging challenge funtime 1'.

Sequel to shovelware copycat title sells less shocker! lol :)

Mainly, what he said was that it has stopped being easy for people to make money with games like face training/eye training/mind training etc. There was a lot of bandwagon jumping following the success of Nintendo's first casual games (Nintendogs and Brain Training, especially), but this bubble may have burst. And I, for one, don't regret it at all.

I buy about one DS game a year (thank you Advance Wars!) and I feel like a lot of others are the same

Yes, the shovelware bubble has burst. That's good news, actually.

Jontacular wrote:

"Give it a year and there'll be a similar story about the Wii."

I disagree. I think that's unlikely, because there's not been such an explosive title as Dr. Kaw's, on the Wii, for everyone to latch onto. The hardware shortage probably helps Ninty here, too? (when people get their Wii, there's sure to be a broad range of software to choose from.)

So, there's not been that title that publishers seek to emulate, hoping to follow in its success. The Wii (within its remit) has been a far more balanced platform, with no break-out hits, but strong sales throughout (though Nintendo's choke-hold of software sales I do think is cause for some concern.)

The Wii seems to be where all the buzz is, and NOE (who do such a wonderful job on promotion, to traditional games/fans) and perhaps Nintendo as a whole, now have found themselves a VERY deep well (not ocean) from which they can extract sales readily for DS, but the DS is becoming typecast. It's difficult not to see Nintendo choosing to concentrate on Wii, and leaving their successful portable to its own destiny, as a slow burner, buoyed by third-parties.

DS could use Nintendo to successfully release something in a style unlike those of, Kawashima, or puzzles - but is hugely entertaining - a difficult MO, considering that Brain Training was created within ninety days, and Nintendo probably didn't believe itself that it would have these kind of legs on it!

aine, like what, i didnt have any pc or console over the summer, so played only my DS, and I have an R4 so have any game I want, and I didnt play a single game on it this year that was better than a 7

Everyone has mixed opinions about games, thats the nature of the beast. No one can deny that some DS games have been extremely successful though.

Check out some of these numbers.

http://gaming.monstersandcritics.com/wii...

The Brain Age series puts Halo, GEoW and GTA to shame (not actually to real shame of course, as all three sold extremely well, just not to the tune of 20m copies).

clearly every DS owner is just downloading the games

Nintendo's problem is that they create these great first party games but, don't really have the hardware or tools to allow third parties to create similar titles.

WiiWare for instance, was touted as this great indie way into Wii development and instead turned out to be nothing of the sort. While millions of Wii may have been sold (I have one gathering dust now). The good games are so few and far between it's not even funny. So far I have Zack and Wiki, Mario Galaxy and Zelda! My title collection will most likely end with Mario Kart, Smash brothers and maybe crystal chronicles.

So for the lifetime of my Wii I'm looking at maybe 6 titles!

I also meant to add, that this is the same situation I find myself in with the DS. Great machine but, nothing remotely interesting out for it. What happened to crystal cronicles for that?

Where are the rest of the Turn Based strategy games eh? Haven't bought one for over a year now, in fact the only DS game i bought last year was Puzzle Quest, and i solved that :-(

Then again, i went into game with a list of 5 games i was gonna buy and play down at my parents for xmas, and they didn't have any of them!

Suxxor....

WiiWare for instance, was touted as this great indie way into Wii development and instead turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Can you see into the future then because WiiWare isn't even out yet.

He's saying that devs who copy existing games (like the flooded training genre) are seeing diminishing returns. Isn't that more to do with the quality of the software then wether or not the bubble has burst? The public being tired of the endless brain training copies.

Nintendo's problem is that they create these great first party games but, don't really have the hardware or tools to allow third parties to create similar titles.

Oh, so you have seen the SDKs for the DS and the Wii that Nintendo uses and you have also seen the allegedly inferior SDKs that developers have to put up with? And what hardware are you talking about? I think most developers have this machine called a PC in their office which is exactly the type of hardware you need.

Also, as already mentioned, WiiWare hasn't even started yet, how can you even remotely judge how good the games will turn out? The main argument about WiiWare is the cost involved for developers to actually get started. The SDK is extremely cheap compared to all the others and you can easily get them. You don't have to need a working prototype of a game that you have to show to even begin negotiations wether you are 'worthy' of a SDK or not if you want one.

As for the Wii, I think we will see something like this a year as well. Of course the Wii doesn't have something like Brain Training (yet?) but it's obvious that many developers still try to cash in a little on the whole concept of minigames. Of course Wii Sports is not Brain Training but the effect it has on 3rd party developers can be compared to that of Brain Training.

"Where are the rest of the Turn Based strategy games eh? Haven't bought one for over a year now, in fact the only DS game i bought last year was Puzzle Quest, and i solved that"

Erm...nobody has told you that the new Advance Wars was released only last week???

But yeah, point taken in general about the total lack of TBS DS games. I'm still amazed (and disappointed) that there hasn't yet been a Fire Emblem DS game yet, and how many years has the DS been available for? Three?

The DS is great, it's just 2007 that was a bit pants!

I don't think the longetivity of the console is the thing in question here. Its the type and style of games they are releasing for it. Publishers have fallen into the trap of thinking that the only games that can be sucessful are casual games. Games like Brain Training, Big brain academy etc are basically gimmick games which have no long term appeal past the first few months of novelty. Publishers now think that this is all DS can do, which is wrong. There is a huge amount of potential the DS has on offer, mainly due to publishers just releasing 'me too' titles on fads...kind of causes problems when the fads pass huh?

Can't go out and buy one though.

@DjchunKfunK

I work for a well known Game developer but, wanted to get a WiiWare kit for my own indie development. It turns out that unless I'm a well established company, I can't. I was litterally told that if I say I'm with my current employer, then I get a kit no question. If I say I'm buying it as a small new indie team I don't even get a courtesy reply from them.

They don't give devs like the guys who did crayon physics etc. etc. the time of day and yet these are supposed to be the audience WiiWare is aimed at.

Does that explain enough for you?

Edit: I should also add that WiiWare has been out for a while now. It's the channel that isn't available for ordinary gamers to download yet. WiiWare actally refers to the software developed using this new virtual distribution channel and some ninty supplied tools. When you get the end product it will simply be another game you download from a channel titled the Wiiware channel.

samk: Fire Emblem's coming. No release date yet, but it's on its way. http://uk.ds.ign.com/objects/142/1420993...

I've got to agree that Matsura doesn't really seem to be saying that the "bubble has burst" as such, more just that we're past the point where any old rubbish will sell as long as it's got touch controls and vaguely resembles a better game. Which can only be a good thing, IMO. It reminds me of the movie pundits who were questioning whether or not audiences were tiring of CG animated movies, because a few of them started to disappoint at the box office - just like with DS games, it's not that they're tired of the medium, it's just that they're no longer wowed by its novelty, so perhaps they now have to be - gasp! - actually GOOD to succeed. So honestly, I don't see a huge problem here - the DS, for my money, has possibly the healthiest library of any of the current consoles, and I see quite a bit of promise in a number of upcoming releases (Ninja Gaiden, DQ9, Sonic Chronicles, Phoenix Wright). Basically, I don't think DS owners should panic just yet...

'Me too!' games no longer selling? Shocking!