(1) Nintendo Follow-Up [9/21]

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Granted most of them do look pretty ugly...or just very stupid design ideas, the few that are awesome + the game's graphics and storyline are enough to make me wanna buy it...
 
...So pretty much Nintendo isn't allowing WPM to show *any* pics of the game or its pokemon until the game's release in America? >:O

I'll tell ya one thing: there are going to be a lot of homeless guys with bloody noses walking around my neighboorhood suddenly. >:eek:
 
The site had every single Pokemon! That's the entire thing! As the lawyer himself said, they've gone way above fair usage. Normally this is turned a blind eye to, but if it is going to impact on their sales then they can do what they like to fan sites.
But we have always got ALL leaked sprites when a game was releashed! Why didn't they do anything when DP came out then? :b
 
@Poke'maniac
I understand where you're coming from, but what a fan you are!
WPM is not "coming off as whinging and very selfish", he's far from it.
After all of the hard work and dedication he has put in to this website, the least he deserves is a bit of sympathy.
Nintendo IS "attacking" him, to think otherwise is complete BS, their are other measures Nintendo can go to, to stop the distribution of the "illegal" sprites, eg: Releasing the freakin' games around the world at the one time! Oh and their is no such thing as "the best time" to release a game, if anything December is "the best time", since Christmas is around the corner.

For X amount of years websites have being posting the sprites of the new Pokemon games and as far back as i can remember. From generation 3, Pokebeach has being posting sprites, so why all of the attention now??
I can tell you why, because independent websites are doing a better job at promoting the huge franchise, (that is Pokemon) than they can ever do, these websites are giving us an immediate and up to date informative run through of the Pokemon games.
Take away, one website (Pokebeach) and their will be another website to replace it sooner or later, this is something that is almost impossible to get rid of, unless they take the following action:
1. Release the games on date WORLD WIDE (the same date as Japan)- We all know that's the only way they'll be able to keep anything from the modern world of the internet.

Lastly, if you didn't know, the new Pokemon games, are aimed at an OLDER audience, not a younger one, just sayin'!!
 
they don't realize that we're like journalists this is our job to report the news....

Actually it's not our job. It's certainly not our career or profession (i.e we are neither contracted nor commissioned to undertake the job of officially reporting the media).

Ultimately, the extent of free reign of a fan is only as far as the officials allow. 90% of the time, the officials don't say anything, but if and when we do get that other 10%, it serves as a reminder of who still calls the shots.

I say save the fanrage for when they truly cross the line, which would be something like a lawsuit on WPM. A media blackout isn't the end of the world. I mentioned yesterday a lot of western companies actually do that (force beta testers to sign NDAs)


Charizard_Knight said:
if you didn't know, the new Pokemon games, are aimed at an OLDER audience, not a younger one, just sayin'!!

It's not. It's aimed at EVERYONE. Check the CERO rating of the japanese BW game, it's rated A, which means all age groups. As usual. Just like all previous games which got E-rating from ESRB
 
@Charizard_Knight

Actually, there is a right time. You see, Christmas is when there's a big boom of games, and often titles get lost in it. I think even Pokemon could be lost among consoles, big, grungy titles and whatever else. Why bother when people will buy it any time? After Christmas people have Christmas money, which gives them an amount of money they wouldn't have any other time in the year. This is especially important if the game is aimed at slightly older people(which I don't think it is, I think they're trying to expand their target market rather than shift it) then the teens definitely won't want to get Pokemon games instead of Heavy Gear of War Metal : Deluxe Death Blood Version. Plus advertising is more expensive and abundant around Christmas, shops will want more shelf space for a diverse range of game, etc. etc. etc. So they probably don't want a Christmas release. Why September for Japan? Your guess is as good as mine, but suffice to say they probably have a good reason!

There are multiple reasons they've started caring about the fan sites:
The internet is ballooning and the world's still catching up. For gen 1 it wasn't an issue at all. Gen 2 it would hardly have mattered. Gen 3 it would have begun to be an issue and Gen 4 is when they probably woke up to the problem. Gen 5 and now everything is the internet. Our television is talking about the internet for Christ's sake!

Also, from the fact that they have taken away the old Pokemon, they clearly want the great feeling of seeing a new sight to be a big part of the game. It's for this reason I've been trying to stay spoiler free! (and doing a pretty bad job of it. =/)

And honestly Pokemon don't owe him any "sympathy"! This is nothing against him, they're just assuring the success of the series in the future. Someone voiding the laws of free use shouldn't be allowed to impact on sales figures just because they do a lot of hard work. WPM does a good thing, but that sense of satisfaction is his payment. Nintendo owes him nothing.

EDIT:
@Shwam- Yes, but you've got to understand they probably have an entire sector devoted to working these things out, and a marketing plan that they don't want to get interrupted by fan sites.
 
Looks like I was right in what I posted @Pokejungle under the name Evil Raichu in their email post, they wanted it to be a surprise and got shitty because it was spoiled, ie: Nintendo buggered themselves.

Nintendo's courses of action should have been:
Send a preemptive Cease and Desist before the BW's announcement and made sure it spread.
Worldwide release.

And, despite what Nintendo fanboys might say, the game could have been out by now, MGS4 was a world wide release and that had far more dialog that one would expect of Pokemon, and Nintendo is bloody lazy. They really are. The game was likely in late Beta or finished by the time the announcement was done(It's been in Dev since 06), they should have started localisation then. They know pokemon is a sure fire seller and information spreads fast.

Nintendo is at fault because they are lazy and/or still live in a pre96 era in either scenario.
 
@Poke'maniac

" Nintendo has revealed that Pokémon Black and White, released
September 18 in Japan, have sold a combined 2.63 million copies, making a
record for most copies of any Japanese videogame sold within the first
two days. For comparison, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Versions sold 1.58
million copies in the same time period.‌" -http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pokemon-Black-and-Pokemon-White/111576035530636

"Impact on sales figures"- i hope you weren't talking about a negative impact.
If anything these fan sights are like CoroCoro to us or Pokemon Sunday, They promote the game when the information is revealed and when the consumer (us) wants it, these fan sights, fulfill the demand the company can't.
 
This is completely ridiculous. I feel so bad for you WPM.

This is the internet. There is absolutely no way Nintendo can stop people uploading in-game images or sprites or even video walkthroughs of the games. They can't out-lawyer the internet. It's impossible. Sending the legal team after one or two websites is like a drop in the ocean. It's pointless. What one website stops detailing, another starts to cover.

Fansites like Pokebeach are used by people that, 99 times out of 100, will go on to buy the game. It increases the likelihood of people buying the game. I don't know how Nintendo sees the game coverage as a bad thing. Does no-one in the company see the merits of these fansites? Have they never used them before?

As WPM said, simultaneous releases in the future is the way to go. Information is sent in seconds nowadays. This is the age of the internet, and plentiful access to video recorders and cameras to capture screenshots of adverts and pictures of magazines like Corocoro. If we want information we can have it in an instant. If a game is released in Japan, we'll know everything the Japanese players do in seconds through Twitter, fansites and forums. We may even know it before then (like with Pokexperto and his info).

The world is a small place now. You can't release a game in one country and expect people in another country to close their eyes and ears for 6/7/8 months. That's madness. Especially when translations could be done so quickly. Pokemon isn't exactly filled with in-depth, life-changing storylines. The actual NPC text and that can be translated and written very quickly. There is no reason why English names for Pokemon and moves can't be decided upon during the creation process. I'm sure the pokemon designs are finished ages before the release date.

Nintendo needs to change its attitude, not Pokebeach or the internet. Move with the times, instead of trying to stifle those of us that have embraced the information age with lawyers.
 
@Charizard_knight: they are great sales figures, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be better. besides, Japan's not the problem, it's the International release that's being spoiled.

EDIT: Also people seem to forget about packaging/distribution/finding buyers/marketing/localization(not the same as translating)/non-English translation/other things we don't know about because we aren't in the industry. Once again, there's a lot more to a release date then when the game will be ready.
 
Waspy said:
Nintendo is at fault because they are lazy and/or still live in a pre96 era in either scenario

Nintendo may not have changed much regards to pokemon, but IMO pokemon itself hasn't changed much either. A lot of the core infrastructure of pokemon hasn't changed. One of my friends, upon seeing BW stuff for the first time, remarked "lemme guess: once again, professor, mom, rival, gym, gym, forest, gym, gym, gym, gym, cave, gym, gym, elite 4, yay its over?" :D
 
Uh XieRH please don't paraphrase me so loosely. Also ironically to my understanding that isn't the structure of this game! (Although I only know what a friend has told me since I'm staying light on spoilers)

And Pokemon has changed a great deal. What was once a game of gameplay is now about being flashy. the games are getting deeper and deeper and more competitive-based.

Nintendo are perfectly in control here and what seems like a rash cover-up is actually a calculated move. I'd say waiting 3-4 days was actually part of their plan, so the hard-core fans had a chance to see everything(which isn't what they're against), reducing their temptation to go against the C&Ds. They are ready, they are prepared, and they know what they're doing a lot better than any of us.
 
From what we read I am pretty sure what the lawyer means is that these images are not within America's public domain until they are hoisted onto Pokemon's American Website. This will put them within our country's public domain. Until then I suggest not putting them back up.

It's really weird that they decided to do this only with Black & White, but I guess because it's supposed to be a completely new experience for all users new and old they want to keep it under wraps as tight as they can get them.
 
Yurusumaji@ Hmmm you're actually right... its our own fault that we ended up in this. We should just not had leaked all that stuff in the first place :b
 
@Pokémaniac
apologies the quote was supposed to be cited from waspy not you/. Ive fixed it


regarding extent of change, I havent really seen anything much since contests were added (that was probably the first time pokemon had uses other than battling each other). Graphics have improved, but that's characteristic of any game franchise.
 
What about the Phy/Spe split? The WiFi shift? Double Battles? Triple Battles? The specialization of Pokemon? The Dream World, whatever that may turn out to be? Lots of things change, and the experience you get playing even RS compared to DP is radically different, even if it is still the same formula.
 
Considering we already had double battles, I am not really hyped over triple battles. Would probably be less so if they ever wanted to try quadruple battles.

Wifi is just a different medium of inter-player communication.

I'm not saying there's no difference, I just personally don't consider the differences to be radical unless you really go deep beneath the surface and look at the nitty gritty technicalities (phy/spe split is an example). It's true that these days, innovation is overrated, as many developers try to be creative just for the sake of doing so, and end up failing when they are unable to do a good implementation of an otherwise potentially good idea. But I don't think a franchise should stagnate too much either.
 
But the actual game feels completely different. I don't think trying to sum up a game's changes in words does it justice. Also Triple Battles play out differently to Double battles. From what I've heard they're like playing a Single battle open-handed with free switches.
 
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