other series like Metroid also sold very bad several times but still get another chance to come back. there's bias against F-Zero and in favor of Metroid.
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[Nintendo Life] Nightdive Studios Wants To Remaster Titles Like Eternal Darkness, But Hasn't Had Any Luck With Nintendo
- Thread starter Jawmuncher
- Start date
- Nintendo
other series like Metroid also sold very bad several times but still get another chance to come back. there's bias against F-Zero and in favor of Metroid.
LOL Nintendo works with 3rd parties, the problem is they won't greenlight a project just because someone asked them to do it. The decision has to come from them.
Metroid's sales on the GBA and Game Cube were infinitely better than F-Zero's. The only bias is money.
The key difference is that internally there is someone that champions Metroid and has ""clout"" inside the company, and that is Yoshio Sakamoto (for the main series) and Kensuke Tanabe (for Prime), and even then it seemingly took a lot of arm-twisting to get where we are now for Metroid, such as Sakamoto reaching out to Mercury Steam himself to work out something after seeing their work on Castlevania.
Do F-Zero and Eternal Darkness have someone that fits that criteria? Not that we know of (other than Toshihiro Nagoshi, who isn't part of the company and is off to his own ventures for now): and that + low sales = no games.
i'm not taking about the same era. the Metroid games right before Dread were selling as low as those F-Zero games that killed the series (Federation Force sold lower than the last F-Zero games which are the ones blamed for the series dying. Other M and Samus Returns never broke 1 million sold like GX either).
i know. still, it's annoying how on the other extreme there's Miyamoto actually working against any possibility of reviving the series with his comments about them needing some gimmicky controller to consider making a new game. there's other series such as Advance Wars that is also returning and doesn't have anyone like Sakamoto behind it pushing for the comeback.
Lol. You really think any company with salaried employees would do that?
There's no such thing as free ports. There are always contracts involved.
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I would love for Nightdive to be able to do any of the more ambitious N64 games, especially if there's still a 64DD version in the air somewhere. F-Zero X would be amazing for example! Wave Race would be another one! Pilotwings 64! They would do amazing work with those, I'm sure!
And GCN titles too, of course!
It's a great match, hopefully Nintendo sees the light at some point!
And GCN titles too, of course!
It's a great match, hopefully Nintendo sees the light at some point!
IPs from different companies. Nintendo has no bearing about what Nightdive does with those.
The problem is not the possible profits of Eternal Darkness, the problem is that it may not fit with the possible model that Nintendo wants for those games. If you release Eternal Darkness remastered, why not the rest of Game Cube with the same model? It would be expected.
There are a plethora of N64 titles that haven't been remastered and rereleased after Nightdive produced Turok. And Turok 2 though.
For comparisons sake...
www.resetera.com
Metroid sales:
F-Zero sales:
TBH outside of the funny fun fact that F-Zero SNES just slightly outsold Metroid Prime...Metroid does have a better track record than F-Zero as a whole lol. Metroid Prime to Metroid Prime 3 all outsold the post-SNES F-Zero games. And really outside of the remakes and the meme games, all of Metroid's titles have at least been million sellers, even MP Hunters of all things got to that point.
It feels like F-Zero dropped off way harder and faster in comparison.
Nintendo software and hardware sales data from 1983 to present
This post won't be updated here anymore. Click here to visit the page where the data will be updated from now on. It was made abundantly clear that this place [the staff or part of it] don't have regard for the efforts it takes to compile data nor understand that it's the aggregation of a small...
www.resetera.com
Metroid sales:
- Metroid Prime: 2.84 million
- Metroid Dread: 2.74 million
- Metroid: 2.73 million
- Metroid 2: 1.72 million
- Metroid Fusion: 1.60 million
- Super Metroid: 1.42 million
- Metroid Prime 3: 1.41 million
- Metroid Prime 2: 1.10 million
- Metroid Prime Hunters: 1.08 million
F-Zero sales:
- F-Zero SNES: 2.85 million
- F-Zero X: 1.10 million
- F-Zero: Maximum Velocity: 1.05 million
TBH outside of the funny fun fact that F-Zero SNES just slightly outsold Metroid Prime...Metroid does have a better track record than F-Zero as a whole lol. Metroid Prime to Metroid Prime 3 all outsold the post-SNES F-Zero games. And really outside of the remakes and the meme games, all of Metroid's titles have at least been million sellers, even MP Hunters of all things got to that point.
It feels like F-Zero dropped off way harder and faster in comparison.
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Exactly my point. The kex engine ports Nightdive studios have done, including DOOM64, are way more feature heavy and have far more QOL improvements, but there's still no expectation or demand any other n64 titles should have it, so why would people feel entitled to more heavily retooled GameCube titles if they were to do a single GameCube game?
Are Turok Rage Wars and Turok 3 Shadows of Oblivion tied up with Nintendo? It's so strange that both of these games didn't get a PC release.
Would love for Nightdive to look at them and also other N64 classics like Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo for modern release. As far as I know Battle for Naboo isn't even available on modern storefronts.
Fuck it just let them go wild. Let's get Beetle Adventure Racing, Snowboard Kids, 1080 Snowboarding, Hybrid Heaven, Mace The Dark Age, Vigilante 8, Winback and a bunch of others released. Fucking Star Fox 64 with online matchmaking would be cool as fuck, everything they touch they keep the spirit of the original while pushing meaningful changes and I hugely respect them for it. Nightdive should be set loose man.
Mario 3D All Stars shows that Nintendo has the total opposite philosophy. Kick it out the door and charge a premium.
Would love for Nightdive to look at them and also other N64 classics like Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo for modern release. As far as I know Battle for Naboo isn't even available on modern storefronts.
Fuck it just let them go wild. Let's get Beetle Adventure Racing, Snowboard Kids, 1080 Snowboarding, Hybrid Heaven, Mace The Dark Age, Vigilante 8, Winback and a bunch of others released. Fucking Star Fox 64 with online matchmaking would be cool as fuck, everything they touch they keep the spirit of the original while pushing meaningful changes and I hugely respect them for it. Nightdive should be set loose man.
Mario 3D All Stars shows that Nintendo has the total opposite philosophy. Kick it out the door and charge a premium.
Reality on the ground for Nightdive is that most of their work is only paid after delivery. You think all the old dead IP guards they have to chase down have the money to fund their old games? From stories Nightdive has told, they've convinced a lot of companies to let them resuscitate game IP by re-releasing the games, and I promise they aren't getting any money from those defunct dev houses -- if anything, they give kickbacks to the IP holder after they re-release the games. It's not free work; Nightdive has to fund their development up until they release, and then that is when they make money. The IP holder wins because they were doing jack shit with the IP, and they only stand to make money off a re-release.
Sure, though, a deal like the one they had with iD software was almost certainly a gig, and they were paid for it like any company would be if an outside source came to you for help. This situation with Nintendo is different though: Nightdive wants to re-release their IP, not the other way around, so the ONLY way for it to make financial sense is if Nintendo basically doesn't pay at all for development work, and they do revenue sharing after all is said and done, probably with a *healthy* split in their direction for risking their IP to a 3rd party foreigner developer.
Also, to the other person who quoted me, I'm not giving you 'proof' of the claim Nintendo doesn't want to work with a foreigner 3rd party when the actual posted article has a fucking quote from Stephen Kick saying exactly this, which you'd know if you read the OP.
Like you just said, that's still not free work. It's just an alternate paying method. They use the money attained from previous ports to fund next ones and there are contracts in place to guarantee that they have part of those sales. You don't say a pizza delivery man is doing free work.
That aside, it's sorta irrelevant. Nintendo would likely need to spend resources of their own to oversee the project. They just don't handle IP to randos and then tell them to go wild. They're famously hands-on with their projects.
Maybe that's not the correct word. More like "anyone".
Eve if it was Ubisoft or EA, they would still be hands-on. That's just part of their IP handling culture.
Another thing to consider is apart from F-Zero X, all the F-Zero million sellers have been launch titles and major graphical showcases at the time, both showcased their consoles graphics at launch with mode 7.For comparisons sake...
Nintendo software and hardware sales data from 1983 to present
This post won't be updated here anymore. Click here to visit the page where the data will be updated from now on. It was made abundantly clear that this place [the staff or part of it] don't have regard for the efforts it takes to compile data nor understand that it's the aggregation of a small...
Metroid sales:
MIA: Metroid Prime Pinball, Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Samus Returns, Metroid Other M, Metroid Prime Federation Force
- Metroid Prime: 2.84 million
- Metroid Dread: 2.74 million
- Metroid: 2.73 million
- Metroid 2: 1.72 million
- Metroid Fusion: 1.60 million
- Super Metroid: 1.42 million
- Metroid Prime 3: 1.41 million
- Metroid Prime 2: 1.10 million
- Metroid Prime Hunters: 1.08 million
F-Zero sales:
MIA: F-Zero GX, F-Zero GP Legend, F-Zero Climax
- F-Zero SNES: 2.85 million
- F-Zero X: 1.10 million
- F-Zero: Maximum Velocity: 1.05 million
TBH outside of the funny fun fact that F-Zero SNES just slightly outsold Metroid Prime...Metroid does have a better track record than F-Zero as a whole lol. Metroid Prime to Metroid Prime 3 all outsold the post-SNES F-Zero games. And really outside of the remakes and the meme games, all of Metroid's titles have at least been million sellers, even MP Hunters of all things got to that point.
It feels like F-Zero dropped off way harder and faster in comparison.
So I would assume Nintendo notices this and thinks that a key part of F-Zero appeal is being a launch title with industry pushing graphics. So in that case why would you make a F-Zero game that wasn't a launch title for a new console, with top of the line graphics?
To make such an F-Zero would be hard: Are many Nintendo games now considered visual showcases, with the way their hardware has gone? How much does it cost to make a visual showcase, is it worth the chance to get a million in sales?
These are problems that F-Zero has that metroid doesn't.
Also another thing to consider is that the remakes that didn't sell well for metroid also came late in their respective console lifespans, which could also explain their low sales.
I think Nintendo doesn't see much outside of Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon as "franchises" the way gamers do.
They made a few F-Zero games years ago when they had the creative inspiration for it, but it's been a long time and it's not a series anyone there has had a good idea for lately. You can likely say the same for Star Fox, Mother, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out, and other B-list franchises of theirs. If one of them gets an idea for a game and someone says "Hey that'd make a great Kid Icarus game," then you get Uprising or whatever. Otherwise? They don't feel obligated to release sequels regularly unless it's one of those three top series, and they only do it when they feel they can bring something fresh to it.
As for ED, I would absolutely salivate at the chance to play a remaster of that game. But I also recognize that it's a 19 year old game created by a dead studio headed by creeps, that it didn't set the world on fire the first time out despite all the anticipation and positive reviews, and that it's highly questionable that it would make them a profit. ED is unfortunately not even a game that has lingered strongly in the gaming conversation since release. So I also recognize it's a longshot Nintendo isn't likely to bank on.
They made a few F-Zero games years ago when they had the creative inspiration for it, but it's been a long time and it's not a series anyone there has had a good idea for lately. You can likely say the same for Star Fox, Mother, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out, and other B-list franchises of theirs. If one of them gets an idea for a game and someone says "Hey that'd make a great Kid Icarus game," then you get Uprising or whatever. Otherwise? They don't feel obligated to release sequels regularly unless it's one of those three top series, and they only do it when they feel they can bring something fresh to it.
As for ED, I would absolutely salivate at the chance to play a remaster of that game. But I also recognize that it's a 19 year old game created by a dead studio headed by creeps, that it didn't set the world on fire the first time out despite all the anticipation and positive reviews, and that it's highly questionable that it would make them a profit. ED is unfortunately not even a game that has lingered strongly in the gaming conversation since release. So I also recognize it's a longshot Nintendo isn't likely to bank on.
Not really, existing source code just ends up being the path of least resistance, and usually, but not always, that's from a PC version. And if it isn't, a PC build is sometimes easier to disassemble as we have a better understanding of the traps of x86 than other standards, but none of these are absolutes;
- Doom64 was of course an N64 title entirely and had to be disassembled, source code was presumed lost.
- Quake includes Quake64, which Kaiser managed to unpack from an N64 ROM.
- Powerslave Exhumed is a mixture of both PS1 and Sega Saturn disassemblies, no source code seemed to remain from both.
- Shadowman Remastered actually originates from the PS1 source code, the only code remaining, though with PC disassembly filling in the gaps of any changes/cuts. Funnily enough the PS1 source code had some of these gaps, just commented out.
- The Turok1 & 2 source code we managed to find was a combination of both the PC and N64.
- Forsaken pulled from every single version.
I guess when nintendo needs to come up with an excuse for something they should look up here lmao
Nightdive are kings, would've loved to see their work on eternal darkness, shame nintendo isn't interested
Nightdive are kings, would've loved to see their work on eternal darkness, shame nintendo isn't interested
this is an absolutely terrible idea, not just because wishing for more consolidation is bad, but also Nightdive specifically is so important to the industry. They work with a lot of PC/multi platform games and a lot of their catalog isn't even on switch. Even if Nintendo acquired them, which would be completely out of the MO of either company, that wouldn't mean that they would be allowed to work on ED. Just a completely out of left field post with a terrible idea.
The work you and your entire team does is amazing and simple words alone can't cover what needs to be said. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
P.S - Killing Time 3DO *gets dragged from thread kicking and screaming*
Samuel Villarreal might be the biggest PO'ed fan. It's definitely on the shortlist of things we'd do if given even the slightest possibility.
It's too bad, I feel like it'd be a good move for Nintendo given it's an IP they're not particularly interested in doing anything with themselves. It's sort of a no lose situation tbh.
Doing this sort of thing isn't foreign to Nintendo either. They license the Picross IP to Jupiter and their old arcade games to Hamster for recent examples of similar deals. Or the more involved co-IP deals with Koei Tecmo (Hyrule/FE Warriors), Bandai Namco (Pokkén), Spike Chunsoft (PKMN Mystery Dungeon), Atlus (Tokyo Mirage Sessions), Sega (Mario & Sonic Olympics) or Ubisoft (Mario+Rabbis). I would say Nintendo's long track record with those companies signal a difference but they also just worked with an indie studio (Brace Yourself Games) on the Cadence of Hyrule crossover and let Nvidia emulate a bunch of their Wii games for Chinese Shield release so even that's not entirely true.
Nightdive's been great on the Switch platform so that has to count for something. Hopefully they keep trying and this can lead to something down the line. If not Eternal Darkness for whatever reason, maybe still something else at least, Nintendo has a bunch of neglected GC/Wii stuff that could use Nightdive's treatment.
Doing this sort of thing isn't foreign to Nintendo either. They license the Picross IP to Jupiter and their old arcade games to Hamster for recent examples of similar deals. Or the more involved co-IP deals with Koei Tecmo (Hyrule/FE Warriors), Bandai Namco (Pokkén), Spike Chunsoft (PKMN Mystery Dungeon), Atlus (Tokyo Mirage Sessions), Sega (Mario & Sonic Olympics) or Ubisoft (Mario+Rabbis). I would say Nintendo's long track record with those companies signal a difference but they also just worked with an indie studio (Brace Yourself Games) on the Cadence of Hyrule crossover and let Nvidia emulate a bunch of their Wii games for Chinese Shield release so even that's not entirely true.
Nightdive's been great on the Switch platform so that has to count for something. Hopefully they keep trying and this can lead to something down the line. If not Eternal Darkness for whatever reason, maybe still something else at least, Nintendo has a bunch of neglected GC/Wii stuff that could use Nightdive's treatment.
Eternal Darkness is the textbook example on why commercial means of game preservation can't be the only option. Game is economically toxic to touch from its niche status in its IP holder's catalog, had a defunct studio work on it (who knows what impact that might have on things contractwise), and its controversial creators means the company has ever incentive to bury it to avoid a PR backlash.
I think it would be an extremely cool remake if done properly.
Never would have thought of Nightdive but yeah, they've done excellent work.
Never would have thought of Nightdive but yeah, they've done excellent work.
Much respect.
I personally loved ED and replaying it would probably be why I would actually get around installing CF on a Wii and ripping my copy to play in some newer way.
I wouldn't be surprised whenever GCN games become available on a VC/NSO like service if things like ED/Geist get another shot.
No idea why someone hasn't been given a chance at F-Zero though. I know it didnt sell "great", but 1.5M copies on the Gamecube isn't terrible. So it is a little surprising that something didnt happen on the 3DS or Switch. The folks at Shinen did some interesting work with the Fast series.
I personally loved ED and replaying it would probably be why I would actually get around installing CF on a Wii and ripping my copy to play in some newer way.
I wouldn't be surprised whenever GCN games become available on a VC/NSO like service if things like ED/Geist get another shot.
No idea why someone hasn't been given a chance at F-Zero though. I know it didnt sell "great", but 1.5M copies on the Gamecube isn't terrible. So it is a little surprising that something didnt happen on the 3DS or Switch. The folks at Shinen did some interesting work with the Fast series.
you know I love to shit on nintendo but the game sold like a dog's ass and is associated with a pedophile so I get it
