MTV's Totilo thinks Nintendo's done with single-player

by Justin McElroy on Nov 5th 2007 3:58PM

You know that moment at the end of the thriller when the main character realizes that their best friend has been the murderer the whole time, and they start flashing back to scenes that before might have seemed random but now all start making sense? That's a little like the sensation we got reading MTV's Stephen Totilo's recent piece in which he puts forth the theory that Nintendo's in the middle of leaving single-player behind completely in favor of multiplayer experiences.

Totilo has some solid backup too, pointing at everything from Super Mario Galaxy's co-op play to Nintendo's recent group-centric advertising. "Where I'm going with all of this is the idea that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess may be a relic of a previous era," he writes. We're not sure whether to be excited or terrified.

Source

Tags: DS, mtv, nintendo, stephentotilo, Wii, zelda

Reader Comments (51)

That's weird.

I approve of this situation. Except I need more friends to play with.

._.

Noob.

Stupid. Sure, multiplayer is going to become a bigger part of all games, but it isn't even worth arguing the fact that Nintendo most certainly isn't done with single-player.

I had just got done reading this

http://malstrom.50webs.com/risingcontinent.htm

And I had to laugh at this headline.

That article became less and less readable as I went on due to the author's overuse of italics and shitty random ass commentary pretending that someone was arguing with him.

everyone is moving towards multiplayer. i'd argue Microsoft is doing it moreso than Nintendo with their Live program

Best Joystiq article picture ever!

Also, I don't know enough fellow gamers to make this exciting for me. I'm struggling as it is to find people to play Rock Band with.

That picture is hilarious

Nintendo has been geared from the start towards multiplayer. So more and more emphasis on it? Of course. Scrapping entirely the single player mode?

Don't be daft.

Goddammit no. That would suck so hard.

Fortunately it's most likely not the case, but still- a horrifying thought.

great pic!

To some extent I agree but let's be fair here.

1. Mario was originally a 2 player game.
2. Zelda has had multiplayer a la Four Swords
3. Metroid had multiplayer last gen although most thought it sucked.
4. Mario Kart, Brawl, sports games were alwasy multiplayer.
5. The N64 was the only system its generation to have 4 controller ports, and AFAIK the first system to have it period.
6. Gamecube had a handle so you could carry it around and play with friends.

So I see what he means but basing that on one game is iffy logic. Nintendo has always been about multiplayer.

The SNES had an adapter packed in with Super Bomberman, IIRC, which brought the system's port total up to 5. I think it was called the Super Multitap. I think Hudson even made a similar one way before that for the PC Engine.

Still, those adapters were sold separately. The N64 was 4 port out of the box.

I've still have my Four Score for my NES, my Super Multitap for my SNES, and I have 2 Game Boys, 2 copies of Tetris, and a Game Link cable. Nintendo's always been about multiplayer. They had a 16 player game on the original Game Boy for dick's sake. Faceball 2000.

Giving up on single player though? Nobody on the planet's doing that ever, or else we'll get more crap like Shadowrun.

Well I don't count these. Hell the Sega Saturn had a 6 player adapter.

And SATURN BOMBERMAN had up to TWELVE PLAYER MULTIPLAYER.

Yes, you read that right.

Man I hated you guys with your 12 player Bomberman! I was playing 5 player Super Bomberman 2, and then I downgraded to 4 player Bomberman 64!!! Bomberman 64 is still my favorite though.

But yeah, 4 player gaming wasn't standard until the N64, with GoldenEye, Mario Kart 64, and Smash Bros. rocking it out.

Now the Wii has 8 player Bust-a-Move, but sadly it sucks ass... :(

Yeah, Nintendo is king of offline multiplayer, and i could see them pushing for more emphasis to help keep this Wii of theirs shooting up into the ionosphere, but not abandoning completely, not when they are the creator of Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem

I think that everyone is going more towards multi player. More and more multi player is being made a bigger deal. GTA 4 has co op and Halo 3 is best knowen for its multi player and co op.

Get that cockgobbler off my joystiq homepage.

well seeing as 9/10 times (that 1 exception recently being call of duty 4) i hate playing multiplayer, so this would just give me 1 more huge reason to never touch a nintendo system again

Single player will live on, but stories will become more and more stale and derivative as time progresses.

If Nintendo was so interested in abandoning single-player, then they wouldn't have cut multiplayer from Metroid Prime 3 and said that they felt that some games aren't built for multiplayer.

You can't cut something that was never there

It was in development, but they cut it early.

I lost respect for this guy when he said Phantom Hourglass was his last Zelda.

What game reviewer would say something so stupid? Burned out? I can understand, having 2 Zelda games in less then a year. But to say you are done forever with the series when both games are excellent. Maybe he should rethink his career choice, because he's going to HAVE to play Zelda again some day.

I'm going to have to agree with good ol' Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation on this one. In general, "multiplayer would have to start teleporting whores into the room before I started caring." Enough with your damn pay-per-month MMOs, party/sports games, and other games that are only half-fun with multiplayer. I demand my old style games in which I can have fun alone with no retarded 12-year old screaming about how gay people are.

(How I wish all game developers would hear this next one) Pay more damned attention to the storyline and how fun the game is than how many damned pixels you can waste on somebody's teeth. Do this and I swear you'll be able to sell more than ten thousand of any given game.

I agree with that. ONLINE CO-OP IS FUCKING OVERRATED!!! Multiplayer is fun, but it shouldn't be the reason why you buy the game (the only ONLY exception to this rule is Halo).

Seriously I want to bash people's heads in every time they complain about a game not having online co-op and threatening not to buy it, even if the single player game is incredible.

Although I doubt it would ever happen, if the next Zelda was some mulitplayer fest like 4 Swords (although it was cool), I'd poop myself.

Or worse, some microgame bullshit...*shudders*

Link's Crossbow Training.

I swear, if Nintendo try to pass that shit off as the next installment in the Zelda series, I will laugh my ass off.

Why don't we all just pull random crap out of our butts.

My prediction: Sony is done with (decent) games.

In the past few years many gamers would cry if there wasn't some kind of multiplayer aspect to a game.

I could care less if a game has multiplayer or not. Give me a good single player game any day.

If Nintendo every completely abandoned single player I think I'd pretty much quit playing video games as an activity. I like playing with people, but I prefer to just kind of sit and go through a fun game and not have to worry about competitiveness and stuff sometimes.

I almost forgot

If multiplayer Zelda or Mario happens before Hi-Def, 5.1 surround sound Zelda/Mario, with a full orchestral score recorded in Dolby's surround format, I will punch....somebody

I actually wouldn't mind a co-op only Zelda, but only if it were like a side game to the main one of something.
It would be potentially sweet to have to work with another person to get through dungeons and stuff.
But if they ever switched the series' focus to co-op, forget it. I don't think I could bring myself to play it.

Remember when king asshat Tommy Tallarico said Twilight Princess should have had online multiplayer? Remember how we all laughed at him because he's batshit crazy?? That was great.

Single player games aren't going anywhere.

I'm getting Smash Bros. for multiplayer, and I'm getting Galaxy for single player. It's the Nintendo way.

Why is ANYONE taking someone from MTV seriously in the first place? What's wrong with you people? Are you all avid Halo fans or something?

That he thinks they would leave it behind completely is idiotic, however

neat little assist modes like Galaxy's co-op are, well, neat, but they really are single-player excellence at their core

My name alone should tell you what I think of this.

And I wish MTV would stop trying to get into the game industry. They'll only mess it up (like they mess everything else up).

Am I biased? Yes, I'm biased against MTV.

you are tobias!

I disagree, but then who knows more about alienating their fanbase and selling out than MTV?

I call shenanigans.

I would kill for a 3D 4 Swords Adventure, but make it online so there is no split-screen or fixed camera. It should be like that for the next DS Zelda game... Imagine 3 other Links helping you kill monsters, while you voice chat with them. You see where they are on the top screen, and can meet up with them if you need.

A Wii Zelda co-op game is long off, actually any Wii Zelda game is long off. The future ones will probably end up having some sort of online play, but will be fully optional.

I think they should've had Four Swords 3 (FSA = FS2, I guess) as a part of Phantom Hourglass. While the game of cat-and-mouse that is the multiplayer aspect of PH is fun, a new FS, with WFC support, would've been grand.

anyone working for mtv is automatically a retard

More co-op isn't a bad thing, in fact we could use more of it.

Hmmm, the thousands of (incorrect) people screaming for multiplayer in MP:3 would beg to differ...and I don't really see the "2nd player can shoot stars" mechanic in SMG as constituting "multiplayer"

Sorry, MTV lacks any respect from me, in opinions or otherwise.

Nintendo has more than enough resources to keep a few single player games in the works no matter the situation, games such as Super Mario Galaxy's co-op falls short of a full co-op experience, such games can be considered single-player as you don't need a second player, and handheld games remain very single-player centric. If he had the foresight to suggest to a mild incorporation of co-op into most prominently single-player games (such as the case of Super Mario Galaxy) then maybe he would have had a point. However, as suggested in your reporting, he seems to be an uninformed gamer in a position to make unreasonable claims. Please stop reporting on events not noteworthy.

Look, this is entirely retarded. While I cannot argue with the push toward multiplayer games( I love online FPSes) an entirely multiplayer environment is silly. Games like Metroid are totally built upon the premise of being ALONE in a huge, uncharted world, and denying this is ludicrous...

Then why, in Super Smash Bros.: Brawl, are they pushing a stronger single player through Subspace Emissary?

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MTV's Totilo thinks Nintendo's done with single-player

Reader Comments (51)

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