I think you are developing waaaaay too strong an opinion on these companies as an outsider looking in. Plus I have never heard about anyone from From claiming that Namco-Bandai was a meddlesome publisher. DS2 may have been something of a cash-in, but the nature of that project seems to have been a mutual decision by…

It doesn't mean it'll be better, no, but with more money comes a longer development cycle (and/or more developers involved) and more time to make a game have more content and a more robust QA process.

That's starting to sound just a little vaguely fanboyish to me. I don't think they would go with a western publisher mainly out of precedent more than out of some odd notion that they would be meddlesome, but between Konami, SE, Namco-Bandai, Koei, etc. I don't think they would have any trouble finding another…

Sure, but it's not like there aren't other publishers out there that could offer them both money and autonomy while still letting them go multiplat.

The audience being bigger means you can pour more money into it. Obviously there is more to it than all of that, but there is little question that Dark Souls benefited from having a somewhat larger budget than Demon's Souls.

Wait until it releases. Hell, the PS4 might have had a price cut by then. Heck, you could even do what I did with Demon's Souls and wait until it's downright cheap. By the time I picked up Demon's Souls the PS3 slim was out and way cheaper than the PS3's launch price and Demon's Souls itself only cost me like 25.

Although that certainly doesn't mean there won't be something remarkably similar (and likely better on account of the larger potential audience) shortly down the line on all platforms. You know, like Demon's Souls > Dark Souls.

How so? You could put your entire skill tree on shortcut keys in Diablo 2 while you can never have more than 6 skills set in Diablo 3 (one of which is your basic attack).

I don't really see Pikmin as a niche game. It might be hard to classify in terms of genre (strategy puzzle?), but it's highly accessible and it has near to universal appeal.

We talking Zombi-U? I mean, I guess by some standards a map and inventory management qualify as 'utilizing the gamepad well', but I don't really think that's the kind of huge game changer people were hoping for.

MGS4 was a factor for me too, though I have to say it was a huge letdown coming from MGS3: Subsistence. MGS4 was a little too chaotic for my tastes.

To be fair the PS2 version of Resi 4 was kind of rubbish.

Heh, we wanted the game for an emotional experience and they certainly delivered on that front.

Ouch, the sarcasm, it burns.

I purchased a PS3 for Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

The Wii U is in a bit of a frustrating situation right now. Nothing the console has added (a touch screen controller mostly) is enough to get devs thinking about emergent gameplay, and without that there is no reason for a 3rd party to make an exclusive Wii U game. Even Nintendo has largely failed on that front with…

Whether or not that's the case, it doesn't change the situation for them with regards to whether making Nintendo ports of these games is financially worthwhile. If the Nintendo gamers are going to buy the games even if it's not on a Nintendo platform, there isn't anything gained for that.

Yeah, but it's not like all liquid is immediately sent to the bladder during digestion.

Well, you aren't exactly telling me anything I don't know. It's like I said, they are a mixed bag. I wasn't really implying that any other group of people are any different.

Ehhhh, gamers are a mixed bag. Some are nice and some are complete assholes. Some shift in and out depending on their mood. All you need to do is play 5 games of DOTA or LOL to figure that out.