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Miyamoto vs. Everyone Else
Ian_Bailey writes "Wired writes Nintendo won't grow up, because of Shigeru Miyamoto. The creator of some of the most popular franchises, and the head of most of Nintendo's creative development, constantly aims his games at children. Many other devloppers admire his creativity, and believe that a mature-themed game would rock the entire industry. A very interesting read, and a bit of insight into the 'God of Games'."
No mature themed games? What about Conker's Bad Fur Day?
Miyamoto's games aren't aimed at kids, per se. They're aimed at the young at heart, those that can set aside their preconceived notions and enjoy a game regardless of how "realistic" or "mature" it is.
I've been playing the Japanese import of the GameCube "Legend of Zelda" game, and it's easily the best game ever made, irrespective of it's "toon-shading".
Other console companies aiming for the adult market (like most xbox and ps2 titles); Nintendo is a breath of fresh air for those people still buying for their kids.
You can count on the nintendo offerings to be kid friendly and family oriented. I'll admit that's not really my cup of tea, but it's definitely the strong part of the market for Nintendo.
Any deviation from that plan would be a mistake in my opinion.
Interestingly enough I find many of my friends (18-30) still play games. GTA3, State of Emergency, Hitman, etc. are all really violent and have adult themes. They are also only as entertaining as your attention span is long. On the other hand most of my friends pick up the Nintendo titles for thier replay value, unique themes, and solid track record. Pikman was fun, differant, and entertaining time and time again. The Zelda series have been some of the best games I've played and I look forward to the Gamecube release. Many of my friends feel the same.
So while the gamers have gotten older, the desire to game hasn't necessarily changed. Many gamers look for solid games with more than just adult themes. If I want to play an adult themed game I can pick up any of a thousand variations. If I want to play a challenging, unique game that is going to keep me interested I don't have much to choose from. I feel Nintendo fills this niche even more than the family oriented nature of the games.
Look the only people who are too 'mature' for bright colors and kiddy themed games are 12-14 year old boys.
Truly mature people can appreciate the quality of the game weather it has lots of blood and guts or if it doesn't. Adults can appreciate both Mario and Vice City.
The only truly adult games I can think of (besides porn, I mean) are the hard-core simulations, like Gran Tourismo or to a certain extent counterstrike.
Anyway, Nintendo has plenty of money. They can hire more 'sophisticated' artists if they want to.
I say let Miyamoto do what he wants. Don't try to control a genious.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I totally agree with you.
The problem is because of all the technical skills needed to makes games these days. For example, programmers working on the PS2 need a good working knowledge of assembly to pull off some of the more advanced tricks and features of other consoles.
Maybe one day proper toolkits will be made and sold for cheap to developers to create fun games, while they purchase virtual actors to place in their game without the need to create models and animate that for all the actions. That way designers can focus on the content, simmilar to the independant scenes in audio and video now.
But now, when systems are so complex and gamers crave innovation every game needs its own engine, something that requires months of work, games do indeed need to make a profit to work. It has been recently emphasised by execs that the games industry is becoming a 'hit' industry, where 5% of the games account for 95% of the profits.
Of course, you can avert this kind of problem from happening. Buy games that were made by small teams, or didn't need as large as a budget, or aren't doing so well. Let the companies know that you appreciate their efforts. Help spread the hype away from the Metroid Primes and the Halos and the GTAs.
It may be worth noting that Mario Sunshine has not set any real sales records. In Japan, it has still not even broken a million copies being out for almost a year. In fact, it is only hovering around 700,000 copies, with is rather disappointing considering the hype of the title.
It has fared a bit better in the US, selling about 810,000 so far. But, overall, it is rather lackluster performance from a rather lackluster (in my opinion) game.
Also, I saw one poster say that Miyamoto produced Metroid Prime. This is only half-correct. Miyamoto was a representitive from Nintendo HQ in overseeing the development of Metroid Prime. Retro Studios came up with the concept, and did all the work. They deserve pretty much all the credit, not Miyamoto.
While one can respect Miyamoto for his achivements, many people in the industry only respect him for his reputation and past work. His recent works has fared rather lackluster in the market, and most critisize him for trying to simplify his games too much. (Such as his goal that all games be playable with only two buttons.)
Miyamoto is not "God", as some would put it, but mearly a very talanted game designer. There are many others that are quite talanted (such as Yuji Naka, Hideo Kojima, or Shinji Mikami for instance) but don't get the recognition due to lack of the "star" status.
I realize this is an unpopular view among the Slashdot crowd, but it's more of the view from inside the gaming industry.
Just some friendly perspective... =)
-Jayde
What's a sig?
I've been a fan of Conker's BFD since I bought it for less than ten bucks at a K-Mart that was going out of business. But I think the pile of BFD's on the ruins of the department store's electronics counter shows the problem: people (that is, the mindless herd, not we the enlightened) can't handle cognitive dissonance.
Conker, the main character, is terribly cute. He curses and fights with a singing monster named the Great Mighty Poo.
Begin mental meltdown...
The game is cute and gameplay is intuitive and fun. One scene involves enticing a big breasted sunflower into intimate relations with a drunken king bee.
TILT!
Faced with this situation, Nintendo took what I suppose was the only logical path: they sold one of their hottest developer groups to rival Microsoft.
It was interesting to me that BFD was one of the last N-64 games... one review I read described it as "the last must-have N-64 game." I saw a kid-friendly Game Boy game featuring Conker the Squirrel at Blockbuster, but didn't rent it... what would be the point? That character is indelibly linked, in my mind, to the Song of the Great Mighty Poo.
So it wasn't too huge a surprise to me when I read the news that Microsoft had bought Rare from Nintendo. I don't know how Rare managed to get Conker out Nintendo's door, but I'm guessing that someone wasn't too happy about it.
I sure wouldn't want to buy anything from the Redmond Empire... but if BFD-2 comes out for X-Box, I may have to put my moral compass back in the box. That said, I like the idea that I can turn to Nintendo for kid-friendly games that -- hopefully -- won't put the adults to sleep.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.