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Former Nintendo Boss Talks GameCube, PSP
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GamerFeed article translating an interview with former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamauchi about the state of gaming. The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into handheld gaming with the PSP ("I don't think [Sony] understand the game business... but software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition."), and also offers a different perspective on slipping GameCube sales ("Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone.")
Question: The Famicom (NES) recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, your thoughts?
Yamauchi-san: Fortunately, many people have the chance to enjoy it. It became impossible to procure a fixed number of parts to continue manufacturing the console, so production will stop this year.
Huh? Are they saying that the origional 8-bit NES / Famicom is STILL IN PRODUCTION? Or at least that it was until this year? Where? And can the top-loader still be had?
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they got competition. Not that they're limited to that. The ploriferation of colorful scenery and characters put Nintendo in a certain stereotype.
Metroid Prime proved they could do more, but there doesn't seem to be as much focus on the intricacies of more violent games. The RPGs have depth but other games seem to be well, a little thin.
On platforms recognized as designed for 3D there's an ironic turn. Now that the 3D is so rich, games designers can use that to focus on things such as hiding from enemies or looking over another character's shoulder. Nintendo's games aren't quite as involving.
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The /. summary of this article is very misleading. It says:
<quote>
The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into handheld gaming with the PSP ("I don't think [Sony] understand the game business... but software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition."),
<quote>
Actually, Yamauchi isn't dismissive at all, and the [Sony] in the summary is incorrect. It's the *analysts* who don't understand the game business. Here's the actual interview quote:
<quote>
Sony's PSP isn't expected to hit the market until late 2004, and there's still many unknown details about it. There have been analysts who think Nintendo has a monopoly over the handheld market and Sony maybe able to break it - I don't think they understand the game business. New product competition in this industry is important. Although Nintendo's core business is software, having another hardware developer will allow us to judge the superority or inferority of our machine. But software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition.
</quote>
Now, where exactly is he dismissive of Sony? Doesn't he actually accept the possibility that the Nintendo machine will be inferior?
Please use some basic reading comprehension before coming up with summaries like this...
Is it just me or does the PSP media look similar to GCN disks in a hard candy shell? Which brings me to my next point. If Nintendo could develop a handhelp that took optical media like the PSP is proposed to do and played GCN games...sweet! They could develop a carriage design, like old CD carriages, that would allow existing GCN games to be put into the machine. They could also develop games specifically for the GCNBoy that would look similar to the PSP media. Groovy.
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Nintendo has a similar problem to Apple. Apple still has a stigma of being a toy computer compnay, computers for morons and people who want to color coordinate their machine with the rug. That isn't really true anymore, but still when I tell non-geeks to look at Apple as an option for a new machine they look at me like I am crazy. Nintendo has the same type of issue, a lot of people think of their software and systems as a kiddy thing, and go buy a PS2 or XBOX. I have both a GCN and a PS2, and while I probably rent more games for the PS2 (more releases) the quality of the good ones for the GCN vs the quality of the good ones on the PS2 is much higher. Even the original SNES Mario Kart is far and away more fun (and for a longer period of time) than GTA/GTAVC.
So what, I can't kill whores in Mario Sunshine? At least that game is consistently fun, and well designed. GTA is a buggy mess that only sold well because of it's violence and nonlinear design, which made it accessible to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't play games or buy an entertainment system.
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"I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles"
sounds like a cop out to me. Anime is so violent they put disclaimers on it when it shows on American TV.
BC
They want to maintain a certain image, which is great in theory, but tough on sales. They may have a right to be stubborn, considering the quality of the core games they release is always phenomenal. Still they need to broaden the horizons, stop being the diva of the video game world and perhaps they can claim a bit more of the market share. This attitude of superiority has cost them the friendship of Sony and Square, two mistakes that they have been paying for ever since.
It's nice sometimes to be an adventurer and save princesses, but sometimes people do want to rob cars and kill prostitutes. Without giving the gamer a choice of that kind of game on your system, you are hampering your business.
Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles.
It's a funny juxtoposition but the quick answer is always something about how violent anime is yadda, yadda. I think I finally hit the cultural nail on the head today though when I read this story. It's not the vaunted 'tolerance for violence' that everyone keeps spouting (on both sides). It's simply a cultural preconception. In Japan it's okay for cartoons to be violent but games should be cute. In the US it's okay for games to be violent but cartoons should be cute. Neither country seems (in a general sense) to be able to get over these preconceived concepts.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
It's hard to read into Yamauchi's words since, on many occasions, he has been quoted as ferventing believing other companies are non-threats and being critical of them, even as Nintendo continues to lose to Sony. The absolute worst thing Nintendo can do is dismiss the threat Sony poses. I don't think Yamauchi has outright expressed that in this article, but both he and Nintendo in general have historically been arrogant about threats.
Sony knocked them from their throne with the PSX, and they probably have the best shot at tackling the Game Boy monopoly as well, especially if they can bring consistent, 3D games to the platform.
What they _should_ do is make a handheld of PSX/N64 level hardware that plays GCN sized disks. Like the PSP, the disks should have a hard shell like 3.5 floppies. When the next generation handheld after that comes out, it should be GCN level hardware, and they could sell empty cases that GCN disks could be put into and used in the exact same manner as the first generation disk-cartridges.
This would give Nintendo's second generation disk-based handheld double backwards compatibility, both with the first generation games and with GCN games. Nintendo really needs to do something like this, because i feel that they're going to have to make a switchover at some point now that they're competing against Sony. And if they don't switch over in the next generation, they're going to be in trouble when they do make that switchover, because they're going to lose their backwards compatibility advantage when they do the switch, and if they wait one mroe generation they'll be putting a handheld with no backwards compatibility up against the PSP2 which will have a ton of PSP games to play. It will be the PS2 vs. the GameCube all over again.
I guess if they were _really_ ambitious, they could try to make it both cartridge and disk-catridge compatible. They could do two different slots if they could find the room, or since i believe that gameboy cartridges are less wide than GCN disks (could be wrong though) they could have one slot that has a disk reader on the "top" and a cartridge port in the back. They'd just have to make a wide notch in the bottom that allowed you to push the cartridge all the way to the back.
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What I find interesting is that Yamauchi thinks that the Gameboy and PSP will not be in direct competition because of the software. HELLO! This is ancient thinking... look at what has happened to Nintendo with the N64 and GameCube? They lost LOTS of marketshare because it wasn't the software that dictated the market, but the PEOPLE who buy the games that dictate the market! Once an alternative hits the market, it's open season on portable gaming, be it the GBA or N-Gage or PSP... it comes down to price point and the types of consumers that want the games.
Nintendo has traditionally catered to children, and now that has hurt them in their quest to remain a player in the gaming industry. It's time for Nintendo to realize the industry's gamers are growing up, the customers that have been relied on in the 80s and 90s are spending more money now this century, and nobody's going to put up with Disney-like videogames forever. Mature themed games are more appropriate for adults, just like R-rated movies.
Nintendo: you will sink into the Pacific ocean if you don't get with the program... your consoles are tanking compared to the other console makers, and all you have left is your GBA to keep you making money... Shit, even MS gets this market better than you, even though they have been only doing consoles for 4 years (Dreamcast/XBox). It's sink or swim baby, and Mario just lost his dingy.
Last time i checked MagicBox, the GameCube sales in Japan were pretty abysmal too. How do you explain away that?
I like Nintendo as much as the next guy (well, better most likely) but i'm not so blinded that i can convince myself that they're doing _well_ at the moment, at least in the console area. They've managed to not get blown away by the XBox yet, but that's really damning with faint praise.
Unfortunatly unlike the N64 it's really hard to pick a few good reasons why they're not doing so well this round. Being tied at second or third to market (depending on if you want to count the Dreamcast) certainly didn't help. Neither does the kiddy perception. I've heard that their relations with 3rd party developers isn't great, though it's still far better than N64 days. I'm really not sure if disk size plays into it at all.
Whatever it is it all adds up to a cultural impression that the PS2 is for your average gamer, the XBox is for "cool" people, and the GameCube is for, well, i don't know who really, other than people who like good games and aren't phased by all the hype.
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Actually they looked a bit like Sony MiniDisc type devices...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Former Nintendo Boss Talks
Did anyone else get an image of Bowser growling at Nintendo executives?
"Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone." Its kinda funny how Japan has cornered the market on demon rape sex games and videos. Nintendo should port some of those.
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Get a NES game genie. The design of it was such that you never had to push the cart down, you just straight inserted it into the open face of the NES. No tricky alignment issues. I bought my game genie when they got cheap back in 1992, and I've loved it for years. I still use it today to play my NES games quickly and easily.
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Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles.
Yamauchi continued, "For our Japanese audience, we include extra amounts of phallic tentacles and Hello Kitty icons."
simoniker quote: "The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into handheld gaming with the PSP ("I don't think [Sony] understand the game business... but software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition."), "
orig quote from the article: "There have been analysts who think Nintendo has a monopoly over the handheld market and Sony maybe able to break it - I don't think they understand the game business. New product competition in this industry is important."
It is disk based. I have a minidisc player(made by Sony!), and a GBA. Both I carry in my pockets. Which one lasted more than 2 weeks without any problems? My GBA. The Minidisc player has problems with dust in my pockets dirtying up the lens and the discs get dust ground into them, which scratches them. Optical is not the way to go for a handheld. They get dropped, put in pockets, and used by children. Needless to say, the idea for the PSP is better than the execution.
What are you talking about, the NES was first market tested in the US in New York City in 1986, and nationwide in 87.
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.html