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.")

Comments

Misleading summary

[Westley]

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...

Re:NES production to stop this year?

[PainKilleR-CE]

Sad how everything has to be a fad like the computer just because the newer machines can show more of Lara Croft's pixels.

Actually, the NES had to be a fad like everything else because most of us couldn't play games on our NES consoles without 10 minutes of cleaning cartridges and aligning them just right in the old front-load systems we bought 15 years ago. I've never seen an original NES system that didn't start having problems loading games after a few years, and most of us couldn't justify buying a 'new' NES console after buying 2 or 3 other consoles.

Domestically

[leifm]

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.

Oh really?

[BigChigger]

"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

Re:Nintendo has been associated with RPGs since...

[h0mer]

I think your definition of RPG is wrong. By RPG, do you mean adventure/platform games like Mario Sunshine and Zelda: Wind Waker?

Nintendo hasn't had an excellent traditional RPG since Super Mario RPG on SNES. Paper Mario on N64 was decent I guess. One RPG in particular, Final Fantasy VII, jumpstarted the PlayStation brand. The fact that it didn't come out for N64 was the beginning of the "problem" years for Nintendo.

Furthermore, you say their other games are lacking depth. Super Smash Bros. Melee has a deep and rich fighting system that gets better as your skills get better. The new Mario Kart will add more depth to the kart formula by having 2 characters on each vehicle.

Nintendo's problems with the N64 is what has caused their so-called blandness with the GameCube. Just wait, Nintendo is making strides to regain a respectable position in the home console market. Mario 128 is supposedly a revolutionary game. If Mario 128 can do what Mario 64 originally did, and the GameCube2 has the proper marketing/games/features, Nintendo will be sitting pretty.

There is an easy solution to this.

[Inoshiro]

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.