Miyamoto on Wiimakes, Dead-End Design

GameDaily is reporting on an interview that Nintendo Dream scored with legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Mr. Miyamoto spoke about the future of design and Wii gaming during the interview, touching on several interesting topics. Older Gamecube titles, for example, may be remade for the Wii at some point in the future to take advantage of the console's unique control scheme. There are no announcements of which titles might see this treatment, but he seemed confident that if it does happen the pricepoint would be rather low. In some more high-level comments, Mr. Miyamoto stated that game designers have come to a dead-end as regards gaming today. Not sparing his own company, the designer thinks that future titles will have to come at gaming from a very different perspective if they are to succeed.

Comments

Re:Use the original disc

[anjin-san 3]

I think the idea is intended to appeal to the people who never owned a Gamecube and missed out on some good games.

My message to Miyamoto-san...

[UbuntuDupe]

You have planned to launch a system with a fundamentally different interface from what people are used to. How to optimally exploit this for fun games is not obvious, because it's very out-of-the-box. The more minds you can have working on this, the better. This is even more important than on rival consoles because of the immensely-greater possibilities. If you really want to discover the most innovative uses of the Wiimote, you're going to need to let hobbyists buy the (fortunately affordable) SDK. Even if their version is bad, if they hit on a good use no one though of, that can become an instant console-seller. Why keep your restrictive policies about the size of developers you'll sell to?

Re:My message to Miyamoto-san...

[RyoShin]

What they really should do is what Microsoft did- release a "dumbed down" SDK for cheap cheap cheap. Then little garage setups can tinker and release small games, and eventually get enough "cred" to get a real SDK.

Re:My message to Miyamoto-san...

[UbuntuDupe]

It is very understandable they ahve restrictive policies about who they sell their SDK to. That is part of keeping control over the quality of games being released.

From the fact that they will let you *use* the SDK, it does not follow that they must allow you to sell licensed games for their system. They can allow people to experiment and share their games with friends, while at the same time maintaining creative control.

Nintendo is not waiting for a bunch of hobbyists to goof around and have them "maybe" produce a hit, they need quality games.

Making quality games is not mutually exclusive with allowing more minds to "goof around" with such a new system.

I guess you don't want to understand this and stay in your imaginary world where hobbyists can make a console work....

Please don't try to blur what I was saying to be too broad. I accept that sigificant investment must be made to market the console and give it initial momentum. I'm not like people who genuinely wonder why the GP2X isn't selling. But *once* they have kicked it off, the massive experimentation can lead to something no developer would have though to make significant investment in.

Ask yourself, why isn't there a hobbyists supported console around?...

Er, there are, it's just that no one of them has significant mass appeal anymore.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[Volante3192]

The Wii controller just isn't 'innovative'

I'm curious to what dictionary you got your definition of 'innovative' out of...

(innovative = characterized by, tending to, or introducing innovations, yeay for recursive definitions)
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/innovations
Main Entry: innovation
Pronunciation: "i-n&-'vA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the introduction of something new
2 : a new idea, method, or device : NOVELTY

Seems to me this controller fits that definition to a T. What I don't find innovative is simply increasing resolution or texture depth or triangles per second. It's not *new* it's just an improvement, like going from a 20" TV to a 32" TV.

It might not be an innovation that works, or appeals to the entire crowd, but you can't have a success without some failures. (Virtual Boy...ugg) Personally, I'm excited by it. I don't need a new console to play games with a control pad; I've got emulators and a Gravis. I don't need spiffy shiny console games, I can get a new system with an X1950 for that.

However, this is a bonifide innovation, and it might actually be fun.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[EdwinBoyd]

If you look at the strategy employed on the DS (another non-innovative system by your reckoning) you will see that while there are many games that take advantage of the touch screen/microphone there are also many successful games that don't make use of it al all.
Nintendo will encourage developers to make use of the unique capabilities of the Wii but they will not force feed it to the public. If Nintendo feels that a game is better experienced with a standard gamepad they'll run with it.

Re:Wii will probably fail

[danbeck]

I know I'm feeding a troll here, but Nintendo has never stated that they think scores of non-gamers are out there wating with bated breath for a console made just for them. They have repeatedly stated that modern console systems are tough to get into if you are ouside of the gamer group. They have repeatedly stated that they hope the familiar "remote" shape of the controller and the intuitive control will help make non-gamers feel comfortable. Whether this works out the way they would like, is to be decided starting this fall.

Compared with what?

[ianscot]

The Wii controller talk about 'actually swinging your controller like a sword' or 'use the controller like a fishing rod' reminds me of the race back in the late 80s rpg/adventure games where developers kept adding more and more real world actions to their games. Feeding, equipping items, moving/manipulating objects in the world. In the end it became tedious.

I have not one idea how you think those two things are comparable. If it were somehow the case that games would, by definition, use the Wiimote to make the user constantly open a backpack and equip items in Zelda, that would be one thing -- but I don't see how the one thing leads to the other. If you're just saying that the Wiimote actions will necessarily become too repetitive, I'm lost as to why they're any more or less "tedious" than the blank-eyed button pressing on other controllers and consoles.

(Frankly, too, I've been around a while and I don't remember the supposed phase you're describing in rgps and adventure games.)

Your idea that, because the Wiimote can result in some of the same actions that button presses and joystick controls can cause on-screen, it's somehow not innovative -- that would dismiss such changes as analog controls as also not being innovative. After all, we could move characters on screen before them, right?

Finally, your argument begs the question: Nintendo is treading on thin ice next to what competition? The $600 "buy our HDVD standard product"? Do you have some idea that actually would be "innovative" in your book? Or what?

Re:Compared with what?

[thebdj]

(Frankly, too, I've been around a while and I don't remember the supposed phase you're describing in rgps and adventure games.)

I believe he is recalling that phase where he stopped playing simplified hack-and-slash RPGs and started playing real ones that actually made you worry about items that had been part of PnP RPGs since their creation. Honestly, this is another one of those trolls who wants his pretty graphics and could care less about real gameplay. There is something I really dislike about how games seem to just be repeating them self with better graphics.

Innovation is big here. The only thing I have seen that was close to this was the fishing controller for DC and that was very specialized for a single game. I think it is great to get video games that require more interaction. I also think this will change how some people view video games. This may still not bring games in line with actually going outside and playing, but the amount of physical activity required for playing a game just went way up. I personally look forward to the chance to play Tiger Woods or Baseball on the Wii. The ability to actually have "real" control is very cool. (And if Lucasarts does make a lightsaber game for Wii, oh I will be in heaven.)

Re:Wii will probably fail

[Anonymous Coward]

But it won't be enough to save Nintendo.

What makes you think that Nintendo needs to be saved?

I don't have the link to the analysis anymore but I have seen people who looked into the financial statements of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo over the past 5 years and Nintendo made as much of a profit as Sony (the whole company, not just the games division) over that time frame; on the other hand, Sony has been seeing declining profits (or increasing losses) in practically every division except for their financial/insurance division and their games division is one of the few profitable divisions. Sony is betting that the PS3 can drive the sales of HDTVs, surround sound systems, and Blu-Ray movies in order to make most of their divisions profitable again.

The Wii will probably sell at least as many systems as the Gamecube, the Virtual Console will easily become a cash cow as people re-buy games they have already purchased, and the unique Wiimote will drive the sales of Nintendo developed software (because Nintendo is one of the best companies for inovating with a new input device). Meanwhile the DS is more popular then the GBA was, its selling massive quantities of Nintendo software, and looks to continue performing well. Nintendo will be fine.

Sony (on the other hand) will probably sell less PS3s then they sold PS2, will be forced (by Microsoft) to sell them at a loss for most of the generation, will see lower software sales from higher game costs ($60-$70 per title) and a smaller user base, will see lower profits from each sale from higher development costs, will face greater marketing costs from the contining falure of the PSP, and so on.

Sony is in some rough shape, and it can only get worse

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[Bohnanza]

I wouldn't mind, but 'running around and shooting stuff' is what most of these games are based on.

Which is one of the reasons designers are at a "dead end". With a few notable exceptions, video/PC games are based on Sports or Combat of some type. Even "Adventure" or the badly-mischaracterised computer "Role Playing" games usually involve lots of fighting. Designers can't seem to think of anything else.

Re:Use the original disc

[rabbot]

Hitting up the used racks at EB makes a lot more sense to that crowd than shoehorning the wii's control system into games not initially designed for it

I think that crowd will pick up the cheap Wii remakes if the new controls positively add to the experience...and we have no reason to think they will just go around remaking any old cube game. I'm sure they will only pick ones that will be better for it. Especially if it is comparably priced to the used games.

Nothing stopping them from adding wifi support either. I'd definitely buy a wifi enabled, graphically overhauled, wii controller remake over the cube version in the used bin.

I thought Nintendo was supposed to be about innovation? Make NEW games around the interface, rather than rehashing the old stuff.

Why can't they do both? You honestly think they would sacrifice new ideas to remake cube games? I seriously doubt it.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[justchris]

I think you misunderstand the concept of innovation. Innovation is not just a matter of doing something no one has ever done before, but a matter of doing it differently than it has been done before. Certainly there have been attempts at motion sensing control, pointing devices and separate hand controls before (which has always struck me as the next step in control, it's silly to always keep both hands in the same position). The Wiimote+nunchuk is innovative not just because of what it does, but because of how it does it, and because of how it's designed.

After all, by your definition, the printing press wasn't particularly innovative. After all, people had been making books for years. All the printing press did was make it faster and more efficient. It didn't even make bookmaking better. After all, I don't know if you ever read an illuminated book, but they are gorgeous, especially in comparison to the drab, cookie-cutter text we have now.

The individual bits in the Wii remote may not be new, but they are certainly innovative.