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

Use the original disc

[NsOmNiA91130]

They should be able to use the original disc, and have the game be locally patched to handle the Wii's control scheme. I wouldn't mind paying $5 for some Metroid Prime goodness.

Re:Use the original disc

[Manmademan]

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

That's what backwards compatibility is for. 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 thought Nintendo was supposed to be about innovation? Make NEW games around the interface, rather than rehashing the old stuff.

Re:Use the original disc

[clu76]

Nintendo is also about profit, and they don't make a dime from used game sales. Re-releasing titles with added wii functionality is their way of competing with the used games market. I don't see this as a rehashing, considering they are also pushing a lot of NEW games for the system.

Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii controller just isn't 'innovative'

There, I said it. Nintendo is really on dangerous ground in the console market if they really intend to make the Wii controller the centerpiece of their entire console strategy. Almost every Wii game shown so far shows that all gaming input comes down to a set of continuous(joystick,mouse,pointer(Wiimote)) and discrete(button,(Wii gestures)) input.

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.

So far Wii games appear to be broken down in to two categories - games that are simple mappings of control schemes on to the Wii(Joystick input->Wii aiming) and (Button presses -> Wii gestures/button presses) and a few games that mimic real world actions.

I don't need to re-buy a souped up GameCube for the first type - I have one already and it works fine. And I don't want the second type anymore than those old games where you had to manually perform every real world action.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"The Wii controller just isn't 'innovative'"

I really cannot say I agree with that. I've recently been playing San Andreas. Though I enjoy the game, the controller is a big hinderance. Not only is aiming the gun a pain in the butt, but it isn't hard to hit the wrong button at an inopportune time. A number of times I've gone to hit the targetting button and changed weapons instead. After I build up some muscle memory on it, it won't matter as much, but it's still frustrating. If the Wii were to get a port of this (blah, I don't expect that, but man I'd love it) I'd be able to point the remote at the target and hit the trigger button to fire. If I want to go jack a car, I'd thrust the nunchuck controller ahead in a punching motion instead of hitting the action button. If those were the only upgrades to the game with the remote, I'd not only have a much better time controlling it, I'd also have a more intuitive interface.

This is the sort of scheme Nintendo is pushing ahead with. In light of what Sony and Microsoft have for their 'next-gen' systems, I'd say 'thin-ice' is the last thing I'd use to describe Nintendo's controller. I went to a 360 kiosk and tried to play a demo of a WWII game. Trying to aim the gun was clumsy at best, and who knows what the other buttons did. I wouldn't mind, but 'running around and shooting stuff' is what most of these games are based on.

Respectfully, I disagree with your post. Partly because I've found FPS gaming (even games like Metroid Prime) frustrating with traditional controls and partly because I'm really enjoying my DS. I'm welcoming the Wii with open arms.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[rob1980]

How is it not innovative? Tell me you've never twisted your controller around while you were trying to make a sharp turn on a race track. Tell me you've never instinctively raised your controller up while trying to get your character to block an attack in a fighting game. Everybody does this, it's instictive. Nintendo looked at all this and said... ok, we're going to drag you further into the game and make your instincts actually count for something.

That's a hell of a lot more innovative than Sony could ever hope to be with Gran Tourismo in 1080p.

I think it'll do well, and given that they're basing their entire console strategy around it, the Wiimote is going to get a hell of a lot of support that other failed gimmicks (like the Virtual Boy or R.O.B.) didn't get. It's certainly something that Sony and Microsoft aren't giving us this time, and that's why I'm sold on it.

Re:Nintendo Treading On Thin Ice

[Jerf]

Designers can't seem to think of anything else.

I don't think it's that they can't think of anything else, it's that they can't implement anything else.

Take Nethack. Now, make a magnificent modern AAA 3D game out of it that sacrifices absolutely nothing. Every spell effect, every creature, every action, everything. It is probably theoretically possible, but it would be a monstrous undertaking. Nethack casually does very advanced things because the graphics, perhaps ironically, support those advanced things as well as they do anything else.

Angband is simpler in many ways, but it also does some things with terrain and detection spells that a modern 3D graphics engine could hardly dream of.

Graphics have shot well ahead of our ability to actually represent things with them. Combat's all that's left, and honestly, it tends to suck; if my sword was actually going straight through that orc, shouldn't it be in two pieces now? But it's easily fakable. Most other things aren't. So we're left with games consisting of the things that are sorta, kinda fakable in 3D.

Who knows how many wonderful features have been cut because there was no way to render them in breathtaking 3D? We end up with only the games we can represent in 3D, which is a horrific subset of the games we could do in 2D. There's still room for 2D games because we aren't as advanced in 3D as we think we are.

The Wii at least attacks one problem, that of the fundamentally binary input of buttons and a directional pad being your only interface into a complicated world. (I am aware that the directional pads are technically analog, but they aren't really very good at it.) But it doesn't do anything to attack the graphics problem.

You're wrong and poorly informed.

[Anonymous Coward]

There, I said it. Never before has there been a consumer interface device with the following properties:

1 - Full 3D spatial location tracking
2 - Accelerometer
3 - Gyroscope

It is the combination of all these things that make the controller TRULY innovative, not just innovative in the sense that it is going against the current grain of "more buttonz everywherez". Imagine the effects this controller can have on a game - Splinter Cell's lockpicking mini-game is no longer a matter of jiggling joysticks. You actually have to reach TOWARD the television in order to slide the pins in. Trauma Center will not need a special zoom tool anymore - just reach toward the TV, and it will zoom the image for you! Even launch titles like Twilight Princess are using this to let you actually draw your bow and arrow back.

I don't know how you can possibly say that this approach is not "innovative". You might not personally like it, and that's fine. A lot of people dislike fun! That's why the PS3 exists ;) The rest of us can't wait to wave our hands around like idiots and laugh while we do it!

I don't see many people bringing this up...

[Mongoose]

It seems a lot of people on internet fourms don't consider the possibly of the DS keeping the Wii market share low. There is a big difference with casual mobile and casual on the console. Also the recent Xbox Live arcade has more to do with the lack of titles than the appeal of the actual games. What happens if you can get the same title for DS as Wii? Which do you think people would buy? This is one of the ideas leading analysts to think of Wii as a '3rd place' in next gen. Once it gets down to the SNES and 'arcade' titles people will want to play those on DS more than Wii.