Nintendo Talks the Future of Wii

Via Eurogamer (which offers a highlight reel of the article), a long piece at MTV Games where Stephen Totilo sits down for a chat with Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime. Unlike some other question-dodging executives, Reggie shares some interesting details. We have release dates (WarioWare in January, Mario Party in March, Mario Galaxy sometime after March), confirmation that they'll try to bring GoldenEye to the Virtual Console, a few details about the first online game for the Wii (Pokemon Battle Revolution), and word that there would be several Wii-related announcements in January. From the article: "For Fils-Aime, some of the projects he'd love to see happen in the U.S. can only be executed by his bosses in Japan. As a result, part of his job is to lobby for what he thinks American gamers want. 'The piece that I am more and more involved in is really looking longer-term and making sure the full range of games are being brought to the Americas. Making sure we have core gamer games like 'Metroid,' like 'Galaxy.' Making sure we have our types of market-extension games not only for Wii but for DS. Where's our analogous cooking game? Where's our analogous 'Brain Age 2' for DS?'"

Comments

Release Dates

[fistfullast33l]

We have release dates (WarioWare in January, Mario Party in March, Mario Galaxy sometime after March)

Translation: WarioWare in March, Mario Party by June, Mario Galaxy around 2008

Re:Release Dates

[conigs]

Unless it's a Zelda game. Then something like "July 2007" may mean "sometime in 2009"... maybe... if you're lucky.

Cooking

[moatra]

Where's our analogous cooking game?

You show me a chef trained using the Wii and I'll show you a severe case of food poisoning.

Re:Cooking

[cowscows]

Tiger Woods learned to play golf on the Sega Genesis. Then he snuck into the PGA tour, and instantly dominated everyone else, even though it was his first time playing with real clubs. True story.

Wii Play!

[Thansal]

Sweet!

wii play is deffinatly a game I am looking foward to. More mindless little games that are just fun to play. Personaly I can't wait for a mario party game.

As for the rest, yup nintendo knows they have to earn their suces, why? because they already found out what happens if you take it for granted. (some up and comming game system kicks your ass)

Analogous games for the US

[damsa]

Where's our analogous cooking game? Where's our analogous 'Brain Age 2' for DS?'" How About Phoenix Wright: RIAA Attorney

Observations

[Easty1]

Does Reggie use a lot of rhetorical questions? Does he talk like this a lot? Does this make him even more awesome? Yes.

All I want...

[twilightzero]

...is a goddamn KEYBOARD I can plug in! Everything I heard said you'd be able to plug in any old USB keyboard and it would work, but now I find out that I'm stuck 1-letter-at-a-time-point-&-clicking to get anything typed!

ARGH!

Other than that, I love it =)

Wii Owner's 10-day take

[B00yah]

I got my Wii at Midnight Sunday 19th (thanks game crazy), and have been playing it off and on when I can since then, getting in at least an hour everyday. I bought Zelda and Trauma Center with it. I've put about 10 hours in to zelda (great game, worth the system, though the wolf mode annoys the crap out of me), about 5 in to wii sports (man, these are a killer on the arm), and 1 hour in to trauma center. I've put a fairly good amount of time in to the original Legend of Zelda on the virtual console (play this once a year, just to remember what good, non-pretty gaming can be).

Overall, the Wii comes through on most of what it promised (innovative game play, etc), though, I have to say, I'm very disappointed with the lack of online toys. The browser is not active, new games only appear once a week for the virtual console, and the weather/news pieces aren't working at all yet. I recently upgraded my xbox's Xbox Media Center, and the stuff I could do on there made me really feel bad about the wii's meager network offerings (yes, I know XBMC is third party, but it's also been around for a few years, and still does more). I think that Nintendo NEEDS to get some more pieces out online before the end of the year.

Sweet Jebus, what an awful site.

[bunions]

NEW YORK -- Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president, is a man on a mission. His mission is to sell the red-hot Nintendo Wii and make sure people who have them love them.

"Are we feeling good about our success? Do we think we can have more success in the future? Absolutely," he said during a stuffed 40-minute interview with MTV News in a hotel just south of Central Park. "I do think that highlights a difference between us and our competitors: We're not arrogant. We don't view success as a right. We feel we need to earn success every day. And we're going to do that by being true to the gamer."

In the same hotel 51 weeks ago, Fils-Aime gave MTV News an early handle on the Nintendo Wii controller (see "First Look: Nintendo Revolution Controller Feels Smooth As Puppet Strings"). Now he's ready to talk about any Wii topic under the sun -- to a point.

"We're looking at this as about eight days into the mission," he said, opening with a report of the company's recent success. Nintendo has sold 600,000 Wiis in North America and nearly half as many extra Wii controllers, Fils-Aime said (see "Wii Unmasked: Nintendo Reveals Price, Launch Date, Lineup Of Games"). The company has also sold more than 450,000 copies of "The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess." He said "Red Steel," "Rayman Raving Rabbids" and "Madden" all have sold well, as has the surgery game "Trauma Center: Second Opinion."

He offered a preview of the Wii's winter lineup. In addition to support from third-party game developers, Nintendo will publish three more titles for the Wii by the end of March: "WarioWare: Smooth Moves," "Wii Play" and "Mario Party 8." The first two will be released in January, the latter in March. All are compilations of shorter games.

"WarioWare" is a continuation of a popular series that barrages players with seconds-long games. "Wii Play" contains nine brief games, including an homage to "Duck Hunt," and will come packed with an extra Wii controller (but not a nunchuck). Nintendo has shown contraptions that turn a Wii controller into a "Duck Hunt"-style gun or, in the company's terms, a "zapper." "Wii Play" would seem to fit the bill, but Fils-Aime said, "We want the right title" to introduce it with.

Word broke of that early-2007 Nintendo trio earlier this month. Some fans complained that there weren't any meaty adventures on the list and predicted a winter gaming famine similar to the one that followed the launch of Nintendo's last two consoles. "I disagree with the comparison," he said. "I wasn't here for the GameCube launch, but there was a time period when there were no titles. There wasn't even titles you could or could not sink your teeth into. 'Wii Play' and 'WarioWare' are going to be hugely fun titles."

And for people who want more of an adventure to sink their teeth into once March passes? "Of the next batch of Nintendo releases, 'Metroid' is going to be next on that list," he said. And "Super Mario Galaxy"? Fils-Aime said to expect it any time between the end of March and next Christmas.

He fielded every question, even if he couldn't always give a rosy answer. People want Wii controllers bundled with nunchucks? If people start buying them in a one-to-one ratio, Nintendo would consider offering a bundle. Is there a DVD-playing Wii coming to the U.S. any time soon? "The answer is no." Will third parties start using the Miis -- Wii player avatars -- in their games? Fils-Aime said developers outside Nintendo now have the ability to drop them into their games as well, but,"Is there anything I've seen? No." Does he think the Reggie Mii his colleagues at Nintendo made looks like him? "The one they made had more of a scowl than the one I made."

Fils-Aime hyped an upcoming baseball game from 2K Sports as a perfect title for the Wii controller and said that "Godfather" Wii from EA is "very interesting." And he leapt to the defense of the weakly reviewed but strong-selling Ubisoft Wii game "Red Steel." "I think a lot of the reviews have been overly cr

Goldeneye

[norminator]

And goldeneye on the wii? It's good that we get a classic game, but what about new franchises?

And if you think about it long enough, you'll realize that Goldeneye is based on a James Bond movie from over 10 years ago... They're not talking about a new Goldeneye game, but a Virtual Console version of the original game (the Virtual Console on the Wii is an online service that allows you to purchase and download games for older Nintendo systems).

The reason why people care is because GoldenEye 007 was one of the most popular games for the N64.

Hopefully this background information answers your questions... I'm not trying to provide too much information, you just didn't seem to understand what you were complaining about.

Word complete feature

[goodenoughnickname]

You can turn on a word complete feature by clicking that Eject button above backspace. It helps out a lot.

Re:question-dodging executives?

[kinglink]

"10 New VC games did not come out Monday as promised. Only 3 (I think), 2 TurboGraphix16 titles and Ecco the Dolphin. Where the hell is my Pilotwings? SMB? Come on guys, you want me to buy NES games at $5 a pop you're going to have to give me decent choices and soon. Playing these games legally on my TV is at least 30% of the reason I bought the Wii, don't disappoint me."

This is completely wrong.

First they never said 10 new games a monday. They said new VC titles every monday, 30 games by the end of the year, and then 10 games a month starting in January.

Second. It was 1 turbographix16, 2 genisis games (Ecco and Golden axe).

We all want all the games, but give them time to get it all right.

Re:I call bullshit.

[trdrstv]

I think Nintendo doesn't fully understand the difference between Japanese and U.S. game markets, and more to the point doesn't understand how they've been coming closer together over the past few years especially now that the internet lets us all know what the other markets are getting well in advance.

Basically, the core of it is I don't understand why VC titles don't have the same availability. It should default to the region of the system, but If I want to buy a Japanese game that has no english text, and no english manual, LET ME! Throw up a warning or something, but let me do it. I hate the fact that some games never make it to the US or Europe for no good reason. The VC titles should lower the costs/ risk to doing this, so why don't they?

Re:smash bros.

[justchris]

He can't give a release date because the head developer on the project doesn't have one yet. Because of the nature of the game, it's entirely possible for them to go from being 50% complete to being 90% complete in as little as a month. Then it would have to be localized for other markets, although admittedly, Smash Bros. games do not require particularly intensive localization.

Earthbound

[bilbravo]

From the summary: "As a result, part of his job is to lobby for what he thinks American gamers want."

Reggie, there are plenty of us who want Mother 3. Make it happen.

Re:question-dodging executives?

[justchris]

Why do most Wii games look like gamecube games or worse?
Answer: Most of them are gamecube games?

Why are you fucking over third party developers for online support?
Answer: We're not. We don't want the servers to all crash as soon as everyone gets online, so we're bringing people online slowly, you know, like Microsoft did with Xbox Live the first time. We want to avoid the WoW situation where servers crash every five minutes, that's just not good customer service.

What the fuck is going on with the hardware/software problems with the Wii? Bricked consoles from flakey firmware updating. And huge numbers of Wiimote problems.
Answer: There are no software problems with the Wii. Nor are there any Wiimote problems. There were hardware problems with the first revision of Wii units produced. We are replacing those, but it is well within standard error for any piece of technological equipment, and in fact less than most.

What the hell is going on with third party support? Why are you letting developers dump half-assed gamecube era engines with some pointing or swing bolted on? Where are all these 'innovative' games you've been bragging about?
Answer: We have plenty of 3rd party support. We are letting developers dump half-assed gamecube era engines with some pointing or swinging bolted on because that's what 3rd party developers want to do. There are 1400 PS2 games in existence, 900 of them are totally worthless. We figure it worked for Sony, it can work for us. The entire goal is to make development as easy for 3rd parties as possible, so we can have 900 crappy games that people can point to, just like everybody else. Don't worry, we'll keep making the new and innovative games we've always made, but it takes us time. We're not special gaming fairies with magical pixie dust that sprouts a Mario game fully formed from the ether. We're just normal programmers and artist who give a shit about video games and are willing to take a few hits to our image to release a game that doesn't suck. Unlike THQ, but don't tell them I said that.

Wii yule log?

[Cyno01]

Fils-Aime confirmed that Wiis connected to the Internet will automatically download surprise bonus material from Nintendo, but he wouldn't detail what kind of unexpected messages or channels might pop up. "I'd hate to ruin the surprise. Is there activity that we're working on for before the holidays? The answer is yes."

Interactive yule log for the holidays? Use the wiimote as a fireplace poker?