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Comments From Miyamoto On Wii, Industry
This past December, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with the Talk Asia program. It was only just recently translated and (via Ars Technica), CNN is carrying the resulting commentary. Miyamoto discusses the creation of Mario, the future of the Nintendo, the problems facing the games industry today, and the 'awesomeness' of the Wii's name. "I think anyone can enjoy video games. But some people shy away from them, just by looking at the shape of the console, or they think it is complicated when they have to plug the machine into their television set. However, I think if it is something that is simple to connect and play, it can be enjoyed by anybody, especially if they can interact with the characters. We also have to think about the themes of the games. There is an abundance of themes that people are interested in, and video games have only touched on few of them."
Whenever I see a reminiscence about fun, yet somewhat dated PC games, the same group of popular gems like X-COM, Fallout, Star Control II, and Syndicate get the most attention. During these conversations, I always bring up a small lost gem, but very few have heard of it and even fewer have played it. This diamond in the rough? Rocket Science's "Rocket Jockey".
Published by SegaSoft back in 1997, Rocket Jockey lived a short life between being too powerful for some machines and yet incompatible with next generation PCs. In addition, the coveted LAN play-enabling patch was released far too late in the game, after any popularity Rocket Jockey had built faded away. Rumor had it the game would be released to the Playstation, but this never came to fruition.
Rocket Jockey is a game about a future sport; rocket... jockeying. As a Rocket Jockey, you straddle a rocket and ride it around a gladiatorial style arena at high speeds. Armed with a grapple on either side to help steer in a 19896 Batmobile fashion, you can enter any of three modes of play:
1) Rocket Racing: speed around an obstacle course to be the fastest competitor (or solo for a time trial).
2) Rocket Ball: a polo-style sport involving snagging balls with the grapple and whipping them appropriately into goals before your opponents can stop you or score more.
3) Rocket War: a gladiatorial battle against other competitors which involves ramming other rockets, snagging jockeys off their mounts with the grapple, tying various items (jockeys, rockets, poles, bombs) to other items (jockeys, rockets, poles, bombs) for style points.
Simplistic as they sound, this was an incredible and intuitive game, pure unadulterated genius. Besides the addictive game-play (oh, the screams of a competitor jockey ripped from his rocket and swung into a pole), what also stood out with Rocket Jockey was the classy style; down-home 1950's Americana sensibilities reminiscent of Interplay's Fallout series combined with snarky, nihilistic future ad designs. And the music. Oh, the music. The game was accompanied by a surf guitar soundtrack from none other than Dick Dale himself.
No game I know of has even come close to being anything like Rocket Jockey (Jet Moto?). And that's the clincher; it would be so simple to recreate today. To not give this game a proper revival would be a crime. And that's where the Wii comes in. The controls are a near-perfect match.
The rocket is controlled by leaning; left or right and you drift in that direction. Up or down were the same, though there wasn't much of a height radius (rockets only went, at most, ten feet from the ground, just enough to ram an opponent off rocket). This basic guidance could be controlled with the Wiimote, with emphasis based on increasing the angle the Wiimote is bent. Being a PC game, speed and launching and releasing the grapples (left and right) were all keyboard based. Velocity (speed, braking) could be handled with A and B, and the Nunchuk could conform to a nice grapple. Aiming was originally nonexistant; it was based on the rocket's angle of lean. With a slight adjustment an aim factor could be a variable handled by the analog stick.
This game was way too short lived and was so good it cries to be remade for the modern day. Fan attempts have been made to bring it to Unreal Tournament and other platforms. In a recent attempt to get in touch with one of the former developers, I was informed that lawyers constantly botched earlier attempts to get this game properly licensed for a remake. With my prodding, said contact did put forth the idea of porting or re-developing Rocket Jockey to the few remaining Rocket Science alumni. So far, nothing yet has come of this. If anyone out there can do anything for this game, I implore you to try. With the additional promise of online multi-player (or at least split-screen local), an update of Rocket Jockey has the potential to be a future solid gold hit.
'Morons' is a huge market.
PS: Serviced your car at home recently?
Personally, after finishing Zelda I started to play Red Steel which is not a particularly great game but is far better than the reviews would lead you to believe; from that I moved onto trauma center which is an enjoyable little game. Wii Sports still gets a lot of play at "parties" but Rayman seems to have been abandoned in favour of Wario Ware ...
... Mario Party 8 comes out in March which will (likely) replace Wario Ware at parties
We have Sonic and SSX comming up which I'm a little optimistic about
Standard shift -does- add complexity to a vehicle. For most people, this added complexity is completely unwelcome.
I drive stick and love it. I refuse to drive an automatic. But I -get- something from it. More control. These people don't get anything from it, and it would take them time and effort to learn, for nothing.
And yes, most adults shy away from things they are certain to fail at on their first try. There's SO many other things to do that don't involve failure that it's not a big surprise to me.
Nintendo is aiming at this market of people. They are making games that are easy and fun to learn and play, and making the console simple enough that they won't be scared of all the learning involved in just turning it on the first time. (Oddly, the sensor bar is against this, and so are the GC ports on the side. They are, thankfully, hidden until you look for them, though.)
My mom keeps asking to come over and play the 91-pin bowling game. Her previous video game experience includes Pac Man, atari 2600 pinball, and Space Invaders. Oh, and the cheezy games on Reflexive.net, also. They've already snared 1 non-gamer in my household. My sister and her friend have asked to play the boxing game to work out their arms, also. They left exhausted the first time they tried that... Haven't been back, though.
It's working for them. Now they need to make more of the WiiSports-type games, and quickly! WiiPlay is NOT like it at all. I'm very disappointed.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The Wii is easily one of the more complex Nintendo systems to set up--if not the most complex. Not only do you have to plug something into the TV at the back, but you also have to position, align, and affix the sensor bar. God help you if you don't have a table edge to line it up with! Then there's the memory card--perhaps it was just my console, but the SD card didn't seem to want to "click" into place properly. That threw me for a serious loop--I had to check twice if I wasn't putting it in upside-down. Then there's the system menu--what other Nintendo console (the DS?) has ever had a setup menu with quite as many options as this one? Wifi _alone_ could scare away even a relatively competent console gamer who has little computing experience otherwise.
I honestly don't know what he quite meant. The SNES was dirt simple to set up and run compared to the Wii. Sure, it can be set up as braindead as any other appliance (blinking VCR, anyone?), except for the sensor bar and SD card. I'm also not criticizing the Wii interface OR saying that plugging in the sensor bar is hard to do or beyond anyone--I just don't understand how the Wii can be pointed to as something that's simpler than a machine that just needs to be plugged into the television.
Go to "Preferences", click "Comments", scroll to the bottom, set "Comment Post Mode" to "Plain Old Text", and BAM! No more sailboats.
I'm guessing you've never actually talked to a woman, or even a non-geeky man ...
Maybe I'm unique, but I have helped dozens of people set up their DVD players, Surround Sound Systems, and videogame systems; just because they're intimidated when looking at dozens of inputs of various shapes and sizes on the back of their TV does not mean that they have no interest in gaming.
Personally, after finishing Zelda I started to play Red Steel which is not a particularly great game but is far better than the reviews would lead you to believe; from that I moved onto trauma center which is an enjoyable little game. Wii Sports still gets a lot of play at "parties" but Rayman seems to have been abandoned in favour of Wario Ware ...
:-P ) I sold Zelda and Rayman, but kept Red Steel. Zelda was of course very fun, but has very low replay value. (No, hunting down pieces of heart does not count as replay value.) Rayman was fun too, but lost its appeal quickly. People actually didn't even like it as a party game. To unlock the special shootout modes, you had to do a ton of easy shootouts -- just not worth it.
I largely agree. Red Steel isn't very polished, but on the important matter -- is it fun to play? -- it does very well. Most swordfighting games fail in that blocking requires an insane reaction time, but in Red Steel, it's an instinctual, intuitive motion. And believe me, you have not lived until you've made the leader of a large group surrender. (clank clank ca-clank-clank-clank as they drop their weapons
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
To make games that anyone (literally) can pick up and play, and enjoy, without the crutch of violence and fancy visuals. I like fancy visuals and I do like my counterstrike, but frankly they are truly deriviative and really add nothing truly new over their predecessors. It seems that to use less graphic power and not use the dramatic tension that violence provides requires the kind of out of the box thinking that this guy brings to the table. Games are supposed to be fun, they really are toys, (even the PS3 and 360). That's why you buy them. Those two systems don't have the mass appeal that the Wii is getting by sticking to it's path. And at the Wii's price... many people will get one fix on their 360 pr PS3 and the other with the Wii. In the end, you can have all the violent viseo games you want, but if you really just want fun games that you can play with anyone, it's much harder to do. This guy really deserves to be called a genius.
"i'd rather stick to my free pc"
Tux Racing on a keyboard is good enough for anybody!
Miyamoto is still a luminary of game design, and I look forward to his future projects. Wii Sports is still incredibly popular (it just passed a million units sold in Japan, where it is not a pack in), and people are still waiting in line to buy units here in the US. Twilight Princess is an excellent game, though not having tried the GC version I can't really speak on it being more immersive than using a controller. I still play my Wii whenever I can find time, as does everyone I know who has one. In addition to Wii Sports, games like Wario Ware, Rayman, and Excite Truck continue to be a great deal of fun, and I still haven't had time to start on Trauma Center due to playing the other games. Add in the virtual console and a long list of games I want there, and the Wii has an amazing lineup already, and enough to keep someone who doesn't spend there whole life playing video games busy for some time to come. Whenever the NPD numbers for Jan come out, I think we will see that the Wii is continuing to dominate console sales, given that stores can't seem to keep them on the shelves for more than a few minutes at a time.
As far as Miyamoto and Nintendo at large being able to access new markets, my mother has purchased both a DS and a Wii in the last 3 months. She wouldn't even allow my brother and I to have a NES when we were growing up, so that's a pretty big shift for her, largely due to a fresh look at game design being encouraged by Nintendo.
"Nice. He's essentially saying the Wii is for morons."
Semi OT: Good design isn't about user intelligence, it's about user interest level. If you hand somebody that is really interested in gaming a machine that requires an OS install, they'll go through the steps to follow the process. If you hand that same machine to somebody who doesn't care much, they'll lose interest rather quickly and skip it. Intelligence doesn't factor into it.
This is something that applies to... well... just about ANYTHING you present to other people. I could, for example, convert this post to ROT-13. You're smart, you could decode it, right? I doubt you would, though. I certainly think most people here wouldn't bother, anyway. It isn't because you and everybody else here are incapable of translating it, it's because I would have made a bad design choice while trying to communicate my views with you. It wouldn't be very accurate of me to say that anybody who skipped my post is 'a moron'. If anything, I'd be the moron for doing something like that and expecting anybody to invest the time.
So, no, he isn't saying the Wii is for morons.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I have a question for you.
I have a Wii, and I love it to bits. I've been playing it a fair amount. I also have a PS3. I haven't gotten a game for it yet, because none of them look interesting.
I have more than one 60+ character on World of Warcraft. I own a Sega Genesis+Sega CD, SNES, 3DO, Saturn, PS1, PS2, and N64. I have something in excess of 200 various games for PC and Mac. I have written my own video games for my own amusement, I have done major revision work on one of the roguelike variants, I've contributed code to Angband (which was even in the official distribution for a whole sub-release before the entire spell system got converted to lua!), and I probably spend in excess of twenty hours a week playing video games. I have published papers (admittedly, not peer-reviewed) on game design and usability.
And yet, I think the Wii is clearly well-suited to people like me.
So, is the problem that, having an advanced understanding of video games, I am not a person with only a basic understanding, who would naturally prefer the PS3?
Seems to me that the Wii is a much better machine for [b]playing games[/b] than either of the competitors. Yes, they have very impressive graphics. The Wii has a controller which is flat out better for playing games. Since I'm interested in playing games, not watching photorealistic cut scenes, playing movies, or otherwise doing things which are not "playing games", the Wii is by far the best of the current options.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Miyamoto use to be absolutely godlike in his ability to come up with enduring gameplay elements in his games. It is so sad to see him now pretty much just towing the Nintendo line
It's pretty difficult to be a rebel when you are the one in authority.
As Miyamoto says, he's no longer a Nintendo employee. He's on the board of directors. He's also the head of EAD.
He's not "toeing Nintendo's line", Nintendo's toeing his line. I don't think some people realize how powerful he is. He has nearly as much authority on paper as Iwata and probably more in practice, because CEO's come and go but the loss of Miyamoto would be devastating to the company. He is not just a game designer. He is one of Nintendo's top executives, and he oversees all game development for the entire company as well as most hardware development.
Maybe I'm the only person in the world who has noticed this but many people refuse to learn how to drive a standard because it "seems" too complicated.
I refuse to learn how to drive standard because a) I work for a living, b) value my time off, and c) don't see how paying money and spending time to learn how to drive something I currently don't need to drive would be productive.
These people don't get anything from it, and it would take them time and effort to learn, for nothing.
On the contrary, it would be better for everyone to learn how to drive on a manual transmission.
I'm not saying that everyone should be required to drive manual transmissions, that we outlaw automatics. But if you learn to drive on a manual, you're probably going to be a better driver.
Why? Because automatics and CVTs are reactionary; you do something, and then the transmission adjusts to what you just did. Manuals are anticipatory, you decide in advance of what you want to, and then shift to bring that outcome about.
It's the difference between some mushhead in an SUV braking all the way through a turn, and someone in an S2000 slowing and downshifting before the turn, and then accelerating out of it and upshifting. The latter driver had to be looking ahead, thinking of what he was going to do before the turn came up. Learning how to drive with that mindset makes you a more anticipatory driver, even if you never drive another manual again.
Okay, huge digression from the topic, but you hit a nerve.
That statement is so poorly considered I felt compelled. . . nay, obligated. . . to register so that I could respond to it.
I am 30 years old. I cut my gaming teeth with games like Silent Service for the Commodore 64. I've owned so many gaming systems I shudder to think about it. The Wii is on that list. The 360 and PS3 are not (yet). I've seen no reason to shell out those kind of bucks for a system that I have little interest in at this point. When the price comes down and the libraries interest me, then I might pick one up.
"A group a people that don't have a basic understanding of video games." Really? Let me teach you the two basic things to understand about video games. . .
1) Video games are for fun/enjoyment (in general, you masochists). Pretty graphics != fun. While the PS3 and 360 might have better graphics, I haven't seen anything yet that I thought "I really want that, that looks like fun". Wii is meant for quick and easy fun? That sounds like a winner to me every time. Your statement makes me wonder why you play games in the first place. It sounds like for you, pretty graphics and FPS games are fun/enjoyable. That's fine, go buy your PS3 and 360. I haven't heard a reason yet to denigrate the Wii.
2) Video games make money. Right now, the Wii is definitely making money. Especially because of its appeal to the general public. I would venture a guess that the Sony folks who aren't thinking long-term are getting very nervous about now. Nintendo has my respect in going for the casual gamer (i.e. large market) instead of the hardcore (e.g. teenager without a job). There's a large untapped market, and an entry level economics class will teach you that untapped markets are the easy money.
Until the Wii entered my house, I was usually playing games by myself. Part of the reason I love the Wii is that my wife/mother will play it with me. That doesn't mean I don't still love Final Fantasy Tactics, and Twisted Metal Black, but it does mean I don't play them as much anymore.
So I suppose my point is, please go play with yourself, and leave your drivel/troll unposted.
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
Well, my Wii is gathering dust because I haven't been cleaning much because I've been playing my Wii ...
Isn't it a little early in the console's life span to be making calls like that? Twilight Princess is probably one of the best adventure games out there, if not THE best. Also, the Wii has the potential to be the perfect FPS machine, and as developers learn to develop for the Wii remote I am sure we will see some incredible FPS titles hit the Wii. Your argument is flimsy at best!
I'll bite, then. I have a Wii (camped for it with my 10 year old daughter). I spent more time in the line than I have playing the system. I have zelda, monkey ball, and (of course) sports.
:/
I bought monkey ball for the GC on the day that system launched and still play it on occasion. The Wii version, using the new controller, was a royal PITA. Sports was moderately fun. Zelda pissed me off becuase it looked worse than windwaker (trying to do realistic instead of stylized on underpowered hardware is a huge mistake, IMP) and had irritating platform jumping. It just wasn't fun
With all of that said, I know I am in the minority here.
Yes, because playing and beating a game like The Immortal is a sure test that you are a true gamer. What an awesome argument you've made.
I don't know how things are where you live, but over here, cars with automatic transmission typically sell at $1000 more than the exact same model with manual transmission. I learned to drive with stick in less than a day, and it saved me $1000 on my car. I bet you have a wonderfully paying job to value your time off at more than $1000 a day.
I don't see how paying a lot of money to get a car that doesn't require a single day of training is such a good investment.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Nice. He's essentially saying the Wii is for morons.
Or busy people. Let's remember that not everyone in the world has the same priorities as us. There's nothing stupid about that.
*Hearty Applause*
That took guts, and for that you deserve some recognition.
It's completely ridiculous to assume that everyone in this world is going to enjoy the Wii. It should come as no surprise that people are going to have reactions outside of "Wow!".
However, it is only very rarely that anyone voices a dissenting viewpoint here concerning the Wii that does not hide themselves as an AC. Rarer still is the AC post that seems to have any connection to reality.
I will add that I myself haven't played my Wii much lately, but this is true of all my consoles. My computer and my DS have been stealing my attention away from the television.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
"Why would it be a bad thing to link to vgcharts? They essentially just archive Media-Create and NPD's sales charts and have some (limited) functionality to compare the data ..."
Actually, IIRC the owner of the vgcharts site has admitted that he regularly "massages" the data to be "consistent" with whatever "trends" he sees. While it's not like the numbers are pulled from whole cloth, it's sufficiently unreliable that its results should be disregarded IMO.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Please play platform before speaking. Tacked on controls? Have you ever used a Nintendo controller? Gamecube was the easiest to hold off all 3 of the last generation, I know this because when my tendons acted up it was the only one I could play for any length of time. Nintendo has done wonderful things with ergonomics compared to MS and Sony which are ok, but a little awkward if you examine wrist rotation and thumb placement.
Now let me examine how well it is integrated with the system. Well rotating the Wiimote also rotates the cursor on the system menus. You can also pick up Miis and shake them by pinching them between your thumb and forefinger. Red steel also uses this to drag around save files and options. In wii sports tennis position of your racket and twist of your wrist determines angle and spin of the ball just like in real tennis. I has simular experience in the bowling game. The moves are simplified so my friends can play almost as well as me, but my skill in these sports gave me an edge initially because normal motions translated so well.
Well what about other games... Smooth moves, Rayman, and Wii Play the controllers are INTEGRAL to the very game concept! I can not even fathom where you are coming from...
Now Sixaxis is obviously tacked on, I have never found a use for the "tilt" controls on the PS3. Also the idea of moving and aiming via very small thumb motions on BOTH X360 and PS3 is counter intuitive. I never realized how absurd it was until I played a console where I could just point and shoot. (Wii and computer)
Some may argue that computer is best controller for FPS, but I feel this is usually true because you get more modes of simultaneous entry (i.e. buttons) so you can circle jump strafe while shooting rockets at your jumping-strafing-wall-hopping friend. I am sorry but "computer" controls do not impress me either as I have yet to see a paint ball opponent strafe-jump out of my line of fire.
Lastly I dislike a computer control because after a long day programming I frequently CAN'T use it due to arm pain. I will grant that mouse is a great control vehicle as it makes aiming and selecting items easy, but this is the same concept as the Wiimote. You point you hit, but on the wiimote you point at the item and on the mouse you are moving it in an abstracted fashion that is 90 degrees out of phase with the screen. (Try to get your kid or grandfather to use a mouse for the first time and watch them struggle to figure out how to move it - the level of abstraction is a noticeable barrier to entry for new players.)
Now wiimote is far from perfect but I salute Nintendo for making a step in the right direction and look forward to seeing what the other consoles come up with for the next generation. This is a definite beginning of a new paradigm for consoles control.
Collector's Edition
The games are fun, and I have a healthy collection already of both Wii, and VC games which I think is important. Sometimes I want to play a game, but simply don't have the energy for something like Rayman, or Warioware so I fire up StreetFighter, or Mario 64.
Actually, the only thing weird about those controllers was how they looked.
The N64 controller introduced a fair number of concepts we still see in controllers today. The Analog Stick and the Trigger being the principle ones. Certainly they were both elements of generations of joysticks that came before, but not since the Atari days had anyone bothered to consider them useful. Nintendo saw that with the advent of 3D games the analog stick would be imperative, and did something about it.
Most importantly, you need to remember that Yamauchi was dictator at Nintendo at the time. It was his vision that guided the aestetics of the N64 and the Gamecube. The Gamecube and Gameboy advance were purple because he wanted them to be so.
My experience with both controllers was positive. They were comfortable and effective at their tasks. I will grant you that the N64 controller's analog stick was easily worn down if you played demanding games such as Mario Party (the original one wreaked havoc upon it) and that the positioning of the Gamecube controller's analog sticks was slightly less orthogonal than the Xbox's. However, to call him 'batshit' is ludicrous.
We owe Miyamoto, and everyone like him, our industry. If 'batshit' is what it takes to make good games, then we should all be 'batshit'.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!