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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."
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.
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.
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!