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Nintendo Admits They May 'Lose Some Purists'
njkid1 writes "GameDaily has up their full E3 interview with Nintendo of America's George Harrison, SVP of Marketing and Corporate Communications. Harrison talks about the move of the company's sales and marketing force, acknowledges that Nintendo may 'lose some purists' while attempting to broaden the audience, and he doesn't rule out a Wii revision: 'It's interesting, console hardware has always historically been on a sort of fixed, sequential pattern almost every five to six years and it takes you about five years to develop a new piece of console hardware. The handhelds and portables, like Game Boy and now DS, we've always been continuously innovating, and whenever we feel like it's time or have an upgrade, we'll do it, whether it's an improved screen for the handheld or slimmed down like the DS Lite - those types of things. So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.'"
Until I played them.
Now Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are considered all-time classics, even by 'purists', even by old hands like me. Should Mario have stayed true to his 2D roots to satisfy purists? Should Zelda have stayed top-down? Certainly not. Purism of that kind leads to stagnation; while the occasional throwback like New SMB is wonderful, games have to evolve or become stale.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
"like the one where you're on the balance board doing the hula-hoop on the board and trying to see how many you can catch and keep going."
I don't know what kind of hula-hoop Harrison's been using, but there's usually no catching involved where I come from...
If you lose 100,000 purists but gain 50,000,000 new customers, then I'd say the tradeoff is a pretty good deal!
That being said, I haven't seen any sign of the Nintendo faithful ditching Nintendo. Everyone who was going to leave already left during the Gamecube generation. Now some of those players are coming back, and some of them are ranting about how they're "too grown up" for Nintendo now. I imagine that Nintendo will just shrug its shoulders and move on. They're creating a large enough NEW market that they don't need to worry about a vocal minority.
Personally, I tend to laugh at the "grown up" comments. What's "grown up"? Sex, violence, disturbing imagery, and online play that lets you swear at each other? I'm not really sure why any adult would want to exclusively subject themselves to such content, but that is their choice. It just doesn't make the "kiddie" argument against Nintendo any stronger.
When people use the term "too old" for something, they usually mean that the item in question can no longer support the person (e.g. a playground) or that it does not challenge the person at a level commiserate with their age. (e.g. Leapfrog Leapster) Thus the only argument I could see is that the storylines are too simplistic to hold an adult's attention. Which would be a good argument if we were talking about My Little Ponies. But half the games don't actually have storylines (e.g. Excite Truck, Metal Slug, Smash Bros., Strikers) and the majority of the remainder are anything but insulting. (e.g. Zelda, Super Paper Mario, Metroid, Red Steel, etc.)
The truth is that the Wii simply does not appeal to some people, regardless of the excuses they make up. Whether they used to be or not, these people are NOT Nintendo's customers any longer. Nintendo would be foolish to try and chase them around when the truth is that these customers are better satisfied elsewhere.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I still don't get all this talk about Nintendo abandoning the "purists." We've already gotten Zelda and Paper Mario games and Mario, Metroid, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Fire Emblem and more are on the way. Yes, Nintendo is making new types of games and game like things as well, but the staples Nintendo has been known for over the last several years are still here as well.
Who doesn't like to play with their wii? I've got two co-workers who have them now and they often invite me over to play with their wii. I have yet to take them up on the offer as I'm concerned that playing with your wii excessively may lead to carpal-tunnel so I'm going to wait to see if it becomes an issue now that everyone is playing with their wiis all the time. Maybe a medical study after a year or two. I wouldn't be surprised if it's unsafe to play with your wii more than 3 or 4 hours a day. Future wiis may need to come with a warning sticker. Something like "Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that playing with your wii excessively can cause carpal tunnel, tennis elbow and blindness." So for me at least the Jury is still out on the wii and whether it's really the best at what it does (Although the market appears to have decided that it is.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Whilst new features in a console are nice, the biggest problem I have with new revisions is if you want to "upgrade" what do you do with your old kit? It'd likely not sell 2nd has as well as everyone goes for the new improved revision. I just get the impression we're going to end up throwing yet more electronic hardware away if this becomes a common trend, particularly if the upgrade is such a big jump as the DS to the DS Lite was that it does make a large difference getting the new kit.
It's even more of an issue with DRM for downloadable content that often stops you moving it from one console to another, do you have to buy your content all over again if you switch to the new version?
Of course, many will say "Just don't buy the new version if you're worried about these things" but let's face it it's not really a particularly ideal solution - even if I don't upgrade there are people that will and shouldn't we be discouraging electronic waste in this day and age? I saw the fact that a games console lasted 4 or 5 years as the single most important point consoles have over PC gaming, so it certainly begs the question, if consoles are going to get new hardware versions every 2 years or so then what's the point of console gaming over PC gaming? I see the 360 elite upgrade as a slight improvement on the DS to DS Lite transition because HDMI isn't that big a deal yet, I can likely live without it until the next hardware generation arrives and the 120gb hard drive is at least something I can upgrade separately without replacing the whole console, still not perfect of course. I can't see the Wii being upgradeable in this way unless we're talking about a USB hard drive for it which would be great, the internal memory isn't particularly much.
Hell I want some SOFTWARE revisions. WarioWare on the Wii shipped with a show-stopping bug. Despite the fact you can have up to 12 players in a multi-player battle, it only supports...one wiimote.
Seriously, Nintendo. Who let that one slip through QA? Are we supposed to chuck the thing around the living room when the game speeds up? Launch title or not, there's not even an option for more wiimotes to be used. So, ironically, I went through hell getting enough wiimotes and nunchucks for my roommates so we could all have some roaring fun times, and now we just use 1 wiimote for starting up GameCube games.
Or maybe we can talk about Super Paper Mario, the Game That Gave Up somewhere about mid-point. When you ran out of ideas for level design and thought it would be keen and edgy to literally make a pure white level with a black line for ground, and make the player run it for a few minutes. When that one got the OK, you started making a lot of levels that were simply backtracking everywhere. Feels like an RPG, except the RPG-ish item system was superfluous. I used more items just to see what they would do than having any actual need for. There was a lot of wiimote shaking involved. Zero replay, sold back to Game Stop after a week.
I don't give a hang for hardware revision. If I want graphics I'll buy a PS3. I want the quality software that I supposedly bought the Wii for.
Also I hope that every game that comes out strains mightily to use the fabulous motion sensing controllers, and think it's unique. Until every game that comes out wants to use it in a New and Exciting way. I already paid for Tiger woods 2005-2007 on the GameCube, and near as I have heard, the 2007 polish job for the Wii is somewhere between stillborn and stagnant.
I'm sure everybody loves to hear a whiner, but nothing has really sold me on the Wii as a gaming console so far. Regardless of Nintendo wanting to go after a different demographic, I'm still in the one that wants to play fun games, and not the one that surfs the web from my couch. I bought a DS 2 weeks ago and have had more fun with the games on it than I've had on the Wii. Why does the DS have more Netplay functionality than the Wii? Where the hell is all the potential of the Wii being siphoned away to? I can't be the only person disappointed with it.
As someone mentioned the other day, games never used to be hundreds of screens of options and thousands of button combinations to press in a specific order to win. They were on the whole pretty simple to play.
Don't get me wrong nethack is hard the first time you play on it (although it's such a good game). But as soon as you look at the controls and figure out that they use the vi commands for movement you can pick up and play - just add more detail into the game as and when you're ready... it goes with you more than the new games seem to.
Mario is an even better example, easy as you like at the start, gets harder... but very much "pick up and play".
The Wii follows from this "pick up and play" idea. That's where the purists should be, not playing these games that you get on the 360 (I went into gamestation and tried to play a game demo they'd got on - I couldn't even figure out how to do anything... there was about 800 context sensitive button combinations before you got to any kind of action... I'd already given up before that happened)
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
The first video game system I ever owned was the original NES. I still vividly remember the first time I ever played one and it's an interest that's stuck with me to this very day. I had all of the games that are generally considered Nintendo classics: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and a myriad of other games. Eventually I upgraded to an SNES and picked up the 16-bit versions of those games and many others. I never purchased an N64, but some of my friends had them and I got my fix over at their houses, however, I still enjoyed Mario Kart and other SNES games and played them excessively.
The next game system I bought was a PS2, but a while after that I purchased a GameCube to catch up on all the new games that Nintendo had brought out. I eventually picked up an Xbox as well and even a used Dreamcast to complete that generation. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons and like every other generation there were some incredible games that were produced that you couldn't help but enjoy.
Last November I decided to camp out in front of a Wal-Mart and freeze my ass off so that I could get a Wii on launch day. After playing some of the latest incarnations of games (Zelda) and seeing what's in store for others (Mario, Metroid) I don't feel any differently about them than those old classics I played on the NES and SNES. As someone who's grown up around these Nintendo franchises I don't understand how people who claim to be long time fans can be disappointed in the Wii or the latest versions of their old favorites. I'm wondering if they really ever played and enjoyed these games or if their tastes have simply changed over the years. If you want bleeding edge graphics in your games, I suppose that's fine, but please don't try to pass yourself off as a purist if that's what you really want.
I'm quite glad that I grew up experiencing those games so that if I go back to play them today I'm not turned off by the lack of powerful graphics like some people are today. As cool as the graphical powerhouses that games such as Crysis and others like it with brilliant graphics are, will they ever be able to claim the same level of interest as Pac-Man ever commanded?
I don't think that purist should be confused with graphics whore, or whatever term would be most appropriate. I would think that purists play games to enjoy games, whether they're made using 8-bit sprites or ray traced using the powerful hardware we'll likely see in the future.
Revised Wii == "Re-Wii"?!
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Does it include those retarded "hardcore" tournament players for Super Smash Bros. that demand you only ever use Final Destination, no items, and only allow half the roster? If so, I would like to say that not only do I hope the door hits their ass on the way out, but it also knocks them on their face.
Wow, penis jokes. You really are on the cutting edge of comedy. This was almost as good as Larry The Cable Guy.
Isn't he the dipshit who yammered about the superiority of the N64's cartridge format and dismissed Final Fantasy 7 as a slow and tedious game nobody would want to play? ...And before the Nintendo fanboys jump me...I own a Wii. I like my Wii. It cost less than $500 and it still works a few months after purchase, which I think puts it leaps and bounds ahead of Sony and Microsoft. But the fact remains that George Harrison is a moron.
Namco announced the sequel of Tales of Symphonia as a Wii exclusive. Do we -really- need anything else? That justifies the console right there for me.
and yet you praise Nethack because all you have to do is
I agree with you though. Anyone off the street, so to speak, should be able to pick up a new game and figure out most of the controls within a few minutes of messing around with it. In fact, figuring the control scheme out should be part of the charm, not a horrifying ordeal.
Read Pynchon.
I would like to hear less from Nintendo about what kind of gamers will or will not enjoy their games, and more about when they are actually going to start releasing some serious titles for the Wii. A glance at their Australian release schedule (where I happen to live), for example, suggest that precious little in the way of non-franchise, serious games is coming this year.
If you take that list and remove everything that's a console download, a "classic" of some sort, a weird Japanese/manga game, a silly film tie-in, or an established Nintendo franchise (honestly, I didn't think Metroid Prime was anything more than a reasonable shooter with a frustrating control scheme myself), there's precious little to get excited about.
Where are any of the following?
- 'serious' baseball game
- 'serious' tennis game
- 'serious' bowling game
- decent sword fighting games
- a cricket game
- lightgun style shooters
- ordinary first person shooters
- adventure games - for the first time mouse-driven adventures are a serious option on a console
- the oft-rumoured light sabre Star Wars game????
Until we start seeing something, anything, new of interest other than the big franchise games (Smash Bros, Mario, Metroid, Zelda) then Nintendo can talk about who it is and isn't appealing to as much as it likes, but in reality it's wasting a golden opportunity to capitalise on the best console launch it's had since the SNES.
Read Pynchon.
You're just asking for it, huh? Okay: HEDWIG DIES!!! :-)
In developpment. If you want them out sooner, feel free to invest millions of dolars in a game company.
You can add me as "foe" now.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Why, will you insult me in the future? Even so, I don't do this childish "foe" thing. I don't need to single people out, I hate everyone equally :-)
nah, I'm not going to spoil any of the actual events in the book. especially if you're obsessed enough to worry about hedwig.
I am quite pissed about the Manhunt 2 fiasco and I don't even want to buy the game...but I want it released FOR ADULTS. Am I a purist when it comes to censorship? YES, I AM!!! Do I think that avoiding a showdown with the US Congress over Manhunt 2 or other AO games is part of Nintendo's strategy to expand the Wii market? Absolutely. Is the hardcore gaming market turned off by Nintendo's expansion? Not one bit...but I think many will remain pissed over not having AO titles available on the Wii (or any other console, for that matter).
They can't look past the horsepower of the CPU, or the polygon numbers, and seem to think that if something isn't the biggest and the baddest, then its not worth having.
So many Wii games are about gameplay; sweet, simple, pick up and have fun gameplay. The controls are innovative and the Mii concept is pure genius. How cool is it to play a game where you, yes you, are the character on-screen? I had a quick flick through my Mii roster - more than half of them are female, from friends and relatives who've come round and asked to have a go. First thing I do, to get them used to the controls, is have them build themselves a Mii. 10 minutes later, they've become accustomed to the controls, they have an avatar that they'll recognise instantly and they can get into the games because the Wii Sports controls are very straight-forward. So far, everybody who's had a go has left intending to acquire a Wii in the near future, or as soon as they could find one for sale.
For decades, the games industry has been talking about increasing their audience by making games that would appeal to females. Unfortunately, their attempts to do this seemed to involve ponies, and standard controls, not realising that those self-same controls were often the problem. Now, due to the Mii and the Wiimote, loads more people are trying their hand at gaming - people who've never shown the slightest interest in a computer or console before. Actually, I think that might be a large part of the problem - when the mundanes start getting into something that geeks had seen as uniquely their own for a long time, maybe it loses some of its geek chic, and is disparaged by the 'hardcore' as a result.
The bird in Ninja Gaiden one one of the last levels. You had to some how swing your sword at a perfect time to kill it and actually make the jump. Fortunately it didn't force me to start the game over just had to go back a couple of levels when you were out of guys.