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Nintendo's President Hopes To Avoid 'Return to Arrogance'
Today Newsweek's N'Gai Croal has up an interview originally held back at E3, speaking with current President of Nintendo Satoru Iwata. The piece is an interesting look inside one of the top minds at a company that has experienced unprecedented success in the last year. In the interview, Iwata states that one of his most important tasks right now is to avoid allowing the company to appear arrogant. Just because people now assume Nintendo will succeed, he needs to make sure that's not the company's view as well. "This time, we were very lucky and very fortunate that people were accepting and positive about the introduction of the Wii Balance Board and the Wii Zapper. Now, what we have to do, what's very important for us is to make sure that when those products are actually launched, we not only meet their expectations, but we surpass them so there's that gap--we thought it was going to be this, when actually it's here. We need to create that buzz. We need to create that word of mouth and that's our challenge."
Signed, Grand High Ultimate Iwata-sama-daioh.
Seriously, though, it's good news. If you remember what the old Nintendo were like, you'd see Sony and Microsoft's evil pale in comparison. They've had plenty of time to repent in the meantime, of course.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
They need to make sure that at least 3 good games use the new devices when they come out, or shortly after. Third party help needs to be top-notch for the new peripherals. I like the balance board idea especially if it is linked to the wiimote, but SSX or Tony Hawk is never going to support it without a major push by Nintendo.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
console success. If he can keep the company non-arrogant, they will be diligent and able to respond to changes in the industry better too.
As successful as the Wii has been, Nintendo still hasn't listened in regards to the on-line experience, which to say is nothing less than pathetic. The fact that Nintendo is steadfastly committed to the ridiculous and unwieldy "friend code" system for multiplayer games while the 360 and PS3 maintain a more workable and sensible system is probably the best example. That and the fact that just about a year after launch there are no compelling on-line games tell me that Nintendo isn't taking the Internet seriously.
"Mii Parade" and weather updates aren't going to cut it as an on-line experience these days.
Not listening to you, maybe.
They're listening to me just fine: If I want online play, I'll play WoW. I have zero interest in online from my console, and I want them to spend that money instead on things I do want.
Hmmm. I also play WoW online, but I think they are listening to me about how to do online.
I like the idea of having to know someone's friend code to be able to talk with them online, and to visit their Animal Crossing II for the Wii village or their My Sims for the Wii village.
One thing I really hate are spammers and shock-jocks and curse monkeys online. If it means that I only play with friends - or at least go to a test area and make sure they are ok before I exchange friend codes with them - I am all for that.
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What I have always found to be most arrogant about Nintendo is the fact that they release the same software for each console they release. Granted, the games are well received and predominantly well reviewed, but as consumer it strikes me as pompus (or lazy?) of Nintendo to just release
Mario World
Mario Kart
Mario Party
Smash Bros
Metroid
Zelda
Even games that aren't that good, like Mario Golf and Mario Strikers get rehashed on every system. I understand franchises, but it just seems to me like Nintendo keeps pumping them out assuming that the games will be purchased by the faithful. That strikes me as arrogant. Of course Smash Bros, Metroid, Zelda, Mario Kart et cetera all turns out to be very good games, but as a Nintendo aficionado for the better part of two decades, I resent Nintendo for expecting me to continually buy the same type of games over and over.
*And I know there are new types of games for the Wii and DS that are innovative, but I'm talking about traditional gaming, not the "new gaming"
I can't understand why they don't want to don't want to do "Return to Arrogance", it sounds like a kewl game, though I am not familiar with the original game it is a sequel to...
With competitors like Sony and MS in the console segment, they'd have a hard time to appear arrogant, so maybe they thought it ain't worth trying.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Simple: They are game publishers with large coffers. The love of money (greed) encourages the breaking of many rules, even those designed to bring in more money.
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
You have a point. It might be that Nintendo's online would actually be worth playing.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
How is it "unprecedented"? Nintendo have had remarkable success before and sustained it for longer periods than a year. So have others in the industry.
I'm the biggest Nintendo fanboy of them all, but I think the quality control argument for third-party licensing is a load of crap.
The vast majority of the games made by third parties are garbage and they still get licensed for release. This was the case back in the NES days as well...remember Acclaim?!? Those clowns put out tons of licensed shovelware on all systems.
The only reason for third-party licensing is for the console manufacturer to make $$$ on the licensing fee.
Mario Strikers was a great GameCube game and is even better on the Wii. Online play is awesome!!!
Releasing a solid update to a classic series (e.g. Zelda, Mario, Metroid) is not arrogant...Nintendo is catering to its hardcore fan base by releasing these games and that's good business practice.
please don't put the "we hope to avoid a return to arrogance" quote immediately before a montage of Nintendo's arrogance in the intervening years. That would be a devastating edit.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
I think we'll have to wait until we see how it works with the games that we want to play.
... or does it mean any fruit they pick is regenerated and they can post on my village bulletin board and buy stuff from Nook's shops ... which would be fine. Especially if I set up a pizza parlor and they visit it and buy from my Wii Sim ...
... maybe not. Distributed multi-instance games like those ... yeah, should be fine.
...
Spore for the Wii downloads copies of other players' worlds, so that should work fine, and an online version could allow you to "play" in sandbox galaxies.
My Sims for the Wii should allow you to play in a friend's village while they're there, as will Animal Crossing II, but I always wonder does that mean they can mess with my stuff, put up graffiti, pick my fruit
It really depends on your style of playing. MMORPG
So long as I get to delete any nastygrams my friends leave
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Nerf Herder!
But the "quality control" isn't for "how fun a game is." There's no requirement that "the game is fun" in the list of stuff you have to pass to get certified by one of the big publishers. Basically, they're looking though a few categories of things:
a) You don't violate various trademarks of the publisher.
b) Your game doesn't crash, drop out the sound, render at 2 frames a second, sit on a black screen for 2 minutes while loading, etc.
c) Consistent UI experience
d) Do bad things that would break the system or introduce security holes.
"Crap" has nothing to do with the content but the fact that you're delivering what could be considered a valid, working piece of software. Whether or not its any good to play is up to the market to decide.
Right, so says the Sony shill. You also show your brilliance.
+1 to WillAffeckUW -- unlike the grandparent post, some of us are parents who are glad that Nintendo is making it harder for my family to get harangued by foul-mouthed 10-year-olds who think drawing penises is the height of comedy. Entering a friend code once is a minor inconvenience in comparison to dealing with the endless supply of twits who show up on XBox Live.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Sure, but why on earth does it need to be per-game? This is just a case of Nintendo not offering a centralized service and offloading it to each bit of component software, which is stupid, and based on a dumb-system/smart-cartridge model that didn't even play by the time they introduced it on the DS (which actually has some NVRAM storage).
Why not have a central friend-code, then per-game authorization instead, if you really see value in that? And personally, I'm at a loss for what the value would be for per-game authorization.
Anyway, almost all of the recent Nintendo online games let you -play- with random people, and the only reason you're saved by the 10-year-old curse monkeys is that there's no voice-over-IP capability for anyone. Friend codes only specify people you can specifically choose to message, play with, whatever, and serve the exact same purpose as a buddy list does on Xbox Live or PSN.
Why per game?
....
Hmm. I think I might object if I had a 10 yo playing Animal Crossing II with a friend who also owned a copy of Murder By Dagger: Destruction Apocolypse IV
I might not mind the first, but mind the second.
Each person is different.
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Initially, with the NES, nintendo limited the amount of games a publisher could put out a year (5, IIRC). Keep in mind this was fresh after the Video Game crash which was caused in part by a flood of shit games for the Atari(E.T. anyone). The 2600 had no lock out and a large (for the time) installed base, so it was almost trivial to start up a studio and pump shit out.
So anyway, in America nintendo limited the amount of games a publisher could release a year, and in theory the publisher would work harder on those games and make them better. In reality the publishers just created more brand names publish under. Konami was to cadilliac as Ultra was to chevrolet. What's worse was when ALready shitty game publisher's made another tier. Then you ended up with shit like the karate kid.
This sounds like the kinds of noise sony made with the PS1. They changed their tune when the PS2 was announced, and were arrogant up until about 3 months ago.
But that's good. When you buy a PS3, they give you tons of free trial downloads for games. Enough so that I haven't bought a game for the PS3 since I bought it; the demos are good enough.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
You do realise the 10 year old would have to buy said hypothetical murder game as well? Unless it's a multiplayer only game that won't let you get past the title screen without anyone else to play with, I think Friend Codes are the least of anyone's worries.
I enjoy the friend code system, but I hate the concept of not a single unified friend code. It's a mild inconvenience I'll admit, but an unnecessary one.
Shouldn't this be +4 funny, not insightful?
Yep, unless Sony Computer Entertainment America is involved which adds
e) The game is either 3d or sold at a reduced price/part of a compilation.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I understand your point. The wii is behind even the PS3 in terms of overall game selection (that's an opinion), but the wii is cheap and looks great on a cheap TV. That's a big deal. You can play gamecube games (And a lot of wii owners didn't have a gamecube).
If you own a wii right now, you're an early adopter. I think you should expect a drought of games. One thing's for sure: you will have your games soon enough. Developers will not ignore the wii, but it takes time for that to reach your living room.
Next time, if you get upset when your console doesn't have a bunch of games... don't buy your console until it's been out long enough to have a bunch of games. You paid a premium for early access to a cool toy, and wiser consumers (than you or me, since I buy the new stuff too) will get better systems for less money.
I see you don't know what kids today tend to play.
I know a lot of local kids who have access to such games.
Not everyone else's family is like yours.
I think a Golden Friend Code might be fun - but something that parental supervision might be useful for.
I for one would not allow my son's friend since he was in grade 5 - who was home-schooled and used to hack games - to be such a friend.
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Heh, I'm pretty sure they don't set the price. Once the publishers get their cut for pressing discs, how those boxes turn into $$$ is your problem. They of course have a suggested MSRP, but look at NFL 2k4 (5?) which sold for $20. They do have control over who they license to as a developer, so I could see them not giving out devkits to someone, but I don't know if 2d would be that big an issue. Little Big World is essentially 2d, right?
If I want to play twilight princess, but don't have a Wii, I can buy it for the gamecube. If I miss the original Zelda, I don't have to track down a 60 dollar NES on ebay... I can just buy it for whatever Nintendo system I happen to own.
I personally use their rehash strategy not to buy each game more than once as many people claim is their goal, but so that I can choose which systems to buy and not miss out on the games I really love. I feel it is a great service to the consumer. Especially since I can buy gameboy color versions of much more expensive gameboy advance games for my toddler and he doesn't know/care the difference.
As for games, there are some great ones for the Wii that are out already. The three that I play most are Trauma Center, Mario Strikers and Metroid Prime 3. Thats more than I play on the PS3. Right now I play MotoStorm and... God of War 2.
-- toolie
Sony can refuse to license any title they want* and SCEA has a tendency to refuse when a title uses 2d graphics (little big planet uses 3d graphics AFAIK) and is not going to be sold as B rate, i.e. cheaper or in a compilation (though I'm not sure if cheaper is enough). I read that several 2d SNK titles weren't released for the PS2 outside of compilations in the US (Metal Slug series, for example) while in Europe they were sold as standalone games. Occassionally a 2d game gets through (Odin Sphere) but I have no idea what their criteria are, probably "it needs this much hype" or something.
*=They also refuse AO rated titles and rumors claim they refuse licensing sometimes to exact pressure, supposedly they were refusing PS2 licenses to companies who didn't announce games for the PS3 at some E3. The Simple Series games (mostly cheap shovelware but as Sturgeon's Law suggests not all of them suck) were also blocked by SCEA from what I heard, causing the publisher to go for the XBox 360 instead of the PS3.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Third party support is weak, first party support is industry-leading. Technical specs are weak, user experience is industry-leading. Traditional priorities of competitors are weak, brand new ideas that happen to be just what people didn't know they were looking for are industry-leading. Hollow and obviously manufactured branding is weak, charismatic executives are industry-leading.
Mario and Metroid have been done already, so I usually don't bother with them. The new Metroid does look nex generation, and that's great, but it's still not what Resistance and Gears (two games I don't like) look like. Collecting stars and running from cute ghosts got old ten years ago.
And if you have a PS3, consider getting some of the great games out for it. Oblivion is great. I like Lair (though no one else does), and Warhawk is nice if you don't mind the server problems (that seemed fixed tonight). The PS3 is behind where it ought to be, but it's got more than two great games. Compared with the Wii lately, the PS3 is obviously ahead in software (which isn't saying much).
I have Warhawk, it is kind of boring. I'd rather play BF2142 on the PC. As for Oblivion, I have it on the PC also, and my roomie has it for the 360. I thought it sucked - that leveling mechanic was just stupid. You can get around that with mods for the PC at least.
I didn't play Resistance. The demo and my friend's opinions (the one that convinced me to get a PS3 in the first place) both made it seem like a waste of money. Gears was cool, some of the mechanics I liked (such as the running, using cover, and grenades). But it was just a simple Shooter for the most part. Metroid has some awesome puzzles and exploration. That makes it more fun, at least as far as I (and my roomie, his girlfriend like GoW better - go figure) are concerned.
As far as the games I listed, there is nothing to match Trauma Center or Mario Strikers on the PS3. I guess you could make an argument for Metroid-type games in Resistance, but it really isn't the same.
-- toolie
I do know what kids tend to play, I also know some kids with access to those games, and what my family is like is highly irrelevent (unless my family thinks logically and yours doesn't), because I was not implying any disagreement with kids getting violent games in anything I said.
Hmm. I think I might object if I had a 10 yo playing Animal Crossing II with a friend who also owned a copy of Murder By Dagger: Destruction Apocolypse IVMy point is that how would a single unified friend code make anything worse? If Timmy and Bobby can both get their hands on some multiplayer murder game, how would a per-game friend code make them any less likely to play than a "Golden Friend Code", which is what you implied in your original post?
The only logical scenario I can think of is that in this hypothetical murder game the single player is alright for a kid but not the multiplayer. If so, I'd like to know how many games come under this category...