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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.
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
Two decades, you say? So you remember the NES era?
Then how much does Twilight Princess resemble The Legend Of Zelda? How similar is Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Bros. 3? What at all does Metroid Prime 3 have to do with Metroid? The similarities are pretty superficial: character art, brand name. Just about everything else has been changed massively over the years.
You have a case with Mario Party and Smash Bros, but for the rest? Nintendo reuse popular franchises, true, but they're hardly reissuing the same games over and over. Hell, even Twilight Princess only feels so much like Ocarina because the fanboys complained so much about Majora and Wind Waker...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
"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."
There's a couple of possibilities:
1. The Wii has broken sales records.
2. The Wii is a surprise hit. Whereas the SNES was considered a shoe-in. Its success didn't surprise anybody.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Not very similar at all, but it was very similar to Super Mario Bros. 1. Except ridiculously hard, so they wouldn't let us incompetent gaijin get our hands on it and fobbed us off with a rebranded reissue of bloody Doki Doki Panic. Which as it turned out wasn't actually a bad game at all.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
...who were drowned out by the cheers of praise from the mainstream non-gaming press. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that compliments from USA Today and The New York Times will help Nintendo more than brickabats from the likes of 1Up.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
+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
There's no assumption involved. The faithful WILL purchase them.
You don't have to buy them. The thing that other people like about Nintendo are these key franchises. Without Mario, without Zelda, without Metroid Prime, I wouldn't have purchased a Wii. First party titles are what people want, even if they are rehashes. That's the main reason I also own a PS3, for when Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo come out...
Exclusive franchises are important to any game console, look at Nintendo with Mario, Sony with Metal Gear Solid or Xbox with Halo... These are considered system sellers for a reason.
Take a look at this list of Video Game sales by Franchise. Here are couple:
#1 is the Mario franchise with 193 million games sold
#4 is the Final Fantasy franchise with 75 million games sold
#7 is the Zelda franchise with 52 million games sold
#8 is the Grand Theft Auto franchise with 50 million games sold
Nintendo would be crazy to not make any more Mario games when they still have a ton of devoted fans who will continue to purchase them (I know I'll be picking up a copy of Mario Kart Wii and Super Mario Galaxy).
On a side note, a lot of the GBA/DS games I own are ports of old games like Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (my favourite game). I owned all these games many years ago, but I bought them again so I could play them on my DS Lite and they are still extremely fun, even 10-20 years later.