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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.
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...
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.
+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.
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