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Mistwalker Announces Two RPGs for the DS
Mistwalker studios, the studio headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, has announced they are hard at work on two RPGs for the Nintendo DS. One is a portable version of their just-released-for-360 title Blue Dragon, while a second title called AWAY: Tsuresarareta Hitobito has few details attached at this point. "Little is known about the title outside of the fact that it's being developed by Artoon. They are notable for having Naoto Oshima--character designer for Sonic and Dr. Robotnik--on board. The only hint about the game is the subtitle, 'Tsuresarareta Hitobito,' which means 'kidnapped people'--strange considering the release date of January 31, 2008 is quickly approaching." Great news for RPG-loving DS owners, who can add these titles to the stack with Dragon Quest IX . It's also an interesting example of a primarily Microsoft studio creating content for a Nintendo console, which coincides with rumours of Viva Pinata for the Wii currently in the works.
With the success of the DS in Japan and 50 million units distibuted worldwide... why isn't there an MMORPG for the DS out yet? Integrated wifi and stylus control makes the system ripe for this genre of game!
Let me start by saying if anyone ports good RPGs to the DS, I will buy them. I love RPGs and I love my DS. (I am a non-philandering geek who does business travel. Enough said.)
So: call me crazy, but didn't Blue Dragon get rated rather poorly for the 360? What is the business case for them porting a mediocre-selling title?
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There's nothing shocking or revolutionary about Microsoft or Microsoft-affiliated studios producing games for Nintendo portables. After being purchased by Microsoft, Rare later produced a DS sequel to its Nintendo 64 Diddy Kong Racing. Since Microsoft isn't in the portable gaming market at the moment, there's not really a downside to it.
I'd be a little more surprised if they started releasing games for the Wii. Not shocked, mind you: I'm old enough to remember when Mattel, Atari, and Coleco used to release games for each other's consoles in the early 80s. But it's still more significant than a company that focuses on the set-top box console market releasing a game for another company's handheld.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
This news doesn't suprise me, Rare worked with Nintendo platforms years and years before being snapped up by Microsoft and at a Microsoft game developer conference early last year one of the questions we asked was whether they miss working with Nintendo.
The general response was that they prefer working with MS, partly because their work/life balance is better in that MS has the money to look after it's employees and that on a technical level MS' development platforms were nicer to work with. However, at the same time they noted that they did indeed miss working with Nintendo but that MS wasn't preventing them from doing so hence Diddy Kong racing on the DS being a product of Rare released well after MS' takeover of them. Furthermore, the Rare staff noted to us that MS was allowing them to develop for various mobile platforms, including those supporting Java over Windows mobile.
It's not suprising to me therefore that Rare is possibly intending to port Viva Pinata to the Wii, after all MS clearly isn't opposed to letting it's studios work with Nintendo, Rare's roots are with Nintendo and it's something the staff seem happy to do. Likewise with Mistwalker, whilst they may be a primarily Microsoft dev studio I'd imagine their situation is pretty similar to that of Rare's.
I think it all reinforces the view that Microsoft doesn't actually see the Wii as a particularly direct threat to the 360 as they have sometimes mentioned in the past because of the different target audiences of the two consoles and because for those willing to pay the price of a PS3 they can instead get both a Wii and a 360 in the process neither harming the sales of one or the other. Furthmore, MS can reap the benefits of Wii/DS game sales without worrying about the associated R&D costs of developing the hardware of that platform when they let their game studios develop for Nintendo platforms making the whole thing a win/win situation. I think MS' stance is that if it pulls in money without risking 360 sales their game dev. studios are welcome to do what they want, that seems a pretty sensible attitude to have. In business I imagine profit comes above fanboyism with regards to whoever's console is best.
Why Microsoft publishes games on the 360 that flop in Japan as a result of being on the 360 and then makes a DS version (see above and Viva Piñata) after the fact. Would it not make more sense to publish a DS game first and try to capitalise on the popularity of this system to raise a game's profile before publishing on the 360?
Uh, Mistwalker already has a game for the DS coming out in Japan this week: Archaic Sealed Heat. Search YouTube for gameplay footage. Essentially, it's an SRPG with an immense amount of FMV; in fact, every battle animation is done with fluid, hand-drawn animation. High production values. Looks nice, if a bit unoriginal.
Is there a reason that nearly all of Nintendo's games have such silly looking characters? I have to say that it really turns me off from Nintendo products. I do not need photo-realism. I really like the Bioware Infinity Engine based games, such as Fallout and Baldur's Gate. The cartoon characters are just too hard for me to enjoy (stats, over 40, married, male).
Mistwalker is not and never was a MS game studio.
Just because their first projects released were exclusive XBox 360 titles does not make them a MS studio.
That's why it's no surprise they went the way of the DS, as their projects failed as expected in the japanese market, and they will never make a good name for their studio, if they go on developing exclusively for XBox 360.
That's because their core audience is japanese, and they have to cater to them.
Lots of PC games are on the DS. Anno 1701, Theme Park or Age of Empires (also by Microsoft) are examples.
I hate japanese rpgs, they tend to be endless rails games, with battles every five seconds, almost no puzzles and fighting animations which are close to being pointles. Unfortunately this style which is close to the western rpg style of the mid 80s has taken over over the more open stronger puzzle oriented rpg style at least on the consoles. Give me another decent ultima, fallout, or planetscape torment, the standard seems to be final fantasy clone 700!
When we actually do get "PC games" on the DS, we get "Japanese style RPG's", which feature children weilding oversized weapons. Blue Dragon was just unplayable for this reason. The other alternative we seem to get from Japan are RPG's featuring salon-styled pretty boys.
The DS is *made* for diablo, starcraft, etc. Where are they???
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