Miyamoto Scrutinizes Mario, Zelda, Hails Portal

eldavojohn writes "Nintendo icon Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that 'What I've been saying to our development teams recently is that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing. And while, personally, I feel like Super Mario Galaxy was able to do some things that were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative. This is something I've been talking to both of those teams about ... hopefully [the next Mario and Zelda] will feel newer and fresher than their most recent versions.' MTV Multiplayer also commented on Portal's mechanics and gameplay, to which Miyamoto responded, 'I think Portal was an amazing game, too.' GameSetWatch has a related article criticizing Nintendo for relying on the Wii's input devices to develop game franchises rather than improving actual gameplay."

Comments

Re:I love Miyamoto's insight

[Toonol]

Shallow isn't bad. I spent countless hours of my childhood tossing and catching a rubber ball with my friends; I did it for five minutes with my son yesterday. Simple, shallow, but perpetually awesome.

Or, to illustrate it with videogames; Asteroids is shallow as hell, but playing it is a much purer state of videogame zen than gears of war will ever be.

Re:Fair comments

[sleeponthemic]

That is the problem though - Desires aside, there are not enough actual, proven decent titles coming from the wii catalogue. In a previous post I'd mentioned the realisation that there are very few Wii games reviewed with 85% or higher (compared to other consoles). Something that became increasingly obvious as I checked in bi-monthly to see if there is anything worth playing.

Someone (some awesome individual) then did a bit of stats and posted a very good summation of the situation (deserved to be modded up but too late, I guess). Read these stats and think about how many of the actually good games are franchises.. I will repost it here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1009873& cid=25545311

Ok, let's use Metacritic...

Wii First available: November 19, 2006
Scores 80 and above: 36 games
Scores 85 and above: 13 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/wii/scores/

Xbox 360 First available: November 22, 2005
Scores 80 and above: 122 games
Scores 85 and above: 47 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/scores/

PS3 First available: November 11, 2006
Scores 80 and above: 79 games
Scores 85 and above: 34 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ps3/scores/

PS2 First available: October-November, 2000
Scores 80 and above: 319 games
Scores 85 and above: 149 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ps2/scores/

Nintendo DS First available: November, 2004
Scores 80 and above: 64 games
Scores 85 and above: 25 games
Source: http://www.metacritic.com/games/ds/scores/

"Good" Game per Month (GGPM) Ratio Since most consoles were released in November, lets round up their ages by year. And assuming the score of 80 qualifies as a "good" game: - Wii: 36/24 = 1.5 GGPM
- 360: 122/36 = 3.39 GGPM
- PS3: 79/24 = 3.29 GGPM
- PS2: 319/96 = 3.32 GGPM (*)
- NDS: 64/48 = 1.33 GGPM

*) The PS2 probably doesn't have many new games anymore in the past few years.

It seems the NDS and Wii are filled with a lot more family and kids-friendly games, and these games tend to not favor the critics, and possibly most hardcore gamers.

I think, given the quality and innovation of SMG, there is enough room for further elaboration on the Wii.

And if you truly actually want decent titles on the Wii rather than noveltyware, right now, you're worried about the future of this console. Very little quality stuff is coming out. It's a complete contradiction to the perpetually sold out status of the console. I'm surprised more people are not complaining about how poor the catalogue is. As it stands, more often than not if I go browse the Wii shelves, I'm standing next to a family who are buying a game on cover alone (and promised novelty mechanics that rarely work). If that is the majority market, I can see why publishers don't give a shit, just turn out turds and watch the dollars roll in :-)

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a "gamer". I just make informed decisions on whether to buy something. Strangely, whenever I check whether I should, I'm confronted with a fairly resounding "nothing to see here" regarding new stuff coming for the Wii.