Miyamoto: E3 is for “new concepts,” rest of the year is for everything else
Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 8:24pm by Jack
Think the Nintendo E3 presser was terrible, and lacked core games? It was by design, said Shigeru Miyamoto.
“I think that there’s probably one other element to it, and that’s that our view of how we use E3 has changed. For a very long time, E3 was an event where – and certainly Nintendo included – catered specifically to the core gamer. Now we look at more … an opportunity for us to introduce new concepts and new types of play that we intend to bring to the broader audience, particularly because of the media that gathers at E3 now.”
Introduce new concepts? New technologies? E3 isn’t as relevant as it once was? Sounds vaguely familiar, and I once again invite anyone clamoring to jump ship from Nintendo to calm down, wait it out, and look at the patterns. This is Nintendo’s MO now, and we’ll see the “core” games in due time. Core games are perfectly safe, and on Nintendo’s radar. In the mean time, third parties, IMO, really impressed. Check out Jake’s wrap ups on E3 for more.
UPDATE: Here’s the original interview, in which Miyamoto takes on core vs hardcore labels, the quote above, and other stuff from E3. Thanks, Christian.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Makes sense to me. The “hardcore” gamer will still know whats going on using blogs, the Internet and sites like this. The “casual” on the other hand may not himself keep up with E3, but instead with media that does. We tend to forget that there are other media than IGN, G4tv, Gametrailers etc, thats been covering E3 lately: tv channels and newspapers, you know that stuff that casual people watches/reads.
So for Nintendo to reach out to the target they’re trying to get into gaming it seems smarter to make use of the large media convent E3 in fact is instead of some smaller press release some random day that goes not much further than to the blogs we hardcore people read.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Well I suppose that makes sense. After all a hardcore gamer is going to know about a new Nintendo franchise game almost as soon as it gets announced, but new IPs and more casual games like the ones they announced might not get as much attention is they don’t announce them somewhere where they’ll get a lot of press. But if that’s the case, you’ve gotta wonder, where will Nintendo talk about the hardcore titles? Will Nintendo just announce hardcore games at random intervals, or will they pick another game conference (like Leipzig, TGS, or GDC) to focus on the hardcore gamer? Oh well, at least we know not to hold too high standards for next year’s E3 now.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Assamassina summarizes it this way:
“Interestingly, what games like The Conduit, MadWorld, de Blob, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Chrono Trigger, Prince of Persia DS and complete no-shows like Fatal Frame, Rune Factory, Monster Hunter, Pikmin, Kid Icarus and Soma Bringer prove without any doubt is that Nintendo possessed the catalog to dazzle traditional players. It simply chose not to” … “Nintendo showed off three our four Wii games and a couple more for DS. Majesco had a bigger lineup.”
July 17th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
“…that we intend to bring to the broader audience, particularly because of the media that gathers at E3 now.”
By “the media that gathers at E3 now”, he is referring to some of the more “larger” publications that more non-gamers and casuals read. Nintendo isn’t here to entertain its original fanbase that has been with them for over 20 years at E3 anymore, they’re there for the soccer moms. While Nintendo may not have sold out on its original fanbase…yet, it certainly has already at E3, and Shiggy just proved it.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I’m betting the sweet spot for Nintendo will be the Tokyo Game show, as far as hardcore titles go.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Well that’s fine, if that is what they want to do. But they should at least let us know that there is stuff coming for us later on. They probably should have mentioned that before E3 because most people were still under the assumption that E3 was still for the fans. I don’t mind waiting, just let us know beforehand. Maybe next year we won’t expect so much.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Despite all your blathering Jack, this still doesn’t address the complaint that what was shown, by and large, wasn’t good. Not because it wasn’t “core”, but because the actual quality of the products demonstrated seemed rather mediocre. I like the idea of WiiMusic, for instance, the implementation just looked bad. I’m not jumping ship, but I still say this was a poor e3. Again, for the comprehension impaired, not because of the choice of products to demonstrate, but because of the quality of said products.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Fair enough, Richter. I also didn’t warm to Wii Music, just the MotionPlus platform it was built upon. I will continue to blather, nevertheless.