Nintendo’s love for shallow games is skin deep
Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 12:50pm by Blake
“If all our games mirror games like Wii Sports or Wii Fit, our gamers would soon grow bored,” assured Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, in a recent interview published to Wii.com.
I think conventional gamers appreciate quality mini-games from time to time. I know I do. Hopefully Iwata’s statement can soothe any feelings of alienation that Nintendo will completely turn their back on deep, engaging, and traditional video games.
Cas-core: are ye not entertained??!!
January 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Now if only Iwata could pass that same attitude on to the third party developers who have been saturating the market with shallow games.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I second that boB. I think Nintendo has done an excellent job of releasing a variety of games. Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess in a twelve month period is pretty sweet. Add to that Fire Emblem, Mario Strikers Charged, Battalion Wars 2 and Super Paper Mario and I don’t see how the hardcore gamer can complain. Third parties have not done a great job of getting good games on the Wii. Hopefully this will change in 2008
January 24th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I think there aren’t enough games in the “Mii Series”. Sure, you see your floating head in Super Mario Galaxy, but I want more games in which I am the main character!!
January 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I personally think it’s pretty telling that Mario, Metroid, and Zelda all were very deep in development before the Wii was the knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark success that it has become. Therefore, people using the argument “Look at Mario! Look at Metroid and Zelda” as fodder for the stance that Nintendo will still make those kinds of games in the future are using a very flawed argument. It’s not like once Wii Sports sold like gangbusters that they were going to simply CANCEL development of Metroid Prime 3. But, looking at sales of Wii Sports vs. sales of Metroid Prime 3, which is more likely to be greenlit for development starting in 2008? This is my main fear.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
^^ My fears, exactly.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
He says it
He knows it
Will he do it?
The fact of the matter is, Nintendo’s only one company with ~3000 employees. They can only do so much internally and it’s obvious to them and the genius that is Iwata that the most profitable (and most beneficial to overall market growth) thing to do is to set their limited resources to maximum innovation with maximum accessibility to hit massive crowds.
Iwata recognises the traditional gamer.
He understands us
He truly loves us
But supporting us isn’t necessarily the most prudent course of action.
Why waste everything they can do appeasing the fickle minority rather than rejuvenate the industry to their absolute total capability. Traditional development on the rival systems may very much be described as cases of more speed, less haste.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Deja Vu…
Didn’t we hear this kind of talk when the DS was entering its second year too? And no, I’m not talking about what Iwata said.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Andrew-MG, your concerns are justified. However, isn’t comparing money making Wii Sports sales to money making Metroid Prime 3 sales like comparing apples and oranges? Obviously a business goes where the money is, but that doesn’t mean a business cuts products (in this case, “hardcore games”) completely from the product line, so long as they are making money. Right?
January 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I don’t even see much evidence of a focus on so-called “casual” games out of Nintendo, not to the detriment of so-called “hardcore” games. Third parties, sure, they’re going nuts with the minigames. Nintendo? So far, every “Wii *” product they’ve released - all 3 of them - has sold at least in part because it came with some hardware.
People are fretting about Nintendo deciding to only release Mii-based minigame collections when the only ones scheduled for release this year are Wii Fit and Wii Music, if that even makes it out this year. On the other side we have Brawl and Mario Kart. I think everyone expects Animal Crossing as well, and that blurs the lines between the two kinds of games.
Does anyone really think Nintendo is going to rush out a bunch of quickly and poorly designed “Wii Shovel”-ware this year? The only shred of “evidence” I’ve seen for this theory is the cancellation of Project Hammer, a game that looked as slight as Wii Play from where I sat.
I’m pretty sure that if they were the kind of company who’d do that, we’d all have PSPs by now.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am
No Blake, I’m not saying I think they’re going to cut “hardcore games” out of their plan altogether, but I am saying that it doesn’t make sense monetarily for them to put nearly as much focus on them if they won’t sell. It is a business decision that Nintendo will surely make to produce fewer games that tend to cater to me, and more games that tend to cater to my aunt. And that, I think, is at the heart of my discontent with Nintendo. I don’t really see them putting nearly as many resources toward games that I will like in the next 24-48 months if the games that make them the most money are Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Wii Sports. It doesn’t financially make sense.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:49 am
And for the record, I don’t think they’re apples and oranges - they’re video game sales. You take the cost of development and promotion and subtract that from sales and you have your profit. It’s the same formula with both Wii Sports and Metroid Prime 3. And the bottom line is Metroid Prime 3 doesn’t make them nearly as much money as Wii Sports. And Nintendo is nothing if not a financially sound decision maker.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:58 am
As the ultra-nintendo-fanboy that I am, I’m not blind and I can’t help but agree with Andrew-MG on this one. And the problem is even worst for 3rd parties. I hope we’re wrong.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:55 am
“Didn’t we hear this kind of talk when the DS was entering its second year too?”
The talk that success of game A would lead to more titles developed that are similar to game A? Yes, probably. It’s been a pretty constant theme during the entertainment industry, and it’s held true for the DS. The success of Brain Age has created dozens of Brain Age knockoffs. The success of Nintendogs has created dozes of Nintendogs knockoffs. Just because games like Advance Wars and Contra exist on the DS doesn’t mean that far more development resources aren’t being put toward genres that have a history of selling better.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“It is a business decision that Nintendo will surely make to produce fewer games that tend to cater to me, and more games that tend to cater to my aunt. And that, I think, is at the heart of my discontent with Nintendo.”
Agreed. That said, I’m confident Nintendo will deliver quality conventional games, though not in as great of a quantity. But I gotta say, I’m personally interested in imaginative games, even if it they are intended for your aunt. Where there’s fresh gameplay to be found, I’ll be there.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
As someone who has already professed my love for the Gamecube software library, when it comes to “fresh gameplay” I’m of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset. I loved the Gamecube, just about everything about it. Some of my favorite games of all time played on that purple box, so I think another reason I’ve been so down on Nintendo this past year is that it’s hard for me to see them so blatantly change their style from something I loved dearly. The Gamecube to me was the best of both words - Nintendo innovation and gameplay, and relatively comparable hardware to the competition so that ports were relatively easy to make. But that’s another discussion entirely. My point in this post is to say that I found the games they were making pre-Wii to be fresh in the gameplay department, so I didn’t want a change. It was thrust upon me.