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Nintendo Going Backwards (1 Viewer)

Lee M T

Second Unit
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We all probably already knew Nintendo was very odd, but in two recent interviews, former Nintendo president and the current president have me scratching my head. The excerpts in question are:

Former President


I hope they listen. They need to go to IGN.com. IGN posted E-mails from gaming fans in response to these two interviews. Only three were somewhat positive. IGN noted that they wanted to be more balanced with positive and negative reviews, but they really only had three positive E-mails. They said they had hundreds of negative responses.

Satoru Iwata Full Interview
 

Scott L

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Good post Lee, just fyi it's against HTF policy to post your equipment list in your sig.

I think he actually may be right on some points. Sadly I haven't been that excited about a game coming out since GTA3: Vice City, and those graphics were nothing special. Most of my gameplay time goes to the PC and my consoles are collecting dust.

Maybe it's just me but it seems like a boring time in the console gaming industry. I remember back in 95 looking forward to the latest issue of Ultra Game Players to see who was coming out with what. I just looked on ign.com and nothing really interests me besides the Ninja Gaiden remake for Xbox.
 

Tony_L

Grip
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Hmm, a game with grand graphics and epic stories? Sounds damn fun to me; I'm interested, where do I sign up? I feel like this guy is really embarrassing himself and Nintendo with his ignorance and his presumptuousness on public tastes. My thoughts were exactly the opposite of his right now starting back around the PSX days when games like Final Fantasy VII hit the stage and became one the hugest things going everywhere, and videgames started to mature and become legitimate, viable entertainment media alongside text and film. Now this guy shows his and Nintendo's, exactly as Lee says, stubbornly backwards mindset. What's even more perplexing is that "grand graphics" and "epic sounds and story" do not necessarily have ANYTHING to do with state-of-the-art, cutting-edge technology. I really do hope that this interview isn't indicative of the direction Nintendo the company plans to head in, away from any semblance of a serious game company. What does Nintendo think they can achieve by acting like they're peddling software to little kids?
 

Dean Martin

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Nintendo has some really good hardware right now and I wish they would focus on bringing us some games that are beyond Mario because they really are a solid game maker. Their Gamecube is a really well made peice of hardware. I haven't heard anyone complain about disc read errors, and other things like with Xbox and PS2.
Nintendo works against themselves sometimes. I wish they would look at Sega and try to be more like them minus the mistakes.
 

Jay Mitchosky

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htf_images_smilies_smiley_jawdrop.gif


Would be curious to see those marketing reports. The general expectation is that the core gameplay is sound. That doesn't free developers from the responsibility to make the game look and sound good as well. Otherwise we'd just stick with Pong. ;)

By the way, Lee, the reason we don't allow equipment lists in signatures is that it messes up searches. If people run a text search on a specific model of equipment tonnes of irrelevant hits would turn up with the sigs.
 

Lee M T

Second Unit
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Jay, I totally understand. That didn't even cross my mind. The reason I had going into making my sig was for when I happened to post, someone might see a piece they were interested in and could ask questions. The search function never entered my mind, I should be ashamed too because I am rather Internet savvy. Sorry. :)

I've been rummaging through the net and I've come to find that I don't know which translation to believe. IGN translated these two interviews themselves. And other web sites have also translated them, getting different things. One for example, states Yamouchi as saying "People don't just want grand games, with cutting-edge graphics, sound, and epic story." Hinting at, you can't make a bad game and just put a nice coat of paint on it to sell. Which makes perfect sense. Even still, I think Nintendo definitely has some issues.

I agree with Dean though, the hardware is fine...almost. We need more support for widescreen and progressive scan. We need a digital output for better surround formats. The next generation of hardware won't be this huge step in graphics, but I feel we're at a point now where graphics don't mean anything. It's the other things, like surround sound that make the game even more immersive. We need these aspects to be used to their fullest potential. We can throw in a few more polygons. But most importantly, since we won't see a huge jump in polygon count, we can do what I think is even better. And that's to have framerates at 60fps consistently. Online play is also something that needs to be worked on continually. Nintendo really needs to jump in this boat with their franchises.
 

Neil M

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Jan 18, 2002
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IGn screws up translations a lot. I think the second translation sounds more like what nintendo has been saying for awhile so I think that is probably the real translation.

My take on the whole thing is that they are probably right, even though we all think differently. The average gamer probably does not care about widescreen, sound, lighting effects. They want a good game. Yes it is a generalization but look at all the people who do not care whether their dvd's are fullscreen or widescreen. Graphics may intially draw a person to a system but in the end, it is the games that determines its worth. Why is the NES still considered a great system? Obviously because of the many great games, not the graphics. I personally believe that this generation of systems tried to do too much and Nintendo might be right in saying that the focus on hardware could be detrimental in the long run. What good is online play if there are no good games to play? To put all of one's money into hardware and not as much into games will hurt in the long run. Nintendo is saying the right things but is not doing much right now to change the direction of the gaming industry. Either they have a bunch of cards up their sleeves or they are just waiting for Sony or Microsoft to kill the other one off. In the second case, it might never happen.
 

Morgan Jolley

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Yamauchi is crazy, but usually right. The hardware is always going to be extremely powerful, but its what the developers do with it that matters. The fact that many third party developers make games for all 3 consoles means that only a few titles set each console apart. The main way to distinguish yourself is to do something unique with the hardware itself.

If you want a handheld gaming platform, you pretty much have to go with Nintendo (for now). That is one way that Nintendo makes the GBA stand out from other crap.

The GameCube has, other than Nintendo's 1st party titles, the connectivity stuff and the unique things with it's controller. The PS2 and X-Box controllers are pretty simplistic in style, but Nintendo's is trying something different and applying it to the games.

It might not sound like much, but those little things are what truly set consoles apart from eachother. The PS2 has the extra spots for USB/Firewire, the X-Box has a HDD and ethernet, etc. These hardware-specific modifications are the things that will be important in the future, so Nintendo is looking ahead at their portables.
 

Darren Haycock

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Ugh. I guess I understand where the guy is coming from, but I don't think he's taking everything into consideration. I just finished playing Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell along with it, both fantastic games by the way. And they couldn't have been made a few years ago. We have advanced technology to thank for that. What is he thinking exactly? Simple 2-d scrollers had their time. But if I play anything like that now I'll get bored pretty quick. I'm a fan of the Nintendo and the 'cube, but I'm not too sure what the future holds...
 

Darren Haycock

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By the way, I'm not interested in semi-good portable systems. I just don't care. When I play a game, I wanna sit down for a few minutes, and be immersed in the latest and greatest, but hey, that's me.
 

Morgan Jolley

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Taking into consideration the fact that technology will naturally advance in each new console, Yamauchi is saying that beyond the technology you need something unique. Call it a gimmick, if you will. The GameCube is in many ways on par with the X-Box and PS2, but you would buy it because of what only IT offers (connectivity, exclusives, etc.). Yamauchi's point is that you need to have something beyond just software and stuff on the inside to keep gamers coming to you. You need some unique interface or some special way of playing a game that can't be achieved by just cranking out a new console every 6 years.
 

Jay Mitchosky

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That's a great way of putting what I'm thinking. The technology should be a means to an end, not the end itself. The dynamic lighting of Splinter Cell, for example, is a core aspect of the game.
 

Morgan Jolley

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But wouldn't it be cool if you could use the controller as the PDA in Splinter Cell rather than having to pause the game each time to access it? This is the kind of thinking that Nintendo is doing; they're pushing the hardware to new places because the software is naturally going to get better anyway.
 

DonRoeber

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I think Nintendo wants to get out of the 4/5 year lifespan for it's consoles, and wants to extend their life as much as possible. That way they'll get more games per console, and won't have to retrain developers every few years. They're also trying to push developers to do new things with the existing hardware to make the gameplay experience unique. Final Fantasys Chrystal Chronicles couldn't have happened on any other system. The GBA-map thing is a great use of existing technology. Nintendo also did a little bit of this by using their broadband adapter to allow for 8 player Mario Kart games.
 

Tony_L

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Ok, I understand the man's point about how utilizing the latest and greatest graphics hardware and technology shouldn't be the main focus for game developers; the highest polygon counts and HDTV widescreen support do not a great game make. But my beef with his comments is that he says gamers don't care about "grand games" with great "sound" or "quality graphics" or "epic stories." He's just being way off base here, and what he's referring to has nothing to do with aspect ratios, resolutions, or polygon-pushing ability.
 

Morgan Jolley

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But what if the GBA was the controller? The concept that you would just have to look down and be able to access everything separately from the main game is intriguin, creative, and original, which puts it one step ahead of what the X-Box or PS2 can do. That's Nintendo's thinking.
 

Scott_W

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Like the Dreamcast's controller? Certainly not as pretty as the GBA, but its certainly not a unique idea to Nintendo.

I imagine the translations by IGN were poor. I imagine Nintendo is claiming that the gameplay is most important, not the graphics, sound, or even story. There have been lots of games with good stories and poor gameplay. Obviously, graphics, sound, and story matter, and I'm sure Nintendo realizes this, but they aren't the most important part of an excellent game.

I'd guess that 95% of the public don't care if games have progressive or widescreen support. Heck, I'd say 99% of the public doesn't care. This forum is a little biased :D .
 

Steve Y

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One could argue that it's far easier for videogame companies to pump resources into higher-end hardware (with backward-compatible software capabilities) and then load the market with good-to-mediocre games (with HDTV support and multi-channel audio and incredible effects)... that way you wow people with technology until they're tired of it, then you release the next system.

Nowadays you only have to put out a halfway decent online multiplayer FPS and you get to charge subscription fees, extra profit for headsets and extra controllers and network adapters, and... well, it's the "gift that keeps on giving". (i.e., "do the math")

I suspect the translation is a bit off. Anything translated poorly from the Japanese, particularly literal translations, tend to sound somewhat harsh and pragmatic because that's simply the style of the language (and the culture to an extent)... I suspect it was more along the lines of, "lots of gamers don't just want sprawling RPGs with lots of special effects".

And it's true. I know it's true because I am one of those gamers. I love mostly puzzle games, platformers, racers and action-adventure games... and if the market becomes saturated with online RPGs and military campaign FPS-style frag-fests, I'll just have to dig into my back library and play all the classics with their "dated" graphics!

s!
 

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