Miyamoto on providing enough software for Nintendo systems, working with outside devs to recreate past games for Wii U, more
Posted on February 3, 2014 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U
One investor asked Nintendo how it will address the lack of software available for its systems at launch during the company’s investor briefing last week. Shigeru Miyamoto addressed the question, suggesting that the situation had been improved with Wii U. New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land were available at launch, followed by Pikmin 3 “after a long interval”, and Supre Mario 3D World at the end of last year. Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. are also on the way.
“Therefore, I feel that we have managed to overcome the challenge of releasing enough first-party franchises on Wii U,” he said.
Miyamoto later addressed what Nintendo believes was Nintendo’s biggest issues last year: “we failed to communicate the true value of Wii U, failed to make children persuade their parents to buy our products for them, and failed to offer products that parents could not resist.” He stated that, as a result, Nintendo “will need to put more focus on creating experiences that utilize the GamePad that can also be fully enjoyed when playing alone.”
Miyamoto’s final comments were about developing for Wii U. Due to the huge evolution in technology between Wii and Wii U, just using a technique such as shaders “has significantly changed our development environment as well as our developers themselves and the time to develop games, all of which are areas toward which we have been making significant reinforcements.” Miyamoto said Nintendo is now looking to work with “many outside developers” so that “past games” can be reborn on Wii U.
I interpret the question as asking whether we are making the same mistake every time we launch a new hardware system. While we are always working on this, I think you are right in the sense that we have not been able to deliver results. When we launched Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS, we were unable to release any games from any of our main Nintendo franchises to coincide with their launches. With Wii U, however, we released, along with the hardware, “New Super Mario Bros. U,” as well as “Nintendo Land,” which was a very unique proposition. If you look beyond, we also released a new installment in the Pikmin series after a long interval, and we also had “Super Mario 3D World” at the end of last year. By the end of this year, we will have “Mario Kart 8,” as well as “Super Smash Bros.” Therefore, I feel that we have managed to overcome the challenge of releasing enough first-party franchises on Wii U. Also, despite their sales falling below our expectations so far, I do not think that these games were not well-received because they lacked appeal. We received a top score for “Super Mario 3D World” from Metacritic, a site which gives weighted average scores for games, at the end of last year, and our games are highly praised for their quality. The fact that they did not lead to generating wider consumer interest among the general public is, however, something that we have to take very seriously. If you look at just Japan, however, “Super Mario 3D World” was very well-received by children, with Cat Mario gaining ground. Consumers also seem very excited about “Mario Kart 8,” and I am confident that they will want to buy it once they have played it. Our biggest downfall last year was that we failed to communicate the true value of Wii U, failed to make children persuade their parents to buy our products for them, and failed to offer products that parents could not resist. What we can do about it from now on is our theme. As Mr. Iwata explained earlier, we are confident that “Nintendo Land” offered compelling as well as Nintendo-like gameplay experiences for, say, four or five people when they gathered in the living room by taking full advantage of the two screens, but some of the single-player experiences were rather weak. It is my conviction that we will need to put more focus on creating experiences that utilize the GamePad that can also be fully enjoyed when playing alone. The fact that the GamePad and the TV interact as soon as Wii U is switched on is very important as it means that our consumers are always able to enjoy stable gaming experiences. Unlike a tablet device with a TV, the two screens are always connected when they are switched on. In terms of user experience, we are currently working on the amount of time it takes to load a game, but it is very important that we have a guaranteed environment in which the GamePad and the TV are connected. We know that having such an environment allows for various useful propositions for the living room, and we have continued to develop software in this spirit. In terms of our efforts toward ensuring that we supply the market with adequate titles at all times, although it may come across as an excuse, I would like to mention that Wii U has massively evolved from Wii technologically. Using shader technology, for example, has significantly changed our development environment as well as our developers themselves and the time to develop games, all of which are areas toward which we have been making significant reinforcements. Although we have recreated some of our past games for Wii U, we are actually trying to use many outside developers to help us do so, while we focus our internal resources on making new games. I feel confident that we have made a significant improvement in this regard. Moreover, we are trying to cut down the time it takes to create a suitable development environment as it has proven to be a huge bottleneck, and we are continuing to make improvements in this area across the whole company, too. I think that we will be able to smoothly carry out the process of upgrading Nintendo franchises and offering them to our consumers in a stable fashion on future systems.
