Nintendo development rumors that are tough to believe
Posted on August 24, 2011 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Rumors, Wii
01Net is at it once again. The site has released a third Nintendo article today, though this time it doesn’t focus on a particular system. You can find some of the more interesting pieces from the report below.
To be honest, I’m having a very hard time believing this round of speculation. That’s what the rumor tag is for, I suppose!
Is Nintendo borrowing ideas from other titles? That’s the allegation 01Net’s source is making. If the site is to be believed, the concept for Pikmin was taken from an unpublished real-time strategy game.
“Since its inception, Nintendo has always been able to attract the best of game designers. No other maker/publisher ever had the means and the prestige to afford to pay a plethora of creators and studios to come up with fresh ideas for game designs, and as many game prototypes. When we ask what s/he means by ‘the burden of mythology’, our source responds with two relatively recent examples. The concept of Pikmin, for example, was borrowed directly from an unpublished RTS (real-time simulation game) proposed by a creators years before the game’s release. Thus, the official story (Miyamoto got the idea for Pikmin by observing animal life in his garden) is just a clever narrative, fabricated for marketing purposes.”
01Net makes a similar claim about Super Mario Galaxy. The site says that Nintendo purchased a prototype from an external source, implying that it was the foundation for the project.
“Mario Galaxy is another example. According to our source, three totally different versions/concepts had been proposed for what was then called ‘Mario 128’, but none of them made the cut. Nintendo then set its views on a promising prototype it had bought from an external source some time ago, added Mario and its friends, tweaked a thing or two, and… Here was Mario Galaxy! According to our source, this is typical of Nintendo’s longtime M.O. Let’s not forget that the sublime Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA), although designed by Miyamoto, was originally a totally independent title, Yume Kôjô Doki Doki Panic, released in 1987 for the Famicom Disk System.”
Lastly, 01Net’s source discusses the need for Nintendo to create new characters/IPs and use their old concepts/prototypes so that their high-ranking developers can be invigorated and their younger staff can step into the spotlight.
“Nintendo, s/he (the source) concedes, is in desperate need of new characters and IPs in order to be future-proof, and a gigantic step in the right direction would be to exploit its uniquely rich catalogue of shelved concepts and prototypes, which could become the basis of a ton of new ideas and IPs. Such a strategic upheaval would shake the dust off the company’s leading figures, and allow numerous “young” creators – both internal and external resources – to get the visibility they deserve.”
It seems as though there are two final reports from 01Net that will be available later this week. The Wii U rumors can be accessed here and the 3DS rumors can be found here. We’ll bring you the information from the articles once they’ve been published. Just remember that these posts should in no way be considered factual.
