Peter Molyneux talks Nintendo, says their hardware is starting to get in the way of their success
Game developer Peter Molyneux took some time with GamesIndustry International the other day all about Nintendo, and he outlined some of the things he feels the company is doing right, as well as some of the things they’re doing wrong.
You know what Nintendo did – this is a fascinating thing – Nintendo created gamers by the software they made. They created millions of gamers with Donkey Kong and Mario – they were the birth of gamers. That exact same thing is happening on this platform today. Millions of new gamers are being created almost every month, and they’re being created with titles not from Nintendo, not from Microsoft, not from Sony, not even necessarily from Activision or EA. They’re being created by companies like Supercell and Rovio. They’re the ones that are bringing and creating new gamers. And now there are millions of people interacting with franchises, which Nintendo won’t even touch, which seems a shame to me because Nintendo are brilliant about bringing people into the industry, and I think their hardware is starting to get in the way of that.
I caveat all of this by saying that they are a factor more intelligent than I am, and they’ve probably got a plan, and you should never underestimate Nintendo. We’ll probably be sitting here in a couple years saying, ‘Oh that’s what they were doing’.”
– Peter Molyneux
I must admit, sometimes I feel the same way as Molyneux! Occasionally it feels like Nintendo is using their hardware in ways that are simply “different” rather than “better”, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but perhaps their focus could be better shifted to incremental improvements to gaming while bringing in more people with games themselves.
That being said, I think the Wii U is a perfect example of an incremental improvement, rather than something different for the sake of different’s sake. I have a feeling Peter disagrees with me on that point! And he also said that the Wii U is a reaction to Microsoft’s SmartGlass, which is somewhat troubling and shows that perhaps he isn’t paying as close attention to the timeline of the industry as he should be!
