Reggie – Nintendo “struck a chord” with Zelda: BotW, need to mix up the formula for new players
Nintendo believes it has “struck a cord” with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Speaking with The Verge, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stated:
“We think we’ve struck a chord. And we’ve struck a chord with what is a very important franchise for us. A franchise that is going to be key to our long-term success.”
Reggie went on to talk about the changes being introduced in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. New elements were needed “in order to bring new players in.” At the same time though, Nintendo “needed to do it thoughtfully in order to maintain the current player.”
According to Reggie:
“The Zelda formula is well known. You continue down a path, you battle in a dungeon, you get an item, you’re going to need that item for the next dungeon, and so forth. We think that for today’s player… that formula potentially needed to be upended — that we needed to introduce new elements in order to bring new players in. But we needed to do it thoughtfully in order to maintain the current player.”
The Verge also about whether the changes made in Breath of the Wild are due to Zelda’s popularity in the west in comparison to Japan. Reggie explained that this was not the case. Actually, Nintendo sees that games more closely associated with the west do well in Japan.
Reggie said:
“Behaviorally, the Japanese home market and the West, aren’t so different that the tastes are fundamentally polar. A great example of this is Splatoon. [An online multiplayer shooter is] something that you would associate with the West, and yet in Japan the amount of players playing Splatoon, the amount of games sold relative to the install base of Wii U, is better than the US performance. It all comes down to this: is it fun? Is it compelling? Is it unique? Does it provide something to the player that they really relate to?”
