Randy Pitchford believes Nintendo should try connecting with new people
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 19 Comments
This excerpt is from a GamesIndustry article with Randy Pitchford (Gearbox Software, Borderlands) and Amazon’s Mike Frazzini…
While much of the discussion covered larger industry trends, one question put to the participants specifically dealt with Nintendo. Considering the company has been putting out games with enviable Metacritic averages, why is it that Nintendo seems to have struggled so much in the market of late.
Pitchford said it doesn’t matter how good their games are if people don’t know they exist, and likened it to a common situation in movies. He said he’s noticed a trend whenever he goes to Rotten Tomatoes to look for the best films now playing.
“It tends to be that some of the highest rated things on Rotten Tomatoes are films I’ve never even heard of,” Pitchford said. “They’re indie things that are marketed not to me. Nintendo’s gotten really good at talking to Nintendo customers. But I think that Nintendo could at least lead more if they figured out how to talk to new people that they’re not already talking to. And that’s a very difficult problem.”
More: interview, Randy Pitchford
Reggie says the current state of VR isn’t fun
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 41 Comments
This information comes from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime…
“We have knowledge of the technical space, and we’ve been experimenting with this for a long, long time. What we believe is that, in order for this technology to move forward, you need to make it fun and you need to make it social. I haven’t walked the floor, so I can’t say in terms of what’s on the floor today, but at least based on what I’ve seen to date, it’s not fun, and it’s not social. It’s just tech.”
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top
Star Fox Zero devs thinking about co-op, more controller options
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 9 Comments
This information comes from Shigeru Miyamoto…
On whether Nintendo would consider one-versus-one local ship battles for Star Fox Zero…
“It’s difficult to have two people playing when you need two screens to play for one person, so it’s definitely something that we’re thinking about. We basically created this game as one you need the GamePad to play, but there is a secret There is another option.”
Star Fox Zero co-director Yugo Hayashi also said:
“As one kind of variation, we were thinking about a co-op control scheme. Basically one person would control flying the Arwing and the other person would be aiming and shooting. This is something maybe parents and children could be doing together.”
– Hayashi said, in this case, you could have a skillful player piloting the Arwing
– The less skilled player would be targeting and shooting
– The main pilot would use a Wii remote and Nunchuck attachment to steer
– The team was also trying to support the Pro Controller
Reggie: Iwata didn’t apologize for the Nintendo Digital Event
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 30 Comments
This information comes from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime…
“It was not an apology. It was not a statement about the content we’re showing, essentially it was an ‘I hear you’ message.”
“Mr. Iwata is in Japan and what he’s trying to do is help explain to consumers in Japan what’s going on at E3. The correct translation of his message was: ‘Thank you for your feedback. We hear you and we are committed to continuing to meet your expectations,’ was essentially his message.”
“One of the things I find interesting is that if you look at E3 historically for Nintendo, typically what happens is a press briefing happens or our digital event happens, and then over the course of the next couple of days people see the games get to play the games and the appreciation and understanding of what we’re doing increases over those three days and continues to build into the holidays.”
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, Satoru Iwata, top
Zelda: Tri Force Heroes – story, princess isn’t Zelda, unsure where it fits into the timeline
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments
This information comes from Zelda: Triforce Heroes director Hiromasa Shikata…
On the story…
The story takes place in a world that is not Hyrule. It’s a kingdom that is sort of fashion-obsessed and in that kingdom, an event happens involving the princess of the kingdom –
On whether the princess is Zelda…
No. The king, of course, wants to solve this problem so he puts a general call out to the kingdom for heroes to assemble, and who answers the call, but Link and that’s the beginning of your adventure.
On where it fits into the Zelda timeline…
That’s a tough question. The Zelda timeline is “complicated” and if you look at the history of Zelda you will see there are three branches. I can’t really designate which one of those branches we’re looking at, but as far as the design itself, we looked to Link Between Worlds. But it’s not – as far as a timeframe – it’s not before or after. We haven’t really settled on that.
On whether it takes place in the same universe as a Link Between Worlds…
With the history of Zelda we have these three parallel worlds. I can’t say which one it’s on/in at this point.
– Play along two paper dolls called “dopples” in single-player
– Can’t play the game as two players and bring along a single paper doll dopple
– It’s either 3-player co-op or single-player
– If you want to play with only one other player, you can duke it out in the game’s coliseum mode
– Again, Download Play supported
Reggie on why Zelda Wii U missed E3, still on that console and in 2016
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 132 Comments
This information comes from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime…
On the decision not to show Zelda Wii U at E3…
Reggie Fils-Aime: “It goes back to the statement i made earlier about how we view E3. We just fundamentally don’t believe in showing content at E3 that is going to be a long term proposition. We like to show content that typically will launch in the upcoming Holiday and maybe extending into the first half of the following year. And at this point, the new Zelda for Wii U is not a 2015 project.”
On how Nintendo showed Zelda Wii U last year even though it seemed like a Q3 game…
Fils-Aime: “No, but when we showed it last year, we believed it was a 2015 game.”
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top, Zelda Wii U
Miyamoto’s creation of puppets in his youth led to the idea for this year’s Digital Event
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments
This information comes from Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime…
“Making people smile is in our DNA. We are a company that’s all about entertainment.”
Reggie also said that when the team was planning this year’s Digital Event, lots of conversations were had with Shigeru Miyamoto due to his involvement with Star Fox Zero and Super Mario Maker.
“One of the things that he shared was that in his youth, he used to make puppets. So that led to a series of brainstorms and it lead to our little collaboration with Henson studios and creating the Nintendo muppets. It was a very fun collaboration.”
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, Shigeru Miyamoto, top
Nintendo considered YouTube uploads for Super Mario Maker, but wanted players to experience things first hand
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 7 Comments
Nintendo’s Takashi Tezuka said the following when Game Informer asked about the ability to upload Super Mario Maker creation videos and replays to YouTube…
We thought about having YouTube uploading, but it’s not in our game. The reason for that is other than just watching movies of courses, we’d rather players play them and experience them in that way.
More: interview, Super Mario Maker, Takashi Tezuka, top
Nintendo – improving amiibo supply, 2015 not a transition year, Splatoon driving Wii U sales, eSports, partnerships, JRPGs
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii U | 14 Comments
The quotes below come from Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America, who spoke with GamesBeat…
On the surprises he’s seen now that the conferences have aired…
Scott Moffitt: From a Nintendo standpoint, our goal this year, our objective, was to showcase how we can leverage the power and imagination of our developers to transform how people are playing on our platforms. With iconic franchises like Mario, like Star Fox, or new franchises like Amiibo, you combine that with the imagination of our developers and you get magic.
What emerges are games like Star Fox, a new and exciting version of Star Fox that fans haven’t seen before. It has walker capabilities, two-screen gameplay, the drone capability. That’s an exciting game that fans reacted well to and they’re looking forward to it. It’ll be a big seller this holiday.
You take Amiibo. We’re transforming what consumers have come to expect in the world of toys-to-life. We’ll be the first with Amiibo Cards in Animal Crossing and Happy Home Designer. You’ll see how you can leverage smart cards, Amiibo Cards with the same NFC read-write capability. You can use that to energize or re-imagine a game like Animal Crossing that people have loved in the past.
On how it seemed like a lot of information that could be conveyed through cards, as opposed to toys…
Moffitt: They’re going to be easy for consumers to trade. We’ve announced 100 of them coming so far. There’s a great breadth of cards out there for fans to buy and to collect and trade. You’ll be able to do great things with them. There are special cards and regular cards. You can save your home design to that card and then bring it to someone else’s game. That’s an interesting application of the technology. We’re transforming what people have come to expect in Amiibo.
With Super Mario Maker, we had a great reaction. It’s a game we’ve shown before, but now it’s on the precipice of coming to market. We’re all about showing things that will be playable this year. We have 14 total games that we’re launching between now and the end of the year. That’s a lot of exciting content for fans – eight on Wii U, six on 3DS. The imagination of creativity, the transforming power of all those franchises, is spectacular.
With Super Mario Marker, for the first time, gamers are going to be able to play game designer and design their own levels and challenge others to complete their level. They can play other people’s levels. Celebrities, fans, YouTubers—you may have levels posted by people from all walks of life — kids, adults, pros, non-pros. We think people are going to have a lot of fun building imaginative and creative gameplay of their own with Mario. It’s transforming what people expect. You have a 30-year-old franchise in Super Mario, and now it’s re-imagined with user-generated creations.
More: Amiibo, interview, Scott Moffitt, top
Nintendo – Humble Nindie Bundle success, considered funding indies, Unity games on New 3DS this year, more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U eShop | 3 Comments
This information comes from a Gamasutra interview with Damon Baker…
On how the Humble Nindie Bundle went…
“We were quite pleased with how it went. The main objective of the promotion was really to reach a wider audience, and let as many people know about this great indie content as possible.”
“We promoted those same Nindies for the two weeks in the eShop, and their full version prices of those games were actually increased in sales.”
On defining Nintendo’s audience for indie games…
“It seems like a lot of the Nintendo fans and consumers they gravitate towards nostalgia, they gravitate towards platformer and puzzle action games. If I had one wish to be fulfilled, I would love to see Nintendo fans and consumers take more risks on eShop.”
“It’s my responsibility to make sure everything gets as much exposure as possible. There are titles that share a similar DNA to what makes good first party games,” he says, and those tend to perform well.
On the need for devs to promote games themselves if they want to succeed…
“The content that performs best on our platforms are the developers that have already been really proactive in creating a community and a lot of buzz. (Developers that expect Nintendo will take care of things for them, well,) there hasn’t been a lot of examples of where that’s been a successful relationship.”
“That’s the truest definition of what is doing well or isn’t doing well on Nintendo platforms.
On opportunities for promoting indies...
“We look at these opportunities all the time. We’ve done these super indie sales, (but these are) primarily driven by the developers — but we put a lot of support from first party behind it. I definitely have a vision of doing bigger grander promotions and activities.”
On funding indie games…
“We’ve given lots of thought to it. Nintendo is pretty famous for being pretty tight with our money; we want to be efficient with our funds. We continue to look for other ways to promote that key content, and that stuff we consider to be priority.”
“We’ve given a lot of consideration and we may have programs that we may offer in the future but nothing we can confirm at this time.”
– constantly having internal discussions
On Unity for New 3DS…
“It’s getting really, really close, and there is a ton of interest.”
– First Unity games on 3DS this year as a goal
– Tools coming to devs soon
