Nintendo refocusing on hardcore fans

Daft Ada

Looks like Nintendo are going back to their roots, according to an interview with Miyamoto in the latest Edge:

"[These are] the sort of people who, for example, might want to watch a movie. They might want to go to Disneyland," he begins, "Their attitude is, 'okay, I am the customer. You are supposed to entertain me.' It's kind of a passive attitude they're taking, and to me it's kind of a pathetic thing." He continues that, "They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself [with more advanced games]."

"Fortunately, because of the spread of smart devices, people take games for granted now. It's a good thing for us, because we do not have to worry about making games something that are relevant to general people's daily lives." He confirms the DS and Wii were Nintendo's effort to "expand the gaming population," but now it seems the mobile gaming market has taken over that initiative.


Nintendo expanded the market with the DS and Wii, but that crowd moved on and I don't think they can do anything with 3DS and Wii U to bring them back. Good move, if they can win back some of their lapsed fans again.

Det

Was there more to that article?  It just sounds like he thinks the casual gamer is pathetic, but doesn't make any promises to the hardcore gamer, lol.

Daft Ada

I picked up Edge today, but not had a chance to read it yet.

G a f f e r

Nice and condescending there, not only are the consumers pathetic but HE has to explain that they don't know that they should want to challenge themselves.....

If anythings pathetic, I don't think it's the consumer .

hippo99

Perhaps it's been lost in translation?

...or maybe he should've been more specific eg the flappy bird/zynga/candy crush consumers are pathetic.

everett_psycho

stupid thing with this is they should be utilizing that smartphone market, i'm not saying publish your old stuff on there as I think that's a stupid idea.  As much as i don't really like the freemium stuff like candy crush a well thought out mini game specifically for touchscreens only that ties in with a wii u or 3ds game could work well, carry your progress over in to the actual game and it's also good promotion.  Think of what if something like a tower defense game was tied in with Zelda, launch that mini game now and all then let you carry things like rupees in to the full game when it arrives, especially good for games that involve grinding in places so you can do that on the go when you get 5 minutes here and there or waste away your commute levelling up, wouldn't even mind if they charged for this sort of thing or included it as a pre order bonus but it's a market i think console games makers could be milking and improving the games.  I remember Fable did it with pub games a few years ago where you got it for free if you pre ordered and could earn money before the game launched, the downfall was it was still an xbox only game, had it been on a mobile i think i would have played it more

Daft Ada

Agreed. They could have used the momentum from the Smash Bros games to show off the extent of their IPs, that Nintendo has more than Mario in their arsenal, via smartphone mini-games. The Smash Bomb mini-game would have been perfect for a smartphone touch-screen, for instance. There's also the excellent little mini-games that game bundled with Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros to show off the DS' touch-screen. Retool those, with a few additional Nintendo characters and you've got yourself a cheap advert for Nintendo devices.

chris redfield

bit of a strange stance for him to take considering two of nintendos most important legacy consoles have the name "entertainment" in them!

as for nintendo making tower defence games, i'd be hesitant of that, they would need to seriously transform the market and what a smartphone style game is to make it any good, which takes a lot of work. like give their own take on it while giving the games a complete overhaul. otherwise if they started making smartphone games that are the same quality as what is out there they'd be in danger of tainting their pedigree.

Det

Which two consoles have "entertainment" in them?

everett_psycho

That was just an example, probably not a very good one as I don't think that would suit nintendo.  With them I would expect it to be built fresh and not based on stuff that is already out there as to not taint their name with cheap knock offs of candy crush, but it would have to be made for touchscreens.  Maybe it's not a great thing for them to do and might lend itself better to PS4 and xbox one gamers who are happy to grind in games to get levelled up or more money so they could do that on the move, it's just an avenue that i'm surprised no one has explored yet.  I watch my brother put hours in to simpsons tapped out and just think those hours could be spent managing his FIFA team on the move and training them instead of him wasting hours on that as well when he does get back to his PS4.

The Nintendo Entertainment system and Super Nintendo Entertainment system (or NES and SNES to most people)