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[erpg]

Apparently Sillicon Knights is in trouble :'D

Make em kneel to kiss your hand and then take them out back while they beg, Nintendo.

 

[The Technomancer]

Sure, but since the takeover they've twice suffered an exodus of key personnel - once after MP3 and once recently after DKCR - both of which have necessitated a firm guiding hand from Nintendo. If they keep losing major staff members after every game Nintendo will never feel confident in letting them determine/pitch their own projects.

I'm not saying I don't want an original game from Retro, and I especially don't understand why people seem to want them to take a stab at every existing IP known to man, just that I understand why it hasn't happened and why it may take a long time for it to happen.

Really? Damn, I didn't hear about that, any reasons given why?

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

There was a significant exodus after MP1 too. At this point it's almost standard procedure for Retro.

 

[@MUWANdo]

Really? Damn, I didn't hear about that, any reasons given why?

Nothing major, they just wanted to move on. A bunch of 'em ended up at id, working on Doom 4.

 

[JGS]

It sounds good and all, but they've been receiving criticism of droughts and horrible online implementation for the past ten years.

Their droughts, at least to this end consumer, appear just as bad as they always are. And they had plenty of time to just blatantly steal XBL and rebrand it. Ten years is a long time. I'll wait and see how these new "partnerships" actually change anything.

I got from the interview that droughts would always be an issue since they are not going to ship something incomplete which pushes back releases. However, this means they should double the releases imo. They really need to bribe 3rd parties too. They have tons of money to lose, might as well pay for exclusives rather than weather the storm.

There's no way for anyone to steal Xbox Live. Microsoft poured billions and billions into it and charge for it.

Personally, I like Wii's interface far better than Live's tab happy interface (What's issuer than moving the cursor to the icon you want?). If they simply got rid of codes, beefed, & kept the Wii interface, I would be a happy camper.

 

[herod]

I tried to use the 3DS for my DS backlog but I'm finding it a bit unsatisfactory and would rather pick up a DSi XL for the job. Can I transfer DSiWare purchases from a 3DS to a DSi? If not now, then I believe there is a firmware update this week as a result of this briefing, will it be possible then?

 

[@MUWANdo]

I got from the interview that droughts would always be an issue since they are not going to ship something incomplete which pushes back releases. However, this means they should double the releases imo. They really need to bribe 3rd parties too. They have tons of money to lose, might as well pay for exclusives rather than weather the storm..

They already seem to have done this in Japan, with big names like Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, and they don't need to bribe the smaller third-party devs because the handheld market in general is much larger there. The big question is: what do they do about the rest of the world? I can't think of any big successful western-developed DS games outside of Scribblenauts and I guess tie-in stuff like Guitar Hero or whatever, and the cost of localisation makes the international release of many Japanese games seem very risky (especially now that there's a region lock).

Making the eShop much more accessible like one obvious answer, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how that all plays out.

 

[POWERSPHERE]

Nintendo popularized casual gaming and have realized the nerd lifers are more bankable in the long term.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Iwata is my favorite company representative in the gaming industry. He always seems straightforward, intelligent, and well thought out when he comments. Whether I agree with everything he says 100% or not, I can just about always respect what he has to say.

Coincidentally, Reggie is becoming my least favorite company rep -_-;

It is just partly Reggie's fault. Everything is decided in Japan and just little freedom is given to NoE and NoA.

 

[JGS]

They already seem to have done this in Japan, with big names like Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, and they don't need to bribe the smaller third-party devs because the handheld market in general is much larger there. The big question is: what do they do about the rest of the world? I can't think of any big successful western-developed DS games outside of Scribblenauts and I guess tie-in stuff like Guitar Hero or whatever, and the cost of localisation makes the international release of many Japanese games seem very risky (especially now that there's a region lock).

Making the eShop much more accessible like one obvious answer, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how that all plays out.

I'm not too terribly concerned about them in Japan beyond the droughts. however, they have drought and a perception problem in USA. having more niche hardcore games will help generate games from the big guys too.

I honestly don't think Reggie is up to the task anymore. he doesn't even seem to be a good speaker now. The decisions Reggie makes seems to be entirely based on mass appeal and apologizing for Japan when in reality he should be making more stuff happen. This could be a trust issue though with Japan, but even then Reggie should man up a bit more and try to get the money needed to attract Western developers.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Really, it shouldn't take years for a company like Nintendo to suddenly realize "wait a second.. we could just outsource the grunt work to other companies and save time, money, and manpower instantly! It's brilliant!"

Then again, when your company is steeped in a particular culture in can take a while to change gears, especially for a company as specialized as Nintendo.

You have to be very selective if you don't want to screw up. Do you remember Namco and Starfox? Or Team Ninja and Metroid?

 

[djtiesto]

I don't want NoA to make more relationships with western developers, just simply for them to actually release games already available in Japan over in the states.

 

[scitek]

Nintendo popularized casual gaming and have realized the nerd lifers are more bankable in the long term.

I've said this for a while. The "trendy" gamer -- i.e. who they went after with the Wii -- isn't always going to be there, and they've found that out the hard way. The Wii wasn't ever a "fad," per se, but it WAS selling at an extraordinarily high rate for a very long time. I don't think the market's collapsed on it in the west (admittedly, it's been a while since I've paid attention to sales numbers), as much as it's just back to what we'd probably consider to be "normal" sales levels for a five-year-old console, and those numbers are just really low by comparison.

Still, the dedicated audience (shooters, sports, RPGs) will always be the ones to come back time and time again, and that's what they seem to believe would help prevent another drastic slowdown in sales with the Wii U.

 

[ivysaur12]

Nintendo popularized casual gaming and have realized the nerd lifers are more bankable in the long term.

Or both are profitable to court.

 

[A Black Falcon]

I don't feel the 32X was more problematic than either the Motion+, Kinect or Move really (talking about games that require it specifically , not optional implementations). SEGA was half assed with marketing, dedicating developer resources and had an obnoxious price point iirc. It could have worked(at least not spectacularly bombed and alienated plenty) if handled properly.

What? There are a lot of reasons why the 32X was a horrible idea that don't apply to those three. First, Sega was trying to support five platforms in 1995 (six, sort of), which is far too many and spread out their development resources too much, so none of them had enough games. Not true for Motion+, Kinect, or Move; though Nintendo has talked about that they're working on four platforms right now is an issue, that will end soon (their DS support is probably done), and that's fewer than Sega was supporting.

Second, Sega released the Saturn in Japan at pretty much the same time they released the 32X in the US (Holiday season 1994), and only six months later in the US. Even had they stuck with their original plan and not bumped up the Saturn's US release (a horribly bad decision, as it turned out), it'd still have been only nine months between the 32X and Saturn in the US and Europe. That's just ridiculous. Six months? What? You don't release an expensive, $180 addon, then an entirely new, $400 console just six months later! It's no wonder their fans abandoned them in droves, after they killed off the 32X at the end of 1995. The system's ~13 month lifespan is one of the shortest this side of things like the Virtual Boy. The idea was to have a cheaper option for people who wanted next-gen-ish graphics but didn't want to spend $400, but the problem was that they somehow didn't seem to understand that people would be mad at spending that much money for an interim system. Had the thing done as originally projected and lasted two years or so it might not have been quite as bad, but it didn't come even close to that, of course, and Sega should have seen that coming before its release. It also didn't help that the 32X did sell well, in the US, in the 1994 holiday season -- they sold most of the systems they shipped that Christmas, a couple hundred thousand total I believe. And then six months later the thing was dying fast thanks to the Saturn's release and a thinning of the 32X release list that started at the same time, and by late 1995 they were on sale for like $30. None of the systems this gen are launching new consoles under a year after their addon was released. A better comparison there might be the Sega CD, which had an okay if somewhat short three year (in the US, slightly more in Japan) lifespan and a good, if disappointing in some ways (most notably, FAR too few major first party Japanese titles; in genres key to the Genesis' Western success like action games and platformers, even the 32X got almost as many or more Japanese first party games than the Sega CD...), library as well. At the end people did start complaining about how it had died early, or complaining that it had existed at all and lumping it in with the 32X in Sega's pile of failure (also the fading of the FMV genre, so prominent on the Sega CD, didn't help), but while it wasn't the success Sega hoped for, the Sega CD did alright. One addon was okay... it was the second one, coming right on top of the release of their next system, that really caused the damage.

Third, when they killed the 32X in fall 1995, Sega of Japan also terminated most Japanese Genesis, Game Gear, and Sega CD support as well. They bet it all on the Saturn... and the Saturn bombed outside of Japan. Had Sega not destroyed its own 16-bit, and handheld, markets, they might have had money to survive... and had they not killed off too many systems or addons too early, with the 32X being the most notable of those, given it had the shortest life, people might not have turned on them so hard. I don't think they could have beaten Sony in the West, but they could have done better than they did, financially at least. Of course though, they were Sega, so it's not like that was likely to happen.

The only way I can think of to make the 32X actually worth releasing is to not release the Saturn, and instead release a more powerful 5th gen system, probably in 1996. Sega did have some plans to develop such systems, but they didn't happen. Release that INSTEAD (not in addition to!) the Saturn, a year after the Saturn was released, let's say, and maybe the 32X could be justified. Sega of Japan probably would not consider that option seriously because they didn't want to let Sony get a lead, given that the PSX was ready at the end of 1994 and Sega wanted to be sure to match them, but that would have been a decent option I think. But with a 1994/1995 Saturn, there's no way the 32X makes sense.

 

[guek]

It is just partly Reggie's fault. Everything is decided in Japan and just little freedom is given to NoE and NoA.

I don't mean decisions on behalf of NoA (though like everyone I wish Project Rainfall had succeeded)

I'm just starting to cringe every time he opens his mouth. Part of that has to do with whether or not he has anything good to say, for sure, but at least with Iwata I always feel like he's trying to be genuine. With Reggie I feel like he's trying to sell me a big ol crock of shit.

 

[Gaborn]

I don't mean decisions on behalf of NoA (though like everyone I wish Project Rainfall had succeeded)

I'm just starting to cringe every time he opens his mouth. Part of that has to do with whether or not he has anything good to say, for sure, but at least with Iwata I always feel like he's trying to be genuine. With Reggie I feel like he's trying to sell me a big ol crock of shit.

I'm guessing that Nintendo's secrecy must be intensely frustrating for Reggie. He knows he looked like an ass with his "check the box" routine and not being able to give details on Wii U's online. He seems more the type to relish dropping big news but instead he has to sell scraps for right now. Reggie is at his best when he has news to share, otherwise he goes into trying to oversell it.

 

[guek]

I'd be really interested to see what his relationship is like with Iwata and Miyamoto. Those three are the big conference headliners and figureheads of the company, but the Reggie is obviously the one with the least amount of sway in the company. How do they interact? Is he treated like a puppet or do they listen actively to his concerns and criticisms? Are they friendly with each other or strictly professional?

We'll unfortunately probably never know

 

[Erethian]

Or both are profitable to court.

Yeah, I think people might have missed the bit where Iwata said they are going to be targetting the casual audience next year.

They're just going about it in a different order this time. Lock in the core audience and third-party support for those types of games, then expand to the casual audience.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I'd be really interested to see what his relationship is like with Iwata and Miyamoto. Those three are the big conference headliners and figureheads of the company, but the Reggie is obviously the one with the least amount of sway in the company. How do they interact? Is he treated like a puppet or do they listen actively to his concerns and criticisms? Are they friendly with each other or strictly professional?

We'll unfortunately probably never know

I'm more interested in Satoru Shibata since we hardly ever see him or hear from/about him.

 

[bgassassin]

I meant to touch on this sooner since it was Iwata's first sentence in the whole Q&A.

I have no definitive information on whether we will sell the Wii U in the red or on the suggested retail price for the hardware at this stage.

So they are still deciding on whether or not to sell Wii U at a loss. I think those early rumors of the console costing $350-$400 to make sound more and more plausible.

 

[Olaeh]

I'd be really interested to see what his relationship is like with Iwata and Miyamoto. Those three are the big conference headliners and figureheads of the company, but the Reggie is obviously the one with the least amount of sway in the company. How do they interact? Is he treated like a puppet or do they listen actively to his concerns and criticisms? Are they friendly with each other or strictly professional?

We'll unfortunately probably never know

Good question. I've often wondered the same thing.
Didn't Iwata mention playing Smash w/ Reggie? He kicked some "you know what" and "who's... your... daddy..." and all that a few E3s back...I guess that could all be BS and they've never played together too.

 

[Jocchan]

I'm more interested in Satoru Shibata since we hardly ever see him or hear from/about him.

He's actually Iwata in a clever disguise.

 

[Sempuukyaku]

I meant to touch on this sooner since it was Iwata's first sentence in the whole Q&A.



So they are still deciding on whether or not to sell Wii U at a loss. I think those early rumors of the console costing $350-$400 to make sound more and more plausible.

If that's the case, I think it's safe to say that the system is going to be pretty powerful. We'll find out more at e3.

 

[TunaLover]

I hope that Nintendo help to publish japanese 3rd party titles for WiiU too.