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Nintendo Questions Rivals’ “Whizz Bang” Strategy
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has questioned the “whizz bang” approach to the marketplace he says is favoured by Microsoft and Sony.
“What I would suggest to your audience is that even in the competitive [E3] announcements, it highlights just how different we are as a company,” the executive told GameSpot.
“Our competitors chose to talk about technology and all of this whizz bang stuff. We focus on entertainment. When we first showed off the Wii Remote, we did it within the context of Wii Sports, which now millions upon millions of consumers have experienced."
Fils-Aime went on to imply that the motion control sensing technologies unveiled by Nintendo’s rivals at E3 were unproven and might not see commercial releases.
“We’re going to continue to disrupt and push this marketplace, but it will always be with a smile on our face and with a sense of entertainment, versus a focus on the technology, especially technology that may or may not ever come into the marketplace.
“I can’t put myself in my competitors’ shoes. What I can tell you is our approach to gaming is actually pretty straightforward. It has to fun, it has to be immersive, it needs to be approachable and speak to as many consumers as possible, and it needs to be affordable.”
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Reggie's just doing some good old fashioned PR maneuvering post-E3. He (or his assistants) probably kept tabs on all the major news outlets and saw that almost unanimously their presser was rated as the least impressive of the console manufacturers. I don't know what he saw during E3, but I saw some pretty great games from Sony and Microsoft in addition to this "whizz bang" stuff he speaks of.
If I was Sony or Microsoft, I'd start to look into vitality sensors. Though I do not know what a vitality sensor is about and how it could positively impact my gaming habits, it's a Nintendo product and it's gonna sell. Simple as that! And yes, Nintendo is gonna smile at us - for being so stupid and buying into that. And yes, in three years time PS3 is gonna have a 20 year life-cycle and a sensor sold separately which tells you exactly how many more years PS3 is gonna last. And because it's a Sony product, it's gonna cost 249$.
While everyone has been predicting doom for Nintendo (myself too, thank you very much), they are still printing money and there is one simple reason for it, they were first to market with new technology that worked and everyone else is late.
Ahh the fanboys defending their whizz bang consoles and the other fanboys supporting Reggie's claims.
Now THAT'S FUN!!
"Our competitors chose to talk about technology and all of this whizz bang stuff. We focus on entertainment."
I sat through your entire conference from a live feed. You waited until the last twenty minutes or so just to make some real announcements -- you showed the logo to a Zelda game we already knew about, and some prerendered cinematic trailers to maybe three new games. I don't even know what you mean by "whizz bang." If by "whizz bang" you mean a boatload of awesome-looking new games ("entertainment"), we'll stick to whizz bang, you stick to making heart rate sensors.
"When we first showed off the Wii Remote, we did it within the context of Wii Sports, which now millions upon millions of consumers have experienced."
An unresponsive set of five minigames. Sony showed off their 1:1 controller in the context of a realtime show floor demo, and it looks like it can actually detect movements at a functional rate. And what did they show it off in the context of? A handful of minigames.
Even these minigames didn't seem like they were finished products (then again, neither does Wii Sports). They're showing off potential, so that they can be used in real, full games. Exactly like your Wiimote demo.
"Fils-Aime went on to imply that the motion control sensing technologies unveiled by Nintendo’s rivals at E3 were unproven and might not see commercial releases."
Spring 2010.
“We’re going to continue to disrupt and push this marketplace, but it will always be with a smile on our face and with a sense of entertainment, versus a focus on the technology, especially technology that may or may not ever come into the marketplace."
We know you don't focus on technology, Reggie. We know.
“I can’t put myself in my competitors’ shoes. What I can tell you is our approach to gaming is actually pretty straightforward. It has to fun, it has to be immersive, it needs to be approachable and speak to as many consumers as possible, and it needs to be affordable.”
What it doesn't need to be is "fresh." Again, Reggie -- we know.
It's very interesting how everybody's so excited about Natal and Sony's new controller and how they think that they somehow leap-frog Nintendo's efforts. It reminds me of when Sony unveiled Home. Everybody was amazed about how much more realistic it's avatars were, journalists were laughing at the Mii's and how pathetic they look compared to Home's anatomically correct avatars. And what happened with Home's avatars. I'm not saying that graphics are not important, because for me they're the most important aspect in videogames. The topic is design versus technology :). Just as some of the best looking games of this generation are on the Wii (Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Punch-Out), it's avatar system is far superior than the one found on PS3. Mii's have become some sort of a cultural phenomenon. People love creating Mii's. Last year I played Mass Effect and it took me almost 2 hours to create my avatar and the end result was something more similar to Keanu Reeves than me. It's just too complex to be enjoyable and generic looking to be appreciated. In this case going with realism is the wrong way. And now for the motion controllers. Wii's Remote is by far the best designed motion controller and it's a shame how after 3 years people still don't get it. Microsoft's entry is not even a motion controller but a motion sensor. It's best use will probably be for training games, maybe this tamagotchi style waste Molyneux is hyping and generally how the Xbox communicates with it's user (like staying in front of it to log in XBL). With this MS are going after just a fraction of Wii's potential. As a result XBots won't be playing superior Halos, Starcraft 2 over XBL, or turn the Xbox in a real media center with precise pointer navigation. Sony are even worse placed, because their controller is not beating the Wii Remote and neither is their camera Natal. But at least it can be used for a greater variety of games and they have the talent to produce them.
What other motion controllers are we comparing them to?
I remember getting Dragon Quest Kenshin, a plug n' play TV game that used a motion sensor for its plastic sword. Playing that, i was excited for the Wii's release. But playing Dragon Quest Swords on the Wii, the 2000yen plastic sword game has better control, at least for sword swings.
Wiimote's been rather disappointing for me, I just prefer a regular game pad in the end.
By the way, can you explain why you think Metriod Prime 3, Mario Galaxy and Punch Out are good looking? I'm curious as to how you'd judge them.
You're curious how I judge them brother? I just look at them. Maybe I made a mistake by not mentioning any other examples and the simpletons started questioning my credibility. Very funny. Assassin's Creed, Metal Gear Solid 4, Racedriver Grid, Crysis and Bioshock are another example for great visuals. As for the future I'm looking forward to The Last Guardian. What I have seen in the trailer looks absolutely amazing. Also I have to mention Rage and Starcraft 2. And now I'll give you an example of a technologically advanced but very bad looking game. This is Sony's massive shooter MAG. This game looks so hideous it makes my eyes hurt. Very ugly. Advanced texturing and lighting techniques are implemented to support or define vision, with photo-realism being most dependent from their advancement but to judge a game's visuals purely by the shader model it's engine is using is silly. Resolution on the other hand has nothing to do with design and Wii games are suffering in this area but in the three games I have mentioned there's a lot more to their looks to simply write them off for that.
But I wasn't talking about which system has the best looking games. I simply mentioned these games along with the character creation in Mass Effect to support my opinion for Wii's avatar system. And the whole Mii argument was to make a point against the furore that's raging in the past week around these new motion controllers. The same case as with Home - people drooling over technology without having the slightest idea what it stands for. I'm not a "fanboy" (?!?). I don't give a fuck, neither understand what this even means. Also I was evaluating the Wii Remote from a design standpoint. Yes, the motion sensing was not well done, but now there's Motion Plus for you.
Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and Punch-Out are among the best-looking games this generation? What systems do you have?
Well, I've got a pc that will blow all the consoles out of the water power wise (I had a 360 owning friend come over and he couldn't believe how much better Dead space looked on pc, for example) and I think Mario galaxy looks as good, if not better, than anything my pc can do. There is so much more to "good" graphics than how many polygons/textures/filters or whatever tech specs you can cram into your engine.
Umm, pardon? And you know, Mario Galaxy is made up of the same pecs you speak of (just not as well as PC/360/PS3 does). Maybe the art direction is "better", but I can't imagine Mario Galaxy looking better than anything your PC can do (if it's a powerful PC as you said).
Now that I'm thinking about it, you had to be making a joke and your humor is just too dry for me to pick up on.
"Mario Galaxy is made up of the same pecs you speak of (just not as well as PC/360/PS3 does)"
So you think that geometry,texturing and lighting are specifications? That really cracked me up :).
You know what I meant! ^^
It's usually the little touches that seperate the good from the great and I count Mario Galaxy as a great looking game. For example, the lighting effect that gives everything that wonderful halo like glow, the vibrant colour scheme, the character that shows itself through the animation there are so many things like that in galaxy that makes the visuals shine beyond the number of polygons the Wii can push.
At the other end of the spectrum, Crysis also looks amazing on my pc, but more for the technical aspects of its visuals (though some of the frozen scenes and the alien ship interior show plenty of visual style as well).
And all this is without even bringing the whole 2D thing into the equation, I mean I'm struggling to think of a game that excites me, visually, as much as Muramasa coming out this year.
So, no, I'm not that witty. :P
Very well said brother.
That makes sense then, you still are talking from more of an artistic point of view than anything. There's a big difference between photo-realistic graphics and stylized art direction; I think Mario is the latter.
His credibility flew out the window with that comment.
Oo really?
best looking is not just graphical power, but the design sense behind it and making use of what you've got. Mario Galaxy is such a game.
though in my opinion, SNES Punch Out still looks better than the Wii one, or most games this generation.
Even then, though, there are an awful lot of games not going for realism (the latest industry buzzword "stylized") that look so much better than SMG. Take Team Fortress 2 or the Ratchet and Clank games.
Methinks this original poster just needs to invest $2 in an HDMI cable.
HDMI? My whole life I have been playing mostly PC games on high resolution monitors, running at minimum 60fps (preferably 120). Are you fucking kidding me :).
You must be playing Planescape: Torment and Thief then, because there's no way those games you mentioned look as good as the best of the other systems.
True, but then that all comes down to personal taste. I thought (and still think) Yoshi's Story on the SNES was one of the best looking games. I also think Braid looks amazing. Neither game has normal or bump mapped textures, pixel shaders, etc. blah blah, but they looked great.
So if you're talking about art direction that's one thing, but graphic fidelity is a whole other story. Bioshock looks amazing graphically and artistically, the Wii couldn't pull Bioshock off. Oblivion is another game that, though graphically doesn't look great, from a technical standpoint the Gymbrio (might be spelling it wrong) engine pulls off some amazing draw distance and sheer scope that couldn't ever be done of the Wii.
I'll give you the art argument (somewhat anyway) ^^
Plus, who cares about Home vs. Miis? They're both useless.
He spent two hours making Shephard in Mass Effect? What the hell?
And he believes that the Wii motion controller is the best one. I used the Burger King kid's meal Wiimote and it worked better than a real one.
lmao, too funny.
...Yawn...
Nice one Reg, "push this marketplace" with rehashes of old IP. Yeah good one..
Of course they're not looking to upgrade their technology. They have shot themselves in the foot, as they have such a huge install base of typically non core gamers, if they even suggested a new version of Wii I'm not sure these new customers would even consider buying a new version of the Wii for a long time. Stick with your low spec console and stop sniping about other companies who are giving their audience what they want
I love how he says Nintendo looks at the market with a smile on their face. How smug you are at the top. The story was a lot different during the N64 & Gamecube days.
...they're smiling because they remember the N64 and gamecube days... their crazy gamble with the low powered waggling wii propelled them from last to first again.
There isn't a sentence in this article spoken by Reggie that isn't total bullshit.
especially technology that may or may not ever come into the marketplace
Good call, Reggie.
both sony and microsft are disperate to make money on consoles. with the billions they lost.
I think M$ and Sony will release their versions. I just can't see how M$'s is gonna pan out cos I don't believe in their ability with hardware. Sure, the 360 is powerful and easy to develop for but all its accessories are cheap and to be frank, shite. And they are in reality, simple things to develop. But because M$ rush everything into the market and hope for the best, it wouldn't be a surprise if the same was for Natal..
Once Sony drops its price, I can see the PS3 catching up. I don't own or intend to own a PS3 but I can just see it happening, while the Wii will stay well ahead of the pack