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Nintendo Talks Game 3.0

Rob Crossley's picture

By Rob Crossley

November 14, 2008

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"No longer is entertainment a one-way street; content created for audiences that just sit back and absorb it."

In a speech eerily reminiscent of Phil Harrison’s ‘Game 3.0’ GDC keynote back in March 2007, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime took the stage at the BMO Capital Markets annual Interactive Entertainment Conference and considered that “the future of any form of entertainment must be considered in correlation to both the changing and turbulent economic climate and in the end, even more consequentially, this exploding world of consumer-generated, active media."

Fils-Aime approached the subject by reminding the audience that in 1996 the top five websites were essentially websearch engines. The best library card going, he put it. Some twelve years on, the five most popular websites today are sites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook; "content composed entirely by users for the benefit of other users."

"If you're in the entertainment business, any form of entertainment, this is the game-changer," he continued. "Because no longer is entertainment a one-way street; content created for audiences that just sit back and absorb it. "

He made two points to this general topic; the first being that gaming has, from its roots, always embraced user-defined content. "Fifteen years ago, game players were already creating, in a primitive form," he said, citing palette-swapping race cars as an early mark of creative, user-generated content.

But his second point to this showed itself to be the driving force behind Fils-Aime’s discussion: "The DSi … has two built-in cameras and the imaging software to manipulate a picture of the guy in the next cubicle any way you want, and then send it via the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection to every other DSi in the office," he said.

He said that Japanese gamers are already embracing the DSi’s ‘Game 3.0’ properties, as users there are creating and sharing music using Band Bros. Deluxe on the DSi. He also mentioned how one of the newest Wario Ware games, the seemingly autobiographically-titled Wario Ware: Myself, let users design their own games and play them against friends.

“The era of passive entertainment is waning and active entertainment is literally where the action is,” he said.

Dan_Chippendale's picture
On November 17th Dan_Chippendale said:

If having a really low quality camera on your new hardware ushers in a new generation of Game 3.0 then sure, indulge yourselves Nintendo. What a load of knob rot...

bola laranja's picture
On November 16th bola laranja said:

I believe the so-called Game 3.0 will eventually lead us to a Matrix-like unified game environment (built cooperatively by publishers and users). And I'll help Nintendo (along with some other necessary partners – Apple, eBay, Google, to mention a few) to achieve it (if they want and allow me express my ideas to them).

So, Nintendo fellas, if you want to know where the “action” really is, please contact me.

jacobpbarker's picture
On November 14th jacobpbarker said:

Um. Excuse my eternal ignorance, but what is Game 2.0?

Ozzman_79's picture
On November 14th Ozzman_79 said:

If that makes you ignorant, make space for another then. Never heard of it either.

Rob Crossley's picture
On November 14th Rob Crossley said:
All three terms – Game 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 – were popularised by Phil Harrison at the Game Developer’s Conference in 2007. It was here, before unveiling LittleBigPlanet for the first time, that he spoke of different phases in the history of consoles. Game 1.0 represents the ‘disconnected’ console and the ‘static’ games; local experiences for a small audience. Game 2.0 represents the connected device, where suddenly players were able to kill each other in the lawless mud that is the internet. Game 3.0, said Harrison, defined the nascent trend of creating your own entertainment and sharing it with the world. The shift is significant in the sense that games like LittleBigPlanet (and now the DSi’s Band Bros Deluxe) have the capacity to be expressive examples of one’s creativity. Tirminyl’s point – in terms of this ascension from Game 1.0 – was that Nintendo shouldn’t be running with a DSi when it has barely begun to crawl with a Wii. That’s what I’ve gathered from it. Hope that helps.
Ozzman_79's picture
On November 14th Ozzman_79 said:

It sure does. Thanks for the background info. I feel 0.000000001% smarter today, having learnt something new.

Tycalibre's picture
On November 14th Tycalibre said:

For some reason the decimal place system has been appropriated to refer to significant leaps in technological areas. For example the advent of social media and increased interactivity in web based marketing is oft referred to as "web 2.0".

Basically he's inferrng that it's going to be a new way of playing games.

tirminyl's picture
On November 14th tirminyl said:

How about bringing Game 2.0 to the Wii before speaking about Game 3.0.

Belcaw's picture
On November 14th Belcaw said:

Ha! I would guess that they think they already have. Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Mario Soccer and soon Animal Crossing are all online. It makes me chuckle when I think about how they believe they've already achieved success with Game 2.0.

I'm sure people will strongly disagree with me; but from a consumer's perspective, I can't help but feel that Nintendo is keeping itself from true greatness. They keep trying to contain and control the explosion instead of setting it off and riding it until they can find or build another.

It wont be long before the other corporate players take Nintendo's ideas (again) and evolve them into something more consumer friendly than Nintendo ever allowed themselves to release.