You might have noticed that Nintendo held a conference at the beginning of October. It was filled with announcements and for once felt like a real show, which was enough to get most of us a little excited.
There’s no pleasing some people, of course, and there was some moaning about the details of the DSi, in particular the extremely low resolution of one of its cameras. But, overall, feedback is favourable, and there is curiosity over how Nintendo is preparing to power through this new version of its portable and make it a ‘must have’ for people who currently own a DS Lite.
For them, the bigger screens and thinner body won’t be a big enough draw – but the camera and music playback could be. On top of this there’s what might be the core of this DS iteration, the browser, shop and capacity for download distribution – as well as the adoption of SD-card storage (which will doubtless have a role in preventing piracy). The device may not have been full of surprises, but you have to admit that Nintendo has covered almost every aspect of what you could do with a portable device. And don’t forget it’s currently the king of the videogame world in both hardware and software.
The PSP is doing well and trying to close the gap on the DS, but Sony’s comments that Nintendo’s machine is for children are sounding increasingly desperate. Particularly when, in Japan, the biggest titles of all like Dragon Quest IX are exclusive to Nintendo’s platform, and more developers commit to releasing titles every month.
Now, as for the Wii, attention in Japan at the moment is directed towards Dobutsu No Mori (Animal Crossing) and Monster Hunter 3. What have been shown so far about ‘MonHun3’ are only videos, but the addition of aquatic hunting grounds is hugely exciting for fans. This game will be a big magnet for gamers who were previously sticking to their PlayStations, and its possible impact on the Wii can’t be understated.
But the biggest title of this conference, at least for me, was Sega’s Let’s Tap. This is the first title to come from Prope, the new company from Sega’s former key developer, Yuji Naka. It looks distinctive and exciting, and I have the feeling that this is the kind of title that can trigger a little craze even among families.
Personally that was the biggest surprise for me, though I wasn’t expecting the new collection named Wii De Asobu Selection – GameCube games that have been redesigned for the Wii, the first of which will be Pikmin. I’m not quite sure if anything is going to be added but we were expecting Pikmin to come back, and here it is! For now, at least.
It is almost useless to say that the Japanese merely like videogaming. It would be much more accurate to say the Japanese are crazy about videogaming! And up to now gamers have had no other options than going for the PS3, the Xbox 360 or the PSP if they wanted to play the games they were used to. So far, very few gamer-oriented titles have been released on the Wii and, in a self-defeating cycle, those that were sold very little. This conference, though, showed a growing number of these games and I’m interested by that. I wonder if this is the beginning of a shift we’ll start to really feel in the near future.