We're losing track here...
But to quickly address some recent posts: PSP can be a phenomenal success by giving itself the right image. By generating the right opinions. We ALL know this. Hopefully anyway. Incidentally, Amir0x's observations about MPEG4 conversion are well thought out. And who's going to rebuy their collection on UMD? I also agree with the guy who in response feels they're going for the tech savvy consumer... the caveat being of course, that they expect to pick up their loyal PlayStation following on the way, and sweep many more up in the hype. Which I'm sure it will.
I think we've digressed though. The debate is already going around in circles. Does Iwata have a leg to stand on?
I'm in the yes camp. Getting back to the original material:
Nintendo DS is based on the Kyoto-based maker's recognition that people are drifting from games because they don't have time to master the increasingly complex games on the market, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told reporters.
I can see why people have issues with this statement, but I haven't outright dismissed Iwata because of it yet...
WHAT ACTUALLY SELLS?
There is no evidence that we can provide that proves people are drifting away from gaming. At least not that I am aware of. Iwata hasn't provided any either. But
could it be happening? We always hear about record sales being met here in the west, but could it be limited to the familiar (or occasionally well hyped) killer app? With well known developers closing shop this generation - is the problem:
* that games are ever more complex to create,
* that competition is too harsh,
* that selling games to disenfranchised and/or fickle consumers is hard,
* OR is it all of the above?
I remember reading that Japan's market was a buzz about such doomsday thinking... I think in essence, that as a Japanese company, this is Iwata's core context. I also wager he believes it will be mirrored in the west eventually. Obviously lots of companies are going from strength to strength. Where there are losers there are winners. But I have to admit: I seldom meet a gamer who can buy games on a whim. They tend to buy what they know, or what they have come to know through hype. Everything else is tablescraps.
You might say to me: "hey! things have never been better". We can argue about things like this til we are blue in the face. I suggest we don't. Total waste of time. But in Iwata's defence -- consider how hit-driven the market is. It's rare for new, innovative titles to come along and succeed. People, including Nintendo, are forced to play to current gamers' expectations. On the one hand, this is rather convenient, but when push comes to shove is rehashing
really good for anyone? Can unending sports game updates, Japanese RPGs, cutesy platformers and film franchise games etc. continue to woo people forever? And more importantly - are these
software updates targetting new gamers, or just spreading their reach amongst a common type of consumer? Is the games industry selling to the same audience it has grown in the last 25 years? Can that audience rear a future gaming audience of it's own? What if this current audience outgrows certain types of games? Or gets bored of typical code and convention? Could this be why we're accepting more passive movie-convergence type experiences more and more? I mean, it seems to me that few games start with the formulation of a fun idea; a good gaming mechanic. It's not like game designers sit down en masse, like Alexey Pajitnov did with his traditional Russian blocks game, and get inspired to create something new as he did with Tetris. Underneath it all, some games will have superior graphics engines, good level design or super tight control -- but most games will be a variation on something you have played before. A genre title. Rather than evolving from an idea involving 'play' - they all evolve from - "gee, what can we make that will sell?" .... they pick a genre template (ie. Fighting game or first person shooter) and then before we know it, we're being offered the franchise sequels, and TV/movie spin offs: Fight Club/Godfather/Lord of the Rings/Spiderman/Star Wars/Alias/24 type projects. And I think it's also why, every now and then, some eejit embarrasingly tries to shift crap like BMX XXX or The Guy Game onto the consumer. Can anyone honestly say that people must have sat down on these projects and thought - what kind of new / fun experience can I create?
I don't think you can. Now don't get me wrong, when you make a formula and perfect it -- the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is perfectly applicable. There are awesome games out today. I've been coo-ing hardcore recently about Prime 2, The Minish Cap, GTA:SA and playing lots of Xbox games for the very first time. I say that if you can justify it and still make it fun, then there
should be a franchise, there should be a sequel. People would want it that way. You can't just stop responding to demand. But when you're basely marketing to the lowest common denominator and using other forces in place of a good idea to sell your game, I really think that's detrimental to this industry.
WHO'S BUYING IT? OR MORE IMPORANTLY - WHO ISN'T?
Look at the demographics. Even just on this forum. Most people are in their teens or their twenties, some now entering their thirties. All of you guys, even if you just started playing in recent years, have grown up knowing what a gamepad was all about. You understood that to do more things, to have the experience be as it is today, more buttons and newer (more complex) interfaces were needed. Essentially, you are the middle and upper classes of the video game industry. You are priviledged to a better experience and understanding that newer generations of gamers might not have. You have went through the re-honing of your motor skills (particularly hand to eye co-ordination) in this traditional gaming set-up. But why are people here so opposed to change? There are people who've never touched a game before. People who can't comprehend that pushing a stick upwards moves you into the distance relative to a 3d camera. With some people: it would absolutely
blow their mind if you explained that controlling the camera is a job you're meant to do in symbiosis with actual movement of the character, and interaction with it's surroundings. Hell, let's consider computer literacy. There are people who don't use computers as often as you and I. Your average worker bee doesn't sit at an office computer terminal all day, and then come home to Xbox Live to frag some of his fellow Spartans. The potential female gamer almost certainly doesn't. For whatever reason, there is this great mass of people that (aided by the convolution the extra dimension brings),
cannot play modern video games... or do not
want to play video games. Some of these people may have sat down to Tetris in the past and loved it. Or played Pong, Pacman or Galaga. They might be playing Snake on their mobile phone right now, or some other simplistic Java applet. That is to say: there will be things that these people
are prepared to play. And there's nothing to say we couldn't have fun with those games too.
The bottom line is - OF COURSE a modern gamer, versed in modern gaming doesn't mind 11 buttons on a gamepad. OF COURSE they can have fun with a good first person shooter, or a tremendously detailed RPG game system. Most of you can comprehend pressure sensitive analog buttons. Directional analog sticks that you can click. Concepts of variable arrays that change when you level up a character. Abilities and limitations in an environment. Your understanding of video game genre conventions. BUT
is it so hard to believe that complexity alienates new players? We can all give examples of successful and complex games. But this is not to say it's for everyone... some posts in this thread really convey a quite ignorant attitude of "ah well, it's our way or the high way".
At least some of you are acknowledging the existence of a market for simple-but-fun games... or even just complex games with simple interfaces. One need only consider how easy people adapt to games like Tetris, Puzzle Bobble, Snafu, Sokoban, Super Monkey Ball, Dance Dance Revolution, Donkey Konga, Eye Toy, Singstar, Theme Park, Roller Coaster Tycoon, The Sims and the plethora of early mobile phone games (console > Ngage ports show their power or lack of in Ngage sales). And while it's early days yet, and things could change a hell of a lot in a few months, you have gotta wonder how the DS is doing so well in Japan despite the near simultaneous launch of a more complex machine (graphically and control-wise) if that's all that people supposedly want. You gotta look at the continual success of Gameboy. Tamagotchi.
Pokét
Monsters. Wario Ware. I have to wonder, personally at least, could Nintendo be onto something?
QUESTIONS ON MY MIND
1) Gamers outside the older boundary of typical gamers are still not convinced the medium is viable entertainment, particularly over the course of hours. Some would rather watch or engage in sport. Some would rather watch a film or TV. Some would rather chat to friends on a mobile, or on Instant Messengers.. would these people indulge in easy to pick up, easy to drop, fun gameplay with an endearingly simple approach?
2) Younger gamers either dig games or they don't - increasingly most of them do. The public crazes suck them in on many hyped games, and kids have a tendancy to want to be cool and more grown up as they reach their teenage years. But having said that, there is an equal if not greater attraction for many of them in the Beyblades, Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon games of this world. Or other Gameboy platform success stories. Are other games perhaps unnecessarily visually complex or convoluted to control for
some children? Could this be why 2D has persisted, and GBA has moved by the bucket load to the point where "Gameboy" is now as powerful if not more than the PlayStation brand?
3) What about girl gamers? Patronising women with dating games, britney dance games, and barbie adventures might sucker in the really young ladies, but things that are pulling in a lot of women are basically NOT what the game industry consider hot commodities and wave of the future. While doubtless there
are girls who like them somewhere - Halo 2, American Football, and copy after copy of racing game or first person shooter aren't appealing across the gender divide effectively. A lot of stats put a lot of female gamers sitting at PCs endulging in online games/communication with one another, playing The Sims, the tycoon games and other rather unconsole-like gaming. That's the women who are gaming at all mind you. There are millions upon millions who aren't. Could this strategy pull these people?
NINTENDO DS
The thing I like about Nintendo DS so far, is that it really
imposes some thought on the developer and publisher. You can take a one screen game, slap a map on the bottom screen and call it a happy-port-day. You could probably do this and somehow sleep at night.... but the game won't be as good as something that's designed ground up for the system. The developer has to contend not only with the screens, but consider WiFi, Stylus control and Microphone input. The latter two being a direct allure for simplistic, intuitive control schemes. There is basically more incentive on Nintendo DS to create new content than on any other platform. Whether people take the bait or not... we'll see:
Because the other hand it has everything required to make traditional games play as normal. The thing I don't like about the DS, is that Nintendo might allow this to happen in an epidemic kind of way. If Nintendo DS doesn't offer these new kind of experiences we've been talking about - what are you left with? No new audience gained, and ports that aren't as good as their PSP cousins.
At the end of the day, whether what Iwata says is right or wrong doesn't really matter. Everything he says could be, and almost certainly is, just PR justification for Nintendo DS' existence. An attempt to sell Nintendo DS to the media, to consumers, or to his investors. For gamers, the motives should be inconsequential. It's the games that should matter.
---
some quotes that I find interesting, that lead me to believe certain things or back my ideas up:
Iwata said he doubts that PSP, which marks Sony's foray into handheld gaming, will attract new fans the way Nintendo DS has, wooing beginners, including young women who studies have shown usually dislike games.
I think from the Japanese marketing campaign you can tell they've been targeting women there as well as men. The US campaign played more towards an adult campaign - attempts at seductive female voiceovers negate the gender ambiguity the Japanese campaign had.
The old-style formula for success of relying on technological innovations to deliver dazzling graphics simply doesn't work, Iwata said. Nintendo DS, which stands for "dual screen," has a wireless function and a touch-panel.
"PSP has been created with the assumption that the golden success formula is still working. We don't believe that," Iwata said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club. "We're making every effort so that people will say we were right."
I agree with whoever said Iwata communicates the companies thoughts poorly. I don't think he sees how western gamers can react to statements like this with utter horror. As I understand it - he's basically saying: just using your extra power to up the graphics is not enough, you can do more with technological innovation. Instead it sounds like he's lambasting fancy graphics themselves. Which, given the desire for handheld gaming to be a more cost-free arena, might be his intention. But I doubt it somehow..
"We're focusing on our market, ages 5 to 95," he said.
Games anyone can play. It's always been their quest for the holy grail. And a quest that people have been saying would doom them for the last 10 years. Fuck dem kids! Fuck those people who can't use 11 buttons! Slap a T or an M on the box and give me bigger, better graphics.
I know whose side I'm on. Perhaps I justify what Iwata has said because I'm drifting away from gaming myself. I have all three consoles now. I have fun with a handful of games, and consider almost everything else on shop shelves to be utter shite. The prospect of something fresh, and a company (who in PR at least) seems commited to making it, excites me.
Thom
