Nintendo Admits They May 'Lose Some Purists' 110
njkid1 writes "GameDaily has up their full E3 interview with Nintendo of America's George Harrison, SVP of Marketing and Corporate Communications. Harrison talks about the move of the company's sales and marketing force, acknowledges that Nintendo may 'lose some purists' while attempting to broaden the audience, and he doesn't rule out a Wii revision: 'It's interesting, console hardware has always historically been on a sort of fixed, sequential pattern almost every five to six years and it takes you about five years to develop a new piece of console hardware. The handhelds and portables, like Game Boy and now DS, we've always been continuously innovating, and whenever we feel like it's time or have an upgrade, we'll do it, whether it's an improved screen for the handheld or slimmed down like the DS Lite - those types of things. So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.'"
What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until I played them.
Now Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are considered all-time classics, even by 'purists', even by old hands like me. Should Mario have stayed true to his 2D roots to satisfy purists? Should Zelda have stayed top-down? Certainly not. Purism of that kind leads to stagnation; while the occasional throwback like New SMB is wonderful, games have to evolve or become stale.
Re:What's a purist? (Score:4, Insightful)
purists? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong nethack is hard the first time you play on it (although it's such a good game). But as soon as you look at the controls and figure out that they use the vi commands for movement you can pick up and play - just add more detail into the game as and when you're ready... it goes with you more than the new games seem to.
Mario is an even better example, easy as you like at the start, gets harder... but very much "pick up and play".
The Wii follows from this "pick up and play" idea. That's where the purists should be, not playing these games that you get on the 360 (I went into gamestation and tried to play a game demo they'd got on - I couldn't even figure out how to do anything... there was about 800 context sensitive button combinations before you got to any kind of action... I'd already given up before that happened)
Re:Hardware revisions (Score:3, Insightful)
Sell it at a lower price so that someone who has different priorities or is not as privileged as you can purchase it?
There's a HUGE market of people who want second-hand game consoles. As long as you keep your kit in operating condition, I wouldn't worry too much about what happens to the old stuff. Simply trade it in at the local GAME for credit toward a new unit and be happy.
Re:Hardware revisions (Score:4, Insightful)
What was the jump from DS to DS Lite? Physically smaller, brighter screen, longer battery life. Great for a portable. Utterly irrelevant for a home console. Nintendo might come out with a smaller Wii, as Sony did with the PS2, but that won't exactly obsolete the old ones. A hardware upgrade is a poor idea; you end up with Wii1 and Wii2 in the market at the same time, and developers who use the capabilities of Wii2 cut themselves off from the already enormous installed base of Wii1.
The obvious Wii upgrade would have to be a software jump: specifically, multimedia. I'm on record from last November as saying that DVD playing doesn't matter to me, because everyone has a DVD player already. I've cooled on that. The Wii is on, it's connected right the hell now, I can't be bothered messing with switches, the damn thing's got a remote control, I want to play a DVD in it. And since the Wii's a device on my wireless network, I'd be awfully happy if it could play video files from my PC over the network. I've an awful lot of anime I'd love to watch on the big screen downstairs. If they'd just get the mplayerhq.hu guys to produce a version for Wii that they could put out for download, that would be just great ;-)
Re:Real 'Purists' aren't going anywhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Ironically, that's exactly what the purists wanted - indeed, what the purists insisted upon, very loudly. Remember the fuss, right here, when we first saw what Wind Waker was going to look like? Well, we got what we wished for. Twilight Princess: it's Ocarina but rather bigger and not quite as well lit.
Re:What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Movies? Relative newcomer. Movies are still in their infancy as an art form -- compared to other human artforms, not just geologic time as it seems you were doing. Movies are starting to have a significant history that would inform anyone calling themselves a "purist", though I've never heard someone doing so.
Video games? Not even three decades of existence, and founded on technology known for doubling its operational parameters in only two years. This isn't even comparable to the other art forms as far as having an established history, a canon to which one can wish to remain true as a "purist". In the grand scheme of things we're at the "discovering that banging a stick on a hollow tree stump in a regular beat makes a pleasing noise" phase. Acting like their is an established way for banging ones stick against a hollow tree stump against which new stump-stick-beaters should be judged is foolish, because there is an ongoing explosion of people trying various beaters and various objects upon which to beat and nobody has found a "good" way to do it.
Call me in 50 years, when we can look back on this period of infancy in video games, assuming we are not yet even in it, and we can discuss what "purity" means. In the meantime, there's no point because there simply isn't enough history, and yes that's different than other art forms.
Re:Hardware revisions? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Wii will be only slightly different; it became a household name sooner. The first year is still going to be lackluster. The second year and beyond will be good. The competition may not be as fully stomped as the DS's competition, but there will be boot marks and other evidence of kicking.
Re:A Good Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
Now if you'll excuse me, I've neglected a certain long-running saga of magicians and so forth since around 2002, and have three rather large volumes to catch up on before some git spoils the ending for me ;)
Re:What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Todays generation did not grow up with the old games so did not play them.
As someone who grew up with the older games I welcome the newer games because as an adult I can not afford to play games non stop for X hours.
Nintendo seems to know where things need to be if you ask me.