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GameCube (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Former Nintendo Boss Talks GameCube, PSP 57

Posted by simoniker from the respect-your-elders? dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GamerFeed article translating an interview with former Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamauchi about the state of gaming. The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into handheld gaming with the PSP ("I don't think [Sony] understand the game business... but software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition."), and also offers a different perspective on slipping GameCube sales ("Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone.")
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Former Nintendo Boss Talks GameCube, PSP More

Former Nintendo Boss Talks GameCube, PSP

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  • NES production to stop this year? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PyroMosh ( 287149 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @05:57AM (#6356933) Homepage
    Question: The Famicom (NES) recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, your thoughts?

    Yamauchi-san: Fortunately, many people have the chance to enjoy it. It became impossible to procure a fixed number of parts to continue manufacturing the console, so production will stop this year.

    Huh? Are they saying that the origional 8-bit NES / Famicom is STILL IN PRODUCTION? Or at least that it was until this year? Where? And can the top-loader still be had?
    • Yes, Nintendo didn't just produce a string of has beens. They have some interest in longevity rather than jonesing with the other consoloputer companies.

      Sad how everything has to be a fad like the computer just because the newer machines can show more of Lara Croft's pixels.
      • Sad how everything has to be a fad like the computer just because the newer machines can show more of Lara Croft's pixels.

        Actually, the NES had to be a fad like everything else because most of us couldn't play games on our NES consoles without 10 minutes of cleaning cartridges and aligning them just right in the old front-load systems we bought 15 years ago. I've never seen an original NES system that didn't start having problems loading games after a few years, and most of us couldn't justify buying a 'n
        • Am I the only one who remembers this fondly? BTW I still have a great working NES console.
        • Bah. All my (PAL) NES games worked very well and the cartridges were much less fragile than current CDs. Never had a NES game break. We used our NES from '89 to '97-'98, and we never had a problem like that, though the main gamepad did start to become somewhat worn out by the end.

          Then my frickin' brother borrowed it to someone and was never eager to get it back. I've never forgiven him for that. Oh well. We had about 30 games then, and I have 3 CDs full of ROMs (eh, including, like, 100 SMB hacks and multip

          • I never had any problems with the game cartridges themselves, just with the system (and we had 2 systems in the house eventually, both of which gained the same problems after about 2 years).

            I've never had any problems with CD and DVD based games, but then I treat the discs much better than I ever did a cartridge. I've never had a major problem with a top-loading cartridge-based system, either, just the old front-loading NES systems. My Atari 2600 (the old wood-panelled one) still worked just fine when I so
        • Get a NES game genie. The design of it was such that you never had to push the cart down, you just straight inserted it into the open face of the NES. No tricky alignment issues. I bought my game genie when they got cheap back in 1992, and I've loved it for years. I still use it today to play my NES games quickly and easily.
        • I've never seen an original NES system that didn't start having problems loading games after a few years

          Got ours for Christmas in '85, and it still works fine, except for Double-Dribble, which loads, but dies after a few minutes.

  • they got competition. Not that they're limited to that. The ploriferation of colorful scenery and characters put Nintendo in a certain stereotype.

    Metroid Prime proved they could do more, but there doesn't seem to be as much focus on the intricacies of more violent games. The RPGs have depth but other games seem to be well, a little thin.

    On platforms recognized as designed for 3D there's an ironic turn. Now that the 3D is so rich, games designers can use that to focus on things such as hiding from enemies or looking over another character's shoulder. Nintendo's games aren't quite as involving.
    • I think your definition of RPG is wrong. By RPG, do you mean adventure/platform games like Mario Sunshine and Zelda: Wind Waker?

      Nintendo hasn't had an excellent traditional RPG since Super Mario RPG on SNES. Paper Mario on N64 was decent I guess. One RPG in particular, Final Fantasy VII, jumpstarted the PlayStation brand. The fact that it didn't come out for N64 was the beginning of the "problem" years for Nintendo.

      Furthermore, you say their other games are lacking depth. Super Smash Bros. Melee has a dee

  • Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Westley ( 99238 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @06:12AM (#6356964) Homepage
    The /. summary of this article is very misleading. It says:

    <quote>
    The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into handheld gaming with the PSP ("I don't think [Sony] understand the game business... but software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition."),
    <quote>

    Actually, Yamauchi isn't dismissive at all, and the [Sony] in the summary is incorrect. It's the *analysts* who don't understand the game business. Here's the actual interview quote:

    <quote>
    Sony's PSP isn't expected to hit the market until late 2004, and there's still many unknown details about it. There have been analysts who think Nintendo has a monopoly over the handheld market and Sony maybe able to break it - I don't think they understand the game business. New product competition in this industry is important. Although Nintendo's core business is software, having another hardware developer will allow us to judge the superority or inferority of our machine. But software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition.
    </quote>

    Now, where exactly is he dismissive of Sony? Doesn't he actually accept the possibility that the Nintendo machine will be inferior?

    Please use some basic reading comprehension before coming up with summaries like this...
    • They were probably reacting to Yamamuchi saying that Sony's not in direct competition with Nintendo.

      Actually I think I can kind of see that point. If the PSP comes out with remakes of PS1 and PS2 games, quite a few people would probably buy the PSP, ignoring the GBA in the process. Even though the styles of games are different, lots of people buy based on potential rather than on the strengths of the games available (or in development).

      There's a point to be made either way. In some ways the GBA will al
    • I know, I read the summary and thought, "I see. Ol' Yamauchi is still crazy." Then I read the article, and came back to a different familiar thought. That the people here at Slashdot don't proofread.

      That summary was utterly sad. Almost, but not entirely, unlike what was actually said in the article.
  • Is it just me or does the PSP media look similar to GCN disks in a hard candy shell? Which brings me to my next point. If Nintendo could develop a handhelp that took optical media like the PSP is proposed to do and played GCN games...sweet! They could develop a carriage design, like old CD carriages, that would allow existing GCN games to be put into the machine. They could also develop games specifically for the GCNBoy that would look similar to the PSP media. Groovy.
    • I doubt they could make such a system for the next generation of handhelds, at least not without making it cost a bloody fortune.

      What they _should_ do is make a handheld of PSX/N64 level hardware that plays GCN sized disks. Like the PSP, the disks should have a hard shell like 3.5 floppies. When the next generation handheld after that comes out, it should be GCN level hardware, and they could sell empty cases that GCN disks could be put into and used in the exact same manner as the first generation disk-c

    • Actually they looked a bit like Sony MiniDisc type devices...

  • Domestically (Score:2, Insightful)

    by leifm ( 641850 )
    Nintendo has a similar problem to Apple. Apple still has a stigma of being a toy computer compnay, computers for morons and people who want to color coordinate their machine with the rug. That isn't really true anymore, but still when I tell non-geeks to look at Apple as an option for a new machine they look at me like I am crazy. Nintendo has the same type of issue, a lot of people think of their software and systems as a kiddy thing, and go buy a PS2 or XBOX. I have both a GCN and a PS2, and while I proba
    • I love Nintendo. I really do. I've owned every Nintendo system except for the Virtual Boy.

      But consoles like this [vidgame.net]don't help the problem much.

      I wish Nintendo would pull away again and beat Sony. But then I see things like this [penny-arcade.com], and I realize that they're right. I look around me. The kind of people I know who own PS2s by and large, aren't gamers. They're people who play for 5 minutes at a time before going to work in the morning, or who like to Play Grand Theft Auto with all the cheat codes on because

  • Oh really? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BigChigger ( 551094 )
    "I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles"

    sounds like a cop out to me. Anime is so violent they put disclaimers on it when it shows on American TV.

    BC

    • "sounds like a cop out to me. Anime is so violent they put disclaimers on it when it shows on American TV."

      You are comparing apples to oranges. Anime is a passive form of entertainment, and violence consumed passively is much different than killing someone in a interactive video game.

      On the other hand, just look at the statistics for 2002:

      Of all video game software sold in 2002:
      * 55.7% were rated Everyone (E).
      * 27.6% were rated Teen (T).
      * 13.2% were rated Mature (M).
      * In 2002,

  • Nintendo constantly misses the point on one thing: Diversity. People aren't necessarily looking for violent games, they just want to have that option sometimes. Nintendo, while loosening up over the past few years, is still fairly strict on what they release on their systems.

    They want to maintain a certain image, which is great in theory, but tough on sales. They may have a right to be stubborn, considering the quality of the core games they release is always phenomenal. Still they need to broaden the hori

    • They want to maintain a certain image, which is great in theory, but tough on sales.

      It's also helpful when Lieberman and the Vice Squad start making the rounds of game companies...

      This attitude of superiority has cost them the friendship of Sony and Square, two mistakes that they have been paying for ever since.

      Just a nitpick here, but it seems to me that Square, not Nintendo, suffered after deserting to Sony. Their late Super Nintendo games (FF6, Chrono Trigger, RS3, SD3) were extremely good, but in
      • Just a nitpick here, but it seems to me that Square, not Nintendo, suffered after deserting to Sony. Their late Super Nintendo games (FF6, Chrono Trigger, RS3, SD3) were extremely good, but in retrospect after seeing the mess they made of FF7, FF Tactics, and subsequent games, it seems that this was *because* they were being censored up the wazoo and weren't able to do the FMVs that their lead FF designer (Hironobu Sakagami, IIRC) wanted so desperately.

        Of course, the 'mess they made' resulted in the highe
        • Of course, the 'mess they made' resulted in the highest sales Square has ever seen in the US, not only for FF7, but also for 8, 9, 10; they expect 11, 10-2, and 12 to do so as well (though obviously 11 should have a drop in sales associated with the fact that it's online-only).

          If Square is doing so well, why did they need Fund Q money so badly? For that matter, why in Heck did they merge with Enix, at terms disadvantageous to themselves? (IIRC, 1 share of Squaresoft to .79 shares of Enix.)

          [Full-Motion Vi
          • If Square is doing so well, why did they need Fund Q money so badly? For that matter, why in Heck did they merge with Enix, at terms disadvantageous to themselves? (IIRC, 1 share of Squaresoft to .79 shares of Enix.)

            The link you sited said it all, at least all that could be said in such a small item ;) They were looking at competing against some of the huge western game publishers (EA, Activision, Infogrames / Atari). I really find it surprising that they'd bother to even try to put themselves up against
            • [Full-Motion Video]

              Actually, looking back at most of the Final Fantasy series which was released during the SNES/NES days, they were at least trying to tell the story mostly through the game itself, but they still always had those one or two times in each game where it just broke away to a screen that had a bunch of text on it to tell the next bit of story. They added in a couple of pre-rendered cut-scenes after the fact for the PlayStation re-releases, which imo neither helped nor hindered those particul
              • [Full-Motion Video]
                To cite a particular example, I would say that FF7 suffered immensely from its use of rendered video instead of in-game cinematics. The video looked very different from the game itself, more so in the PC than the PSX version, and took up so much disk space that they weren't even able to implement reviving Aeris. :)

                I think what I was trying to point out is simply that the pre-rendered video replaced an even more mediocre method of story-telling in video games: putting up a screen or mor
                • [FMV]
                  I think what I was trying to point out is simply that the pre-rendered video replaced an even more mediocre method of story-telling in video games: putting up a screen or more of text and expecting the player to read all of it (usually at the game developer's choice of scrolling speed) to get the plot movement.

                  My own thoughts on this? Done properly, it's spectacular; but for it to work, one must both (a) do it extremely sparingly and (b) catch the reader's interest *before* the scrolling marquee of
                  • [FMV]
                    My own thoughts on this? Done properly, it's spectacular; but for it to work, one must both (a) do it extremely sparingly and (b) catch the reader's interest *before* the scrolling marquee of text. Case in point: Final Fantasy IV, with the scrolling text leaving Baron, with "Crossing the Bridge" in the background... Spectacular.

                    Of course, too many screenfuls of text, I agree, are even worse than rendered video. Morrowind is a perfect example of what not to do -- uninteresting story, no characterizatio
                    • [FMV]
                      I think we've reached agreement on this subject.

                      [CT and Enix]
                      http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger
                      (th e same info is in many other places, but I figured the first link I hit on a bad google search will do well enough (I searched for Chrono Cross instead of Chrono Trigger, oops)

                      I stand corrected.

                      [New feel to CT]
                      Probably a combination of the two, and Square's willingness to make a lot of changes (which they incorporated in the FF series) in terms of the various systems the game used (ie the
      • Some adults like violent games, some don't. Some like me play both the Pokemons and the GTAs. It's up to the consumer to vote with their dollars by purchasing games they want. If there's something they don't like, it won't get sold. That doesn't mean you should self-censor games just because some people don't like the violent ones. As long as rating systems are enforced, why should you or anyone else care what kind of games other adults play. If something is so disgusting or horrible that society won'
        • As long as rating systems are enforced, why should you or anyone else care what kind of games other adults play.

          I agree. I wouldn't care particularly much... if the ESRB could just produce a decent rating system, and anyone at all cared about it. It's a sad day when the official ratings board of the ISDA itself can't devise a system to equal a bunch of berserker fundamentalists [capalert.com], and can't enforce its age recommendations as well as even the movie industry...

          Violence has been part of human entertainment s
          • I agree that gratuitous violence usually adds nothing to the game experience for most of us.

            One neat thing about the GTAs is that the gratuitious violence is mostly optional. You don't have to do anything violent that doesn't forward the story. You don't have to run over random people on the street to finish the game; it's up to you.

            I wouldn't call the violence in Wolfenstein 3d gratuitious because that was the whole point of the game (and most other fps'): pure violence. If you're going to be looking
            • I wouldn't call the violence in Wolfenstein 3d gratuitious because that was the whole point of the game (and most other fps'): pure violence. If you're going to be looking for quality story in any action movie/game you're going to come away disappointed. 'Cept Halo. :D

  • Violence in gaming (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dracol1ch ( 628484 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:00AM (#6358007)
    The following keeps comming up over and over in discussions about US vs Japanese games.

    Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles.

    It's a funny juxtoposition but the quick answer is always something about how violent anime is yadda, yadda. I think I finally hit the cultural nail on the head today though when I read this story. It's not the vaunted 'tolerance for violence' that everyone keeps spouting (on both sides). It's simply a cultural preconception. In Japan it's okay for cartoons to be violent but games should be cute. In the US it's okay for games to be violent but cartoons should be cute. Neither country seems (in a general sense) to be able to get over these preconceived concepts.

  • Parts for the Famicom was actually still in production until about a month ago, when they were discontinued completely.

    It's hard to read into Yamauchi's words since, on many occasions, he has been quoted as ferventing believing other companies are non-threats and being critical of them, even as Nintendo continues to lose to Sony. The absolute worst thing Nintendo can do is dismiss the threat Sony poses. I don't think Yamauchi has outright expressed that in this article, but both he and Nintendo in gener

  • What I find interesting is that Yamauchi thinks that the Gameboy and PSP will not be in direct competition because of the software. HELLO! This is ancient thinking... look at what has happened to Nintendo with the N64 and GameCube? They lost LOTS of marketshare because it wasn't the software that dictated the market, but the PEOPLE who buy the games that dictate the market! Once an alternative hits the market, it's open season on portable gaming, be it the GBA or N-Gage or PSP... it comes down to price
    • What I find interesting is that Yamauchi thinks that the Gameboy and PSP will not be in direct competition because of the software.

      Never mind the pricing and features of the two, right? I have a feeling that Sony may also have problems making disc-based portables work as well as cartridge systems, too, but that's their problem to work out, and remains to be seen.

      HELLO! This is ancient thinking... look at what has happened to Nintendo with the N64 and GameCube? They lost LOTS of marketshare because it
  • "Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone."

    Last time i checked MagicBox, the GameCube sales in Japan were pretty abysmal too. How do you explain away that?

    I like Nintendo as much as the next guy (well, better mos

  • Former Nintendo Boss Talks

    Did anyone else get an image of Bowser growling at Nintendo executives?
  • "Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone." Its kinda funny how Japan has cornered the market on demon rape sex games and videos. Nintendo should port some of those.
  • I think simoniker misinterpreted what Yamauchi said. Simoniker thinks Yamauchi was criticizing Sony, when instead Yamauchi was really criticizing analysts (not Sony) who think that Sony can invade Nintendo's portable market... It would be kind of dumb for Yamauchi to say that Sony doesn't understand the game business, after Sony has already proven itself to be the (pretty much) undisputed market leader.

    simoniker quote: "The legendary Yamauchi is customarily dismissive about Sony's attempts to get into han

  • It is disk based. I have a minidisc player(made by Sony!), and a GBA. Both I carry in my pockets. Which one lasted more than 2 weeks without any problems? My GBA. The Minidisc player has problems with dust in my pockets dirtying up the lens and the discs get dust ground into them, which scratches them. Optical is not the way to go for a handheld. They get dropped, put in pockets, and used by children. Needless to say, the idea for the PSP is better than the execution.

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