Nintendo Talks the Future of Wii

Via Eurogamer (which offers a highlight reel of the article), a long piece at MTV Games where Stephen Totilo sits down for a chat with Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime. Unlike some other question-dodging executives, Reggie shares some interesting details. We have release dates (WarioWare in January, Mario Party in March, Mario Galaxy sometime after March), confirmation that they'll try to bring GoldenEye to the Virtual Console, a few details about the first online game for the Wii (Pokemon Battle Revolution), and word that there would be several Wii-related announcements in January. From the article: "For Fils-Aime, some of the projects he'd love to see happen in the U.S. can only be executed by his bosses in Japan. As a result, part of his job is to lobby for what he thinks American gamers want. 'The piece that I am more and more involved in is really looking longer-term and making sure the full range of games are being brought to the Americas. Making sure we have core gamer games like 'Metroid,' like 'Galaxy.' Making sure we have our types of market-extension games not only for Wii but for DS. Where's our analogous cooking game? Where's our analogous 'Brain Age 2' for DS?'"

Re:What I'd like to see in Nintendo's Future

[Tadrith]

I definitely agree with you on the price of the virtual console games. I only downloaded one or two as a novelty right now, but I'm not going to pay 5.00 and up for nostalgia, especially when I can pick up the actual cartridges for less in many cases.

Re:I call bullshit.

[trdrstv]

I think Nintendo doesn't fully understand the difference between Japanese and U.S. game markets, and more to the point doesn't understand how they've been coming closer together over the past few years especially now that the internet lets us all know what the other markets are getting well in advance.

Basically, the core of it is I don't understand why VC titles don't have the same availability. It should default to the region of the system, but If I want to buy a Japanese game that has no english text, and no english manual, LET ME! Throw up a warning or something, but let me do it. I hate the fact that some games never make it to the US or Europe for no good reason. The VC titles should lower the costs/ risk to doing this, so why don't they?

Re:I call bullshit.

[Chris Burke]

I hate the fact that some games never make it to the US or Europe for no good reason. The VC titles should lower the costs/ risk to doing this, so why don't they?

Because Nintendo (and the other game makers, but we're focusing on Nintendo) still thinks they need to treat the Nippon and U.S.A. markets as though they were completely different entitities. I have no idea why. It seems especially silly to me when we can just go on the internet, see what the other markets are getting, and if there is something we want that we aren't getting but some other market is, we're going to be pissed about it. Like, say, Super Mario World.

Maybe this is something Fils-Aime can take to his Japanese superiors. Like you say, the VC is a less risky venue for experimenting with bringing some equality to the markets, and some of those choices like SMW are real no-brainers.

Re:question-dodging executives?

[BenoitRen]

That, and you show me a PS2 game that was out at launch that doesn't look just as crappy as the best PS1 games. It takes time to get coders to take advantage of new hardware properly.

Bad argument/example. The launch Dreamcast games that came out one year earlier looked better than the PS2's launch games.

Re:smash bros.

[justchris]

He can't give a release date because the head developer on the project doesn't have one yet. Because of the nature of the game, it's entirely possible for them to go from being 50% complete to being 90% complete in as little as a month. Then it would have to be localized for other markets, although admittedly, Smash Bros. games do not require particularly intensive localization.

Earthbound

[bilbravo]

From the summary: "As a result, part of his job is to lobby for what he thinks American gamers want."

Reggie, there are plenty of us who want Mother 3. Make it happen.

Re:question-dodging executives?

[justchris]

Why do most Wii games look like gamecube games or worse?
Answer: Most of them are gamecube games?

Why are you fucking over third party developers for online support?
Answer: We're not. We don't want the servers to all crash as soon as everyone gets online, so we're bringing people online slowly, you know, like Microsoft did with Xbox Live the first time. We want to avoid the WoW situation where servers crash every five minutes, that's just not good customer service.

What the fuck is going on with the hardware/software problems with the Wii? Bricked consoles from flakey firmware updating. And huge numbers of Wiimote problems.
Answer: There are no software problems with the Wii. Nor are there any Wiimote problems. There were hardware problems with the first revision of Wii units produced. We are replacing those, but it is well within standard error for any piece of technological equipment, and in fact less than most.

What the hell is going on with third party support? Why are you letting developers dump half-assed gamecube era engines with some pointing or swing bolted on? Where are all these 'innovative' games you've been bragging about?
Answer: We have plenty of 3rd party support. We are letting developers dump half-assed gamecube era engines with some pointing or swinging bolted on because that's what 3rd party developers want to do. There are 1400 PS2 games in existence, 900 of them are totally worthless. We figure it worked for Sony, it can work for us. The entire goal is to make development as easy for 3rd parties as possible, so we can have 900 crappy games that people can point to, just like everybody else. Don't worry, we'll keep making the new and innovative games we've always made, but it takes us time. We're not special gaming fairies with magical pixie dust that sprouts a Mario game fully formed from the ether. We're just normal programmers and artist who give a shit about video games and are willing to take a few hits to our image to release a game that doesn't suck. Unlike THQ, but don't tell them I said that.