Fresh out of the Nintendo Press event here at E3, I feel good about the things that Nintendo is working on, but I don’t feel like it’s as new a direction as they seemed to think it was. Their slogan this year is “Everyone’s Game,” which is apt for their new programs. What they want to do is create experiences which appeal to both the casual and experienced gamers. They are focusing on creating games that require skill, but with controls and objectives that are easy enough to understand that even the most novice gamer can jump right in.
One of their best examples of this Everyone’s Game model is the Archery segment of the new Wii Sports game, Wii Sports Resort. With the new Wii Motion Plus, players will need “real skill” in archery to be able to accurately hit the target, instead of skill in learning the controls. This, I think, is the right direction. Simplifying the controls and bringing the play of the games into the “real space” will make the games more skill-intensive and more accessible at the same time.
However, we also saw some things that continue to reinforce the division between experienced gamers and casual gamers, and which continue to alienate experienced gamers from Nintendo. For example, something that has traditionally appealed to even hardcore gamers, Super Mario Brothers, itself an excellent game, seems as though it will fail to impress hardcore gamers. Brian and I got to try it after the presentation, and we agreed that it will be a fun party game, but party games never appeal to the experienced gamer market, and the prevalence of party games is one of the things most reviled about Nintendo by that demographic.
The other announced peripheral, the Wii Vitality Sensor, was touted as another bridge between novice and experienced gamers, but this is clearly not where the product will find its niche. The new finger clip monitors the player’s heart rate as input for the games. This is something that will surely sell well, among all of those millions of people that are using the WiiFit as their daily exercise machine, but that’s all it will do. Games which reward the player for being relaxed? That will never appeal to the experienced market segment.
After all this, Nintendo very quickly showed a few new titles that are focused on the experienced market. Of course with the level of graphics that Wii is able to deliver, this is getting more and more difficult for Nintendo to execute. What could they have announced to really show the “hardcore” gamers that they still care? Some kind of graphical enhancement would have been the real ticket. A new edition of the Wii with a more powerful GPU would have gone a long way to dispel the feeling that the Wii simply isn’t powerful enough to handle the types of games that appeal to that audience.
Without such enhancements, it is better for Nintendo to appeal to the experienced gamer’s sense of nostalgia and loyalty by creating new games in the classic franchises. What does Nintendo do for the old-school guys? A new Metroid, a new Mario Galaxy, and a new Golden Sun. Check out Brian’s article about the briefing for more information about the games themselves.
So, Nintendo’s focus is not new. The firm still wants to create accessible games and tap into previously uninitiated markets. They say that for every two gamers, there is a gamer-to-be waiting to have their eyes opened to the wonderful world of the interactive arts. Nintendo can and will tap into this market. I can see clearly that this is and will continue to be a successful strategy, but they are losing the experienced market bit-by-bit every time they announce a new game in the Imagine series for little girls, or fitness based peripheral.
The audience laughed and jeered at the announcement of The Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion and Style Savvy, both for the DS. Will these sell well? Yes. Does anyone here, other than stockholders care about the product? No. Of course, by now, they have to know that the snickering is forthcoming when they show off stuff like this as if it is truly exciting news.
What is this reporter looking forward to most among the announcements from Nintendo today? I’ve got to tell you: playing through a classic Mario platforming adventure co-operatively with my buddies sounds like just about the best thing ever.
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