Tennis=Life
Senior Member
When I got home from Track practice today, my dad said that there was an article about Nintendo in Time. So I read the 4-page article. First of all, it didn't say much about the Wii (no announcments 
). It was mostly about Nintendo's reasons for making this approach. The "we" in Wii, means that nongamers are going to become gamers. Games that have done that are Brain Age, Electroplankton, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing. The reason they made the controller the remote is because they want nongamers to like the system. Because it's too hard pressing buttons, bam bam bam! So they did that. An example in the article is in Halo, they said you need to use both joist sticks, so Nintendo wanted their video game maneuvered easier. Sony and Microsoft's approach is to get faster chips and better online, but Nintendo's is the more innovative approach, the process to make nongamers gamers. Maybe if someone gets Time magazine you can read the whole 4-page article, but that's mainly a summary.
Umm..here's the article, I found it in Justin's post, so here it is.
It is cherry-blossom time in Kyoto, Japan, and I am dancing the hula
for Shigeru Miyamoto. It's not easy to get into the hula spirit in a
hushed conference room in a restricted area of the gleaming white
global headquarters of Nintendo, with several high-ranking,
business-suited Japanese executives watching my every (undulating)
move. But I'm doing my best. I'm trying out an electronic device that
the Nintendo brass devoutly believes, or at least fervently hopes, is
the future of entertainment. Outside, drifting pink petals remind us of
the impermanence of all things.
You may not have heard of Shigeru Miyamoto, but I guarantee you, you
know his work. Miyamoto is probably the most successful video-game
designer of all time. Maybe you've heard of a little guy named Mario?
Italian plumber, likes jumping? A big angry ape by the name of ...
Donkey Kong? The Legend of Zelda? All Miyamoto. To gamers, Miyamoto is
like all four Beatles rolled into one jolly, twinkly-eyed, weak-chinned
Japanese man. At age 53, he still makes video games, but he also serves
as general manager of Nintendo's entertainment analysis and development
division. It is an honor to hula for him.
But Nintendo is no longer the global leader in games that it was during
Miyamoto's salad days. Not that it has fallen on hard times exactly,
but in the vastly profitable home-entertainment-console market,
Nintendo's GameCube sits an ignominious third, behind both Sony's
PlayStation 2 and even upstart Microsoft, which entered the market for
the first time with the Xbox only five years ago. Miyamoto and Nintendo
president Satoru Iwata are going to try to change that. But they're
going to do it in the weirdest, riskiest way you could think of.
All three machinesPlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube--are showing their
age, and a new generation of game hardware is aborning. Microsoft
launched its next-gen Xbox 360 in November of last year; Nintendo and
Sony will launch their new machines this fall. Those changeovers, which
happen every four or five years, are moments of opportunity in the
gaming industry, when the guard changes and the underdog has its day.
Nintendo--a company that is, for better or for worse, addicted to risk
taking--will attempt to steal a march on its competitors with a bizarre
wireless device that senses a player's movements and uses them to
control video games. Even more bizarre is the fact that it might work.
Video games are an unusual medium in that they carry a heavy stigma
among nongamers. Not everybody likes ballet, but most nonballet fans
don't accuse ballet of leading to violent crime and mental
backwardness. Video games aren't so lucky. There's a sharp divide
between gamers and nongamers, and the result is a market that, while
large and devoted--last year video-game software and hardware brought
in $27 billion--is also deeply stagnant. Its borders are sharply
defined, and they're not expanding.
And even within that core market, the industry is deeply troubled.
Fewer innovative games are being published, and gamers are getting
bored. Games have become so expensive to create that companies won't
risk money on fresh ideas, and the result is a plague of sequels and
movie spin-offs. "Take Tetris, for example," says Iwata, 46, a
well-dressed man who radiates good-humored intelligence. "If someone
were to take Tetris to a video-game publisher today, what would happen?
The publisher would say, 'These graphics look kind of cheap. And this
is a fun little mechanic, but you need more game modes in there. Maybe
you can throw in some CG movies to make it a little bit flashier? And
maybe we can tie it in with some kind of movie license?'" Voil
). It was mostly about Nintendo's reasons for making this approach. The "we" in Wii, means that nongamers are going to become gamers. Games that have done that are Brain Age, Electroplankton, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing. The reason they made the controller the remote is because they want nongamers to like the system. Because it's too hard pressing buttons, bam bam bam! So they did that. An example in the article is in Halo, they said you need to use both joist sticks, so Nintendo wanted their video game maneuvered easier. Sony and Microsoft's approach is to get faster chips and better online, but Nintendo's is the more innovative approach, the process to make nongamers gamers. Maybe if someone gets Time magazine you can read the whole 4-page article, but that's mainly a summary.Umm..here's the article, I found it in Justin's post
, so here it is.It is cherry-blossom time in Kyoto, Japan, and I am dancing the hula
for Shigeru Miyamoto. It's not easy to get into the hula spirit in a
hushed conference room in a restricted area of the gleaming white
global headquarters of Nintendo, with several high-ranking,
business-suited Japanese executives watching my every (undulating)
move. But I'm doing my best. I'm trying out an electronic device that
the Nintendo brass devoutly believes, or at least fervently hopes, is
the future of entertainment. Outside, drifting pink petals remind us of
the impermanence of all things.
You may not have heard of Shigeru Miyamoto, but I guarantee you, you
know his work. Miyamoto is probably the most successful video-game
designer of all time. Maybe you've heard of a little guy named Mario?
Italian plumber, likes jumping? A big angry ape by the name of ...
Donkey Kong? The Legend of Zelda? All Miyamoto. To gamers, Miyamoto is
like all four Beatles rolled into one jolly, twinkly-eyed, weak-chinned
Japanese man. At age 53, he still makes video games, but he also serves
as general manager of Nintendo's entertainment analysis and development
division. It is an honor to hula for him.
But Nintendo is no longer the global leader in games that it was during
Miyamoto's salad days. Not that it has fallen on hard times exactly,
but in the vastly profitable home-entertainment-console market,
Nintendo's GameCube sits an ignominious third, behind both Sony's
PlayStation 2 and even upstart Microsoft, which entered the market for
the first time with the Xbox only five years ago. Miyamoto and Nintendo
president Satoru Iwata are going to try to change that. But they're
going to do it in the weirdest, riskiest way you could think of.
All three machinesPlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube--are showing their
age, and a new generation of game hardware is aborning. Microsoft
launched its next-gen Xbox 360 in November of last year; Nintendo and
Sony will launch their new machines this fall. Those changeovers, which
happen every four or five years, are moments of opportunity in the
gaming industry, when the guard changes and the underdog has its day.
Nintendo--a company that is, for better or for worse, addicted to risk
taking--will attempt to steal a march on its competitors with a bizarre
wireless device that senses a player's movements and uses them to
control video games. Even more bizarre is the fact that it might work.
Video games are an unusual medium in that they carry a heavy stigma
among nongamers. Not everybody likes ballet, but most nonballet fans
don't accuse ballet of leading to violent crime and mental
backwardness. Video games aren't so lucky. There's a sharp divide
between gamers and nongamers, and the result is a market that, while
large and devoted--last year video-game software and hardware brought
in $27 billion--is also deeply stagnant. Its borders are sharply
defined, and they're not expanding.
And even within that core market, the industry is deeply troubled.
Fewer innovative games are being published, and gamers are getting
bored. Games have become so expensive to create that companies won't
risk money on fresh ideas, and the result is a plague of sequels and
movie spin-offs. "Take Tetris, for example," says Iwata, 46, a
well-dressed man who radiates good-humored intelligence. "If someone
were to take Tetris to a video-game publisher today, what would happen?
The publisher would say, 'These graphics look kind of cheap. And this
is a fun little mechanic, but you need more game modes in there. Maybe
you can throw in some CG movies to make it a little bit flashier? And
maybe we can tie it in with some kind of movie license?'" Voil
