Breath of fresh air
A lot of people -- and I mean a lot of people -- are wondering just what the hell is going on with Nintendo right now. They won't talk about the specifications of their new Revolution console, and speak in broad strokes about the future of gaming that makes it sound like they're heading in a very different direction from either Microsoft or Sony.
A piece I ready today in GameDaily gives some insight about what one influential figure at Nintendo -- Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Nintendo's best-loved properties -- thinks about the current state of gaming and what has to happen to change. I'm delighted to read him articulate some of the same things I've been hearing from others in the business, and some things that I believe myself. God only knows he's in a better position to influence this than a lot of other people are.
The video game industry has become "something exclusive to the people who've stuck with it for a long time," said Miyamoto, suggesting that it's become too insulated and too dependent on a closed ecology of "hardcore" gamers. The difference Nintendo brings to the table is that they're willing to innovate and try new things with broad appeal -- he points to Nintendogs as an example. That's a Nintendo DS game that has you interacting with a virtual dog, and it's already sold more than 400,000 units in Japan -- what's more, it's pushing sales of the DS hardware, according to reports.
I'm not holding Nintendo, or even Miyamoto-san, up as paragons of virtue in the video game market. Not everything they do is perfect. But they do a lot of stuff right. And it's a good message to read as Microsoft and Sony seem content to slug out a specification fight, and fanboys mount ever more strident arguments about who has the best next-gen console. Nintendo, on the other hand, seems genuinely more interested in making games that are fun to play.
Geez, what a concept.