Source: infendo.com
One last post-E3 interview, during which I break my word and mention E3 one more time. I guess I do this because I know that with all knee-jerk, vocal minority-driven “public outcries,” this one has been incredibly short-lived. Wii Music was awkward and borderline offensive with its boredom, Blake said, and there were no first party megatons announced on stage during the keynote, this we know. But, given a closer look, with a bigger lens and greater understanding of Nintendo’s past and present behavior, things are, predictably, not as bad as the forums would have you think. They’ll get even less so as we get closer to the holidays and 2009.
Already we know new Mario, Pikmin and Zelda titles are underway; that there are some WiiWare titles forthcoming that will knock retro gamers socks off (Mega Man 9 *ahem* — now with t-shirts!); and that even solid first party IP in the form of Wario and Animal Crossing are going to hit Nintendo consoles this fall and winter. And, unlike Sony with Killzone 2, the Nintendo of today will never show off some rendered cutscene or incomplete demo to showcase a game. They’ll show it when it’s ready to kick your ass, and then they’ll release the game soon afterward:
“There’s one thing I do want to reinforce,” [said Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime.] “I could almost put myself into the ‘geeks and otaku’ camp. I grew up playing all those great Nintendo games. And so for me I look at product like “Animal Crossing” and I get tremendously excited. I look at “Wario” and get tremendously excited. I look at “Sluggers” coming out and get tremendously excited. So this mentality that we have somehow lost our soul and [are not] speaking to our fanbase, there is nothing further from the truth. And if you talk to Mr. Miyamoto, you really understand that we really have the interest of our core fanbase right at the top of the list. The recognition is — and I think this is really the point — we’re not going to tease you over 18 months or 24 months. We’re going to show you something that’ll make your jaw drop and make it available shortly thereafter.”
That’s a pretty Apple approach to things (show jaw-dropping products and then release them on the same day). I guess I don’t want to be teased with my games. I want to play them. If that makes me some biased fanman, so be it. At least I’ll be having fun, instead of camped out on some game blog riddled with misplaced angst.
