Nintendo: We Can't Satisfy You And You Enjoy It

I had actually forgotten about Pikmin. Oh well.

Good friend of mine is uk marketing manager for Ninty and product manager for Wii, Rob Lowe.

He told me that they're very aware of the new PSP (with touchscreen functionality) and MS's new Blu-Ray internal HDD 360 for E3.

I would say these are solid show'ers (he says he's seen the new PSP) but Ninty will have a huge focus on games at this conference as he and they are aware of the criticism they faced last time.

This is from as close a source as you'll get to the Ninty corporate machine.

Why would the head of UK Marketing for Nintendo have access to an as-yet-unannounced (thus presently secret) product from a rival company?

Alvin Flummux wrote:Why would the head of UK Marketing for Nintendo have access to an as-yet-unannounced (thus presently secret) product from a rival company?

If David strawberry floating Ellis knows you had better believe that Nintendo knows.

What I said was;

They are aware of.

Believe me, there's shedload of leaked info shared amongst them. I mean, he gives me PS3 and 360 games he gets sent (almost all titles).

I have no reason to doubt his knowledge of the game landscape.


Oh and btw, LOL @ "secret".

I'm blaming Rik for this sorry state of affairs.

Okay, initially this seems totally facepalm-worthy. But it's not quite that simple. For starters, perhaps the worst thing which is said here actually comes from the story itself*.

*What's the source, btw?

gamers should enjoy not getting what they want.

At no point does Kaigler say that.

"I will give you that hardcore gamers have an insatiable appetite for everything Nintendo," she said, "and we love that! We love that. When we get to a point where core gamers say, "OK, Nintendo, enough! We don't need any more games from you guys...." None of us wants to be put in that position, right?

All she's saying is that Nintendo doesn't want to keep up with demand because not keeping up with demand keeps the demand there. If you give a customer everything they want, they won't want any more, will they? Standard business practice.

"We don't want your appetite to ever be satisfied, because when we satisfy you, it's time for us to go [dusts off hands], "OK! Let's go on home now!" And none of us wants to go home. So there's this sort of fun...relationship, I think, that's happening between Nintendo and the hardcore gamer — which we enjoy and hope that the core gamer enjoys it."

All she's saying there is that she thinks the core gamer enjoys anticipating more games from Nintendo. In the light of its recent focus on the expanded audience, it's easy to misread that as "Ha! We love pissing off the hardcore by not making enough games!" But she's not saying that at all.

Far worse has been said. Reggie seems to be Nintendo's current king of wrongspeak at the mo.

Games are an entertainment product, they are driven by desire rather than need. It's not like a loaf of bread were you think "I already have a lot of bread, I don't need any more".

People just won't buy a set amount of games and then say 'that's enough', they'll keep buying games so long as they really want them and can afford them. In this respect keeping a steady flow of desirable titles is essential since you want to keep people in the habit of playing games all the time and desiring more games to fuel that habit. If there is a long dry spell they might fall out of the habit of playing games from day to day and be less inclined to desire future products. Nintendo should be provding a regular stream of core titles to keep demand strong.

I REALLY hope this is build up to E3.

Extralife wrote:Games are an entertainment product, they are driven by desire rather than need. It's not like a loaf of bread were you think "I already have a lot of bread, I don't need any more".

People just won't buy a set amount of games and then say 'that's enough', they'll keep buying games so long as they really want them and can afford them. In this respect keeping a steady flow of desirable titles is essential since you want to keep people in the habit of playing games all the time and desiring more games to fuel that habit. If there is a long dry spell they might fall out of the habit of playing games from day to day and be less inclined to desire future products. Nintendo should be provding a regular stream of core titles to keep demand strong.

Core games won't keep the demand strong from the Wii's target market. Core gamers are nowhere near as important as they think they are.

blackoutHERO wrote:I REALLY hope this is build up to E3.

Taken alongside Dunaway's 'We hope we have something to show!' it sounds like proactive damage control.

MCN wrote:Core games won't keep the demand strong from the Wii's target market. Core gamers are nowhere near as important as they think they are.

Nintendo has much more to lose by ignoring the 'Wii Fit' market than they do by ignoring the 'Metroid' market.

Extralife wrote:Games are an entertainment product, they are driven by desire rather than need. It's not like a loaf of bread were you think "I already have a lot of bread, I don't need any more".

People just won't buy a set amount of games and then say 'that's enough', they'll keep buying games so long as they really want them and can afford them.

I think when she uses the term 'that's enough', she's talking about gamers getting overwhelmed with the amount of games in a short space of time - we all moan that we don't get enough time to play (or even buy) all the big titles in the Christmas run-in, and it's this phenomenon Kaigler is undoubtedly referring to. Now, few Wii owners are ever going to feel overwhelmed with core-focused first-party titles but then again, Nintendo's argument would be that it wants to give its games room to breathe, as it were.

That said, it doesn't excuse the lack of ExciteBots and Fatal Frame in Europe, nor the US missing out on Disaster, to name but a few examples. Nintendo should be aware that its loyal fanbase which has stuck with the company through thick and thin would prefer to have more titles catering directly to it.

Oxx wrote:

blackoutHERO wrote:I REALLY hope this is build up to E3.

Taken alongside Dunaway's 'We hope we have something to show!' it sounds like proactive damage control.

I'd agree with this, except Nintendo of Japan is notoriously secretive about stuff. It's not entirely unlikely that the US arm doesn't yet know everything that's going to be at E3 yet. That's the reason why there are so few leaks about Nintendo stuff.

Hero of Canton wrote:

Oxx wrote:

blackoutHERO wrote:I REALLY hope this is build up to E3.

Taken alongside Dunaway's 'We hope we have something to show!' it sounds like proactive damage control.

I'd agree with this, except Nintendo of Japan is notoriously secretive about stuff. It's not entirely unlikely that the US arm doesn't yet know everything that's going to be at E3 yet. That's the reason why there are so few leaks about Nintendo stuff.

The uneasy relationship between Japan and the west is at the heart of the uneasy relationship between Nintendo and the 'core gamer'.

The lack of localisation for things like Mother 3, Disaster and Fatal Frame (and the myriad of niche DS games) seem inexplicable to the sort of people who pick up a couple of games every week.

It certainly seems that in the process of becoming the most sucessful videogame brand on the planet, Nintendo America has been neutered. Remember in the run-up to the GC release when NOA was working in partnership with Retro, Rare, Factor 5, Left Field, Silicon Knights etc? Bar Retro, all of those western-focussed developers were discarded when the GC 'failed' and Iwata plotted a new path.

I'm sure the schism between East and West is only going to get worse as Japanese sales flatline and western sales continue to dominate Nintendo's accounts.