From a 1up interview with Bill Trinen:
Nintendo Land is not. It’s not going to be played over the network. There’s actually a logical reason for why they decided to do that. I think for… Up until now, basically, when people have said, “What does a network mean for video gaming?”, the answer has always been “online play.” We look at online play and we think that it’s important, and obviously for games where it makes sense, we’re going to leverage it. But for Wii U launch specifically, one of the things that we want people to understand is that a network connection to a game can mean a lot of different things. It can mean online gaming, but it can also mean other unique ways to connect to other people.
I can appreciate the business incentive for Nintendo to not do exactly the same thing as competitors. But online play doesn’t count.
The year is 2012 and Nintendo is asking “What does network play mean for video games?” Folks, PC gaming started decisively answering this over twenty years ago. Nintendo cannot and will not innovate in this space. Online Play is not ‘the only answer’, it is merely the starting point. If you are having problems with online play, you’re not going to be doing anything interesting with networks for quite a long while.
Two contexts approach. One is that Nintendo is being behind the ball and incompetent concerning networking. The other is that Nintendo is not behind but is ‘super genius’ and wants to do networking ‘correctly’ (i.e. everyone else is doing networking wrong but Nintendo will show us the ‘correct way’ to do it… whenever that day comes). Bill Trinen is saying the second context. But I believe the first context applies. In 2006, networking wasn’t such a big deal. In 2012, it’s a mandatory customer expectation. Cell phones have better internet experiences than the Nintendo home game console!!!!!!
I don’t understand how anyone can get to the hubris to get to the context Bill Trinen puts out. Do these Nintendo people really think they are divine or something?
You know what the difference is between Classic Nintendo and Modern Nintendo? Classic Nintendo differentiated itself from competitors by being the BEST. It put out the BEST GAMES. Modern Nintendo doesn’t like being the best. Therefore, it tries to be ‘different’ and declares you cannot compare ‘different’ with anyone else.
I really miss Classic Nintendo. This new Nintendo is a company whose ambition is to be the most unique snowflake. I want the best games, not the most unique snowflake.
