Email: It’s not ideology

Some time ago, you mentioned something about a “workshop.” I think Miyamoto sees himself, Aonuma, and the others as master craftsmen  and Nintendo as their workshop, where they invent delightful toys. In his mind, everything revolves around what wonderful little gizmo will he come up with next. Parse everything he says and does through that, and it all makes sense.

 

For example, farming out Smash Bros, one of the most successful games they have, to Namco sounds insane. But to Miyamoto, there are no more delightful, wonderful new gizmos to put in it, so it’s not worth their time. In fact, every Nintendo game gets farmed out to third parties once it’s no longer about the marvelous new toy Miyamoto (or whomever) wants to put in it.  

 

He dug in his heels on 2D Mario because as far as he was concerned, his workshop is for new toys, not new versions of old one. And he’s had the development team consistently phone it in.

 

It’s also why Mario Galaxy 2 happened. “We weren’t out of ideas yet.”

 

Wii U is a Super Gamecube because Miyamoto would like to play with connectivity some more. He feels that the poor sales of Gamecube,  its hardware limitations, and the fact the GBA wasn’t a pack-in restrained him from playing with more “delightful ideas.”Wii U isn’t based on motion control because Miyamoto already did motion controls. Time to make a new gizmo.

 

It’s why Nintendo simply ignores what everyone else has done with online. If it’s not a new gizmo from their workshop, it’s total amateur crap and not worth paying attention to, let alone learning from.

 

Nintendo’s not about making products to satisfy customer needs. It’s about a bunch of aging, Japanese men amusing themselves and showing off endless, gimmicky novelties to what they imagine is an adoring audience of small, easily delighted children. The Wii was a brief anomaly, but the corporate culture didn’t change. So now we’re back to normal.Just look at Nintendoland. It’s not a theme park. It’s Santa’s Workshop with a Nintendo theme.

Bullshit. Look at how Yamauchi ran Nintendo. Miyamoto was TOLD to make Super Mario World and Link to the Past. I get the impression that no one wanted to make those games. Yamauchi had incredible feel for the business. Any discussion without Yamauchi is no discussion at all. Yamauchi is Nintendo.

You shouldn’t buy Miyamoto’s statement that Galaxy 2 was made because they had more ideas. When they interviewed Galaxy 2’s developers, they said they had no new ideas and had no idea why they were making another Galaxy game. The actual reason why is to re-use the game engine and assets because Nintendo likes to save money. Had Galaxy actually sold well, I don’t think re-using the engine would have been necessary. Galaxy was a very expensive game.

Nintendo’s buddy buddy with Platinum makes me think they are more ideological brothers than anything else. Why else would Iwata sit and talk ‘culture’ for an interview. Remember what that one Platinum guy said on twitter? I have no doubt that is what most people inside that company believe and likely at Nintendo as well. It isn’t so much a ‘let us export Japanese wonderful stuff’ as it is ‘Oriental supremism’. I love Iwata lecturing us how all gaming trends start a couple years first in Japan before they go out to the rest of the world. How are those international 3DS sales doing, Iwata?

Nintendo was dialing it back when making Twilight Princess and somewhat with Skyward Sword. But when they realized the anger was beyond the art style but the actual philosophy of the game itself (Aonuma style), then they let loose.

I remember Nintendo. There is a current company named Nintendo, but it is not Nintendo. What they define as a quality game is not what I define as a quality game. And that is why Nintendo is in sales hell right now. I expect Iwata and others to say how the market just doesn’t understand their brilliance and needs to be educated on the product. They will never admit that the games they are putting out are very poor in quality and not meeting the expectations of the market.

Remember at E3 2011 when the Wii U was introduced? Remember the Internet reaction or the reaction on this site? Iwata scoffed at it. “The people here playing it like it. Internet is stupid.” Internet may be stupid, but no one was excited for the Wii U. No one is still excited for the Wii U. Nintendo even hired people to see what the responses were over the Internet then they just ignore them. I suppose the only things Nintendo sees is something that validates their sense of Oriental Supremest views.

Nintendo will take clues from Sony because Sony is Japanese. But Nintendo will never take clues from Microsoft. To those angry that I’m saying this, just remember what Platinum dude said on his twitter. Look how they respond to the subject of PC gaming. Since PC gaming is everywhere in the world except Japan, it is irrelevant. Only things of Japan are relevant. It’s not an isolationist view, its a supremest point of view.

This is what I am sensing from Nintendo. How Nintendo got that way is anyone’s guess.