And some other stuff, like saying Pikmin 3 is its own genre (sounds like Nintendo PR to me):
http://kamedani.tumblr.com/post/56732554760/4gamer-interview-with-shigeru-miyamoto-part-2
No, I think this is Miyamoto’s words he chooses to say. Let’s take a look:
I know RTS games are popular overseas but when we were making the game, we made sure to not start from that idea.
If I look back on it, a long time ago there was a PC game called M.U.L.E. I had made exclusively action games but at some point vaguely felt like “ahh, I want to make a game like that.” There are parts of Pikmin 1 that are connected to that.
People ask why I keep referencing old games. It is because this is how all the game developers perceive games is through the early ones. M.U.L.E. is a 1983 game.
M.U.L.E. actually is just a board game inside the computer. I believe M.U.L.E. probably doesn’t even need a computer to be played (meaning M.U.L.E. could probably be made into a board game). The creator, Dan Bunton, didn’t have a good childhood so he wanted to create a family bonding experience via the board games he loved. M.U.L.E. has more in common with Monopoly than anything else. What was such a huge hit with M.U.L.E. is its wacky sense of humor and amazing four player multiplayer fun.
These comments also reveal Shigeru Miyamoto is stuck in the 1990s. PC RTS games are no longer popular and haven’t been in quite some time. The most popular place (or used to be) for RTS is not ‘overseas’ but in Japan’s neighbor of South Korea. You know that Starcraft phenomenon there and all.
Above: RTS popular overseas? Miyamoto is dangerously not up-to-date. While Starcraft isn’t popular at all in South Korea as it used to be, it was once a phenomenon there.
Miyamoto says further:
Well, it’s not like we were imitating M.U.L.E. but some part of the finished product was inspired by it.
Still, it’s not that we looked at a well known game and made something from that. When looking at the all new product we stuck with making, even though we did something simple, I do feel it came to have a depth similar to RTSes, However, it’s not that Pikmin is an RTS. It’s an action game and I think it is it’s own new genre that nothing else resembles.
Still, in a way, I think Pikmin 3 does have the potential to be received by players in America with as much zeal as PC RTS games.
This is definitely Miyamoto’s words. “Our game is such a unique snowflake that it is its own genre!” Nintendo has never invented their own genre. EVER. OK, I’ll concede Donkey Kong, but every Nintendo game made was already part of some genre before. Metroid games were made well before Metroid. You don’t know about them because Metroid became popular, and people associated any such game with Metroid. Nintendo games became famous and popular not because they were ‘brand new’ with ‘surprise’ but because they were extremely well crafted. One company that reminds me very much of Nintendo is Blizzard. Blizzard never ‘made new genres’ in the sense that they made games that were very well crafted. Today, though, Blizzard thinks its mission is to ‘make something new’ which is not what gamers want.
“How can you say gamers don’t want anything new? OMG, Malstrom!”
Gamers are a savvy customer group. Gamers would rather buy a well made game using known mechanics than a half-baked game with brand new mechanics. People would rather buy World of Warcraft over Ultima Online or Diablo over UItima 8 or Starcraft over Dune II. Execution is everything.
There is a correlation that when Nintendo tries ‘brand new genres’, they fail BIG TIME. When Nintendo builds on an existing genre or looks to the past, they succeed BIG TIME. Pikmin games are all failures. Consider the decline that 3d Mario brought. Consider how 2d Mario still remains popular no matter how lazy Nintendo gets with it. Consider the implosion of Aonuma Zelda, and consider how insanely popular Classic Zelda was with building off the action and RPG genres. Consider the bombing of the ‘new coke’ Metroid Other M and the popularity of the classic Metroids. Even Animal Crossing is a MMO simulation for girls. Wii Sports was better execution of the NES sports games, Wii Fit was better execution of fitness games, etc.
Nintendo didn’t make Tetris. Nintendo didn’t make Grand Theft Auto 3. Nintendo didn’t make Dune II. Nintendo didn’t make Doom. What are these supposed genres Nintendo was to have ‘made’?
I think Nintendo still is living in La La Land. They are in a fantasy realm divorced from reality which is illustrating itself in the sales charts.
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