Email: Excellent Quote

I haven’t had the time to read the actual source yet but this snippet is brilliant in its’ own right.

 

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=213908

 

“So we can’t change too many of the core rules, and the core rules are really simple. You’re a player, it’s in first-person, you have a weapon in your hand and you run around shooting other people. We can play a lot with the outside of how that works, and it’s things like character customisation, making the movement through that world better, making the world itself more interesting, adding the new modes, adding the new dynamic maps.

 

So there’s still I think a lot to do. Anytime we ship a game – and this a non-Call of Duty statement, this is [applicable to] any dev you’ve ever talked to – is there’s always a ton of features they wish they could have gotten to, before they shipped. So I think we’ll always be able to bring new and interesting stuff. It’s literally that we’re just trying to make a better game than we made last time. Giving people new content, new ways to play, Squads is a really new way to play that I think people are going to find really interesting, because it’s different to anything we’ve ever tried to do in Call of Duty… I think we’re going to continue that trend.”

 

Nintendo used to do this, instead they seem to only care about controlling how we play and being recognized as great artists. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the perfect expression of the Nintendo that we love. I don’t need Mario to ape SMB 3, I need it to take the thought and direction behind it. Expand the content, build from a single, solid frame and persistently improve what you’re releasing. New Super Mario Bros. is arguably taking steps back as well as forward. It’s just that those forward steps are baby steps, the movement backwards is practically archaic at times. It’s so bare and boring. I hate it, I’m not supposed to be looking forward to Sonic more than Mario. That just isn’t right.Remember when Nintendo said they need to be a company that is ‘adaptable’ and ‘maneuverable’ compared to the big bloated behemoths of Sony and Microsoft? For some reason, none of this applies to Nintendo’s game design.

No, we’re not saying Nintendo to make ‘mature’ games. That isn’t game design anyway.

Instead of adapting to market conditions, to popular sentiments, Nintendo is digging in its heels. Instead of giving us a 2d Mario game with effort, Nintendo is doing all it can to give us 3d Mario games with as many 2d Mario staples stuffed in it as possible. What is so important about 3d that Nintendo has to ram it down our throat?

Is it really that big of deal to make a Zelda game to not revolve around ‘puzzles’ and ‘stupid characters’? Early Zelda games played very differently. Why is Nintendo making everyone believe they are making a sequel to Link to the Past when they are, in fact, placing the Aonuma formula in a different bottle?

What is wrong with more Super Metroid? Why do we have Sakamoto saying we MUST go this ‘omg story’ route which he sweetens with as many references and staples to classic Metroids as possible?

Why is Nintendo so scared?

I suspect Nintendo designers have swallowed the ‘creativity kool-aid’ and literally believe they are ‘creative souls’. To do ANYTHING ELSE is to admit they aren’t the blessed angels of creativity.

Nintendo’s creativity isn’t the reason for the company’s success. It is the reason for the company’s failures. The successes came from hard engineering. See Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Super Mario Brothers, SMB 3, and Super Mario World all have one thing in common: they were feats of engineering of their time. Compare any game at that same time period, and it doesn’t even come close.

I am a writer in real life. It is well understood among professional writers (who actually pay for their electricity from sales of their works) that you need an objective reality for the content. What this means is that absorbing history is good since it is REAL. This means absorbing science is good since it is REAL. The thrill of science fiction is the interesting applications of science. Even effective fantasy requires use of ancient mythologies.

However, there are many crappy writers who have a religious dogma that ‘creativity is everything’. The reason why they suck is because value is gained through hard work. Creativity is an excuse to not research, to not observe objective reality. Creativity is just a license to pull things out of one’s ass.

It’d be nice if someone asked Nintendo why Samus Aran MUST have emotions, why Mario MUST be in 3d, and why Zelda MUST revolve around ‘puzzles’. But no one is allowed to ask. It’s as if the chef is telling the diners how the food tastes. As a diner, I trust my tastebuds and not the chef’s strange opinions.