Interesting questions from Kairon! I'm not going to give yes or no answers to all of them, though, because that's boring.
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Originally posted by: Kairon
Is the very reason that Nintendo is so big, Shigeru Miyamoto, the very reason why Nintendo will never be number one again?
Err, yes and no. I believe Miyamoto may be holding Nintendo back with his love of unusual and non-violent game concepts, but I think there are plenty of other people at the company that share his vision, so it's not all his "fault". Also, there's no guarantee that Nintendo would suddenly be number one if Miyamoto was restricted. Finally, I tend to agree with recent arguments that the videogame industry is eroding and will eventually fail if it stays on its current path, so even if Miyamoto doesn't lead Nintendo to number one again, I think he's Nintendo's best chance to lead the company away from certain doom.
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Is everything we love about Nintendo games everything that has the potential to hold us back financially in the future?
No. Only certain things that we love about Nintendo games have the potential to hold Nintendo back in the future, and different people love different things about Nintendo. A lot of Nintendo fans seem to be against excessive violence and gore, yet other Nintendo fans are probably sad that the company tries to avoid anything adult and leaves it up to second or third parties to develop more "mature" titles. I actually think Nintendo's policies with third parties are holding it back more than any aspect of its games, though.
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Do we trust and allow this man, Miyamoto, to continue experimenting and making the best games he can?
Oh yes! Miyamoto's best games are often the ones where he's experimenting. At the same time, I think Nintendo should be working hard to find people to replace Miyamoto since he won't be around forever, and it seems like that is the route it's following, with Miyamoto overlooking many projects and having less direct control over most of them.
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Do we trust him to have so much artistic influence in this company that is in a very competitive business?
Yes. This goes back to the idea that the industry is eroding. I think Miyamoto and other creative folks at Nintendo are the company's best chance of expanding into new territory, and keeping existing fans from losing interest.
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Mario 64 and Zelda 64, among the best games of all time; are having these games in existence more important than having marketshare?
For me, yes. I'm skeptical that they couldn't have been made on a disc system, but personally, I loved the N64 and from a pure gaming standpoint, I'm glad that Nintendo went with cartridges.
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Is letting Miyamoto take risks to create the next Mario 64 worth not having marketshare?
Yes...er....no...er...yes. Only if that game has the same potential to earn marketshare. Of course, we can't know if it does or not, but going by Nintendo's strategy and Miyamoto's track record, I'd say it does have that potential.
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Is letting Nintendo be Nintendo worth not having marketshare?
No. Why do I answer yes to the last and no to this one? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nintendo doesn't stand to gain anything by staying the way it is, looking at the trend, it only stands to lose.
I think for the new direction Nintendo is going in, a lot of these things that were weaknesses for it in the past will be strengths. Maybe the new direction will fail miserably. If I could ask Nintendo to do one thing, it would be to do as much as possible to please third parties without compromising its own vision. For example, if that meant going with an open disc format that could be pirated, I'd say go for it. It's not going to affect Nintendo's games, it's just going to mean losing a few sales, which would be worth it if we got twice as much third party support. I think in reality, Nintendo would resist a change like that with every fibre of it's being.
Edit: changed answers to last two questions.
Topic: Jim Merrick, once again, with some new bites of info (Read 20227 times)
