cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49816572
In an interview in the new issue of Famitsu, Miyamoto was asked why Nintendo‘s IPs are enjoyed around the world.
Miyamoto replied that the key to a successful game isn’t looking at what’s trending and trying to capitalise on that, but starting with ideas that the developers personally find fun and working around them.
“People have long asked me, ‘why does a mustachioed middle-aged guy like Mario sell so well?’ and I always think, ‘that’s a bit rude, isn’t it?'” Miyamoto joked (via machine translation). “Well, I wonder the same thing myself – why did an older guy like this become a hit? But if you look at it simply, it’s because he was introduced alongside incredibly fun games.
gee, who knew that people prefer art made with passion to “art” designed to make a profit?
I don’t even mind if it’s designed to make a profit.
However when it’s designed by a committee or worse a committee of committees, it all feels hollow and soulless.
It’s the same thing we see with Star Wars. It was a nerdy thing a guy made and the world loved it. Now it’s a corporate market research driven machine that lacks a soul.
The nerd himself did that to the franchise. Like Ewoks were added to sell more toys and then he made the Prequels which was nothing but corporate slop again to sell more toys.
The path to the dark side is quicker, easier, and far more seductive.
Not sure how well that applies to a company who spends more suing people than it does making games and keeps trying to pretend they never had a massive number of broken JoyCons that they refused to repair without a fee that was higher than they werte worth.
The biggest problem with Nintendo IP is that Nintendo still owns it. THey’re not EA or Ubislop or Activision, but they’re doing their best.
Nintendo is a trash company on many many many levels but at least they seem to still give a shit about giving devs creative freedom, I guess?
If they are owned by them, and locked out of porting to other platforms.
None of the other cosole companies flat out refuse ports, some of them have an exclusivity period, but none of them “Nope!” completely.
Probably because I’m running Nintendo games better with emulation than I did on the actual hardware so porting them would showcase just how much of a joke their hardware is…
Which was fine when they were built liek a brick and lasted forever…
My OG Gameboy, the momocrome brick that ate batteries almost as bad as a Game Gear, still works perfectly. I was on Switch number three by the time I gave up and just cracked my library to run o my computer.
I had every Nintendo system, aside from the original Wii, including that horrible Virtual Boy. They’ve lost me, now, though. I’ll never give them another cent.
Funny thing is my PlayStation Vita still works, too. And the motion controls and touch on it made things like Gravity Rush possible which worked so much better than waving janky Joycons around. Sadly Sony sabotaged it through their memory cards. The games were larger than 3DS ones by far, but the storage was tiny, slow, and expensive… This may not have been a problem, but we were already in the age of “Ship it broken and patch it later” so updates could end up being MASSIVE. Plus some were digital only, like the Atelier series had no western physical release, the Vita was not region locked, but if you didn’t read Japanese you had to buy digital. The 3DS didn’t need much space but it used standard SD cards that gave you cheap (Well, then, sd cards are insane right now) fast and easily accessible storage So the Vita died despite being on the level of a Switch when the 3DS was new.
I know not everyone will agree, and some will get downright angry at my take on it, but…
Animal Crossing is still great, though they have heavily leaned into forcing you to be online, and online for Nintendo is still a complete joke. I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours over years in forums and groups trading island codes to buy things from someone else’s Nook’s Cranny or to attend drop parties for registering rare items to order. All the while subscribing, since you have to be to get online, and while I met some nice people we taled online even when we were right next to each other on the game because Nintendo Online is garbage and everyone knows it.
Pokemon constantly guts anything good to add “new and exciting” things nobody asked for, they dropped the National Dex, and forced Home integration without even the option to buy DLC to keep all your Living Dex in a game. I spent twenty years collecting them all, every variant, every special edition from events or promos. Then they’re like "Nope, the fact that you buy four to six copies of every game isn’t enough. You must SUBScRIbE! Done. I’ll play on emulatos, or Palworld. Which, by the way, they spent more money suing PocketPair than they did devloping Legends Z/A.
Metroid was so iconic its very name defined (or half defined, but Castlevania isn’t an exclusive) a genre, but now it’s yet another third person shooter with generic RPG elements. Not bad, but there are better games to fill the same space, just without Samus and that suit which was one of the first things i obsessed over drawing.
Zelda lost me already, loved the old games, but when it went from a fun adventure to managing weapong breaks I noped right out and went back to playing my NES game. Metroid went from an epic, to the point of defining the genre, Metroidvania to another third person shooter with generic RPG elements.
They’re a shit company. Don’t give them your money.
But they did still make games last I checked.
I don’t think they do anymore, do they? I know all the ones I followed were part of toehr companies that nintendo owned, not of Nintendo themselves. Kinda like how Microslop or EA buys a great dev only to ruin them, They find a developer who wants to make a game for their crappy hardware, buys them, and locks them in. Then they are “Nintendo” but aren;t the risk of doing it themselves.
This is not correct.
Nintendo still make games internally. Some series (Kirby, Pokémon, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Kid Icarus) have always been outsourced. Some (Metroid) have been outsourced recently. Core Maro, Zelda, Pikmin, Splatoon, and Animal Crossing have always been developed internally.
Nintendo rarely buy other companies. They bought Alpha Dream, to whom Paper Mario had been outsourced, because Alpha Dream was looking for a buyer and Nintendo had previously worked with them.
The only company that kind of fits your statement is Monolith, which Nintendo acquired in the 2000s after Monolith had achieved acclaim with Xenosaga and Xenogears. They make the Xenoblade games nowadays, but that series connection to the previous Xeno games is by theme and style rather than story and character.
Nintendo EPD division (Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Splatoon) can be traced back to like the 80s.
Damn that sucks. Wtf is miyamoto still doing there, then?
Almost like I’m curious to engage with others and don’t want slop designed to slide down my throat easily, or something.
Oh well; everyone who decides what gets made is a shallow narcissist with no interiority these days.