“INTOLERANCE IS EVIDENCE OF IMPOTENCE.”
Aleister Crowley
The gaming press is reacting predictably to something that they do not like, didn’t want, don’t understand but do fear because it is destroying their version of the gaming world and with it, their importance.
That is why I have yet to see a single article that as clearly describes the Nintendo strategy as the article By Jeffrey M. O'Brien, senior editor for Fortune Magazine.
[The Wii and DS] “are a product of the strategic course Iwata has set. When he took over, PlayStation2 was king, and Microsoft, with its Xbox, was challenging Sony in a technological arms race. But Iwata felt his competitors were fighting the wrong battle. Cramming more technology into consoles would only make the games more expensive, harder to use, and worst of all, less fun.
"We decided that Nintendo was going to take another route - game expansion," says Iwata, seated on the edge of a leather chair, leaning over green tea in a three-piece suit, a strip of gray emerging along the part in his thick hair. He has an easy command of English but speaks through an interpreter. "We are not competing against Sony or Microsoft. We are battling the indifference of people who have no interest in videogames."
On the Wiimote
“Nintendo designed dozens of prototypes before settling on the Wiimote. Miyamoto says early versions looked more like a control pad. Some were whimsical, some complicated. Designers arrived at the current version by coming back to Iwata's decree to battle indifference, not the competition.
Miyamoto realized it wasn't a fear of gadgets that kept the average consumer from playing games. "TV remotes are always sitting out on a coffee table or on the sofa, but videogame controllers - people don't want them lying around," he says. "In that sense we thought we were losing to the TV remote. So we thought, What kind of controller can we create that won't make people afraid to touch it?"
Who wouldn’t buy into this simplified approach? The so called “hard core gamer” who has actually leveraged the reflexes and aggressive competitiveness of a primarily young male demographic and invested enough time to master the over complex controls and to be proficient at them,
Who opposed the introduction of anesthesia for surgery? The top surgeons. Up to that point, how well the patient survived amputation (the most prevalent form of surgery) had more to do with the surgeon’s speed than skill. The briefer the intense agony, the less likely shock would kill. With anesthesia the whole hierarchy was turned upside down. Speed was no longer important; skill and workmanship were. The top surgeons resisted anesthesia because it threatened to make them irrelevant.
If Nintendo was successful in created a game where manual dexterity and reflexes didn’t determine the winner then they couldn’t be sure of winning or even being competitive. Take LBP (for a non-Wii example). Traditional skill has little to do with this game. It is about thinking and creativity. They could be beat by a girl, or a kid for cripes sake. Any surprise that its reception was less enthusiastic that the flawed but delightfully hard core GTA which was all about blood, guts, and reflex action?
So to accuse these “journalists” of not getting it may be to underestimate them. I think they get it all too well and see it for the threat that it is. Video gaming was on its way to being too inaccessible for any but an elite few to play, let alone enjoy. Larger and larger groups: young, old, many female, the less dedicated (by lack of time or desire) were all being disenfranchised. That was alright, smaller ponds made them all the bigger fish. I think it’s just now becoming clear that these smaller ponds couldn’t afford to pay for these much more elaborate and expensive games.
Nor do I accuse them of unfairness. Even the strictest codes of legal ethics recognize the right to self protection and do not require anyone to testify against themselves.
The hardcore gamers and the gaming “journalists” that represent them can hardly be blamed for lashing out at a strategy that would reopen gaming to anyone and made it more about fun than cut throat competitiveness. For Nintendo to succeed, as every sign seems to indicate that it will; means for them to become superfluous, marginalized and impotent. This will not make them tolerant or raise them above petty childish spite.
