A portion of an ONM interview with Ubisoft's Jason Vandenberghe...
ONM: Do you feel any extra pressure from Wii gamers as Red Steel 2 is seen as their great hardcore hope?
JV: It's exciting. Personally, I call this the great hardcore Wii Jihad! I don't really care about the religious war! Some developers who are making hardcore games for the Wii made a big deal about the separation of church and state, saying (puts on deep voice) "there's hardcore and there's family friendly." I don't feel that way.
I think there are gamers and there are gamers of different opinions and different tastes so the goal was to create games that gamers want and to see how many people like it. That's how operate. I don't think in terms of focus groups and target audiences. That's not how I design.
So personally I'm excited to be bringing a game to Wii that's for gamers and for anyone who has a swordfighting fantasy. It's for us - it's for gaming people. It has something new on it. You can't do this on another platform.
ONM: There's are quite a few hardcore games for Wii though - Madworld, Dead Space etc...
JV: They sold nothing, right? In each case we've seen so far we have other circumstances that have to be taken into consideration. I don't know, I'm no statistical marketing expert. I'm an expert on player emotion. But you look at Madworld. If you make an ultra violent game where you're shoving signposts through people's heads as a core mechanic - I have no problem with that. I played it and I had a great time but if you do that you're going to sell 10%. You're cutting out 90% of your sales because that offends 90% of gamers.
ONM: If we take away the motion controls. What other things do you need to consider when making a game for the Wii?
JV: I didn't consider very much. I think it was more natural for us to choose this visual style on Wii because it fits the hardware better. But look at Borderlands. Look at Ratchet and Clank. There are plenty of other graphic novel-style games. It was a natural fit for us. Plus it lets us run at 60 frames per second!
The marketing team is always interested in the fact that there are 150 million Wiis and they want to sell to everybody. I'm like 'I know you do. Here's my game and we'll see how many we sell.' You can't let focus tests design your game for you. You can't operate like that. Especially when you're making a game that you love that takes advantage of the hardware and speaks to anyone who has a Wii.
I have a Wii and I'm pretty hardcore and I would love to be playing more cool Wii games but because everyone's retreating it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Link:
http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=15388
If Nintendo is successful at the moment, it’s because they are good, and I cannot blame them for that. What we should do is try to be just as good.----Laurent Benadiba
Essay Pro