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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Miyamoto explains the shift away from casuals.

teigaga said:
RolStoppable said:
Wow, this is big news. Finally a crystal-clear admission that the Wii U was never intended to be a follow-up to the Wii. I mean, anyone who was able to put the pieces together already knew that, but for a lot of people this will come as a surprise.

It's also interesting how much contempt Miyamoto has for the Wii owner who didn't "upgrade" to his beloved 3D Mario and the like. Then he continues by displaying immense denial when he says that Nintendo doesn't need to make games that are different from the ones they made in the eighth generation. Nintendo's financials suggest otherwise.


But its kind of clear that it was. It was just supposed to be more in the middle ground then the wii. The Gamepad is first and foremost a gimmick that was supposed to appeal to casuals but not alienate the core. If they were going for the core audience as their main demographic I don't think they would have launched the system with 2D mario and Nintendo land or been pushing titles like wii fit U and Wii U karaoke... All clearly an attempt to swoom the wii's casual audience. Nor would they have released a system so far behind the PS4 and Xbox One. Miyamoto may have been done with casual audiences from a while back but I don't think Nintendo designed the wii U with the core in mind. If they did they would probably be fairing a lot better then they are.

I have to agree with teigaga, the WiiU was clearly an upgrade towards what made the Wii popular, the casual audience

they knew the Wii was lacking most of the core audience, so the WiiU was kind of an attempt to improve or balance that, close the margin while keeping casuals the top priority, core was never the main target with the WiiU


I like Miyamoto's way of looking at things on this one, really, they did their job, they expanded the audience, even if that audience now betrayed Nintendo and found fun on the smartphones, gen 7 was the most successful, sales where really high, all three consoles had a big audience

gen 8 is nowhere close, maybe casuals found love on the smartphones and will never look back, maybe they will?

of course it's a bad idea to change tactics mid-way, at least they can save what can still be saved...
you cannnot do much for core gamers with an ''outdated hardware'' console, and so many features missing :/



don't mind my username, that was more than 10 years ago, I'm a different person now, amazing how people change ^_^

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Casual gamers are vapid. They go nuts over garbage like the Kim Kardashian game.

I think when he says passive gamers he means that casuals aren't willing to try even something like 3D Mario. Doesn't matter how great the game is it doesn't matter, they won't play it. It must have been frustrating as a master game designer to be making games devoid of any real substance and to be chasing gimmicks to impress that crowd with. 

Its like having Steven Spielberg work on reality TV instead of big screen movies. A waste of his talent.



Mr Khan said:

At least in terms of spin, not really. Obviously games journalists are better informed (most of the time).

As in this case where the, erm, "journalist" (glorified blogger, whatever) seems to have actually read the interview as he's excerpted from it rather generously? If he says Miyamoto said these things in the context of Nintendo shifting back to enthusiast gamers and giving up on bringing back the expanded audience of the Wii/DS, then I'll have to defer to that interpretation over Aielyn's usual axe-grinding against "hardcore" gamers. (Stories?! In my games?!) At least until the whole interview hits the 'net.



The plot thickens



I predict that the Wii U will sell a total of 18 million units in its lifetime. 

The NX will be a 900p machine

Soundwave said:

Casual gamers are vapid. They go nuts over garbage like the Kim Kardashian game.

I think when he says passive gamers he means that casuals aren't willing to try even something like 3D Mario. Doesn't matter how great the game is it doesn't matter, they won't play it. It must have been frustrating as a master game designer to be making games devoid of any real substance and to be chasing gimmicks to impress that crowd with. 

Its like having Steven Spielberg work on reality TV instead of big screen movies. A waste of his talent.


Well said.



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The denial in some of you is stronger than that in Miyamoto.



Soundwave said:

Casual gamers are vapid. They go nuts over garbage like the Kim Kardashian game.

I think when he says passive gamers he means that casuals aren't willing to try even something like 3D Mario. Doesn't matter how great the game is it doesn't matter, they won't play it. It must have been frustrating as a master game designer to be making games devoid of any real substance and to be chasing gimmicks to impress that crowd with. 

Its like having Steven Spielberg work on reality TV instead of big screen movies. A waste of his talent.

This demonstrates a deep lack of knowledge of what makes Miyamoto's game design tick. Simple concepts, refined to a science, are his hallmark and have thus weighed heavily on Nintendo's design philosophy ever since. Wii Sports/Fit were classic Miyamoto, it's the "deep" games that are the departure (recall that he's the one who sidelined Rosalina's story in Super Mario Galaxy. Didn't want it hogging the spotlight)



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

LurkerJ said:
The denial in some of you is stronger than that in Miyamoto.


I could drop a gif, but I'm too lazy. 



Sounds more like pr then any real admission to anything.



I don't even care about this. Where the hell is Aonuma's interview!?!?!?