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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Miyamoto Still Has Doubts About Virtual Reality

Kai_Mao said:

I appreciate you took the time to bring all of this up with sources. I stand corrected. Though it doesn't necessarily change my stance or perception of Miyamoto despite that. I mean I get that he's not perfect, but who else is? Or maybe he suits my needs in gaming because 

In regards to the Mario and online source, he probably didn't see online platforming with Mario at the time. And with mobile, he seemed to embrace Mario Run and what it could provide. I mean sure you can share levels in Little Big Planet, but what else? Maybe it's just me, but besides Mario Maker and Run, what else could Mario do for online play that can enhance 2D and 3D platforming? Maybe Odyssey will solve that but who knows.

And with online in general, it's not like he's completely resisted. He encouraged devs to make games like Splatoon and ARMS, games that have or will have online components. Heck, he thought Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon would benefit with online multiplayer. So he's come around a bit. 

And what's wrong with keeping local multiplayer for the Switch? Fans of Halo were critical of 5 not having couch co-op story campaign like the past games and having to instead have online co-op only. While online multiplayer is something important, you don't have to lose local multiplayer. Even in an online world, there's still value in playing Smash or Mario Kart with friends together in the living room or something. In fact, believe it or not, as long as I have being playing games, Mass Effect 3 was the first game where I attempted to invest in online multiplayer. Granted, probably not the best first game to try online (hearing players make bad comments about me and not even have a chance to catch up with them as a player). The only games I enjoyed investing in online play are Splatoon and Overwatch, accessible and fun. I'm sure there are those who are like that but don't show their presence often in forums like these.

Miyamoto is a genius in his own right, in my honest opinion, my frustration with the man is mainly from his traditionalist attitudes towards the market. He represents an aging Nintendo who are slowly dying out and being replaced by a younger and more forward thinking one. Basically, him and some others have been behaving as if they still have their dominant 80's and early 90's position in the market, which they clearly don't, and have made choices based on that mindset.

He has come around but he's been slow, some would argue too slow. I think I would argue that, in fact. Jumping on the wagon after it has rolled for a long time makes it more difficult to get a good spot, it was the same with HD development, it caused no end of problems for them with the Wii U since they had no experience with it, and caused delay after delay where other developers had long since settled into the pace of higher res games with more effects. I think that what Nintendo need most of all is a new Miyamoto, one that's like he was when he exploded onto the scene and one more attuned with the modern market and its demands and needs.

There's nothing wrong with local multiplayer, I happen to love it myself and I also have many fond memories of it, especially on PC and N64 with 4 player sessions. But the market has changed and moved on, and with online having become the norm and Nintendo seemingly wanting to dip their venerable toes in the pools of the mass market once more, they need to look at what the mass market wants and needs and not what Miyamoto wants to keep primarily doing. They seem to have little emphasis on online, their paid service is sounding bleak, they have very poor support for apps, it seems, no voice chat built in, no Netflix, no browser and some pretty poor showings for incentive for paying for their services when this rolls around. Online seems like an afterthought, when the mass market is spending the vast, vast majority of their time online on the phones and tablets, this strikes me as a truly odd choice but very typical in the vein of people like Miyamoto. Releasing a tablet that focuses solely on games and mostly on local multiplayer outside the home seems like a pretty poor idea in such a market. It's not about jumping on trends (which they're heavily doing anyway with their tablet form factor...) but about adapting to the market in general.

Long story short; if the Switch fails to become what it could have become, I blame it on people like Miyamoto and his stubborness and refusal to read and respond to the market and instead injecting what he wants into the concepts. And I'm still far from sold on the whole concept and form factor of the Switch on top of this, I can't shake this feeling that making a tablet, one that has barely any actual tablet functionality, is a mistake and that the high number of pre-orders are not indicative of massive lifetime sales, but merely die-hard's fans tired of the Wii U. I guess time will tell, in the meantime, one can always hope that Miyamoto will learn how to tell time...



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I partially share his worries: when it comes to social interaction, VR is worse than local multiplayer. But VR, if used well, for games suitable for it, can improve gaming in all the other situations, local and online single player and online multiplayer. As others wrote, there's still much work to do for input methods, full body tracking with finger movement resolution will be a giant step for immersion and completeness of experience, and good paradigms to translate some motions into navigation commands must be devised to allow both interaction and free roaming in the virtual world, VR on rails would become boring, or even worse claustrophobic, quite soon.
About kids, I guess parents will better let them use it only following opinions, suggestions and guidelines of the best child neuropsychiatrists. This said, I also guess that a more advanced VR could be great to better the lives of children, and adults too, with some kinds of disabilities.
Right now both its full sets of HW devices available and SW using it aren't very mature yet, and prices are still high for mainstream, but considering that most of the tech needed is already used also in the cheapest smartphones, it's just matter of time.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW! 
 


a one off game I can see it - the future - maybe too much!

but come on - Zelda VR?

That would be great!



Switch!!!

SvennoJ said:

 

If you ever have vr on pc also try altspace https://altvr.com

It is a social vr room where people have meetings/Quizes/play games etc.






fedfed said:
a one off game I can see it - the future - maybe too much!

but come on - Zelda VR?

That would be great!

I can alresdy imagine grannies' jaws dropping as they enter undetected the rooms of Ninty otaku grandchildren fapping on Zelda VR or Samus VR.   



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW! 
 


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I'm not really "worried" about VR technology for the precise reason that it can be presumed the technology will only get better. You can already see it moving in a direction toward permitting more multi-player offerings. Besides which, in my view, many of the best games are actually single-player experiences anyway.



I dont think Miyamoto is the only one with doubts on VR



SvennoJ said:

Isn't the Vive the most work to set up right?

I own a Vive and setup was fairly simple.  The initial setup might be a little longer because of room scale capability you need to mount the 2 sensors to the wall.

Besides that it just plugging in a few cables to the computer.

Download steam if you dont already have it.  install steam VR and run through the calibration setup.

After that inital setup, all I do is open a HTC VIVE game (which will also automatically launch everything needed to play vive)  then put on my headset and start playing.

I personally love my vive.  Raw Data proberly my favorite game (but I cant play it more then a hour at a time at my current fitness level, since by then I usually covered in sweat).  I more of a fan of the games that take advantage of room scale.  The seated VR experience neat but I tend to notice the flaws in resolution etc more when am seated.  Technology need to improve a bit before computers can handle the idear seated experience for me.

When am moving around through dodging things, ducking for cover etc am to into the experience for me to notice the flaws and I get feel of immersion that I looking for out of vr.

I just wish I had it when I was a little younger and I could drop to ground, jump and move around quickly for hours without worrying about knee pain or running out of breath.  It have given me a bit of motivation to get in better shape so at least that a plus.



I'm sure he does.

This guy needs to retire.

He's out of touch with reality.



BraLoD said:
But Nintendo didn't worry about the kids while making the Virtual Boy...

That was Gunpei project really rest his soul. He was a lot different.