It's not fair to the people that want to play online multiplayer with people that have flaws and react uniquely, when they instead are playing with a bot meant to perform well to demonstrate necessary gaming skills to some guy or gal sitting on a couch watching. It's plenty fair to the viewer, it's just not fair to everybody else that didn't sign up to play with bots all day long.

Well if that's the case then I don't agree with that. The way I see it, it'll benefit those motivated enough to watch a video and use that to enhance their experience to get to a regular gaming level, and also deter those that use it to become complacent and lazy until they bore of gaming and quit. Basically I see the two canceling eachother out and not accomplishing much at all, just different people that get bored of gaming than before. Those that would have strived off the frustration may instead become the disinterested gamer constantly pushing the win button until they bore of gaming and realize they're spending $50 to watch someone else play a game they can't. Those that would have quit gaming out of frustration instead have a healthy medium (and a vitality sensor) keeping them in check and holding their hands until they can do enough for themselves to become a productive gamer, and not just a witness.

There will be people who will get deeper into gaming as there will be people who will be driven away by this feature. The question is what the ratio will be. We can't really determine the answer. I think it's at least worth trying. If this isn't successful, don't you think Nintendo will abandon the idea? They are determined to expanding the gaming audience, and if they learn that this feature doesn't fulfill the role they want it to fulfill, economic reasons will make them stop. I'm fairly sure they'll closely watch the effect on different players and try to quantify it. So I don't really understand your fear, because IMO the baddest thing that could happen would be temporary, hitting a dead end and reverse that development.

About the patent wording vs Miyamoto's interview: I don't think it would make sense in a platformer to only show how to beat a section and then not allowing the player to continue from there. So I hope it will be implemented that you can actually skip parts. I would be totally ok with this if the game tags a stage that was completed using this feature, so that players still have an incentive to later beat it without help.

For Zelda, I'm more interested in the video mode, where the game only shows you how to beat a section rather than playing for you. That's because I was always more interested in the puzzles than combat. But even the boss fights are more of a puzzle, if you figure out the weak spots it's not really hard. But I think that Zelda in contrast to Mario is a game where difficulty settings were appropriate.

He may rent Forza 3 for $60 instead.

I have not read all the comments but here is my thoughts.

It seems fine to me. I will never use it but there are time my wife will see me playing a game and decides she would like a go but she is not into any fighting bits, example, Zelda : Twilight princess, she likes the puzzle solving and exploring and the story but has not got enough skill with a game control or the desire to learn how to fight battles with it. With this new system she can play the game how she likes.

I also agree that it give the developer the option to keep levels challenging for the experanced player as any one else can demo through.

Hey, Noname. You should put the other part of the patent (late on page 1, you posted it) in the OP. Most people won't read every comment, and yours is easy to miss.

@noname, what you're describing is called a microwave, and it did not kill hardcore cooking.

But that's not at all what he's saying! Or well, what I think he's saying that is.

There are people who only eat microwave food, aren't there? I've seen a fair bit of programs/read a few articles that have this as a major problem. The majority of these people should know that eating microwave food isn't as good for you, but they simply don't know how to make anything else. At an earlier point, they had the choice between cooking "real" food and microwave food. They chose microwave food.

I'd say this fits right in with his analogy.

Edit:

Another thing, Noname never (at least as far as I know) said anything about killing the hardcore market. He said this would stop "casual" gamers from becomming "bridge" gamers. What this does is, rather than expand the market, actually preventing people from becomming more serious gamers.

You could "skip" the levels in SMW... did the fun-factor decrease for you in that game also?

There's a difference between speed-running a game and using skills to get there or letting the game skip the levels for yourself. o_O