This is a very interesting time for Nintendo. With the gleaming shock of the new no longer haloed around the Wii, and both Microsoft and Sony about to catch up with next-gen-powered motion control of their own, all eyes and ears areprimed forthe House of Mario's arguably crucial next move.
Unsurprisingly, outspoken Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has been spouting out the words thick and fast, but as is the nature of PR speakduring such pivotal periods, it hasn't always made total sense. So we've cut through the positivity-spinning business talk and translated Reggie's most relevent 2010 musings into something a bit more blunt.
On the Wii's lastability...
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "We are confident that most people just buy the Wii for Wii Sports, so as long as we keep bundling it, we can't screw this up until literally everyone has one"
On the competition from Sony...
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "We really hope that casual gamers are still so market-naive that they only see the price rather than the massively-increased functionality potential of a motion-control-equipped PS3"
On Wii shortages...
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "I am passionately upset all the way to the bank. If we'd known that this kind of unavailability would create so much hype we might have engineered it from the start"
On Nintendo's next move...
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "We seriously need a new groundbreaking experience to distract consumers from the fact that everyone else has already caught up with our last one using better technology. Any ideas? Anyone?"
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "We’ve painted ourselves into a corner with the Wii andit's probably too late togo back to traditional console gaming. We’re just trying to work out how to come up with another new idea and make it cheap again"
Translation: "We were amazing at creating that type of content for 20 years, but let’s forget about that, because it turns out that housewives and soccermoms have a shitload of disposable income. Let's face it, no-one has believed our 'Still commited to the hardcore' schtick since the Animal Crossing debacle, so we're just going to let the third-parties do that stuff for us from now on"
Translation: "Hey devs, it’snot our faultyour core games aren’t selling on the Wii. Didn't you hear about the recession? The market culture we’ve created aroundour consoleand our complete lack of product support for your stuff is a total coincidence"
Quote sourced fromhere
Translation: "If only BioShock 2 had been on the Wii. Then it wouldn’t have tanked like it did. With the recession and all, big proper next-gen games are a major risk. I say this purely out of sympathy for 2K Marin of course. No self interest whatsoever"
But maybe we're just being cynical old sods here and Nintendo really is ploughing happily along the right track without a care in the world. We won't know anything for definite until E3 this year. But in the meantime, let us know what you think via the usual channels ofFacebookandTwitter.
