Miyamoto: Modern games are too long (Sigh)

[Confidence-Man]

He's been saying this for years now, along with Iwata.

Games that are too long, too complicated, with stories too involved and production values too high aren't the future. This is why they parted ways with Silicon Knights.

While I'm sure they'll continue to make a few games to appeal to the audience who wants this kind of thing (e.g. Zelda and Metroid), I expect thier main focus next gen will be more in line with DS-style entertainment; novel, small scale games that are made to appeal to people who don't really play games.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think a lot of things that Nintendo says kind of sound wierd. Remember them saying that online gaming is not what the people want. Remember that? I never know exactly what these guys are really trying to say. I just read or listen to the interviews and say "ok" and see what they produce in real life.

Trying to figure out exactly what they mean sometimes gets no where. If the NR comes out with short games then we will know exactly what he meant by this article. Just like how they didn't support online play on the GC. So like I said I'm going to wait it out.

 

[Edge]

Acert93, good post, but I wonder was he speaking for everyone or himself?

I just became a Nintendo fan, and Miyamoto fan this generation, with the purchase of a GCN (my only console this generation). I feel sorry for Nintendo these days, even though they continue to rake in huge profits. Being stuck between the dominate Sony, and another company that is willing to lose billions for marketshare is not a good place to be.

Nintendo is not getting much 3rd party support, and they themselves can only produce so many games.

Acert93, excellent comments about unique games, as unique games does necessary mean more fun. I think for the most part, gameplay has already been well defined in the respective genres, and I want to see developers pull off, a good blend of graphics, sound, music, control, story, and gameplay, for each respective genre. Of course getting all that right, is as hard as making a good movie. Some get it right, and others don't, and it will always be that way for games. Nintendo seems to have a knack for getting that combination right.

 

[Inane_Dork]

I think Teasy read it right: Miyamoto's saying there's not much HE likes to play today. He's speaking of his own personal game-playing preferences, and he's entitled to his opinion.

Maybe, but personal opinion can be closely married to professional opinion. And even if not, Nintendo should keep things like this coming out and confusing people.

 

[Kolgar]

Maybe, but personal opinion can be closely married to professional opinion. And even if not, Nintendo should keep things like this coming out and confusing people.

Yeah, maybe there ought to be a Nintendo PR person who follows Miyamoto around to make sure nothing he says gets taken out of context.

 

[Acert93]

I think Teasy read it right: Miyamoto's saying there's not much HE likes to play today. He's speaking of his own personal game-playing preferences, and he's entitled to his opinion.

I suggest going back to the original article.

He is NOT talking about his own opinion only, he is talking about his desire for what other developers should do.

"Of course, there are games, such as Halo or Grand Theft Auto, that are big and expansive. But if you're not interested in spending that time with them, you're not going to play," he observed.

"Rather than thinking 'we have a new console, let's make epic games', I want [developers] to make more unique products."

Miyamoto has a very strong influence over Nintendo and sets the trend for their platform. It would be one thinig for him to say, "I do not like Halo or GTA--I am not interested in the genre, and since they are long I never finished them". That would be fine. Obviously his opinion is not universal, but he has a right to make games he likes (like Pikmin), even if they do not sell as well. He is misguided in indicating that Halo or GTA are too long for their fans--their fans want those games. His tastes is not all gamers tastes, or even Nintendo gamer tastes (a lot of old timer N gamers like the hard, long games of the past, the Epic Zelda and Metroids, etc).

But it is his next statement that definately smacks of more than just his own opinion:

I want [developers] to make more unique products."

He has a ton of Nintendo products internally and is the face of Nintendo. If he is telling develpers, to paraphrase the entire quote: "Lets not think: "New console, lets make more epic games... I would rather see developers for our console make more unique games". I think saying that alienates gamers. Actually I know it does.

His message should be, "Lets continue making graphically rich epic games, but lets also use the technology to make more unique games".


Anyhow, I am not misreading him. If you read his quotes, he says "if you're not interested in spending that time [to play a big expansive game like Halo or GTA], you're not going to play".

And he directly contrasts 'people not having the interest to spend so much time on a game' that he wants developers to spend less time making epic games on a new console and more time making unique games.

Sales data shows that gamers really enjoy their epic games.

 

[Inane_Dork]

IIRC, Silicon Knights left Nintendo for the reason Acert is arguing for.

http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/612/612191/vids_1.html

 

[Acert93]

Maybe, but personal opinion can be closely married to professional opinion. And even if not, Nintendo should keep things like this coming out and confusing people.

Yeah, maybe there ought to be a Nintendo PR person who follows Miyamoto around to make sure nothing he says gets taken out of context.

It starts at the top. Iwata does the same thing, as did Yaumauchi. e.g.

-Games are too complex
-Online
-Graphics
-Big Epic games

All four of those statements are absoluately true... but only to a degree.

The problem is Nintendo likes to swing the pendulum too far. They send a mixed message. Instead of emphasizing that, "Complex games are good for hard core gamers, but there is a large audiance that has a hard time with complex controllers with too many buttons [yes, they said that... funny as they started the add a ton of buttons craze] and that we need more games to appeal to a larger variety of gamers" they tend to deal in near absolutes.

Nintendo is very correct for pointing out issues in the market. But they do no service with their headline grabbing appraoch. This has become their mode of operation for the last 4 or 5 years.

The funny thing is I knew there would be a certain 3 or 4 Nintendo fans who would immediately back up what he said. I guess as long as that small demographic continues buying their games they will be fine while games like Halo and GTA make their way into the mainstream and sell 10's of Millions of games.

Gamers need Pikmins and Halos. Both. But if gamers had to choose, the sales data definately shows that the mainstream gamer will take Halo over Pikmin in a heartbeat. And that is where the message is lost.

 

[Blade]

Modern games are too long?

Uh, hey.. Shiggy.. if Twilight Princess is shorter than Wind Waker I might not even buy it. A lot of games thrive on length.

 

[ban25]

How many copies of Kirby's Air Ride did they sell and is this the market they wish to expand?

 

[mckmas8808]

I think that Nintendo has some kind of disconnect with the average gamer. They really don't know what the average gamer wants until it's around for a few years.

I like that they can come up with brand new ideas, but sometimes they need to recognize whats right in front of them.

 

[Edge]

> "How many copies of Kirby's Air Ride did they sell and is this the market they wish to expand?"

In Japan it easily sold over a million. Kirby Air Ride is HUGE success for Nintendo. It's not the game you want to bring up, in a counter argument against Nintendo.

Note the game is also for the under 10 market, and certainly not for gamers even in their teens. It might be wise from a business standpoint to go in the direction of this market, but not something that appeals to me. I tried it in the store, and it's laughably a very childish game, but then again, I am in my 30's.

 

[Confidence-Man]

> "How many copies of Kirby's Air Ride did they sell and is this the market they wish to expand?"

In Japan it easily sold over a million. Kirby Air Ride is HUGE success for Nintendo. It's not the game you want to bring up, in a counter argument against Nintendo.

Uh, no it didn't. It sold a little over 350k in Japan, same in the US.

 

[DemoCoder]

If modern games are too long, then modern games are also too expensive. I don't like spending $50 for 2 hours of gameplay.

 

[cthellis42]

In Japan it easily sold over a million. Kirby Air Ride is HUGE success for Nintendo. It's not the game you want to bring up, in a counter argument against Nintendo.

Not that I agree with the comment you were replying to anyway, but don't mix up Kirby games. Kirby's Air Ride sold 358k in 2003 and not enough to get on the Top 100 in 2004 (which means less than 130k, basically). The Kirby GBA games did better, but none of them breached a million either. It seems only four Kirby titles have sold over 1 million (~1.5 for two GameBoy games), but none of them lately. (Meaning no GBA or GNC titles.)

For reference, GTA III sold 310k in Japan, and Vice City sold 410k in 2004. (I'm not sure how many sales it's had in 2005.)

Yes, I'm only using the-magicbox.com for these numbers, but if any other english-readable site has better tracking numbers for Japanese console/game sales, I haven't heard of it.

 

[Rodéric]

I think in modern games you can't get something done in a short amount of time.
If you just have half an hour to play, you most likely don't feel like you did anything usefull in the game, that IMO is the worst problem.

About 'long' games, it's true that I've not finished most of my Dreamcast & NGC games...
They are just too long to my taste, so having games that are shorter might very well appeal to me, it's not about having all games being shorter, it's about having a CHOICE I don't feel I have today.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

How many copies of Kirby's Air Ride did they sell and is this the market they wish to expand?

I bought it...

 

[speng]

An 8-10 hr game at $30 that is compelling will beat most 20-30 hr game. Those games I tend to stay away from because I almost never finish them, even if they are fun and great.

I want to feel the accomplishment of finishing a game again, lately I haven't had the time to spend a couple months on one game to finish it in 30hrs.

2 weeks playing about 1-2hrs per sitting every other day is good enough for me. If the price of the game is aroudn $25 then I can enjoy 2 games in that time with $50.

RPGs of course need to be long enough to tell a meaningful story and capture the player.

Speng.

 

[Kalin]

http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=6321

Finally, Iwata elaborated on recurring comments about complex games, explaining that Nintendo feels large games are important, but an overabundance of them is folly. He claims that consumers have a limited amount of time, and most can only play one or two huge titles a year. Nintendo hopes to encourage a variety of games of varied scales and prices.

They just want variety, which is a good thing IMO.

BTW Twilight Princess is said to be longer than OOT, with a huge overworld and more dungeons. If that's true it would easily become one of the longest Nintendo games ever.

 

[DemoCoder]

Online multiplayer FPS are best bang for the buck for me. I can play for 1-2 hrs at a time, no problem, have lots of run, and feel accomplishment. (CS Source, BF1942/BFVietnam, and BF2 looks AWESOME)