Iwata on cheap games, mass storage and in-game advertising
CNN's Chris Morris recently had an interesting discussion with Nintendo mastermind, Satoru Iwata, about the future of the Revolution, a future that seems to be far less expensive than other console manufacturers would have you believe. There's plenty of insight to be gained from this article, but we'll highlight some of the important bits here and provide some commentary.
Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo of Japan, told me last week that while the company has no control over what its partners ask for their games, "I cannot imagine any first party title could be priced for more than $50." [emphasis ours]
Though that may strike you as excellent news, further inspection reveals that it barely means anything at all. Based on this information, third-party publishers could still luridly ask you to fork over $60 for their latest adventure starring an obnoxious, skateboarding lemur. Nintendo is only putting an economic ceiling over their own games, a ceiling shared by that of Microsoft's Xbox 360 games. Of course, one could speculate that a far lower price ($40) could be in store, but then we'd also expect $35 DS titles to go down just a bit. It's also worth considering that, given the Revolution's cheaper development costs and comparitively weaker specifications, publishers won't need to throw multibillion dollar titles at the machine. Then again, they might just be bastards and charge an invisible next-gen fee. At least you can take solace in that you'll probably be playing more of Nintendo's games than EA's games.
Most importantly, Iwata mentioned, were the USB ports that are built into the Revolution "so practically any storage method can be used".
Now that's more like it. If there's one thing a gamer likes more in his hand than a fancy remote, it's a degree of control. Allowing us to choose where we wish to store all our NES, SNES and N64 (and Genesis and TurboGrafx) classics is an excellent feature, one deftly going against what Sony and Microsoft have been forcing onto consumers. Nintendo's adoption of the friendly SD format was a wise move. Giving you the option of buying your own huge hard drive (at a fraction of the price of Microsoft's 20-gigger) or convenient thumbdrive when the system's built-in 512MB becomes a bit tight was an even better one.
Players, he said, don't have time to pay attention to the [in-game] ads as they work their way through the game world. As such, he doesn't see the business sense for advertisers – and believes the trend will not be a long lasting one.
I disagree with Iwata on this point, at least when it comes to games that provide a realistic portrayal of the world. Is the sight of Sam Fisher sneaking past a giant billboard on the streets of Los Angeles really so unusual? I'd argue that in-game advertising, when done with subtlety, can be very effective in creating a believable world. If they have any reason to fail, it's because we don't pay attention to advertisements in our real lives, not because we're too distracted by the game world. As for Mario racing around on a Verizon sponsored track, that's something somewhat different and slightly obscene.
Be sure to check out the rest of the article and feel free to share your opinions (even if they're wrong).
[Via Gamasutra. Image from CNN.]
