Tendo City

I was borwsing the GA forums and someone said there is a Mayimoto interview that took place recently in LONDON. POST HERE OR SOMETHING. COME ON BARRRRRRY! COME BACK! YOU AIN'T OLD!

I'd love to see those other 3 new Insider interviews too... or at least highlights from them... (Perrin Kaplan, Denis Dyack, and Ken Lobb)

I've heard the Dyack interview is the only one worth reading since he reveals some interesting tidbits such as SK working on multiple projects at the moment, one of them being Too Human.

Should I post all of the interviews over here?

I don't know... we haven't expressed any intrest in them, that's for sure...

Since they're so long I'm going to bother bolding anything:

Quote:February 28, 2003 - Earlier today at the Dice Summit event in Las Vegas Nintendo held a small roundtable with Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma for members of the press. Though the discussion was supposed to remain focused on Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, it quickly turned into a free-for-all of questions and answers about everything else. Miyamoto talked about all sorts of Nintendo franchises, offered hints about developments at E3, and more.
Also, please note that we definitely did not ask the question about Miyamoto's dog. Still, a highly recommended read. Following, the full transcript.



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Q: As a man who seen as a creative person, who do you find balance in your life with the stresses and pressures of the roles you've taken on at Nintendo?

Shigeru Miyamoto: That's a very large topic. Once I turned 40 I actually took up swimming and now I'm swimming at least one or two kilometers every week. Also about that time I quit smoking. Of course, weekdays I work very late hours generally, so I'm certain on the weekends to spend all of my time with my wife and family.

You do need a lot of space and freedom in order to come up with some ideas. But I've been more the type of person who comes up with ideas when I'm working, so it's not as much of a challenge for me. Really, I try to find that balance and space by expanding out into new areas. Recently my family has gotten a dog and we've spent a lot of time with it, which has brought me some pleasure and a little bit of balance.

Q: A lot of GCN games we've seen so far are sequels. Will there be new franchises?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Yeah, I do intend to show something at E3.

Q: Everyone loves Wind Waker. But a lot of us would have preferred the darker style of the Space World 2000 Zelda. Are there any plans to make a Zelda game with that style?

Shigeru Miyamoto/Eiji Aonuma: I think that once people actually play Wind Waker and get into the game they will immediately understand why we chose the graphical style that we did to go with it. Even if people are fans of the more graphical looking Zelda games, I think that if they will just give this game a chance, pick it up and play it, they will immediately be engulfed in the Zelda world, really understand, and kind of accept the game for what it is.

As for whether or not we'll actually go and create a more realistic looking Zelda game, it's really a question of what kind of game the next one will be. Obviously the graphical style or methods of expressions that we choose will be highly dependent on what type of game it is. We haven't come up with the idea for the game yet, but once we do, we'll have to take a look at what the best method of expression will be for that game and so we'll go through that process. There is definitely the possibility that we will create a more realistic Zelda game.

One of the most important things with the Zelda franchise is that players must really feel that Link is almost themselves in the game. In that sense, there really has to be very natural and fluid interaction between the player and the character. When you don't have that, you certainly lose some of the nature that makes Zelda what it is.

If you were to go with the more realistic looking Link, you'd have to have so much movement to the face for him to be able to essentially impact the emotions of the player and make it feel like the player is emoting through Link. That would require so much time and energy to create those graphics to allow the face to do that.



Also, particularly when you have realistic graphics and you have a character moving through and around objects in an unnatural way, it just stands out all the more. It's even more unnatural than having these toon-shaded style graphics with natural and realistic movement. That's why we've spent so much time and energy with the director and the designer to really go through and focus on making the gameplay fun and making Link really emotive in the game to really draw the player into the world.

Q: If you didn't have to worry about game sales at all and could just make any game you wanted, what would that game be?
Shigeru Miyamoto: For me, it would be a game that really anyone could play, just pick up and get involved in. Like the kind of game that I could just set out on the street and people could just walk by, pick it up and have fun with it.

Q: Can you elaborate?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Recently one example would be Stage Debut or Talent Studio, which we showed at E3 last year. It's a really simple system and really fun. You can take someone's picture using a Game Boy Advance camera and put it onto models in a GameCube game and make them do things. It's a really fun idea and we've had three or four people working on it for quite a while, but we just can't seem to find a way to turn it into a product. But the nice thing about that is that even with three or four people working on a project like that for two years, that's still cheaper than one month of Zelda's development cost [laughs].

Q: You recently made some statements in Europe about the Metal Gear franchise. Can you clarify the rumors about a GameCube Metal Gear Solid title and a possible connection to the Game Boy Advance?

Shigeru Miyamoto: It is true that we are working with Mr. Kojima to try and bring the Metal Gear series to the GameCube, but at this point we really haven't talked at all about any connectivity features. I think what happened was that at the same time I mentioned that I also mentioned that we were in conversation with Electronic Arts about how to bring more connectivity to their games and add some new gameplay style that way, and I think that somebody took the two and kind of combined them together to create what has turned out to be a little misunderstanding.

I think I also mentioned the fact that Mr. Kojima is working on a new Game Boy Advance game, too, so the three of those statements together got all mixed up and some wires got crossed.

Q: What can we expect of Metal Gear on GameCube?

Shigeru Miyamoto: It is in progress, but please talk to Konami about that [laughs].

Q: Will you show GameCube online games or LAN network games at E3 this year?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I can't really say a whole lot about E3 right now, but Nintendo is still at a point where we don't currently see online games as a business model being successful so I don't think you can expect to see any serious look at online games [for GameCube] at E3.

I do think that the communication aspect of networking and linking games together, including LAN games, is definitely very interesting, and we're going to look at ways to show that off at E3. Particularly linking the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube and linking four GBAs together.

Q: What about linking GameCubes together?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Unfortunately I can't say anything today [laughs].

Q: How content are you with the connectivity features you've been able to show off on Game Boy Advance up until this point?

Shigeru Miyamoto: No, I think we're still in the middle of the big challenge with trying to show off some capabilities of that and we're still looking for some more definitive examples to show off.

One of the preconditions for connectivity is that everyone has to have all these cables and people who have a GameCube also have to have a GBA, and that may not always be the case. We've really been focusing on taking the idea of connectivity and presenting it so that people who do have both can find, oh, I do get more value out of this and that it's more fun and interesting. We're looking more at trying to build on that and establish the basic groundwork for us to go forward. This year we're going to see 70% to 80% of all first-party releases are going to have some form of connectivity with them. In Japan we've also released Nintendo Puzzle Collection for GameCube and that has a cable packed in with it so we think that we're going to a level of proliferation with the cables and GBA connectivity that we'll be able to show you better examples.



This year we'll be showing off more concrete examples of that with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and perhaps, and this is not necessarily certain, with Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire versions of Stadium for GameCube. Something like that.

Q: Will you show a higher level of integration between GBA and GCN as you did with Kirby's Tilt and Tumble awhile ago?
Shigeru Miyamoto: Actually, unfortunately work on the Tilt and Tumble, or Roll-A-Rama project, has kind of slowed at this point because of the demands of many of our other projects that we've been working on. But yeah, that's an example of a game that does require that special user base and a cartridge with tilt sensor technology. And we've come up with a lot of other ideas as well.

Q: You said about a year ago that you, Mr. Iwata and the president of HAL went out to dinner to celebrate the success of Super Smash Bros. Melee in Japan, and that some very interesting things were said. Can you tell us what's going with Hal now? Is it the developer of Kirby's Air Ride? And is it working on another Smash Bros. game? Finally, is there any possibility that EAD might license Sega or Namco characters in another Smash Bros. game?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Is that what you're asking? [Laughs] Unfortunately I can't discuss in detail anything that HAL Labs is working on at the moment. What I can say is that they haven't increased in size recently and in conjunction with that they have increased the number of projects they are working on.

As far as having Namco's characters appear in another Smash Bros., we have discussed anything like that at this point. I personally always like to joke about putting Sonic in Smash Bros. [laughs].

Q: And who was the developer of Kirby's Air Ride then?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Yeah, that is HAL that's working on that.

Q: Who is the developer of Wario World?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I don't know if I can say this. Tell you what, Wario World is being developed by Nintendo in conjunction with a second party that we've worked with in the past.

Q: You took your hobby of gardening and based Pikmin on it. Will you implement your new dog into a GameCube game?

[Laughter]

Shigeru Miyamoto: Yeah, I think maybe we'll put a dog in Pikmin that will come running out and just gobble up the Pikmin.

I don't specifically take my hobbies and try to find a way to tie them to a game or anything, but one thing that I think is very interesting about dogs and raising dogs is that I think it's really funny the way people think toward dogs and the way dogs think toward people. Dogs obviously don't understand words really and yet people talk to them as if they do, and I fight myself doing this as well and I sound like a complete fool saying complete sentences to my dog which it doesn't understand whatsoever. So I think that for me right now having and interacting with a dog is a game.

Q: What new things has your new dog brought to your life and your thinking?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I definitely think that something like that has the high possibility of popping up in a game somewhere. Probably if we do it, though, it won't be a dog in the game.

Q: The Zelda bonus disc has been a real success for you. Do you think you might ever do that for another game, like F-Zero or Star Fox?

Shigeru Miyamoto: The Zelda presale was actually kind of a unique case in the sense that we have gone through the trouble of developing Master Quest/Ura Zelda in Japan and we ultimately never released it primarily because the contents of the game never changed enough to provide enough value in the product. But the people who worked on it really wanted to get the game out there and we did too, so we actually looked at many possible ways to do that including tying up with magazines and distributing. But ultimately we never really found a way of providing that to the consumer.

This time around, with the release of Wind Waker, the fact that we'd gone from a cartridge-based media on the N64 to a disc-based media caused a drop so significantly that we found we could take this N64 game, put it on a GameCube disc, run it in high-resolution, and follow it up with the Master Quest at a relatively low cost.

We just haven't thought about doing that with anything else at this point.

Q: You know, we've never been able to play Star Fox 2?
Shigeru Miyamoto: Star Fox Adventures was very different from any of the other Star Fox games that we've made and when we were working on that we thought it would have been kind of nice if we had done something similar to Star Fox 64 for that game.

I will definitely give your Star Fox 2 idea some thought though.

Q: Now that Nintendo and Rare have parted ways, where does that leave the Donkey Kong franchise?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I don't know if I can say this, but we are working on a Donkey Kong game. Really, it's our policy with the separation from Rare to not allow that to open any holes in Nintendo's library or lineup. It's not as if we got into some big fight with Rare or anything, we just had some different opinions about business models and where we were headed. We had a strong relationship with Rare and got along very well with them so when we did finally part with them we were able to clean up all the rights and issues surrounding the franchises and characters very easily.

Q: Will we see the new Donkey Kong game at E3?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Unfortunately I cannot answer that.

Q: You just toured Europe. What kind of responses are you getting for Wind Waker from people who have actually played the game?

Shigeru Miyamoto: The response we've been getting is kind of drastically different because very few people in Europe have actually played the game yet. So in Europe, it's a lot like some of the feedback we had gotten when we first showed pictures of the game where people are just overwhelmingly concerned about the graphic style and haven't had a chance to see how it works with the gameplay. Whereas in the US where most everybody has actually gotten to see the game and played it, they finally understood why we chose the graphic style and are much more positive.

In Japan, after people had played Wind Waker, we had a lot of feedback that the collection of Triforce pieces in the game was kind of difficult or tedious so we actually made some changes to that part of the spec for the US version and that'll be reflected in the first build of that which will be coming out next month. It's just little changes, but hopefully that'll improve some of the feedback that we get.

Q: Your European appearance at the Virgin Megastore turned out great. Will you do similar signings in the US or Japan?



Translator Bill Trinen, Eiji Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto: I was very surprised by the turnout for the public appearance and autograph session at the [London] Virgin Megastore. Actually, Britney Spears had done one just before I did and 1,000 people came to mine, which was more than she attracted. That was very flattering.

I'd be too embarrassed to do it in Japan though.

And the Dyak interview:

Quote:Silicon Knights GameCube Interview
We chat with company president Denis Dyack about Eternal Darkness, Too Human, and the future of the second-party developer.

February 28, 2003 - Earlier today we met up with Silicon Knights' president Denis Dyack at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. The spirited development head, having shed some 135 pounds since we last saw him, was just barely recognizable, but couldn't have looked better. The night before Dyack and Silicon Knights took home the Interactive Achievement Award for an outstanding achievement in character and story for Eternal Darkness.
We chatted about Eternal Darkness and, of course, Too Human, over the course of an hour. While Dyack was tight-lipped about specifics, he did have quite a lot to say about both, and about the industry in general. Following, that interview.



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IGNcube: What is your secret to losing weight?

[Laughter]

Denis Dyack: Well, back about two and a half years ago, I was at the point where I thought that I better start losing some weight. Making videogames all the time is not exactly conducive to losing weight. So what I did was called the Bernstein Program and basically you cut back on all carbohydrates. You can have some protein, but not high protein, and then some vegetables. It's really effective. I lost about 135 pounds in five months. And I've kept it off for a year.

The great thing is that I get to go to the insurance company now and say, hey, I lost weight, and I get a cheaper rate now [laughs]. So anyway...

IGNcube: Everyone loved Eternal Darkness. It was critically acclaimed across the board. You guys just won the award for best storyline. Why didn't the game sell better?

Denis Dyack: That's a good question and one that we've put a lot of thought into. Certainly it didn't sell horribly, thank God, but I look at it like a very successful independent film. My favorite film of all-time is Blade Runner. I'm a really big fan of the movie and think it was absolutely way ahead of its time. However, it failed at the box office. It failed horribly.

So we look at Eternal Darkness and we know what we can do to change things. Certainly keeping the content in there is not going to be a problem, but we're probably in the future not going to be quite as subtle. When I look around the IGN boards about Eternal Darkness, I see questions in there and think, well, wasn't that obvious? Some of the things we put in that we thought were sneaky people haven't even noticed yet. So we think that maybe we were too subtle and that maybe we need to put more action in.

If you look at games that I personally find very appealing, like Metal Gear Solid, they have huge amounts of flash and they've got the content as well. So I think that's the direction we're going to go in next time.



The new and improved Denis Dyack.


With Eternal Darkness, and I think this was in your review, if you sit down and play it for more than two hours you really get hooked. But if you only play it for 10 minutes, people will just go, the game is not here.

So yeah, I really can't fully explain why it [didn't do better]. But it's just like I can't explain why Blade Runner didn't do better at the box office either. But I loved it and we're really happy and there's not much we would have changed with it except for some more flash.

IGNcube: How big now is Silicon Knights?
Denis Dyack: Oh, I can see where this is going. We're over 75 people now.

IGNcube: Now everybody wants to know, how many projects are you working on for GameCube?

Denis Dyack: Well, the number of projects I can't say, but I can say projects. Unfortunately, though I'd love to tell you, we haven't made any announcements yet. But forthcoming, at E3, you'll have some information and you'll probably have lots to talk about.

IGNcube: Would this 'information' relate to multiple GCN projects or one game?

Denis Dyack: That's a good question and I don't know the answer to that yet. It's possible that it could be [more than one], but it's unlikely. We'll do the best we can at E3.

IGNcube: What is the status of Too Human?

Denis Dyack: [Pauses] The status of Too Human is... [ponders] ... the status of Too Human is good.

IGNcube: What do you mean by good exactly?

Denis Dyack: We're not going to make any announcements on Too Human until the time is right. When we can, you know I want to talk about that more than anything else, but it's just not the time yet. Sorry.

IGNcube: Eternal Darkness had a solid 3D engine going for it. What can we look forward to in technology from Silicon Knights' future GCN projects?

Denis Dyack: Well, a lot better. We actually wanted to do significantly more with the 3D engine in Eternal Darkness. And speaking of Too Human, it was running on a subset of the Too Human engine. Some smaller parts of it. We can actually do a lot more with the hardware and we're going to do a lot more with the hardware in our future projects. We'll be pushing the hardware significantly further with our next games.

IGNcube: With Eternal Darkness, you had so much FMV that you had to compress it down and the quality suffered. With that in mind, do you still feel Nintendo chose the right disc-size medium with GCN? And second, are you looking into DIVX for GameCube?

Denis Dyack: Well, certainly DIVX. We always look into technology that's useful. If it's the right answer we'll definitely go into that direction.

As far as the size of discs, I really think that it's very manageable and Eternal Darkness is a good example of that. Take Splinter Cell as an example -- there were very few cinematics in the game and we had more than six hours with Eternal Darkness. And then there's the issue of piracy, which is a big deal. I think that in the future it will become more and more of a big deal. Just look at the music industry and how MP3s have literally nearly destroyed it. So I wouldn't take anything back. Sure, sometimes it's nicer to have a little more disc room, but I think we've shown pretty adequately that it's not necessary.


IGNcube: Is there the possibility that your future projects could use multiple discs?
Denis Dyack: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. No question, no problem. That's never been an issue. If we really would have felt it was necessary, we could have gone with two discs for Eternal Darkness. There are some rumors floating around on the Internet that Nintendo won't allow you to go over one disc, but that's not true.

IGNcube: You worked really closely with Nintendo EAD on Eternal Darkness. Are you still doing that on your current projects for GameCube?

Denis Dyack: Uh-huh. Actually, it's almost a misnomer when we say we worked 'with' Nintendo. It's almost the same team.

IGNcube: Yeah. Can you explain to readers how you're partnering with EAD? How the process works?

Denis Dyack: I think I can. Basically, our teams are formed from members of EAD and Silicon Knights together and we work all the time. Often we'll fly to Japan and they'll come down often, and we do lots of conference calls.

I guess some people see it as a traditional third-party relationship with a publisher where some people set the schedules and you have producers, but it's not like that at all. Everyone is working really hard. Eternal Darkness was very much a collaboration and really feel like we're part of the family. People ask, well, did Miyamoto-san have significant input? The answer is yeah, tremendous amounts. It's their project just as much as it is ours. We're the same group.

IGNcube: At Space World 2000, we saw an FMV clip of Too Human for GCN. Can you explain to us what was going on in that clip?

Denis Dyack: If I did that I'd give away a lot of the marbles. I wish I could, I really wish I could comment on it. But when you see more stuff there will be some changes. Some better changes. We were actually very unhappy with that FMV. So, much like Eternal Darkness when it showed so long ago, I wonder if that was a mistake [showing that clip].

IGNcube: Too Human started out as a PlayStation game and a couple years ago you revealed some story details on that now-cancelled version of the title. Will the GCN game feature the same premise and storyline or will there be changes?

Denis Dyack: The good thing is that nobody really knew the story. However, there are some changes. They're all good and positive. But I think talking about Too Human at this point might be a bit early. This is true of all our games: anything you saw before we were with Nintendo will be a lot better with Nintendo. Even Legacy of Kain, which we were really proud of, would have been a lot better with Nintendo.

So all of that Too Human stuff you saw on the previous sites, we certainly don't go through radical changes or anything. Look for a significant melding of story and gameplay. More so than what you would have seen before.

IGNcube: Can you continue to produce games with thoughtful content and deep storylines of Eternal Darkness caliber?
Denis Dyack: We want to do more. We want to do more. So the answer is yes. I would say that they're going to get significantly better on many levels. I think with Eternal Darkness we took a step forward, but we're still very far away from our goal. This is an art form. If we're going to continue to make videogames an art form, there needs to be more content and we need to take it further.

Eternal Darkness was really the first finished product collaboration in our group. Next time we'll be able to take it further and do more. We'll be able to analyze some of the issues with Eternal Darkness. How are we going to take it to the mass market? What are we going to do to make sure it's more appealing instantly? Plus we're going to make the content better, more striking, and really try to hit the mark more so that we can take non-linear content to the next level where people start taking it as seriously as books.

IGNcube: Games are naturally becoming more like movies. Do you think games then need to be treated with the same production values of major movies? Given the same opportunity to flourish?

Denis Dyack: I actually consider the movie industry a subset of the videogame industry and I think it's going to go that way. The reason I say that is because the movie industry delivers linear content. Even if you look at a movie like Pulp Fiction, which is one of my favorite movies, even though people say it's a non-linear movie you still see it from beginning to end. Videogames, however, are really non-linear and what that means is that players are doing to do things in orders that you can't predict. As soon as you have something like that it changes everything. So all of the things you do, say as a director in a movie, you can cue the music here and there and you can make people feel a certain way. In a game, you can't always anticipate that. Initially Hollywood thought it could come into the games industry and do very well, but then it realized that the normal method is broken and all of those things that it knows just don't quite work.

What we did was look back into history and to figures like Aristotle and back when they were doing stage plays where the audience would interact with the actors on stage. That -- some 2,000 years ago -- is closer to videogames than the movies we have today.

At the end of the day, yes, the production values will continue to rise. With Eternal Darkness, which is just a small example, it was almost like we had three directors cuts of a movie -- slightly different stories and how you played it. Generally that's what they do after a movie has been released, the director's cut version. That's what we're doing now in the first cut. So if you give it 10 years or so, it's just going to get bigger. I think you're seeing a lot of creativity in our industry now. What's the hottest thing in the movie industry now? Videogame and comics. I think it's totally a matter of time before we're totally dominant.

IGNcube: What didn't you like about Eternal Darkness?

Denis Dyack: Well, I've already said we're very happy with it. But I think I would like to have put a difficulty setting in there. I hated the fact that some people got stuck and never saw the rest of the game. Certainly I'd liked to have balanced out the magic system slightly differently. I think that's really about it.



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IGNcube will have the remainder of the interview with Denis Dyack later today.

There's also a quicktime interview snippet, but I can't post that.

Just don't post this at n-philes, Derek!

Quote:Q: Will you show GameCube online games or LAN network games at E3 this year?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I can't really say a whole lot about E3 right now, but Nintendo is still at a point where we don't currently see online games as a business model being successful so I don't think you can expect to see any serious look at online games [for GameCube] at E3.

I do think that the communication aspect of networking and linking games together, including LAN games, is definitely very interesting, and we're going to look at ways to show that off at E3. Particularly linking the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube and linking four GBAs together.

Q: What about linking GameCubes together?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Unfortunately I can't say anything today [laughs].

Idiots... at least he didn't completely rule out LAN games, which leaves room for IPX Spoofers like Gamespy's one for Halo on X-Box...

Once again Shiggy seems confused more than anything regarding questions on the graphical style of WW. I don't think he even knows people here think the style is "childish" or removing the mood of the game. I bet he doesn't even see that at all, like most of Japan. I like that kind of ignorance! Charming sir!

Gamespy's spoofer isn't just for Halo, it works on EVERY SINGLE XBox net linked game, simply because it has no way of detecting what game it is, and it doesn't care WHAT data it's sending back and forth. You can go into the Halo chat room and link up two systems with TS2 easily. That's how "dumb" the system is. Just wanted to clarify.

Anyway, once again they seem to be missing the point. Online games alone don't equal sales. No, selling online games alone doesn't pay for themselves and net extra profit. However, the whole point is that selling online games makes the system more attractive, meaning more sales there, and that makes more games attractive aside from just online ones since they now have the system, so more sales there. It's indirect profit Nintendo! I however, am not certain if Miyamoto's respone is actually his own opinion or just what he's been told to say whenever they are asked about it. I suspect he deep down realizes how great online play would be, but his lips are sealed. He's a very creative guy, he has to see the amazing things he could do.

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Idiots... at least he didn't completely rule out LAN games, which leaves room for IPX Spoofers like Gamespy's one for Halo on X-Box...

Hey don't blame Miyamoto. He's not in charge of Nintendo, and he has said in the past that he's working on some online games. That's just a company line.

Haha, I just said that in not so few words, but I think you posted right after I edited my message... Yeah, like I said it seems he's forced to say it. So, it's whoever is currently on the board with enough power to keep online from happening.

Yeah. But I was replying to ABF.

Yeah, Nintendo very clearly just doesn't get online games in the remotest fashion... if they had a clue about them they wouldn't be talking about how it isn't the most profitable thing they can do and instead would say what Microsoft is -- that we'll lose money in the short run but the longterm benefits (in more users because of it, more public intrest in the system because of it and, eventually, money). They are thinking about it in a way that doesn't apply to the category... and its puzzling that they don't get it at all when online games have been around for so long. It just makes no sense... I really wish I knew how they come up with that logic, but I can't see any justification for saying that its bad... unless you're focused 100% on the shortterm bottom line and don't care about eroding consumer support, or annoyed fans because the other systems have it, or higher sales when you add online play... I just don't get it.

Oh, and Dyack sure is being evasive... but its cool that they're now working on more than one game.

Quote:IGNcube: Everyone loved Eternal Darkness. It was critically acclaimed across the board. You guys just won the award for best storyline. Why didn't the game sell better?

Denis Dyack: That's a good question and one that we've put a lot of thought into. Certainly it didn't sell horribly, thank God, but I look at it like a very successful independent film. My favorite film of all-time is Blade Runner. I'm a really big fan of the movie and think it was absolutely way ahead of its time. However, it failed at the box office. It failed horribly.

So we look at Eternal Darkness and we know what we can do to change things. Certainly keeping the content in there is not going to be a problem, but we're probably in the future not going to be quite as subtle. When I look around the IGN boards about Eternal Darkness, I see questions in there and think, well, wasn't that obvious? Some of the things we put in that we thought were sneaky people haven't even noticed yet. So we think that maybe we were too subtle and that maybe we need to put more action in.

If you look at games that I personally find very appealing, like Metal Gear Solid, they have huge amounts of flash and they've got the content as well. So I think that's the direction we're going to go in next time.

With Eternal Darkness, and I think this was in your review, if you sit down and play it for more than two hours you really get hooked. But if you only play it for 10 minutes, people will just go, the game is not here.

So yeah, I really can't fully explain why it [didn't do better]. But it's just like I can't explain why Blade Runner didn't do better at the box office either. But I loved it and we're really happy and there's not much we would have changed with it except for some more flash.

Very intresting... I wish I knew why it underpreformed too... poor advertising doesn't cover all of the reason. Its a great start (considering how bad it was), but it doesn't explain away the whole reason... its strange.

Oh, and the comment that ED was too obtuse and in the future they need to make things more obvious could be good... if done well. But one reason ED was so great was because of how different the game's atmosphere was... so I don't know if that would be a good change or not...

Very true about Nintendo's lack of online plans. They don't want to do it because they won't profit from it directly, but they don't understand they they would sell more consoles if they offered some great online games. How many people would buy a 'cube just for Mario Kart Online?

A lot, I bet.

I've heard rumors that Nintendo's working on a wireless LAN system for GameCube, but as of now I can't remember where I heard that. I'll try and find it for you guys.

Ugh...wireless... Don't get me started on that. The lag, the slight electrical interference from dark clouds overhead, it's just not good at all. That signal better be strong enough to give me headaches or it's not getting through very well...

As for ED, I thought it was way TOO obvious and they needed MORE subtlety, at least in the sanity effects. Are they talking story? I felt it was all pretty much obvious what was going on. I'd like examples of stuff people weren't getting.

Quote:As for ED, I thought it was way TOO obvious and they needed MORE subtlety, at least in the sanity effects. Are they talking story? I felt it was all pretty much obvious what was going on. I'd like examples of stuff people weren't getting.

Yeah... me too. I'd comment more, but I don't understand exactly what he means.

Quote:Ugh...wireless... Don't get me started on that. The lag, the slight electrical interference from dark clouds overhead, it's just not good at all. That signal better be strong enough to give me headaches or it's not getting through very well...

Yeah... I'd rather just use wires... they do get in the way, but they are more reliable...

Good job OB1.

Perhaps Nintendo is looking at exactly what we're looking at, knowing that online games cause more hardware sales and thus higher software sales, but it just doesn't fit their risk/reward model. That said, I completely disagree with Nintendo's decision. This brazan arrogance seems very similar to the N64 cart decision. "We will be unique. We will not pander to the audience (barring SSB:Melee, Mario Party 4, F-Zero, etc). We will walk to the beat of a different drummer."

My question: "What if the majority of the audience doesn't want to walk with you?"

If Nintendo actually is working on some sort of wireless LAN thing, don't worry. You guys know they don't do anything unless they can do it perfect. Remember all the WaveBird doubters when Nintendo first announced that? Oh, wireless controlers are so laggy and radio will never work and blah blah blah. But the Wavebird is flawless and NOW everyone thinks it's the greatest idea ever. Well, except for Microsoft employees. They still make jokes about it. I can't understand the punchline though.

I'm worried that Nintendo will only support a home LAN system. They seem to be so adamant that you need to all be in the same room to play and I hope they don't just see this as an extension of the GBA link cable. At least it's something, but I want to play my friends in other states (or countries), not across the street. I can do that already.

LL... hoping for a internet network from Nintendo at this point seems to be like hoping for a crash-free version of Windows... it'll never happen...

IGN Insider is evil... so much stuff in their console sections now is going into Insider... less in PC it seems, but a LOT in consoles. :(

What now? A hands-on preview of P.N.03...

I never said that it would happen. I said if they are making it, it will be good. I would be completely shocked if Nintendo ever gets a GameCube online network going.

Its hopelessly optimistic to hope Nintendo to change now about online... and hopeless optimism only leads to sadness when the thing never happens...

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
IGN Insider is evil... so much stuff in their console sections now is going into Insider... less in PC it seems, but a LOT in consoles. :(

What now? A hands-on preview of P.N.03...

*cough*gamespot complete*cough*

Gamespot doesn't put articles in Complete until a week after they write them... movies are often Complete, and all downloads are, but nowdays you expect that at sites like that...

All of their video previews and reviews are locked.