1st March 2003, 2:12 PM
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.
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...
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...