In an interview with Next-Generation, Nintendo’s George Harrison spoke about various important topics concerning the Wii and DS, and how things are changing for Nintendo compared with years past. You can read an excerpt below and hit the link for more.

Next-Gen: As far as the whole relationship between Nintendo and third parties goes, even you admit that Nintendo gave them the cold shoulder in past generations. Why the change of attitude?

Harrison: Well, I think there was a recognition. If you start back in the late ‘80s with the overwhelming success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, we were the only game and the only system in town, so the third parties kind of had to work with us. That began to change over the course of the ‘90s, as they had competitive options, particularly when the PlayStation came along and they were working on CD as opposed to cartridge. The economics sort of went against us there but we still acted as though [third parties] had to do games for us.

I think a combination of realizing that there was a symbiotic relationship there spawned a willingness to go out and give them more support and more tools and to show them how to add special aspects to their games to make them stand out. It’s really been helpful because one of the things we take pride in our developer support. Miyamoto looks at some of the games from some of the top publishers and gives his advice. That’s been very powerful for us in helping them feel like they can get a lot from us as well as be successful.

Next-Gen