Last week at GDC, Nintendo’s COO Reggie Fils-Aime spoke with Industry Gamers about Nintendo’s capabilities as a leading developer. Fils-Aime commented that the company is “not good” at creating core experiences for the Wii. More mature gaming experiences, titles such as Bioshock 2, just aren’t Nintendo’s thing.
The fact of the matter is we know we create great content for younger consumers. We know we’ve got great content for more casual players, and we want fantastic content for that more active player who loves Metroid or Zelda, but maybe also wants something like a BioShock 2 to play as well. And we also recognize that we don’t create that type of content ourselves. We’re not good at it and it’s not a key focus area. We want that content on our platform, so we have to court third-party developers and encourage them to make [those titles].
Despite acknowledging their unwillingness to create more core experiences, it’s great that Nintendo has been consistent at showing how much they need and want third party support for the console. I’d prefer Nintendo continue creating their near-flawless gaming experiences, as continuously do, and leave the hardcore titles to the third party developers.
