Duncan
L17: Mentor
Laurent Fischer speaks again
August 15th, 2006
NoE Head of Sales and Marketing Larent Fischer is interviewed once again, this time by the people in charge at Nintendo.fr. You will find a Google translation below, but honestly it isnt that bad. You can definitely get the gist of what is being said. Click the link at the bottom to read the full interview.
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Nintendo: How the reactions of people have changed they vis-a-vis the name Wii once they could play with?
LF: More striking, it is that the name Wii is now completely related to the console. Many people say that the only sound of the word Wii is connected with a smile and in a certain manner, it is the most important effect: to connect the console to the feeling and the emotions which one feels while playing with.
Nintendo: And which were the various reactions which you could see among people who played Wii for the first time?
LF: All the visitors who played Wii that I could see had the same reaction: the smile. This particular smile which one has when one discovers something which gives us pleasure, this single amazement which one can feel from time to time. And that was not only the case in E3 but to each time we presented Wii at the public in Europe
That comes owing to the fact that you renew your experiment of the play completely. You are in the middle of the play not by what you see but by what you feel and it is a so instinctive control and naturalness which the pleasure of playing is immediate.
Nintendo: Do you think that Wii puts the players hardcore and not-players on a more equal level?
LF: It is always funny to see the initial reaction of the player hardcore when it takes the Wii lever in hand. In Wii Sports Tennis, for example, the first thing which he says, it is: on which button do have I to support to be useful? And the answer is simple: there is to only move and it goes. And it is what they do and they start to smiling. As for the not-players, they do not ask how to press on the buttons because they do not know how it is supposed to function. We say to them just: play tennis and they play tennis naturally. It is incredible to see how people once opposite Wii feel the instinct naturally to play.
GoNintendo.com
Nintendo is the only one getting it right
August 15th, 2006
Carl Howe has posted on an NY Times article that discusses the image problem with video games. Apparently it still isnt cool to say that you spent part of your day playing video games. The example they use is
Think about it. If someone asks you what you did this weekend, and you respond, Ah, I was kind of tired and just hung out at home and watched a bunch of movies, thats normal. If you say, Ah, I was kind of tired and just hung out at home and watched a bunch of sports on TV, thats normal. But if you say, Ah, I was kind of tired and just hung out at home and played a bunch of video games, that is simply not a normal adult response in most social circles.
I dont know that that is entirely true, but that is an entirely different conversation. Based on that article, Carl Howe (Blackfriars Communications) wrote up a piece stating that he believes Nintendo is on the right path to make gaming more accepted by the masses.
Nintendo has the right idea in re-inventing the game controller to focus less on twitch button reflexes and more on the types of motions used in real-world activities. And innovative new games like Dance Dance Revolution have proved that other genres can succeedhe question is whether the gaming industry can evolve its marketing to address more than the niche it grew up with. So far, the answer to that question has been no. Lets hope that 2007 is the year when the answer becomes yes.
I have two questions for you guys. First up, do you believe in this mass negative stigma that the NY Times is talking about? Second, do you believe that Nintendo can permanently change the landscape of gaming for the better?
http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/15519