Forbes interview with Fils-Aime

I agree with FIls-Aime here. The demography of the Wii owners that are hardcore gamers is just as big as the people who own the other systems, maybe not as big as the 360’s is, but in the millions. So it’s strange that there aren’t as many hardcore titles for the Wii. Then again, as we all know, the wii’s big problem is that it lacks the horsepower. Next year Nintendo will show us a new Zelda, it will look great and be a good example on what can be done with the wii, graphically and interface wise. They have already shown us a great platformer with Mario Galaxy (although that title maybe wasn’t such a great showpiece for what could be done with the wiimote). Part of Nintendos problem is that they haven’t really shown to developers what the wii allows for in terms of ingenious new control schemes for hardcore titles (new, but not ingenious). Maybe this will be addressed with the new wii-mote, but as it is right now, they haven’t shown a title that makes developers of hardcore titles exited about developing for the wii. Maybe Fils-Aime needs to go an extra mile in courting people not normally asociated with gamedevelopment in making games for the Wii. Making games that resonate with the core Wii owner. I mean, a title such as Wii Fit has sold truckloads, one third of every wii owner owns Wii Fit (!). Maybe what I write here upsets a fanboy, but I’m not saying Nintendo should look the other way, and ignore courting 3d party developers of “GTA-like hardcore titles”, I’m just saying that they should look for developers that are interested in developing games that focus on the Wiimote.

It feels like the Wii’s interface is still fairly untapped for harcore titles, for casual titles. I mean, the Wii hasn’t even seen a Lemmings 3D like title using the wiimote, the closest thing has been BoomBlox, and that’s also a title that probably sells more than a Lemmings 3D title ever would since it’s easier to grasp (deconstructing genga), but hey, saving a few “lemmings”-like creatures with the wiimote would have been fun. Hm.. okey, maybe it’s wrong to say that the WIi’s interface is fairly untapped since there’s an onslew of party games on the Wii, games that use the wiimote in all sorts of new ways, there are bound to be some minigames that use it in original ways, but I’m talking about fun gameideas merged with a good 3D interface using the wiimote.

That’s a hit, and there appears to be very few people that are interesting in it. Sandbox games that give a more adapt meaning to the term (or at least where the reference is even more obvious).

Anyways, I’d just like to mention again, that I truly believe the next Zelda will be the definite showpiece for what can be done with the Wii interface in adventure games (1:1 swordfighting, bending the bow before releasing etc. etc.). And it will look great, it will definitely make fanboys irritated over the fact that most 3d party developers of hardcore titles have ignored the Wii due to better graphics on ps3 and 360. (Personally I get why these developers are going “ps3 and 360 exclusive”, they develop hardcore titles and the Wii hasn’t a larger hardcore gamer base than the other two, and it’s a shore to make those games run on the Wii.)

Nintendo ought to court developers who are good at making adventure games, since an adventure game “by nature” is more wiimote interface friendly due to the game not being about just one task. There are usually more actions that involves physics.

In a way, they have done that considering the release of “Disaster: day of crisis”, but I don’t know much about the title.

So sure Fils-Aime, court 3d party developers that make hardcore titles for ps3 and 360, but remember to above all look at the Wii’s strength and try to inititate the development of titles with “wii specific content”, that truly play on the strengths of the system, and since the wii is so weak when it comes to horsepower the best way to go is exlusive content, but it’s easy for me to say.

I think the the first draft of this article that disapeared was better than this, but I hope I included most of things I wanted to say here…  I wrote a long article here even though I didn’t have time to do it, and the article got erased without any explanation.. the explorer window just closed down..