I’m happy with mine
NPR had a nice chat with long-time designer Shigeru Miyamoto about the origins of his characters and how he first got started with Nintendo a few decades ago. Lovely. He also opened up about the Wii U’s lackluster sales. Asked if the cost was an issue, Miyamoto said “I don’t think it’s just the price, because if the system is appealing enough, people will buy it even if the price is a little bit high. I think with Wii U, our challenge was that perhaps people didn’t understand the system.”
We’ve heard that sentiment before, but he also talked about how the Wii U fell behind in a fast-moving market and lost its [business guy voice] competitive advantage. “I think unfortunately what ended up happening was that tablets themselves appeared in the marketplace and evolved very, very rapidly, and unfortunately the Wii system launched at a time where the uniqueness of those features were perhaps not as strong as they were when we had first begun developing them.”
Miyamoto reiterated that, generally speaking, Nintendo wants to “find a console that has the best balance of features with the best interface that anyone can use,” not “end up in a race to have the highest-tech specs.” Something to keep in mind for the new NX console. “[W]e’re constantly trying to do unique and different things. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they’re not as big of a hit as we would like to hope. After Wii U, we’re hoping that next time it will be a very big hit.”
Q&A: Shigeru Miyamoto On The Origins Of Nintendo’s Famous Characters [NPR via NeoGAF]
