Mild

Piracy & Free Software

2011-09-25T20:51:00.000+01:00

Free software, by definition of freedom, allows recipients to distribute the software freely with others, whether through home networks or bittorrent and regardless of scale. This is a culture that exists without piracy, or at least has put piracy in its proper place as sharing, even if that sharing can now take place with strangers across the globe. This has also meant, however, that many in the free software community fail to account for the very real effects that piracy has, either failing to acknowledge its existence or even in some circumstances taking the claims of the major proprietary software vendors that piracy harms their business as truth. This may not necessarily be expressed directly, but it seems the obvious logical end point when assumptions that free software cannot be sold or will be limited (profit wise) to a niche are presented.

To properly account for proprietary software dominance, not only must you take into account the exclusionary nature of rights granted in copyright and patent law, or the networks effects and switching costs, but fundamentally where much of that power comes from, and it's from piracy. The zero cost, wide distribution model that Free software pessimists conclude will limit business incentives is in fact a defining feature of the proprietary software world. It is something they acknowledge, that many have accepted, and in fact carries large advantages to the producers of such software, even as they publicly claim their business declining because of it¹. As Free software advocates talk doom and gloom about the inability to sell software and even the potential inability of certain sectors like the game industry to become FOSS due to zero cost, widespread distribution, proprietary companies admit the benefits they get from piracy that are allowing them to sell more software, in some cases to people and places they would not normally be able to reach either due to distribution inefficiencies or the high price of their own software.

As the SSRC's Media Piracy in Emerging Economies details:

In all the countries examined in this report, price competition and service innovation come primarily from competition among domestically owned media industries. The multinationals, our work suggests, simply do not have the incentives to offer significant price cuts in low- and middle-income markets, for fear that these will impact pricing in their larger, more profitable markets. In the software sector especially, piracy assists this policy by providing the vendors a form of de facto price discrimination that generates positive network effects for commercial products, while locking out “free” open-source alternatives. The Ponosov case suggests the complexity behind this balancing act—as well as the pragmatism of the Russian government in angling for advantageous deals with multinationals. The government’s strong stated commitment to open source appears to be just one part of this larger strategy of hedging and dealmaking.
Russia, P. 226, Sec2:212

As noted in the above quote, such strategy is not unique to any particular country. The main difference between countries like Russia and the US is simply the latters more developed economy and higher income, representing a later stage in the piracy myth propagation in which further rhetoric is used to dissuade piracy and a stronger position from which to appeal for stronger laws to effectively bully companies and individuals to pay licensing costs, all for what Richard Stallman might call an act of kindness if it weren't for the lack of freedom.

In our view, the Indian experience is consistent with the market development strategy outlined in chapter 1 of this report, in which the major software vendors (1) tolerate high levels of piracy in order to capture market share and lock out open-source competitors and then (2) progressively enforce licenses against the largest public institutions and organizations. Recent licensing deals with state governments in Karnataka and Maharashtra exemplify this second phase of operations, as do volume licensing deals with Hewlett-Packard and other locally- active equipment vendors, which ensure that new machines come pre-loaded with copies of Windows to discourage both pirate and open-source alternatives.

As elsewhere, the licensing deals are a gamble: they push public institutions into the legal software market but also increase the risk of large-scale adoption of open-source software as institutions think about their long-term software strategies. School-based open-source adoption programs, in particular, are widespread in India, with a large-scale pilot program in the state of Kerala providing the template for more recent adoption efforts in Karnataka, Gujarat, Assam, and West Bengal.

India, P. 404, Sec2:390

And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to students at the University of Washington, in 1998

What we have here is a paradox of thought. As the Free software community laments its (entirely assumed) inability to sell software in a low cost distribution environment, proprietary software is reaping the monetary rewards of a low cost distribution environment. As the Free software community wonders whether it can become as big as proprietary software with community development models, more and more proprietary vendors are incorporating those same methods into their own model, ever more relying on community testers, documenters, feedback and even contributions, complete with donations even(!).

Not only does proprietary software compete in an environment with free distribution of its own products, it exists in an environment that increasingly justifies it, rejects claims of harm and seeks to address its illegality at the very least in non-commercial forms, without an associated push for freedoms that would allow them to break the shackles of their own making that free software has long recognised. The fact that research and people within the industry recognise the benefits piracy can afford them leaves a push to legitimise at least non-commercial piracy as a process that will result in little true change for the major software vendors.

As I've described before, piracy, sharing or whatever else you wish to call it is in itself not a problem. What is a problem is the blockage in thought, the inability to think past zero cost that stops individuals and groups moving free software into profitable business ventures as a challenge to traditional proprietary norms. What we certainly don't need is to fall back on the myths perpetuated by proprietary vendors after spending 20 years fighting them.

¹ The Entertainment Software Association on piracy: http://www.theesa.com/policy/antipiracy.asp

A media piece from Gamepro that also tows this line, with focus on individual pleading about the harm of piracy with no real evidence presented on its effects good or bad: The Cost of Piracy

²Much discussion around FOSS games focuses on the inability to compete with free, typically resigning themselves to some reliance on "all rights reserved" or "some rights reserved" aspect, whether for code, art, or both.

http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2011/06/some-thoughts-on-commercial-foss-game.html

³More and more evidence and research is being built up in this area. In particular see:

Media Piracy in Emerging Economies

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

Lessons from Fashions Free Culture(Youtube)

The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada

Channels & Conflict: Response to Digital Media Distribution, Impact on Sales and Internet Piracy (Youtube)

File-Sharing and Copyright - Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf

If You Still Think Patents are for Inventors...

2011-08-11T03:35:00.002+01:00

Here's a quote from a book a family member recently picked up entitled "England in the Eighteenth Century (1714-1815)" by J.H. Plumb that I think quite nicely shows the folly behind the idea of patents solely as a social good to protect inventors:

Jealous of her own inventions and the supremacy of her industries, England viewed those of other nations with an envious eye. Naturally she welcomed Protestant refugees from France, Especially when they brought the secret of new industrial processes, but the most spectacular achievement in this field was by the brothers Lombe, an achievement which caught the nation's imagination. In Italy, the manufacture of silk yarn was highly mechanised, though its mechanization was a profound secret; but in 1716, John Lombe went to Italy and managed to steal plans of the machines which he and his brother, Thomas, patented on his return. A vast factory, 400 feet long, which became one of the sights of England, was built on an island at Derby. Unfortunately, John died but, in fiffteen years, Thomas had made a fortune of £120,0000 and earned a knighthootd. In 1732, the patent lapsed, but a grateful Parliament bestowed £14,000 on Thomas and the industry, now open to all, spread rapidly.

Wikipedia doesn't have much more detail, but when you see stories like this it does tend to highlight how systems like patents and copyright aren't at all what they're made to be publicly, in the past nor the present.

Freedom vs Freedom revisited

2011-08-07T22:39:00.004+01:00

I've already written previously about the tension between BSD/Apache-license views and those of the copyleft GPL persuasion, mainly with the aim of pointing out that what is being fought over is 2 different ideals of freedom. However, I think there are some further points to add to the discussion, particularly in the role of the view of copyright that an individual has and how that affects their views of software licensing.

First, to summarise and help make clear my previous points:

BSD/Apache style licenses favour a maximum choice view, in which the ultimate freedom is the ability for a developer to make a choice about how their own written code and opened code they receive can be distributed and follow through with that choice being enforced, even if that choice may not be considered the most beneficial to everyone as a whole (but may be particularly beneficial to the individual).
The Copyleft/GPL style licenses favour a net benefit view, in which core, important freedoms are protected for everyone who receives the code at the expense of the ability of some to make or impose a certain choice for the wider benefit of society in ensuring all receive the same rights and opportunities as others.
That either way, choice is inevitably removed from someone, the only difference being whom they favour (recipients or distributors). With this realisation, arguments about what grants the most freedom become obvious as red herrings, and that we should keep to debates on the fundamental merits of either view and also their relation to society.

However, I have also seen the tendency that such alignment to a particular preference of license may also arise not just out of deeper beliefs, but assumptions and beliefs about the nature of copyright law itself. In some cases, those who prefer "permissive" licenses appear to have the belief that copyright law is as much a matter of property as owning a car or a house, in that code they write is as much their property as any physical item to use, sell, rent and generally dictate terms of use. It's a belief in copyright as property¹ (see the term intellectual property that also gets used in this context), one which has become more and more prevalent, and in turn promotes ideas of infringement as theft, in which the use of a work or the unauthorised sharing is as much stealing as breaking into someone's house and relieving them of their TV².

With research however, they would find this is a view that does not really exist within most concepts of copyright. Indeed, within the US, copyright as granted as a temporary privilege for the means of creating a net benefit to society, not as a property right, and as such Congress has no requirement to provide copyright should there be seen as no net benefit to society³. To espouse the maximum choice/code as property view as the ultimate freedom is to actually be in direct contradiction with the intended purpose of copyright law that the enforcement of such licenses depends on.

Copyright is a function of social benefit. There was no theory of property behind its conception and not because they hadn’t thought of copyright and patents in this way, but because this view had been outright rejected⁴, with similar views behind copyright law in other countries too. There are a variety of reasons and views as to why copyrighted works should not be considered property, primarily of which is the simple notion that my copy or use of an idea or particular expression of an idea is not one that is exclusive of yours - my downloading and sharing of your song for example does not mean you no longer have that song as in theft, the only assumption is that my non-exclusive distribution of your song may interfere with your potential market for selling or licensing the use of said song. However, such an assumption is less and less supported by reputable evidence, particularly as new means of distribution, development and subsequently new business models have emerged⁵.

Because of this, economic assumptions as to why a BSD style license is needed or is outright better than a GPL style license are also becoming increasingly thin. If the assumption of being “more free” is a red herring, if a smaller group of copyright-as-property thinkers find themselves not supported by the view of the law, and the economic assumptions for why a BSD license may be needed contradict the research, what is left beyond a need to conform to legacy assumptions and restrictive business models?

1. For a variety of examples of such a view, you need only google. Here however are a few immediate examples:
http://volokh.com/2003_09_07_volokh_archive.html#106337644830524885

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/openoffice-libreoffice-and-the-scarcity-fallacy.html#comment-20637

http://www.copyhype.com/2010/10/should-copyright-be-treated-like-property/

http://volokh.com/2009/10/06/copyright-and-the-why-of-property-talk/

http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/06/does-it-matter-if-copyright-is.html

2. Once again, a mere Google search will find plentiful examples of such a view: http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/07/13/digital-theft-agreements-a-good-start/

http://www.copyrightaware.co.uk/learning-about-copyright/copyright-theft.asp

http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/combat

http://www.fightfilmtheft.org.uk/

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/site/about/faq.htm

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=What-is-Online-Piracy

http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/types-of-content-theft

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

3. “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Copyright_Clause

4. “Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.” Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html

5. A wide variety of research that contradicts popular assumptions about copyright, patents and their utility is available from a number of sources, including even Governments that themselves enact stonger laws:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423

Hargreaves Report

http://www.ivir.nl/publications/helberger/EIPR_2008_5.pdf

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/80-of-artists-would-get-30year-from-copyright-extension

Gowers Review

Media Piracy in Emerging Economies

Against Intellectual Monopoly

http://www.thepublicdomain.org/

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/h_ip01456.html

http://adage.com/article/digital-columns/media-cos-customers-p2p-users/138587/

http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/publications/summary/11010021.html

Either Way, Choice Is Removed

2010-08-19T09:19:00.007+01:00

Often when a debate between GPL or BSD style licenses erupts, the matter of discussion focuses on choice. Typically, it is said GPL removes choice, and is subsequently detrimental, wrong or even draconian because of this. GPL has a unique characteristic compared to BSD in that if forces developers who decide to share software to do so in a way they may not want to (provide source code), thus removing choice and is a bad license for doing so. What this neglects however is that BSD style licenses allow and were created specifically for such instances when someone would want to remove choice from others - it is a license that also encourages the ability to remove choice from others.

The fundamental difference between the two is a matter of perspective. The GPL and software freedom movements started from the perspective of a recipient of software, a user who may or may not know how to develop a program. Proprietary software is bad it is said because the user has no say in how the code can or can't be used - they are dictated to by someone else, and most commonly in ways that do not allow redistribution or modification. The recipient has a disadvantage in not being as knowledgeable as to how the code works and what it does, and should they have problems, have little personal empowerment to do something about it unless it is assumed the provider is inclined economically or otherwise to do so. The GPL attempts to rectify this so that whomever the recipient is and their status, they always have some means to practice this freedom, have control over their lives and their machines that perform important tasks in their lives.

The BSD style licenses assume the perspective of a developer, who wants full ability to decide what they can do with their code at any time, and should they be the recipient of any opened code, to maintain full ability to decide what to do with that code - enforce privacy or to release it openly. Freedom in this case is the freedom to have a complete decision opportunity over the code you write and potentially code you receive should someone else have opened theirs, whilst having that decision enforced or protected (by copyright law), perhaps most often for economic reasons (the assumption that selling copies of software is the only "real" business is fairly ripe)¹.

The license assumes the role of someone creating or distributing, but with no regard for recipients should a decision be made to keep the code private even if the software is distributed publicly in binary form. BSD allows for creators and distributors to have freedom, but not recipients should the creator decide it not important or economically to their advantage to do so. BSD style licenses enforce the ability to remove choice from others should you so decide.

The perspective of the likes of the FSF and Richard Stallman however was not so distracted by the tension between choice and who should be "restricted", but was on which choice was of more social importance and benefit. The wider view is not about whether someone should have choice or not, but whether or not that choice is of more wider social benefit, and the consequences of the means with which those choices are enforced, often in ways that are of large social detriment like draconian DRM laws.

GPL and free software inspired licenses are reactions against what are seen as unjust laws and incorrect assumptions about the social and economic consequences of software development and distribution, whilst BSD style licenses are reactions that support those same old assumptions that a software developer or distributor may need to restrict the recipients primarily for economic reasons. Richard Stallman and his creations of the FSF and the GPL were attempts at social change against negative social forces, whereas BSD style licenses are aimed at providing maximum commercial opportunity, even if there may be other social costs involved.

1. FreeBSD documentation asserts ill thought out assumptions and generalisations about the economics, practical effects and intentions of the GPL for example:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/gpl-advantages.html

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/bsd-advantages.html

and another article was written asserting similar ideas under the guise of finding a “real” business model:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=sprewell_licensing&num=1

The Business of Free Software

2010-07-12T12:53:00.011+01:00

The question has come up often: how do people and companies make money in the free software world? How can you make money from something that is freely available, both in price and from other distributors who can take the source code, compile it and offer it on their own terms without being restricted by you, the creator.

However, this is a false dichotomy. It assumes that either you must have control or even a monopoly over distribution to make money, or make nothing at all. In many ways, it over values the ability to restrict people. When the question is asked in this way, it almost suggests that it's about restricting your users to extract money out of them. Customers may feel this way some times when having used or bought certain products, but that's not the point at all. The point is, what are you providing that I can't provide for myself?

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Promote The Distro, Not The Kernel.

2010-05-30T16:41:00.003+01:00

There has always been discussion about how the Linux world is confusing. One aspect has always been distributions - there are so many choices, when someone says Linux or wants to switch to it, how should they know what form to switch to? However, this to me seems like fundamentally the wrong question. People don't care that Windows uses NT (which NT do I get? Vista, 7? XP?) or Mac using FreeBSD. In both these cases you have the same fundamental issue - a fairly common base (NT, FreeBSD) with some modifications and changes for a particular use case. Slap some branding on it (Windows 7, Mac OS X) and that's what you promote.
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Observation: Proprietary Development in an Open Source World

2010-05-24T01:48:00.002+01:00

A lot of the time, certainly from the proprietary world, there are complaints when developing for Linux about fragmentation. Fragmentation, fragmentation, fragmentation. Despite efforts like FreeDesktop.org, LSB, general inheritance each distribution has from the other and other work for interoperability between desktop environments and Linux distributions, we are told there's too much to have to learn and consider when developing for Linux and its offspring from developers making the transition. However, it's important to note that there is a larger difference here than the operating system; it's the development model.

In proprietary land, especially for smaller developers, you take on much of the work yourself, whether that be as an individual or small group. This creates practical problems of scaling. Scaling to supporting multiple platforms, and scaling specifically in the Linux world to supporting and testing various distributions. This can be mitigated somewhat by the relative size of the project, but indeed the issue here is of time and help, which proprietary development models restrict to that small subset of developers.

Suffice to say, a proprietary developer coming into the FOSS development world is at an inherent disadvantage. The very same things that make FOSS development models advantageous both on the consumer and development side creates difficulties for proprietary development to keep up with or to scale to. FOSS development models increase scalability of the development of any project.

The Linux world makes more sense from a free software/open source view, as the work load can get shared out. When its a smaller subset of people figuring it out on your own and from lack of prior experience, then it stacks against you a lot more. Someone finds your game doesn't work on Gentoo? The work load is entirely on you. Someone finds a weird obscure bug on openSUSE that makes the cursor disappear? The work load is on you.

The Carrot & Stick of DRM

2010-04-29T21:52:00.008+01:00

An odd thing has been happening in the entertainment industries insistence that piracy is a problem is that DRM has been a problem for their customers. DRM by design is broken for legitimate customers - it only serves to restrict what they can do both legally and illegally with products they've bought, whilst so called pirates continue to enjoy media unrestricted in one form or another. To get around this, companies have been tying "real" features to the DRM, and using it as a carrot to lure you into buying restricted products.
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Why Don't Linux Games Sell?

2010-04-24T01:13:00.006+01:00

After my previous post hoping to show that games on Linux can indeed sell, and sell significantly, this begs the question. Why haven't previous games on Linux sold that well, or indeed, why have few companies pounced on the opportunities seen and even actively recognised by indies?

Here I hope are the most clear and insightful reasons as to why this hasn't been historically realised, or even simply hasn't happened. Further insights and ideas, as always, are welcome.
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Don't Assume Piracy is a Problem

2010-04-21T21:42:00.003+01:00

One of the most fundamental mistakes in assessing this new world brought about by the internet and what it means for distribution and business (or more accurately, the business of distribution) is to assume that piracy - file sharing, illegal or otherwise - is a problem. To assume piracy is a problem is to assume that inefficiency is good, that inefficiency is needed and that to maintain it for the sake of maintaining certain sources of income and jobs is the right thing to do.
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The Most Amazing Band You've Never Heard Of

2010-04-18T17:13:00.000+01:00

There are lots of bands out there that are great. There are plenty more out there that you've never heard. Occasionally, there are bands that belong to both groups, and this is one of them.

The House of Soviet Eyewear (T.H.O.S.E. for short) is a fantastic band. Great lyrics with a powerful and distinctive lead singer combined with an odd electronic/dance/industrial mix that makes for an amazing night out for the ears. The problem? They happen to fall into the latter category of no one having heard of them. In fact, so little known there seems to be no information on them.

The only information and songs from them I've been able to find has been their myspace page, where I happened to rip the songs from said page in a lack of any other source for their music.

http://www.myspace.com/thehouseofsovieteyewear

Taken from the page:

T.H.O.S.E. - (The House Of Soviet Eyewear) Coke is it! Something D-O-O Economics, Perestroika and, the palpable prospect of Global Thermonuclear War, heady fodder for adolescent insomnia, set to the back drop of lavish Fairlight production, beat-box breakdown, mix-tape mélange and faux flower-power anachronism.

Seriously, I can't find anything. Nothing on the usual places like last.fm, Wikipedia and nothing in various forums and other places via Google searching. No information on released album and no information on where to get them. It's almost as if this band doesn't exist, except that they do. They must. Their music exists, their myspace page exists and the little info it has. But alas, nothing across the entire interwebs of hyper tube information.

Please, is there anything out there on them?

Linux Users Do Buy Things After All

2010-04-03T15:41:00.021+01:00

Most Linux users (especially gamers) have probably heard the meme at some point about how Linux people won't buy stuff, because they're cheap or they're used to getting stuff free.

There is growing evidence that this isn't true. There's been a recent groundswell of support from indie game developers to support Linux, with exactly the principle that they're willing to buy, and do so in a disproportionate way relative to the market share figures usually touted as reasons to not support Linux.
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Ideas To Fund FOSS Games

2010-03-30T09:29:00.015+01:00

There's a tendency for people to side with the assumption that there's no way that game makers can make money with an open source/Free software model, or that to make higher quality games you need to sell them. I hope to dispel that idea by showing and coming up with models in which selling access to the game itself isn't a necessity, or only forms a small part. More ideas and improvements upon existing ones are welcome and encouraged - I'm sure plenty of you have your own ideas.
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A Note On Proprietary vs Open (Or Both)

2010-03-07T18:39:00.001Z

Actively choosing closed technology even when free software is available always gives up certain abilities and/or rights, and creates situations where it's easier for small groups to maintain control over the masses.

Ideals that present the logic of being able to choose both between free software and proprietary as a workable or even the best situation forget the basis of closed technologies - that they aren't just personal secrets, but are often backed by law and seek to enforce that closed nature onto other companies and end users, including hindering the creation of free software to provide or inter-operate with them. By doing so, they seek to negate certain things that are seen as important abilities and even users rights, inherently making the combination of the 2 ecosystems incompatible unless you accept proprietary software as not any kind of problem for users, developers and technology development as a whole.

Being able to choose between open technologies and free software and proprietary software is barely even a choice if you want to maintain a completely free and open market for software and ideas.

Choice isn't just about how many players work with x codec, it's about allowing the creation and maintenance of choice in situations where it hasn't previously existed or is becoming limited, in which free software and open technologies inherently encourage. Proprietary software doesn't - it helps limit and reinforce the decline in choice, and helps further the creation of new monopolies where neither businesses both new and old nor users are able to break it - certainly not within a reasonable time frame to not be harmful to both.

On Sales > Web Stats and Linux Popularity

2010-02-06T05:55:00.002Z

There is often a large amount of focus when tracking market share to use web statistics. This seems to stem partially from the fact that not every OS on a users computer is installed pre-sale, and the fact that Linux is typically not sold in the traditional way. The most dominant business model is often support, but a lot of users don't always require the kind of support that the likes of Red Hat make their bread and butter on.

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How To Survive In The Linux Jungle

2010-01-31T19:08:00.030Z

This guide will act as the man with the short shorts and explorer hat for those of you moving to Linux, interested in Linux, or have heard of Linux but can't remember where and constantly wake up in cold sweats at night dreaming of killer penguins, feeling their life being overshadowed by this constant feeling of something in the shadows, the cold, dark, snowy shadows stalking them.

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This May Shock You

2009-12-16T19:53:00.000Z

This may even appaul you. Undoubtedly, I will be called names in the street and spat on as a traitor to gaming and my fellow brethren. I may even get death threats.

I'm enjoying the original NES Zelda more than "new" Zelda.

Blasphemy! It's barely even SD!

Newer Zelda is great. It has lovely cinematics using techniques borrowed from film and TV to make you feel for the characters, large open vistas and dramatic "epic" stories. It even regularly goes from day to night, allowing you to bask in the morning light whilst occasionally changing things as it goes. It goes to all sorts of lengths to create a feasible world that you're a part of, trying to save against unfathomable odds. It also goes to great lengths to always give you something to do. Can't be bothered doing the next area? How about helping your neighbour catch chickens, or even a cat? Failing that, there's always numerous collectibles in some form. How many hearts do you have again?

Hey, don't worry if you're a newbie, each game starts with some form of tutorial, and you've got plenty of time before you get through it so you've got a great chance of learning everything you need to.

Lots of time has obviously been spent on crafting the music, with great, orchestral sounding tunes that could stand in their own right as of a kind you'd attribute to some of the great classical composers. From haunting melodies to big epic scores, it's fantastic stuff.

But there's one thing about it. it just can't beat the original for fun.

There's less time hunting heart pieces, less time trekking across beautiful yet empty expanses and less time listening to owls over explain everything to the point of nausea, and the fact that I get extra "epic story" or that when his head turns upside down it looks like a face doesn't make it OK. There's less time spent mucking around tutorial areas, simply letting you get on with it and not interfering one iota. You want your sword? Here, have it, with plenty of enemies scattered all over to use it against. Most of all, it's consistently challenging, with little artificial constraints and plenty of secrets. You're almost always wandering whether blowing up that part of the wall or burning that bush down will reveal a new secret, whether it be extra rupees or even a new tunic. Fair well obvious and out of place texture, you want that new tunic, you have to earn it!

More revealing about how the Zelda series has changed from its roots is that the original is primarily an action game, compared to the more recent series focusing more so on puzzles rather than challenging and varied enemies. Zelda even had a system where enemies got harder as you got better long before the likes of Valve's Gabe Newell were up to even 13 stone, let alone thinking about "Director" systems, constantly gaining in speed the further you progressed through the games successively more difficult dungeons and gained more hearts with new enemies awaiting you further on, rather than endlessly recycled ones.

Items you gained also remain useful throughout, whether it's offensive items to be used against enemies or to gain access to new areas. As enemies get faster, bombs become more useful as you go on, along side the boomerang and arrows. Hey, do you think it's possible to move that statue and find something awesome?

After having slogged my way through various rooms, slaying many enemies and finally defeating that bastard of a boss, I am not left with a heart felt, overly produced video that attempts to inject some sorrow or sadness for killing this boss as he was just a simple spider with a gigantic eye trying to provide for its kids, or telling me that all of that was pointless because the damn deku tree died anyway. Instead, I am left with my own accomplishment. I know I beat him, the game knows I beat him, and both of us realise the achievement that was in avoiding several balls of flame whilst also trying to expertly place bombs in his hectic path. That is all I need. Oh, and that triforce piece thankyouverymuch. My thumbs are getting itchy for more action, more challenge, so I need to find the next entrance quickly.

Somehow, the Zelda series has been bogged down by cruft and malformed ideas about what the series is, especially in the move to 3D. In a similar way to how 3D Mario malformed from being pure platformer to half-breed adventure game with racing sections and monkey ball and oh-God-more-wacky-changes for seemingly no good reason, the Zelda series has been malformed. Through ideals of "cinematic" story telling, the move to 3D and all sorts of other input, the Zelda series has also transformed from being a pure action arcade style game to a prolonged puzzler with epic story elements and oh-God-more-wacky-changes for no good reason.

I enjoyed previous 3D Marios, as I have previous 3D Zeldas. They're still a far cry from what made them great in the first place however, and it's only with the return of SMB Wii have I felt it's recaptured what made the original Super Mario Bros series so great to the point where they made Mario more mainstream than he's ever been since, and in turn brought about a kind of interest and excitement I haven't felt since the original Super Mario Bros. Perhaps it's time Zelda did the same, and returned to its roots, and with the perfect opportunity to do so.

If the successful reception of the return of classic Mario form is anything to go by, then it seems to me to bode only too well for a return to classic Zelda form, before the series malformed.

Modern Warfare 2: Definitely Suffering

2009-11-30T18:57:00.002Z

The effect of the negativity around various aspects of the PC version has now been set in my mind. check the latest UK chart:

Week Ending November 28

Source

The number on the left is the previous position in the chart, the right is the current position. The symbol represents up, down, new (a star) or stayed the same. The PC version has now nearly dropped out of the charts within 3 weeks. Once again, 360 and PS3 versions are still selling. The previous chart had it drop 15 places after its first week at sale:

Week Ending November 21

Source

More specifically, last week the 360 version was at number 1, whilst this week it's at number 2. The PS3 version is currently 6, down from 3.

What Microsoft Thinks of Windows

2009-11-29T14:58:00.003Z

The Overhead is Management, not Employees

2009-11-28T12:18:00.003Z

A great little video - the people who aren't properly laying the foundations for the future should be fired during a recession, not the employees.

Dell UK Hates Ubuntu

2009-11-27T17:56:00.012Z

Trying to find out whether Dell UK still has any idea of Ubuntu on its site, I eventually stumble across this page:

Choose WINDOWS if:

You are already running WINDOWS programs (e.g. Microsoft Word, iTunes, etc) and want to continue using them

You are familiar with WINDOWS and do not want to learn new programs for email, word processing etc

You are new to using computers

Choose UBUNTU if:
You do not plan to use Microsoft WINDOWS

You want to learn new programs for email, word processing etc

You are interested in open source programming

It's not so much that I disagree with the points in themselves, but the wording. It presents the idea that you will have to learn new programs in all cases (never mind if you already use Firefox, Opera, Pidgin. OpenOffice or Skype in Windows). I don't know what it is, but something about it just immediately presents as if it's a very high barrier, of which in my experience (personal and otherwise) is rarely the case - often it's the irrational fear, not the reality that dissuades people from using Linux.

The last one I very much disagree with however. There is little reason why a completely new user will find Ubuntu more difficult than Windows. Dell even provides the custome interface (pictured) that in itself helps expose applications well. Note how they seem to use Control Panel in Windows as if it's the same thing. They even pre-install non-free codecs and a DVD player so out of the box new users can play their existing content.

The page for an Ubuntu machine is also fairly well buried - It's very specifically on the laptop pages, on the Inspiron series only, where at the same time it mentions Ubuntu, leading you either to the pictured above, or the next page, which whilst is meant as a warning, comes across much stronger.

Dell UK Ubuntu Page

UBUNTU is an open source operating system – so is not compatible with Microsoft WINDOWS or any WINDOWS based programs

Completely in contrast to WINE, which is actually carried in the repositories for Ubuntu - although I can understand why they wouldn't want to mention it, saying there is not compatibility at all is an outright lie.

Most open source programs are not compatible with Microsoft programs

Pidgin, Empathy, Emesene and others work with Live Messenger IM network amongst others, OpenOffice can read and write Office formats. Those are the only major ones I can think of apart from iTunes - although Microsofts latest Office and Wordpad versions can read/write the open format ODF.

Modern Warfare 2 Suffering?

2009-11-26T21:25:00.006Z

All of the bad press over the lack of dedicated servers amongst other things may have had the impact some were hoping it would. Far from sales asserting to Infinity Ward that people will take what they're given, the opposite seems to have happened.

Note the very sharp drop in sales - from 5 to 20 in 1 week, whilst 360 and PS3 still sell. Word of mouth has seemingly gotten around, and MW2 is suffering for it.

I wander if this has happened in the US?

Don't Mistake Access for Content

2009-10-05T04:35:00.002+01:00

The biggest difference between now and then (then being even just 10 years ago) is obviously the way in which we can access content. The way in which we can access our films, TV shows and music is easier, quicker and more convenient. The increase in cost for this near unrestricted access has been very little, if not actually decreased in cost substantially.

Rather than taking advantage of this near unlimited ability to copy and distribute to their advantage, many of the incumbent entertainment and media companies have revolted. They have eschewed the dramatic reduction in cost for distribution, and used the likes of DRM to block off others from getting their e-hands on these works apart from whom they have given permission to. What would make them take what seems to many others an opportunity, including both typical customers and the creators of works themselves, and turn it into something that threatens the very foundations of their “industry”?

There are 2 fundamental ideas they appear to be attached to. The first of which is that the decrease of cost in making something available and the subsequent availability is directly tied to value of the works they're outputting. In other words, their view is that a large portion of how much people value the entertainment is based on how much access you have to it, and subsequently a significant portion of their money is made almost entirely based upon how rare said work is, or at least how you obtain it.

The second and more likely option is that they have mistaken the reason for why people pay a larger sum for CD but are happy to copy for nothing over the internet. They have forgotten that a large part of that value and therefore the money that the consumer paid was in fact for the convenience of the printing and distribution of works for public consumption, and not because they necessarily genuinely valued the work itself at such a price. In other words, one of the main reasons people paid was for convenience - the convenience of owning a CD or vinyl copy for use at home to be able to listen to the songs they liked almost whenever they wanted to. With the onset of the internet and digital distribution, this cost has reached near zero. You don't even have to involve a (typical) publishing company any more.

This both threatens the mainstay of their business (the distribution of and subsequent sales of music) but may also lead to wrong conclusions that the reason people aren't paying for music any more is because they're basically thieves who have little thought for the recourse of their actions on the "industry". Their mentality so rooted in the physical distribution world that it blinds them, and having forgotten why people were paying such a large part of the price was for the service they provided (convenience in being able to obtain a personal copy), and not for the music itself.

They have mistaken the value as not being so much for the content, but for the availability of it. Thus, significant sharing and availability that isn't explicitly controlled by them is bad. They have tied the cost of access to a work to the fundamental entertainment value of the work. This might be partially born out of their business model - most of these companies, whether they be record companies or rather overly large film studios are primarily publishers/distributors. They're business model - and perhaps "value judgement" is based largely on the access to a work, or more accurately, the inability to access a work without them.

Let's take one step back and go back to where this all starts: Your local store. When you buy the latest physical copy of an album, game, film or other work, you are not only saying "I value the content of this work enough that I will gladly pay the price", you are saying "I value the convenience that this work being printed on CD/DVD affords me in being able to access the content". Construing the 2 as one in the same seems to be the fundamental problem.

The point of a publisher in whatever form is to act as a gateway - a company that provides a service of giving you the ability to access a work through making copies of it, especially at a large scale. Costs of reproduction and the complexity of reproduction was too high of a barrier to most people, and so publishers stepped in acting as the middle man between the artist wanting to give larger groups of people the ability to see and hear their works and the customer who wanted said works.

If they are making the above mentioned mistake of equating value of access as so closely tied if not inseparable from value of content then that turns into a frightening prospect. They're job being to provide access, when the cost of access is decreasing and availability is increasing, leads them to believe that higher availability is bad, and that sharing of the works is bad. It leads to the assumption that availability is directly reducing how much people value the works themselves, rather than simply a reduction in how much they value the service of providing access.

Thoughts on How Information Spreads and How Misinformation Harms Us

2009-04-20T03:30:00.005+01:00

Whilst there are plenty of problems with the sources of news, the way that news spreads and peoples own way of re-telling and piecing together the information they get amongst each other and through out society can cause just as much harm or good as the reporting itself. The effects of bad reporting or lack of complete information can create nightmares for individuals, companies and politicians as the effect then becomes magnified by the way that information spreads and people try to make sense of the relevant information, and the effects of wild fire gossip on its own can distort information and peoples own views, especially if the media picks back up on that reaction as part of its reporting. This essentially creates an echo chamber, causing disparity between what should be known as fact and fiction, leaving an impenetrable mess of notes and vibrations leaving it impossible to be left with a clear view of anything.

The People

First, lets point out fundamental things about the very individuals and groups that become part of and help accentuate this mess.

A fundamental point point about people in general, and no, it is not that they're inherently evil...no, it is not that they're idiots. No, it's not that we're all involved in a giant inter-continental game of Chinese Whispers. It's that we as people simply do not always have the time nor inclination to keep as close track of the multitude of subjects and hundreds of different things that happen every day. Everything comes to us through many filters we have consciously or unconsciously built, rather like the automatic sorting of spam in your email inbox, amongst potential tagging features that allow you to mark different pieces of mail not just under different topics, but of importance (with the 2 not being mutually exclusive).

A good talk on a subject very similar and has influenced my thinking on this called Filter Failure not Information Overload, which addressed the point that it may not be information overload that is a problem for us moving into a world where we're even more constantly bombarded with information and such on a daily basis, as humanity has always been facing what always seemed an insurmountable amount of information to absorb, but a fundamental filter failure in how we address and handle the information we both send and receive in the modern age.

Because people do not always have the time nor the interest/inclination, this means they are more likely or will definitely miss various amounts of information depending on how far out the topic is from their "core" interests, their social connections, etc. Subsequently, this means the knowledge they do have is likely to be incomplete. Also here comes the social interaction part - they end up relying on or receiving information through friends or family. Second hand information that will likely be simplified for the sake of conversation and brevity. If this process goes through a chain of several people, whilst quicker and easier to digest for someone less interested (and who probably won't take much note anyway), means a far higher likelihood of the absence of potentially important minor and major details. This leads to certain assumptions or overall views being constructed from incomplete knowledge. This is not absolutely dire in all situations though, as sometimes certain issues or topics are just that simple to grasp. However, in quite a few cases leads to what might be important topics having their debates and idle chit chatter coloured and skewed, purely because the information was not there or available to them to be able to take a solid, grounded stance (no matter which side of the fence they're on).

The Vacuum

Are we suddenly heading out into space? Is Scotty going to beam me up just to tell me TL;DR?

No. Sadly for you the reader, I do not have the budget for such extravagant special effectences to put down on paper what would surely be wondrous passages of text that you could only imagine.

Using the word vacuum in this case refers to a vacuum of information. When Ripley opened the airlock doors, air rushed out along with several weeks of rubbish that had built up, rushing to fill that empty void, the vacuum of space at work. Much the same applies here. As already touched upon, given a lack of clear information, assumptions, "educated" guesses and judgements based on common sense will rush to fill the void. Effects will vary, but this causes a minimum of slight confusion or misappropriation, and a maximum of infinite internet memes, massive misunderstanding and undermining of the very topics and discussions themselves, to the point where all sides will be convinced that they are right, but when pressed, will never be able to tell you why or how they truly and rationally came to that conclusion. Their beliefs will simply be repeated as if they are obvious and discussions will either break down or become an endless cycle of arguing. If this were applied to society at large, it may even lead to violence and war.

Iwata's Views

2008-11-13T07:48:00.022Z

Think Iwata doesn't know compiling money from compiling software? You think he just plays with bean counters and cancels new Zelda and Mario titles all day? Think again.

GDC 2005

On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.

Today I'd like to speak to you from my heart about jobs and about our industry. I remember the first videogame I ever played. It was Pong - and I loved it! By the time I was in high school, I was the first person in my class to buy an early Hewlett Packard Pocket Calculator. I think I was one of the original early adopters. But where most people used their calculators for higher mathematics, I used mine to program videogames. My first creation was a baseball game. I don't think anyone can say it had bad graphics because it had no graphics. Gameplay was represented only by numbers. But when I saw my friends playing that game and having fun, it made me feel proud. To me, this was a source of energy and passion. As that passion for games began to blossom, I think my life course was set.

Perhaps the biggest moment in the history of HAL came when we heard the rumor that Nintendo was developing a machine capable of incredible new graphics: The Famicom, or NES, as it was called here in the States. We knew that this machine was for us. So we used every contact we could to get a meeting with Nintendo, sure that one of our ideas would become an instant hit. Yes, Nintendo did hire us, but not to amaze the world with one of our projects. Instead, they told us to fix on of their projects, a game that had fallen seriously behind schedule. Instead of creating a game, we repaired a game, and it was eventually release as NES Pinball. That experience taught us that even artists must know the business side of game development. After all, if a game never comes to market, there is very little chance of it making any money.

Working in those days was also instructive in another way. Because graphics were so primitive by today's standards, we asked ourselves how we could spur the players' imaginations as a substitute for what we couldn't display on the screen. Think about this: someday our games won't look any better. What will we do then?

Well, our work was satisfactory enough that we formed a close association with Nintendo. And as HAL invented a couple of early franchises, we also learned other lessons. Our first Kirby game taught us the value of teamwork. Since not everybody can be a Miyamoto, we discovered that ideas can come from several team members, building on each other, to make something superior to what one person could invent. Then we worked with the Famous Japanese creator Shigesato Itoi, who was already an avid gamer himself, to develop his first idea for a game. That series, called Mother in Japan and released in America as Earthbound, proved to us that ideas take on a special appeal when they become interactive.

Many years and many projects later I went to work for Nintendo full time, and then one day, about three years ago, Mr. Yamauchi appointed me to succeed him as company president. Of course, this was a great honor, but it was also a great challenge. I knew this would require committing much more time and assuming much more responsibility. But unfortunately, game developers are familiar with such things.

So I'd like to move on this morning and answer two questions that I'm often asked, now that I've had two decades of experience in the videogame world. First, over the last 20 years as a developer, what things have changed? And second, what things have stayed the same?

One thing that has not changed - and will not change - is our nature as a form of entertainment. Like any other entertainment medium, we must create an emotional response in order to succeed. Laughter, fear, joy, affection, surprise, and - most of all - accomplishment. In the end, triggering these feelings from our players is the true judgment of our work. This is the bottom line measurement of success.

Fourth - and this never changes - software sells hardware. People buy games to play the games they love. I agree with Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, when he says, "Software is the user experience. Software is the driving technology not just of computers, but of all consumer electronics."

Now I don't think any of this is news - bigger budgets, bigger staffs and bigger companies. It's there for all of us to see. Big is obvious.

On the other hand, what's more prominent in my thinking these days is how our industry is getting smaller. We are smaller in the amount of risk we're willing to accept. We are also smaller in how we define videogames. The list of genres seems fixed - shooters, sports, platformers, puzzles, and so on. When is the last time we invented a new genre? But as importantly, even within these genres, we have reduced the environments we use. The racing tracks, the sound tracks, the bosses, the heroes, are starting to look more and more alike. Consider Tiger Woods Golf and Mario Golf - each a successful franchise, but using two different looks for this game genre. Such variety is becoming harder and harder to find.

We are even getting smaller in how we define progress. Making games look more photorealistic is not the only means of improving the game experience. I know, on this point I risk being misunderstood, so remember, I am a man who once programmed a baseball game with no baseball players. If anyone appreciates graphics, it's me! But my point is that this is just one path to improved games. We need to find others. Improvement has more than one definition.

Finally, I am most concerned with what we think of as a gamer. As we spend more time and money chasing exactly the same players, who are we leaving behind? Are we creating games just for each other? Do you have friends and family members who do not play videogames? Well, why don't they? And, I would ask this: how often have you challenged yourself to create a game that you might not play? I think these questions for an important challenge for all of us.

the standards we set for all software we develop. We call these standards the Four Is. First, is it truly innovative - something different from what has come before? Second, is it intuitive? Do the control of the game and the direction of gameplay seem natural? Third, is it inviting? Do you want to spend time in this world? And finally, how does it measure up in terms of interface? Can the player connect in new ways?

But I would like to spend the rest of my time today on what is perhaps the next logical question: where does Nintendo go from here? Let me try to explain it first with an image. In the universe of interactive entertainment, there is a planet we call videogames. It is the one we know best. But it is only one. Also in our inverse are other planets which entertain, but in different ways from current games. It is this part of the universe that we are anxious to explore.

This idea creates the dual passions of Nintendo. On one hand, we work every day to make what we describe as videogames better. We want to give players what they want. But at the same time, we are intent on finding out what else we can use to entertain. Our second goal is to show players something new, something they may not even know they want. You already are familiar with a good example of this philosophy. It's called Pokemon. At its core, Pokemon is a wonderful role-playing game. But it's also much more. Players will collect and trade Pokemon, maybe the same way you once collected and traded bottle caps or baseball cards. Pokemon expanded RPGs to places they hadn't gone before.

Another example was our decision to put Pictochat into the DS. It's not a game, not a competition, but a way for us to better understand how communicating wireless might also entertain. And Pictochat, as a wireless function, also represents just the latest step in something much larger for Nintendo.

So this is Nintendo's plan. Make our existing game world much better. Better Zeldas, better Marios, better partnerships creating games like Resident Evil 4. But also, exploring other worlds in interactive entertainment. For us, this is a passion. This is a mission of adventure. And most importantly, we want you - the creative heart for our entire industry - to take that journey with us.

If you don't mind, I will finish today with memories from one more franchise in my development career - Super Smash Bros. At the time it was being developed for Nintendo GameCube, I was already working full time for Nintendo. But my heart told me I was still a developer. So, as president, I assigned myself to HAL to rejoin the team finishing the game. Once again, I was living on the developer's diet of chips, pizza and rice balls, and working through the night. From their offices, it was possible to see Mt. Fuji, which many say is most impressive if you're willing to wake up and see it at dawn. But during this period, just as years before with our Kirby Games, we at HAL would see the sun shining on the mountain before we ever went to bed. May say the sight of first light on Mt. Fuji inspires them. But for me, I hope I never see it again! [Laughs]

I also remember the first version of Smash Bros. developed for Nintendo 64. The concept for this game, as you know, was to take the classic, friendly Nintendo franchise characters and have them - as you say in America - beat the heck out of each other. The ideas not brand new - there certainly have been a lot of fighting games. And the characters looked pretty much the same way they always had. So when we brought the idea to Nintendo, the concept did not sound hip or cool or revolutionary. And because of all this, there were people both inside and outside Nintendo who did not strongly favor the idea. And this was the environment that we worked under.

That attitude remained until the moment of truth -- the moment when testers began picking up the controllers and actually playing the game. This is what happened. People smiled. They laughed. Then began shouting at each other. That was the moment when everything for Smash Bros. changed. And I must tell you, this was also one of the proudest moments in my development career. Yes, the Smash Bros. series has become a great worldwide success because it's sold more than 10 million copies. But the memory of that first moment when the testers began to play stays with me always. That is the moment I call success.

We at HAL found a way to bring our idea to life. Our team believed deeply in the concept and we did not waver in our approach. So in this important sense, we at HAL - we're just like every one of you. Even if we come from different sides of the world, speak different languages, even if we eat too many chips or rice balls, even if we have different tastes in games, every one of us here today is identical in the most important way: each one of us has the heart of a gamer.

Thank you for your attention.

Seattlepi Interview '05

Question: All three consolemakers, yourself included, have unveiled their plans for the next console generation. How do you feel about Nintendo's prospects with Revolution at this point?

Iwata: In the first place, Sony and Microsoft are taking about the same approach for the future by making machines with powerful and sophisticated technology. Nintendo is taking a little bit different approach, and I think this is an interesting contrast.

Of course, we are applying advances in technology. But when you use those advances just to boost the processing power, the trade-off is that you increase power consumption, make the machine more expensive and make developing games more expensive. When I look at the balance of that trade-off - what you gain and what you lose - I don't think it's good. Nintendo is applying the benefits of advanced technology, but we're using it to make our machines more power-efficient, quieter and faster to start. And we're making a brand-new user interface. I think that way of thinking is the biggest difference.

Q: Bill Gates said recently that he thinks Nintendo will be more of a niche player in the future, with Sony and Microsoft battling for the number one spot. What do you think of that characterization?

Iwata: Talking about the definition of the niche, or niche market, I really have the completely opposite opinion. The people the other companies are targeting are very limited to those who are high-tech oriented, and core game players. They cannot expand beyond that population. We are trying to capture the widest possible audience all around the world. (He cited the example of Nintendogs, a new virtual pet game for the Nintendo DS handheld machine that has taken off in Japan.) In other words, we are trying to capture the people who are even beyond the gaming population. So for that kind of company, we don't think the term "niche" is appropriate.

Q: Microsoft will be the first to market, releasing the Xbox 360 later this year. Revolution comes sometime next year. How does that affect the ultimate outcome in terms of market share?

Iwata: If the first entrant always wins the market, the Dreamcast must have won the race against the PS2, for example. (Sony's Playstation 2 came to market after Sega's Dreamcast and was extremely successful, while Dreamcast fizzled.) There are many precedents like that in the past. The first to market is not necessarily the winner in the race.

Q: The general perception is that Nintendo appeals to a younger audience. Will you try to embrace that, expand upon it, or move away from it in the next console generation?

Iwata: First of all, I've never once been embarrassed that children have supported Nintendo. I'm proud of it. That's because children judge products based on instinct. Everyone wants to appeal to people's instincts, but it's not easy. That doesn't mean we're making products just for children. We believe that there's interactive entertainment that people in their 60s, 70s and 80s can enjoy, so we're doing various things.

GDC 2006

Once upon a time, way back in the 1980s, a company became number one because its products meant fun to young people. Then, in the 1990s, a bigger company with a bigger brand name and bigger budgets took away the number one spot.

Fortunately, that first company also had another line of products that let it remain popular and profitable. This company used that threat to reconsider its strategy, and think how it could regain overall leadership. And this is what it decided. It would redefine its own business, and expand its market beyond current core users. Could this strategy work?

Well, we already know the answer. The answer is yes.

Because that first company, Pepsi, has returned to number one in its industry, displacing Coke. Pepsi stopped asking, how can we sell more cola? Instead, it started asking, what else do people want to drink?

Today, Pepsi is number one in bottled water. It is number one in sports drinks. It is number one in health drinks. And, of course, it remains number one in the snacks business that it used to maintain profitability while they executed their disruptive strategy. (As every game developer understands, the three basic food groups are Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos.)

I am here today to share some stories about Nintendo. But, I begin with a story about Pepsi because it demonstrates how thinking differently, and holding strongly to your strategy, can disrupt an entire industry and in a good way.

For some time, we have believed the game industry is ready for disruption. Not just from Nintendo, but from all game developers. It is what we all need to expand our audience. It is what we all need to expand our imaginations.

Several years ago, when I began talking about reaching out to casual gamers and non-gamers, few people listened. Today, Nintendo DS is succeeding in disrupting the handheld market. In fact, you could attribute most industry growth last year to just this one product line. Now, people are listening more closely.

I have been asked many times how we decided to develop these games so I thought maybe this is the first story I should share with you today. Where did this idea come from? I m sure you can guess it started where all great creative ideas begin, from a board of directors!

When Atsushi Asada was a member of our Executive Committee, he complained that he knew no one his age who played video games. Because Japan is an aging society, he thought a game designed just for seniors might work.

I agreed it was a good start, but I said it might be a mistake to target only seniors. Instead, maybe something that would appeal to other users, as well.

This meeting occurred just after the E3 show two years ago, a very busy time for us. We were finalizing the Nintendo DS hardware, as well as preparing DS launch games. Even so, I asked each of our four main development groups to nominate a few people to serve on a task force.

Some of them did not have much experience making games, so I got to play the role of professor, talking to them not just about games, but about overall product planning. The goal of the task force was to invent a game whose appeal would include everyone from youngsters to baby boomers to seniors.

Our early meetings were just brainstorms and didn't produce any solid ideas. But at that time, people in Japan were beginning to read a new book and do its brain exercises. I noticed this and thought it might be a good game idea. Even Mr. Mori, our chief financial officer, was doing the exercises himself and convinced me to go forward. Then I consulted with Mr. Miyamoto, and when he got excited, too, I asked the task force to tackle the job.

When we talk about expanding the market to new players, many times this means new kinds of software, but certainly not always. I hope that Metroid Prime Hunters shows we re not turning our backs on the kind of games that current core players already love. We will serve all tastes.

The third story I have to share is the answer to a question people ask me all the time: how did we get the idea for the Revolution free-hand controller?

Well, we started out with a very simple question: why is it that anyone feels comfortable picking up a remote control for a TV, but many people are afraid to even touch the controller for a video game system? This was our starting point.

Our first controller meetings began early in 2004, and from that initial thought we added two other requirements. First, the controller must be wireless. We need to give players freedom to move. And second, the look of the controller had to be simple and non-threatening. But of course, at the same time, it had to be sophisticated enough to serve the needs of complex games.

And yes, we also wanted it to be revolutionary.

Many of you know that we have been experimenting with networks since the 1980s. Back then, you could use your NES in Japan to trade stocks. We kept working, but never thought the time was right to introduce a game network until Nintendo DS. In 2004, we began considering Wi-Fi gaming.

[...]

In the end, it is the freedom of choice, I believe, that has made the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection so successful. To date, we have surpassed 1 million unique players, totaling more than 29 million play sessions and, this in only 18 weeks of availability.

We reached 1 million players almost five times as fast as the Xbox Live service, which also offered free connections when it began. It took them 20 months to reach 1 million different users. Of course, this has made our Wi-Fi development team very happy as you can see.

Some people put their money on the screen, but we decided to spend ours on the game experience. It is an investment in actual market disruption. Not simply to improve the market but disrupt it. We believe a truly new kind of game entertainment will not be realized unless there is a new way to connect a player to his game.

New is good, but there also is an appetite for old. For young players, classic games are brand new. For others, they are a way to feel young again. After we announced the virtual console concept for revolution last year, many people asked me if only games for Nintendo systems would be available. Today, I have a better answer. I can announce that games specifically developed for both the Sega Genesis and the NEC TurboGrafx system will also be available for Nintendo Revolution via the Virtual Console.

Thank you for listening to my stories this morning. However, the most important story of all is still to be told. I hope all of you, the creative force of our industry, will help us write it. It is the story of how disruption will help every one of us overcome the growing barriers to game development.

We know what the main barrier is cost. There is one dominant business model for our industry. Publishers work backwards from a console game at retail that sells for $50 or now, even $60. To compete at that level, games must be longer, larger and more complex, which requires bigger development teams. Success is more likely if a strong license is acquired, but even then, huge amounts of money are needed to market that game to a mass audience.

It's understandable that many publishers, in order to reduce risk, feel most comfortable relying on sequels to already successful, high budget games. As a result, our business is beginning to resemble a bookstore where you can only buy expensive, full sets of encyclopedias. No romance novels. No paperbacks. No magazines.

In our business, too often people with a fresh idea don t have a chance. I believe if Tetris were presented today, here is what the producer would be told: Go back give me more levels give me better graphics give me cinematics and you re probably going to need a movie license to sell that idea to the public. The producer would go away dejected. Today, Tetris might never be made.

Nintendo understands the dominant business model. We work with it every day. And future Zeldas and Marios and Metroids are going to be bigger masterpieces than ever before. But, this does not have to be the only business model. We want to help you create a new one. One where your simple Tetris will be made.

With Nintendo Revolution, we offer a combination of opportunities that simply can't be matched. Our controller allows for every existing form of game to take on a new character. It allows for game creation that is not dependent on just the size of the development budget. I consider our virtual console concept the video game version of Apple's iTunes music store.

Since I first announced the virtual console concept last year at E3, other people have become very interested in digital downloads. Others will offer such a service, but it will not be the same. Because for us, this is not just a new business opportunity, for us, this is true innovation true disruption. It is part of our DNA. The digital download process will bring new games to the widest possible audience of new players. Young people, older people, even those who never played video games before. When I think of what faces all of us right now, I imagine what it must have been like for the explorers who first set foot on a new continent. For them, it was impossible to imagine all the adventure that lay ahead.

Our adventure is still ahead of us. Nintendo is committed to creating an environment where all of your work can prosper. I began today saying that disruption is not just a strategy for Nintendo.

Yes, we have already disrupted handheld and it worked. Yes, we have already disrupted Wi-Fi and it worked. We disrupted the very definition of a game and that is working, too. In a few weeks, you will better understand how to disrupt console gaming. You will play, and you will see.

At Nintendo, we do not run from risk. We run to it. We are taking the risk to move beyond current boundaries. It should be our goal, each of us, to reach the new players as well as the current players. Our goal is to show them surprise. Our reward is to convince them that above all video games are meant to be just one thing. Fun for everyone.

Thank you again so much for inviting me.

Level Up Interview

Now, however with Phantom Hourglass, we were successfully able to convey to the market that this is a Zelda that everyone can play and we've seen the results in the increased number of younger female gamers. We've also seen the return of previous players of the Zelda franchise who maybe played ten years ago or fifteen years ago on whichever system they once played and they sort of drifted away--we're seeing a resurgence of interest in the return of those players to the franchise.

And the pattern for games like Zelda in Japan is in that first week, there's a huge sales number and then that drops off immediately in the second week sales. However, with Zelda, we're not seeing that drop-off, and if it continues to sell as we have seen now, we definitely think that this could be a million seller. And the great thing about it is the buzz around the game: we are picking up new players who are then telling their friends and telling other friends. That's working very well in our favor.

I believe that currently, the number of publishers who--or the feeling amongst publishers who want to put their best teams on Nintendo platforms and who want to make software for Nintendo platforms is the highest it's been in, say, the last ten years. However, six months ago, you know, I don't think the people out there were saying that Nintendo is done, they're going to roll over and vanish, but at the same time, I don't believe that there are too many people who thought we wouldn't be where we're at today. So I believe that a lot of people out there thought, "Okay, this is a fad. It's not something that's going to continue."

That attitude is not something that's going to change quickly. That, in addition to the fact that Nintendo was doing something that really kind of flew in the face of common industry practice and common industry knowledge. If you look at the common practices and the common way that games have gone in the industry in the past, it's "Okay, we focus on the high teen market, that core market, and then we let them disseminate game knowledge or game popularity. The better-looking the game is, the higher quality the graphics, the more we're going to sell." That sort of pattern is something that Wii was not following, and again, because we took that different approach, it caught a lot of people by surprise.

I believe that the job of first party software is to drive hardware. If you don't have a quick impact and quick dissemination amongst the audience, you lose momentum. If you don't have momentum, the third parties don't want to jump on your platform. So that's not a good situation to be in.

Actually, the same thing that happened to Wii, a lot of the same conversations took place when the DS was launched. And that's because Nintendo was really the only one that was very focused on that user expansion goal we've talked about so often and because we are creating unique software that no one else is creating, the phenomenon of Nintendo software selling was insane. So we had a very, very strong position and again, Nintendo was the only one really selling a lot of software. If you look at the beginning of this year, Nintendo-published software sales for the DS have slightly declined, and that's because third party has increased.

There were doubts, of course, when we first began this whole approach. Once we were able to show success with what we were doing, that's what brought about that initial change that you're speaking of. Being part of the entertainment industry, part of our job is to surprise our audiences. So actually, if you look at this pattern where we came out with these ideas, everyone said you're not going to succeed, and yet we overcome all these obstacles and we do succeed, there's sort of a drama in there that is very fitting for us being part of the entertainment industry. [Laughs.]

On the other hand, if we now say "Oh yeah, that's probably going to work out okay," there's no drama involved in that. And there's a danger that comes with that. Because if you're introducing these new things and everyone's saying, "Oh yeah, this is great," "We'll take that," "That's a great idea," it's very difficult to maintain within the company the energy it takes to be always looking forward. That's probably Nintendo's next obstacle is to not lose its internal energy and internal momentum. I believe my most important role right now is to prevent Nintendo from being in a company where people say, "Oh, Nintendo is arrogant," "Nintendo has let its guard down," or "Nintendo has lost its challenging spirit." We want to avoid all of the pitfalls that can come from losing one's momentum.

Gamespot Interview '08

GS: Were you confident you could pull it off?

SI: I would sound so cool if I could say, "Oh, I knew it all along," but it is not necessarily so. [Laughs] It was more of a conviction that somebody needed to go there and push things in this new direction.

We knew that if games appealed to fewer people, the future was going to be bleak. And with video games being demonized by the public, it was hard to see how games could flourish in all that. So we knew we had to change it. We knew that to change that, we'd be playing to and reinforcing Nintendo's strengths.

It's not that the opinion of those with different perspectives weren't convincing for us. With each suggestion, we thought through many things, but with each step along the way, we could feel the market changing bit by bit, and that is why we were able to keep going. Hearing stories about customers who seemed like they'd never touch a game scouring store shelves for a copy of Brain Age is what encouraged us.

Little reactions like that show up before the actual sales numbers start rolling in. Still, we didn't know whether a major shift in those numbers would take months or years to achieve. I worked under the assumption that if five years went by and the world didn't change, I could kiss my job good-bye. [Chuckles.]

At the same time, Nintendo has teams working on meeting the needs of more hardcore gamers. The big complaint from them now may be that we're not pouring all of our resources into that sector exclusively, but I feel that it's Nintendo's mission to make both kinds of games. Every experienced gamer today was a beginner at some point, who encountered an experience that made them fall in love with games.

I think it's absolutely critical to keep that entryway open for new people. I think it's really important to strike that balance between the two extremes. While it's possible to create a game like Brain Age in an extremely short period of time with a great idea and the right people, a game like Zelda contains content that physically and inevitably demands more time to create.

I feel that the current imbalance between the time a person spends enjoying a game and the time it takes to create it is a real problem, and something that we as developers need to work on resolving.

GS: What do you mean, specifically?

SI: No matter how fun a game is when you first pick it up and play it, people eventually get bored. Our task is to come out with the next big thing before that boredom sets in and to go beyond just releasing an extension of the current titles every three months.

Not only that--coming out with the next Mario or Zelda game means coming up with a ton of innovative ideas. Otherwise people will say, "Yeah, this used to be fun." Keeping up an existing franchise alone requires much creativity, but in addition you have to come up with something fresh and new that people have never seen before. That's where ideas like Wii Fit came from.

We're constantly working on a variety of ideas for new, different games, but it's only after the specifics have been nailed down and they're ready to be announced that we can talk about them. So while I can tell you all about a project that we can have out within two months' time, games that still need six months or a year's work really have to be kept under wraps.

Touting the slogan of expanding the gaming population is our way of declaring to our internal development staff, other software makers, distributors, the media, and ultimately to the customer our intent, which is that we as a company are standing on ground that will crumble away underneath us the minute we stop moving forward, and that this knowledge is driving us to keep working.

If we just stand there, our customers will get bored and leave. Our survival depends upon our ability to create a situation where new people are entering, and established gamers aren't leaving.

SI: The first question I would ask is whether the service is fun if you're 5 or 95, if you're tech-savvy and if you're computer illiterate. If that's not a hurdle we can get past, it's not something Nintendo is going to pursue.

Take the Miis, for example. Sure, we could go crazy with the interface until it was so customizable that you could make an avatar that looked like anyone you could imagine. But it's because the interface is the way that it is now that the average person can pick it up and create a family member's portrait and feel a personal connection to games unlike anything available in the past. Mii is the answer we came up with after a long process of questioning just how low we could keep that entrance threshold.

In that respect, the virtual-world services out there now still aren't at a place where we'd like to join in--and certainly not to the point that we'd want to jump into competition with everybody else. We'd rather focus on doing things that nobody else would do.

Our job is to constantly look into what people find fun and interesting. I mean, nobody else wants to develop a video game where you get on the scale and see how much you weigh. [Laughs] That's how we're able to keep offering people surprises and entertainment, so even if we were to make a virtual-world-like product, we'd be sure to make it something that nobody would call it a product similar to another company's offering.

Iwata Asks Series

Iwata Do you think they are worried that in the future we won't give priority to making the kind of games they have come to expect?

- Yes, those kinds of concerns. As a gamer, there is a side of me that likes to stay up at night, playing alone, silently, head-to-head with the game. Of course, Zelda and Mario will come out, and listening to your speeches, I understand that you don't intend to neglect your core fans. I understand all that, but even so...

Iwata Although we're putting a huge amount of energy into Mario and Zelda, since those games don't feature that much at the Wii Preview events, they don't seem to be the main pillar of Nintendo's strategy. Is that what people are saying?

-Yes, it seems so. How can I put this? I understand it on an intellectual level. When I hear you say that there is no future in simply continuing in the same way, I think you're right. But even though I can see that, the more a gamer understands that reasoning, the more they feel excluded by it. It's not that they don't understand what you are doing, it's simply how they feel on an emotional level. (laughs)

Iwata It does seem that there is a level of misunderstanding among some people. I am concerned about this. It's true that Nintendo is reaching out to non-gamers, but this does not mean that we are ignoring game fans. I believe that if we don't make moves to get people who don't play games to understand them, then the position of video games in society will never improve. Society's image of games will remain largely negative, including that stuff about playing games all the time badly damaging you or rotting your brain or whatever. If that happens, then even people who enjoy games will start to feel a strange guilt when they play them. If people who haven't played games up til now start playing them, and appreciate how enjoyable they are, it is highly likely this situation will change. Society will be more accommodating towards people who play games, and it will become even easier to produce "traditional" games. In reality, while Nintendo is looking to reach out to people who don't play games, it's not as if we've become less committed to Zelda. On the contrary, we've invested four years and a huge amount of effort into developing the new Zelda. There's no question that we are passionate about it. For the people who are willing to wait for them we will absolutely continue to produce games like that. But I think if we don't also develop things for non-gamers, the future for game fans will become bleak.

- I see what you're saying.

Iwata Now going back to that "but..." you mentioned... (laughs) Of course, I know exactly the sort of emotion you're describing...

- (laughs)

Iwata But having said that, we don't develop games with two categories in our mind: "This one's just for people who don't play games..." or "This one's just for gamers..." Take Wii Sports, for instance. I think gamers will enjoy the Target Practice mode more than anyone else. Even with something like Brain Training, which generally isn't seen as being a game, lots of users recognised that there was the same excitement in trying to beat the clock, as there is in a racing game, to put it in very basic terms.

- Ah, yes. It's the same feeling of enjoyment. On the calculation problems, searching for numbers on the edge of your field of vision...that thrill when your hand movements have become almost robotic...it's very much like that of a puzzle game.

Iwata It's exactly the same. I think the place in your brain where this feeling comes from is the same in both cases. That's why, even in Touch! Generations software, the core elements have all the original fun of a game.

- You've simply expanded the scope of what a game can be. That is to say, ever since the DS came out, everything you have done has ultimately boiled down to broadening the dynamic range of video games. You are not trying to replace, or reject, the games that have come before.

Iwata You're exactly right.

Well, everyone is busy...! (laughs) People have a certain amount of potential within them. Ensuring that this potential is used as productively as possible greatly helps an organisation. To put it another way, there is a vast amount of energy which disappears inside organisations, or is expended going in directions which don't end up leading anywhere. If all that energy is properly directed, it can add up to a huge amount of power that can be used to produce visible results. That's why I think that over the last three years, as the level of awareness shared by the staff has increased, each individual's understanding has also developed. I believe this has meant that the total amount of energy in the company has increased more than it would have by simply increasing the number of staff. That is to say, the overall potential within the company has become more fully realised.

I really believe that we've come this far because of our vision. If you simply repeat the process of building up the hardware specs, then you just end up with higher costs and a larger console. I think a better approach is to have a clear vision, decide what you want to accomplish, and then work towards your goal.

"Hardcore" to "Casual" to "Hardcore" Again?

2008-11-07T03:39:00.008Z

A recent interview with a dude from SEGA that I found of note, showing that Sega "gets it" to some degree, but also shows some misconception between any differences between Wii and PS3/360 audiences. Good on SEGA though considering how willing they are to take a chance on Wii and really start pushing it.

And it's a circular, almost incestuous vibe that then starts perpetuating in the industry - developers are gamers, they're making games for themselves and their friends. So you start feeding that need, and we still retain that kind of ghetto niche to it.

So barriers to entry still exist - some of them are price-driven, but I think there are some other attitudinal things in the industry that we need to stop and change about the content of the actual gaming itself.

It's been said that the number of core gamers is decreasing, and I think a lot of companies could find themselves out in the cold if they don't adjust attitudinally to servicing that market.

Darren Williams - Head of Sega A&R

He's practically on the money there. As he says, it's a perpetual cycle. You can't expect people to turn gamer overnight, or blame lack of mainstream attention on old people, when older people in spades own Brain Training and enjoy Wii Sports. To make any medium relevant, you have to make content relevant to their lives, or make it easier for gaming to fit into their lives. Games that can be enjoyed in short, 10 minute bursts are a great way of doing that, and the likes of Wii Fit and Brain Training are great as games designed to complement your life, rather than draw you away from real life. There are many people out there with aversions to fantasy, especially younger, more social people (including women). Nintendogs is very much a social thing. You can't understand Nintendogs without going out and about with it and interacting with others through it, that's just the kind of game it is.

His last point is interesting, but not quite as on the mark as the rest of it. It's less so that there's fewer core gamers, it's that the definition of core gaming is changing. Core and Expanded Audience are transient terms - core means your "old" or current mainstream audience, and Expanded Audience are the ones outside that. To understand them, you have to understand the current mainstream values, and look at what's valued outside of that traditional bracket. This means that core and expanded audience are not fixed demographics or values - they are shells to represent the current trends. Once again but a shill for Malstrom, has an article exploring the theory of cycles. In other words, detailing the different trends of gaming, and outlining the recurring change of values from the old core to the expanded audience becoming the new core.

As they say, what is "hardcore" gaming today will be the "casual" gaming of tomorrow, but the same applies in reverse - where do you think the new core comes from to replace the old one as it moves into apparently being "casual"? As core represents the current values, then obviously it has to come from somewhere new - the expanded audience.

What is the expanded audience of today will be the core of tomorrow. Don't believe me? See WoW, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports, Second Life, Battlefield Heroes ("casualised" Battlefield), flash/in-brower gaming, ....These are all gaining, while the trend of the current core is mostly declining. The expanded audience is moving toward the core. Remember when Nintendo said they were bringing about a revolution? This is it. Notice how the Wii "X" titles have been the ones for experimentation that Nintendo talked about. The Wii MotionPlus is motion control moving upmarket to meet more demanding tastes, driving out the old values of visuals and length.

Even Mario Kart, which at the end of the day is Mario Kart - a very good version of it, because it comes bundled with a steering wheel so it's a very physical experience. You aren't necessarily going to see that - I know there's been talk of Sony with a motion controller, there have been demonstrations of 360 tech, but that's slightly monkey-see-monkey-do, and it doesn't really have that tangible value to it.

So I think there's a market on the Wii for different tastes of gaming. Whether then people will graduate upwards, that's an open question. I'm sceptical about it, because I think what the Wii offers is a very physical, fun experience. Any degree of percentage from 10 to 30 to 40 per cent of the experience is the Wii remote - so I'm not so sure.

Darren Williams - Head of Sega A&R

In this particular part, both the question and the answer mix two completely opposed values between the current core and the expanded audience. If people bought the Wii for the physical experience, then logic dictates they would not be moving up to better visuals, but to better motion control. Hence, MotionPlus. MotionPlus is that move upwards, not HD visuals. The two values are opposed - no customer buys Wii for its visual experience, so it does not make sense that they would somehow jump ship. The duplicated ownership is just the most upmarket of the core - the ones who demand the most, have the most expendable income, but might also themselves as time goes on be converted to the new expanded audience values that the Wii represents.

Miyamoto's Views

2008-10-23T14:50:00.015+01:00

A series of what I thought were very interesting and thought provoking quotes from many interviews over the years from Shigeru Miyamoto himself. What's striking is just how consistent he's been too.

Q:Are you finding it harder going from N64 to Gamecube than from SNES to N64?

A:That's a good question. As we move from one format to the next it's my job to take advantage of that new system's capabilities. But to explain the life of Nintendo, going from NES to SNES we were working with the same elements - going from 8bit to 16bit, staying in 2D. We were just able to do more in the same framework than we could before. Whereas going from the SNES to the N64 we were going from a 2D word to a 3D world and we had to completely start everything over. It took a lot of energy, everything had to change. It took a lot of time. I think that change was really drastic for us.

This time around - going from the N64 to the Gamecube - were going from a 3D platform to another 3D platform so it's more like the move from the NES to the SNES. They're both within the same basic framework - only we can do a lot more.

So in terms of gameplay when we went from 2D to 3D it was really exciting, it had a of appeal for me personally to grow the game in that manner, and I think it had a lot of appeal for the customers too, to be able to experience these brand new lush worlds. But really I think we've got to a point where the capabilities of the new system the 3D world is just one option in the world of creating meaningful and creative gameplay. The period where '3D world = value' for the customer is over. It doesn't have the freshness that it had before and now it's really just one option in many for creating these kinds of fun in games.

If you look at human history games themselves and playing itself haven't really changed a whole lot over time. But as for computer games we have seen a lot of new developments a lot of new gameplay, we've added to it. But I think that one of the problems is because of the demand and markets game developers don't have the time to spend thinking of new ideas and thinking of ways to integrate them into games. They feel that they're being pressed to get them done and pressed to get things out. It would be nice to give them a bit more freedom and that's what we want to do.

A lot of people consider hardware to be the internal components of the machine itself to me the hardware really is the system as a whole - including the controller and how that interacts with the game. Like the Game Boy Advance and how you can link that up. We've been planning for this since back in the days of he N64. These are the kind of things that I plan for and work with.

I think we've seen - repeatedly, over and over - the capabilities of the hardware systems dramatically increasing. And now we've seen it again here and we'll see it again in the future - you're going to get machines much more powerful that what we have here. Really I think that - and we're lucky that we've caught this when we have - we're at a stage where developers competing to maximise the capabilities of a system are finding that the development costs and the rewards that can be reached from those costs in terms of sales no longer match. It's become so expensive to fully maximise the power of the system that you can no longer take the types of risks and challenges that you need for innovation.

We're lucky that we've noticed this when we have and so really the challenge for us is to find that new key and what it is that's going to be able to create these games simply and have them packed full of fun and entertainment in a way that they are going to sell to the masses. And that's a role that all game designers are going to have to take in this next generation and it's hard to say what that 'key' is going to be right now.

I wouldn't want others to imitate the size or volume of the game. I hope that they'll concentrate on improving the quality of the games. We haven't done anything special in Ocarina of Time, we've just made use of the N64 technology. As long as you have proper knowledge of the N64's technology, you shouldn't have to concern yourself with making a game of this caliber in terms of sheer size and volume.

I myself wanted to be a cartoonist at first, so I was reading a lot of cartoons. I was imitating some others' works and made up my own stories at first. If you want to become a game artist, it's good if you play games and make up your own ideas. Regardless of the subject, you have to come up with something on your own, whether you're drawing pictures or cartoons or making toys. [b]Just try to surprise people[/b]. What's important is that you make something up on your own and show it to somebody else so they can critique your work. Even if you get harsh criticism, don't give up. Just keep at it.

From 1998.

Though I have talked mostly about the technical aspects of game design, I would now like to talk about something on the opposite end of the spectrum. We must not forget the importance of human ingenuity and creativity in game design. Naturally, it is new and unique expression of ideas that gives birth to new games. Recently, I am very sorry to see that the uniqueness of many titles has been dependent upon new technology and specialty development tools, while the personalities of the creators have been diluted. For me, game creation is like expression through music. When I am working as a director on a game, while I always try to hit upon new plots, I place great importance on the tempo of the game and the sound effects. I feel that those directors who have been able to incorporate rhythm and emotional stimuli in their games have been successful. When I am holding the controller and setting the tempo, I feel that my own, personal game is in the midst of creation. I have never created a game that has been of a level that I could be satisfied with. Understanding the technologies is the requisite if we want to fully realize our expression. Game designers are apt to boast of the technical aspects of their games, and I, too, have fallen into this trap. Speaking of my own case, I tend to highlight new technologies when I am less confident about the new ideas I am putting forward in the game, and later, I always regret doing this. It is important for us to remember that technology can inspire new ideas and help us realize those ideas, but it should do so from the background.

Shall I begin making Zelda for our next generation hardware. At this point, the answer to that question is no. The reason for my saying this is that all of the elements for which Zelda has received so much praise for had already been incorporated into the game more than a year before completion, when I felt the game was not fun to play. I think that a lot of the reasons that Zelda has been so praised are not related the N64's level of expression, the unique camera systems and auto-jump system, nor the gorgeous cinema scenes and spectacular boss fights. It is true that some other team may realize the level of expression that we achieved with Zelda, but of course it will not be the exact same as Zelda. With improved hardware, I can imagine Zelda having more detailed graphics and a quicker response time, but when it comes to increasing the degree of fun, I cannot be certain of that at this time. This is something that I feel we as designers must reconsider.

Also, I want to constantly make efforts to create new ideas. I want to propose new game ideas without worrying about the headaches of management, such as inflated development costs. Video games have become far more popular than in the past, but I feel that we have just been repeating the same events again and again in this unique market. Even with Zelda I did not feel that sense of freshness that I had with the original Super Mario Bros. I want to make efforts to convey the charm of video games to the general public that is currently outside the reach of the industry in which we do business. This is because I really want to feel the unique zest of the entertainment industry, where one simple idea can create an unexpected social phenomenon.

We have expanded this industry and welcomed new users with innovative products that continue to surprise us. At a time when we were all developing Mario style scrolling games, Tetris was born thanks to a team that tried to make a new product with game and watch style software. When we were stuck on talk of the spectacular 3D graphics of Mario 64 and racing games, we a saw huge hit in the form of Tamagochi - a tiny key chain boasting pictures made up of no more than 10 or 20 dots. At that time, I thought that Mario 64 had lost to Tamagochi.

I want game designers to be the designers who make technology their tools, and use it to express their own individuality, their own unique-ness and their own rhythm, as well as the entertainers who make this world a more enjoyable one. It is with this extravagant hope that I wish to end my speech.

My friends, let us design unique, fun software with new appeal. Let us take on new challenges so that the world of gaming is not left behind as a separate, closed off world. And in the process, let's see if we can't make a little money.

From 1999.

Well, we certainly don't have the intention to fight against anybody else, and don't think that we are cowards, but we are working on the subjects which become necessary for what game users want. In other words, what we have to do in order to make a 'weapon', in your wording, is to make fresh and exciting games. It's not like "who's winning and who's losing", and as far as 'war' or 'fighting' is concerned, please count us out. We like to go our own way.

One of the biggest concepts concerning Gamecube is that I want it to be a machine the whole family can use. So that's why it must be reasonably priced, and even small children can use it, and these kind of concepts are enshrined in the controller design, console design and the cheap chipsets. Of course, if we are simply going to make the best games format in the videogame market, and we have the hardware to realise that, then I can tell the hardware people that we must have a cheap chipset. We want the whole family to use it, and it must be easy, and we don't want them to think about how much it's cost. Those of you that have experienced Super Mario Bros. In your childhood may now be of the generation where you have children that are starting to play games. That's what videogames should be - things the whole family can play.

It's very simple. It's the Nintendo company motto that we have to do what only Nintendo can do, and the multi-purpose games machines - meaning that you can do a variety of things - so often end up being the machines that can't do anything. In the case of Nintendo, it's rather different. What Nintendo can be proud of is constantly providing the customer with guaranteed quality software. That's what we can say when we're providing the customer with a new generation of gaming platforms. On the other hand, people are talking about multi-purpose machines, and from the manufacturer's standpoint, they're saying "look, we've made this machine, it's up to you how to use it". Through the many years I've been in this business, I've seen many hardware manufacturers simply ignore what content will be running on their platforms. I have to admit that I don't like these kind of ideas. Now is the time that we, the content creators, have to get together to lead the market. Nintendo is good at entertaining, and we are going to guarantee with this new platform that it is going to be fun. And, of course, it has the capability for 'multi-purpose', but we are not guaranteeing it's going to be multi-purpose, that's all.

Yes, I have to admit that of course we are working on Gamecube games featuring these popular characters. But, frankly speaking, I don't want a situation where our creative staff is solely occupied with the creation of established game series. For example, at Spaceworld last week, we exhibited a game called Animal Forest; it's a very unique game, we call it a 'family communication' game, and we hope that we can bring these kinds of new genres to the Gamecube.

That's right, family communication, NOT MMO or RPG or openworld or whatever everyone keeps demanding it to be.

I think this is interesting, simply because nobody can tell what will come in the future. Some may say the 'movie-type' game can become interesting, but I don't think so. The integration between the movie and the game should not be the main focus of this industry; yes, we can learn a lot from the movie industry, but we should absorb these ideas, so we can improve game contents, so we can evolve the shape of the game. That's the kind of thing that makes sense in this industry. If we are simply trying to make a movie-like game, then I don't think that's so good. After all, we are making interactive entertainment, so we can all be the pioneers of any new entertainment, and create different things from movies and what we have now.

I don't want to say that videogames are transforming into any other existing entertainment medium. President Yamauchi has some different ideas, though... [laughs]. I believe that the entertainment business is kind of an industry which puts different value to 'ordinary stories', so they can sell 'ordinary stories' at much higher prices. This is the kind of business where you can make money out of a simple idea, and when people say 'we are going to make a 'movie-type game', they are saying 'let's spend so much money on the gorgeous graphics and sound'. I don't think that that's the shape of the games industry. We should be spending time and money making magic.

From 2002.

26 Days...

2008-10-04T06:59:00.001+01:00

Blundering

2008-02-24T09:07:00.004Z

Hello!

Want to be my friend?

As many of you long time readers will know, I can be a very quiet person having not posted anything before now, and now I've finally worked up the courage to speak out and not let the shitters (those who consider nothing worthy of posting anything more than simply "this is shit" on something) of the internet bring me down, You post your shit all over this post, go on, put it all over the place, stick that shit right on my face! I assure you I won't even flinch (washing my face thoroughly afterwards doesn't count).

Shit me up baby!