Reggie Fils-Aime, the well known president of Nintendo of America commented on the fan disappointment with Nintendo’s conference at E3 this year in an interview with Kotaku.

One of the things that, on one hand, I love and, on the other hand, that troubles me tremendously about not only our fanbase but about the gaming community at large is that, whenever you share information, the perspective is, ‘Thank you, but I want more.’ ‘Thank you, but give me more.’ I mean, it is insatiable.

For years this community has been asking, ‘Where’s Pikmin?’ ‘Where’s Pikmin?’ ‘Where’s Pikmin?’ We give them Pikmin. And then they say, ‘What else?’

Nintendo isn’t exactly having the best year ever. Their keynote this year was indeed pretty disappointing (as was just about everyone else’s) and they’ve taken some substantial hits with the lack of adequate 3DS sales and mass criticism of the Wii U. It makes sense that people like Reggie would be a bit miffed these days.

And he’s mostly correct about this.

In regards to Pikmin 3, he’s absolutely right that gamers are acting like spoiled babies. It seems many of them these days either complain for the sake of complaining or have a bar taller than a mountain that developers cannot possibly hope to meet with the amount of time and money given to them. After years of anticipation Pikmin 3 was brushed to the side by fans as if they had never wanted it in the first place. That’s hard to swallow as a company in dire straights.

At the same time, negative criticism aimed at Nintendo these days is far from just being about the release of a long awaited sequel (which will probably sell well anyway). This isn’t just about the lack of third party games or the absence of certain anticipated title announcements this year at E3. This is about the direction in which Nintendo is heading.

Why do you think you lost your core audience of gamers with the Wii in the first place Reggie? Unless you intended for that to happen, you and Nintendo simply made gambles that didn’t pan out in the long run. After six years of the Wii, your fans are ready for something different. I myself, being a long time Nintendo fan, have been waiting anxiously for Nintendo to make a proper return to the core gaming demographic with a new platform. From what I’ve seen they’ve made some good steps in that direction, but it also seems they are still unwilling to divorce the kid friendly nature they’ve adopted. Do we really need or want things like Nintendoland? Why can’t we get something a bit darker or more surreal from Nintendo again?

Now look beyond the spectrum of the Wii U and think about all the games Nintendo has yet to even release outside of Japan. Here are just a few of them for the Wii:

• 428: Fūsa Sareta Shibuya de
• Pandora’s Tower
• Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
• Tales of Graces
• Xenoblade Chronicles
• The Last Story

There is no reason why these highly rated titles can’t come to the US, yet Nintendo continues denying gamers from having them. My point is there are things you could be doing to satisfy gamers already, Nintendo.

The problem is you simply don’t.

If gamers were really that dissatisfied with the majority of games they’re given would they really continue being gamers? Why would they invest money into a hobby that continually disappoints? Here’s a tip: just because a gamer complains doesn’t mean he isn’t satisfied. We live in a generation of complainers, what with the internet and anonymity being such a prevalent and accessible part of society today. Yes, some gamers are going to look at a long awaited game like Pikmin 3 and ask “now what?” but that doesn’t they all are. Attributing negative criticism of their keynote with simply one of their game announcements is a huge displacement of blame and evidence of abysmal hindsight on their part.

So now that I’ve addressed Reggie’s criticism specifically, what about the question of whether or not are gamers as a whole are impossible to satisfy? It really just depends on what demographic you’re looking at. However, I along with many other gamers have only found hours of entertainment value from the games we enjoy so if you want to lump us all together and boldly declare that we are all picky dissatisfied snobs, my answer to that is a big fat no sir. When Bioware released the recent Mass Effect 3 extended cut, were gamers including myself still not satisfied? I definitely would have preferred a swap out for the much better indoctrination theory, but I was content with the fixed plot holes and added closure that Bioware added.

I am perfectly capable of being satisfied as a gamer, but these days Nintendo does a bad job of doing that.

Jesse Leigh (199 Posts)

If you want a GOTY award, it's as simple as parkour + augments + Turok style dinosaur hunting.

Share