Abridged: What do you believe Nintendo should do when it comes to innovation in their games and consoles. When does change become a bad thing? And should Nintendo continue to innovate the core gameplay of their major series even if their core fan base is against it?
With this year’s E3 finally behind us, now’s as good of a time as any to take a step back and take a look at the state of the gaming industry. With this thread I’d like to take some time to discuss Nintendo’s apparent need and desire to drive the industry and their games forward with new and innovative ideas.
At E3, the most prominent game that Nintendo showed off was the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After nearly six years of development, we finally saw Nintendo’s newest take on the Zelda franchise and so far the game has been met with critical acclaim from just a trailer and a couple of hours of gameplay. That being said, it is notable for being a major departure from the conventions of the Zelda series by putting more of an emphasis on the open world and exploration, along with a major focus on survival in this new version of Hyrule as well. Aonuma has gone on record various times saying that this game will also have less of an emphasis on the storyline and general linearity of previous Zelda games. Still, although the changes for this game are vast, the fan base seems to love it.
Conversely we have the flipside in Paper Mario where the fans of the series seem to have completely lost faith in Nintendo for changing the conventions of the series they cherish. Similar to the Breath of the Wild, all Nintendo is trying to do is innovate and further the series with new and exciting changes to the gameplay, but the changes have been shunned by fans.
It genuinely is interesting to note that this dynamically opposite perspective to changes in gameplay can be seen in most of Nintendo’s franchises and even in their consoles. To be brief, Mario fans usually embrace changes to the gameplay of new games regardless of how different they may be from the previous title, while more recent games such as Metroid Prime: Federation Force and Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival have gotten critically panned across the internet and among the media. As far as their consoles are concerned, the innovation of the Wii brought an entirely new demographic to the gaming spectrum while the Wii U has barely managed to sell more than 10 million units worldwide.
This brings us to the crux of the problem which is discerning when change becomes a bad thing. It’s a rather paradoxical and slippery slope that most game makers face. When making a sequel to any of their previous titles, they are driven by their fans to make a new and exciting title which is better in every way to its predecessor, but go too far into the realm of changing the very core of the gameplay and you risk alienating your consumers.
So with all that in mind I ask you, what do you believe Nintendo should do when it comes to innovation in their games and consoles. When does change become a bad thing? And should Nintendo continue to innovate the core gameplay of their major series even if their core fan base is against it?
With this year’s E3 finally behind us, now’s as good of a time as any to take a step back and take a look at the state of the gaming industry. With this thread I’d like to take some time to discuss Nintendo’s apparent need and desire to drive the industry and their games forward with new and innovative ideas.
At E3, the most prominent game that Nintendo showed off was the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After nearly six years of development, we finally saw Nintendo’s newest take on the Zelda franchise and so far the game has been met with critical acclaim from just a trailer and a couple of hours of gameplay. That being said, it is notable for being a major departure from the conventions of the Zelda series by putting more of an emphasis on the open world and exploration, along with a major focus on survival in this new version of Hyrule as well. Aonuma has gone on record various times saying that this game will also have less of an emphasis on the storyline and general linearity of previous Zelda games. Still, although the changes for this game are vast, the fan base seems to love it.
Conversely we have the flipside in Paper Mario where the fans of the series seem to have completely lost faith in Nintendo for changing the conventions of the series they cherish. Similar to the Breath of the Wild, all Nintendo is trying to do is innovate and further the series with new and exciting changes to the gameplay, but the changes have been shunned by fans.
It genuinely is interesting to note that this dynamically opposite perspective to changes in gameplay can be seen in most of Nintendo’s franchises and even in their consoles. To be brief, Mario fans usually embrace changes to the gameplay of new games regardless of how different they may be from the previous title, while more recent games such as Metroid Prime: Federation Force and Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival have gotten critically panned across the internet and among the media. As far as their consoles are concerned, the innovation of the Wii brought an entirely new demographic to the gaming spectrum while the Wii U has barely managed to sell more than 10 million units worldwide.
This brings us to the crux of the problem which is discerning when change becomes a bad thing. It’s a rather paradoxical and slippery slope that most game makers face. When making a sequel to any of their previous titles, they are driven by their fans to make a new and exciting title which is better in every way to its predecessor, but go too far into the realm of changing the very core of the gameplay and you risk alienating your consumers.
So with all that in mind I ask you, what do you believe Nintendo should do when it comes to innovation in their games and consoles. When does change become a bad thing? And should Nintendo continue to innovate the core gameplay of their major series even if their core fan base is against it?
