Nintendo: "Fun" Knows No Country

Logan Frederick

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Nintendo: "Fun" Knows No Country



With the Wii's worldwide success, Nintendo is thinking maybe cultural differences among gamers aren't so relevant anymore.

"In Japan, as the number of people who saw DS players in trains skyrocketed early on, its recognition spread extremely fast as it piqued the curiosity of even those who were not interested but wondered what the gadget was," explained Nintendo president Satoru Iwata during the company's recent quarterly financial conference. "In the United States, on the contrary, not only are passengers not sleeping nor using cell phones, many Americans do not regularly use trains and instead use their cars to commute."

The cultural differences [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_145/4630-Big-in-Japan] between the two major gaming superpowers has come through in each country's products for years, supplying gamers with differing role-playing game styles (try comparing the mechanics of Oblivion and Final Fantasy against other games from their respective homelands and the pattern becomes clearer).

Iwata has noticed in the past few years a dramatic change in perspective both cultures have on the other's products. With the release of the Nintendo DS and Nintendogs, products which "faced the same doubt" upon coming to America that past titles from Japan had, Nintendo noticed that "what Japanese people simply found interesting and favored was also welcomed overseas in many cases, with appropriate communication."

"Of course I don't mean that all that Japanese people favor will be accepted overseas. What I mean is that with the essence of fun, what people find interesting can overcome culture and language gaps," Iwata commented. "So my understanding is that culture gaps can be overcome. And I think what is necessary is not to change the product itself, but how we introduce and show the features."

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22192]

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Graustein

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Lukeje said:
So release Mother 3 over here then!
I think that's more Nintendo of America's responsibility - I'm not sure on the details, but suffice to say, most of the "Give us Mother 3!" coalitions that I've seen have been aimed at Reggie Fils-Aime (NoA's CEO), not Satoru Iwata or Shigesato Itoi (Nintendo's CEO and Mother 3's designer respectively). I seem to recall a conference in which Reggie was questioned on Mother 3's localisation and he didn't even seem to know what the game was. It's definitely an uphill struggle there.

On-topic, I'm not sure if it's the "fun knows no culture" than it is Nintendo's approach to fun. They always aim to be pretty all-encompassing, whereas most other game developers have a specific audience in mind. Not saying one is better than the other, but Nintendo's most popular products - Nintendogs, the Wii (and associated Wii Series of games), even Pokemon, Zelda and Mario - all seem to be made with "pick-up and play" in mind. While the latter may not seem like it, they all have, at heart, simple controls which are readily explained to the player early on - if explanation is even needed, which isn't really the case in some of the games like Wii Sports. Fun may know no culture, but I just think it's more likely that Nintendo's very good at appealing to a wide audience in a way that transcends cultural boundaries.
 

Lukeje

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Graustein said:
Lukeje said:
So release Mother 3 over here then!
I think that's more Nintendo of America's responsibility - I'm not sure on the details, but suffice to say, most of the "Give us Mother 3!" coalitions that I've seen have been aimed at Reggie Fils-Aime (NoA's CEO), not Satoru Iwata or Shigesato Itoi (Nintendo's CEO and Mother 3's designer respectively). I seem to recall a conference in which Reggie was questioned on Mother 3's localisation and he didn't even seem to know what the game was. It's definitely an uphill struggle there.
You mean Nintendo of Europe right? Although we're still waiting for Earthbound over here... but there's always the chance that that will be on the VC (like Super Mario RPG was).
 

Graustein

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Lukeje said:
Graustein said:
Lukeje said:
So release Mother 3 over here then!
I think that's more Nintendo of America's responsibility - I'm not sure on the details, but suffice to say, most of the "Give us Mother 3!" coalitions that I've seen have been aimed at Reggie Fils-Aime (NoA's CEO), not Satoru Iwata or Shigesato Itoi (Nintendo's CEO and Mother 3's designer respectively). I seem to recall a conference in which Reggie was questioned on Mother 3's localisation and he didn't even seem to know what the game was. It's definitely an uphill struggle there.
You mean Nintendo of Europe right? Although we're still waiting for Earthbound over here... but there's always the chance that that will be on the VC (like Super Mario RPG was).
Both, really. Most of the Earthbound fans clamouring for a Western release are American, which is where that American-centric comment above came from. In any case, I don't think Iwata or Itoi have much say in the matter.
 

Lukeje

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Graustein said:
Both, really. Most of the Earthbound fans clamouring for a Western release are American, which is where that American-centric comment above came from. In any case, I don't think Iwata or Itoi have much say in the matter.
Probably not, but it was worth a shot just in case either of them did happen to read this somewhat obscure american gaming website and realised, 'Hey, maybe we should call those localisation guys in the other branches of Nintendo and see if they can't get round to rereleasing some of the classic JRPG's that many western gamers may have missed because we didn't think it would be profitable to release them!'. Yeah, it was a long-shot, but you'll thank me if it does happen like that.
 

Graustein

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Lukeje said:
Probably not, but it was worth a shot just in case either of them did happen to read this somewhat obscure american gaming website and realised, 'Hey, maybe we should call those localisation guys in the other branches of Nintendo and see if they can't get round to rereleasing some of the classic JRPG's that many western gamers may have missed because we didn't think it would be profitable to release them!'. Yeah, it was a long-shot, but you'll thank me if it does happen like that.
Definitely worth a shot. A guy can dream of the day he plays Mother 3 on his DS, can he not?
Oh I do so hope that the rumoured upcoming Mother compilation sees an international release. I can guarantee that Lucas will shift far more units than Marth ever could.
 

Lukeje

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Graustein said:
Lukeje said:
Probably not, but it was worth a shot just in case either of them did happen to read this somewhat obscure american gaming website and realised, 'Hey, maybe we should call those localisation guys in the other branches of Nintendo and see if they can't get round to rereleasing some of the classic JRPG's that many western gamers may have missed because we didn't think it would be profitable to release them!'. Yeah, it was a long-shot, but you'll thank me if it does happen like that.
Definitely worth a shot. A guy can dream of the day he plays Mother 3 on his DS, can he not?
Oh I do so hope that the rumoured upcoming Mother compilation sees an international release. I can guarantee that Lucas will shift far more units than Marth ever could.
Mother compilation?! Can I get a source on that please?
 

Graustein

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Lukeje said:
Graustein said:
Lukeje said:
Probably not, but it was worth a shot just in case either of them did happen to read this somewhat obscure american gaming website and realised, 'Hey, maybe we should call those localisation guys in the other branches of Nintendo and see if they can't get round to rereleasing some of the classic JRPG's that many western gamers may have missed because we didn't think it would be profitable to release them!'. Yeah, it was a long-shot, but you'll thank me if it does happen like that.
Definitely worth a shot. A guy can dream of the day he plays Mother 3 on his DS, can he not?
Oh I do so hope that the rumoured upcoming Mother compilation sees an international release. I can guarantee that Lucas will shift far more units than Marth ever could.
Mother compilation?! Can I get a source on that please?
I recall seeing it in Wikipedia.
After some sleuthing, it appears to be little more than wishful thinking based on Lucas' presence in Brawl. Sorry to get your hopes up. I did say "rumoured" though.