Nintendo Was Advised To Make Pokemon "Brawny" to Sell Well

[Steven Bogos]

Nintendo Was Advised To Make Pokemon "Brawny" to Sell Well

Nintendo says it will work to bring games previously deemed "too Japanese," such as Tomodachi Collection, to the West.

Pikachu, the official mascot of the Pokemon franchise, is recognized globally as the cute, yellow, electric rat. But, he was almost transformed into a brawny mass of muscle for his intial release, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata reveals. "This cute yellow thing is not a monster, everyone told us," said Iwata. He said that mock-ups of a beefy, muscular Pikachu were created, and the Nintendo boss at the time, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, was advised that only a complete redrawing would make the Pokemon game sell well.

But, Yamaguchi dug his heels in, and refused to alter everyone's favorite rodent, alongside the rest of the Pokemon cast. "When you adapt too much, you lose what's unique about you," Iwata reflected. Iwata's words ring true with what the very essence of Nintendo is about. To Nintendo, quality of content matters far more than appeasing current trends, and the company was able to devote years to the development of games and create hit after hit after hit.

However, in facing three straight years of losses and a very lukewarm reception to the Wii U, Nintendo's strategy of staying firm until the world adapts to it is failing. Iwata agrees, it's time to change. "We need to work even more closely with the U.S. team, to make sure preferences in the U.S. are reflected at the development stage," Iwata said.

He confirmed that Tomodachi Collection - or "Friend Collection" - a 3DS life simulation game in which Miis from consoles can interact with one another and develop via various activities, is currently being localized for a Western release, and that the company will consider localizing games that were, in the past, deemed "too Japanese" to succeed abroad.

Iwata. Mother 3. Plz.

Source: Wall Street Journal [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/29/nintendo-walks-fine-line-between-change-and-identity/]

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[Roxas1359]

I still think Eevee should be the mascot for Pokemon. It's cute, embodies the fact that Pokemon can evolve over time with either levels, stones, or friendship, and it shows off many of the types that are in Pokemon.

Spoiler: Oh, and did I mention: It's so damn cute!

Really I've never liked Pikachu much as well. It has terrible stats, had to be given an item in Gen 3 to make it good, and it's evolved form is much better. Not to mention the fact that it will always have the stench of failure around it since Pikachu lost to a level 5 Snivy thanks to this failure of a trainer:

Spoiler

[sub][sub][sub]This message is brought to you by the "Please Make Eevee the Pokemon Mascot Coalition"[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Charli]

I do kinda get what they mean. The West seems(seemed) to have an abhorrent phobia of anything cute or effeminate-looking afflicting their kids with 'teh gay' for a long while there in the 70's all the way up to the late 90's.

But I like to think as time has marched on that's become less and less of an issue.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Let's face it, America ain't exactly welcoming to cultural differences and it seems Western gaming as a whole treats bright, colorful, or cute stuff with disdain unless it's done in an "ironic" retro fashion. I mean, seriously, how many times have we seen people use "Japanese", "anime", or "pretty boy" in a pejorative fashion? It really comes off as encouraging homogenization and blandness. And that's before I get into the xenophobic aspects going on

 

[pearcinator]

Don't listen to America...they don't even know what they want.

 

[StHubi]

Recently I was talking to a student about cultural expectations in gaming. There seems a lot of market data going around that is taken as gold and is applied to EVERYTHING. Even though much of it is obviously outdated. Especially in gaming I believe that this can hurt the medium a lot. Making games based on market research is required for big AAA titles. But it is the death of every original IP and probably the reason why new IPs are few and far between each year...

It's a good thing Nintendo did not rely on this. Let's hope they can be successful without doing so for a long time.

 

[DragonStorm247]

Listening to the desires of a global/American market? Great idea!

Listening to data collected by outdated market analysis practices? Terrible idea!

The US is a big place; it home to people with good taste, and people with poor taste. I'm afraid [gender, age bracket] simply isn't going to cut it anymore.

 

[Kingjackl]

Good on them for sticking to their guns. I don't get what the execs were complaining about on this one. The advantage of Pokemon is that there are creatures who cater to all kinds. On the one hand there's the cute ones like Pikachu, Jigglypuff or Eevee, but then there's also your Charizards, your Machamps and your Mewtwos that are more for lack of a better word, 'masculine'.

 

[Rad Party God]

Well, I'm glad it didn't turned out like this:

 

[Karadalis]

The virtual boy also failed because its games where to "japanese"... had nothing to do with the fact that it was not a good console.

Also the Wii U sales arent only low in the west.. the asian market hasnt been gobbling up the console either. Are japanese games now to japanese for the asian market?


And if japanese games are to japanese for the western market how come Atlus is having one success after another? I cant imagine any game more japanese then the Disgea series with flatchested loli chars in skimpy outfits blowing up legions of enemies while riding dragons, demons and catgirls, sexual innuendo aplenty and lame slapstick jokes that are so bad they are good again... covered in a storyline that can be surprisingly deep at times. Oh and ofcourse solid game mechanics. And dont get me started about the Persona series of games.


Sorry to say nintendo its not the games... its you.

The Wii U has no 3rd party support whatsoever in the west, its hardware is completly beaten by sony and Microsoft. Its online infrastructure sucks too and has been for a while. And ontop of that while you bring out a new gimmicky controler every other week your own games have become the epitome of staleness.

Its not japanese games being to japanese.. its you nintendo thinking you can ship a console on nothing but 3 household titles and tons of random crappy shovelware alone. All the casual gamers have moved onto mobile devises.. guess youre simply not the market for those people anymore... sound familiar nintendo?

 

[SuperTrainStationH]

How did the author of this piece manage to repeatedly butcher the name of the late Nintendo president into "Hiroshi Yamaguchi". The Wall Street Journal article this piece cites didn't make that mistake, so there's no excuse here. :/

 

[balladbird]

And if japanese games are to japanese for the western market how come Atlus is having one success after another? I cant imagine any game more japanese then the Disgea series with flatchested loli chars in skimpy outfits blowing up legions of enemies while riding dragons, demons and catgirls, sexual innuendo aplenty and lame slapstick jokes that are so bad they are good again... covered in a storyline that can be surprisingly deep at times. Oh and ofcourse solid game mechanics. And dont get me started about the Persona series of games.

Well, that's a bit of a false equivalency. Atlus games are successful for what they are: Most of the games feature either a 2-d sprite art style or a very rudimentary 3-d model system, with the cutscenes generally replaced by graphic-novel style static images and text. The end result is that they get long, deep games at a fraction of the cost of AAA games.

HOWEVER, it's very much necessary that they take those steps, because when an Atlus game "sells well" it's important to remember that it's selling well only by the standards of a japanese game.

Take 3 of the more successful japanese game out west in recent years (not counting dark souls, because that was lightning in a bottle) Persona 3, Persona 4, and Catherine. They were all resounding successes that left their mark on the gaming community, but they each only managed to sell around 600-800 thousand copies outside japan. For JRPGs, that number is phenomenal, but considering that the average AAA offering can expect to push a few million at the least, and the games that really count as successes consider numbers as high as 5 million disappointing, the number a japanese game can push in the west looks fairly insignificant.


Nintendo games don't cost as much to produce as the standard AAA game, but they're considerably more expensive than the niche RPGs Atlus carries over, so they can't just copy that company's business model.

 

[Foolery]

I second the 'Mother 3 plz'

Cmon developers and publishers, making everything a sequel is your thing, time to put that tired mindset to actual good use.

That already happened on Gameboy Advance. In Japan. But there is a translated version you can find online. Unless you meant that you'd like an official localization and release.

 

[Legion]

"We need to work even more closely with the U.S. team, to make sure preferences in the U.S. are reflected at the development stage," Iwata said.

I think he may be missing the point.

It's not that the games aren't "American enough", it is that they keep making the same games over and over again. There are only so many times people are willing to buy the same thing with some slight variations before it begins to get stale. Just look at COD and Halo. COD is very slowly starting to decay and Halo is no longer the game people buy an Xbox for.

Eventually people start to crave something else. It doesn't mean it's because Japanese style games are not enjoyed.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

One of the things I do really like about Nintendo: they know what they are good at and they don't try to appeal to those who don't agree with them. Sadly, this has also lead to a million releases each of their major franchises. I hope they keep in mind what their fans like about their games.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

Unfortunately, I can't say anything on the matter on my social networks because I have a friend who likes to argue with me EVERY TIME. Anytime I say Nintendo needs to get their act together he tells me "They aren't doing that bad. Once they get Zelda and Mario out there they will do way better." or that the loses they've taken don't matter since...they are Nintendo or some junk like that. He can never give me a proper excuse and acts like I hate Nintendo, when I just want them to do better. However once I mention that he ridicules me and says something like "I expect to see you in the news then for changing Nintendo by yourself", when that's not my point...the more people that are aware Nintendo can change, the more people can do something. But he just says Nintendo would never listen. Oh yeah...they will if they want to start making money again.