Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime on Wii U: "stumbles" and balances nostalgia and reinvention – TechCrunch

Nintendo is approaching its 130th birthday and society is changing again with regard to mobile platforms and online services. But Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime says it should not surprise us: "We reinvent ourselves every 5 or 10 years. We must. It's in our DNA. "

In a GeekWire Summit interview in Seattle, Fils-Aime spoke highly of Nintendo, the company's ups and downs in the last decade, and what it took for Switch to pass the door. .

"We aim to give consumers an experience they have not even thought of," he said. Someone who has followed Nintendo for a few years certainly would not disagree – remember the vitality sensor? "By taking this path, you create skeptics. And we will be the first to admit that there will always be some stumbling along the way. "

"The Wii had sold one hundred million units in the world. Wii U did not have the same success, "he admitted. This is an understatement; The Wii U is widely regarded as a kind of boondoggle, interesting but confusing and extremely bluffed by the competition for what was appreciated by the world of growing fast growing game.

"But as one of our presidents said – that's [Hiroshi] Yamauchi – when you're doing well, do not be excited by this high-flying performance, and when you do not succeed, do not tell yourself. Always have the same keel, "he said. Not really catchy, but it's good business advice. The focus should be on the horizon.

And that's where it was, despite the extremely low sales figures and lack of support from third parties. As he says, they have just progressed with new lessons to their credit.

"If we had not had the Wii U, we would not have the Switch," he says seriously. "What we've heard from customers is that the proposal of a tablet on which they could experiment the game, coupled with the ability to play games on television, is really compelling. The users told us: I want to play with this tablet, but when I am at a distance of one meter from the TV, it disconnects. The only point that players hate is the point where they have to lower the controller. It was therefore an important step for us to be able to follow up on this proposal. "

"The first time I saw the incarnation of this system, the hairs on the neck got up," he said. "It's the same feeling he had with the Wii Remote and the DS. Technologies that people were very skeptical at first, but which proved versatile and convincing.

Touchscreens were not common when the DS came out and the motion controls were not there when the Wii came out, he noted. Since then, both have become consumer products – of course, not at all to Nintendo's success, but it would be misleading to say that it has nothing to do with it.

But if we can rightly say that the company takes risks in some respects, it is for the other stuck in the past. His best performing franchises are over 25 years old.

For Son-Loves, however, it's exactly what it should be. Mario and Link are characters like Mickey Mouse or even someone like Robin Hood are characters. New franchises like Splatoon can be established and managed, but traditional franchises (although no one has mentioned Metroid, predictably and unfortunately) should be recycled and channeled to new platforms and generations.

Nowadays, this includes mobile games, where Nintendo has taken shy measures in recent years.

"We see our mobile initiatives as a way to bring our intellectual properties and gaming experiences to a wider audience than dozens, if not hundreds, of consumers with a dedicated gaming system," he said. "With Super Mario Run, hundreds of millions of consumers experience Mario, consumers located in places where we do not even distribute our gaming systems. Then, they may buy this t-shirt. Super Mario, they can eat this cereal Super Mario, they can buy a Nintendo switch. (Presumably imported).

Son-Aime's comments, however, sound a bit hollow. Nintendo's mobile strategy relies heavily on the "gacha" style game that drives massively in-app purchases of virtual currencies and at optimal levels to unlock new characters randomly, in the style of a surprise box. . It seems so far away from Nintendo's main entertainment mission and the current money-mining method in the industry that it's hard to believe that's what the company really wanted to create.

As stated by Fils-Aime's goal, this allows them to be "efficient" on platforms and markets that they do not own themselves, and that orients their "program" global commercial ". trying to figure out how to really bring his games to mobile. The next game Mario Kart may be a better option, but it could also easily reverse.