Comic Con is on here in New York, and while I am not quite interested enough to attend the whole shebang, I'll definitely be hitting it up this weekend at least casually. I'll be sure and let you know what catches my eye -- to me, half the fun is hanging out with my colleagues, since so rarely do we have big New York-based events.
Meanwhile, after Nintendo's financial results came out in Japan, the company provided a transcript of a Q & A with Iwata that yielded some really interesting stuff we covered over at Gamasutra.
One thing that genuinely distinguishes Nintendo is their willingness not only to take hugely divergent risks -- but to stick with them dutifully on faith that the investment will pay off. Iwata knows, however, that some Nintendo products (arguably, its most successful products, at least) don't make a lot of sense at first. They tend to require a head-tilt and a ratcheting-open of the mind, a certain patient mulling that we've learned to accord Nintendo whenever it does something weird.
And Iwata's been talking about how it's hard for a product to spread if it doesn't make a lot of sense to the first wave of people that try it. He let on just how much Nintendo relies on sentiment -- a sort of holistic cycle of positive feelings that originate from a small group of early adopters who instinctively "get it" and then spread the love.
Iwata doesn't understand why Wii Music has not caught on (though I think most publishers would be pretty happy with 2 million-some units sold, right?), and he wants to mull it over a little more closely. He talked about how Brain Age didn't really start to sell well until the second installment, and that further investment in Wii Music (a sequel?) is necessary to figure it out.
I talked this over with some of my colleagues and our general opinion seems to be that what hurt Nintendo on Wii Music is the fact that, rather than pioneering the genre, it was late to it, having been beaten by Rock Band, basically, for the music-focused, more collaborative and less competitive experience.
Iwata doesn't seem to blame the audience for Wii Music's shaky start; rather than suggesting that the lack of comprehension is a failing on our part, he seems to be saying Nintendo ought to evaluate why their Midas formula failed with this title.
Normally, I wouldn't even bother talking about Wii Music here, since I think it's made for the demographic that would not be reading this blog. But maybe I'm wrong -- what do you guys think? Where was the chink in Nintendo's formula that time?
Also worth reading: Iwata's thoughts on the Japan-U.S. cultural divide and the DS.
