Interview with Nintendo's John Azevedo
Published Thursday July 2nd, 2009
Game Space.
At this year's E3, I caught up with John Azevedo, Senior Manger of Consumer Marketing for Nintendo of Canada, to find out what he had to say about their upcoming titles, the future of gaming controls, and what Sony and Microsoft are bring to the motion control landscape.
Nintendo certainly brought out the big guns at this year's event. There were a lot of major announcements for your major brands.
JA: There's a lot of excitement for the two Mario games that we announced: New Super Mario Brothers Wii. Of course, the exciting part about that game is the new multiplayer "" cooperative and competitive multiplayer action for the first time. Also, Super Mario Galaxy 2 out in 2010. It's a continuation of the classic Super Mario Galaxy of two years ago. Some of the other interesting third party titles include The Conduit, an all new IP (intellectual property) from Sega, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, Deep Space: Extraction from EA.
Speaking of The Conduit, how important is it to establish new IP's on the Wii as well as further develop first party brands?
JA: It's important to do both. Nintendo has obviously a long history in gaming and we have a lot of existing, very popular IP's to pull from like Mario. But it's also important that we're creating new gaming experiences as well and we're happy that Sega can build something from the ground up for us. The Conduit is a great example of something that we would like to see more off. It has twelve person multiplayer online and it will feature Wii Speak microphone capabilities as well. We're pretty excited about those types of gaming experiences.
Miyamoto seemed to express a little bit of regret that the new Mario Brothers titles will not have that feature. Will there be more games coming out that will take advantage of online multiplayer? It is such a huge component to gaming nowadays.
JA: Not yet. Nothing that we're announcing right now but there are some things in the works that we will be announcing shortly.
Nintendo took some criticism for a lackluster showing last year. Did that influence Nintendo's approach to this year? There were a lot of major announcements at this year's media conference.
JA: Of course. We hear it [the criticism] and understand some of the feedback especially from experienced gamers and we do take that into consideration. We've always been really consistent about Nintendo wanting to provide gaming experiences for everyone. You saw it at the press conference "" "Everyone's Game" is our theme and we want to be true to that. That's why we're offering something for everybody. That's why a platform like Nintendo DS has stuff like Nintendogs to Grand Theft Auto. We've been really consistent in saying we want to provide a little bit of something for everybody. We're really happy with third party support this year and I think it showed in our press conference. We've got a lot of great first party titles that we think will satisfy that really active gamer. The announcement of the new Metroid is pretty exciting.
Team Ninja is producing Metroid: Other M. They have a great pedigree for action games like Ninja Gaiden. How did that relationship come about?
JA: We feel that Retro Studios (previous Metroid developer) did a great job with the Prime series but the objective is to present Metroid in an entirely new way. I think Team Ninja is the right team to do that. They have a great reputation and we're looking forward to working with them.
Will you be handing off other IP's for them to work on?
JA: I wouldn't be surprised but nothing has been announced yet.
You unveiled the Wii Vitality Sensor at the end of your media conference, which raised a lot of eyebrows but questions as well. What style of gaming would it be used for?
JA: We're not showing anymore other than what [Satoru] Iwata (President and CEO of Nintendo) talked about. He wanted to show a glimpse of what he saw in the future. I think he indicated in the announcement about using it to measure body movements for relaxation. So I think expectation is that there will be a game based around relaxation.
Controls for gaming seem to be evolving, incorporating more and more aspects of the human body. Do you think that eventually, the entire human body will be used as the controller, rather than holding onto some sort of device?
JA: The human body and movement has to be part of it. Reggie Fils-Aimé (President and COO of Nintendo of America) talked about the interface and how critically important that is. That's obviously the driving force behind the DS was the touch screen and the Wii with the Wiimote. With the Balance Board, we're seeing innovation as well. A company like Ubisoft has created some interesting applications with their Raving Rabbids games. And Wii MotionPlus will give an added dimension to that interface. So that's what Nintendo is focusing on.
What's your reaction to Sony and Microsoft's foray into motion controls? How is Nintendo going to respond?
JA: To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen a lot of it being so busy on the floor. But I will say that technology is only technology until you have software to bring it to life. We're really happy with the technology we have. Nintendo has never been a company to really focus too much on the competition. We're focusing on bringing the best gaming experience. We have that playable on the show floor today. That's what we're focusing on.
Send your questions or comments to: the_big_n_@hotmail.com
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