I’ve been playing a lot more Mario Kart 8 lately and recently played through Moo Moo Meadows. My wife loves this course. It is simple and old, recently made beautiful. Maybe it’s the lighting, but I get a similar vibe from Moo Moo Meadows as I do Wild Woods. Call me crazy, but I’m doubling down on the direction of the next 3D Mario.
Today, Capcom announced plans for a new Mega Man animated series.
Dentsu handpicked Man Of Action Entertainment, creators of Ben 10 and Generator Rex, to create, write and executive produce the all-new **Mega Man **animated series. Disney/Marvel’s Academy Award®-winning feature Big Hero 6 utilized the characters and team created by Man of Action, the bi-coastal creative studio and writers’ collective formed by creators and acclaimed comic book writers Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle. Marvel called upon Man of Action to produce and write Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel’s Avengers Assemble for their successful launches on Disney XD. The new **Mega Man **series has a target air date of 2017, coinciding with the franchise’s 30th anniversary.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to introduce an all-new Mega Man to loyal fans and kids,” said Kinoshita, commenting on the deal. “Having a celebrated character from Japan reimagined by Man Of Action is the ideal project for Dentsu Entertainment USA.”
I’m trepidatious.
The original Mega Man sprite epitomizes not only onscreen character design, but humanized robot design. A user controlled robot with the face of a boy; a face begging for life. And so, he blinks.
He recycles programmed movements when he jumps or takes damage. Nothing more. Nothing less. He doesn’t pretend to become tired or irritated at the player. Why would he? He is a killing machine, awaiting commands from his user.
That’s why, during the nearly perfect Super Smash Bros. Mega Man trailer, the magic of Mega Man breaks down between 0:44 and 0:47. He stops. He breathes. He shows emotion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmCVzjGVFy4
It’s not that I worry about the new Mega Man animated series. I will always have the original Mega Man sprite. It’s that I hope that Man Of Action Entertainment will be able to pull off not only a loveable character, but a loveable robot.
Hats off to Baymax. Let that be the seed for the return of the Blue Bomber.
Over the past week or so, I’ve learned that you can play Splatoon with two controllers taped together. I’ve also learned that Batman: Arkham Knight is a sprawling complicated buffet of gaming genres.
While the latter may be less about controls, I’m going to bet a “complicated buffet of gaming genres” would be a whole lot less daunting if I didn’t have 17 input methods on my PS4 to use at a moment’s notice:
After you’re done digesting all of that, take a moment to get to know your Xbox One Wireless Controller.
As Ben Thompson pointed out:
https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/603954550060355584
Beyond casuals, this is a problem for returning and often busy players. The fear of returning to a video game after days, weeks, or months of not playing – hell, the fear of picking up any video game to begin with – may stem from the problems above. Tutorials are commonplace in video games. Half the time I forget what the tutorials taught me. But instead of digging through menus for a refresher, I return to button mashing and familiarity for the sake of progress.
I began playing video games with the following inputs:
Today, most people start with less: A touchscreen. Even with an unabashed fondness for the admittedly hideous and complex Nintendo 64 controller, I’ve taken to iOS games that require simple gestures and brief touches but offer rich experiences.1 (See: Alto’s Adventure, The Room, Monument Valley)
Whether or not Journey can be considered a “game”, it is an award-winning experience that only utilized for 44% of the PS3’s buttons. While all buttons were used in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, it_ _did something extremely interesting: Auto-jumping. When I first played the game, I thought it crazy that jumping was defined by the world, not the player. But I got used to it and eventually loved it. It made perfect sense. In a physical world of button fatigue, a virtual world helped establish what was critical to player timing and what was trivial based on surroundings.
I’ve been dipping in and out of Far Cry 4 lately. I haven’t come across a good instance where I should be the one to define when to grapple or it necessary to control the climb mechanism. (Granted I’ve only played for a few hours.) Grappling seems trivial. On the flip-side, Dragon Age: Inquisition controls my use of potions based on programming, default or player defined. Potion use is trivial. Your character needs to be healed, so the game heals you. The player need not press a button.
I certainly have a reverie for the days of 5 inputs. A colleague and I spent time handling an original Game Boy last week, remembering just how comfortable and satisfying the early handheld felt. (The feels and travel of it’s buttons are a thing of beauty.) The more I sit back and think about the backwards oddity of shutting out an extremely large swath of consumers while deterring those who are ripe to purchase but are fatigued and tired of re-learning, the more I picture grandma’s remotes.
1UPDATE: Super Mario Run nailed it.
Shortly after posting my thoughts on the announcement of Nintendo attractions in Universal Parks & Resorts, Ben Thompson reached out and asked a simple question:
https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/596365952100347905
I’ve posted a couple of pieces about the cross-over between Disney and Nintendo, most relevant to the possibility of a Disney acquisition of Nintendo on 11/21/14:
Star Wars is Disney.
Marvel is Disney.
It was as if I had never really given weight to the thought. Nintendo has always been so evident and ripe to fit along classic Disney franchises. But Marvel and Star Wars? Put in the context of Disney buying Nintendo and Nintendo just seems like a no brainer put up against the other two.
On the flip-side, the majority have been spelling doom for Nintendo for years. And Nintendo has been putting up one hell of a fight. Let’s see how these Super Smash Bros. numbers do.
(Turns out those Super Smash Bros. numbers have done pretty well. Nintendo’s fiscal year 2015 report states 6.75 million units for 3DS, 3.65 million units for Wii U.)
Thinking a bit more about butting up Nintendo’s cast of characters next to Disney’s, there is an odd dissonance that begins to materialize.
Personality
Nintendo’s IP (Mario & Co.) compete directly with Disney’s foundational IP (Mickey & Co.). They serve a like purpose for both brands, only Nintendo’s are largely mute and and lack archetypes. It’s difficult to identify with Mario, Link, and Samus and I think that would be a problem for Disney. That’s not to say Mickey, Minnie, and Donald are easy to identify with, but what has grown from their foundation are characters like Ariel, Elsa, and Aladdin. Likewise, Marvel and Star Wars characters such as Spiderman and Han Solo exude heavy archetypes that fans, child or adult, latch on to.
It may seem like nonsense in the context of playful, lighthearted entertainment, but archetypes are hooks. I’m a big Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, a team of four heavy archetypes. When playing as a child, I would pick which Turtle I wanted to be and act out their personality. Likewise, selecting a favorite Avenger (Captain America) adds a vast array of color to playtime or personal ethics. I’m not sure how kids go about acting out Mario vs. Luigi. (Other than a death-stare I suppose.)
Fight
Time and time again, Nintendo has shown that they can put up a fight. Most recently, with Wii U’s stagnant numbers, Nintendo tightened and polished mainstream hits like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. to help move the console back to relevancy.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata during the 2015 fiscal year financial results:
Specifically, I believe it was significant that “Mario Kart 8” and “Super Smash Bros. for Wii U” were released in the same year and that we have been able to maintain users’ active use of these titles months after their respective releases.
Lately, Nintendo has also been oddly quick to diversify and even innovate, entering into a new product category with Amiibo (of which 10.5M have already shipped), speaking with TV & Film creative houses, and most recently partnering with Universal to enter into the theme park market.
All of this speaks to Nintendo’s steadfast attitude and the pride that builds after proving themselves to the nay-sayers. From weird controllers to the motion-control frenzy to off-screen play, they remain resolute in their foundation as innovators; trusting themselves when embarking on new endeavors. Given the choice of the guarantee of making a buck or flopping with a new creative product, I trust Nintendo to stand-by the flop until it makes a buck.
I believe Nintendo sees themselves as the Little Mac to Disney’s Mike Tyson; a worthy underdog in the entertainment ring.
Price, or return?
Back to Ben Thompson’s initial question. Ben made the comment of “too pricey.” Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm for $4B each. Nintendo is currently holds a market cap of $25.73B. Disney currently stands at a market cap of $185.96B. Note that I have very little knowledge of how the financial markets work or if the price to buy would be based off of market cap. That said, I don’t entirely believe Nintendo would be too pricey, rather a return on an investment of $25.73B would stand to be an extremely long-game.
In a world where Disney owned Nintendo, I highly doubt any Nintendo property or product would see a rise comparable to that of the $2B in market cap the second teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens generated for Disney. Nintendo’s current video game business would holdfast while their toy and other consumer products division would certainly expand. But, again, I don’t see a singular product, movie, or experience (let alone the speculation of success!) that would net as quick and massive a return as $2B. For Disney to see a valuable return on a Nintendo acquisition, I see Disney utilizing not only Nintendo IP but Nintendo’s game design infrastructure to boost the Disney Interactive brand, giving the weight and timelessness Nintendo franchises have to Disney games.
Lack of voice
Speaking of timelessness, I believe video games can be too timeless. In regard of Disney; their vault; and founding ideology of past, present, and future; time is key.
Great video games are seemingly endlessly re-playable for generations. Not to mention that the lack of captivating story elements in most Nintendo games means that they are typically always relevant because, well, they are not relevant at all. There is a tiny bit of nostalgia involved when playing a game you grew up with, but it’s not the sort of remembrance we give to artists of film and TV. It wasn’t until I saw Wreck-It Ralph that I my nostalgia meter peeked. I accredit this not to my remembers of the games, but the fact that Disney payed homage to my own private memories.
Likewise, video game production value has reached not what I would call a plateau, but a current landscape that spans generations. New 8/16-bit games are just as relevant as photo-realistic AAA titles. In the world of film, throwback production like The Artist, while great, can be considered novelty. That same sense of great timely novelty is what gives weight, connection, and excitement when seeing Han Solo on screen again. Possibilities are endless in video games that lack great voice talent. Because of this, I’m afraid that sense of great novelty and nostalgia would never happen on a mass scale for video games the way Disney would need it to.
Would Disney buy Nintendo? I say no. Disney doesn’t need Nintendo. Nintendo doesn’t need Disney.
Universal has theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Japan and Singapore, and it’s currently unknown which parks will be getting these attractions, or what the attractions with entail. The most recent large addition to Universal Orlando was the well-received Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the addition of Nintendo characters and rides could be a potent weapon against the competing Disney resorts.
It sounds like we’re going to have to wait a bit more details. “The immersive experiences will include major attractions at Universal’s theme parks and will feature Nintendo’s most famous characters and games,” the press release said. “More details will be announced in the future, as the Nintendo and Universal creative teams work to create specific concepts.”
After the success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I trust Universal to do a respectable job with Nintendo’s IP. While I often daydream about a dedicated Nintendo theme park, I don’t belive their IP alone is enough to engross visitors for a full day.
My wife’s immediate reaction: “Legoland is screwed.” Interesting that Universal seems to be playing LEGOs own game: license out massive, mixed brand IP for a variety of experiences, personalities, and worlds under a single umbrella.
I’d comfortably say that since the early 2000s, Disney resorts felt like the only go-to theme park destinations. Today there is certainly more reason to divide time bewteen multiple resorts.
With Disney’s admission prices skyrocketing, the inclusion of Marvel and Star Wars, Tomorrowland and Jungle Cruise films launching, and Universal’s expansion of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter married with Nintendo attractions, the theme park industry is in for exciting times.
Also, very fun to watch Nintendo’s rapid expansion outside of the dedicated console video game market. For a company who’s traditionally been set on a singular market, they’ve certainly made some very quick moves outside of their comfort zone.
