MIGS 2006: Regie Fils-Aimé speaks

By Katie . November 14, 2006 . 9:44am

With yesterday’s looping clip of superhero- and TV show-based games gone from the projectors and the loudspeakers quieted of their hard-rock riff, this morning offered mellowed-out house music and a PowerPoint slide assuring us that Mr. Fils-Aimé, the take-charge head honcho of NoA, was truly, honestly going to show, even well past the 9 A.M. start time. I’d stumbled into the Palais super-late, but the nice thing about Québec was that everyone else did the very same, except in a more laid-back sort of way where good seats are kindly left open. So I had a better view than the day before by a factor of about 1.5… now we had just to wait.

Finally he arrived, greeted by grateful applause and applauding in turn the only people in the continent who pronounce his name properly. Chuckling ensued. After that, he wasted no time in affirming Nintendo’s role in the marketplace to come – that is to say, disrupting it.

That word choice may typically raise a few cautionary flags, but he meant, of course, Nintendo as movers and shakers, taking games from “a class, to a mass with this generation.” He showed how the company continues to leak into popular culture with a clip from the animated comedy South Park. Having advised the producers merely to ‘please be kind,’ Nintendo needn’t have worried, as evidenced by one of his personal favourite lines coming out of the clip: “[waiting for the Wii is] like waiting for a thousand Christmases, all at once.” 

The icebreaker aside, Mr. Fils-Aimé launched into snapshot after staggering snapshot of current DS playing and buying trends, which for the most part flattened the PSPs corresponding figures. With much ado about Nintendogs’ success with female players, Brain Age’s attraction of the middle-aged and older crowd, and the overall explosion of numbers this year of people in Japan who picked up their very first game with a DS, the statistics knitted nicely into the fabric of the presentation – that of satisfying current players in new ways, attracting former players, and growing the market to the masses.

But the Wii would not be overlooked so close to its day in the sun, and so our presenter pointed to the future. All kinds of people enjoy film, he argued – so why shouldn’t they play video games? He blames the “traditional, multi-button masher of a controller” for gaming’s status quo thus far and says that will be remedied by the Wii remote, which “should look familiar to anyone who owned a television set in the 80’s.” Funny, but I think it’s a bit more stylish and ergonomic than that, Mr. President!

Wii also marks the first time in 15 years that a Nintendo console will launch with a pack-in – a move designed specifically to give more bang for your buck. Although they could have profited monetarily from selling Wii Sports, and got outside encouragement to do so, they have a different kind of profit in kind – customer loyalty. Mr. Speaker let us know that Mr. Iwata back in Japan appreciates just as much all the third-party support, and he himself sent a shout-out to Ubisoft Montreal, developer of Far Cry. But most of all, although he jokes he couldn’t choose a “favourite child” among the Wii releases-to-be, when push comes to shove it would probably be Trauma Center: Second Opinion. So if you want to be playing the same thing as our man Reggie, that’s a good place to start!

As well, the launch-day library will comprise a record-breaking number of titles thanks to the Virtual Console, “the gateway to nearly 2 decades of the best in videogaming.” Added value comes in the form of independent games available via the Wii Channels, which should act like Xbox Arcade, but that can be constantly left on as the system purposely draws as little power as possible.

The ‘mantra of innovation’ campaign launched with the DS should spark interest anew all across the country with the coming of Wii, with 500,000 Canadians to be sampled at malls and cinemas, a four-month long contract with Cineplex theatres to run ads for the console, and Nintendo’s steadfast determination – that it’s “not an option, but a mandate” to “change the narrow audience” of video games, and spread the love to all. ♪☺