At Nintendo’s E3 briefing Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, mentioned the concept of “everyone’s game”. This tidbit was glossed over in favor of other Nintendo announcements like Metroid: Other M and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
The question is can a developer make a game that suits veteran gamers and newcomers?
During Nintendo’s recent investors conference Iwata discussed the idea further.
This is easier said than done. It is a huge challenge to make a game that will please and be fun for both veteran gamers with the expected depth and novice gamers who say “I don’t get it” but provide them with particular depth that can lead them to deeper points just as they become eager to play longer. Nintendo would like to tackle this enormous challenge.
This is one of the reasons why we spent time fine-tuning Wii Sports Resort and this is also the challenge with New Super Brothers Wii. When we can finally demonstrate to the world that these products can satisfy different types of people at the same time, you will probably understand what Nintendo was talking about. For your information, when I talked about this “Everyone’s game” concept at this year’s E3 media briefing, I really did not get any response from the audience. Maybe it was a sign that people do not believe it would be possible.
Wii Sports Resort might be pretty close. There’s a skill component for core gamers and the controls are natural enough for newcomers to skip the instructions. Swordplay might tilt towards ludicrous shaking than skill, though.
This is probably a good Siliconera Speaks Up question, but we’ll ask it now. Is it possible for Nintendo or any other publisher/developer to make a game that satiates core gamers and is intuitive enough for newcomers to play?