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Feeling left out by Nintendo's mad dash for cash, but can't quite work out why? How about this: 2008 will be the first year in a decade that a new Zelda game wasn't released.
I'm sick of fanmade renditions of Nintendo themes. Sick to death of them. But fanmade renditions of the heartwarming Wind Waker theme? Performed as a one-man band? That shit gets a pass.
Analyst Michael Pachter has already gone on record saying that Nintendo's next Zelda game will hit in 2009, but a second has also pegged a Wii follow up to Twilight Princess for next year.
Saving Hyrule is easy. No guns in Hyrule. No flesh-eating, half-alien Spanish zombies, either, or mechanical statues fashioned in the form of a fiery Mediterranean midget.
Relax. Nintendo has not forgotten you. Making new titles for the traditional fanbase just takes time, says Shigeru Miyamoto, speaking to the Telegraph recently in an interview.
Said Miyamoto:
"Making these 'traditional' games is what I am best at. Because games of that nature take upwards of two or three years to make, we always have to keep the teams working on those projects going. At any given time, the team could be five to ten people, or it could be 50-plus. People are always switching in and out of those teams.
"They are all working on more Mario, Zelda and Pikmin projects", he said. "And they all work in close proximity to me, so I can keep a good eye on them".
Could it be that all this time, Nintendo has been quietly working on traditional Nintendo titles? That in fact, they've been working all along on their core franchises?
Shigeru Miyamoto: The man behind the Nintendo Wii [Telegraph]
During Nintendo's E3 address earlier today, company boss Satoru Iwata took to the stage and, amongst his talk of demographics and smiles and warm, fuzzy rainbows, spoke a little about the important things. Like what the Mario & Zelda teams are up to. He said specifically that both teams were "hard at work" on "new games for the Wii", but stopped short of saying just what it was they were working on. We'll hope that they're working on, you know. New Mario & Zelda games. And not Wii Cook or something.
Economic issues in MMOs and virtual worlds get a ton of attention, but less attention is paid to the 'single player economies.' Richard Knight argues they're no less important — while a bad economic setup won't ruin an otherwise good game, it can put a damper on the proceedings. I can certainly think of a few games that had economic setups that were mind-bogglingly bad in a number of respects:
Don't forget. Nintendo doesn't just make Wii Fit and Brain Age. It makes other games, too. Games like The Legend of Zelda. About which, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto says:
I think we'd gotten to a point where videogames were something that everyone could no longer enjoy. As a designer, I'm always focusing on what is fun — ideas that people can enjoy. For me, I'm trying to entertain as many people as I can, creating games that the widest number of people can enjoy. Of course, that being said, we do have the existing teams at Nintendo working on the kinds of products we've always made over the years. The Zelda team is forming again to work on new games! But to me, it's about finding these new interactive experiences and bringing them to people.
Well, not the entire thing. That would be madness. While we fully expect some group of nutjobs to pick up the slack, recreating the entirety of the original Legend of Zelda in two-tone grey, the current N+ user created stab at Zelda-nostalgia is a perfect sampling of glorious obsession. Kudos for making it difficult-looking to boot. Via GameSetWatch.
