The return of Super Mario is
set to be the crowning achievement in what’s already been a remarkable
year of recovery for Nintendo.
The loyal (and I mean loyal)
fans weren’t worried, but rewind a year and many people - myself
included - were questioning Nintendo’s ability to compete realistically
with Sony and Microsoft in the console market.
The Wii U - a
follow-on to the wildly successful Wii - had tanked, and the new
console, Switch, seemed like it would be just too basic to make an
impact.
Yet at E3 this year, the company is brimming with confidence. Its strategy has paid off.
"It seems to have brought back Nintendo’s mojo,” says Tom Phillips, news editor at Eurogamer.
"You look at where Nintendo are now compared to 12 months ago, it’s really night and day. They really turned things around.”
Eyeing the Wii
The
Switch got off to a blistering start when it came out in March. It sold
almost three million units in the first month, making it the company’s
fastest-selling console. The first big release - Legend of Zelda: Breath
of the Wild - is now considered to be one of the best games created,
with several million copies sold.
And so it serves as a timely reminder that to judge games consoles on
processing power, or true-to-life graphics capability, would be like
reviewing a film based solely on the quality of its CGI. What Nintendo
continually delivers is creativity other publishers can’t match.
Make no mistake, the enduring appeal of titles like Mario (or Zelda) isn’t nostalgia, but reinvention.
- Super Mario readies for October release
- Sony teases virtual reality games at E3
- Microsoft unveils Xbox One X
- Xbox's vanishing virtual reality strategy
The Switch surpassed the company’s early expectations, so now
the ambition is grander. The Wii sold more than 100 million units in its
eight-year life. Can that be repeated?
“I’m not going to lie to
you, the Wii is something that we’re looking at,” said Nicolas Wegnez,
general manager for Nintendo in the UK, told the BBC.
"We would really love to go back to that growing path of really making many more people smile playing Nintendo products.”
Chubby plumber
To help in that aim, Nintendo will once again turn to its biggest star.
Super
Mario Odyssey - whose October release date was announced on Tuesday -
includes the chubby plumber's first foray into the “real” world as he,
in at least one level, spends some time in what resembles a real city,
modelled on New York.
You’re free to roam around and do tasks on
your own - press on with the main story, or distract yourself with other
missions. It’s just like Grand Theft Auto, but you’re helping people
instead of shooting them in the face.
There’s a new gameplay
mechanic that makes use of the Switch’s dual-motion controllers; a flick
of the wrists flings Mario’s new hat - called Cappy - in any given
direction as a way of defeating enemies or interacting with objects.
It’s
impossible to get a real feel for the quality of a game in a noisy
convention centre, so I’ll leave those more qualified than me to offer
the true verdict of the game when it is released.
Until then,
Nintendo will release Arms - a fighting game that had people flailing
their arms all around us here - and Splatoon 2, a competitive paintball
shooter featuring squids, which Nintendo is positioning as its e-sports
headliner.
OK without 4K?
But
Nintendo’s problem is one it has faced for over a decade now. Its
console relies heavily on the games made by the geniuses within its own
company. Third-party games, while growing in number, often feel like
second-class citizens on Nintendo's platforms when compared to the
treatment on the Xbox and PlayStation. As those consoles begin to offer
full 4K visuals, that gap in quality will feel even wider.
“The
[4K] resolution is one thing which is part of the project but for us
there is a lot of innovation when you think about it in Switch," said Mr
Wegnez.
"We’re going one way which is focused on new ways of playing, new gameplay experiences."
The
gameplay experience on the Switch is innovative, but it’s not the
dramatic shift we saw when the Wii came out, where games went from being
about pressing buttons in your bedroom to waving swords in the living
room with your nan.
That leap alone was enough to propel the Wii
to incredible sales, but it’s unlikely the Switch can gather that much
momentum with clever hardware alone - and without more third-party
titles, there is arguably a ceiling to how successful the Switch can be.
"We are not such a big company as our competitors,” acknowledged Mr Wegnez.
"We need to do things differently. We really put a lot of love in our products."
BBC NEWS
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