Nintendo Was Advised To Make Pokemon "Brawny" to Sell Well

[an annoyed writer]

They were advised to make them more brawny? Seriously? Well, here's another example of what would've come of that:

And that's for a creature whose name translates as "Sparkle-squeak". Yeaaaahhh...

 

[Aethren]

Nintendo should drop from the console market and stick to handhelds. That is their strength, because as good as the PS4 may be, the PSP/Vita is still worse than the 3DS.

 

[CriticalMiss]

How did the author of this piece manage to repeatedly butcher the name of the late Nintendo president into "Hiroshi Yamaguchi". The Wall Street Journal article this piece cites didn't make that mistake, so there's no excuse here. :/

It's Escapist policy to have typos aplenty in articles. You get used to it after a while unfortunately.

It's clearly not an issue of games being 'too Japanese' because otherwise the WiiU would be selling like used panties in Japan but apparently it's not. I'd rather they come up with some decent new IPs, not rehashing old games with a fresh coat of paint and a U put on the end of the title.

 

[Something Amyss]

I still think Eevee should be the mascot for Pokemon. It's cute, embodies the fact that Pokemon can evolve over time with either levels, stones, or friendship, and it shows off many of the types that are in Pokemon.

Spoiler: Oh, and did I mention: It's so damn cute!

I would like to join your cause. Eevee is awesome.

Also, screw Pikachu.

Its not pokemon. That was a gigantic hit in the 90s, even with homophobia and xenophobia.

Its not muscles. Pokemon sold fine.

Its not even americans. They bought pokemon in droves before.

Its Nintendo's not only arrogant business practice but also their complete disconnect with average gamers now after 30 years of runaway success.

Amen. I'd point out this wasn't even really true in the 90s. People weren't eschewing Nintendo because they made rolly polly Mario or elf-like Link. If anything, this advice seems like it is out of touch with what Americans will support.

Let's face it, America ain't exactly welcoming to cultural differences and it seems Western gaming as a whole treats bright, colorful, or cute stuff with disdain unless it's done in an "ironic" retro fashion. I mean, seriously, how many times have we seen people use "Japanese", "anime", or "pretty boy" in a pejorative fashion? It really comes off as encouraging homogenization and blandness. And that's before I get into the xenophobic aspects going on

And yet, the things that get insulted are the ones that sell.

Don't listen to America...they don't even know what they want.

They know what they don't want, and they don't want the Wii U. Nintendo can ignore America, but doing so only hurts them in the end.

It's also interesting to note that Japanese have a little bit of fame of beig racist and xenofobia, but the west seems really egocentric and entitled to everything, specially USA.

Yes, it is the epitome of entitlement to not buy a product you don't like.

Hardware never mattered. The reason 3rd parties don't make games for the Wii U is not that, it's something else. It's just stupid excuses, N64 didn't have discs so they couldn't develop 3rd parties, GC, I don't even know the excuse at the time, but probably because it used mini discs, then with the Wii and Wii U was hardware. Always such bullshit, specially with the Wii U which is not like the difference between PS3-Wii, it's much less noticeable.
Fact is, 3rd parties can't make good enough games to compete with Nintendo ones.

At some point, the excuses for why it's not Nintendo's fault have to end.

It's not that the games aren't "American enough", it is that they keep making the same games over and over again. There are only so many times people are willing to buy the same thing with some slight variations before it begins to get stale. Just look at COD and Halo. COD is very slowly starting to decay and Halo is no longer the game people buy an Xbox for.

Eventually people start to crave something else. It doesn't mean it's because Japanese style games are not enjoyed.

I would point out that the last Mario title wasn't the system seller they had counted on in Japan, either. Wii U doesn't just have a "Western" problem, anyway. This strikes me as a rather passive-aggressive excuse.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Well, that's a bit of a false equivalency. Atlus games are successful for what they are: Most of the games feature either a 2-d sprite art style or a very rudimentary 3-d model system, with the cutscenes generally replaced by graphic-novel style static images and text. The end result is that they get long, deep games at a fraction of the cost of AAA games.

HOWEVER, it's very much necessary that they take those steps, because when an Atlus game "sells well" it's important to remember that it's selling well only by the standards of a japanese game.

Take 3 of the more successful japanese game out west in recent years (not counting dark souls, because that was lightning in a bottle) Persona 3, Persona 4, and Catherine. They were all resounding successes that left their mark on the gaming community, but they each only managed to sell around 600-800 thousand copies outside japan. For JRPGs, that number is phenomenal, but considering that the average AAA offering can expect to push a few million at the least, and the games that really count as successes consider numbers as high as 5 million disappointing, the number a japanese game can push in the west looks fairly insignificant.


Nintendo games don't cost as much to produce as the standard AAA game, but they're considerably more expensive than the niche RPGs Atlus carries over, so they can't just copy that company's business model.

I do always find it funny how people cite one or two examples and pretend that's indicative of a larger trend. Fact of the matter is that there has been a large sentiment within the gaming community and the gaming press that Japanese games are somehow "inferior" and thus are given a LOT less praise than Western ones. Heck, we label Japanese RPGS as "JRPGs", like they're not REAL RPGs. And of course I've seen legions of people pretend like Dark Souls isn't a JRPG because reasons. It's kind of a borderline xenophobic outlook with people not being very welcoming to other cultures and ideas.

 

[Loop Stricken]

And here I am, still waiting for them to release Pokémon Bank.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

The time for convincing publishers and developers to support Wii U has long passed

The box is out. You have to do what Sony and Microsoft have been doing with us for a long time. It's not that every time we met with them we got all the answers that we wanted, but they involved us very early on, talking to folks like Bethesda and Gearbox, saying, 'Here's what we're doing, here's what we're planning, here's how we think it's going to work,' to hear what we thought, from our tech guys, and from an experience standpoint.

You have to spend an unbelievable amount of time upfront doing that. If you're going to sort of decide 'Well, we're going to make a box and this is how it's going to work, and you should make games for it,' - well, no! No is my answer!

I'm going to focus on other ones that better support what it is we're trying to do. You've got to spend more time trying to reach out to those folks before you even make the box when you're still designing it and thinking about how it's going to work.

Dear Buddha, Hines is a whiny little bastard in that. Why should 3rd parties get to decide how hardware makers design their consoles? He's basically going "I don't like this, AND I KNOW BETTER THAN YOU AND I'M GONNA HOLD MY BREATH AND STAMP MY FEET UNTIL YOU DO EXACTLY WANT I SAY!!!!!" Really? Nintendo didn't treat you like a special little snow flake so you're gonna kick and scream until you get your way? This is the kind of behavior I'd expect out of a ungrateful, spoiled child, not a grown man who's the Vice-President of a company worth hundreds of millions. Absolutely disgusting behavior.

 

[Dragonbums]

Know what? I'm going to take a different route with this article. Pokemon- A game that appeals to folks of all ages was told by American advisors to make Pikachu more brawny . As in appeal to boys more as opposed to appealing to boys and girls. Isn't that something? Right off the bat the videogame market only cared about one demographic. Boys. No one else.

And the funny thing is is that Pikachu is cool among the boys and cute among the girls as is.

I have a feeling if the videogame market didn't decide right off the bat with no prior knowledge to start off as a boys club, I wonder how many issues would never come up that are prevalent today.

 

[Headsprouter]

Funny. I always thought Pikachu, while I'm not a fan of it mostly due to its popularity, was a spectacularly designed Pokemon, cool enough to appeal to most boys, and cute enough to appeal to most girls. And I liked it chubby, but that might be nostalgia.

I tend to like tough-looking Pokemon, anyway. The mean-looking bug types like Pinsir, Yanmega and Scolipede and the chunky rock and ground types. But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of cute Pokemon that I adore!

Spoiler: Examples

As you can see, I'm a fan of those big ol' eyes they used to slap on bug types. Anorith had a disappointing evolution, I think.

In a bizarre twist, I also like the pink Pokemon with a floral pattern. [http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/6/61/517Munna.png/250px-517Munna.png]

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Know what? I'm going to take a different route with this article. Pokemon- A game that appeals to folks of all ages was told by American advisors to make Pikachu more brawny . As in appeal to boys more as opposed to appealing to boys and girls. Isn't that something? Right off the bat the videogame market only cared about one demographic. Boys. No one else.

And the funny thing is is that Pikachu is cool among the boys and cute among the girls as is.

I have a feeling if the videogame market didn't decide right off the bat with no prior knowledge to start off as a boys club, I wonder how many issues would never come up that are prevalent today.

Well of course they would only care about boys; most of the people making games are male thus they make stuff that appeals to them and no one else. It's a lack of awareness that really doesn't help gaming expand.

 

[schrodinger]

Well, I'm glad it didn't turned out like this:

That would be incredibly terrifying. It looks like someone ripped off pikachu's head and placed it on that...thing.

 

[balladbird]

Heres the thing thought about nintendo:

After square left nintendo behind what kind of JRPGs where left in nintendos lineup? What nintendo games where actually "to japanese" for the western market?

It's true that very few examples spring to mind off the top of my head, though I admit to not being an especially avid nintendo gamer, outside the handhelds. The only recent example that comes to mind is Xenoblade chronicles.

Though, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the kind of person who discriminates based on the perceived culture of the product, so I may not be duly xenophobic enough. XD

Your point is a fair one.. atlus games either have anime style cutscenes or use their ingame graphics but then again.. you dont buy a game for the bloody cutscenes. And that they have sort of a niche market but thats usually the cause of old downtrodden game mechanics and ever repeating gameplay. Play one JRPG and you have played them all kinda mentality. It has nothing to do with japanese culture. Take Dragons dogma for example.. a great open world RPG hampered by tons of issues that have been worked out for years here in the west.

Oh, don't misunderstand me. I wasn't knocking Atlus, nor the games they make. I was only stating that Atlus and the companies it publishes find success because they cut costs so efficiently that they can turn a wide profit with only a fraction of the sales of major AAA games. Nintendo doesn't make games Atlus cheap, so I was just pointing out you can't look at Atlus as an example of what nintendo should be doing.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

"We need to work even more closely with the U.S. team, to make sure preferences in the U.S. are reflected at the development stage," Iwata said.

I think he may be missing the point.

It's not that the games aren't "American enough", it is that they keep making the same games over and over again. There are only so many times people are willing to buy the same thing with some slight variations before it begins to get stale. Just look at COD and Halo. COD is very slowly starting to decay and Halo is no longer the game people buy an Xbox for.

Eventually people start to crave something else. It doesn't mean it's because Japanese style games are not enjoyed.

I've seen several people posting this in this thread, and they've all missed the point themselves. He didn't say Nintendo games aren't doing well because they're too Japanese, he's saying they're going to start localizing games that, in the past, they wouldn't have brought over at all because /they/ were considered too Japanese, and Nintendo didn't think they'd sell. Tomodachi Collection is the one he's talking about bringing over in the first place, but it also brings to mind stuff like Mother 3, which something like 10 years on still hasn't made it out of Japan, despite the series having many western fans who have been begging for a localization this whole time.

 

[uchytjes]

you know, its times like these that I saved the link to This [http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/024/5/8/pikawalk_by_misterdavey-d5sj3u5.swf]

OT: The best thing about pokemon is how diverse it is, changing that would've been dumb. Heck, we've already got machop and his line of beefy brothers.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

The funny thing about this is it looks like Nintendo is trying to court two completely different audiences.

You know who I hear talking about Pokemon in Japan? Young elementary school kids. Like 2nd graders. They go nuts for it. And that's probably where Nintendo makes a ton of money, in the merchandising of things people in that age group consume: pencils, pencil cases, 6-inch rulers (measuring in cm, naturally), shitajiki, bento boxes, and clothing. Most of those things wouldn't sell well in the US (even the clothing, I bet our obese 2nd graders wouldn't generally even fit in Japanese clothes). Meanwhile, who do I hear in the US who talk about Pokemon? Well, honestly, I heard nostalgic university kids. So probably from teens on up, because this is the demographic that buys its own video games. The two groups shop different. They want different things. They engage with media differently.

Perhaps Nintendo would not be such a dismal failure if they stopped seeing markets as countries and started seeing them as age groups.

They kinda realized that with one franchise: Zelda. Wind Waker had that cell shading to look more like a cartoon to get more kids introduced to the franchise. I don't know if it worked, but many old fans complained, even though they bought it and said they like it anyway. Ninty regretted that feedback and made Twilight Princess with more realism and scary images to appeal to the older fans. Then they release Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks with WW graphics on the DS, the system every kid has at least 2 of. Maybe Nintendo should try that with more franchises. Metroid could get vibrant 2D sidescrollers on handhelds with dark moody realistic 3D games on the Wii U. Starfox similarly with 3DS games that are fun but simple and Wii U games with complexity and extra violence and dialog about the horrors of war. Pokemon could keep the merchandising aimed kids while hiding more adults things within the subtext of the story and dialog. And they could bring back the mass cross media merchandising from the 80's; Zelda cereal, Mario cartoons, stickers, movies(maybe without letting a Hollywood writer who knows nothing about the games write the script), Pikachu plushies, etc.

High school and college students became interested in Spongebob with its deranged animation and plots, Avatar: the Last Airbender with its Asian culture/martial arts influence and deep story about a genocidal war and Adventure Time with it's wacky hijinks and hidden adult references. Nick/Cartoon Network embraced this periphery demographic by making Avatar's Universe deeper and darker and the others by putting even more adult jokes that go right over the kids' heads. Ninty almost tried something similar but then never exported Mother 3.

Too bad you're right about Ninty seeing markets as countries. Metroid: Other M was made to appeal to the Japanese market(by making the independent female protagonist rely on a man?) despite the series being far more popular in the west. That backfired massively as no one new was interested in it over in Japan and Western fans actively saw it as a sexist betrayal of the franchise. They do need to find a balance or radically change things in games that would bomb outside of Japan but not Pokemon; it has enough fans everywhere keeping it going. The Wii U is doing poor because it had no games for its 1 year head start and now the new shooter-fest consoles are out in the west while the Wii U's current game's appeal mostly just to Nintendo's fans not mainstream western gamers.

 

[walrusaurus]

They kinda realized that with one franchise: Zelda. Wind Waker had that cell shading to look more like a cartoon to get more kids introduced to the franchise. I don't know if it worked, but many old fans complained, even though they bought it and said they like it anyway. Ninty regretted that feedback and made Twilight Princess with more realism and scary images to appeal to the older fans. Then they release Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks with WW graphics on the DS, the system every kid has at least 2 of. Maybe Nintendo should try that with more franchises.

Your chronology here is messed up. Wind waker was not made cartoony to appeal to a younger audience because its core audience was still in the same age bracket as when they started in on the franchise.

Ocarina of time is when the majority of the die-hard zelda fans discovered the franchise. Two years later Majora's Mask -a direct sequel- came out on the same system. Two years after that Windwaker came out on a new console. If Ocarina was targeted at gamers aged 10-18 most of those would still be in that age bracket when it came out. The controversy with windwaker wasn't the character design and tone (ie: the cartoonyness), but the actual cell shading technology, versus traditional polygon graphics. Once the game actually came out the controversy pretty much disappeared and it was one of the gamecubes best reveiwed and best selling titles. Its now regarded as the least successful 3D Zelda game, but that falls more on the failure of the gamecube than on windwaker which was the consoles 4th best seller.

Now twilight Princess came out a full 4 years later, 8 years after Ocarina. SO the original fans are all adults now and the game feature more photorealistic graphics than any Zelda prior. So by your thesis Twilight princess should have been at least as successful as windwaker since it is more 'mature.' Well if we look at the stats, the game got the same near universal acclaim as windwaker did. But it doesn't come anywhere close to ranking as high on the wii best seller list, it doesn't even make the top 10. Even if you exclude the casual-bait/bundled titles like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, it just squeeks in at number 10; behind a donkey kong game.

I'm not saying that twilight princess isn't a good game. But the common meme that goes around that Windwaker failed cause it was "kids" game and that Zelda games need to be dark and serious just doesn't hold water. And honestly, dont we have enough dark and serious games?

 

[Kuro Serpentina]

This is exactly why Nintendo does whatever the hell it wants
If they listened to idiots like this, they'd never be able to get anywhere