14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto talked to MSNBC, which is partly owned by Microsoft, and sought to tackle growing concerns from videogame players regarding the fact that Nintendo, as a company, was becoming too interested in the casual gamer to pay any attention to the more hardcore fans that have supported the company since it entered the business.
Miyamoto assured gamers that Nintendo knows who the most important fans are and also knows that they are the ones buying the majority of the games that the company produces. He said that at E3 the main goal of his company was to show off "new concepts and new types of play that we intend to bring to the broader audience, particularly because of the media that gathers at E3 now".
He also commented on Wii Music, saying that "I feel like we've finally created a true music game, rather than, say, a rhythm game. For me, as a musician, it brings the fun of creating music to those who aren't able to experience it". The game is cited as one of the examples of Nintendo failing to understand the needs of the hardcore audience.
There's no way that Nintendo would alienate its longtime fans. Miyamoto clearly says that there are teams rights now working on Mario titles, on a new Zelda game and on a new Pikmin edition, but he says that with E3 now being more of an industry show and less of a consumer oriented event, the people at Nintendo are looking at other events at which they can better communicate with the core audience.
As Miyamoto puts it "in fact we're still working on many of those titles, but it's just not the type of event where we'll be showcasing that anymore." He did not say where Nintendo planned to make its next big announcement, but it's likely that something big will be presented in 2008, just to keep the Nintendo fans happy.