14 DAY TRIAL // Capcom's Masachika Kawata, the producer of Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles currently in development for the Wii, had a little chat with Kotaku over at the Tokyo Games Show and (shockingly enough) revealed that Nintendo's Wii Balance Board may be the franchise's new controller. Say what...? Is Nintendo trying to turn everyone into casual gamers?
Not that the Wii is all about fun and simple casual play, appealing everyone who hasn't even touched a game pad in their lives... But that's not bad and especially not for Nintendo and the developers and publishers throwing stuff at the Wii. The thing sells and everyone's happy. However, turning a franchise such as Resident Evil into a more casual one is not the way to go. Sorry for being so straight forward and not at all objective but that's just how every Resident Evil fan would react.
See, everyone likes something new (as in different peripheral) every once in a while and the Wii Remote proved to be the winning formula, but wasn't the Wii Remote enough? Now they want to get people on the Balance Board and... do what, jump up and down and squash the zombies?
Here's what Masachika Kawata told Kotaku, under the form of a joke, followed by a more sincere statement:
"As a parody, it would be kind of fun to make Biohazard Fitness," this being the joke. And now for the serious Kawata: "Seriously, the game market in Japan has become too hardcore so I think something like Biohazard Fitness would actually broaden the market. Anything to break the market open is a welcome change for me."
Yeah well, I guess that if the world's hardcore gamers are becoming extinct, there's nothing much for Capcom to do than turn the Resident Evil franchise into a peripheral-based one. Who knows, maybe they actually have something quite terrific in mind. But that Wii Balance Board doesn't look all that fun, does it?