Japanese Developers Comment On Revolution

Author: by David Jenkins, Simon Carless

The latest issue of Japanese consumer game magazine Nintendo Dream features a series of short quotes from various prominent Japanese developers, concerning their thoughts and plans for the Nintendo Revolution console. As translated by consumer site IGN, the comments are almost entirely positive, with most developers hinting that they are planning to support the console in some fashion. For example, Kouichi Suda (president of Killer 7 developer Grasshopper Interactive) states that, although he has not been able to use the infamous controller himself, he feels there was “no choice but to make games for it”, adding “I've already finalized a plan. Now, all that remains is to make it.” Other tacit support comes from Konami’s Hiroshi Tanibuchi, producer of the Powerful Pro baseball series, who hints at a specially tailored Revolution version of the franchise. "I doubt that there's a creator who doesn't get tickled after getting their hands on this. It combines all the elements required to let you enjoy games while feeling that you've become the character," addsed Sega’s Toshihiro Nagoshi, producer of F-Zero GX/AX and Super Monkey Ball. The closest any of the developers, who include Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani, Final Fantasy’s Hironobu Sakaguchi and Pokémon art director Ken Sugimori, come to a criticism of the controller is Banpresto’s Takanobu Terada, producer of the popular Super Robot Taisen series. "To be honest, I was expecting the Revolution controller to have an even more unique form, so I was initially disappointed”, he is quoted as saying. “However, that quickly disappeared. I feel that it is a great controller that can inspire many ideas, even aside from video games." Square Enix’s Kouichi Ishii, producer on the company’s World of Mana project, sums things up by commenting, “I believe creators will enjoy making games [with the controller]”. He adds though that, “You'll have to change game design methods from the core. If you can do this, then surely you will be able to make a completely new form of play, different from current games." These comments combine to suggest that the majority of Japanese developers are impressed and enthused about the prospect of working on the Revolution, an impression that seems broadly in line with comments from Western developers obtained during a recent Question of the Week on Gamasutra. However, the financial ramifications of developing a Revolution controller-utilizing game that can only be played on one hardware platform obviously needs to be factored in to product planning for development on Nintendo's new console.