In an interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata posted by Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi on his blog, Iwata revealed a sequel to the popular Wii Sports was not in the works.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the key to attracting new gaming customers is to surprise them with new entertainment ideas, and that Nintendo would not take the easy route of making similar sequels to make easy money.
Iwata also honestly admitted that if the Wii and DS had not become a global success, then maybe Nintendo would have had fallen back on making safer sequels to make profit for certain.
The interview is part 9 of an 11-part conversations Itoi had with Iwata six months ago. Part 9 was posted on September 12 in Japanese and English translation.
The Switch just isn't equipped for a killer sports title like the Wii was
A lot of the points made here are true, yet let's give it a chance, because like the author said, the Wii was a motion control console and everyone did view it as such while the switch is not, so the way people view the game determines how much they invested in it, so again let's give it a chance and see
Wii sports was truly atrocious and you're saying Switch Sports will be even worse? It does not bode well for Switch Sports indeed.
Wii Sports was ok for screwing around, but the games lacked depth. Also I'm not sure why it seems like they decided to stick with the automatic player movement so all you need to do is swing to hit something. Very noob friendly but not as much fun IMO.
Wii Sports was THE game for casuals. I don’t feel many casuals own the Switch. I can’t see this doing the numbers Wii Sports did.
Course it won't, the Wii was a phenomenon. Something new with the motion tech. A curiosity to almost everyone. Obviously Switch sports won't create the same impact.
Nintendo could be sitting on a gold mine with a past favorite.
Because we all miss accidentally throwing our Wiimotes at the TV, so let's throw some Joy-Cons.
I was always confused by Nintendo’s decision to kill the franchise. “Super” stayed with Mario titles even after the Super Nintendo. They can still use the Wii name. Hell it’s been so long that releasing a new one, or even an HD remaster, will tap into that nostalgia market.
Super was never because of the Super Nintendo. Super Mario Bros launched on the NES. The Super is because it's an indirect sequel to Mario Bros.
They can just call it Nintendo Sports or something, but using the Wii name would be a bit confusing.
Yeah i agree but i don't think Nintendo will be bringing wii sports to the Nintendo Switch samething goes for diddykong racing
A look at some of the best games that launched beside a new console.
Missing Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS5 in this list. Love this game!
They probably didn't include it (and a bunch of others) because of their criteria for "lasting influence on the industry".
SMMM is a good game, but it doesn't stand out enough to have THAT huge of an impact on the industry as a whole - especially when compared to games like Mario, Halo & Tetris.
i would also add Sonic and Crash (pun intended lol) ...Sonic 1 on MD is a all time classic game that helped MegaDrive to separate itself and explode in sales... also Crash Bandicoot ...while not exactly a launch game..it was pretty close to launch for PS1 (in Europe was almost a launch game as PS1 released later here) and trademarked the start of PS era
Totally agree - those two games were huge for the industry & direction of platformers.
p.s. love the irony of your name for this post :P
Sonic was not a launch game. I keep seeing people say it was, but maybe they were so young it’s when they got the console. Crash bandicoot definitely wasn’t even close to being a launch game . These games are system sellers though.
@Sonic-and-Crash
Neither Sonic nor Crash released anywhere close to the launch of their respective consoles. Crash released a full year after the western launch of the PS1 (and two full years after Japan's launch), and Sonic released two years after Genesis in US, and a year after Mega Drive in PAL regions.
I knoe it wasn't a massive influence on the industry, but Condemned: Criminal Origins on Xbox 360 is one of my all time favorite launch games.
Ok you love it, and that's great but I think you are missing the point of the article... In any case to judge something like this I think you need time, currently we can see the tree but not the forest
That game has aged like a fine wine. Still go back to it all the time on my Dreamcast.
Super Mario World is still my my favorite of all Mario games and in the discussion for best side scroller ever.
I think saying that Nintendo won't roll out cheap moneymaking sequels isn't entirely true. Look at Mario Party 8 or Brain Age 2; a lot of their games are just cheap reworks of a tried-and-tested formula. And, apparently, people love to buy them.
Now, that's still not entirely fair to Nintendo. All of the holy trinity games are sequels, and all of them advance heavily upon their predecessors. I love Nintendo's franchises, and if someone said "Oh, by the way, no Super Mario or Super Smash next gen" a whooole lot of Nintendo system owners (Including me) would be ticked off. Nintendo has always centered around the same franchises. Frequently, they actually change the games that the licenses are used in. Other times... well, not so much.
I guess this article is trying to say that new franchises are in the works from Nintendo. I hope so.
I know English is far from being his first language.
But his grammar still makes me laugh.
The telling part of this interview is that he says that it is easy to say that they won't take the easy way out because they are making a profit. He goes on to say that if they weren't making a profit, they would probably take the easy way out.
To address your comment UnsungHero, Iwata does clarify that is not to say they will not make sequels but that they want to do something that will attract gamers.
Wasn't Wii Play tantamount to a quickie cash-in sequel? I know they didn't call it Wii Sports 2 or anything, but it was certainly trying to capitalize on the success of Wii Sports - and it's borderline shovel-ware.
"Nintendo would not take the easy route of making similar sequels to make easy money. "
Is that why Wii is a similar sequel to the gamecube?