“We think that WiiWare offers an opportunity for content that may otherwise not be developed.”
–Nintendo’s Tom Prata To MTV Multiplayer, February 20, 2008
If you were sitting in on my interview with Nintendo of America’s Tom Prata at the Game Developers Conference you might have thought I was pitching him a Wii horoscope program that features Miis.
I wasn’t, though you have to admit the Wii horoscope channel downloadable through WiiWare is a great idea. (No? Disagree?)
I was trying to get beyond the boilerplate. It was the Wednesday of GDC week and I had an interview with Prata, who is director of product development at Nintendo of America and the man Nintendo made available to reporters to talk about the new downloadable games service on the Wii. Prata was more than happy to reiterate the fundamentals — downloadable service, unrestricted in terms of content, launching May 12, “developers being able to create their own ideas in combination with the Wii remote,” “wonderful experiences for consumers to enjoy.”
I had already seen “LostWinds” and interviewed game developer David Braben about it. I had already heard the creators of my Independent Games Festival pick for game of show, “World of Goo,” invoke Prata’s name and then clam up when someone else asked them how their game would be coming to the Wii.
I knew the WiiWare basics. I wanted to know more. Hence my questions about Miis, horoscopes, demos, Americans and more.
Pitching A WiiWare Horoscope
I talked to Prata for just under a half hour in a room in Nintendo’s GDC area marked “Zelda.” Prata told me about how he and his team, in concert with Nintendo’s Japan office and Nintendo of Europe, have been talking about WiiWare to developers around the world. He told me he met with 20 developers just at GDC, game makers from the U.S., Canada, Australia and South America. He said about 100 games are in development for expected North American WiiWare release, a mix of games for hardcore and casual users. And he said that “about 80% of the content is being created by companies that haven’t published on Wii before.”
Prata kept using the word “content” to describe what they all might offer to the WiiWare service.
I asked him if that word choice was deliberate. Did that mean non-games were allowed? What if, say, someone pitched a WiiWare horoscope?
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