Iwata Speaks About Industry Concerns

Aside from revealing a slew of news this morning pertaining to Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata touched on several other topics, including his concerns for the future of the industry.

His concerns are threefold. First, Iwata worries that as games become larger in scale and increasingly complicated, the option of perfecting a game is disappearing. In other words, craftsmanship is being lost. He made clear that this wasn’t a criticism of the talented people working on said games, but rather the circumstances under which they are forced to operate.  Flexibility isn’t always an option, and small details are often overlooked in huge projects.

Secondly, Iwata worries that game design is becoming too compartmentalized. Using his early years at HAL Laboratory as an example, Iwata pointed out that everyone was a generalist and could easily relate to what others were doing. True, he admits, there are better programmers and artists and producers today, but the degree of specialization standard now makes it difficult for a single person to grasp the entire scope, personality, or nature of a game. Everyone is less able to understand the job of those they must work with. Iwata questions, if people can’t tell what other team members are doing, where will the next master game creators come from?

Lastly, and most importantly in Iwata’s eyes, he addressed social and mobile gaming. Iwata recalled that the last time he spoke at GDC in 2005, very few of the attendees were involved in making social or mobile games. Now, almost everyone in the industry has their hand in the pot. His concern stems from a fear that the business is diverging and threatening the continued employment of game creators. He argues that despite long hours and stressful conditions, there has always been an ability to make a living creating games. Will this be the case moving forward?

Breaking down the numbers, Iwata divulged that the PlayStation 3 boasts 500 games at retail and the Xbox 360 has 700. The Nintendo Wii and DS have over a thousand each. With such a large quantity of choices, it is notoriously difficult to gain visibility in the eyes of consumers. This is nothing when compared to app stores, as Iwata pointed out that games number in the tens of thousands, and he believes that game development is drowning as a result. Such games are inexpensive to make, but bring in little real revenue. He worries that maintaining high value isn’t a priority as a result. 

Using Nintendo as an example, Iwata explained that he sees hardware is something consumers buy in order to play games. Nintendo is a game creator first and hardware manufacturer second. This is something he believes all three console manufacturers feel the same about – that their platforms are vehicles for showcasing quality software experiences.

This isn’t necessarily the case with social and mobile gaming according to Iwata, and he argues that the motivation to maintain a high value of video game software is hard to find. The goal for these platforms is quantity over quality, because only with vast quantity does money begin to flow. Iwata wants to protect the value of software.

While unable to provide a concrete solution to the problem, Iwata offered tips to help developers gain visibility in a sea of content. In the end, he stressed the importance of something he argues is very near to Nintendo – innovation. In his own words, innovation equates to making the impossible a reality. Innovation is one of the only ways to truly protect and maintain high value in games.

He ended the presentation with the following: “For 25 years game developers have been making the impossible possible. Why would we stop now?”