Toronto Thumbs

E3 2010 Coverage
Interview With Nintendo Canada

Today, Matt Ryan from Nintendo Canada and I got a chance to catch up on the phone regarding events from E3 2010. Nintendo has been enjoying a strong market position, so it was interesting to chat about what sorts of games and hardware they are releasing to stay competitive. Lets see what he had to say…

It sounds like it was a good show for you guys this year.

Yeah. We had a great show.

There certainly was a ‘wow factor’. People have been whining about Kid Icarus for a while now; it’s good to see that it’s coming.

Not only is it coming, but it’s coming in 3-D!

I know! That’s really neat. We might as well just talk about the 3DS. A friend of mine got to try it out and he can’t figure it out. He was pretty amazed what you guys can do without goggles. Can you tell me a little bit about it? There’s a 3-D adjustment slider as well as an analog stick?

At E3 2010, Nintendo unveiled the Nintendo 3DS, which is our next iteration in our portable DS family. The Nintendo 3DS will blow your mind when you see it for the first time. You do not need glasses, which can be not only expensive, but also a little bit invasive while watching 3D. The Nintendo 3DS requires no glasses whatsoever, and the way it works – without getting too specific with the details – is that it is designed for one person’s eyes only; looking over someone’s shoulder will not give you the full experience. You [as the viewer] have full control over what you see using the depth slider, which literally allows you to intensify the 3D all the way to the top or drop it down to 2D. Everybody’s eyes work differently when it comes to 3D technology, so the the 3DS allows you to customize your own experience. And, of course, when you have it on a small, portable system, you have full control over what angle you’re looking at the screen from. There is also going to be a gyroscope built into it, which will allow you to have motion control.

That’s really cool. That’s new to the handheld market, from what I understand.

It needs to be seen to fully understand the experience. It’s not hologram technology; so it’s not about things screaming off the screen. It’s about depth. 3D depth. And what that enables, depending on what the developer puts together, is that some subjects that you’re looking at will appear to float within that depth. It is incredible.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this. Any plans to XL this handheld? I personally bypassed the DSi when I heard about the DSiXL.

The version that we showed at E3,  which is similar to the size of a Nintendo DSi: while some changes may be made between now and launch, that will be the size. What’s worth noting is that the top screen is a little wider, so it’s widescreen. The bottom screen is not 3D because using touch-screen capabilities in a 3D manner is not something that we are not doing with this product at this point in time. The system is just a little bit smaller than a Nintendo DSi. Will we change the size in the future? Let’s get this version out first.

That makes sense. I’m just trying to figure out what my own upgrade path is going to be.

[Both laugh]

One of the great thing about the Nintendo 3DS is that you can play 3D games on it, but you can also play your Nintendo DS games.

That’s good. So backwards compatibility.

It is backwards compatible. It’s got the same caveat that the Nintendo DSi has, and that is that we no longer have the GBA slot, so any DS games that require the GBA slot cannot be played on DSi or Nintendo 3DS. And if you’re going to ask me the question: is it forward compatible? Meaning, if you put in a 2D DS game into the Nintendo 3DS, will it automatically go 3D? The answer is no. Games need to be developed in 3D.

I can’t believe people actually asked that question.

Well, they do. Some of the other cool stuff that we showed at E3: we showed videos for 3DS, so what video content would look like; we showed Hollywood movies, to show what they would look like; we showed playable demos like Starfox 64, which was redone in 3D; we also showed Ocarina of Time – just a little section of it. What that shows is that we can port games from 2D to 3D, and that we can create new 3D content like Nintendogs and Cats, which is specifically built in 3D for this system, as well as other 3D games.

Awesome. Let’s move on to the latest Kid Icarus game: Uprising. That’s going to take full advantage of the 3DS, correct?

Of course it will. We have only showed a trailer for it so far. We showed the 2D trailer at our press conference, but on the floor you could watch the 3D trailer. You’ll notice some really cool things built into that game: not only what the story is going to be, but also the 3D gameplay in that world.

Is there a new Mario title slotted soon for the 3DS?

We haven’t announced the launch date for product or any of the software, but definitely. We showed a version of Mario Kart; we showed Paper Mario. I can assure you that Nintendo’s first party franchises will make appearances on Nintendo 3DS, not only at launch, but beyond. I can’t confirm any dates for the software or the system. You can anticipate that there are going to be tons of not only first party franchises for the 3DS, and also some awesome 3rd party stuff, including: a trailer we showed for Resident Evil, as well as a trailer that we showed for Metal Gear Solid.

Was there an Assassin’s Creed title announced for the 3DS as well?

Yes there was.

[Grinning and clapping my hands like a giddy child at this point]

The message that sends is that at launch we are going to have the best third party support for Nintendo 3DS that we have ever had [for any DS] in history.

Let’s move onto the Wii. Lately I have been playing Red Steel 2, and enjoying the hell out of it. So when I saw Skyward Sword I was very excited.

[Chuckles] You should be.

So it’s more of a positionally-dependent attack system now? A more MotionPlus-driven combat method?

Yeah. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was kind of teased last yearat E3. This year we showed a playable demo of it, and it is all about Wii MotionPlus’ cababilities with the Wii Remote, and what the MotionPlus offers in terms of precision controls. So while The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess offered you the option of moving your arm and controlling your sword and other weapons, the precision that Wii MotionPlus offers is that every single angle you can have with your hand you can have with your sword. Also when you use other items like your whip – which is not a new item – a flick of the wrist can have you doing a forehanded whip, a backhanded whip, or an overhanded/underhanded whip; it’s completely changed the way you play your Zelda game. What we showed in the demo was a lot more action-oriented; not that we’re moving away from the puzzles and story elements.

Does the fishing rod return?

We have not shown the fishing rod yet, however, when you look at the menu of weapons and items that you can use, there are a bunch of question marks; we will not be announcing what those are, but we showed the sword, we showed the whip, we showed slingshot, the bow and arrow, and a couple of other things. We’ll have to see if the fishing rod is in there or not. Wii MotionPlus allows everything to feel a lot more realistic.

So I have heard that the bow and arrow controls are similar to Wii Sports Resort, and that bombs can be rolled now?

Yeah. It’s really neat. So you pick up a bomb and you have it as an item. The Wii Remote with Wii MotionPlus will detect whether your arm is up, as if you were going to throw it; it will sense if your arm is down as if you’re going to bowl it; or you can just drop it. You have multiple options that are not initiated by button-pushing; they are initiated by the motion of your arm in the right direction. The other thing that changes with the gameplay is that you have to be more strategic in your attacks and defenses. An enemy will now protect themselves or defend themselves in a certain way. For example, an enemy may have two swords and will defend themselves leaving only one part of their torso exposed as an option to hit, so you will have to use a horizontal swing of your sword. You’ll have to pay attention a little bit more to how your enemies are defending themselves. In one of the E3 demos, using the whip on an enemy didn’t take away any of their health; it just stunned them. Very rewarding. There is seamless control of switching between your weapons and items; you can whip your enemy to stun them and in a fraction of a second you can draw your sword and cut them in half.

Another Metroid title and Donkey Kong Country 2. What ever happened to the bongos?

[Laughs] The bongos were a pretty awesome accessory back in the day, and I enjoyed many an hour banging those drums. For this version? No bongos. However, if you need the satisfaction of playing the bongos, you can ‘pound the ground’ with the Wii Remote and nunchuk as if you were playing the drums. The thing I was telling people at E3 was that the sound you get when you do a ground pound has a lot of nice bass. They just couldn’t hear it over the noise.

Well, I’m out of time, Matt. Thanks for chatting with me.

My pleasure. Thanks you for the interview.

I had shut off my recording equipment prematurely. Matt and I discussed the emergence of motion controls from the competitors and how this affected things. He indicated that Nintendo was going to do what they always did and grow some nice titles. There were no indications as to whether or not they were going to change any of the Wii hardware. Their goal is to keep tapping into MotionPlus and come up with new and fun ways to use it. That’s what they are all about, after all: fun.

Posted in E3, Events, Interviews, News Bytes, Nintendo |