Boasting:
Iwata formally announced that Wii has sold over 50 million units worldwide according to the Nikkei news service, which makes it the fastest-selling console in history. Nintendo is the only gaming company to grow in the US and Europe in 2008.
Nintendo is pushing into new markets, half of all DS sales last year were to women. Praise for World of Goo as a "new way of thinking about games." The number of Balance Boards sold worldwide is nearly as great as the number of PS3 systems sold.
Nintendo DSi is the most pre-ordered console in history. That reminds me, I'd better get mine pre-ordered...
Development:
Satoru Iwata has a background in development with HAL Labs. He talks about a period when HAL released mediocre games to hit financial milestones. He refers to this as a "death spiral," saying a game that is merely good (not great) will not bring in enough revenue to make the next game great, which will force more rushed, mediocre releases.
This segues into praise for Shigeru Miyamoto and his ability to turn his hobbies into deep games that appeal both to hardcore and casual players. (Well, if they're not Wii Music, anyway.) He describes Miyamoto as a developer as working in an "upward spiral." Miyamoto doesn't use design documents and instead generates ideas with small teams that discuss their ideas. Builds simple prototypes with clear designs and nothing extraneous.
At this point they show an early demo version of Wii Boxing, where the graphics were just blocks and the emphasis was on the controls. Miyamoto controls several teams making small prototypes and excels at recognizing areas of game design that can be improved. (Well, if it's not Wii Music, anyway.)
During development Iwata tries to stay as uninvolved as possible, stepping in to determine release dates only when MIyamoto's team thinks the project is finished. This way, Iwata avoid encouraging the team to cut corners due to release pressures. Sometimes the prototype stage lasts for two years and some projects are set aside entirely, but Iwata does not consider this time wasted. Once prototypes are complete then teams of programmers can rapidly prepare a game for the mass market.
Apparently Miyamoto occasionally "kidnaps" employees who don't play games and force them to play something as part of the testing phase. Yeah, look, I don't know, this part of the keynote was really weird. Miyamoto watches the person play, not telling them anything about how the game works. No marketing input is allowed.
An anecdote about the creation of Rhythm Heaven is offered. Musician Tsunku contacted Nintendo wanting to make a game about rhythm theory. The Metroid and WarioWare directors got involved. Tsunku teaches development team to dance so they can make better music games. There are slides of this. Iwata mentions he had to approve a budget for dance lessons.
Over time the team narrowed down to five people and Rhythm Heaven for GBA was born. Problem: this development process took too long. By time the game was done, it couldn't be released in US or Europe as DS was already out. Then there's a demo reel of Rhythm Heaven for DS and DAMMIT KEYNOTE ATTENDEES ARE GETTING FREE COPIES.
I know that the game is out in like two weeks over here, but seriously, DAMMIT. Whoever got the GamePro copy, you'd better enjoy it! Actually this is apparently a stunt Nintendo pulled with Brain Age at the first GDC. This is yet another sign that Nintendo is giving the game a serious push, much better than the crappy niche treatment it got at last year's E3.
Overall:
Man, I'm going to explode waiting around for all this cool stuff to launch! Where was this at E3 last year, Nintendo? This is pretty much everything a core gamer would want to see, though no Punch-Out!! was super disappointing. Then again, Punch-Out!! is reportedly available on the show floor, so hopefully we'll have new coverage of that later this week.
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