Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has recalled the story of when he met with the legendary Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto when they were discussing the launch of the iconic Wii system. As he has previously said, he wanted to ensure that Wii Sports was included as a pack-in title as it showed off the system perfectly. He says that he told Mr. Miyamoto this and received a “death stare” from him and was told ‘we don’t give away content for free.’ Thankfully he was able to change Miyamoto’s mind and the rest is history.
“I’m in a small meeting with Mr. Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto… and we are talking about how to best launch the system (Wii) and I said I really think we should pack in Wii Sports. I kid you not. The look that Mr. Miyamoto gave me… Mr. Miyamoto gives me this death stare. Then he says Reggie-san, ‘we don’t give away content for free’. This is were my historical experience with the companies content came in. I instantly retorted, ‘But Mr. Miyamoto, when I bought my SNES, Super Mario came free with that system. So it has been done, but strategically and with thought as a way to drive the business forward.'”
Now they won’t even giveaway the Welcome Tour for free.
“Thank you for spending $350+ on our brand new system. As a welcoming gift, pay us $10 more for a tour of the system with wacky shenanigans and mini games!”
Welcome tour should have never been paid, it was stupid that it was. But I felt like it was made for me since I am a technology nerd. After beating it, I really did learn to appreciate the hardware of the switch 2. I learned that you can actually put on the joy con upside down on the switch 2 and it will still work! Don’t pay 10$ for it though, I would recommend making a best buy account because a couple a times a year, you get free 10$ gift cards. Just wait for that and get it, or buy brotato or something.
It absolutely should have been built into the switch 2 like face raiders on 3DS
Agree
Face raiders was fun. I also enjoyed the AR card games that came with the 3DS like the target practice and fishing. Good times
I don’t really feel like people aren’t being fair when they compare Welcome Tour to Wii Sports. Unlike Wii Sports, I don’t think Welcome Tour being free would make the Switch 2 that much more enticing to customers. Wii Sports being a pack-in worked because motion controls were novel and it served as a way to convince people that motion controls were a “game changer”. Switch 2 doesn’t have anything that fundamentally changes how you play, so something like Welcome Tour doesn’t feel nearly as “necessary” as something like Wii Sports. Should Welcome Tour have been free? Maybe, but that’s more because I don’t think people would be all that interested in it otherwise. If anything it might have made more sense to just not put that much effort into a glorified instruction manual to begin with. Regardless, I don’t think it’s fair to say “Welcome Tour should have been free because it worked for Wii Sports” because I don’t think the two situations are actually all that similar.
I’ll always give them crap for charging for a glorified instruction manual. Definitely not the same Nintendo from 20 years ago.
I miss Nintendo how they was in the GameCube era.
(suggestion: this Biblical verse: “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” – Ephesians 4:29, New Living Translation version)
Miyamoto knew as soon as it was asked that he would have to give in to Reggie.
Gonna to ruin Reggie’s revisionism story but it was Scott Pelland’s idea, also last time he told this he insinuated that it was Iwata not Miyamoto who said “Nintendo doesn’t give software for free”. Sickr you reported this before, let’s search that article.
Now, read this:
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/a-wii-bit-of-history
Gonna ruin your comment here by pointing out you posted a blog article from a guy who only has a few localization credits and, in the blog post you linked, he only says “we” referring to NoA. It was obviously not this individual’s idea… He was just sharing an inside perspective of what was going on at NoA as the Wii was getting ready for launch.
Compare that to Reggie’s testimony who was you know… actually there during discussions.
Also Iwata’s name isn’t even mentioned in that article so I have no idea why you’re saying “it was Iwata not MIyamoto”.
Yeah, sometimes people actually read the stuff you link and don’t just take your word for it.
The linked article even acknowledges “Reggie had faith in us and in the end he managed to win acceptance from NCL.” There’s no difference between the two versions of the story.
Nintendo are tight asses for sure. Now you also need a subscription to be able to play old ROMs, because reselling you the same ones on virtual console a bunch of times before wasn’t enough.
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20$ a year is seriously really low compared to the virtual console prices. 3 snes games are the same price for a whole year of switch online.
(suggestion: this Biblical verse: “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” – Ephesians 4:29, New Living Translation version)
“This might seem like an example of Nintendo being greedy, but the wii is the same system that added the wrong 3rd party fighters in Smash so it’s okay.”
(suggestion: specify “wrong 3rd party fighters”)
Honestly, it’s a bit weird that Miyamoto of all people would take this much of an offense. I thought he was one of those people who’d delight having more people experience his work.