Nintendo's Kaplan says 'Gamers were bored before Wii'

by Ross Miller { Oct 15th 2007 at 3:28PM }

Remember those hours you stayed up playing Halo 2 merely thinking you were having a good time? Shadow of the Colossus? Smash Bros? Tetris? We hate to tell you, but you weren't enjoying yourself. That's right, you were getting bored. We're sorry to be the ones to break it to you.

It was Nintendo of America's soon-to-be-former Marketing VP Perrin Kaplan who infomed us of our jaded dispositions. Speaking to Ad Age, which named Nintendo the Marketer of the Year, Kaplan said, "A major insight that Nintendo had early on was that they saw that gamers were getting bored, even though they didn't know it yet."

We know the role of a marketer is to sell their product with as much hyperbole as possible, but doesn't this seem a bit short-sighted (not to mention somewhat self-deprecating, given Nintendo's prominence in gaming history)? If only Kaplan wasn't leaving, she might have filled Ken Kutaragi's shoes well.

[Via Next-Gen; image from Halo Nights]

Tags: nintendo, perrin-kaplan, perrinkaplan

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

JediMasterASD @ Oct 15th 2007 3:34PM

yeah we were so bored with the way games used to be played that a game using a normal remote on a different system is the highest selling release ever (halo 3). and there biggest release (Smash Bros) doesnt even use motion controls and is prefered that you use the classic controller when playing it.

megaStryke @ Oct 15th 2007 3:34PM

Uh oh. Here they come.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 15th 2007 3:38PM

You can literally hear their knuckles dragging across the ground.

License to ill @ Oct 15th 2007 3:42PM

Fernando's coming?

Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 15th 2007 3:47PM

I wonder who will be the first to unleash the s*it storm Shaggy,Fernado or Phatty.

upz @ Oct 15th 2007 4:19PM

I love how the troll patrol gets here even before the trolls do. What does that say?

megaStryke @ Oct 15th 2007 4:26PM

What kind of a preemptive strike team would we be if we didn't act... ya know... PREEMPTIVELY?

riggs @ Oct 16th 2007 11:28AM

empty?

riggs @ Oct 15th 2007 3:35PM

If we were bored then, what the fuck are we now??

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 15th 2007 3:35PM

I'm stayin' outta this one.

For the record, though – she's right in regards to casual Madden-style gamers. She wasn't really referring to the hardcore enthusiast crowd.

You may now all whine about minigames and how dusty your Wii is. Flame on.

Freelancepimp @ Oct 15th 2007 3:53PM

For the most part she is so right. I know exactly where you are coming from with the knuckle dragging comments. The concept is so far over most their heads they couldn't find it with the hubble. What happens is most of these people will eventually find themselves removed from certain games or gaming over all with out even knowing why. Its like the friend we all know who has a console and ton of games but never plays it but still swears its so great.

FidliousWong @ Oct 15th 2007 4:25PM

I think before we start looking at the whole casual vs. hardcore gaming market and their apparent weaknesses, we should all read this article.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1947/innovation_in_casual_games_a_.php

It makes a few valid points in how the casual games market isn't offering up enough variety to keep their market growing. Or more importantly, how these hardcore genres mimmick the evolutionary boundaries of their respective genre versus revolutionary. Even Portal is merely explanding upon concepts put in place by Prey.

Personally, I've adopted the simple idea of "I play it if it's fun for me and you play it if it's fun for you" long ago. I'm used to enjoying genres critically bashed except in rare instances. And most of the stuff being raved about, I could give a squishy pigeon squirt about.

n3rrd @ Oct 15th 2007 4:33PM

Woah. Wooooaaah. Concepts put in place by Prey? What the hell does that mean?

FidliousWong @ Oct 15th 2007 4:54PM

In several portions of Prey, you went through small gates or portals which placed you along walls or in entirely different places. Gravity was a toy in Prey. Main different between Prey and Portal in that aspect is in Portal, you MAKE the portals instead of being limited to the premade ones.

n3rrd @ Oct 15th 2007 5:05PM

Sorry dude, but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_drop

FidliousWong @ Oct 15th 2007 5:28PM

Sorry Dude, but

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_%28video_game%29

Seriously, the game was announced in 1995. The first version of the technology was shown in 1997.

Besides, it's a logical progression of thoughts. Why does everyone discount everything unless it's 100% never seen before? And incidently, it never is.

Zertoss @ Oct 15th 2007 3:36PM

Damn! I thought I was having fun playing Metroid Prime, Smash Bros., Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, etc.

Damn Matrix, messing with my head.

StrangeBum @ Oct 15th 2007 4:13PM

Like that part in the 7th(?) world. Where you have to fight a samurai person, progress to next screen and repeat. 36 FLIPPIN TIMES!!!

That was ridiculously boring, I had to trudge through that madness twice, once for me and once for my little brother. I quit playing after that incident.

Bloo @ Oct 15th 2007 3:37PM

Super Paper Mario, a game I somehow finished, has got to be the most boring game I have ever played (and I have been playing since the 2600)

JodyAnthony @ Oct 15th 2007 3:41PM

i couldnt even finish it. such a dissapointment.

mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 15th 2007 3:47PM

Yeah, there were parts that were boring, but I found the game charming enough to keep me playing.

KonohaShinobi @ Oct 15th 2007 4:10PM

WTF? 2600? Wow, how did you travel through time?!

danny. (fdf.) @ Oct 15th 2007 4:34PM

I whole-heartedly agree... finished it, wish I'd never bought it. I should have learned from the thousand year door fiasco.

Blazur @ Oct 15th 2007 6:10PM

No kidding dude...that was a painfully boring game to play through. Most of the dialogue I just skipped past just to beat the damn game.

Such child's play...

Silent Xenocide @ Oct 15th 2007 9:48PM

the last game I ever bought for my wii was super paper mario. Such a boring game. It had nice dialogue though.

Questworld @ Oct 16th 2007 12:32AM

In Paper Mario 2, I found the battle and its presentation the most fun I had in that game. Good thing too because I didn't like the game in general. It wasn't bad but I didn't find the humor funny despite what reviewers said and I didn't like the area layouts, especially for that one segment where I had to find that white bomb-omb and I was forced to actually visit every area in sequence. I hate such obvious tacked on backtracking.

*spoiler*

Anyway, it's why I'm a little reluctant on Super Paper Mario until I see more. The only thing that got my attention is seeing Luigi in some bandit costume. That got me curious. Prior to that I was pretty much going to skip the title.

FOXHOUND @ Oct 15th 2007 3:37PM

Drunk? Yes.
Bored? No.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 15th 2007 3:38PM

For the record, I was seriously becoming bored with video games. I still am, but many of the games on the horizon give me hope.

Seriously, when wii was announced, I felt like that 8 year old kid again, excited about the prospects of the gaming future for the first time in 10 years.

JodyAnthony @ Oct 15th 2007 3:42PM

same here

mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Oct 15th 2007 3:46PM

ditto.

NATO_Duke @ Oct 15th 2007 4:11PM

I kinda agree- but once I got the Wii home and tried a few games, I was a tad disappointed.

Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 15th 2007 4:17PM

Same here except that eventually that hope died I thought the Wii was going to be the second coming of the Super Nintendo but it wasn't instead is a cold machine that feeds on our nostalgia.

But really it makes sense the last 2 games I enjoyed were Megaman Powered up! and still the challenges almost screwed the game…almost and Oblivion.

It feels nowadays everything is generic, I would probably unleash the s*it storm with this but games like COD4 and GR:AW fell somehow like Halo except a bit worst because at least in Halo the ridiculous jumps and vehicles make the game fun for at least 5 to 10 minutes while in COD4 and GR:AW are more like “Screw the story mode we have multiplayer”

Nothing screws a perfectly good game like multiplayer because there is nothing more competitive than multiplayer which is a fest of l33ts pwning n00bs or in the multiplayer lingo “raeping n00bs” making rookies angry so they play to prove that no one raepes them making the game a second job for them while expert players just keep playing because they simply own even if it’s the same map over and over and if they are bored they just act like aholes which is practically what I did when I was a NVW player when I got bored I just humiliate players .Now in FPS my case is that I’m a mediocre player and because it seems everyone hates to play any another thing but slayer the game turns painfully repetitive for me seriously it felt like I played the same map over and over in Gears of war, there are more than 3 maps people I know, I downloaded them.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 15th 2007 4:18PM

I can not honestly say that the wii has lived up to my expectations so far. However, I also realize that at this time during the 360's life span, I could say (and did say) the same thing for it.

With the install base as large as it is, it really is only a matter of time before the heavy hitters start landing on Wii. GH3 is a game that should do very well on the wii. Mario Galaxy is a big name for it this season as well, and I still have high interest in games like Zack and Wiki, and just for fun: Harvey Birdman, Ace Attorney.

One thing we all must have during the 1st year in a consoles launch is patience. 360 eventually got its games rolling (remember the post launch EGM interview with Peter Moore?), Wii will get its games rolling, and PS3 should get its games rolling. The only one thats looking bad is PS3, as they can't seem to catch a break.

There, my non-fanboy comment of the day.

d-pad @ Oct 15th 2007 4:28PM

COD4 and GR:AW are more like “Screw the story mode we have multiplayer”

Both of those games have excellent plots.

arrrgh @ Oct 15th 2007 4:41PM

same here. Now it's either stupidly fun, or insanely goodlooking. The two rarely coincide. But when they do, it's gravy

Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 15th 2007 5:07PM

The short answer is No I didn’t like it GR:AW simply as that, in the case of COD4 well I’m being premature but games based on terrorist activities normally have a weak story like Socom.

dsub @ Oct 15th 2007 9:18PM

The Wii was fun. Until someone offered me $600 for it last Christmas.

ThornedVenom @ Oct 15th 2007 3:39PM

Yeah, we were bored. That's why we play games. ZING!

Konny @ Oct 15th 2007 3:40PM

This makes a lot of sense from Nintendo's perspective.

THEIR gamers were getting bored of playing the same mario, zelda, donkey kong, wario ware, mario [sport], pokemon, pkimin, etc, etc... over and over again.

So, they needed a gimmick to sell their fanbase into buying their next generation console. So, now, nintendo fans are playing mario, zelda, donkey kong, wario ware, mario [sport], pokemon, pkimin, etc, etc... with motion controls instead of the controller.

Except for Smash of course.. putting broken waggle controls in that would basically prove everyones point that waggle is a gimmick used to sell Wii to the masses and oldskool nintendo fans not willing to let go of the past.

Fatass of Kickassness @ Oct 15th 2007 3:52PM

I bet you've been happy as hell ever since Jack of No Trades stopped posting, because that made you the biggest damn troll on the site.

d-pad @ Oct 15th 2007 4:17PM

We both know you can troll better than that.

It had a promising start, but you failed to follow up with the Sony lineup for 2008 - plus, you didn't even mention the RROD.

Konny, you have disappointed me.

TwEE @ Oct 15th 2007 4:21PM

What fresh masterpieces are you playing dear Konny?

Neon Jebus @ Oct 15th 2007 3:40PM

You know what bores me? Mini-games after mini-game...
I was looking for a new way to play games. They gave me a new way to play games I really didn't want to be playing.

megaStryke @ Oct 15th 2007 4:24PM

You know, for a second, I could have SWORN this was GodisaMyth's latest incarnation. A quick look at his posting history, however, shows nothing but competent, well-reasoned responses and low-key observations. Damn. I saw the "Jebus" in the title and got excited.

Neon Jebus @ Oct 15th 2007 4:28PM

A boy can dream can't he?

Nah, I really wanted to love the Wii and I dig that it is getting older people and non-gamer types into games. It just wasn't my thing.

Which is why I sold it to a family that could enjoy it. And I didn't profit off of it though I could have. I actually took a loss on the Virtual games I had downloaded.