Wii storage for 'geeks and otaku', says Nintendo marketing director

by Scott Jon Siegel on Jun 11th 2008 6:30PM

As Nintendo's WiiWare service ramps up with new content added every week, avid Wii users are finding themselves burning through the console's paltry 512MB of internal memory quite quickly. So we find it a bit odd that Nintendo's European Marketing Director not only considers the issue unimportant, but thinks it wise to berate those concerned with it by calling them names.

Speaking to Edge Magazine, NOE Marketing Director Laurent Fischer was surprisingly dismissive of the growing space demands of WiiWare titles. According to him, only "geeks and otaku" want the issue actually addressed. Which just hurts.

If by "geeks and otaku," Mr. Fischer, you mean Nintendo's loyal fanbase who download every game released, then there may some truth in that. But calling them names certainly won't keep those "geeks and otaku" loyal for much longer.

Source

Tags: geeks, nintendo, otaku, Wii, wiiware

Reader Comments (143)

Marketing directors represent the company. That is their job... public relations and marketing.

I was under the impression that, in business, when someone wants to buy lots of products from you that you thank that person, not name call them and tell them they can only buy so much.

Otaku is a really horrible word to use. I don't think he understands the full implications of the word.

uMM, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? I'm a geek. Proud of it. While identifiing yourself as an otaku conjures up images of naruto cosplay, I am one by the classical definition.

How can you insult a group by calling it what it identifies itself as?

i don't know what otaku is, but it sounds silly

I have always been under the impression that NOE is the least informed about issues regarding the company than NOA or NOJ.

With both NOA and NOJ saying that they they are working on the issue and NOE pretty much throwing it back in our faces, maybe there needs to be a re-adjustment in the ranks?

So to recap: Either NOE is just ill-informed, or they are just complete D-bags.

What the hell is next? The Microsoft "Ballz on yur Chin?"

These goddamn companies seem to forget who makes their money.

Although in Nintendo's case, it doesn't matter what they say about their customers now, since 80% of them are fuckwits.

This is why I sold my Wii, I doubted they were ever going to take care of this (personal) major issue. I figured this was their attitude.

But like hafk is saying, this isn't what Nintendo thinks, this is what some goon from NoE thinks

Iwata acknowledged it as an issue, though it's no guarantee of success.

True- part of it was also the need for some quick cash, and if they do release a solution to this and drop the price, I'd probably pick it up again.

Shitting on your fans must be pretty fun. I mean, why else would someone do it if it wasn't?

I was about to take serious offense with this, then I realized the e-mail address I use is a based on a female anime character and I'm wearing an anime t-shirt.

This whole time I thought my collection of anime DVDs, plushies, anime cels and video games made me an otaku.. turns out all I had to do was fill up my Wii hard drive.

In case any of you are wondering, this is what it takes to become an otaku:

- Lost Winds
- Toki Tori
- Mario 64
- Mario Kart 64
- Internet Channel
- Weather Channel
- Nintendo Channel
- Mario Kart Channel
- Photo Channel

Start downloading today, stop showering tomorrow, and you're well on your way to full blown otakudom!

I foolishly left out Kirby 64. (In my defense, I overdosed on Pocky.)

Mmm, pocky.

I am simply appalled. To imagine that even the casual player will download only 5 Wiiware games (less maybe, depending on file size) in the console's ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE is simply foolish. Perhaps it's just me, but my download speeds are as slow as hell. It took upwards of a half-hour to download Lost Winds, and while it may be a good game, I don't want to have to do that again if I ever delete it and want to play through it again. Even allowing us to save the ROM's to SD cards with heavy encryption would be a better option. Calling a good portion of the consumer base "geeks and otakus" is simply intolerable from a representative of the company.

i wanna see Iwata Pull out a wii zapper and zap this Mr. Fisher.

Buuu! Buiii~!!

...

I appologize. Your avatar always makes me want to do that..... *walks away w/ head down*

How did that geeky kid get all those trophies? Flubber???

This guy must be a total retard or he really hates Nintendo, the company he works for. This is the worst publicity I heard since Nokia said the Gameboy was for 10 year olds and anyone older than that should be playing an N-Gage.

Its not very smart of him to insult a large part of the hardcore Nintendo fanbase, especially when these are the people that bought Nintendo products when Nintendo wasn't the coolest thing on the block to have and the people that continue to support Nintendo through both good and bad times. These are also the people that do a lot of the downloading, which makes Nintendo money from the downloads, and the profits from these downloads probably contributes to this guy's salary. No one from Nintendo should be insulting their fans.

Being called a geek isn't so bad and its more of a generic word but I do agree that Otaku definitely has a negative meaning, its almost racist in a way.

Oh what the fuck? I really hope this attitude doesn't represent Nintendo as a whole, and that this guy is being a prick. Do I agree that your average casual gamer wouldn't care about space on their wii? Yes. But does that mean that the issue is unimportant? No. It ain't the grandmas and moms who are buying Wiiware, it's the "geeks and otaku" that are. And it's very unwise to piss these people off. Here's hoping Nintendo fires his ass for being a dipshit.

Wow, this guy has been living under a rock or what ?
Kinda bad for a marketing director to not even know it's product.

Rock Band, motherfucker.

In before the formal "Please Don't F***ing Fire Me" written-apology.

Seriously, you'd think a Marketing Director would have a more tactful way to say "We don't think extra storage options would be popular enough among Wii owners to be profitable." In fact, he could have just said that, verbatim, and come off a lot better. I'd be really good at his job.

I love you, voice of reason.

I've owned a Wii since launch and love the hell out of it. I've purchased MANY normal releases and a decent amount of VC, and now, Wii Ware games. I'm getting FREAKING SICK of having to delete or move (moving is painfully slow, WTF?!) multiple games/save files. It's gone from being just silly to being completely pathetic. NINTENDO! FIX THIS PROBLEM!

fuck you Nintendonald's for showing disrespect to the hardcore gamers who filled your pockets with money all these decades.

Hardcore gamers like you?

I wonder how often the marketing guys at NOE and SCEE are called up by their peers in Japan and asked to STFU.

I believe Nintendo will at least bring USB support to Wii, letting the geeks and otakus bring their own storage to the machine.

On another remark: How the hell can the kid play through Super Metroid, using a guide, and NOT get 100%?
That's just lame.

Ohhh shit! Laurent Fischer wants to throw the fuck down with a bunch of pasty geeks.

Quick, gang! Let's smother him with our otaku neckbeards!

Nintendo hasn't learned a thing from the days of the SNES, after all. Not a fucking thing.

What is it extacly that you wanted them to learn from the "days of the snes"?

This just in!
All 360 and PS3 owners are geeks!

I don't think it's much of an issue.. because if you delete it.. you can redownload it for free...for the geek thing... i'm indifferent. though i ran out of space.. but backed all of my stuff up .. filling up a sd card for the first time in my life..

I am going to guess this guy just lost his job.

Do these people not understand how to act politely to their customers? This guy was a MARKETING DIRECTOR. It's HIS JOB to cater to the needs of their customers.

He shouldn't have called Wii die-hards "geeks and otaku" --

He should have called them "Nintendo-obsessive weeaboos".

Get it right, man!

Wow, what a dick. I don't even think he knows exactly what he was saying considering that "otakus" have...absolutely nothing to do with wanting more than 512MB of space.

Some marketing director. Did anything but that by saying something so...idiotic.

=_____= ...

..We meet again.

Wow.. what a fucked up thing to say about fans who support the company. D:

I was looking at organising a games tournament at a convention I'm involved with, and getting it sanctioned by Nintendo as an official Championship, but this would mean we can only use UK releases.

Stuff'em. We'll be using import games an'all.

Wow, nintendo is now the new Sony: cocky, arrogant and condescending.

Wii giiks. LOL

Go get 'em, Joystiq! If we're not going to use SD cards AND be referenced un-diplomatically, the man who's behind the small memory crap gonna need to get flamed, somehow!

Previous 50 Comments

Wii storage for 'geeks and otaku', says Nintendo marketing director

Reader Comments (143)

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:21AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 7:52PM Omega Aero said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:06PM Ethan said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:11PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:25PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:29PM TendoMan said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:33PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:44PM Tez said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 9:28PM Mr Khan said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 9:40PM Tez said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:47PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:55PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 8:57PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 9:41PM Tez said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:34AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 9:21PM Gun Barrier said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 11:24AM xGearSecondx said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 9:46PM Ridgecity said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 10:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 10:33PM Vegeta has a ps3 said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 10:42PM mp3 said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 11:36PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 11th 2008 11:39PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:40PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:45AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:27AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 4:02PM TwEE said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:33AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 2:30AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 4:29AM whymog said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:28AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 4:05PM TwEE said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:37AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:40AM Pipp said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:54PM ZeroCorpse said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:38PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 11:26AM xGearSecondx said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:02PM xGearSecondx said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:30PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 1:50PM OK6502 said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 11:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 17th 2008 1:18PM (Unverified) said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Super Joystiq Podcast 004: 38 Studios meltdown, Gravity Rush, Civilization 5: Gods & Kings, Dragon's Dogma

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW