In a recent article I discussed the, in my opinion, biggest problem in the modern game-industry. The article focused on the segregation of the so-called casual and hardcore gamers. Especially the Nintendo Wii had a huge role in that article. In this follow-up article I would like to expand upon the previous article.

One of the things I mentioned in the previous article was Shigeru Miyamoto’s influence within Nintendo. I told that it would be interesting to see an antagonist of Miyamoto working within Nintendo. About two weeks after I had written that I read that Nintendo had teamed up with Masahiro Sakurai, the designer of Kirby and the well-known Super Smash Bros. series. But that wasn’t exactly what captured my interest. No, what I found interesting were this quotes by Nintendo’s CEO, Satoru Iwata:

“The thoughts of game designer Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo have become one, and a new project has started. In order to expand what can be offered to the world through games, we will have Nintendo’s full cooperation and make something that Nintendo could not do on its own.”

“From our perspective, it’s not something that overlaps oddly with something that would come from Nintendo or those close to Nintendo. It’s something that can be made because Nintendo is backing you up, but is also something that Nintendo could not make.”

“If one were simply considering effective use of funding, we’d have went with a plan similar to Touch Generations. But that’s not I wanted. We want to make something that will be wanted even by the more hardcore game players, and something that offers new ideas.”

Link (Andriasang.com)

These quotes don’t gaurantee success, but it’s clear that Nintendo is willing to look at the new ideas. The reason for this can be found in another recent publication. Apparently Nintendo has hired a company to figure out how to sell more games to Wii owners. Wii owners aren’t buying any games; they’re just playing Wii Sports. This seems to be in line with an earlier statement from Sega that the Wii is “the most expensive board game on Earth” (link). So, in that light Project Sora isn’t a complete surprise.

According to Nintendo, Project Sora is bound to bring new ideas in the gaming world. What these ideas are nobody really knows, but I’m silently hoping that it will influence gaming as an art. Gaming went mainstream thanks to Nintendo’s efforts with the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. It’s unfortunate to see people still consider games as a toy. Luckily it is no longer a toy only for children. But as many gamers know games are more than just toys. Myself I consider gaming as an artistic platform. It brings together visuals, music, narrative and interaction together in a very interesting way. Besides that games are also very suited for more serious applications such as education and simulation

It’s unlikely, though, that Nintendo is going to tackle this issue alone. Nintendo might not even be the “right” company to deal with the problem. Some of the most interesting games have come from the smallest developers. But it should be clear that this isn’t really only Nintendo’s problem. This is an issue that is of interest to everyone in the industry. If we want to push gaming as the big next platform, then it’s time to work together on this. And then we can hopefully finally speak of gamers as everyone would use it.