wraggster
May 26th, 2006, 15:50
One of the nicest touches during Nintendo's E3 press conference was the personalised player caricatures representing Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto and Reggie Fils-Aime on display during the trios' demonstration of Wii Sports Tennis. Now, it seems that more than a mere in-joke, Nintendo's forthcoming console may enable gamers to create their own avators for inclusion in a variety of games.
Speaking to CNN Money, Miyamoto explained, "We have some different ideas about how to take advantage of that functionality - and we will be sharing that type of functionality with third parties."
Quite how this will work is anyone's guess, but it's concievable that - given Nintendo's notion that everyone at home should have their own personalised Wiimote - the console will let players design their own characters, possibly by combining a set of pre-made facial features linked to a personal profile stored on the Wii (or even the remote itself, given 'net rumours that each will contain a small amount of memory).
Presumably then, this information would be available to any game that wants it. If this turns out to be true, it would seem that Baseball, Golf and Tennis in Wii Sports would most likely be the initial candidates for this feature, with more to follow.
In the interview Miyamoto also expressed his thoughts on the PS3's price tag and strangely familiar motion-sensitive controller features. On the former, Miyamoto revealed, "I knew before [the Sony announcement] that it was going to be expensive," said Miyamoto. "Even then, it was a bit of a shock. But I think it's clear that they don't want to lose a lot of money per unit."
As for that controller, Nintendo's design guru bullishly noted, "That always seems to happen and we kind of expected it. It reinforces for us that we've been on the right path all along. We've gotten used to others copying what we do - and we're having a lot of fun with it. [...] On the flipside, I suppose they must be worried about any other functionality we may announce."
Via CVG (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=140597)
Speaking to CNN Money, Miyamoto explained, "We have some different ideas about how to take advantage of that functionality - and we will be sharing that type of functionality with third parties."
Quite how this will work is anyone's guess, but it's concievable that - given Nintendo's notion that everyone at home should have their own personalised Wiimote - the console will let players design their own characters, possibly by combining a set of pre-made facial features linked to a personal profile stored on the Wii (or even the remote itself, given 'net rumours that each will contain a small amount of memory).
Presumably then, this information would be available to any game that wants it. If this turns out to be true, it would seem that Baseball, Golf and Tennis in Wii Sports would most likely be the initial candidates for this feature, with more to follow.
In the interview Miyamoto also expressed his thoughts on the PS3's price tag and strangely familiar motion-sensitive controller features. On the former, Miyamoto revealed, "I knew before [the Sony announcement] that it was going to be expensive," said Miyamoto. "Even then, it was a bit of a shock. But I think it's clear that they don't want to lose a lot of money per unit."
As for that controller, Nintendo's design guru bullishly noted, "That always seems to happen and we kind of expected it. It reinforces for us that we've been on the right path all along. We've gotten used to others copying what we do - and we're having a lot of fun with it. [...] On the flipside, I suppose they must be worried about any other functionality we may announce."
Via CVG (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=140597)