Reggie Fils-Aime on NIntendo's Comeback with Wii, DS

Dec. 11 1:44 PM by Alicia Ashby

Things looked pretty bad for Nintendo during the N64 and GameCube years. The success of the Wii and DS mark a tremendous comeback for a publisher a lot of gamers were ready to write off completely. Reggie Fils-Aime talks about the revolution from Nintendo's point of view in this Globe and Mail article. A lot of this story you probably know... but you'd be surprised at what got Nintendo to thinking about making machines to court casual gamers. Check behind the cut if you want to see, or just go read the article.

Everything changed in the summer of 1997 with the release of the James Bond-themed game GoldenEye 007. The first-person shooter game required players to use fast-twitch or lightning-quick reflexes to succeed and went on to become one of the most popular and best-selling games to that point.

That product begat other, more intense fast-twitch oriented games &which resulted in the gaming industry becoming more insular, more focused on complex controllers, and more focused on games that if you weren't very knowledgeable, you were really left out, he said.

Sony and Microsoft seized on the trend and designed their new PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles to maximize the dedicated gamer's experience with flashier graphics and controllers with more buttons for increased precision. As a result, casual gamers began to drift away as the Internet became more popular.

That's right, folks: Nintendo started thinking about the Wii and DS approach to gaming because they decided Goldeneye 007's success was a bad thing. I can already hear the hardcore gamers furiously posting to GameFAQs in outrage.