Jaffe attacks Nintendo for insulting loyal fanbase

Gameindustry.biz Reports: God of War designer David Jaffe has launched an attack on Nintendo following the company's marketing director stating only "geeks and otaku" want more storage for the Wii.

Writing on his personal blog, Jaffe accuses Nintendo of snubbing its loyal fanbase for mainstream success, and says Laurent Fischer – who he incorrectly refers to as female – should be ashamed of his comments.

[jedistev]

even you are work for Sony PS..hat off to you

[Silogon]

ahhaha, this guy is actually talking about Junior high school vocabulary and mentality? This guy? I say no more and rest my case. Dave, get back to work. Sony wants to hurry up and buy out your company like they do all independent dev's anymore.

[Mr Fancy Pants]

What are you talking about? Did you read the article? lol

[Montrealien]

I bet Silogon is otaku.

[SaiyanFury]

"Geeks and Otaku" (Otaku is not a friendly term in Japanese) want more storage. It seems to me that more people that love the Wii and it's virtual console want more storage than a mere 512MB. A great many people have complained about the Wii's lack of internal memory. A memory solution could be present in the form of external SD cards, but Nintendo firmware doesn't support that function. It seems to me that Nintendo is being it's old self and denying the general public what it wants and refuses to take action to meet demand. Just a simple observation, maybe I'm wrong. Jaffe's statement is quite critical, but who knows.

[Mu5afir]

It's a derogatory term meaning nerd / geek etc..
Otaku is only looked at positively in the west.

[SaiyanFury]

Well it means more along the lines of fanatical fanboy as far as I remember, but thanks for pointing that out for people here. :)

[BulletToothtony]

.

[mikeslemonade]

Wow Nintendo hasn't even reached domination like how Sony did with PS1 and PS2 and they're already mouthing off huh?

[Skizelli]

They only single-handedly saved the gaming industry from collapse with the NES. And SNES wasn't too shabby, either. But that doesn't mean anything, right? I'm sure some of you weren't even born then. And with Wii outselling PS3 and 360, they have a little room to talk.

Lest we forget the comments Sony and Microsoft have made?

And no, I'm not a Nintendo fanboy.

[Captain Tuttle]

This is how these companies feel about fanboys of all systems. Sony's initial crazy high price for the PS3, MS's 18 month long denial of hardware problems and Wii's shovelware and comments like this. These people aren't gamers, their in business. They think rabid fanboys are sheep and every once in a while they slip up and let it out.

[BrotherNick]

He shouldn't have said that, but I'm guessing from a nintendo standpoint they don't have enough people wanting the extra hard drive space. You would need enough people to complain before someone makes a change, kinda like RROD, and how now they have 3 year warranties.

[TOSgamer]

Some of them seem borderline delusional. There are fanboys to this day that still don't believe in the RROD. I mean a company apologizes, revises their warranty two times in the span of 8 months and writes off $1 billion in repair costs. Amazingly there are still people that just shrug it off as an internet conspiracy against THEIR side. And yes similar things can be said about Nintendo and Sony in the past and probably future.

[BrotherNick]

I would say most of the fanboys for nintendo are gone, except for the most delusional.

[KillaManiac]

Just wait till the 3 year warranty is up on those suckers.....then what?

[SupraDOHC]

5 months and the sh!t is gonna hit the fan, all those 3 year warranty's starting to expire. I'd bet MS can't wait....

[MK_Red]

Jaffe is the man and as always he's right. Can't wait for Twisted Metal PS3.

[KillaManiac]

HELLZ ya! Twisted Metal is amazing (I have them all including PSP)...Bring on the PS3 Sweet Tooth!

Bubbles!

[MK_Red]

Yeah, TM Head On was also great. Hopefully the new one is sequel to TMBlack.

Also, thanks. Bubbles for you too :)

[Gun_Senshi]

Nintendo also said "We used to aim for fat geeks in past generation" Its old news it was on this site.

[aliveinboston]

Given the success of the Wii, maybe Nintendo is on to something. hehe

[GuardianEarth]

But this takes the cae from the arrogance of this comment. I'd tip my hat (if I had one) for David Jaffe. :) I think he's much more understanding of gaming and this exact scenario.

[Drakol]

Jaffe is one of the few people that don't "brown-nose" their way through the gaming industry... *looks at Jade Raymond*

[aliveinboston]

Jade Raymonds job is to brown-nose in order to promote the game. If you aren't a brown-noser then 1) you wont be able to keep your job (looks at Jaffe) and 2) you wont be able to do games promotion. Jade Raymond doesnt brown nose any more than any other successful professional in the games industry.

[Tut]

alive... are you implying that Jaffe lost his job? If so you are quite mistaken. He left to start his own studio. I would see this as a step up.

The only reason people know Jade is because of Assassin's Creed and a pretty face. Jaffe has a much better reputation and following.

[Megaton]

Kudos Jaffe.

What happened to the Nintendo I used to know? The one that I and many others grew up with. Insulting their fanbase, filing lawsuits against 3rd party accessory makers, creating false supply shortages... the list goes on and on. They've gone from happy-go-lucky game makers to corporate snobs with the creation of the Wii. Shame on you, Nintendo.

[Coke-a-Cola]

I want to be interested in Nintendo these days but Wii is just too .......hmmm ...............MGS 4 Hello.

[somelikeithot]

listen nintendo will slip up next gen and be back to square one trying to crawl their way back into the hardcore gamers market, it's called karma. They should never forget the people who put them where they are now and supported weaker systems i.e. gamecube

[Voiceofreason]

Thats complete BS. The Nes and Snes were casual friendly and sold through the roof. The N64 was a hardcore gamers console(the library proves it) and the hardcore left Nintendo and never looked back. Even when their next console( the Gamecube) also catered to them.(again the library of games backs this up). So you cant really blame Nintendo for following the example set by Sony.Sony kicked their asses for 2 gens with a system that not only had hardcore titles but shovel ware and tons of casual games.

[PS360WII]

Well I have e-mailed Nintendo a good while back to get more storage on the Wii. Even before the launch of WiiWare :(

I don't think it's just geeks and otaku who want more storage it's people who want to buy more games. You'd think Nintendo would want to appease to them

[Intrepid]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that one guy's comment represents the views of Nintendo as a whole. Fischer is an a-hole, but I'm sure many Nintendo workers really want to release a storage solution.

[Voiceofreason]

Good point.I thought that also and wondered if anyone else would think it's odd to blame the entire company for what one guy said.

[RememberThe357]

When it the companies marketing director, you can take it as the whole company. It's their job to speak for the company. If he did not do that them chance are hes losing him job shortly. If he did then they wont care about what he said and he'll stay on.

[ChickeyCantor]

But its the PR that actually hides comments like these.
This moron just said to much, And i dont think Iwata would say something like that, as he clearly said " the avid gamers will not be ignored " and this guy says " only geeks want HDD "

They are both contradicting so who is speaking for the company as a whole

[Smacktard]

Good for Jaffe. I'm thinking of sending Nintendo off an e-mail describing how displeased I am with Laurent's comment. It would be worthwhile if everyone reading did the same, and got others to aswell.

[DevilsJoker]

'Who he incorrectly refered to as female'

Made my day

[littletad]

Well said. Very well said.

[aliveinboston]

Jaffe revealed his subconcious gender bias when, thinking that Laurent was a female, he said Fischer's was trying to be "coy, cute" etc. If he knew Laurent was a man, would he think the same thing? lol What an idiot.

Yet another fool in the games industry with foot-in-mouth disease. He gained a lot of good will by making an incredibly successful game but he ought to keep his opinions to himself or risk further embarrasment.

[Mr Fancy Pants]

The one that should shut up is you man. He's defending the loyal fans of Nintendo and you come with that stupid statement that don't change anything? You sure are a rabid Nintendo fanboy in denial... Everything that Nintendo says or does is good in your eyes.

[Jdoki]

To say only Geeks and Otaku want extra storage shows a huge level of ignorance.

The Wii has proved itself as a casual gamer friendly console. Part of that is due to it's ease of use.

Now ask your average casual gamer, whose technical expertise probably extends to syncing a Wiimote while following the instruction manual, to deal with a 'no more space on Wii' type of message, and move WiiWare/VC titles from console to SD card, and back again each time they want to play. I think a lot will struggle.

Do Nintendo think only Geeks and Otaku buy WiiWare titles? Do they honestly think people are going to understand why they have to copy games to SD card, and even though the SD card is plugged in they can no longer play that game until it is copied back?

Storage is one area where Nintendo dropped the ball. I can only foresee them making money out of an external hard drive so why not do it?

The smart thing for them to do would be to treat internal Wii storage and SD cards as unified storage and allow games to run from both.

[razorbladelight]

Nintendo's last president had one better.

"[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."

ZING!
I'm pretty sure all three leading companies have said stupid things. I recall that the pres or creator of Resident Evil said that he would quit his position on the top before making another game for Sony or Microsoft... and now the next RE is exclusives to those two platforms. oops

[Mr Fancy Pants]

Fusajiro Yamauchi: "People who play RPGs are depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."

[sandip787]

someone buy Jaffe a cake!
see what i did there? :D

[aiphanes]

GOD of war was and is the best PS2 game...and when it comes out of the PS3 next year......it will rule!

You go Jaffe...

[Drakol]

Brown nosing can only get you so far. That's why I left the industry and still feel good about doing so to this day. If you try to "go against the grain" in a company, you'd better be looking for another job. It's pathetic, because it's like high school all over again.

Jade was a pretty face trying to sell a over-hyped game, which in the end failed in expectations. Sure she has a great background, but getting to that title (of where she is now) takes some more time than usual. Again, that's different of how they work in Japan (I'm used to how they work in Tokyo).

Anywho, Jaffe is on a much higher level than most other gaming producers/directors that I know of, be it personality or experience.

[aliveinboston]

Here's a bit of info about Jade Raymond from Wikipedia:

Graduated from McGill University with a Bachelors of Science in computer science. Degree in fine arts.

-Programmer developing educational games for IBM
-Consulting in Microsoft’s Advanced Research Group
-Programming games for Sony
-Producer at EA
-Lead producer of Ubisoft Montreal

Clearly not just a brown-noser. She knows what she's doing. McGill is one of the top universities in the world.

What I'm criticizing Jaffe or is not for disagreeing with the other moron from Nintendo (who also talks out of his arse), but rather Jaffe's obvious gender bias. If Jaffe knew that Laurent was a man he would never have thought that Laurent was trying to be coy and cute. What laurent said was stupid but it's also quite obvious that Jaffe has a poor attitude towards girls. It goes to show that making a good game (then "giving up" a killer job) doesnt automatically mean that you're good at other things, like knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

As for working in the games industry being like highschool all over again, you are right. It's like that at virtually every company in every field of business. It sucks for people who innovate and think out of the box but that's life. Assasin's creed failed because of a lot of reasons, partly because although it was technically competent it lacked sparkle in the story and characters. Heavenly sword also suffered from the same problem. They also revealed too much about it too soon.

To learn how to release a hyped up game and not be killed by the hype, look to Kojima and MGS4. Masterful game release.

[Drakol]

But why did the game suck so much, I wonder?

EDIT: With such a outstanding background, you'd think that AC would have been pushed back to fix some of the game play problems. Rule of thumb as an artist, you should never rush a piece of art. Creating games should be, as it were, an art form. Sadly, some people view it as a quick way to making millions and nothing more, despite how great their background might be.

Either way, we can agree to disagree on some points. =D

EDIT part dos!: Square Enix is a mmaster of that sort of thing as well. Hmmm... most of their games, IMO =P

[Enigma_2099]

the only person I would associate as representing Nintendo as a whole would be Reggie Fiis-Aime or Shigeru Miyamoto...

[Pain]

u tell em!

[Thoas]

I agree

[Drakol]

I absolutely LOVED the characters, especially the bad guys! But the gameplay killed it for me... Man, I stopped playing that game when I got to that Whiptail lady... F that...

[RememberThe357]

I'm so tired of them. Even when MS and Sony got on their high horses they never talked sh*t about their fans. Nintendo realizes that most of their fan have moved on, and the people who are spending money on them aren't even fans of the brand. The casual market doesn't have loyalty they'll go to whats fun at the time. I'm so tired of hearing about them and hearing their fan wine about how they don't care anymore. Well, they don't care, move on. I just hope that one of these days it come around and bites them in the ass. I'm probably going to get a lot of Disagrees and negative bubbles but this is where I stand. I truly hope that Nintendo can pull their sh*t together, and I'm not talking about sales, we all know that you can do both hardcore and casual gaming.

[LordBES]

I got a Wii at launch, shortly after I traded it in for a 360, few months later I traded that in for a PS3. Anyways to make a long story short, who cares if nintendo sometimes poops on the loyal fans they have, every company does so one way or another, it's up to the fans, the players, the owners of said console to just deal with it. I don't care if PS3 does not have Home or the XMB, even though both should have been out already. Just stop buying downloadable content and go buy a real game, when Nintendo wants to add more space to the Wii they will. So just relax, also who cares what one person said, it's not like the president of nintendo said these things.

Cheers

[madjedi]

Yeah the nes and snes were king in its day, contra 3 lives, 1 hit deaths and several levels not exactly a supercasual game to me.

The thing that made the nes and snes so good, was the selection of 3rd party games, i was a nintendo owner/fanboyish until the n64, no major rpgs, squaresoft now enix, went to a new console and so did i.

N64 a hardcore console, anyone else want to clarify that for me, i mainly rem mario, zelda and pokimon, didn't keep it long, though.
The problem with nintendo trying to emulate the ps1 and ps2 success is it is failing on the hardcore end.

The friend codes make online almost pointless when trying to play with buddies, and nintendo's refusal to this point to address storage issues, after 18 months on the market, doesn't inspire much confidence.

Grant you they could finally address the issue at e3, but that is still 15-18 months longer than it should have taken.

I think it's hilarious(but expected), that the marketing guy, and nintendo is now having to do a pr damage control, it also doesn't help out when nin hardcore already feel like they are getting overlooked.

[REPLOID24]

That is a slap in the face of gamers that only want to enhance their Wii experience. This Laurent guy should be happy that people have his company's product.

[LordBES]

Ok, Nes and Snes aside, how was N64 or the Gamecube a hardcore gamers console? You had a slew of Zelda and Mario themed games, Golden Eye was ok and the Cube, errr..igggg gack!... Mario sunshine... Terrible. Anyways I'm not bashing the big N, all I'm saying is that the library of games for both N64 and Gamecube in my opinion was 30% good, for one of my friends who owned an N64 at least five owned a Ps1. Sorry I just don't remember N64 or Gamecude doing that great. Even when the prices fell parents were being crucified on christmas when their childrens Ps1/Ps2 dreams were crushed by the cheaper N64/Gamecube.

Cheers.

[LiquifiedArt]

The wii is garbage in my opinion. I've watched nintendo since the NES, and every single system they sell always has some sort of Peripheral gimmick...

PowerGlove,Track Mat,Super Scope,WiiMote etc...

The Wii Mote is a gimmick for the "Idiot" gamers. We all know if you want to play any real immersive game you need a controller. I still believe the wii is a fad, because everyone who i know that has one, doesnt play it. (Party Machine) but hate to break it to everyone, alot of the Downloadable games on PS3 and Xbox are party games too.

AND BOTH are coming out with there own "Motes". Wii is doing well because its 250$. When ps3 is 250$, we'll see how great its doing then.

[Thoas]

Bubbles

[tojfs7931]

PM
Track
Ignore5.3 -
I would say most of the fanboys for nintendo are gone, except for the most delusional.

Similarities between nintedoids and apple devotees.

[nintendojunkie28]

I think jaffe was pretty much dead on and his statements were mos def justified.I don't think Laurent Fischer speaks for ninty as a whole however.He's a peon ...who has no idea what gamers are about..much less what they want,but I'll tell ya one thing nintendo is EXTREMELY stubborn...and this has been the case for yrs.If it isn't announced at e3 '08.... don't expect to see an hdd in the near future.

[rico the bigman]

You are the man Jaffe.

[ChrisGTR1]

lol. i dont know whats sadder.him complaining about it or that he hasnt noticed that nintendo left its fanbase since the gamecube.

[TheMART]

Agreed, but not only on the hard drive and other stuff...

Also the games Nintendo, only Mario and Zelda drive your machine as good games and some spinoff with the characters (Super Smash Bros) and Metroid Prime and then come... zillions of stupid minigames, worthless but the mass of kids keeps buying them because they're too stupid to see what's a good game and what's garbage.

Thanks for just pushing your stupid hardware, earn cash and bring about nothing to gaming.

Conclusion: only if you're a Mario or Zelda fan buy a Nintendo console. Otherwise stay away from it. I'd rather advise you a PS3 then a Wii...

[Thoas]

WOW!