Nintendo of America was kind enough to give us some time with Beth Llewelyn, Senior Director of Public Relations for NOA yesterday afternoon. We asked her a number of questions about what Nintendo showed, what they didn't show, and some of the concerns that have been on our and our readers' minds.
N-Sider: We came in with a lot of expectations that we'd see a lot of titles that weren't in the show. For example, Eguchi was talking about Wii Motor Sports last year, a number of the Wii-branded titles we'd seen last year, and of course Pikmin 3 that everyone's been asking for, and Animal Crossing Wii too. Are those still coming?
Beth Llewelyn, Senior Director of Public Relations, NOA: There's obviously a lot of stuff in the works back at Nintendo that we chose not to focus on. You know, it's a very different show so we approached it differently. For one, it's very difficult timing in July, it's so far in the development cycle, so to take people off the games they're working on and create something specifically for E3, it's very hard to do that. So we made a strategic decision to show Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit, Metroid. We just really wanted to hone in on key titles.
N-Sider: When can we expect to see more titles? TGS?
Llewelyn: It's kind of tough to say when right now, but rest assured you'll get your time with these games before they launch. In past E3s, it was a massive amount of games, and we just really took a different approach this year.
N-Sider: We had a look at the press kit and there were a number that weren't shown anywhere here as well.
Llewelyn: Yeah, that was our opportunity to show things and say, this is what's coming for the rest of the year, so it was a good opportunity there.
N-Sider: Yeah, Endless Ocean was one that a lot of people didn't think would make it over here, and stay in Japan... but a lot of people were circulating that screen shot around with the guy under the stingray.
Llewelyn: Yeah. (laughter)
N-Sider: One specific question: There's a Zelda spin-off game featuring Tingle in Japan, and NOE announced it this fall for Europe, and we never thought it'd make it outside of Japan—it's an incredibly weird game, but we love it—any plans for that here?
Llewelyn: Not on our list right now.
N-Sider: Is it going to fall into that Mother 3 territory of never coming out?
Llewelyn: (laughter) You know, I don't know, it may end up on the list at one point, but things change.
N-Sider: Related to that, how does Nintendo of America decide what kind of titles to select for release here? It seems that sometimes a decision is made... "hey, this is suitable for Japan, this is suitable for North America".
Llewelyn: You know, It really depends on the title—look at the lineup, look at what is coming out, look at how much work has to be done on a certain title in localization. It's just balancing the portfolio, if there's something not coming out right now it's not to say it won't come out a few months down the road.
N-Sider: When you announced Wii Fit this morning—a little while ago, Miyamoto had said he was working on a new intellectual property and had been for a long time... is this it, or is that still coming?
Llewelyn: (laughter) You know, it's hard to tell with Miyamoto, he's always working on something so this could be it, or it could be something else.
N-Sider: Still on Wii Fit, what is the board powered with? Batteries? USB? Pikmin?
Llewelyn: They haven't finalized it just yet, but right now it's batteries.
N-Sider: Is the Wii Remote used at the same time? Is the board recognized as a player spot?
Llewelyn: It's a one player experience, but the pad isn't read as a "player" position.
N-Sider: On to the new IPs now: is Nintendo working on new IPs that could be considered for the core gamer?
Llewelyn: What, aren't Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart.. Smash Brothers.. enough for you?
N-Sider: I think we're talking about new and original IPs, and newer ones like Pikmin was for GameCube
Llewelyn: Yeah. We'll see.
N-Sider: Let's jump to Virtual Console games—they are relatively inexpensive, but a lot of our readers think they're pretty high priced amongst the "downloadable content" world of XBLA and PlayStation Network. Geometry Wars is five bucks like an NES game, but it's a completely new game on Live Arcade. There's a number of titles for two dollars as well. We've heard a lot of people say they feel they can't just go try things they haven't tried before... they stick to what they know. Any considerations for lowering prices?
Llewelyn: Certainly not something we're talking about or focusing on right now, but down the road we'll have to see.
N-Sider: Is there any kind of rental system being considered?
Llewelyn: We've talked about it, but right now we're not focused on it.
N-Sider: What about being able to bring a Virtual Console game to someone's house, for multiplayer games? Any mechanism for people to take it to other Wiis?
Llewelyn: I don't know the answer to that.
N-Sider: External storage. It's been said that's something you've said you're "absolutely not doing," but really now, is that something you're "absolutely not doing" or is that changing?
Llewelyn: Uh, well, again that's not something we're focused on right now.
N-Sider: As far as today's press conference goes, what was the motivation behind all the YouTube videos, the community aspects of it all? And where was N-Sider in it?
Llewelyn: (laughter) Maybe you didn't give us permission?
N-Sider: No one asked us!
Llewelyn: You were probably in the mix, and there's so much out there right now about Nintendo, user content, it was a fun and different approach to how we presented ourselves.
N-Sider: A lot of people are asking, when will Wii Montage come out?
Llewelyn: (laughter) It was just a fun thing to do, and there's so much out there we're sure no one's seen it all.
N-Sider: A few months ago there was a little bit of a marketing shake up—moving it to Silicon Valley and New York... You were also one of the ones rumored to be leaving, so what's going on there?
Llewelyn: Yes, we are moving our teams to San Francisco and New York—we're not talking about what individuals, the focus is E3.
N-Sider: What about Nintendo Power We've heard that was being outsourced?
Llewelyn: Yeah there's some changes going on internally there, but the magazine will continue to be published.
N-Sider: Can you say what the idea was behind the move was?
Llewelyn: It all has to do with being in the important markets in the country. Seattle is a technological powerhouse, so is Silicon Valley. New York being the media capital, we needed a presence there, so we're kind of thinking long term for Nintendo and branching out.
N-Sider: Are there more Nintendo World stores planned?
Llewelyn: Not that I've heard, it's been doing well, but no plans at this point.
N-Sider: What's your favorite moment over the years from Nintendo that you could share?
Llewelyn: There're so many—many E3 press conferences, certainly last year was a highlight from showing Wii. I remember showing the trailer for Wind Waker, and then Twilight Princess—and no one thought our next version of Zelda would be realistic, so that's something we'd never forget.
N-Sider: One more question to ask: What's the company structure like at NOA? Do certain development teams have priority over others, and what about marketing and others?
Llewelyn: NOA isn't much different than any other companies, you have your executive division, but the rest of them are equal — no one has any more pull than anyone else. And that's true for any other company. All the teams focus on entirely different things, and when development finishes a game, they go to marketing and it everyone gets their time.
N-Sider: Moving on to the games, what about that Mario Kart wheel? What's the purpose behind that?
Llewelyn: It's similar to the Zapper, just a more comfortable way to play the game.
N-Sider: It's just a piece of plastic the remote snaps in?
Llewelyn: Yeah.
N-Sider: Will there be an alternate control method for the game, so you don't have to control it in the same way you would in Excite Truck?
Llewelyn: You know, we haven't gone through specifics yet, we just showed it today and it's certainly something we'll look at in the future.
N-Sider: Did we spot some DS tracks in that video?
Llewelyn: There are new tracks, not all new tracks, but there are definitely new tracks.
N-Sider: Moving on to Smash Brothers: there's a couple features about the game that we'd heard about early on—specifically the orchestrated score, but all the audio released on the Dojo website thus far has not been orchestrated. And the other feature, is that it'd be online at one point; it looks to us like it won't be, but no one's said anything concrete about that yet.
Llewelyn: We're not talking about that yet. Just stay tuned on the website.
N-Sider: Other than Dr. Wright, are there any more characters you can tell us about?
Llewelyn: Well yeah, there are four... (laughter) Just kidding. Not talking about it yet, keep checking the Dojo.
N-Sider: Reggie mentioned the Zapper would come with software, maybe Duck Hunt?
Llewelyn: Uh, not confirming any specific title, so we're still working out all the details, but at the 19.99 price point it'll be worth it.
N-Sider: So maybe like a Wii Play type of software?
Llewelyn: No specifics that I can talk about, it's a little early to talk about.
N-Sider: The Wii Fit mat, does it come bundled with the game?
Llewelyn: Not talking about that, we wanted to introduce it today and that's what we did.
N-Sider: Any other games planned for the mat?
Llewelyn: It certainly lends itself to future games, but we're not talking about anything right now. I'm sure you'll see more down the road.
N-Sider: If hypothetically there was a Wii Sports 2, what games would you personally like to see in it?
Llewelyn: I love bowling. You're asking the wrong person, I'm totally not an athlete.
N-Sider: You're just trying to think of the ones that are in it so you don't say them, aren't you?
Llewelyn: (laughter)
N-Sider: Okay, that was kind of a non-question. I believe that's all we've got, so thank you very much.
Llewelyn: You're welcome.
We'd like to thank our friends at Golin/Harris and Nintendo of America for the interview, and keep checking back for more of our E3 coverage throughout the week.
N-Sider: We came in with a lot of expectations that we'd see a lot of titles that weren't in the show. For example, Eguchi was talking about Wii Motor Sports last year, a number of the Wii-branded titles we'd seen last year, and of course Pikmin 3 that everyone's been asking for, and Animal Crossing Wii too. Are those still coming?
Beth Llewelyn, Senior Director of Public Relations, NOA: There's obviously a lot of stuff in the works back at Nintendo that we chose not to focus on. You know, it's a very different show so we approached it differently. For one, it's very difficult timing in July, it's so far in the development cycle, so to take people off the games they're working on and create something specifically for E3, it's very hard to do that. So we made a strategic decision to show Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit, Metroid. We just really wanted to hone in on key titles.
N-Sider: When can we expect to see more titles? TGS?
Llewelyn: It's kind of tough to say when right now, but rest assured you'll get your time with these games before they launch. In past E3s, it was a massive amount of games, and we just really took a different approach this year.
N-Sider: We had a look at the press kit and there were a number that weren't shown anywhere here as well.
Llewelyn: Yeah, that was our opportunity to show things and say, this is what's coming for the rest of the year, so it was a good opportunity there.
N-Sider: Yeah, Endless Ocean was one that a lot of people didn't think would make it over here, and stay in Japan... but a lot of people were circulating that screen shot around with the guy under the stingray.
Llewelyn: Yeah. (laughter)
N-Sider: One specific question: There's a Zelda spin-off game featuring Tingle in Japan, and NOE announced it this fall for Europe, and we never thought it'd make it outside of Japan—it's an incredibly weird game, but we love it—any plans for that here?
Llewelyn: Not on our list right now.
N-Sider: Is it going to fall into that Mother 3 territory of never coming out?
Llewelyn: (laughter) You know, I don't know, it may end up on the list at one point, but things change.
N-Sider: Related to that, how does Nintendo of America decide what kind of titles to select for release here? It seems that sometimes a decision is made... "hey, this is suitable for Japan, this is suitable for North America".
Llewelyn: You know, It really depends on the title—look at the lineup, look at what is coming out, look at how much work has to be done on a certain title in localization. It's just balancing the portfolio, if there's something not coming out right now it's not to say it won't come out a few months down the road.
N-Sider: When you announced Wii Fit this morning—a little while ago, Miyamoto had said he was working on a new intellectual property and had been for a long time... is this it, or is that still coming?
Llewelyn: (laughter) You know, it's hard to tell with Miyamoto, he's always working on something so this could be it, or it could be something else.
N-Sider: Still on Wii Fit, what is the board powered with? Batteries? USB? Pikmin?
Llewelyn: They haven't finalized it just yet, but right now it's batteries.
N-Sider: Is the Wii Remote used at the same time? Is the board recognized as a player spot?
Llewelyn: It's a one player experience, but the pad isn't read as a "player" position.
N-Sider: On to the new IPs now: is Nintendo working on new IPs that could be considered for the core gamer?
Llewelyn: What, aren't Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart.. Smash Brothers.. enough for you?
N-Sider: I think we're talking about new and original IPs, and newer ones like Pikmin was for GameCube
Llewelyn: Yeah. We'll see.
N-Sider: Let's jump to Virtual Console games—they are relatively inexpensive, but a lot of our readers think they're pretty high priced amongst the "downloadable content" world of XBLA and PlayStation Network. Geometry Wars is five bucks like an NES game, but it's a completely new game on Live Arcade. There's a number of titles for two dollars as well. We've heard a lot of people say they feel they can't just go try things they haven't tried before... they stick to what they know. Any considerations for lowering prices?
Llewelyn: Certainly not something we're talking about or focusing on right now, but down the road we'll have to see.
N-Sider: Is there any kind of rental system being considered?
Llewelyn: We've talked about it, but right now we're not focused on it.
N-Sider: What about being able to bring a Virtual Console game to someone's house, for multiplayer games? Any mechanism for people to take it to other Wiis?
Llewelyn: I don't know the answer to that.
N-Sider: External storage. It's been said that's something you've said you're "absolutely not doing," but really now, is that something you're "absolutely not doing" or is that changing?
Llewelyn: Uh, well, again that's not something we're focused on right now.
N-Sider: As far as today's press conference goes, what was the motivation behind all the YouTube videos, the community aspects of it all? And where was N-Sider in it?
Llewelyn: (laughter) Maybe you didn't give us permission?
N-Sider: No one asked us!
Llewelyn: You were probably in the mix, and there's so much out there right now about Nintendo, user content, it was a fun and different approach to how we presented ourselves.
N-Sider: A lot of people are asking, when will Wii Montage come out?
Llewelyn: (laughter) It was just a fun thing to do, and there's so much out there we're sure no one's seen it all.
N-Sider: A few months ago there was a little bit of a marketing shake up—moving it to Silicon Valley and New York... You were also one of the ones rumored to be leaving, so what's going on there?
Llewelyn: Yes, we are moving our teams to San Francisco and New York—we're not talking about what individuals, the focus is E3.
N-Sider: What about Nintendo Power We've heard that was being outsourced?
Llewelyn: Yeah there's some changes going on internally there, but the magazine will continue to be published.
N-Sider: Can you say what the idea was behind the move was?
Llewelyn: It all has to do with being in the important markets in the country. Seattle is a technological powerhouse, so is Silicon Valley. New York being the media capital, we needed a presence there, so we're kind of thinking long term for Nintendo and branching out.
N-Sider: Are there more Nintendo World stores planned?
Llewelyn: Not that I've heard, it's been doing well, but no plans at this point.
N-Sider: What's your favorite moment over the years from Nintendo that you could share?
Llewelyn: There're so many—many E3 press conferences, certainly last year was a highlight from showing Wii. I remember showing the trailer for Wind Waker, and then Twilight Princess—and no one thought our next version of Zelda would be realistic, so that's something we'd never forget.
N-Sider: One more question to ask: What's the company structure like at NOA? Do certain development teams have priority over others, and what about marketing and others?
Llewelyn: NOA isn't much different than any other companies, you have your executive division, but the rest of them are equal — no one has any more pull than anyone else. And that's true for any other company. All the teams focus on entirely different things, and when development finishes a game, they go to marketing and it everyone gets their time.
N-Sider: Moving on to the games, what about that Mario Kart wheel? What's the purpose behind that?
Llewelyn: It's similar to the Zapper, just a more comfortable way to play the game.
N-Sider: It's just a piece of plastic the remote snaps in?
Llewelyn: Yeah.
N-Sider: Will there be an alternate control method for the game, so you don't have to control it in the same way you would in Excite Truck?
Llewelyn: You know, we haven't gone through specifics yet, we just showed it today and it's certainly something we'll look at in the future.
N-Sider: Did we spot some DS tracks in that video?
Llewelyn: There are new tracks, not all new tracks, but there are definitely new tracks.
N-Sider: Moving on to Smash Brothers: there's a couple features about the game that we'd heard about early on—specifically the orchestrated score, but all the audio released on the Dojo website thus far has not been orchestrated. And the other feature, is that it'd be online at one point; it looks to us like it won't be, but no one's said anything concrete about that yet.
Llewelyn: We're not talking about that yet. Just stay tuned on the website.
N-Sider: Other than Dr. Wright, are there any more characters you can tell us about?
Llewelyn: Well yeah, there are four... (laughter) Just kidding. Not talking about it yet, keep checking the Dojo.
N-Sider: Reggie mentioned the Zapper would come with software, maybe Duck Hunt?
Llewelyn: Uh, not confirming any specific title, so we're still working out all the details, but at the 19.99 price point it'll be worth it.
N-Sider: So maybe like a Wii Play type of software?
Llewelyn: No specifics that I can talk about, it's a little early to talk about.
N-Sider: The Wii Fit mat, does it come bundled with the game?
Llewelyn: Not talking about that, we wanted to introduce it today and that's what we did.
N-Sider: Any other games planned for the mat?
Llewelyn: It certainly lends itself to future games, but we're not talking about anything right now. I'm sure you'll see more down the road.
N-Sider: If hypothetically there was a Wii Sports 2, what games would you personally like to see in it?
Llewelyn: I love bowling. You're asking the wrong person, I'm totally not an athlete.
N-Sider: You're just trying to think of the ones that are in it so you don't say them, aren't you?
Llewelyn: (laughter)
N-Sider: Okay, that was kind of a non-question. I believe that's all we've got, so thank you very much.
Llewelyn: You're welcome.
We'd like to thank our friends at Golin/Harris and Nintendo of America for the interview, and keep checking back for more of our E3 coverage throughout the week.