A dream is shattered, Iwata decides against Animal Crossing MMO
Nooooooooo! Just when we thought it was really happening, Nintendo have irrefutably shot down the prospect of an Animal Crossing MMO. It’s just not worth the time and hassle, they reckon. Don’t expect any kind of avatar-based equivalent to PlayStation Home, either. Your Miis are going to remain firmly rooted in their little prison of a Plaza.
Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata made his reasoning pretty clear:
“The first question I would ask is whether the service is fun if you’re 5 or 95, if you’re tech-savvy and if you’re computer illiterate. If that’s not a hurdle we can get past, it’s not something Nintendo is going to pursue.”
But wait! There’s more!
“…In that respect, the virtual-world services out there now still aren’t at a place where we’d like to join in – and certainly not to the point that we’d want to jump into competition with everybody else. We’d rather focus on doing things that nobody else would do… even if we were to make a virtual-world-like product, we’d be sure to make it something that nobody would call it a product similar to another company’s offering.â€Â
Blimey. Dunno about you, but that’s what I’d call a negative response. Perhaps Iwata has a point. Aside from the obvious success stories like World of Warcraft and Second Life, the smaller MMOs are getting shitcanned left, right and centre. The most recent casualty was Marvel Comics’ MMO collaboration with Microsoft.
That said, Nintendo is foolish to turn a blind eye to the possibilities. Animal Crossing or Pokemon would be perfect for reaching out to a wider demographic. Someone should picket the offices of the Big N, if only to make them reconsider.
Via Eurogamer
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February 12th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Noooo, all the flim flam about using the wiimote as a fishing rod and a net was something to really look forward to. Can’t believe it, so disappointing.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
@Claire: I think there’s still going to be an Animal Crossing Wii game. It’s just not going to be MMORPG-like.
Although sometimes Nintendo like to throw you off the trail of their latest games only to sucker-punch you with some sort of awesome announcement the month after or something.
I recall them denying out-right about something in Mario Kart Wii and then having several places confirm it.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Thank god for that. All I want is the DS game with some new furniture and events in it. The idea of AC being turned into an MMORPG sickened me to the core. To the CORE!
February 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
They should have a community town.
Basically a place you can go to make trades or just hang. A town where other people can access (so it is slightly MMORPG like) and then you can bring people back to your own village etc.