Nintendo’s Tuesday evening developer roundtable discussion at E3 2012 was a subdued affair. Katsuya Eguchi, Nintendo producer responsible for the Animal Crossing series and the newly announced Nintendo Land, was on hand to talk about the peculiar virtual theme park and its role in the Wii U’s line up of new games. While extensive details on the Wii U’s capabilities, how extensive the online “MiiVerse” features will be, or whether Nintendo Land will come packed in with the Wii U weren’t disucssed, Eguchi did have strong words to say about the game’s depth.
Eguchi made a special point to say that Nintendo Land will not be another Wii Play. Wii Play was a collection of small mini-games released for Wii in 2007, but it began life as a selection of tech demos used to demonstrate the Wii controller’s capabilities before any full games were made. It went to sell more than 27 million copies.
The Nintendo producer said that Nintendo Land’s 12 “amusements” would be far deeper experiences than those in Wii Play and the name of the game demonstrates that point. Speaking through his translator, Eguchi said Nintendo was “putting its name on the line” by calling the game Nintendo Land, guaranteeing that it was a meaty game. As if to demonstrate that point, Eguchi then showed off early footage of an F-Zero mini-game that will be in the final version of Nintendo Land.
We’ll have to wait until this fall to find out if Eguchi is as good as his word.
