While Shigeru Miyamoto's GDC keynote captured most of the attention at GDC (and disappointed those expecting, instead of a developer-focussed address, an E3-style barrage of product announcements), several other Nintendo luminaries were also giving some very interesting talks. Zelda series head Eiji Aonuma gave one such talk, titled "Reflections on Zelda".
The talk focussed on Aonuma's recent tribulations as the anointed head of the franchise, starting with the below-expectations sales of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GameCube—especially in Nintendo's home turf of Japan. Internally, the poor performance was blamed on something called "gamer drift": losing the core audience while failing to attract new players. Aonuma himself determined the problem was that the series itself had not been going anywhere new, as each new sequel was far more of a Zelda expansion pack than a new title. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures was Aonuma's first shot at reversing that trend. When the E3 demo was a hit, Nintendo produced the title, only to find it was a far worse commercial failure than Wind Waker was. Aonuma blamed the hardware requirements: to play Four Swords Adventures with more than one player, each one needed a Game Boy Advance and link cable.
While the Four Swords Adventures experiment was underway, Aonuma also learned of the suboptimal performance of The Wind Waker overseas, something NOA blamed on the title's style. Aonuma decided, since Japan was a loss anyway, he'd go with NOA's suggestion and make a realistically-styled Zelda pretty much specifically for American audiences: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess started life as little more than a new Ocarina of Time on paper. It wasn't until later that Aonuma added the wolf mechanic, inspired by Link's transformation into a rabbit in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and wonderings about how such a transformation might grant Link a new way of interacting with the world.
Simultaneously, Aonuma was working on a Zelda title for DS, announced at GDC last year: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Inspired by successes with cel-shading on the DS, Aonuma created the completely touch-based control scheme due to problems with a previous bottom-screen-based effort and found that direct manipulation meshed perfectly with the world of Zelda. Adding in things like drawing paths for the boomerang to follow and making notations on the map meant Aonuma had the first major innovation in the series since Ocarina debuted on the Nintendo 64. Despite his success, Aonuma feared reception of the change: the multiplayer mode demonstrated at E3 2006 and this year at GDC was added in an attempt to placate the Zelda zealots.
In parallel with his success with Phantom Hourglass, though, time was passing without much success with Twilight Princess. Progress continued, but Aonuma realized the game lacked a core design concept: there was "nothing special" about it. Miyamoto thought the title should be moved to Wii, which Aonuma protested. The solution, as it were, came from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata: recast the game as a dual release on GameCube and Wii. The E3 2006 demo, created with this mandate in mind, was not well-received due to its rather convoluted control scheme. While walking the show floor, Aonuma realized that Zelda was unique among the Wii titles: it asked players to adapt to its controls. With months to go before the game's release, he did a 180 and added (admittedly shallow) motion control to the game, freeing buttons to allow the title to be played on Wii in a less convoluted manner. The result seems to be a success today, at least in North America—the jury is still out in Japan. Perhaps Phantom Hourglass will make strides here.
In closing, Aonuma told a story which called into mind Miyamoto's keynote, a tale of his own Wife-O-Meter, as it were. Aonuma's young son had been playing Twilight Princess, and asked his mother to help him through a part where he had got scared. Aonuma came home to find his wife playing the game. "[He] asked if I would help him past an area," she explained. "Then I... kept playing." Since then, the two have been playing the game together, and Aonuma finally feels he may just be on the right track.
The talk focussed on Aonuma's recent tribulations as the anointed head of the franchise, starting with the below-expectations sales of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for GameCube—especially in Nintendo's home turf of Japan. Internally, the poor performance was blamed on something called "gamer drift": losing the core audience while failing to attract new players. Aonuma himself determined the problem was that the series itself had not been going anywhere new, as each new sequel was far more of a Zelda expansion pack than a new title. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures was Aonuma's first shot at reversing that trend. When the E3 demo was a hit, Nintendo produced the title, only to find it was a far worse commercial failure than Wind Waker was. Aonuma blamed the hardware requirements: to play Four Swords Adventures with more than one player, each one needed a Game Boy Advance and link cable.
While the Four Swords Adventures experiment was underway, Aonuma also learned of the suboptimal performance of The Wind Waker overseas, something NOA blamed on the title's style. Aonuma decided, since Japan was a loss anyway, he'd go with NOA's suggestion and make a realistically-styled Zelda pretty much specifically for American audiences: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess started life as little more than a new Ocarina of Time on paper. It wasn't until later that Aonuma added the wolf mechanic, inspired by Link's transformation into a rabbit in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and wonderings about how such a transformation might grant Link a new way of interacting with the world.
Simultaneously, Aonuma was working on a Zelda title for DS, announced at GDC last year: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Inspired by successes with cel-shading on the DS, Aonuma created the completely touch-based control scheme due to problems with a previous bottom-screen-based effort and found that direct manipulation meshed perfectly with the world of Zelda. Adding in things like drawing paths for the boomerang to follow and making notations on the map meant Aonuma had the first major innovation in the series since Ocarina debuted on the Nintendo 64. Despite his success, Aonuma feared reception of the change: the multiplayer mode demonstrated at E3 2006 and this year at GDC was added in an attempt to placate the Zelda zealots.
In parallel with his success with Phantom Hourglass, though, time was passing without much success with Twilight Princess. Progress continued, but Aonuma realized the game lacked a core design concept: there was "nothing special" about it. Miyamoto thought the title should be moved to Wii, which Aonuma protested. The solution, as it were, came from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata: recast the game as a dual release on GameCube and Wii. The E3 2006 demo, created with this mandate in mind, was not well-received due to its rather convoluted control scheme. While walking the show floor, Aonuma realized that Zelda was unique among the Wii titles: it asked players to adapt to its controls. With months to go before the game's release, he did a 180 and added (admittedly shallow) motion control to the game, freeing buttons to allow the title to be played on Wii in a less convoluted manner. The result seems to be a success today, at least in North America—the jury is still out in Japan. Perhaps Phantom Hourglass will make strides here.
In closing, Aonuma told a story which called into mind Miyamoto's keynote, a tale of his own Wife-O-Meter, as it were. Aonuma's young son had been playing Twilight Princess, and asked his mother to help him through a part where he had got scared. Aonuma came home to find his wife playing the game. "[He] asked if I would help him past an area," she explained. "Then I... kept playing." Since then, the two have been playing the game together, and Aonuma finally feels he may just be on the right track.