Ken Levine's comments in issue 96

[Daermon]

Hi all , this is my first post. I just wanted to express my mild irritation regarding Mr Levine's comments saying that the video game industry wouldn't exist if the Mario creator , Mr Miyamoto , didn't create any games.

I would like to say that I believe the video game industry would certainly exist. Granted it would be very different - it may possibly not as big as it is now , I don't know. I like to think that the European , especially the UK's game output during the Eighties and Nineties was tremendous and would have prospered even without the Japanese games and consoles.

Just my opinion of course. I wondered what other people thought. All the best.

[RetroBob]

Agreed, there were games before and more would have been made even if his mother had been successfully targeted for termination.

[thevulture]

Reminds me of a similar thing, years back:

Front cover of C+VG, N64 console, headline:'Without this, there might not be a future for videogames'.

O.T.T claims in print, nowt new.

[DreamcastRIP]

I think the guy was correct. Without Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto there would no video games industry today to speak of.

Neither would the industry have been reborn ever from the ashes of the US video games crash of 1983 if it hadn't have been for the NES.

C+VG were spot-on too with that cover because Super Mario 64 on the N64 showed us how things should be done and without it no-one else would have come up with anything similar ever.

The genius of the Wii Remote has been truly revolutionary and has changed the way we perceive video games forever and one only has to check out sales figures to see that the console has smashed Sony and Microsoft's me-too systems.

Their classic franchises such as Mario and Zelda continually go from strength to strength and show no signs whatsoever of becoming tired. 3DS is now gaining traction and will go on to be a smash hit thereby proving all those who thought it a piece of junk completely wrong.

As fans of Nintendo on this forum love telling us their chosen deity has consistently been the single greatest innovator in the history of video games that has left all others in their wake. Bully for Ninty!

[pyroxian]

I think the guy was correct. Without Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto there would no video games industry today to speak of.

Neither would the industry have been reborn ever from the ashes of the US video games crash of 1983 if it hadn't have been for the NES.

Not really - the console industry might've been different (Sega might've still produced the MS/MD), but at the time of the US crash, the Micro-computer and Arcade industries were doing very well.

[DreamcastRIP]

I think the guy was correct. Without Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto there would no video games industry today to speak of.

Neither would the industry have been reborn ever from the ashes of the US video games crash of 1983 if it hadn't have been for the NES.

Not really - the console industry might've been different (Sega might've still produced the MS/MD), but at the time of the US crash, the Micro-computer and Arcade industries were doing very well.

The entire post was intended as a joke, btw.

The scary thing about your reply however is that you left the other things I said remain unchallenged leaving me to deduce you thought they were acceptable conclusions!

[The Laird]

Hey Ken Levine! These 2 guys would like a word with you . . . . .

[DreamcastRIP]

You're not listening, Jagfest_UK . Those old guys may have done some good what with their respective crusty old archaic consoles but it was the mighty Nintendo who truly revolutionised the games industry with their many great innovations. I'm surprised someone such as yourself is so wilfully ignorant of this fact. It's time you got with the programme.

[Jet Pilot]

It's just his opinion. Like a certain anterior below the waistline body opening, everyone has one.

[ncf1]

yes it still would have existed because SOnic was invented, but then again Sonic was a ripoff of Mario so therefore my logic suggests that it would have been a more crap version of Sonic created but nonetheless the gaming industry would have grown regardless.

[DreamcastRIP]

... Sonic was a ripoff of Mario

That's fighting talk!

[FatTrucker]

The home entertainment industry was born and has evolved due to the involvement of scores of visionary people and tens of thousands of talented programmers and designers. You could have taken a number of people out of the industry completely (including Miyamoto) and while its arguable that it might have evolved differently, the existence of the market, coupled with the creative and progressive nature of hardware and software mean that it was always going to exist, and its exponential growth was and is inevitable in terms of home entertainment.

There's also a reasonable argument to be had on the assumption that any void created by the absence of one of these 'visionary' folk might have led to innovation from other quarters, but that in the world of Miyamoto, Jobs, Gates, Bushnell, Ives, Berners-Lee and all of the much lauded 'famous' programmers and designers there simply wasn't room, motivation and/or support for others to even conceive they might at some point have a better or different achievable idea.

[RichPT]

I admire Miyamoto he is a really good designer. I love how he thinks about how to make each game fun. When i think about the games he has made, i think of Mario, Starfox, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Zelda, maybe F-Zero? No doubt these are all great games but if i made a top 50 list of my fav games there would be at least 45 games in there which werent by Shigeru Miyamoto....