Nintendo confirms implementation of 'demo play' tech
This holiday's New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be the first title to implement auto-play tech
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that it will introduce a new, patented help system into future titles, starting with this holiday's New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Speaking to USA Today, Miyamoto explained that the "demo play" technology Nintendo patented earlier this year will be introduced in the four-player Super Mario title revealed during E3 earlier this month.
"In New Super Mario Bros Wii, if a player is experiencing an area of difficulty, this will allow them to clear troubled areas and take over when they're ready," said Miyamoto. "And yes, we're looking into this for future games, too."
The patent in question, "Method and apparatus for fraud reduction and product recovery", outlined a system for helping players through difficult gameplay scenarios by allowing them to have the game automatically play through them.
The patent's illustrations show a close resemblance to Miyamoto's The Legend of Zelda series, leading some to speculate that it would be applied to the next entry in the franchise. In a private press event during this month's E3 expo, Miyamoto confirmed that a new Zelda title is currently being developed, though he made no mention of whether the game would use the tentatively-named "demo play" feature.
I might be in a minority but I really wouldn't want this in any of the games I owned; I can see why it's there but it completely removes the challenge.
Modern games are all way too easy anyway! Bring back Turtles for the NES :)
I stand with Antony on this, I can see 'why' they would add it. But can't see it been attractive to the people who actually play Zelda or adventure games.
It just seems like a way to try and attract my mum into playing adventure games like Zelda or Metroid, but they forget that most casual gamers don't even have time to play those types of games as they work fulltime and have families.
Please don't follow into the same knee jerk, elitist, and narrow minded comments I keep reading on message boards.
The irony is that these gamers don't understand that developers may now make the games more difficult by default and use demo play to move along those less skilled.
Is this any different that a strategy guide in terms of implementation? Skilled gamers won't use them, those that need the help will.
At the moment you have to go out of your way to get strat guide or walkthroughs, so the implementation isn't the same. Having the solution a button away can just trivialise the content, especially as it seems it actually controls the solution for you rather than just telling you how to tackle it.
Stick the demoplay files on the net as downloadable content or something... but don't turn games in to films
I could have used this "demo play" feature to get past some tricky section of SNES Battletoads...
Again, with all this said and done its jumping to a lot of assumptions, I'm taking it fairly literally in thinking its pretty much a cheat button. If so, I can't think of many positive elements towards it once I put it into the perspective of playing games, but can see how it makes sense in terms of attracting more of an audience to a product.
But even with all this in consideration you would be suprised how little consumers know about many things. I would be suprised if most of Nintendo's audience even knew that you could cheat when playing a game.
I'd rather have people enjoy 95% of a game having skipped 5% of it than enjoy 20% of a game and never finish it.
Aside from that I can understand what you mean, I just think it would involve a lot of time and effort to actually do, with very little reward.
I can understand such a feature in the odd game or two, but every game? Imagen what that would do to games and the culture surounding them.