Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has been laying down his thoughts on the task of changing people's minds about video games. He wants them changed from thinking games are disturbing to games are 'unexpectedly good'. But he sees problems.
"I believe that the social acceptance of video games will never improve if we just aim for user absorption without being aware of the potential problems. Considering that our long-term goal is to change people's minds from 'gaming disturbs study' to 'gaming is unexpectedly good', I think the current status is not perfect in several aspects.
"Now I'd like to tell a development story of Wii, which features on our website, named 'Iwata asks.' Nintendo once seriously considered adopting a function which would force games to stop mandatorily, to prevent children from playing the game, at the time that parents had previously decided. However, we also considered how the players would feel if the game suddenly stopped during an exciting part. We finally determined to integrate a function to record the playing time instead of making the game shut down."
"More specifically, our message is, 'As Wii records the playing time, and such records may be checked anytime, please communicate with your children by using Wii together' and 'Through such communication, please come to a common understanding and a suitable arrangement for your family'. "
"Unfortunately, Nintendo DS does not have such function because it was developed two years earlier than Wii, but in the case of Nintendo 3DS, we are contemplating incorporating some kind of system. Whether it will be similar to the one for Wii or we may add something more has not been decided, and I have nothing concrete that I can share with you today. However, Nintendo is seriously considering such measures - probably the most earnestly in this industry. Our arguments are so serious that people might be surprised if they were aware that a video game company like Nintendo is having such arguments internally. We believe that we will never be able to improve the social acceptance of video games without careful consideration of this challenge."
Source: Nintendo
"I believe that the social acceptance of video games will never improve if we just aim for user absorption without being aware of the potential problems. Considering that our long-term goal is to change people's minds from 'gaming disturbs study' to 'gaming is unexpectedly good', I think the current status is not perfect in several aspects.
"Now I'd like to tell a development story of Wii, which features on our website, named 'Iwata asks.' Nintendo once seriously considered adopting a function which would force games to stop mandatorily, to prevent children from playing the game, at the time that parents had previously decided. However, we also considered how the players would feel if the game suddenly stopped during an exciting part. We finally determined to integrate a function to record the playing time instead of making the game shut down."
"More specifically, our message is, 'As Wii records the playing time, and such records may be checked anytime, please communicate with your children by using Wii together' and 'Through such communication, please come to a common understanding and a suitable arrangement for your family'. "
"Unfortunately, Nintendo DS does not have such function because it was developed two years earlier than Wii, but in the case of Nintendo 3DS, we are contemplating incorporating some kind of system. Whether it will be similar to the one for Wii or we may add something more has not been decided, and I have nothing concrete that I can share with you today. However, Nintendo is seriously considering such measures - probably the most earnestly in this industry. Our arguments are so serious that people might be surprised if they were aware that a video game company like Nintendo is having such arguments internally. We believe that we will never be able to improve the social acceptance of video games without careful consideration of this challenge."
Source: Nintendo
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