Nintendo says 'no' to MMO games

The MMO genre is still too young for Nintendo, and outside of its current strategy.

February 6, 2008

Despite the recent explosion of the genre, Nintendo won't be making an MMO game anytime soon, says Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo in an interview with GameSpot.

The MMO genre is still in its early stages, and Nintendo isn't interested at this time, he explains.

And why should they be? The Nintendo Wii is performing excellently, and the whole basis of its strategy is a simpler style with casusal gameplay—hardly the place for an MMO game. Iwata says that an MMO would have to reach a wide audience of people for them to pursue it — reaching people whether they're "5 or 95".

Iwata also has high hopes for third-party titles, which are only beginning to appear on the Wii in significant volume. "Wii titles are outselling Xbox 360 titles, and only five of the 20 Wii titles on the list were created by Nintendo."

The company is also hesitant to introduce a social networking platform, like the ones evolving out of Xbox Live and PS3 Home. The Nintendo Wii's system of Mii avatars and friend codes is likely to stay as it is for some time.

Sorry folks, it looks like it'll be a while before we're all stomping goombas or running through Hyrule together.