Posts Tagged ‘opinion’

Why does the iPad need a computer to work?

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Surely the great thing about the iPad is it is a computer and that ANYONE can use it. So why does my Gran, who doesn’t have a computer need to buy a computer to use an iPad? Surely the great thing about the iPad is that hypothetically she could use that for all her computer needs (internet, email, the very occasional letter writing, listening to music). If she could just walk into an Apple store, buy one and start using it (like you can with any other computer device) maybe more non-computer users would be attracted to it? (more…)

Interview with GamesIndustry.biz full disclosure.

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Katherine Brice recently interviewed me for a piece she was doing about WiiWare and DSiWare and whether Nintendo are doing enough to promote the service. Her article can be found here. Below is a full transcript of the interview. Enjoy!

Hi Kath,

Thanks so much for emailing me in regards to this. Firstly let me introduce myself. My name is Nic Watt and I am the CEO and Creative Director of Nnooo. The following are my thoughts on the issue(s):

Is Nintendo doing enough to promote its Digital Services?

This is a hard question to answer as while I think that it is Nintendo’s responsibility to ensure that its customers are familiar with and using the DSiWare and WiiWare stores, I do not think it is Nintendo’s responsibility to promote and market every game on the service (that I think is the job of the developer or publisher). Overall I feel that Nintendo are doing a very good job making customers aware of these services for example:

Every Nintendo Wii now comes with a channel pre-installed which plays a video showing how to connect your Wii to the internet and what benefits you can get from this including WiiWare, the internet channel and Virtual Console.

  • The internet channel on Wii and DSi is free
  • This channel is a great way of getting all new customers to visit Nintendo’s online stores

The fact that the internet channel is one of the permanent top downloads on DSiWare suggests that many new DSi owners are connecting and downloading the channel. Which means they are familiar with and using the DSiWare store

There are several other free channels provided by Nintendo for both DSiWare and WiiWare for example Flipnote Studio and Everybody Votes. These are clearly downloaded by a lot of people and are therefore an indicator that a lot of consumers are at least familiar with the process of using the online stores

Every Nintendo DSi currently comes with 1000 free points to spend in the store. This means that every single user knows, on purchase, that their DSi can download new games and how to do so. To make use of these points the user must connect to the store. (more…)

An Open letter about video game ratings in Australia from the CEO of an Australian games company

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Dear Mr Atkinson,

I am writing to express my thoughts on the current situation of video game ratings in Australia. As the CEO and Creative Director of an Australia based video games company (currently situated in Sydney) I am somewhat saddened by the fact that Australia does not allow adults to purchase games which are available elsewhere in the world at a rating suitable for adult content. IE an R 18+ or similar rating.

It appears, to me, to be somewhat contradictory to allow both Television and Film to be rated against a wider range of ratings than Video Games are. As far as I am aware only people over the age of 18 are allowed to purchase R 18+ films and television products (DVD, Blue Ray etc) so why can this not be the same for games? We have a very robust video games retail service in Australia who already currently use the rating system to sell games to a wide range of people based on their age. Furthermore everyone in Australia is already familiar with this ratings system so providing a new R 18+ rating for games would not result in children or people under the age of 18 obtaining said products unless an adult purchased it for them (as adults can do currently with both Film and TV products). (more…)

Interview with SwitchedOnMedia

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Jye Smith (@jyesmith) invited me to give SwitchedOnMedia some comments on a new Sony Ericsson phone which incorporates motion controls. Read on for the interview or check out the real deal here

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Homophobia and online games

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Kotaku today put up an interesting post regarding homosexuality in games. Seeing as I am a gay man and also part of the games industry I thought I should put up some of my thoughts in the comments section. My comment turned out to be quite long so I though I should also post it here for those who are interested.

The original Kotaku article is here. Read on for my thoughts on the subject.

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A post a day (or my mid-years resolution)

Monday, June 29th, 2009

On Friday night I attended #SHTBOX (chuck that into twitter) which is basically a group of friends and Sydney-siders who go along to the Clock Bar on Crown St and chat about social media (blogging, tweeting etc). I was invited by a friend @scottrhodie who works in PR and is a bit of social media specialist. It was a great night and I got the opportunity to chat to some really nice and knowledgeable people. (more…)