(Step up? Dude your writing level is as high as anyone's. You've been killing it.)
I'm surprised these interviews were so well hidden. Usually you hear from someone who was Retro's
grand fromage and the chief designer of the Prime series, and it's bigger news. I guess it's not as big a deal when the guy is out of the gaming industry. There was also a little info last year from
Mark Pacini, who was the director for every Prime game.
Pacini's comments, in particular, kinda makes me wonder if the idea behind Retro was wrong from the start. They were supposed to make the games that Nintendo couldn't, and do it with employees here in the west. What makes Nintendo special, though, is that it has a Japanese business tradition. Koizumi joined Nintendo in 1991. It took him 25 years to really, truly get his shot at being the top employee. He did the
Japanese salaryman thing like his culture insisted upon, and it has delivered for him.
But Mark Pacini and Mike Wikan were not going to wait 25 years to make the games they wanted to make for a company that was literally never going to let them be anything more than "the westerners" in a very eastern company. That business culture just doesn't exist here (at least anymore), where you work for the same company your whole life and hone your craft there to be a part of something bigger. Taking on something new and moving careers is expected in the west.
So that's Nintendo's question now. How the hell do you meld east and west, when their career tracks are really incompatible? What is it that Retro can be? When you wipe away that they aren't on the bleeding technological front anymore (NOJ spent the Wii U years learning how to be HD game development wizards), and that they don't have the task of making games Nintendo can't (that's what partnerships with Platinum are for)...why does Retro exist? Does Nintendo even need Retro anymore?
...shit, guess this is an article now.