In an interview with Stephen Totilo of Kotaku, Reggie Fils-Aime discussed several burning questions regarding the Wii U and the Wii U GamePad. Some of theses questions included what the battery life of the controller is, how developers will utilize “Off-TV” play on the Wii U GamePad screen, and why multi-touch would have skyrocketed the price of said controller. However, one question that seemed to be bugging many was finally answered: The Wii U will have an achievement-esque system in place.
Nintendo has put an Achievement-like system in the 3DS, mostly to reward people for feats involving the system’s Street Pass networking system. In other words, the system itself has Achievements. “We will have that,” Fils-Aime said. “Once you start getting into game-specific [Achievements] that’s developer driven.” Microsoft may require every game to have Achievements, but, Fils-Aime said, “That is not our philosophy.”
With that being stated, Nintendo is giving developers the choice of implementing achievements into their games if they so please. So, not every game that is developed outside of Nintendo will be required to include this feature.
Now, as an avid “Achievement Hunter,” this bodes well for me and others who imagined the possibility of Nintendo’s take on Microsoft and Sony’s achievements/trophies system. But, like with any game with those features, there’s always fluff accomplishments to extend the game (“Finish the game three times,” “Collect X amount of X item,” etc.), which I hope Nintendo is able to polish. The system isn’t bad by any means, but some achievements/trophies appear to be frivolous.
What are your thoughts on what Nintendo may do with this decision?
