The
blog post linked at the end of the nintendolife article is relatively interesting, though one-sided. The author describes a lopsided structure with the US team having little input on new game design. I guess it's possible that with more interaction, the two sides could have produced something greater, but in so far as a game's performance is supposed to be tied to specific cultural tastes, maybe the time to chase universally appealing designs is long gone. In the nascent days of Space Invaders, Pac Man and Super Mario, it only stands to reason that it was easier to find commonly appealing designs as neither side had had time to mature its tastes. That is if you accept that there are such things as Western and Japanese tastes that at some point bifurcated (FF II?) to what are now so obscenely contrasting (FF13 and CoD?) to hardly be considered the same thing. The move to "social entertainment" actually seems like a play to get back to those green fields and less resolved user expectations so that they can again touch a worldwide nerve (OR it's just a safer play and a lot less expensive), but I don't think it'll work.
That being said, I'd cheer for a new Bonk. But I don't see any reason that Konami's existing team isn't just as capable as translating some menu text and thinking up a new subtitle.
Last modern Hudson game I bought was Bomberman Live. But I've been going TG16 crazy on the Wii Virtual Console this year.
Did I mention Bonk? Good stuff.
