{"id":105859,"date":"2019-12-19T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/12\/best_of_2019_peter_molyneux_on_never_underestimating_nintendo_and_why_switch_is_his_dream_console"},"modified":"2019-12-19T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T20:00:00","slug":"best-of-2019-peter-molyneux-on-never-underestimating-nintendo-and-why-switch-is-his-dream-console","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/12\/19\/best-of-2019-peter-molyneux-on-never-underestimating-nintendo-and-why-switch-is-his-dream-console\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Of 2019: Peter Molyneux On Never Underestimating Nintendo, And Why Switch Is His Dream Console"},"content":{"rendered":"
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From now until the end of 2019 we’ll be celebrating the coming year by looking back and republishing some of our finest features from the past twelve months, in addition to our regular output. This article first appeared on the site back in February. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Peter Molyneux has been called a lot of things during a career which has now spanned four decades, and as we sit down for our chat it’s easy to tell he’s keenly aware of his reputation. “This is the first press thing I\u2019ve done in quite a long time, I think,” he says, before thanking us for our patience and interest. Despite all the games he’s been involved in and the level of fame he possesses, you often get the feeling that he still can’t quite<\/em> believe how lucky he has been.<\/p>\n

Molyneux started his career in the early ’80s distributing games on floppy discs before dreaming up The Entrepreneur<\/strong>, a 1984 text-based adventure which sold just two copies \u2013 one of which, he believes, was purchased by his mother. Fed up with games, he would go on to establish Taurus Impex Limited alongside his friend Les Edgar; exporting baked beans to the Middle East was one of the company’s commercial activities. However, thanks to a case of mistaken identity, Molyneux was pulled back into the games industry when Commodore muddled up the company name with that of Torus, a networking firm it wanted to bring its software over to the Amiga. 10 free (and powerful) Amiga systems were offered to assist with the ‘conversion’ process, which Molyneux and Edgar accepted without correcting Commodore. “That got our foot on the ladder,” he recalls, still clearly bewildered by his good fortune. “That was incredibly lucky at the time. A very happy accident.”<\/p>\n

Created on the Amiga and cited with establishing the ‘God Sim’ genre, 1989’s Populous<\/a><\/strong> was Molyneux’s breakthrough. His new firm, Bullfrog, would sire a selection of million-selling hits, including Magic Carpet, Theme Park<\/strong> and Dungeon Keeper<\/strong>, and was eventually purchased by Electronic Arts, Bullfrog’s longstanding publishing partner. Molyneux left to form Lionhead in 1997 and produced the likes of Black & White<\/strong> and Fable<\/strong>; the company was subsequently gobbled up by Microsoft in 2006 and was sadly shuttered a decade later. Fast-forward to the present, and he’s now responsible for a much smaller team at 22cans, which released its first Switch game, The Trail: Frontier Challenge<\/a><\/strong>, last year.<\/p>\n

Those of you who are long-time readers of Nintendo Life may well recall that during the dark days of the Wii U, Molyneux was quoted as saying some stuff about Nintendo which could have been seen as disparaging<\/a>; however, the legendary designer goes to great lengths during our interview to point out that not only were those comments a few years ago \u2013 and his perception of the industry has changed somewhat \u2013 he made them from the stance of a committed fan of the firm, rather than a ‘hater’.<\/p>\n

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“I\u2019ve got a massive amount of respect for Nintendo,” he tells us earnestly. “It makes me laugh that people underestimate them time and time again; I can so clearly remember being part of Microsoft when the Wii was announced, and the Microsoft execs literally laughing at it, and we all know how that turned out. I think Nintendo has produced the most iconic games that the games industry has ever seen, and I actually think they\u2019re aligned with me; my fascination is designing games for everyone<\/em>, not just for a small audience, and that\u2019s what\u2019s always been at their heart, in the games that they make. A lot of the franchises they\u2019ve done have brought countless millions of people into gaming, and how couldn\u2019t you be absolutely fascinated with that? I have nothing but absolute admiration for pretty much everything that they\u2019ve done, and the iconic people that have worked with Nintendo.”<\/p>\n

He’s also blown away by the Switch, too \u2013 something that isn’t all that surprising when you recall his dissatisfaction with the Wii U and its confused and often clumsy two-screen setup, something that many players and developers struggled to adapt to. But sitting here now in 2019, even Molyneux can see how Nintendo’s hardware has evolved, and why Wii U was an important step.<\/p>\n

“This is the genius of Nintendo,” he says. “Because time and time again, they go down an avenue and you think ‘Oh my god, what\u2019s happening?’ I mean, I still love the GameCube, but you could argue that the GameCube wasn\u2019t as strong as perhaps it should have been. Then they did the Wii, and then they come out with the Wii U and you think, ‘Nintendo\u2019s lost it again’. But then they come out with something which really defines a platform, and that\u2019s what the Switch is. I\u2019m an enormous fan of the Switch because it so cleverly allows me to play games how I want to play games; I love the whole thing of being able to slap it down in its cradle and then being able to pick it up and take it with you when you’re done.”<\/p>\n

Previously befuddled<\/a> by Nintendo’s marketing for the Wii U \u2013 as many of us were \u2013 Molyneux says that he recognised the core appeal of Switch from the very first commercial he saw. “The first advert I saw of the Switch, there was this BBQ going on and they were all playing together,” he recounts. “That drills down to the core of what the real opportunity is \u2013 people these days don\u2019t want to be tied to one location and they don\u2019t want to set up their games room, they want to be able to move around with it, and that\u2019s what the Switch does brilliantly and superbly. It really is a console for the 21st century. Whilst I love the PlayStation and Xbox, they still feel a little bit trapped in the 20th century because they are still consoles; they’re still big black boxes and they\u2019ve still got controllers on them, and those controllers are still designed for gaming enthusiasts. I think Nintendo has done it again, and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll continue making these huge strides forward for the industry.”<\/p>\n

Even so, Molyneux isn’t alone<\/a> in believing that the console sector’s obsession with dedicated hardware could be coming to an end, and the appeal of Switch \u2013 its portability, its freedom, its refusal to be tied down in one location \u2013 dovetails neatly with that impending shift. “The world\u2019s fascination with hardware that really fuelled the growth in mobile, it\u2019s wavering a little bit these days,” he comments. “Do I get as excited about the next iPhone release? I\u2019m not sure I do. What that means is people just want their entertainment to be everywhere<\/em>. It\u2019s like Netflix; now, I\u2019ve never done this, but I like the idea of watching a film on a big screen and then taking my mobile into the toilet and carrying on watching it. There’s this cultural idea of taking your entertainment anywhere<\/em> \u2013 on the train, on the bus, to your friend\u2019s house \u2013 it’s definitely going to be part of the future. And if that\u2019s true of TV programmes and films and music and audio books, why the hell shouldn\u2019t it be true of computer games?”<\/p>\n