In a recent piece in Official Nintendo Magazine, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about working with Western game developers using Nintendo’s IP’s. He said that the reason these companies can do this is a result of the trust they have:
“We built the level of trust with these companies and we know we can rely on them…Once we would have looked at them and asked what a company can do independently and we would support them as needed, Whereas now we’re looking at really working together. Particularly, for Luigi’s Mansion 2, Nintendo is the producer of that game”
Western and Eastern game designers are very different groups of people and therefore have varying ideas and concepts of how game can and should be made. Combining the two sets of ideas has been show to create great games. Look at the aforementioned Luigi’s Mansion 2 and upcoming Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for example, great games made by a mix of east and west development.
Lets hope Nintendo and Miyamoto keep this trend up!
What games do you think are better designed? Western Games? Or Eastern games?