Kotaku: Yasuhiro Wada

Mini-Skirt Or Not, No More Customers

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:00:16 MST

Face it: Japanese Wii owners buy Wii Sports, Wii Fit and maybe Super Mario Galaxy. That's about it, really! So, when a third party company releases something that, well, isn't any of those three, what happens? Not much. That's No More Heroes executive producer and Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada and No More Heroes and Killer 7 creator Goichi Suda hoping to give out toilet paper and hoping to sign copies of NMH. Thing is, after twenty minutes of Suda and Wada standing in front of Akihabara's Sofmap, nobody bought the game. Keep in mind, that not only two well-known game creators were giving out toilet paper, but there was also a woman in a mini-skirt (that, after the jump). Talk about a tough crowd!

Japanese game press like IT Media, GA Graphic and Famitsu were at the bust of an event and didn't have any customers to photograph at the launch. According to Akiba Blog, a staffer from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain apparently went and bought a copy of No More Heroes for Wada and Suda to sign. Regardless of what you think of No More Heroes, stuff like this isn't just sad for Suda and co., but for Wii owners ultimately. No More Heroes isn't your typical Wii game, and it seems to be getting punished for that. Hope it does better in the States — for the Wii's sake.

Hit the jump for the mini-skirt cosplay girl.

Nobody Buys It, So the Press Does [Akiba Blog, Thanks Torokun!]

Harvest Moon Creator Wants to Make Spore-Like Game

Brian Ashcraft — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:00:33 MST

Yasuhiro Wada is best known for cult hit barnyard RPG Harvest Moon. But he's also busy running Marvelous Interactive! You'd think a guy who's had creative and business success would be content. Wada still has things he'd like to do — grand plans if you will. Plans that include a Spore-like game. Wada explains:

Eventually, I'd like to make something like Spore, where you create something, and from there, new stuff is going to be created again and again and again. In a micro world, like The Sims for example, you have the city expanding but you can't see it. But you want to be one of the people living in the city, and to be a part of this growing too.

Isn't that what Harvest Moon is? Or is he saying he wants to make infinite Harvest Moon?
Wada Interview [Gamasutra]

Harvest Moon Creator Has Advice For Nintendo

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:00:15 MDT

Yasuhiro Wada has two new games hitting handhelds: Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon for the PSP and Harvest Moon DS. And he's got a version of Harvest hitting the Wii! Wada has been around. He knows things. And he likes Grand Theft Auto. So, what's his advice to Nintendo regarding the Wii?

Wii cannot really compete against PS3 or 360, which is why Wii's main competitor right now is DS. They are competing on the same level. So, Nintendo has to work harder to make Wii's own market, as opposed to competing against DS's market. This would be my first piece of advice to Nintendo.
Wii Sports is the only game that can be ONLY played on Wii, not on any other console. So future games plans such as Brain Training on Wii or that type of thing — I don't think this is such a great idea — as these games are already being played and are very popular on DS... they are not specific to the Wii.

The third piece of advice I would give them would be to reduce the price of the DS! [compared to price of Wii] That's my main bit of advice. I think they can do it... If they want to reduce the price they can.

I like this Wada guy. He's full of ideas and wants things cheap. Good for him. Brian Ashcraft

Harvest Interview [Spong]