On this week's Podcast Reload, the folks from Anait (a splinter group from Eurogamer Spain) invited Omar Álvarez to discuss impressions from the last Nintendo Direct.
A bit of context first. Omar Álvarez, who worked from 2011 until 2018 as PR on Nintendo Spain, announced last October he had only 4 months left to live due to an incurable cancer. After a long time fighting with the illness, he has been since then working on a lot of passion projects of his.
As many people in Spain, I only knew about of him because of his announcement back in October. In this week's podcast he has shared some insights, anecdotes and predictions on what Nintendo might be up to. Be warned, the podcast is in Spanish and he is only in for the first half.
Here are some highlights that I have found interesting:
-Around the 35 min mark he doubts for a few seconds, says "what are they (Nintendo) going to do, sue me?", and shares that Nintendo considered using the name "Swiitch" instead of Switch. He doesn't confirm it, but says he is convinced that must have been Iwata's idea. Then, he mentions how Iwata found opposition inside Nintendo when switching from the Gameboy brand into the Nintendo DS naming. In the end Iwata argued that the "boy" in Gameboy excluded women and that "Gameboy" wasn't the important name of the brand, but rather "Nintendo".
-1:06:00 mark. Apparently Kamiya is a bit of a managing disaster. Omar explains how one time, around 4 months before Wonderful 101 release, Kamiya sent a heated email to all Europe PR representatives roasting them because they weren't showing the game anywhere, and the release date was very close. Omar's boss at the time sent a very polite email back explaining how Kamiya hadn't uploaded the preview codes into Nintendo's system, so it was impossible for them to do shit. In the end they received the codes 1 week before it was scheduled to be shared with the press and everyone had to run like crazy in order to make it. Also as a funny anecdote it seems like Kamiya and his team are some hardcore drinkers. Omar explains how one time he saw them at an event completely smashed (lying down on top of the tables, shirts open, etc).
-edit: He also mentions more than once that Monolith is one of the most reliable developers out there in regard of time obligations. When no one believed Xenoblade 2 would release on 2017, he knew they would make it since to his memory they never missed a deadline.
Before that he shares his opinion on how the Direct format has changed and how it was more "hype" before. There's also some wishful thinking in the form of mentioning stuff like Mario Galaxy 3 and how Nintendo is withholding stuff in order to open the floodgates with the inevitable Switch pro. Again, he doesn't say this is insider info, but rather what he thinks Nintendo must be doing after working for so long with them.
There are more interesting bits, but I was cleaning my house while listening to it so I don't think I caught everything.
Edit: Also, I'm unbelievably dumb since I forgot to put it at first but: fuck cancer forever. I hope he can take as many months from cancer as he can. On his tweet he said the doctors had only given him 4, but he was determined to live as many as he possibly could.
A bit of context first. Omar Álvarez, who worked from 2011 until 2018 as PR on Nintendo Spain, announced last October he had only 4 months left to live due to an incurable cancer. After a long time fighting with the illness, he has been since then working on a lot of passion projects of his.
As many people in Spain, I only knew about of him because of his announcement back in October. In this week's podcast he has shared some insights, anecdotes and predictions on what Nintendo might be up to. Be warned, the podcast is in Spanish and he is only in for the first half.
Here are some highlights that I have found interesting:
-Around the 35 min mark he doubts for a few seconds, says "what are they (Nintendo) going to do, sue me?", and shares that Nintendo considered using the name "Swiitch" instead of Switch. He doesn't confirm it, but says he is convinced that must have been Iwata's idea. Then, he mentions how Iwata found opposition inside Nintendo when switching from the Gameboy brand into the Nintendo DS naming. In the end Iwata argued that the "boy" in Gameboy excluded women and that "Gameboy" wasn't the important name of the brand, but rather "Nintendo".
-1:06:00 mark. Apparently Kamiya is a bit of a managing disaster. Omar explains how one time, around 4 months before Wonderful 101 release, Kamiya sent a heated email to all Europe PR representatives roasting them because they weren't showing the game anywhere, and the release date was very close. Omar's boss at the time sent a very polite email back explaining how Kamiya hadn't uploaded the preview codes into Nintendo's system, so it was impossible for them to do shit. In the end they received the codes 1 week before it was scheduled to be shared with the press and everyone had to run like crazy in order to make it. Also as a funny anecdote it seems like Kamiya and his team are some hardcore drinkers. Omar explains how one time he saw them at an event completely smashed (lying down on top of the tables, shirts open, etc).
-edit: He also mentions more than once that Monolith is one of the most reliable developers out there in regard of time obligations. When no one believed Xenoblade 2 would release on 2017, he knew they would make it since to his memory they never missed a deadline.
Before that he shares his opinion on how the Direct format has changed and how it was more "hype" before. There's also some wishful thinking in the form of mentioning stuff like Mario Galaxy 3 and how Nintendo is withholding stuff in order to open the floodgates with the inevitable Switch pro. Again, he doesn't say this is insider info, but rather what he thinks Nintendo must be doing after working for so long with them.
There are more interesting bits, but I was cleaning my house while listening to it so I don't think I caught everything.
Edit: Also, I'm unbelievably dumb since I forgot to put it at first but: fuck cancer forever. I hope he can take as many months from cancer as he can. On his tweet he said the doctors had only given him 4, but he was determined to live as many as he possibly could.
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