“Twitch isn’t Fun,” says Nintendo

If you were hoping to perhaps have the ability to stream some of your favorite Wii U games on Twitch straight from the console, think again. Nintendo has partnered heavily with Twitch for E3 this year, having them be the official broadcaster of all their events, including the Smash Brothers Invitational.

The relationship between Nintendo and Twitch will remain a corporate one; there will be no option for gamers to stream directly to Twitch from their console. Polygon, in an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime, broke this story earlier today. Here are a couple of one liners from Polygon that show just how out of touch Nintendo still is when it comes to their community:

“We don’t think streaming 30 minutes of game play by itself is a lot of fun.”

“Your specific question of just purely streaming gameplay, what we’ve got to think through is, so what’s fun about that? From a consumer standpoint, what’s fun about it?”

Reggie went on to explain that Nintendo streaming Super Smash Bros is different, because people will watch those types of videos to learn some tips and tricks. Reggie continued, “That’s different than watching Joe Blow’s 30 minute stream, which may or may not have something that’s all that interesting.”

Nintendo needs to wake up and realize what the community wants. And a decision to add Twitch support wouldn’t only excite fans, but it would equal free advertising for Nintendo. Word of mouth and gameplay videos often push gamers to purchase specific titles. Reviews are only words on the page, and are beneficial in their own way; watching someone stream a title really gives a great idea of what to expect.

When Twitch streaming was only on PS4, it was huge, resulting in Sony running out of stock on it’s (previously useless) camera. Microsoft launched Twitch support alongside Titanfall; again, this ended up being a rousing success. Where are you Nintendo? Are you even listening?

Nintendo continues to shy away from anything that would push the system from good to great; they need to step up, embrace ideas such as this, cloud storage, and downloads tied to universal accounts. These are simple problems, with fairly simple solutions. Give the people what they want.

More on this topic from Reggie is available in Polygon’s exclusive interview.