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A Tail of Two Dogs: Miyamoto’s Nintendogs vs Cesar Millan’s The Dog Whisperer
March 08, 2009
Anyone who wonders what the difference is between a dog of a game and a game about dogs needs only to look at the Nintendo DS. It’s a tail of two dogs with Nintendo’s acclaimed videogame creator Shigeru Miyamoto in one corner with Nintendogs and National Geographic Channel’s Cesar Millan in the other with The Dog Whisperer game.
While it’s not Ali versus Tyson, Nintendogs verses The Dog Whisperer shows that gamers, even mass market ones, aren’t going to go fetch any old licensed DS game. Nintendo unleashed Nintendogs back in 2005 and the game has not only remained a multimillion unit bestseller, it has helped Nintendo sell Nintendo DS hardware for years. While Miyamoto has been busy with new Wii games like Wii Fit and Wii Music, he’s left the dogs to others.
Ubisoft, which has had success with its Petz line-up of games, partnered with Millan last year to create the first of what was supposed to be a new franchise of Dog Whisperer games. That was before the Nintendo DS and PC game sold just over 11,000 copies in the U.S. The game about training dogs became a dog, itself.
Ironically, gamers wouldn’t have been tossed The Dog Whisperer game if not for Miyamoto’s excellent puppy simulator.
“My kids showed me Nintendogs and that’s when I decided that videogames was something I wanted to get involved with,” said Millan. “Pretty much the whole entire process I was involved with. Ubisoft came up with the idea around dog psychology and common sense and they asked if I had any input into this and I said, ‘Of course.’ I brought my kids into it because they’re definitely more the videogame players.”
Millan is definitely not a gamer. He said growing up on a farm in Mexico he was never exposed to gaming.
“I knew Pac-Man existed, but I didn’t have the funds to play it,” said Millan. “I observed games from far away. I was more involved with farming and Mother Nature. I’m from the era from observing and doing it yourself. I’m not very good with the controllers. I’m slow. I have to admit.”
Millan said even his wife is better at Wii than he is. But he does watch his kids play games.
“Obviously, I believe the kids have to work for the videogames,” said Millan, who owns 30 dogs and has 10 in his home at any given time. “My 9 year old is all about Mario and Wario and the 14 year-old is all about FIFA 09. He also likes Spore.”
When it comes to The Dog Whisperer, the show remains a hit worldwide and Millan continues to write books, but if there’s ever another videogame - and the odds of that are slim - it’s unlikely Ubisoft will be the publisher.
