Resident Evil, Game On With Wii

oneils writes "Chris Morris of CNN.com outlines some interesting gameplay impressions of Nintendo's Wii. He explains that the new controller works well with first person shooter games like Metroid Prime, but, currently, falls short in the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Morris' impression is that this setback can be rectified by 'optimization.'" From the article: "Imagine holding your TV remote control by its ends and pretending it's a steering wheel. Substitute the Wii controller and you've got an idea of how to control 'Excite Truck'. Driving's pretty easy. The real fun comes when you hit a hill and go sailing into the air. The object is to land with all four wheels on the ground. To do that you'll have to tilt the controller back and forth away from you to stabilize the truck. It's frenetic and fast-paced - and seemed to be everyone's favorite game. I agreed." Several readers also wrote in to mention that Resident Evil will be coming to the Wii. No word on if it's RE5, or a spin-off/remake. Lots of related links below, please Read More. Update: 05/10 20:41 GMT by Z : Joystiq has pictures of a Zapper attachment for the Wiimote.

Comments

Nintendo and Opera are a great fit

[Illissius]

It isn't noticed as often, but Opera is like Nintendo and Apple too: they come up with all the cool new stuff which everyone else then copies.

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when two of my favorite companies join forces like this :-).

Re:Nice looking list

[ObligatoryUserName]

Your numbers are a little off. My understanding is that a XBox/PS2/Gamecube title costs $8 - $12 million to produce (with some AAA titles going into the 20s), and last I heard HD games were expected to at least double the costs. (Is it any wonder publishers are afraid to take risks with money like that involved?)

When the XBox 360 was announced you could hear industry insiders talking about the end of life as we know it - without rapid market growth we were looking at financing only 1/2 the total number of games. And market growth was an elusive target, as people started to realize that the number of actual gamers wasn't really growing in the US - they were just spending more money (and how long could we expect that?); and the Japanese market pre-DS was on the verge of collapse from genre exhaustion... well, listening to the Japanese game developers anyway - they always sounded so fatalistic.

Microsoft (for some reason) said that the XNA toolset would bring costs under control for HD games(which doesn't make sense when the art department/sweatshop eats up most of the funds) --- Sony has made no attempt that I know of to address the skyrocketing costs. Nintendo simply isn't taking their next system there.

Yes, sure, it might take more people to program a game for such a complex controller, but you aren't going to need 200 people churning out high res textures that will only be appreciated by people with HDTVs. Nintendo knows what it's doing.

Wider graphics range

[SuperKendall]

I plan to buy the PS3, and the Wii. I always planned to buy both of them as I knew Nintendo could produce.

I would think about 360, but I know the PS3 is going to have a wider range of types of games. Beyond that with the Blu-Ray discs it's going to have games with a lot wider range of graphics since it can hold a lot more textures or other media, the lack of space is really going to hamstring the 360.

I saw another comment the other day in a news story that was kind of interesting, it stated that because both the Wii and PS3 included motion detection that there were going to be a lot of games ported only to those two platforms, leaving the 360 out in the cold. I could see that happening...

Re:Wider graphics range

[Guppy06]

I admit I'll probably end up getting a PS3 myself, if for no other reason so that I can play FFXIII (unless S-E finally sees the light and ports the game to the Wii), but I simply will not be getting it until late 2008 at the earliest, what with the price point they're announcing (I'm not that big of a Final Fantasy fanboy). I doubt I'm alone here, and both Sony and S-E could be hurting as everybody waits until the PS3 goes through a price drop and FFXIII ends up in the $20 bargain bin in the meantime.

The video game industry has always relied heavily on addicts having more money than brains, but I think $500-$600 hits that magical "critical density" where even the fanboys will be hesitating to buy it. Even fanboys have to pay $3 a gallon, and it's been pointed out that you can get a tricked-out Xbox 360 and a Wii for the same price as the fully-fledged PS3.

Did Sony forget how they beat out the Sega Saturn that they're now making some of the same mistakes Sega did?

Seriously

• Both entered the generation as a strong contender (if not outright winner) of the previous generation
• Both are entering this new generation with ridiculously high price points
• Both managed to divide their fanbase with two competing visions for the new generation (Saturn vs. 32-X? $500 vs $600?)
• Both got their E3 presentations blindsided from a competitor everybody initially discounted

All we need now is an unannounced early release of the hardware.

"Wii and PS3 included motion detection that there were going to be a lot of games ported only to those two platforms, leaving the 360 out in the cold."

First off, comparing the PS3 controller to the Wiimote is like night and day. Aside from the shell not being designed for motion detection (possible motion detection was never taken into account in the design of the PS1 controller), the Wiimote has several other functions that Sony can't or won't implement in the PS3 controller.

Secondly, the Xbox 360 controller (at least the wireless one) has ports on it. If they're capable of doing more than just connecting a headset and recharge cable, Microsoft could conceivably release a Wii-esque dongle and imitate Nintendo's control scheme even better than Sony. The only problem will be that it will have to be a separate accessory.

(My God, after years of defending the GameCube against Xbox fanboys, I'm siding with them against Sony. Screw politics, video games makes strange bedfellows.)

Re:Nice looking list

[Guppy06]

"If I want a cheap console with lots of third-party support and no HD support, I can buy an old PS2."

Except it won't be long before you stop seeing first party PS2 games published, unless the PS3 bombs so badly that SCEA hangs on to the PS2 to stay afloat.

"What's so wonderful about a new-generation console with previous-generation performance?"

Well, considering it's been described as "better than the GameCube," and the GameCube is better than the PS2 as far as performace is concerned, why are you holding on to your PS2 again?

"Why buy a new console that doesn't offer any new performance boost?"

Because the only other option is to buy a new console that offers nothing but a performance boost?

"but those who don't have the need for ultra-smooth HD graphics already have three perfectly good consoles to choose from, each with a 5-year library of fun games already developed for them and being sold for about $20 a pop in many cases."

Games get old. You can only play one game for so long before you want to try something new, otherwise we'd all still be playing Pong.

"Unless you're filthy rich, there's no way you already own and have played every single available PS2 game."

No, but I own all the PS2 games that I might actually want.

"In other words, the Wii doesn't seem to fill any niche that isn't already served."

If the other niches are "being served," why are video game purchases still dominated by 20-something guys?