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Everybody Loves the Wii
1up is reporting on Ubisoft's enthusiastic adoption of the Wii platform. They'd previously only had two titles announced for the system (Red Steel and a Rayman game), but now claim to have seven different titles in production. From the article: "Ubisoft North America President Laurent Detoc ... praised the Wii several times during the panel, stating that he expects it to have 'a large audience and market.' He also stated that he personally felt that in a time when fewer and fewer games appeal to him, the Wii offers plenty of enjoyment. 'The first time I picked up that sucker I couldn't stop playing it.'" Ars Technica is also reporting that EA is gung-ho about the system. From that article: "EA not only indicated that they are taking the Wii and DS seriously, but the company also hinted that they will follow Nintendo's guidance and release games at or near the $49.99 price point. Nintendo has urged developers and publishers to respect the $49.99 price point, believing that it reflects a value advantage over other consoles. EA did not offer a firm commitment to that pricing, contrary to reports elsewhere."
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Ubisoft loves the fact that they can dump slightly tweaked GameCube games to the Wii and still charge full retail price!
The reaction to the Wii has been pretty interesting:
Initially there was the hype and the "Nintendo will change the gaming world with innovation"
Then there was the stupid name change that caused a lot of people to stop and rethink the system
Then the first games started to be shown and people started the "I don't care about graphics" Wii rationalization
And now we are seeing that Wii games are going to most likely be 50 dollars
After all the talk about 'innovation' are gamers going to want to spend full price for slightly upgraded GameCube games with pointing/swinging control added in 2007 and on?
The Wii seems to appeal more to the people who actually game because of the games. The PS3 and XBOX360 seem to appeal to people who game because of the image (however yes, there is some good stuff there, but they are selling an image in addition to the games). Just look at all the new "gamers" who jumped on the Halo bandwagon who tout it as the best fps ever, when PC gamers have been fragging each other for years already with games that are better than Halo.
So yes, everyone who loves gaming loves the Wii (well... almost everyone), because it's bringing us back to our roots with the old school Nintendo stuff. All the people who play because it's the in thing to do right now, well... they probably don't want to look silly flailing around, so they'll go with the other options.
Me... I'll get the Wii first, the XBOX360 soon after it's price drop, and the PS3 when it gets a price drop in a year or two.
you know that I love the Wii!
Seriously, if you look at the Nintendo Wii game announcement page you see such a wide variety of gaming genres, designed to appeal to people who don't just want sports and FPS games, but also casual gamers, women and girls, and a heck of a lot of cross-releases of games that are normallly only available in Japan and China, but are now available for English (US/UK/EU) players as well.
What's not to love about the Wii?
Plus, it doesn't have that annoying choice of do I get Blu-Ray or HD-DVD so that I can wait until 2008 when I actually end up buying a $300 HDTV set and decide for myself which player I'll get for $100.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Developers whose idea of a better game is bigger pixel counts will surely want to develop for the PS3 or the 360 -- at least until they realize how much more it costs to develop for those systems, that is. That's another aspect to the "GameCube II" angle your link derided.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Remember back when it was still called the Revolution and relegated to be the interesting-but-not-that-cool little cousin of the XBox360/PS3? It really is amazing how the news reports, and developer/previewer feedback have done a 180! (Take that 360). I recall Nintendo constantly stating with their chill/laid back attitude that they were staying out of the console wars and aiming for a fun, friendly product for everyone, rather than just testosterone filled fan boys. Don't get me wrong, I wish I could get all three consoles, but with the great price point and developer support, not to mention the cool Wiimote, Nintendo has really changed my attitude towards them.
The reality is that Nintendo's in an excellent position. They have a solid cash cow in the portable market and if the Wii was a total flop, it wouldn't kill them. Even if the Wii sucked they could reasonably plan to keep the market share they currently have with the Game Cube. This gives them the freedom to get a little bit experimental with the Wii and take a risk and this is why the Wii looks like it might be a winner. The Wii offers a unique experience and is cheap enough that owning one in addition to a PS3 or 360 isn't unreasonable.
For similar reasons, Microsoft is in a good position because they have piles of cash and big time cash cows in office software and operating systems. They can afford to lose a lot of money on the 360, so, once again, they aren't under a lot of pressure. Their approach is less risky though just evolving the platform a bit and more closely integrating the Live system into the unit.
Sony on the other hand is in a terrible position because the PS3 is basically the hopes and dreams of the entire company right now. They've been struggling for a while now, losing market share to cheap competitors in other realms of electronics. They are trying to use the PS3 to tie a lot of things together, a new high def video format, a new hardware platform, etc. If the PS3 flops, Sony is in a world of hurt. Even if it's moderately successful they may still be hurting depending on how much they lose per unit and how easily they can make those losses up on the back end.
Sony may pull things off but they are doubly cursed by high expectations and an almost desperate need for this to work out.
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I'm looking forward to the Wii and playing around with the games. If the Wiimote turns out to be a decent pointing device, I'm also interested in how it may effect human-computer interaction on other machines.
Apparently the Wii Remote is going to operate using Bluetooth. Hopefully Nintendo won't try to obfuscate the protocol (if they're making a profit on the hardware itself, they won't have any reason to), and it'll be fairly easy to interface with.
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That's super duper cool. Guess what? It's the same for the DS/PSP match, the DS graphics are at a much lower level.
And you know what? No one cares, because the DS actually has fun games as in games that are actually games and not crappy PS2 ports, and by seeing the Raving Rabbids trailers I'm pretty sure that Rayman 4: Raving Rabbids will fucking rule.
Along with all the 1st party titles (Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda, SSB, ...)
Remember, Sam&Max Hit the Road was already ugly when it was released, and it's one of the games quite a few people are still in love with.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Fun thing is how Capcom still somehow managed to release a (graphically) magnificient Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube...
I thing the truth is much closer to "we can't be bothered to optimize the game for each of the 3 consoles, so we're counting on raw power to make up for it, and the Wii has a lower raw unused power".
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
I go into a games shop or look at gamespot and see nothing I really want to play, perhaps HL2:Ep1 but I am not bothered enough to buy it. Oblivion and Call Of Duty 2 both appeal to me, but my PC wont play those games and I am just not going to update. Give me something original that doesn't drink my wallet for graphics cards, lets hope the Wii provides that answer, the controller may be a gimick but hopefuly it may stimulate some fresh gaming experiences.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
If your logic holds, then why didn't the Gamecube have any 720p or 1080i games?
Agreed. Moreover, this is not a hardware limitation issue per se; its a philosophy.
By leaving HD out this round, they change the value proposition. Lets face it most of us will not have an HDTV in the lifespan of the Wii. HDTV is definately the next big thing, and sales are skyrocketing, but it will be several years yet before "everyone has one".
So... consider a game getting the 3 way port. Yeah, the Wii has weaker hardware, but it only needs to push 1/4 the pixels, so it can still run the same games of the same depth and complexity as the other two consoles. Granted the picture quality won't be as good... but that only affects a minority of the playerbase, while they ALL benefit from the lower price.
For someone without an HDTV its almost a ripoff buying hardware they can't benefit from. If you -don't- have an hdtv shelling out the premium for a PS3 to cover a blueray player you can't properly use is almost absurd.
As someone with an HDTV, I'd have loved to see the Wii support it, but given the price difference, I won't feel ripped off in the least that it doesn't. That I really like the direction Nintendo is going with Wii in terms of the controller etc doesn't hurt either.
Haha. There's a reason why Steve Jobs (don't remember what the Nintendo honcho is called, so we'll stick to Steve) is a billionaire while you are not.
;)
Wanna know?
Steve Jobs is interested in people in addition to technology. He realizes that he needs technology to make products that people like - because most people don't care about ghz and gb: They care about doing the task (whatever that is) efficiently in terms of time consumption. We are lazy so we don't like stuff to be more complicated than they have to.
What you dismiss as gimmicky, people unlike yourself would label as useful or ingenious.
Secondarily, they prefer not being embarassed of having a butt-ugly computer in their home when their in-laws or potential girlfriend visits
Likewise, Nintendo attempts to make engaging games rather than technology showcases.
Stop the brainwash
While you're correct that 3D is a vector format and no more work is needed to take advantage of greater picture resolution, you forget several things. At higher resolutions, you need higher polygon count models, or the models begin to look blocky. The Wii can use those exact same models, it just doesn't require them. More important than polygons, though, is the textures. You have to design completely new textures, textures which would need to be much, much more in-depth at higher resolutions, or they will look blurry to the point of uselessness. The Wii can still use those more complex textures, but you won't be able to tell the difference because of the lower resolution.
So what it comes down to is, with HD you're required to have more polygons and more complex textures, which you can then port to the Wii with no problems. However, if you design specifically for the Wii, you can get away with fewer polygons and simpler textures, so a game developed for the Wii alone will be cheaper, whereas a game developed for the PS3 or 360 won't need new models and textures to be ported.
The second thing you're wrong about is the CPU and GPU just being die shrinks. That's very, very wrong. The CPU & GPU began development in early to mid 2005. They are based on the processors in the GC, but they are still being significantly modified and upgraded. Nintendo has paid IBM and ATI to design modified versions of the chips they originally provided them (well, the GPU was provided by ArtX, but that company was bought by ATI).
Because of this, and many other things, the Wii will cost Nintendo much more to produce than the $99 GC. In fact, Nintendo has already said that they will not charge more than $250 for the Wii, and it may very well be the first console they lose money on the sale of, but if so it will be by no more than $5 per console sold. I vaguely remember reading an article somewhere that says they began console production back in June, and that they hope to reduce production costs enough by release to make a profit on each console sold.
just some guy