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Wii Owners Looking at a Nintendo Drought?
The site Computer and Videogames has up an (unverifiable article) stating that several anticipated Wii titles are going to be delayed until late 2007. Specifically, they mention Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption as being out of our hands until the Christmas season next year. They report this information via 'reliable sources', and Nintendo is unwilling to confirm or deny the claims as of yet. N'Gai at Newsweek reminds us that Reggie Fils-Aime denied the possibility of a 'Nintendo drought' in an interview they conducted back in October. Here's hoping he doesn't live to regret these words: "... The third example I would give you is Mario Galaxy, another from-the-ground-up Wii game that we are strategically timing the launch to make sure that we continue driving momentum through 2007. So N'Gai, how do I answer the question, 'Will there be no drought,' and 'How will we make sure that there are fantastic titles for Wii?' The answer is Zelda, Metroid and Mario. Which is a pretty darn good lineup."
Games drought - What about the console drought. They may be doing better than the PS3 but they're still like gold-dust. Where's my Wii???
Who cares about the new games? Question is: will every NES game I have in my basement be re-released so I can pay for it again and play it without spending 3 hours trying to get my old (3) NES to work?? The adapters for the controllers are already being made, all I need to do is $250 for the Wii, $? for the adapters, $? for near mint NES controllers, and $5 and I'll be playing Super Mario Bros. like it's 1985.
Haiku for you!
I am not woried (yet). They seem to have really taken in the idea of fixing the key problems that Nintendo has clasicly had. They know it was their fault that the NGC tanked, and they are out there to fix it. (a Zelda game at launch does help this feeling)
The only thing that is tickign away in my mind is that they have already broken one announced release date (though every one save me seems to have forgotten this). They announced at the 2005 E3 that the Revoloution would have a smash bros game (internet play ready) at the time of release. I cut them some slack on this as it was one of the first real press talks about the Revoloution (and I am a nintendo fanboy).
so, they have had their one shot, if they miss any more release dates then I will go back to expecting "first quarter" to equal "first quarter, 2 years from now".
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Maybe this is just for Europe. The release lists linked in TFA have dates for games that are already out in the US (Children of Mana, Star Fox Command, Excite Truck).
Earlier this year there were quite a few playable games (BWii, Pokemon Battle Revolution, Project Hammer), there are a few games which haven't been released in North America yet (Wii Play, Hajimete no Wii), and Third parties have been announcing games that will be released in Q2 and beyond (Medal of Honor Vanguard, Prince of Persia Rival Swords). [in no way is my list complete]
In general I don't expect a drought in the classical Nintendo drought sense in 2007; at the same time I don't think there has ever been a system which maintained a steady supply of games in its first year.
You posted this article with a headline that was exactly the opposite of what the article stated, and with out any proof of your own to counter it.
Obviously, Reggie is not going to say "We won't have any new games for a year" even if it is true, so quite frankly what he says should be taken with the same mountain of salt that is used with Phil Harrison or Peter Moore or any other gaming exec.
I mean, I got my Wii just this sunday after camping out for four hours, but lets not kid ourselves... Nintendo only has so many popular franchises that they can release games for, and if Metroid or Mario are delayed, there isn't much else they can release (Pokemon? Kirby?). And as for Nintendo's other efforts, they've been a little, err, lax recently (cf. Chibi-Robo, Odama, Geist -- that was a N game right?)
In other news, Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the Wii sucks, predictably. Talk about tacked-on controls. I got this as part of a bundle, and luckily the trade in value is enough that I won't lose too much money. The 360 version looks nice though.
Super Monkey Ball is way better for the Wii though; the controls are totally intuitive... this is the sort of game that should be coming out on the Wii, rather than traditional games with random shaking or waving added in.
Sure, Reggie's telling us "no drought", but outside of the core franchises-- Metroid, Mario, and Kirby-- has Nintento announced any 1st party games for the Wii? I don't know that Nintendo is able to provide the DS and Wii with the same level of support. If they truely want to truely avoid fears of a game drought between Mario/Metroid/Zelda/Pokemon, then they need to start showing they're grabbing 3rd party exclusive support.
Fortunately, Nintendo came out with a strong enough launch lineup that I really couldn't care less if nothing new came out for another 6 months. Include stragglers like Elebits (which was a couple of weeks late) and the system already has a solid half dozen must-haves.
The Wii is an overwhelming success not because people are ga-ga over the latest and greatest, and just trying to be "first on the block" to have one. It's successful because there's already a TON of fun to be had with it. The last time people were buying a system by the million JUST TO PLAY THE PACK-IN was the NES and Super Mario Bros. We all know how that one turned out. It took a year or two for much else to happen (I'm thinking Zelda and the ensuing Nintendo-mania of the late 1980s), but in the meantime everyone was very happy just playing SMB and a few other early releases.
Other than the real hardcore types who buy 20-30 games each and every year, there's more than enough Wii goodness to last the average person for 6-12 months. Coincidentally, this is exactly the type of person who the Wii is aimed at.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Sorry, I'm not too concerned about the purported Wii blockbuster game drought.
I'm too busy playing my GameCube version of Sims 2: Pets on my Wii, while my son plays his GameCube Super Smash Brothers on it.
Between that and all the fine games, I'm just hoping to have a chance to finish Rayman's Raving Rabbids myself (my son's already a World Champion), let alone delve into Excite Truck or Zelda that he's already mastered.
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I bought that as a bonus Xmas present, in addition to another set of Wiimote and nunchuk, for my son. The cool part so far is all the old GameCube games, like Dungeons and Animal Crossing, all work fine on the Wii - you need the old controllers, but they all pop in the top.
...
Is Elebits as good as it seemed in the previews? I hate waiting until next week
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For whatever reason, most stores are getting a Wii:Nunchuk ratio of about 5:1 or less... Nunchuks are harder to get than the damn system is! ARGH!
The problem is that the Wii launch, constitutes almost the entire production from Nintendo game studios over the last couple years, cause they sure weren't making Gamecube games. I'm sure they have a Mario and Metroid game in 2007, but what has Nintendo done to prevent a drought after that? The real problem is that Nintendo consoles still rely on Nintendo providing all the games worth playing and they just don't make them fast enough, for a broad enough market, or even at the same level as in the past. The reason the PS1 or PS2 was consistent was not cause of Sony's games, but cause of 3rd parties.
3rd party Developers are not looking at the Wii as a place to make new creative games - why do it on old technology? The Wii is going to be looked at as a dumping ground or a place to make a cheap buck. PS2/XBOX ports, new levels on an old engine, rework the control scheme and push it out the door. Look at the Wii version of Far Cry or the fact that the 'new' Wii Prince of Persia is actually the OLD Prince of Persia (with NEW control scheme!) that came out last year for examples of this.
...including the Virtual Boy, the fear of drought is enough to make me wait. The DS, Gamecube, and N64 all had significant post-launch droughts.
I agree the Wii has a lot of well-regarded launch titles, but apart from Zelda there's an awful lot of minigame collections in that list (Trauma, Rayman, Wii Sports) so I worry about how long those games will last. It's a problem with a lot of the DS' library too - there's a good number of good games but they tend to be on the shallow side in terms of lasting value.
The answer is Zelda, Metroid and Mario.
You mean the answer is flogging dead horses by using the same franchises over and over again. Not that I don't love me some Zelda, Metroid or Mario action, as most games in the franchises are excellent; but I'd like to see something else move into Nintendo territory. Please, for the love of god. Give us some fresh meat. Hardware-wise, we're in a new realm, and it's been fantastic. The DS, the Wii, both great. Now let's try some new characters, shall we? Mario doesn't have to retire, just, let him take a short vacation, and focus some of that Mario energy into a new project, a new product, that's gonna make us scream.
There will be no drought this time as was the case with the Gamecube. Reggie has said all along, that in his opinion the drought of games after the launch of the Gamecube is what killed it. I highly doubt Nintendo would make that same mistake again. If anything, there is almost too much that will be coming out in 2007 which is why you might see some of the bigger titles pushed into the 4th quarter (possibly to counter Halo 3 or whatever Sony has out at that time).
The battery for the NVRAM probably died. That's why it's losing your saves. People have replaced batteries before.
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Funny that you'd mention minigames. Again, you have to think of just who the Wii is aimed at.
Is it aimed at the guy who plays Zelda all the way through 10 times? No.
Is it aimed at the gal who collects every last star, heart, bonus fish, or whatever in Mario to unlock another costume? No.
The guy who races every last track down to the microsecond hoping to finally open another level? No.
Is it aimed at folks who just want to sit down and have some fun for a while? YES.
Minigame collections, to me, are exactly what the doctor ordered. Not some sprawling 100+ hours of gameplay. Not some endless quest for little reward.
I'm in the gaming middle. I play through Zelda, but ONCE. Once I'm done, it has zero lasting value to me. Minigames, on the other hand - hell, I'm STILL playing Tetris, which for all intents and purposes these days, is a minigame. Quick if you want, no story, no collecting things, nothing. You just fire it up and play for a few minutes. I find the mingame style of games are playable far longer than most modern games.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
And this is coming from a sound designer. All these systems are capable of high quality audio, it's called "digital recording". There are only two instances that I can think of where "high power" would make any difference what-so-ever:
1) Real-time MIDI instrumentation that can be changed on the fly. Building interactive midi music is not a processing nightmare, but playing back good quality samples IS. Still, very few game developers have had any interest in this. In fact, the only one recently is Zelda, which has music that transitions into other themes depending on the gameplay circumstances... that's not possible with acoustic recordings. This is the only place where midi has an advantage over pre-recorded audio. There's really no reason to use a low powered software synth on a game system, when your audio engineers and composer have $40,000 setups with banks of K2600s and GigaStudio samples. Might as well just record those (or an orchestra, if you can afford it). No matter how powerful the PS3 is, it's not going to compare to the quality of Hans Zimmer's 50 networked render boxes with individually sampled GigaSample instruments.
2) Mesh-traced audio: this is the audio equivelent of ray-tracing. Mesh-tracing creates a series of virtual soundwave vectors that change when intersecting polygons with different absorbtion and reflective properties. This creates the sound of an envirnmental space, and the audio sources within it without "faking" reverb with pre-written digital algorythms. It also positions audio properly in 3d space. That said, I've seen zero interest in perfecting spacial audio within the mainstream video game industry. Most people think that the current psycho-acoustic tricks that are used are "good enough". And to be honest, I'd rather see more concentration on really good composition, sound design, and clean production, then delving into advanced environmental synthesis.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Mario Kart!
Agreed. A friend of mine has played Metroid Prime 3. Not all the way through or anything, but it's a solid and playable game now.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I did this. I also did a few other searches.
Nintendo drought: 186,000
Sony drought: 328,000
Microsoft drought: 880,000
Oh, he might just have been talking about GameCube. Then:
GameCube drought: 59,300
PlayStation drought: 132,000
Xbox drought: 156,000
What have we learned? Hopefully, NOTHING, since quoting useless, random Google search terms is something we should already know to be a stupid way to emphasize a point.
(The numbers definitely change significantly when you use quotes, but somehow the sentence, "Google `Nintendo drought' and you'll get more than 50 results," doesn't quite have the same idiot-impressing tone to it.)
Selling an item is a value added service, regardless of how many times it has been done. Supply is not low because of scalpers, supply is low because supply is low. The Scalpers didn't prevent sony from shipping more ps3 consoles. The inflated price was due to the insufficiency of the transactions due to the limited supply. Selling them on Ebay reduced the inefficiency for *some* people, namely those who bought them. You could just as easily say Walmart generates wealth they neighter earn or create. All they do is buy products at a lower price and sell them to consumers for a higher price. ITs like the old story of the indeecent proposal:
Old scoundrel: Excuse me young lady, would you have sex with me for a billion dollars?
Young woman: Sure!!
old scoundrel: Ok, Would you have sex with me for one dollar?
young woman: NO!! What kind of woman do you think I am?
old scoundrel: I know what kind of woman you are, we're just haggling over price.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I am so sold !!! I have owned my Wii since launch day and I am cradling it like a baby.....
I think that we aren't going to see a drought to be honest. You may have those crappy titles and so forth (Far Cry:V DAmn you UBIsoft!!!) but still ssb is slated for next year near the beginning of the year! Hell it's the first time that I am excited about any console in a long time!
Here is my theory.....and please google it if you don't believe me.
A) Developers have been sitting on their hands waiting to develop for this system. But EA has a whole slew of titles and so does Ubisoft. Then you have take-two which is seriously looking at the Wii.
B)Sales, sales, sales. The amount of sales that the wii is doing right is quite well despite the fact that the system doesn't have the horsepower of the PS3 or the 360. Now what does that tell you people? When Nintendo makes money and is successful then third parties will be as well.
C) Sure we may have bad ports in some of the games, but just wait with many of the publishers taking a look at the PS3 and figuring that they may not hit a target market (or any market for that matter.) then you will see that alot of them will focus their development on the 360 and the Wii.
The system has alot of potential. Besides if you are like me and beat the hell out of Zelda... then you are going to go back and look at the Gamecube library or play the copies of Trauma Center and Red Steel that you foolishly bought.
The other thing that I think people tend to forget is that we also have this thing were we can buy many of the greatest games ever made and they come out every monday. Think you have quite a few final fantasies to play in their original formats, Zeldas, Marios, so on and so forth. Also there are alot of people coming out with their own homebrew flash games for the browser which will be a beta in just a couple of days.
Don't give me that tired crap about 'another Mario', another Zelda, it's crap those games are the ones that blazed the trail so you could play gears of war, god of war, what have you.
If Sega implemented it right the Wii Bleach game could be a lot of fun. It's supposed to be released in Japan real soon. The question is whether they made proper use of the Wii controller. Then there's the issue of whether Sega will sell it in the US and how long will it take to localize it. Still, it would be nice to see a two player (mostly) sword fighting game for the Wii.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I think it was IGN UK that said Feb, 2007.
Seriously. They could delay those games until 2008 for all I care. As long as they keep the Wii shop channel flowing with new games every week I'll be happy.
Honestly, I originally wanted a Wii because I wanted a Gamecube, and since I was putting off buying a GC for so long it got to the point where the Wii was coming, then once the Shop details were released, I was sold. The scary part was while waiting in the Wii line, I met not one, not two, but three separate PS3 Ebayer groups who stood in the PS3 line the week before, bought 3 PS3's and proceeded to make 4-6000 dollars on eBay. It makes you wonder why didn't Sony sell the PS3 on eBay in the first place since all of them were going to end up there anyway.
Anyhow, The retro gaming (as well as the Gamecube support) is what got me dead set on making the Wii my next console since the Dreamcast. As long as that doesn't dry up (and how can it) I don't see where this game drought is. The only thing left would be to get the Neo Geo games on board and I'm set for a long time.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Fanboy refuses to believe bad news about his object of obsession, but has no trouble accepting unsubstantiated postive news. Film at eleven.
If you trust metareview sites, such as GameRankings, then Elebits appears to be a decent game, averaging about 71% at the time of this posting. Not a 5-star title by any means, but around the 3 to 4-star mark.
-- jchenx
Donkey Kong (well, he's old, but was made anew) at one point moved into the spotlight previously held by mario. Certainly Donkey Kong Country (and to some extent DKC2) were as fun as the mario games, and nearly as memorable (if not moreso in some ways). Latter games with DK have been less lustrous, but why not let that franchise overpass the mario one, and perhaps find another character who would be just as memorable as Mario and the Kong Bros?
Nintendo makes such essential first-party games their consoles can be a hard ecosystem for other publishers to compete in - particularly on a console aimed at the non-hardcore.
So it's not a bad thing to give those other publishers a breathing space - so they'll continue to support the hardware with more games - and get better at using the controller
Shit, thats like 10 days!!!!!! OMG NO!!!
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Not all Gamecube games work, if you're European your Freeloader will no longer work which means you still need your Gamecube for those imported games. AFAIK US gamers don't have that problem which leads me to believe NoE is a bunch of idiots again. Well, what do you expect from a company that overcharges by 25-50%, releases games a quarter or two late and can't even prevent its website from dying from normal load (never mind the stupid Javascript scrollbars that don't even work in Opera, the very browser they've put on the Wii)?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Nintendo may be delaying key titles...
In other news, the sun will set at some point this evening. Experts are surprised by this turn of events, calling it the biggest dissapointment since the Milk went bad after a month in the fridge.
Amen to that! Everyone is complaining about game systems availability, but what about the wife, the truly interactive "We?" Note to self (and countless youths): if you want her to kiss you, do the dishes. If you want her to do something more, get off the computer/Wii and spend time talking to her.
It really doesn't matter. So you buy it in 6 weeks. You realize that by the end of January, there will likely be stacks of the things sitting around. And if not then, 4 weeks later. The games will still be good, and it's not like there aren't plenty of good PS2 games to tide you over for a few weeks until you get a new system.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Personally, I couldn't disagree more. The Wiimote sideways does't feel like the original controller and that's a good thing. It has a superior D-pad, better buttons, is wireless, and unlike the original has smooth corners that don't agrivate your hand after hours of use. It gets the same effect, but in a much better way. On the other hand if I could get an adapter for my NES Advantage...
True, but there are games that will sell year round with no problem. As an Example was Zelda:WW, which came out in March, and Mario in August. Hopefully We'll get Metroid Q2, Smash Bros Brawl Q3, and Mario Galaxy for the Q4 push. Granted, Mario will sell any time of year, but Q4 2007 Nintendo has to compete with Halo 3, and Either FFXIII or MGS4 (I suspect one will slip to a 2008 release).
if you're European your Freeloader will no longer work which means you still need your Gamecube for those imported games. AFAIK US gamers don't have that problem which leads me to believe NoE is a bunch of idiots again.
How DARE they not make sure that their new console is compatible with an unlicensed product used to circumvent the regional lockout system for their previous console!
what do you expect from a company that overcharges by 25-50%
I'm sure you have your reasons for believing that Nintendo products are overpriced, but the market seems to disagree with you, if an entire month of people camping out in front of stores overnight hoping to get a chance to buy their product is any indicator.
So it's "unverifiable", huh? Why am I so positive that if this was a news article listing the above facts but in relation to any other console, we wouldn't get those snarky comments?
By the way, maybe you could argue "unverified", but "unverifiable"? That's just absurd. Certain mathematical
Ok, with the exception of a few Minigames added, the Version of Madden for the Wii is pretty much identical to Madden on the X-box in terms of graphics, modes, and general features. The Game mechanics however are a world apart, and the Wii version is actually closer to a backyard game of "2 hand touch" than it is to any of the console versions. My only issue is with Kicking, to be fair, I felt the broke kicking in the Xbox version too, so on 4th and 23rd I'm going for it.
Ok, I beat Rayman RR on the Wii and I simply don't understand how they ported it to the PS2, but they did. It is also on the GBA. The bunnies are hilarious, and I understand Ubi wanting a larger install base to sell too, but despite this game (clearly) was made for the Wii, it was ported. So now simply be content that Wii owners got the 'better version' (like how GC owners still got the better RE4)...
And ticks and leeches are part of our ecosystem. I still would not want them in my neighborhood.
Elebits is lots of fun and easy to play/learn. I'm amout 3/4 of the way through the main story after a week, and I'm still entertained. The only downside is the terrible voice acting in the cutscenes, though kids probably won't mind that.
I stopped in a EBgames on tuesday, they told me that Wii's consistently sell out within a few minutes of being put on the floor, but they have this 60 gig PS3 thats been sitting around for 3 days, and nobody wants it.
Bad news for Sony I guess.
I love how every doomsday article about the PS3 has exactly that in the title. Here we have a doomsday-ish article for the Wii and the exact opposite as the title for the article! If I didn't think Zonk was completely biased before (which I did), I do now.
How DARE they not make sure that their new console is compatible with an unlicensed product used to circumvent the regional lockout system for their previous console!
If it didn't work on the US Wii either I'd attribute that to incomplete backwards compatibility but since it's limited to the European Wii and given NoE's attitude towards importing and their behaviour close to the Wii launch (NoA states that the Wii will not have a region lock, a few hours later NoE starts screaming how it does have) it seems likely that they made sure their firmware locks the Freeloader out (system claims the disc is unreadable).
I'm sure you have your reasons for believing that Nintendo products are overpriced, but the market seems to disagree with you, if an entire month of people camping out in front of stores overnight hoping to get a chance to buy their product is any indicator.
We don't have people camping out for Wiis in MY country. In fact you can get a Wii at pretty much retail price on eBay here.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
What is this "Dungeons" game you speak of? Gauntlet? Baldurs Gate?
He says "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance".
Sorry, old SMOG here, can't keep track of games.
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