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The Wii - Is the Magic Gone?
Computer And Video Games asks the tough question: is the Wii's magic gone? After the flurry of excitement around the launch, lackluster ports and a persistent inability for Nintendo to keep units on the shelves has made it hard for gamers to sustain their enthusiasm for the system. It doesn't help that most of the good games slated for this year won't be out for months. In some cases, there's doubt they'll even make it out this year: Reggie Fils-Aime appears to be backpedaling on Metroid Prime 3 by Christmas, which would be a shame. GigaGamez has additional commentary. Are you still as excited about the Wii as you were when it launched?
What have you done with the real Zonk!!!!!!?
Seriously, even as I like the Wii, I can see some "cracks in the armor". It's missing out on a lot of potential. Here are some things it needs:
a) Real calibration. Actually be able to tell it where your screen boundaries are located so that where you're pointing is a lot closer to where the dot is, enabling shooters that don't show your crosshairs. Preferably in the OS.
b) The Wiisaber. That alone will double sales.
c) Games that involves holstering the wiimote to one or more limbs. E.g. a dancing game or a bounty hunter type game where you have to hit a button on your arm to launch a rope. (I know Konami has a DDR like the former coming up, but sooner would have been nice.)
d) Online play.
Also, Zelda should have required you to pull back to load an arrow, so it's more realistic.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Hell no, I'm just patiently waiting to get my hands on one where it doesn't require me to sell my soul.
I want one as much as I always have, but there is no way in hell I'll get it through walmart.
So I wait.....
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
So the fact that they are selling so fast Nintendo can't keep them in stock is used as proof that excitement is diminishing for the Wii? This reminds me of the alleged Yogi Berra saying about a certain resturant - "It's so crowded nobody goes there any more."
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
I'd say the excitement is still there.
Ask again when you can walk into any Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc and find them sitting on the shelves at any given time.
Right now yes, it is. It's not so much in the so called "gimick", but just that it hasn't been utalized in a way that is deep. Many of the ways the wiimote is being used are cool on the surface, but lack any sort of real impact on the way we play the game. The wiimote did not add much to Zelda. Games like wiisports are fun initally, but they are so simple that you reach a level of mastery very easily. Even games like trauma center are the same way. It's cool at first, but once you get the hang of it there's nothing more to explore.
I was going to get a Wii but I keep reading on Slashdot that they aren't in stores so I haven't bothered. So you might say that Slashdot is responsible for the loss of interest in Wii.
Nintendo did an excellent job speeding out a few good, solid games when the Wii launched. IMO, these games weren't intended to have an incredible lifetime, indeed, they served their purpose; to create enough hype so that the Wii would still sell in the face of other systems during the holidays. Now, as with most of the other systems, we must wait for what I'm sure will be a solid game base to flourish.
You have to think about it - developers have just been exposed to a massively, paradigm-breaking gaming concept. Give them time. Just because the hype has settled down, doesn't mean the magic's gone.
Blerg.
But "... a persistent inability for Nintendo to keep units on the shelves has made it hard for gamers to sustain their enthusiasm for the system."
Sounds like they're buying them as fast as Nintendo makes them. And its lost the thrill?
I would take "a persistent inability for Nintendo to keep units on the shelves" as a sign of continued interest.
Also, some anecdotal evidence. Yesterday when I was looking through the Best Buy ad I noticed that Wii Play had been released. I called three local Best Buys and all of them had sold out of Wii Play.
I think the steady stream of classic games like Mario Kart, and Super Mario World are helping out too.
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
Consoles probably obey different rules than handhelds. I think that a year of downtime could be fatal for a console (sega anyone?). I also think that the most important rule is that in handhelds, nintendo rules (this has been nearly the unquestioned rule since tetris shipped with the gameboy). However, in consoles, the one that gets the most games wins. Its a self feeding cycle, the console that gets the most games, gets the most devs, who then make more games. With handhelds, while people were waiting for the ds to find it stride, they were fiddling with ipods and playing a nibbles clone on their cell phones.
Instead of buying a wii, I'm going to probably take the popular route of buying the xbox360 (not a fanboy of any system, really!), because of 3 reasons. Its affordable (bye sony), it's got the library i want, and its on the shelves (bye nintendo). Keep in mind, the last system i bought besides a ds lite was a sega dreamcast in 01 because it was 50 bucks and emulators were coming out so i could retire the nes without retiring its library.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
The Wii could quite possibly end up being the best local-multiplayer console of all time. TONS of fun has been had at my place playing Wii Sports, Rayman, and Warioware. At the same time, though, I've found single-player to be somewhat lacking, partially because when I'm playing games alone I just want to sit down and relax, not be flailing around. It's going to be hard to find Wii games that don't force you to use the motion-sensing, though, since that's the only "special" thing about the console.
That pretty much relegates the Wii to party-console for me. Not that I have a problem with that, I suppose. The PS3 looks like it will be (and has been) able to handle my single-player needs fine. Each console has its place.
The DS took a while before it showed its full potential. The PSP took the initial lead, but the DS has pulled far ahead now. IMHO, the breakthrough game was "Kirby: Canvas Curse", which showed off the real potential for the touchscreen, followed by Nintendogs.
I suspect the Wii will go the same way. It already has quite a few games that show its potential. There are also a fair number of games that were hyped, but were rushed out the door to meet a Christmas release and had a poor control scheme (like Red Steel). As more games start piling up, the Wii should get a solid position in this round of console wars.
Not a typewriter
A typical put-down article. Maybe the author couldn't get his own Wii and is angry, or he's being paid by MS and/or Sony. Or maybe he's just really a bit slow.
Nintendo's "inability to keep units on the shelves" is a good one. They're sold-out is what it really means. And not thanks to artificial shortage, Nintendo has shipped a lot of these machines.
Is the excitement still there? Not as in the first few days, which is natural. But I'm still enjoying it a lot, and so does everyone I've had over to play a game or three. It isn't the cure to cancer, but it's a great living-room gaming system, and I'm still proud of owning one.
Now, someone please send the poor author of TFA one so he can stop being all stuffed up.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I just spent my second weekend playing with friends I introduced to the Wii during New Years. None of them are "gamers" as we think of them. They play poker and that's about as close as it gets.
One actually went out and got a Wii and is very happy with the graphics. Non-gamers may see it as "good enough." You and I of course know that the other systems are far more powerful graphicly, but my friend wasn't about to go out and spend $700 to get a PS3 as his first game system. We had a new friend over as well. Another non-gamer. Even after I had gone to bed, they were up to 3am, playing Wii Sports Golf.
Nintendo has hit the nail on the head I think. We might see the hype die off, but the hype that goes on is word of mouth. You know, plain old conversation in real life. Not everyone's primary mode of contact is email or web bulletin boards. I think this kind of "hype" goes far further in expanding the video gaming population than any ad campaign could.
"Wii is trying to be the iPod of consoles but how can you really when the market when your competitors iPods are just/if not more capable and the only difference is the peripherals?"
Have you actually looked at the iPod competitors? Almost all of them pack in more features at a lower cost. I'm not saying Wii will become the iPod of the console world, but most powerful hardware is hardly a prerequisite.
The dearth of upcoming Wii games is nothing more than symptomatic of its recent launch. Developers are still learning what to do with it. This isn't a phenomenon unique to the system - it happens to every platform for about a year after its release (recall the DS drought, or the lack of Xbox 360 development through all of last year, or that the PS3 is in the same boat right now). Not that that makes the situation any better in terms of enjoying the system, but it's far from a death knell at any rate.
Glog!
Nintendo is targeting a more "causual" crowd with the Wii, and based on news reports and the folks I know who own one, they are succeeding.
My family and friends are still having fun playing Wii Sports, Rayman, and other games we purchased MAYBE 45 DAYS AGO at most!!!! I would worry more if I paid $50 for a game that only lasted me a week (or less).
Not everyone is a hardcore gamer who needs GameFly to feed their rabid consumption. The Wii seems to fail mostly in the eyes of that particular crowd.
Am I looking forward to Mario Party 8, Mario Galaxy, Metroid? Sure. Am I lamenting my Wii because those games are not available today? Not at all.
We're too busy enjoying/playing our Wii to lament what we don't have.
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
"And finally, I'll wait until they package a game with it..."
I thought Wii Sports was a game!
The magic is there, the mass media (NOT video game specific media) simply set their expectations HIGHER than hardcore gamers. The Wii had by far one of the best video game launches in history, thats a fact. Video game consoles suffer from a "drought" of games between 3~12 months (depending on who you ask) after its initial release, thats a fact. The Wii is just over 3 months old, thats a fact. When you compare the outstanding launch (Zelda + Wii Sports pack-in = Profit!) to the current lack of games (Warioware and Elebits are fun but they aren't Metroid or Super Smash Bros), of course you'll be extremely disappointed.
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There is a foot of snow outside, topped with an inch-thick layer of ice, and the temperature is 0 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of -20. School is cancelled. Can the kid go out and play? Sure, but once they start getting frostbite/etc from the cold, then they want to come in and move around to get the blood going, and this beats indoor soccer in terms of preservation of assets.
stuff |
A lot of this commentary is still focused on Nintendo's old core "hardcore" fanbase. Metroid Prime? Super Smash Bros? Even Super Mario Galaxy ... these are not games that are going to be consumed by the new casual owners of the Wii (folks like your parents and even grandparents). So what if the only game your parents play is Wii Sports, and they only turn it on to entertain their friends/family/guests? Your father is not suddenly going to be a hardcore player of Zelda, nor should that expectation be there. The next title they will pick up might be Wii Play. Critics will complain, "Wii Play is just more of the same Wii Sports type of action", and they'll be right. So yeah, it's not that great for typical hardcore gamers that want 10+ hours of content in their games ... but it's perfect for mom and pop which still consume the Wii casually. And that's the point.
All you need to do is take a look at the DS to see where Nintendo is going with the Wii. You've got a ton of light, casual content, in the form of brain training, casual sims (Nintendogs) and light puzzlers. Plus in Japan, there are all sorts of "non-games" (cookbooks, dictionaries, etc.). In the meantime, because the userbase is there and so large, there's plenty of traditional "hardcore" content as well (Castlevania, RPGs, etc.) to keep the main fanbase pleased.
I think it's a bloody smart business model to adopt. However, it's going to take a while for it to take shape on the Wii, just like it took a year to develop for the DS. Just be patient, gamers. In the meantime, there are all sorts of other games to play on "those other consoles", if you prefer the traditional hardcore games.
-- jchenx
Don't forget that there is also the typical launch problem that all game consoles have ...
... I suspect that Nintendo will have some amazing properties and many third party developers will be producing things we wouldn't have expected.
Most game consoles launch in Q3 or Q4 of a given year and end up with a decent supply of games (for being new systems) because there is value in being the only game of a certain type on a system; its a great opportunity to create a new franchise because far more people will pay attention to 'Red Steel' when it launches with the system as compared to it launching at some arbitrary later date.
Q1-Q2 of the following year launch systems have a great deal of difficulty getting a decent supply of games; it is the typical slow part of a year and there are too few systems released (being that it is a new system) for most developers to release a game.
I would (personally) wait until E3 before I determined whether the Wii was having any problems
You hear that people? The magic is over! You can stop buying them up off the shelves so I could get one!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
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I'm still excited about the potential of the Wii, but all three systems have lost their luster in my eyes. Nothing really exciting is coming out for any of them in the next six months, and pretty much all I play these days is my DS and the occasional Virtual Console game. Not that either is a bad thing! Where are the system sellers - for any system?
Welp I find it hard to believe that the magic gone. For most of us the magic isnt there because we can't find it in stores. I hear in March it will be easier to get one. I got oodles oof bestbuy gift cards (big mistake) ready to go get a wii. When I go to Japan in late march im willing to bet apples to oranges that I could get a wii out there. Lord Vader demands that this FUD faggotry end. The wii has outsold the PS3 for the moment in such a short time. Nintendo has been always been about catering to the people (ages 5-100) and they're doing a great job in that dept. (Brain Age anyone?). Like most of NIntendo's other products this is just another stepping stone to their own next gen (gba, gba-sp,gba-micro, fatty-NintendoDS, DSlite). Magic cant be gone if people continue to buy into it (LOL'ing at PS3)
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Seriously, if Nintendo went and added real arcade games to their virtual console section, it could boost sales from all those oldschool gamers.
R-Type on TurboGrafx-16 was probably the best arcade port of this game. However it's still not the real thing. And most arcade ports just plain suck, why play the SEGA Genesis version of Golden Axe or Altered Beast when the arcade version was much better.
There's also the fact that some games never had ports either, or on other older consoles. Such as Raiden Project on the Playstation. Or Slapfight/A.L.C.O.N. which was only released on C64 AFAIK.
And last, how about letting us play the virtual games on our Nintendo DS? They already have the emulator for the NES (I'm guessing, with all the GBA ports), we know that even the GBA is powerful enough (emulators exist), so why not let us play at least the NES virtual games on our DS? It can already download demos from stations in game stores, so we know it's possible.
This sort of happened to me with the Game Boy Advance. I was going on a trip a few days after it came out and thought it would be a fun way to kill time on a plane. In that case, supply was plentiful, but the stores that carried stock wouldn't sell them unless you bought their package deal with some accessories and a handful of games. That pissed me off, so I refused to buy it.
Then, a few weeks later when the newness had worn off, I realized I really had no interest in the thing and I never got one. Don't regret it, either.
Why buy a 3rd party $50 controller when the first party one comminicates with blue-tooth? (See this video for example.
I wonder how long it'll take before there is a wii emulator, with people using the original controller.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Well, maybe. They claim that they've ramped manufacturing up to a million a month. They've left the PS3 in the dust and they're shipping units faster than Microsoft was at the same point. They are also experiencing shortages with DS's. These are selling at three times the rate as the Wii. The company's last quarterly earnings announcement could be summarized as "We're printing money". Game makers are changing their plans to include Wii releases.
I am not sure anyone really expected the Wii to be selling at the rate it is, especially when its described as "a minor upgrade over the PS2 and a reinvented light pen". I wouldn't be surprised if most games companies banked on the high graphic consoles taking the market and therefore never really included the Wii in their plans. With the way its selling, I am sure there are many companies that are revaluating their plans.
What we learn from the Wii, IMHO, is that if you get the price point right and the right kind of innovation, then people will buy. While Sony will continue to sell consoles, their price point is wrong and they have the wrong kind of innovation. What I mean by the wrong sort of innovation, is that high quality graphics is already being catered for by the Xbox 360 and BluRay is a passable extra. Sony gets more points deducted for a difficult to develop for games platform, where Nintendo makes it easy by keeping it simple. Sony will probably be seeing the great games that really take advantage of the console eventually, but the graphics engines need to get there first, since few programmers truely master highly multithread develpment.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yeah, this is one of those annoying question-based articles, where the author takes something that's highly popular and asks a controversial, irrational question ("Is the magic gone for the game console that's so popular it's still flying off shelves?"). Framing it as a question allows them to ambiguously avoid taking a position that they would have to back with clear evidence. That makes it easier to stir up reader reaction for ad revenues.
"Sufferin' succotash."
That's strange, I am 30 and I own the Wii and a 360. I'm too old to be messing around with my PC in order to make it even run games.
I'm not aiming to troll, so hear me out. One of my friends really wants one, and I know a couple others that have one. Both of those that have it rave about Zelda. The one that wants one wants it for the multiplayer games. They piqued my interest, so I went to IGN to see what games are out, etc., and to read up on it some more.
What are the "must have" games for the Wii? Seriously. I'm aware of Zelda, but ehh, I don't have much time to actually *play* a lot, so I'd probably get bored of it. My game playing time during the week is limited, and even on the weekends I might not have much time. On IGN half or mor of the reviews were for VC games - reviews of Mario 3 and the like. While that's cool and all, I don't want to spend $250 so I can download my old collection of Nintendo games, and I already know what those old games are like - I played the originals. There are the party games, but I'd only have a use for them maybe once a month or so - whenever we have a bunch of people over. The woman isn't interested in watching me play through a single player game, and she's not much into gaming anyway. Maybe if there were something she'd be interested in....
I could always go with the sports games, but that only lasts awhile, and why get a Wii if I'm just going to get Madden or some NCAA game? I'm interested in the potential of a Wii, but when I got right down to it, I had to ask myself - what would I get it for? Is it just the novelty and then it'd wear off? What are the must-have games everyone is talking about?
Ahhhh, it doesn't matter anyway. In my medium sized city, not one of the area stores has any in stock, let alone knows when more might come in. Bah. Maybe I've outgrown video games - that's depressing...
So true. The danger of being inside a community of like-minded masters of the universe is that you can't see beyond the bubble you're in. Enterprise IT pundits didn't see Linux until it had already infiltrated the enterprise. They'd all been too busy talking about "soup to nuts solutions" to read the writing on the wall. The same thing is happening with games.
Hardcore gamers don't realize that their pastime is mainstream now. Just look at the term "games." When I was a teenager, "gamer" meant someone who carried the DMG, the Players Handbook, and the Monster Manual in his backpack at school. Now pencil and paper games have gone mainstream in the form of console and PC games. Adults play these games. Females play these games. It is madness! The inner sanctum has been breached!
Wii is doing great, and it will continue to rack up impressive sales, until eventually even gamer media will adapt their thinking and broaden the appeal of their own offerings.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
> but everyone wants a Wii.
Most certainly not. I, along with dozens of gamers (hardcore or not) that I know IRL, have ZERO interest in getting a Wii. The common concensus amung most of us is that the Wii as a poorly named, sub-par gaming system (processor, graphics, etc), with an admittedly novel gimmick (controller). But no matter how novel that controller is, that doesn't overcome it's other weaknesses.
So the magic isn't suddenly "gone". For many of us, it was simply never there to begin with.
P.S. This is not intended as flamebait. It's just an honest opinion that many gamers I know have regarding the Wii.
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"The motion of the remote is sensed by a 3-axis linear accelerometer located slightly left of the large A button. The integrated circuit is the ADXL330, manufactured by Analog Devices. This device is physically rated to measure accelerations over a range of at least +/- 3g with 10% sensitivity.
Inside the chip is a small micromechanical structure which is supported by springs built out of silicon. Differential capacitance measurements allow the net displacement of the tiny mass to be converted to a voltage, which is then digitized. It is important to note that the sensor does not measure the acceleration of the Wiimote, but rather the force exerted by the test mass on its supporting springs. Due to the sign convention used, this quantity is proportional to the net force exerted by the player's hand on the Wiimote when holding it. Thus, at rest on a flat table, the accelerometer reports vertical force of +g (the mass can be normalized away into the aribitrary units), and when dropped reports a force of nearly zero."
All the geeky details at WiiLi http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Wiimote
Not that I disagree with most your points...but to say the Wii looks the same as the PS3 and 360 on normal TVs is just false. The difference is large and very easy to see. Graphics aren't everything..of course, but don't make stuff up.
Personally, I think the Wii is fine and will get one eventually. A co-worker though tried playing it and hated it because there was too much delay between the controller and the game he was playing. Clearly it isn't a problem for most people...but it is one of the more legitimate complaints I have heard about the system.
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The magic isn't gone... it's just been frustrated. After months of dwindling hope, I finally found one for sale last Saturday at my local Costco.
I bought it, brought it home, and... well, I LOVE it. It really is an experience-changer for gaming. Out of all the game systems I've had (and I've had many), this is truly the best experience I've had gaming. It's really the closest to VR you can get in a mass gaming system.
Not only that, my kids (5 and 8) can both enjoy it along with me - instead of asking to *watch* me play, they can play! That's a different experience in itself.
But until you actually play the games (at least the ones that take advantage of the wii's 3D controller abilities), you probably won't understand what a difference it can make.
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-- jchenx
Even if the magic is gone, at least it isn't gone to the tune of $800+ like it would be with a PS3.
In addition, since playing the Wii at my house, my other age 40+ friends that "don't play video games" are actively in the market for a Wii.
So, yeah, the magic must be dead.
It's pretty obvious you don't speak Japanese. There is no possible way to write "wii" in Japanese characters. A few hundred years ago, there was a letter for "wi" to which you could add "i". It no longer exists. The closest you'll get is "uii". If you know anything about any Latin-ish language, think of the letter "i" in that. It's sounds like a long e. Heck, short i's always sound like long e's. It's just a matter of how "finished" it sounds. Say "ee" and stop halfway through. It sounds like a short i. Just like the beginning of "idiot" or even better, the second i in "idiot" really sounds like that. Do you speak English?
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
What I love about the Wii is that I can play on equal terms with my 12 year old son and 6 year old daughter. My son often beats me at bowling, and while I normally win against my daughter in tennis, she's no pushover, and gives me a very good game.
My son has a disability affecting his coordination, and finds gamepads hard to use, but he has no problem playing the sports games using the Wiimote.