Wii May Be Succeeding in Widening Game Market

superdan2k writes "When Nintendo brought the Wii to market, one of their stated goals was to get people who didn't normally play video games using their console. Based on an article from the AP, it seems they've made some headway in capturing the senior citizen market. With the Wii's price point, and it being a good way to get people engaged in physical exercise, it's easy to envision it catching on with other retirement homes beyond the one mentioned in the article."

Comments

Re:Widening the gaming marked, but at a price...

[ThePhilips]

Nintendo certainly widened the gaming market, but that gain came at a high price, namely they have alienated many gamers and long term fans, me included.

Good. Very good. Because old-timers "must die". That's my official point.

Probably with hard core gamers going elsewhere we would get more decent enjoyable titles. I mean "enjoyable" - not some "old timer brain f*ck" a-la Mario.

I hope some advancements of PC gaming then have chance of reaching consoles too: decent save/load functionality (which is in PC games about forever, but barely available in console games), adjustable difficulty level (so that places one doesn't like can do on easy setting and other on normal/hard/etc), cheat codes (so that one can hop thru game quickly to see all of its beauty).

To me most console games are primitive and unenjoyable. You hit wall in the straight story line and no way you can get around it. My friend once lent me his PS2 with couple of selected games - and it was like it: stupid unintuitive controls (called "traditional"), some crap a-la "boss monsters" (it's when you die for no apparent reason, or opponent doesn't die no matter what you do) and shit load of "combos" (when you twist fingers and brains (yeah, I have them) to memorize long boring sequence of key presses to pass particular place). Crap, not enjoyment.

"Zelda TP" made a crack in console games cliche, but judging from reaction on Net it is more of exception and it is expected soon to be fixed by Nintendo back into the unpalatable crap for old timers - just as it was before.

Nintendo is certainly making money with the Wii and will continue for a while, but at the moment I am really not so sure of the long term causes.

I glad you read Nintendo's message correctly: "We do not need you." Go away. Buy Xbox/PS3. Wii is made for people who want to enjoy games in their spare time and do not have time for all the old crap of old style console shit games.

To me WiiPlay/WiiSports best what happened in games in last decade. Regardless what other are saying.