Nintendo's Iwata Confirms Big Games This Year

1up has comments from Nintendo's President Satoru Iwata, as he spoke to investors earlier this week. When asked about the possibility of hardcore games coming to the Wii before the end of 2007, Nintendo's president assured gamers and moneymen that Mario and Metroid are coming this year. "It will be from around the end of this summer to the end of this year. We will then launch a new title of Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption although the last one is primarily for the [American and European] markets. These will be the key titles for the period ranging from the summer until the holiday sales season of this year, and I think we will be able to cater to the specific needs you mentioned."

Comments

Hurray!

[EvilGoodGuy]

I know me and all my friends are going to have many all nighters when Brawl comes out!

Shortage of consoles?

[tepples]

But how will these games make money for Nintendo if next to nobody can walk into a store and buy a console to play them on?

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Mobkey]

Because nearly 7 million Wiis are already sold?

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Acid trips are not usually referred to as "reports".

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[laffer1]

Someone might see a "box" but that doesn't mean a Wii. Here in Ann Arbor, MI I see Wii boxes at various stores but if you ask they are all empty! In order to get a Wii, you must come in on magic shipment day which the employees will not tell you. You must be there promptly to get the 10 or less Wii systems they get in. They will try to bundle them with crap.

Now the only people I've heard of getting a Wii had to go into Walmart. The nearest one I know of is in a bad neighborhood and I probably wouldn't make it to my car with it. Target isn't even trying to stock them anymore around here. They have a sign up that they won't be getting any Wiis.

I'm sure there are markets that have Wiis, but many of us have struck out since last year. I know I could order a $600 bundle online but I can't afford that all in one shot. I'm a college student!

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Knuckles]

There are reports of Wiis being sitting on store shelves all over Europe.

In Berlin, Wiis have reappeared at major electronic stores just recently.

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Someone might see a "box" but that doesn't mean a Wii.

Just like I'm sure you point out every time some Wiitard starts making claims about PS3 boxes?

Right...

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[spiderbitendeath]

Stores around where I live are all sold out of Wiis, and continue to sell out within minutes of them going on sale, but there are plenty of PS3s and XBox 360s setting around on shelves. Not just display boxes either, but actual systems for sale. I live about 45 minutes from Ann Arbor. Only got mine through shear luck of someone I know going on break right before they went on sale and getting me one.

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[fbjon]

When I bought one, we got one of two remaining consoles on that day. I also hear they're nowhere to be found in the Netherlands.

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

you must come in on magic shipment day which the employees will not tell you. Don't blame the employees on this one, Nintendo doesn't tell the retailers when shipments are made. At my store, we recieve zero notice. They show up when they show up. Everybody's on back-order.

You must be there promptly to get the 10 or less Wii systems they get in. Once again, blame Nintendo.

They will try to bundle them with crap. That's because Nintendo may be making money off the Wiis, but retailers aren't. The margin on the Wii is slim, at least it is here in the independent store, maybe the big retailers are getting a sweetheart deal, I don't know.

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Darth_brooks]

Someone might see a "box" but that doesn't mean a Wii. Here in Ann Arbor, MI I see Wii boxes at various stores but if you ask they are all empty! In order to get a Wii, you must come in on magic shipment day which the employees will not tell you. You must be there promptly to get the 10 or less Wii systems they get in. They will try to bundle them with crap.

For your friendly neighborhood Meijer stores, it's Sunday. Go to any of the three Meijer stores in your area and they usually have one in stock for most of the day.; Jackson ave. (which would be a haul if you don't have a car), Ann Arbor-Saline rd., or Carpenter rd. Most of the reputable game shops will tell you their ship dates as well, if they're going to get any. Best Buy is hit or miss, but they seem to get more shipments through the week. Also, Meijer doesn't bundle their's with anything. Actually, I haven't heard of anyone doing that, other than Circuit City's online store.

Ann Arbor has a very healthy gaming community, and they're a bit of a technology "counter culture" for lack of a better phrase, which leads to a lack of Wii's. If something is different, trendy, but not nessicarily better, Ann Arbor is all over it. (Heck, I'm amazaed it has taken them so long to get an actual Mac store in the area. Many years ago U of M was supposedly the #2 user of Macs in the world behind NASA.)

Now the only people I've heard of getting a Wii had to go into Walmart. The nearest one I know of is in a bad neighborhood and I probably wouldn't make it to my car with it.

Oh, please. I lived across the street from that Walmart for three years. Other than typical apartment bullshit crime, that neighborhood is no different than any place in A2. It's in Ypsilanti, not fscking Compton. (but then, on Ann Arbor maps, Ypsilanti is just labeled "The land of scary minorities and no lattes!") It *is* a shitty wal-mart for sure, but then, aren't they all?

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[tepples]

For your friendly neighborhood Meijer stores, it's Sunday. Why do almost all retail establishments that carry Wii consoles choose to discriminate against people who depend on public transportation, which in many towns does not run on Saturday nights, Sundays, or holidays?

Re:Shortage of consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone might see a "box" but that doesn't mean a Wii. Dang it, I thought that people were over those jokes! Wii != penis.

Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much everyone I know is bored with their Wii. It was fun at first with Zelda and everyone was telling themselves who incredible it was to aim with the wiimote. And then there were the holidays where everyone was around and the Wii was very cool to play in groups. Then the holidays were over and you pretty much were just stuck with yourself and your Wii. Nintendo totally dropped the ball on online play. And even though so many people claimed they didn't care about graphics the games so far have been in many ways worse than GameCube level.

Also the wiimote while cool for many things just isn't the revolutionary leap in gaming that we had all hoped for after seeing it last year at E3. Pretty much aiming has been moved from your thumb to your wrist and button presses have been replaced with a waggle.

A friend of mine just got into the PS3 Home beta and he has been telling me about it and other friends are getting ready for the Halo 3 beta. I don't think I'm going to wait around all year long for a few big name GameCube titles with some waggle tacked on. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, I keep seeing more and more stories from other Wii owners talking about their Wiis gathering dust and haven't touched it in weeks. I think I finally gave up on the console when I caught myself anticipating the next release of VC titles and not playing revolutionary games not possible on other consoles like I thought I would be after deciding to get a Wii.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[TheViciousOverWind]

The Wii get's old quick. I own a Wii with a extra Wiimote a Nunchuck and several games.

The problem is that the "revolutionary" control scheme gets old very very fast. After a week or so, we went back to Guitar Hero 1+2, which me an my SO have been having much more fun with. Several of my friends who also owns Wiis (There's no shortage of them here in Denmark) are facing the same issue, and most of them have sold theirs.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

"SO" = "GAY"

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[thecheatah]

I agree. My wii is sitting there collecting dust and heating the dvd cases that are placed on top of it, even though its off.

But anyways, I am glad that these games are coming out, but im not getting my hopes up in any way. I am going to wait patiently and play my ps3 (actually top rated ps2 games, since i beat all the ps3 games i wanted)/PC and wait for the reviews to come out.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Although the Wii is my roommates. We played the hell out of it back in January and he would make fun of me for spending so much on my PS3. But now...

Resistance has turned out to be the greatest online game I've ever played while he has been waiting for Nintendo to finally get their shit together with online games. Even then it will be that friend codes crap.

Motorstorm in first person view on a big screen TV with the volume cranked is probably the most intense and realistic gaming experience I've ever played. ExciteTruck...

Home looks absolutely insane and I can't wait to get into the open beta in a month or two. Hopefully. I've been following the leaks from people lucky enough to get in this past week:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15378 3

And we have been renting BluRay movies. Funny how it only takes one 1080p movie viewing to turn you into a 1080p snob. Going back to sub-1080p movies is now painful.

I don't think he will sell his Wii but it really is gathering dust like so many other people say. There will probably be a few fun party games coming out this year for us to play. But I would hate to be sitting around all year long waiting for Mario and Metroid Prime.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[sycomonkey]

Nintendo didn't drop the ball with online play. They're not even playing in that field, they're over there, playing a different, more interesting game. It's called single player games

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[DarkGreenNight]

So, because the "revolutionary" control gets old you go back to play with another non-standard, and older, control in a music game.

Calm down, Yes, there aren't many games worth playing now, and when you play a lot you finish them really fast. The problem is that third party publishes didn't invest in developing for the Wii earlier, so now we have to wait to get more games. I guess we'll have a mediocre first year and a half, before everyone gets their games done.

The control scheme is all but getting old. You could do without moving the hands around, but the way to play Zelda is just great. I couldn't simply go back to play a similar game on a ps2 controller (my other console, and yes technically I could). It just feels right, only with mouse and keyboard I'd get the same degree of control.

Obviously it's not good for all types of games, I believe fighting games would be better with classical controllers. But a control good enough for people from 3 to 300 years old can not get old fast. The controller isn't the problem, the lack of games is (partly).

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[TheViciousOverWind]

I'm not against non-standard controls in general. I think that Guitar Hero has perfect controls for that kind of game.

Of course I was talking from my own point of view, and I realise that the controls might be perfect for some, but I guess that unlike you, I don't experience any resemblance of control in comparison to a mouse/keyboard. It might be because I have a big TV (I've heard that the Wiimote is more accurate on smaller TV's?), or it might be because I'm just too used to a mouse and keyboard, I don't know - I just know that after playing the first games I bought for the Wii, I gave up on it, I didn't even have the urge to finish any of the games.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, ok...

And the Wiis continue to gather dust as no one is interested in driving over your house to play Wii Sports anymore.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Resistance has turned out to be the greatest online game I've ever played

You must have missed out on the last ten years of PC gaming. Putting aside the fact that FPS games are utterly horrible on consoles, Resistance is mediocre at best.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[sycomonkey]

I don't even know where Wii Sports IS. I have literally lost the disk. I tend to play Trauma Center and Zelda... and I'll be getting Paper Mario in a few weeks. The only multiplayer games I ever really play is SSB:M (and, presumably, Brawl, when it comes out) and WoW.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Mr. Hankey]

Try "The Godfather: Blackhand Edition" before giving up. It's quite an experience, and I expect to see more like this with Scarface on the way.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[eboot]

Resistance?????????? Lol at you.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[eboot]

Ooooohhh HOME beta. Fuck I've never played Second Life before. And Halo 3, gee a fucking FPS on the xbox 360. Wow, that's aammmmmaaaazzzzzinnggg. Of course both those things won't be around til the end of the year out of beta.
Wow it is easy to be a troll isn't it?

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello there? Sony PR department? Do you hear me?

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[rbarreira]

One of the reasons that there's no shortage of the Wii in Denmark might be that it's much cheaper to just buy it in some -currency country... I live in Denmark and I'm thinking of buying a Wii when I go for some travelling, and save about 45 euros, 335 kroner or 15% of the price.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[solar_blitz]

Too easy.

Don't be surprised, though. This one-year drought is typical of any console system. The same thing happened with the Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube, as well as the Playstation 2, and most any other system that has ever been released. This is because the first launch titles are the dip titles. It's when the developers all get ready to take a dip in the pool and see how the water is. Later, once they have an idea on how to develop for the platform and its capabilities they'll start taking advantage of all its features. This goes just as well for first and second party developers as it does for third party developers, too. In some cases, though, developers will buy their dev kits and choose to experiment on the capabilities instead of throwing all their effort into a launch title. This is most likely the case with development studios with big pocket change like Square Enix or Nintendo, and in this case its Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy.

And from what I can tell, Metroid is not that big of a series in Japan. Don't ask me why, though. They either like their big rpgs, short arcadey games on their cell-phones, or games that imitate aspects of normal life.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[eboot]

And, of course, games where you touch witches.

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[toolie]

Whats funny is my friends that have a PS3 don't use Resistance as the example of a good game. They generally say MotoStorm is awesome, and now FEAR. For the most part, they are waiting for some good games just like the Wii owners are.

aw

[mastershake_phd]

Sounds like they wont be out till christmas.

Re:aw

[PhoenixOne]

Given how hard the Wii is to find in stores (at least where I live), it may take that long for me to get one.

Not just consoles

[SpeedyDX]

I have a console, and it took me three months to get a second wiimote. It's ridiculous. Maybe it's better for people living outside a big city (I'm in Toronto). And I still can't find a nunchuck (online or in stores).

The console is great, the games have thus far been great, so I can't complain. But this shortage of hardware is a real pain in the ass.

Re:Not just consoles

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go :
http://www.amazon.ca/Nunchuck-Controller-Nunchuk-N intendo-Wii/dp/B000IMYKQ0/ref=pd_bbs_1/701-1685769 -9921158?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1178405533&sr=8- 1

Re:Not just consoles

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I'm in the UK and due to using all avaible resouces I was able to get a wii within a week of deciding to get one. If you keep your ears open it's not so difficult.

Re:Not just consoles

[SpeedyDX]

OH HEY! Thanks! I just checked that, and that reminded me of Console Watch. I just checked it, and lo and behold, everything is in stock! I just put an order in for 2 more wiimotes and 3 nunchucks.

Thanks again! I guess those hardware problems are temporarily solved.

Re:Not just consoles

[Binestar]

just buy it from nintendo.com. I got mine very shortly after getting my Wii.

Re:Not just consoles

[ISurfTooMuch]

Must be a Toronto thing because all my local stores have had plenty of controllers. As for the consoles, it took me about a month to get my hands on one, but a lucky call to Circuit City one day told me that they were getting 18 in the next morning, and they were giving out vouchers before the store opened. Went there, got a voucher, went and had breakfast at Waffle House, and came back and picked it up. A buddy of mine was also able to snag one, which is sitting in my closet until he can figure out what he wants to do with it.

For a few days after that, www.wiihunt.com was reporting that stores around here had them, but they were gone in less than a week, and now we're back to having none anywhere in the state, as far as I can tell.

Re:Not just consoles

[Andy Dodd]

Around where I live (admittedly I'm in upstate NY, near Binghamton), there are Wii accessories (controllers, nunchuks, classic gamepads, etc) everywhere. Circuit City, Wally World, Target, they all have them. Same for Best Buy and Target/Wally World up in Ithaca.

Now the actual systems themselves - that's a different story...

Wiiiiiii!

[MBCook]

Let's see... Mario Sunshine, Mario Strikers: Charged (w/online play), Metroid 3, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Super Paper Mario is already out (I'm almost finished, great game). The Wii is looking better and better. Combine that with as the Wii ages 3rd parties will get better and better at utilizing the controls (for something other than a mini-game fest). I can't wait until we start getting good sports games with Wii controls (like Wii play but fleshed out controls and game play). Tennis especially. If they can get reading the racket right it should be great. How will they handle the next Madden? The last one got good reviews, now that they have a game or two under their belt let's see what it's like!

Meanwhile, the 360 and PS3 have games here and there that look interesting, but neither seems to have nearly as many games that I'm looking forward to. And most of those (God of War III, Bioshock, etc) are not exactly breaking new ground in controls, they are just refinement of some of the games we have had for a long time (beat-'em ups, FPSes).

The DS also produced some really quirky and fun games (like Yoshi's Touch and Go, for example). I can't wait to see more of that kind of stuff on the Wii. How about porting the new Sam & Max games or other adventure games? How about a Phoenix Wright title?

The Wii continues to be a very interesting system, and as it hits its stride better (remember the first year or two of the PS2?) things will only get better.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[ClassMyAss]

One problem with tweaking the controls for stuff like tennis is that the Wiimote is unable to get at the rotational degree of freedom around the vertical axis unless the sensor bar is within viewing range (and even if the bar is within range, we're talking hack city) - for tennis, this will not be the case, as during a swing the front of the remote would be pointed away from the TV. Similarly, sword-fighting is never going to be quite possible with the remote as it is.

It's too bad they didn't add something that could pick this DOF up; I must assume they considered it and determined that it would be prohibitively expensive (the most efficient way would probably either be a gyroscope or several distance sensors in the remote - 3 should be enough, I think - but I suppose both of these methods must have been found lacking for one reason or another, either moving parts or cost).

That said, I love the system and have had lots of fun with it. I look forward to more games coming out.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's see... Mario Sunshine, Mario Strikers: Charged (w/online play), Metroid 3, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Super Paper Mario is already out (I'm almost finished, great game). The Wii is looking better and better."

Even Kraft Dinner tastes great when you've never experienced steak.

I'm amazed that people can slam other companies for "rehashing the same old stuff" and "not innovating" when Nintendo's most anticipated games are the same, tired old suspects from previous years.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of the 5 games you say you're looking forward on the Wii, 4 feature Mario -- then you bash the other systems for lack of innovation. Talk about a double standard.

How did this fanboy rant get modded so high?

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Jarlsberg]

And Mario Sunshine was one of the early games for the gamecube. Not exactly a original Wii release...

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[ChaosWeevil]

A common character does not imply even similar gameplay. To use a lame car analogy, just because an SUV and a tiny little sports car are made by the same company means that they drive the same. Watch a video of Super Paper Mario and tell me it's the same as Super Mario Galaxy. The Wii has some awesome-looking titles coming that aren't Nintendo's main series'. Project HAMMER, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Fire Emblem, Sadness... Katamari is coming to the Wii, which should be interesting to see. Not to mention that Metroid Prime 3 will be a system seller, and Super Smash Brothers: Brawl will be excellent.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[grumbel]

Mario Sunshine, Mario Strikers, Metroid Prime, Super Smash Brothers Melee and Paper Mario 2. The Gamecube is looking better and better...

Whenever I look at the Wii I kind of get a déjà vu, I already played all those games or their prequels on the Cube, adding a bit motion control here and there is all nice and good, but where are the new games? I mean the completly new ones, not the franchise recycling that is going on here. So far I see only Disaster Day of Crisis and Project HAMMER, but they look like generic shovelware that you wouldn't even waste to look at when they would be announced for a PS2, not like the potential tripple AAA titles that I would expect from Nintendo.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[grumbel]

### Watch a video of Super Paper Mario and tell me it's the same as Super Mario Galaxy.

SuperPaperMario is not the same as MarioGalaxy, but MarioGalaxy is the same as Mario64/Sunshine and SuperPaperMario is the same as PaperMario. Beside, even if the gameplay is completly different, having the same characters in each and every game does get extremely boring, especially when you already had those characters around for 20+ years.

### The Wii has some awesome-looking titles coming that aren't Nintendo's main series'

Have you actually looked at those titles? Project HAMMER looks like a totally generic hack&slash title, like you can find dozens already on every other console, Disaster seems, from the little we have seen, like a generic third person action title and Sadness is still more vaporware then a real game. Now FireEmblem isn't bad, but its not a title that needs the Wii, it already played fine the last three times on GBA and Gamecube

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[catprog]

#Beside, even if the gameplay is completly different, having the same characters in each and every game does get extremely boring

Halo Wars

## Now FireEmblem isn't bad, but its not a title that needs the Wii, it already played fine the last three times on GBA and Gamecube

Well I suppose that take Halo 3 ,Final fantasy 13,Metal gear solid 4,Ridge Racer 7,Katamari,Call of Duty,Castlevania ,Devil May Cry,The Elder Scrolls (Oblivion),Fight Night,God of War,Grand Theft Auto,Guitar Hero,Gran Turismo,Hot Shots Golf,Madden,Ratchet & Clank,Resident Evil ,Tekken,Time Crisis,Virtua Fighter,Virtua Tennis,Wipeout,Banjo-Kazooie ,Dead or Alive , Need for Speed ,Quake , Unreal Tournament, out of the equation.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[catprog]

What about the PS3. The big titles that I see are things like Ridge Racer 7,Final Fantasy 13,Grand Turismo 5. Where are the new games?I mean the completely new ones, not the franchise recycling that is going on here

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[grumbel]

### Halo Wars

Halo is a universe with a complete story, each game shows you a piece of that story. Its interesting because you want to know how the story goes, its interesting because it fits together. With Mario or Zelda games on the other side you don't have that, each game is a reset and starts from scratch, you have a few common elements here and there, but it doesn't connect, the story of Mario1 isn't continued in Mario2. You don't play a Mario because you want to know how the thing continues, but because its a good game on its own. The problem is when you don't end up having one Mario game every few years, but Mario in almost each and every game, it gets boring, you want to see a new face every know and then. And yes, even Halo with its universe and story might get boring in its tenth iteration, but its not even close to that.

### Well I suppose that take Halo 3...

You very well can, that however still leaves AssassinsCreed, HeavenlySword, BioShock, MassEffect, DeadRising, BlueDragon, Lair, HeavyRain, Crysis and a whole bunch of other titles. There is a lot of recycling going on on Xbox360 and PS3, but there are also plenty of new titles either in the making or already released. On the Wii on the other side I haven't seen a *single* one that looks great and is original.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mario, Mario, Metroid, Mario fighting game with guests, Mario.

Yeah, that's innovation I tell you.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[GreenEnvy22]

Um, the wiimote does have gyro's in it. The sensor bar is only used when you need to point at something on screen. Sword fighting games will work very well with the wiimote.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[ClassMyAss]

Um, the wiimote does have gyro's in it. The sensor bar is only used when you need to point at something on screen. Sword fighting games will work very well with the wiimote.

Nope, no gyros, unless they are hidden deep inside and haven't been used in anything yet. I've spent a lot of time playing with this thing (do a Google search for DarwiinRemote - might be Mac only? - you can read the Wiimote output through a Bluetooth connection). What it has is merely some force sensors that detect x, y, and z acceleration. If the Wiimote is not actually being accelerated, then you can use this to locate the gravity vector in remote space; if it is being accelerated, then you need to be a little more clever to figure out what's going on (and there are some ambiguities - basically you have to determine what direction gravity is in so you can separate the gravity component from the acceleration, and this requires some educated guessing as it's a mathematically underspecified problem). But in essence, the accelerometers are little more than weights on linear springs - each one reads acceleration in a single direction. This is why rotation about the direction of gravity is not detectable, there is just no difference in the accelerometer readings all around that axis.

By the way, it IS true that the accelerometers provide three degrees of freedom, exactly the number you need for full rotational specification; unfortunately only two of them are actually rotational, the third is actually a translational DOF (more or less). And you can't even really use the spatial location very well because the accelerometers only provide 8-bit acceleration data, so it's hard to use this to integrate up from acceleration to position data. All of this explains why a lot of the stuff people had expected to see so soon are still not happening - the thing doesn't quite give you true locatability, it stabs at it and leaves it up to the game developers to figure out ways around the limitations. You might be right that they will eventually figure out some way to make swordfighting games, but the point is, they won't give you quite the amount of control that you have with a real sword.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very interesting controller nonetheless, I'm just sour because I had hoped for a perfect one with true 6 DOF locatability; I guess I'll have to wait for the next generation for that one...

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Nataku564]

While the other titles may have those issues, almost all the Super Mario games have been significantly different than their predecessors.

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like: Heavely Sword, Motorstorm, Little Big Planet, Resistance, White Knight Story, Lair, Assassin's Creed, The Darkness, Warhawk, etc...

Re:Wiiiiiii!

[catprog]

Disaster: Day of Crisis,Elebits,Excite Truck,Forever Blue,No More Heroes,Project H.A.M.M.E.R.,Red Steel,Sadness, etc..

Makes sense...

[earthbound kid]

Nintendo's usual strategy is to dribble out games slooooowly, so that there are never too many hits in the marketplace at one time consuming each other's oxygen. That makes sense--usually. But right now is a completely different case. Nintendo needs to maintain its sales rate advantage if it's going to overtake the 360 in the US and maintain its lead over the PS3 in Japan. A slow second half of 2007 could cause the Wii to lose momentum and fall at a time when it's crucial to reach escape velocity. If by December 2007 the Wii is still in the lead, developers are going to start moving all their new projects to the Wii. Once that happens, if you want the game you need the system, and Nintendo has it made. If the Wii juggernaut slows in the second half of 2007, then the developers will split. US devs will follow the 360, and Japanese devs will follow the PS3. If that happens, Wii is going to be stuck in the middle and (while doing quite well) won't dominate. Thus, the pressure is on for Nintendo to churn out as much as possible as soon as possible. We'll see how that works out for them...

Re:Makes sense...

[26199]

Here's hoping. I would love to see the initial genius behind the Wii followed up by some solid long-term investment.

Re:Makes sense...

[GregPK]

I agree with your thinking. However, the wii has been and will continue to pretty much dominate group situations. That is until xbox and playstation get thier act together and make something similar. Though I totally see Sony fixing up the playstation by late 2008 to sell well and make money. In fact its benefitial for them to sell less now. Sure they won't get the developers right away. Mostly people will continue buying the hotly sold ps2 and games for that. Then slowly as the ps3 gains traction along with cost reductions in manufacturing and increasing tech availible for the ps3 you'll see the ps3 come back in 2008 as a dominating system. In fact, I think it makes long term sense for it to work out that way. Sony loses less money, and ends up with a 2 generation system that sells faster at a profit. I'd like to see Sega pull up the virtual reality tech that they were working on 10 years ago. Add periphial vision to it and sell it as an accessory to one of the next gen systems.

Re:Makes sense...

[Jasin Natael]

Nintendo's usual strategy is to dribble out games slooooowly, so that there are never too many hits in the marketplace at one time...

I haven't seen a Wii on the shelf yet, so I'm just hoping that I can casually purchase one by the time these games come out. It may have nothing to do with titles competing with each other, but more to do with waiting until they've sold their current round of hardware and aren't engendering ill will by being unable to provide consoles. If I were the big N (aka, making a profit on console hardware), I'd want at least a million Wii's sitting on shelves and warehouse palletes before launching my sure-fire hits.

Basically, demand for consoles (in the absence of the hit games) should be satisified before the game increases console demand. Anything else would be lost sales. Claiming that the extra time is being used for debugging and quality assurance might just be PR smoke and mirrors.

Re:Makes sense...

[Kris_J]

Well, they certainly need to so something. I bought a Wii for to social side of it, but the games have all focussed on the cure controller, rather than the networking. I barely turned it on for a couple of months. I've only powered it up recently to watch YouTubed episodes of Teen Titans on my TV. Frankly, if there was anyone in my extended social network that really wanted it, I'd sell it to them.

Re:Makes sense...

[metroid composite]

Basically, demand for consoles (in the absence of the hit games) should be satisified before the game increases console demand. Anything else would be lost sales.

Not necessarily. I actually know someone who got bored of their Wii and sold it already. Shortages or not, it's better if current owners don't treat the Wii like Tickle-me-Elmo and throw the thing into a closet after a couple months. Or put another way: supposing the Wii remained sold out through 2007, I don't think it would be a good idea for Nintendo to respond to this by delaying Mario, Metroid, and Smash to 2008.

Spider-Man 3

[E-Sabbath]

I'm enjoying the heck out of Spidey 3 for the Wii. It's a little sloppy, but I think that's me as much as the controls. The camera controls are already better than any other game I played on the PS2, and web swinging using each hand (Nunchuck for left, Wiimote for right) is a hoot. Spent two hours just swinging around Manhattan last night. Streets still aren't quite right, though. Jim Hanley's Universe is still nonexistant, the street where it should be, just south of the Empire State Building is not there. On the other hand, I think I found 666 5th Avenue _and_ where Coyote Ugly should be.

Yes, I try to find random RL landmarks in the Spidey games. It's one of those little mini-games you do for no reason, like stepping on only white tiles.

Fighting has been pretty fun. Shake the remote, shake, push button, dodge... I'm pulling up six to eight hit combos.

Re:Spider-Man 3

[Anonymous Coward]

The camera controls are already better than any other game I played on the PS2 Really? I like the game, but the camera on Spidey 3 sucks. Badly.

Fighting has been pretty fun. Shake the remote, shake, push button, dodge... I'm pulling up six to eight hit combos. My record for hit combo is around 40. I play it on the 360. There are two possible explanations, the Wii controls aren't good at button-mashing combat games or you suck.

Re:Spider-Man 3

[minnowstreams]

It's sad that I have to say Andy Zebrowitz again.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sony by 2008? Where will Nintendo be in 2009?

[GregPK]

I was thinking along the lines of a second Generation PS3; A Bigger hard drive, more connections, more accessories, more games, and fully refined and developed technology to take advantage of what is incorporated into the system. Not to mention manufacturing of scale to bring down the total costs of the ps3. Keeping the old cash cow profitable ps2 around was genius of them. Something that can't be said for xbox v1 which had costs that didn't come down due to the fact that nvidia and intel didn't want to lose any profits in that area and kept the costs associated with those market items quite high. I think that Microsoft could have continued thier success with the V1 had they continued its manufacture. It was fairly difficult to get last holiday and still is. Nintendo: If the wii continues to dominate through the end of 2007 then with the infusion of cash on hand they will(hopefully) use to bring in new ideas and talent to keep making consoles and bringing in games dedicated to thier target market.

They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[enharmonix]

FTA:

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption ... is primarily for the overseas markets. I'm a little confused. Am I to understand Metroid is not popular in Japan? I'm afraid I really don't understand what he meant by that... Did Metroid Prime flop in Japan? Do the Japanese not like FPS games or something? Or is their society that misogynist that a butt-kicking cyborg woman is taboo? Now that I think about it, though, most FPS games' credits are full of Americans... Is this sorta like how we never see Japanese dating sims over here, 'cause it's just, well, not something Americans want to play? I dunno. Kinda silly to ask, I guess, but all I know about Japan, I learned from Akira Kurosowa and Fred Gallagher (aka piro). Sorry, but it just boggles my mind that a game as good as Metroid Prime just wouldn't fly in Japan...

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[edwdig]

Metroid has always sold much better in the US and Europe than in Japan. FPS games aren't very popular in Japan. Hence, Metroid Prime isn't a big sell in Japan. I believe the first actually did decently there, at least relative to expectations.

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is their society that misogynist that a butt-kicking cyborg woman is taboo?

Very no.

....all I know about Japan, I learned from....Fred Gallagher (aka piro)

OH GAWD. All becomes clear.

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[Guppy06]

"Am I to understand Metroid is not popular in Japan?"

Japan's reaction to Metroid has always been "meh," ever since the first game came out for the Famicom Disk System. It sells well, makes some reasonable lucre, but Japanese Nintendo fanbois tend not to mention "Metroid" in the same breath as "Mario" or "Zelda" as their North American and European counterparts do.

The Metroid Prime games are made by a studio based in Texas, so it's reasonable for these games to be released in North America first, but even Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission, developed in-house in Japan, were localized and released in North America before Japan saw them, because North America is where the games' core market lies.

"Or is their society that misogynist that a butt-kicking cyborg woman is taboo?"

Not if she's wearing full combat armor that all but hides the fact that she's human, let alone a woman. I'm sure the games would sell a lot better if Samus hunted down her enemies in a hybrid high school uniform with a too-short skirt and a bare midriff.

"Now that I think about it, though, most FPS games' credits are full of Americans"

Aside from the fact that Prime isn't quite an FPS (not with L-targeting, certainly), even the side-scrolling titles aren't as popular in Japan as they are elsewhere.

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the games would sell a lot better if Samus hunted down her enemies in a hybrid high school uniform with a too-short skirt and a bare midriff.

Riiiiight. Because those Nips are just so damn predictably WEIRD, eh?

Strange that more non-Japanese gamedevs aren't breaking into the Japanese market, given how simple and obvious their wants are, isn't it? Perhaps one should infer from your post that Rule #1 of Selling Games to Those Crazy Japs should be "No women unless sluts." I think we've got something here. I hope Nintendo is reading this and taking notes.

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[Guppy06]

"Riiiiight. Because those Nips are just so damn predictably WEIRD, eh?"

If they weren't unpredictably weird, they wouldn't have made Metroid to begin with.

But you wouldn't see a steady supply of Japanese video games/manga/live action centered around cookie-cutter female characters with similar personalty archetypes and wardrobes if it didn't hit a nerve with Japanese consumers. If there wasn't so much of it and if it wasn't so popular, you wouldn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned the high school uniforms.

"Strange that more non-Japanese gamedevs aren't breaking into the Japanese market, given how simple and obvious their wants are, isn't it?"

If they were going to go that route to "break into the Japanese market," they'd be alienating other markets. First-person shooters do well in North America but alienate the Japanese. Dating sims do well in Japan but alienate the North Americans. It's a rare game that successfully caters to both tastes.

There are reasons why you won't see Idol Maker stateside.

"Perhaps one should infer from your post that Rule #1 of Selling Games to Those Crazy Japs should be "No women unless sluts.""

From the one sentence that you're choosing to harp on, perhaps, but right in the first paragraph I mentioned that Metroid does sell well in Japan, and the general gist of my post is that, while popular there, Metroid isn't a religion as it is over here.

Besides, "eye candy" need not mean "slut." In fact, "slut" doesn't match any of the generic personality archetypes popular in Japanese games.

"I think we've got something here. I hope Nintendo is reading this and taking notes."

Hyperbole much?

Re:They don't like Metroid Prime in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes so little to get so much out of you.

A Better Title?

[paintswithcolour]

Surely it's simply 'Nintendo to continue known franchises on Wii this year'?

I'm not arguing its not newsworthy, it's great new for Wii players everywhere (unfortunatly I am not one at the moment), but its a little like saying 'Microsoft Announce Halo 3 for Xbox 360 this year'. I'm as excited as anyone to see where Nintendo are taking their innovation, but I fear people are getting a little over-zealous in their attitudes; lest we forget the real (and non-established) areas of gaming the Wii could take us into.

Metroid Prime is an FPS series...

[solios]

... and America is the Land Of FPS. Quake, Unreal, etceteras - I played through Metroid Prime : Hunters on my DS and it felt like a mix of Quake 4 and Quake 3 gameplay elements. Metroid Prime is really more of a Nintendo Quake than anything else - you could swap out the sprites and models and change the name of the game and I doubt anyone would notice.

From what I've seen, the Japanese market is all about the platformers (such as the real Metroid games, and Castlevania) and RPGS - and the Metroid Prime series is neither. I don't have any figures, but if the Japanese had as big a hardon for FPS as they did for RPGs, the X-Box would be doing gangbusters over there.

And if you're getting your Japanese culture from Megatokyo, you're getting an unbelievably skewed perspective.

The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

Then slowly as the ps3 gains traction along with cost reductions in manufacturing and increasing tech availible for the ps3 you'll see the ps3 come back in 2008 as a dominating system.

A failing console making a comeback after being almost two years on the market is something that - as far as I can remember - has never happened in this business, and I don't think it will ever happen. The reason is simple:

If a console starts to lose ground, developers start to abandon it. The console will see less exclusives, and the cross-platform games will be shoddier on that console. Hence, its appeal to consumers will decrease, which will make it fail even quicker, decreasing the chance of a comeback.

Owning both a Wii and a PS3, I can see this starting to happen already. While more and more exclusive 3rd-party games are announced for the Wii, PS3 exclusives are going multi-platform one by one. PS3 games often run worse than 360 games (Ridge Racer, THPS3) - although this may be because they're first-gen games for a console that is pretty hard to program - while Wii ports often do interesting things that no other version does (see Godfather).

If this trend continues, Sony's games will be the only reason to buy a PS3 by 2008. And if Nintendo can't sustain a console on its own (see Gamecube), Sony can't, either.

If the PS3 is to become the dominant console, it needs to make a comeback now, not in a year.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### While more and more exclusive 3rd-party games are announced for the Wii, PS3 exclusives are going multi-platform one by one.

Multi-platform here means Xbox360, PS3 and sometimes PC, but not Wii. What the Wii gets aren't the big titles, but the spin-offs and gaidens, the FF:Crystal Chronicals, the RE:UC rail shooter and stuff like that. Those titles aren't exclusive because the Wii is dominating, but simply because nobody would care for them on the other platforms. So far I couldn't name a single potential tripple-AAA third party title for the Wii, while there are plenty for XBox360 and PS3 announced.

The PS3 might very well lose against the XBox360 in Europe and USA, but one thing to keep in mind is that the XBox360 is still basically dead in japan and as long as that is the case the PS3 shouldn't have all that much trouble. As long as the PS3 offers games that the Wii can't handle it shouldn't have much trouble to find a large enough market to keep going. In a year or two when the technical gap between Wii and PS3 got larger and the PS3 had a solid price cut things might look very different.

And lets not forget, the PS2 is still keeping up with the Wii, so the Playstation brand as a whole is still doing quite well, even when the PS3 might look a little weak right now.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

Unless Microsoft manages to get more Japanese Game Studios on board which is very possible. Yes the PS3 is doing better in Japan than the 360 but only in Japan. Compare the Japanese market with the North American Market and the European market. As the 360 and the Wii gain more market share the than Japanese studios will consider writing for the 360. As to what happens in 2 years? Well With Nintendo flush with cash from Wii and Wii games sales I would bet that they are already working on the next Wii. I know I would be. In two years the PS/3 GPU will not be state of the art. Nintendo could then role out an HD Wii maybe with a hard drive and maybe with a dual format HD-DVD. Sony and Microsoft will not be in a position to do that since they will just be breaking even on their product costs. While Nintendo has been making money the entire time.
Oh and the PS2 isn't keeping up with the Wii in Europe or the US. It is behind the DS, Wii, and 360 but still out selling the PS3.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### Nintendo could then role out an HD Wii

They sure could, but who would buy that thing? The current hype is focused mostly around Wii Sports and the controller, in two years it will be old stuff by then and I doubt that the same crowed that bought into the current hype will go to buy a Wii HD, since the normal Wii already does everything they expect from a game console. To keep up with the XBox360/PS3 the Wii HD would need to have substantial more power then just a Wii with HD capabilities added on, it would need to be a completly new machine build from scratch, which in turn would mean that WiiHD games wouldn't run on a Wii, which in turn would mean that the Wii won't ever get a decent amount of good games since it was to short lived. So the 'hardcore' gamer crowed might not exactly be happy with that either and buy into the WiiHD.

### In two years the PS/3 GPU will not be state of the art.

The PS3 won't be state of the art in two years, but in two years it might cost only $200. Nintendo could of course do a state of the art console, but they will have trouble doing that in a similar price range as the PS3, which means they will have to do a console that either isn't significantly better then a PS3 or one that costs a lot more, neither would be very attractive.

XBox360 getting more Japanese developers is of course a huge risk for Sony, but it hasn't happened with the Xbox1 and hasn't happened in the 1.5 years that the XBox360 is already out, I don't think there is all that much chance it will ever happen this generation.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

Multi-platform here means Xbox360, PS3 and sometimes PC, but not Wii.

I don't see how that relates to the point I was making, namely, that a console usually can't make a comeback after failing for a year.

What the Wii gets aren't the big titles, but the spin-offs and gaidens, the FF:Crystal Chronicals, the RE:UC rail shooter and stuff like that. Those titles aren't exclusive because the Wii is dominating, but simply because nobody would care for them on the other platforms

Wow, did your cat piss in your breakfast this morning or something? Not only is that claim utterly absurd, I also have no idea where it is coming from. What made you hate the Wii so much?

Yes, the PS3 does better than the 360 in Japan. Personally, I consider the 360 a failure as well, but that aside, while you can't win without Japan, Japan alone is not enough for you to win, either.

Finally, the fact that the PS2 is still selling pretty well is a bad sign for the PS3, not a good sign. It quite simply means that Sony customers aren't moving to Sony's latest console.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

Let me guess, you bought a PS3 thinking it would be a success, and now you're trying to cope with your cognitive dissonance.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

I don't own any of the next-gen consoles. Given however that the Wii doesn't offer anything I would be interested in and that the XBox360 has the most buggy hardware in console history as well as expensive online play, the PS3 sounds like a solid offering, not one that I would buy now, but a year or two down the road when the price is down and some more games are out, why not?

If the Xbox360 wouldn't be so damn buggy I would have already bought one, but with news about disk scratching and red rings of death every few weeks it just isn't something I want to spend money on right now.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### I don't see how that relates to the point I was making, namely, that a console usually can't make a comeback after failing for a year.

It means that the PS3 is losing against the XBox360, not against the Wii. Which in turns means that Xbox360 lack of support in Japan is a huge issue. As you said, you can't win without Japan and the XBox360 is as far away as being a success in Japan as always, which means the PS3 is alone in its market segment there. This of course doesn't make the PS3 a winner, but you can't really lose when you are the sole contester in that market either. At the moment I would guess we end up with a 50/50 (or 60/40) split between PS3 and Xbox360 and a whole lot of multiplatform titles.

### Not only is that claim utterly absurd,

Please name the big third party titles for the Wii that aren't spin-offs or gaiden on the Wii and I mean big as in potential AAA top title, not small stuff like Elebits and vaporware like Sadness doesn't count either. I looked quite a bit, but I couldn't name you a single one. The only companies from which I see solid Wii support right now are Ubisoft and EA, and both of them currently use the Wii for making money, not for marking new games.

### I also have no idea where it is coming from. What made you hate the Wii so much?

Back when the Revolution was announced at E3 I, as a loyal Nintendo customer for 15 years, couldn't wait to buy one, Nintendo was always good at innovations, so what could go wrong? Well, as it turned out, lots of.

First there was the controller, which just didn't have enough sensory to make true 1:1 mapping happening, meaning all the great innovative games I thought of simply were not possible or would need to be scaled down to the point where they simply weren't interesting any more.

Secondly there are the graphics and CPU, I don't mind the lack of HD, but just shipping a slightly improved Gamecube in a new box doesn't cut it either. The Gamecube was in term of power for the money the best console hardware ever released, I expected the Wii to be of similar quality by *todays* technical standards, it however doesn't get close, no shader support, no anti-aliasing, etc. The Wii would have been outdated if it was released three years ago.

Third there was the price, I wouldn't even have minded if the Wii is being technically last-gen, if the price would have reflected that, but it just didn't. $250 for the Wii is ridiculous considering the Gamecube was $200 back in 2001.

Last not least, the most important aspect, the games. As before Nintendo completly failed to attract third party, after the N64 and Gamecube they should have known better, thats just inexcusable. Also Nintendo talked about "big idea being more important then big money" back at E3, today however the Wii is as close a platform as ever, neither is it open to indie developers nor does Nintendo actually support small games, PS3 and Xbox360 online shops are full with small games, both improved classics as well as completly original ones. The Wii on the other side only offers non improved classic, nothing original, no additions like network play and all that at a high price. And if that all wouldn't be enough Nintendo did their best to piss of Gamecube owners, not only was there support in the last years pretty substandard, they also delay Zelda:TP a year just so that they could hit the Wii launch, they also turned SuperPaperMario from being a Gamecube into a Wii game and who knows what other games suffered similar fate. If Nintendo would have wanted it should have been trivial to pack Wii and Gamecube binaries on the same disk to get a smooth transition, turning all those titles that don't make much use of the Wiimote into multiplatform titles, but they simply didn't, Wii titles only run on the Wii, even if they don't make any use of the Wiimote or that little bit of extra processing power. And if that would be enough, Nintendo also failed to have any real Wii titles ready at launch, those titles that made use of the Wii ended up look

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

I actually agree with your prediction with regards to the PS3 and the 360. I too think it will play out somewhere between 50-50 and 60-40 with the PS3 getting the upper hand in the end. However, I doubt the two consoles will - together - sell more than 60-80 millions during the next 6 years. I would bet on ~30 millions for the 360 and 40 millions for the PS3. Thus, I predict both consoles to be failures compared to what they set out to achieve.

I would also bet that the Wii will sell around 70-90 millions during the next 6 years.

As far as big non-gaiden third-party games are concerned, some are out (Red Steel, for example), and some announced (Alien Syndrome, No More Heroes). You should keep in mind that most large developers have only just started to move teams away from the PS3 to the Wii. More exclusive games will appear. And of course, all devs are using consoles for making money. Why else would they make games?

However, the thing I was actually taking exception with in your statement was that you claimed that "the titles aren't exclusive because the Wii is dominating, but simply because nobody would care for them on the other platforms." That is a really weird statement. It really makes no sense, because people are buying Wiis just to be able to play those games.

As for the issues you raise with the Wii: How good the Wiimote's accuracy really is remains to be seen. SOme games seem to make better use than others (check out the baseball bat in Wii Sports before the swing, it tracks the controller pretty accurately - good enough for a sword game). As for the Wii's graphic capabilities, again, the last word has not been spoken. Obviously, the PPC inside the Wii is no cell, and the graphics card lacks lots of modern features, but beautiful games are absolutely possible.

Obviously, Nintendo decided to go with the lower price instead of with faster hardware. You might disagree with this choice, but so far, it's playing out really well for them. People don't want to spend 600 bucks for a PS3 (I actually own a PS3, by the way - what can I say, I'm always rooting for the underdog :-). Sure, Nintendo could have released a PS3 with the Wii controller, but then, the thing would have cost more than a PS3, and it would have tanked. Frankly, I don't care. To me, Excite Truck is a lot more fun than Motorstorm. Yes, the graphics are pretty bad compared to Motorstorm, but I really don't care too much. It's much more frantic and exciting, and I like it better. As you say, games are the reason why we buy consoles, and right now, the Wii - for my taste - quite simply has the most interesting, most fun games.

Nintendo can't just attract third-parties. Third parties will go to the console that sells the most games. The way it looks now, that might very well turn out to be the Wii, so third-parties are moving to the Wii right now. Sure, games right now are lacking - online play is a big offender, as you say. That will improve dramatically within the next few months. Of course the classics on the Wii are improved, see Godfather. And of course the games on the Wii are interesting.

As for using the same discs for Wii and GC, you should remember that Wii games use full DVDs. Using GC discs for Wii games would mean that they'd have to use less space. Yes, Nintendo killed the GC pretty quickly, and as a Cube owner, I don't like it. As a business decision, and for the Wii's success, moving all resources from the dead console to the new console was probably the right thing to do.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### However, the thing I was actually taking exception with in your statement was that you claimed that "the titles aren't exclusive because the Wii is dominating, but simply because nobody would care for them on the other platforms." That is a really weird statement.

If the Wii would be dominating Ubisoft would move AssassinCreed over to the Wii, Rockstar would port their GTA and Konami would bring you MetalGear4, while Square gives you FF:XIII and Capcom RE5. Fact however is: They don't, not a single of those next-gen games was announced for the Wii. Instead Ubisoft gives us a bad port of Prince of Persia, Konami brings us Dewy's Adventure, Capcom a RE4 remake and a RE rail shooter. The big titles happen elsewhere, the Wii only gets the small ones that are cheap to produce. Nobody is right now investing large amounts of money in Wii development, like they do with XBox360 and PS3.

### You should keep in mind that most large developers have only just started to move teams away from the PS3 to the Wii.

Do you have any source for that? And what does 'move away' mean in this case? Take five people out of a 100+ staff for a PS3 game or doing a 50/50 split? So far none of the third party Wii games was big enough to actually need a large stuff of people.

### As for the issues you raise with the Wii: How good the Wiimote's accuracy really is remains to be seen.

Not really, Bluetooth drivers are available for PC, so all the data that you can get out of a Wiimote is well known and that data just has its limits. You simply can't get decent position sensing out of a accelerometer.

### Obviously, Nintendo decided to go with the lower price instead of with faster hardware.

The thing is, they could have gone lower price *and* faster hardware. For $250 you can get a lot more today then what the Wii is capable of, you might not reach the XBox360, but you should get somewhat close, especially when leaving out HDTV. It of course would have made them less profit, but it would make the Wii look a lot less outdated, then it does now and in a few years.

### Nintendo can't just attract third-parties.

If Microsoft wants a third party, they buy them. Now Nintendo might not be able to go that far, but they could at least try to care and secure a few decent exclusives, which they however failed to do.

### That will improve dramatically within the next few months.

What makes you think so? Online will never be able to compete with PS3 or XBox360 as long as Nintendo is using friends codes to lock out any kind of communication between players. And speaking about games, as said, I haven't seen any big third parties, not in the stores, not on the release lists, they are nowhere to be found. If the developers are now all jumping on the Wii train I would expect to see some announcement, tech demos, screenshots, videos or anything interesting, but that just isn't the case.

If there would be some hope that the Wii wouldn't be totally dead in 2008, just as it right now, I would already bought one, but I just don't see any indication for that.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

The whole point of Assassin's creed is that you have many intelligent NPCs. That game won't work on the Wii. As for GTA, MGS, RE-X and the Square franchises: Wait and see. These games take a long time to develop and can't move to a slower platform so far into development. But many of these games will eventually end up on the Wii, no question about it.

Uhm, yeah, so far very little third-party games have had large dev teams. That's because devs have only started to move teams to the Wii during the last month or two. Large games take years to develop. You asked for links, here are a few: Publishers Scrambling for Wii Titles, EA releases titles to capitalize on Wii success.

From the second link:

When the Nintendo Gamecube settled into third place during the previous console generation, many publishers shifted their efforts to the vastly more popular -- and profitable -- PlayStation 2 and Xbox. But the surprise success of the Wii, which just crossed the five million sales mark (faster than any other console in video game history), has publishers scrambling to get their games back on Nintendo's mass-market machine.
(...)
After Ubisoft, Electronic Arts is the next major third-party developer to redirect resources to the Wii. Not only has the gaming giant set up Wii-dedicated development teams, but within the last month, EA has released no fewer than three Wii titles

Here's another link:

Bloomberg reports companies like Electronic Arts, who has been ironically praised as one of the foremost Wii innovators, and Take-Two Interactive have been playing catch-up since Nintendo's E3 showing. EA tells Bloomberg they will have a dozen games on Wii this year, whereas Take-Two has three in the pipeline (likely comprised of The Bigs, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Manhunt 2).

Also, Nintendo is buying third-parties, and they are getting exclusives.

And why would you need position sensing? I guess you mean integrating acceleration twice to get position, which tends to become inexact, but what would you need that for?

Finally, I think you don't quite understand how friend codes work. Also, the first online title is only appearing now, and more will follow.

And really finally, the Wii dead by 2008? Hahaha. The Wii is the most successfull console this generation, and it will remain the most successfull console this generation. The 360 is a failure - both based on sales numbers and based on the games available - and the PS3 is going in the same direction.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### But many of these games will eventually end up on the Wii, no question about it.

As crappy ports maybe. As develop-from-scratch from the Wii, I don't think so, there is currently no indication for that and I doubt that there is even a large enough market on the Wii. Just because a bunch of casual gamers buy the Wii, doesn't mean that they want to play Assassins Creed.

### Finally, I think you don't quite understand how friend codes work.

I understand very well how they work. The sole reason they where invented was to stop random players from interacting with each other via chat or voice, which in turn limits online gaming to random match making and makes it rather useless for anything team based. Now there is of course nothing stopping Nintendo from allowing chat in online games for everybody, but so far that was exactly what they wanted to avoid.

### And why would you need position sensing? I guess you mean integrating acceleration twice to get position, which tends to become inexact, but what would you need that for?

To get proper 1:1 mapping from the players action to the game characters action. Currently that mapping is limited to rather simplistic swing motions and doesn't work at all for slow ones (i.e. say putting a key in a keyhole in an adventure game, controlling a hand like in Black&White). Sometimes there are workarounds, but a lot of stuff just doesn't work very well without real 1:1 mapping. The realistic sword fighting game might be a fluffy dream that never turns true.

### The Wii is the most successfull console this generation,

The XBox360 still has a solid lead on the Wii and even the PS3 isn't that far behind. Fast sales in the first few month don't mean all that much for the years to come.

### the Wii dead by 2008?

I don't mean dead as in discontinued, but dead as in 'no good games'. What the developers are doing is trying to quickly cash in on the Wii, they are not doing the big games, those are happening on other consoles and I seriously doubt that everybody will just through away all their next-gen work and develop again for hardware that is a generation behind. And heck, even if they would, that would mean we will see good games somewhen in 2009, after all those developers have to finish their games which they are developing right now for XBox360 and PS3 first, before they could start again for a new game on the Wii.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

The discussion is becoming somewhat repetitive. I think we both understand each other's arguments, and we both disagree with them.

My opinion: The Wii will be this generation's most successfull console, by far, selling at least as much as the other two consoles combined, and it will get all the good titles. Many A-List franchises will move to the Wii, just like Dragon Quest moved to the DS. The fact that, as of now, most big titles are scheduled to be on the 360 and the PS3 is an artefact of the last generation. Everyone thought the PS3 would repeat the PS2's success, and this is just not happening, which is why we are seeing the shift from the 360 and the PS3 to the Wii right now.

Time will tell who turns out correct.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

First as to who would buy such a thing. Simple Answer DS Lite?
Nintendo is still selling GBAs as well as DSs. GBAs are great for kids.

"Wii HD would need to have substantial more power then just a Wii with HD capabilities added on, it would need to be a completely new machine build from scratch, which in turn would mean that WiiHD games wouldn't run on a Wii, which in turn would mean that the Wii won't ever get a decent amount of good games since it was to short lived."
Why? The Wii uses a member of the PPC family. IBM is pushing the PPC to higher and higher speed all the time. If the PC as taught people anything it's that you an expand performance with out losing compatibility. The Wii is twice as powerful as the GC but it can play all the GC games. A Wii HD could be four times as powerful as the current Wii but still play all the Wii games and GC games. I also doubt that the PS3 will be down $200 in two years. Why? No economies of scale. The parts that make up the PS3 are not COTS parts. Cells are not ending up in every widget on the planet yet and the GPU in the PS3 isn't showing up in other devices. The blue-ray drive may come down in price if it becomes the standard but even that isn't a sure thing. The way for Sony to get the price down is to sell millions and millions. It really isn't selling that many so price cuts will be harder.
I was just pointing out options that Nintendo has. Sony doesn't have two years because third party developers are already seeing that the Wii and 360 are more lucrative markets. They are both easier to develop for and available in bigger numbers. The only thing that can kick up the PS3 sales is a must have game. A game that is so good and original an only available for the PS/3 that people will buy the console just for that game.
The question is who will take the risk of developing such a game for the PS3.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

This idea that the Wii is limited to only "simplistic games" or "low-end games" is just idiotic. At this point in time, that's definitely how it looks, but there is no reason to expect that it will stay that way. Game developers will go to whatever system will move the most amount of units of their products. All three consoles have the ability to do the same style of game. So if you're a developer, setting out to do a substantial product in any genre, unless you really NEED that high escellon of graphical power (which many game companies can't afford, anyway), the choice really is yours.

So yes, the Wii is currently getting spinnoffs, gaidens, things like that... but that came from a mis-assessment of the market, early on. There is no underlying reason why the Wii, inherently, is limited to B titles, that is simply the way the market viewed the race about 6 months prior to launch. But A LOT has changed since launch, and the tables have completely turned (I always suspected that the Wii would sell beautifully, but many others didn't).

But the fact is, the Wii is selling itself, regardless of the titles, and companies are now scrambling to get their big AAA teams on board, but it will take time. Thankfully, the market seems to be very happy with what the Wii has to offer at the moment, so us hardcore fans just have to wait until the titles begin coming out. My PS2 is still at the ready, for th moment. I don't expect the Wii to get more play than it for another 6 months or so, but that's fine with me, until then.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

Yep, in the end only time will tell, however I just doubt that the Wii will be interesting enough to those people that want Halo, GTA and Co. when those games are not going for the Wii for a long long time, if ever. The Wii simply seems to cater to a different audience and this Miyamato interview seems to confirm that:

Why do you think Zelda isn't doing well in Japan?

Well, I think a lot of people who bought the Wii are not necessarily the types of people who are interested in playing that kind of game.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### All three consoles have the ability to do the same style of game.

Wrong, the Wii is not in the same league as PS3 and XBox360, it will not be able to do a things that use huge crowds like AssassinsCreed or DeadRising, things that make use of physics engine will be impossible as well. Sure, sometimes you might be able to scale stuff down, but often times you simply won't be able to do that. Processing power can be very relevant to gameplay and the Wii just hasn't enough to keep up.

### There is no underlying reason why the Wii, inherently, is limited to B titles,

True, you could do all kinds of interesting games on the Wii, the question is: Is there a market for it? And I don't think thats the case, people are buying the Wii for Wii Sports not to play the next GTA on it. Large sales don't really matter if the people who buy the Wii aren't interested in that kind of games.

### companies are now scrambling to get their big AAA teams on board, but it will take time.

Name one big AAA third party title that is making it to the Wii, just one. The biggest thing I know is No More Heroes, but even that doesn't come near the AAA potential that a AssassinsCreed, GTA4 or RE5 has. The big titles are all PS3/XBox360 right now and there is no announcement around to show that this is going to change.

People are always assuming that the Wii will magically get developers because it is selling lots of units right now, but forgetting that the XBox360 still has a solid lead and will continue to stay close to the Wii for a long long while, even if the Wii outsells it. This means that the market for those games simply will be larger on XBox360 for a long while to come and the Wii hardware isn't getting fresher over time, the more month pass, the more outdated it will look. People are not going to play GTA5 on the Wii after they already have played a superior GTA4 on the XBox360/PS3 a year earlier.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

I don't think the Wii is very limited at all. It has more power than the Xbox and the PS2 both of which had some pretty complex games on them. I don't think that the Wii has the power to do a 1080p game. Frankly it doesn't seem to need it yet. I think you are correct but at the same time Nintendo is in a great position for the future. I am betting that Nintendo is already working on their next console.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

Okay I guess you confuse magic with reality. Development "follows the money". The money comes from the number of consoles on the market. The Wii is selling like hot cakes and the PS3 isnt't.
Now for the ugly truth about the PS3. It never was meant to maximize profits for the game publishers. The PS3 is a way to get Blue-ray into peoples homes. It is also a way for Sony to get into the online media business. Playing games is just a cover for Sony Entertainment's agenda.

The Wii is cheaper to develop for than the PS3 and there are a lot more units in people's homes. That is the way the Wii will magically get developers. It is the magic of numbers and cash.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### The money comes from the number of consoles on the market.

The money comes from players interested in buying your games, not from the consoles sold. You have to keep in mind that the Wii isn't up to the XBox360 or the PS3, but against the XBox360 *and* the PS3. Many of the next-gen games are for XBox360 and the PS3, but not for the Wii, since it just is to slow to run them, which means that you have 6mio Wii customers vs 13mio PS3/XBox360 customers. Now guess where the money flows. The Wii might continue to sell like hotcakes, but XBox360 and PS3 sales are not going to suddenly stop, so they will continue to lead for long long while. And this isn't even taking into account that the PS3/XBox360 audience is much more interested in the GTAs, AssassinsCreeds, Oblivions and such, while the Wii audience is more interested in the quick fun, easy to learn fun like Wii Sports.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

PS3 sales are pretty slow and they will slow to a trickle if there are no PS3 exclusives.
I don't know if the Wii will over take the 360 but at the current rate of sales it might. The Wii doesn't have to beat the PS3 and the 360. It just has to make Nintendo a lot of money. And it is. I just don't see sales of the Wii going down or the sales of the PS3 going up. Take a look here http://nexgenwars.com/ the Wii is lagging the 360 by that much. If Wii sales keep up at this rate it will equal or surpass 360 by next Christmas.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### It just has to make Nintendo a lot of money.

Well, as a gamer I care if a console will get good games and little else. When it makes money for Nintendo, fine for them, but that won't guarantee me good games. As said, for a third party developer it is important where the potential customers are and so far you have 13mil on the XBox360/PS3 side, since porting between those two consoles is relatively easy, and 6mil on the Wii side, since porting between XBox360/PS3 is never going to lead to satisfying results.

The Wii might very well overtake both XBox360 and PS3, but there is very little chance that it will overtake both combined and unless that happen, the chance for ever getting decent third party support is rather slim. If the PS3 comes out last or not really isn't the issue as long as it sells enough to make porting viable and so far it looks like its doing fine in that aspect, selling half as much as a Wii is quite good considering that the console cost more then twice as much.

And if the Wii can keep up it sales is doubtful to begin with, since lack of decent third party support never was a good sign for a console.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LKM]

It should be noted that Miyamoto also says that "a lot of the people who would want to play it [due to chronic shortages of the console] can't find a Wii."

Furthermore, Zelda isn't actually doing badly in Japan (or anywhere else, for that matter). Zelda sold more in Japan than any 360 or PS3 game. I think that as of now, it sold 500'000 copies in Japan - which is quite a lot, considering that there are (I think) less than 2 million Wiis sold in Japan (not entirely sure on those numbers, though).

In the US, Zelda sales were almost as high as Wii sales (at least in the first few weeks after the launch, don't know how it looks today), which contradicts your point that Wii owners don't want Zelda games.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

If the PS3 only gets 360 ports it is dead. Why pay for PS3 when you can buy a 360 to play the same games plus have the exclusives of the 360. Third party support of the Wii is building very quickly and frankly from what I have seen the Wii has more high rated games than the PS3 currently has.
You must be a real Sony fan or a real Nintendo hater. I was a big fan of the PS3 before it shipped. I wanted a Cell to program so bad I could taste it. I actually thought that idea of Apple going for Intel was stupid since the Cell was coming and was going to revolutionize computing. Reality is different than hype.
Porting a game between the PS3 and the Wii isn't going to be that easy for a complex game. The 360 offers a uniform programing model of three PPC cores each supporting 2 threads and a directX like interface to the GPU. The PS3 offers a single PPC core and seven SPEs. The XBox also only offers a DVD for the game and may or may not have a Hard drive. The only thing that the PS3 and 360 share screen resolution so the the artwork can be the same. Yes artwork and textures are a big part of a game but not everything.
A port between the PS3 and the 360 isn't a simple task. BTW both the PS3 and 360 support SDTV resolution so when a developer creates the artwork and textures for SD mode they will have them for the Wii. I also think you may be surprised how many games will work just fine on the Wii. It really doesn't matter Nintendo is selling millions of Wii's and DSs and are currently out selling bot the PS3 and the 360. Third party developers are getting titles out for the Wii and Nintendo is has produced some great games for it. Wii Sports is a lot of fun, Paper Mario is great and Zelda has become an instant classic. So far I have not heard of any PS3 block busters yet. Maybe there will be but it better be soon.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

Hey, Twilight Princess was the best selling (and best recieved) launch title, Metroid Prime 3 is one of the most anticipated games... those strike me as exactly the kind of games we're talking about. I fail to see how your comment that "there is no market", holds any water.

The Wii isn't for casual gamers, it's for everyone, many different demgraphics and psychographics. Nintendo has been saying this over and over again, but quite a few hardcore gamers, like yourself, think that every time the word "everyone" is mentioned, it automatically is meant to alienate us. I just don't see it. The Wii is getting MORE games than any other system, and quite a few aimed at the hardcore crowd.

I speak as a pretty serious gamer, I've been playing for many years, my base tends to be action/adventure and jRPGs... epic 80 hours games, usually. I bought a Wii primarilly because I realized it would be an inspiration to many game developers, and evolve a lot of new ideas in the industry. Twilight Princess was EXACTLY what I was looking for, MP3 is looking to be stellar, and Square seems to have one of the FF13 games up its sleeve, among other things.

If you think the Wii has no hardcore fanbase, you're grossly incorrect. It's inviting new people in, sure, but the base is still the same.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

Thank you. Some people think that just because the PS3 and 360 support the same resolution, and could be considered comparable in horsepower, that they are somehow easy, or even "easier" to port between. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The PS3 and 360 are totally different animals, and what's more is only their tallied horsepower stats are comparible, but in individual areas, their graphical handling is completely different. One might be vastly superior in lighting effects, while the other's texture handingling is more sophisticated.

I think a lot of stupid people would be dissapointed to realize that neither prorammers, developers, or marketting staff think in the same terms they do.

I got into a discussion with my friend last night about whether FF13 could/would be ported to the Wii. It's my belief that the marketting staff will push it werever they can sell the most units, seeing as though FF (even though not as big as DQ) is huge in Japan, and the Wii is dominating there, and is slated to pull even with the 360 around the time of FF13s release, worldwide, it seems like a likely choice. His arguement was simple, "but why would the developers want to develope for it?" This line of thinking is utterly rediculous, IMO, and really no reflection of the reality of the game industry. For one thing, the developers have little say over what hardware they get to use, secondly, at SD/ED resolutions, the differences between the Wii and PS3/360 all but dissappear, since so much of the added horsepower of the higher-powered systems simply goes into processing HD.

I ask you this, however. If you were a fan of jRPGs, and FF13 came out for the Wii, and you had one... would you NOT buy it, simply because another system ran it at higher resolution with more graphical effects? NO. Once you realize this, you realize that there's absolutely no reason why games like this should exist on the Wii. That's the only question that really matters, "will it sell?"

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

No doubt. I think we can view the Wii as an experimental, "interim" system. It's cheap to manufacturer, low-power, and a good way of getting a new technology off the ground. In 2 years, it's lifecycle will be over, and Nintendo will be able to launch a system far more powerfull than the 360/PS3, at half the price, and will be, then, half a generation ahead in terms of graphical power.

Sony and Microsoft are in bad possitions, right now. They've invested in systems that have no less than a 7 year lifecycle (or 10 years, as Maryll Lynch calculated with the PS3). If Nintendo were to release a new system in 2 years, Microsoft and Sony would be caught with their pants down.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[LWATCDR]

BTW the answer to your friends question, "why would someone develop for the Wii" is simple, a paycheck.

Actually I would love to develop for the Wii. The controller opens up new possibilities for games while the 360 and the PS3 are more about eye candy.

Yes the 360 and PS3 are very different critters. Most of the people that post with such authority on how easy it is to port software and or deliver bug free software have never written a line of code or used any system but and X86 or maybe a PPC.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### The PS3 and 360 are totally different animals, and what's more is only their tallied horsepower stats are comparible, but in individual areas, their graphical handling is completely different.

Even with all their differences they are still a lot more similar to each other then compared to the Wii. A PS3 simply can do XBox360 style graphics and a XBox360 can do PS3 style graphics, a Wii can't do either of that. Sure the engine programmers will have quite a bit of work to do to get the different architectures of PS3 and XBox360 under the same roof, but the thing is, its a solvable problem. While doing the same for Wii would basically an impossible task.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### Nintendo has been saying this over and over again,

They can say it as long as they want, that doesn't make it any more true. Just look at the lack of online offering and serious lack of third party support (Assassins Creed, Bioshock, AlanWake, etc.). I have been a loyal Nintendo customer for 15+ years, the Wii has right now however nothing in terms of games that I would be interested in. Why that? Because I have played all its games last year when they where available on other Nintendo platforms. A game like SuperPaperMario just isn't different enough to get me interested, I have been through four MarioRPGs in the last few years, I don't need another one, same with WarioWare and Trauma Center and a bunch of others. Nintendo is claiming to be innovative, but so far I just don't see it, tackled on motion control just isn't enough.

### The Wii is getting MORE games than any other system, and quite a few aimed at the hardcore crowd.

'quite a few' is still a lot less then PS3 and Xbox360 are getting.

### Twilight Princess was EXACTLY what I was looking for,

I bought that game for the Gamecube, I don't need a Wii for it. Beside I consider it a rather boring rehash of old concepts, innovation is nowhere to be found, even WindWaker was much more interesting.

### Square seems to have one of the FF13 games up its sleeve, among other things.

Thats exactly the point, the Wii gets one of the FF13 spinoffs, while the PS3 gets the FF13 main game.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

Are we talking about style or quality? Because I can't think of any "style" of graphics that the PS3 can do that the Wii can't, but just at lower resolutions with simpler lighting/shading effects and less polygons.

Note, I've never been suggesting that the Wii could ever come close to looking as good as the PS3, but games made for the PS3 could be ported just fine... they'd only have "Wii level graphics", which for the person who bought the Wii, is obviously JUST FINE. I can't think of any reasonable situation, graphically, that you couldn't port a PS3 game over to the Wii. It won't look as good, for sure, but that really isn't the point, is it?

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

### Because I can't think of any "style" of graphics that the PS3 can do that the Wii can't

Anything that involves shaders is impossible on the Wii, it simply lacks the hardware support for that. Sometimes you might be able to get similar effects done, but when you have build a whole engine around certain assumption of what a GPU can do you can't just port it to a hardware that doesn't have those features. Its not just a matter of more pretty or less pretty, but a different way of doing the engine, doing the graphics and doing the game design.

It doesn't stop with graphics, it continues with physics engines, AI and all that stuff. If you do something like Dead Rising with dozens or even hundreds of enemy characters moving around, which is a core gameplay element, you can't just port the game to the Wii by reducing the enemy count a lot without losing the main point of the game. Same with Cell Factor and many other games.

The reason why many current PS3/XBox360 games still work on the Wii is because those aren't real next-gen games, but basically last gen games with a few shiny effects added. That is however slowly changing and in a year or two games will have the additional power of the system used for something that is very gameplay relevant.

The Wii has the problem of being from a different console generation, its like trying to port SNES and Genesis titles to the NES, N64 to the SNES or Gamecube titles to the N64, sometimes it might work, but more often then not you simply can't do it because to many things have changed.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

You have some real points. I don't think the "year or two" arguement is all that important, though, since I think the Wii is probably going to be replaced somewhere around 2010 (it's obviously a short lifecycle console). Still, I don't think that game design, even last generation, took advantage of all the horsepower available. My thoughts is basically that the technology is moving faster than the concepts that are being developed that require that technology. Instead of game designers calling for newer, more sophisticated technology, the technology is simply being created because... well... "it's time to sell another system, right?" I saw late PS2 games that didn't come close to utilizing the full potential of the system, even more so with GameCube games. So, if game designers weren't even needing all of what the PS2 had to offer, what are they going to do with the PS3?

When the SNES and Playstation came out, they openned up new possibilities to game designers, things that simply could never be done before, could now be done. But ever since the PS2 era, I don't think game designers have had a clear concept of what new things they can do that they haven't been able to do before. I think the Wii is able to do more completely new things, because of its input device, in a similar fashion to the earlier generations.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

Well, as a gamer I care if a console will get good games and little else.

It's Nintendo, I think that's the least of our concerns. Unless you don't like Nintendo's offerings, in which, well... we're just gonna dissagree in terms of game style.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[7Prime]

Firstly... have you played Super Paper Mario? It's nothing like any of the other games. As far as I'm concerned, it's probably the most innovative game I've seen in a long while, regardless of its connection to a previous franchise. Is it a perfect game? No way, but it's still very good and I wouldn't deduct ANY points for it being not innovative. If anything, it's too innovative, and a little unpolished, sorta like the original Super Mario Bros when compared to Mario 3.

It's sorta like saying Curby's Canvas Curse isn't innovative because it's a Curby game. CCC is easilly the most innovative platformer since sidescrolling was invented back with SMB... and even then, I might give it the edge. CCC, however, is polished as hell. Cutesyness aside, that game is remarkeable. Anyway, I degress.

Twilight Princess stole the soul that FF12 lacked, IMO. I played them at the same time. TP is now my favorite game. Sure, it's not innovative by any sense of the imagination... but it's a great game, and its elements are so perfect and flawless. It is definitely the Mario 3 of the Zelda series. Finally, a Zelda game where I actually FEEL for the characters!

As far as Final Fantasy... I liked FF12, but it's no longer the king of the hill. Tales of the Abyss wiped its ass with FF12 this year, as far as I'm concerned... with about a quarter of the graphics and production budget. TooA is an UGLY GAME, and it made FF12 look bad in comparison. With Bandai back on the Wii bandwagon, there's a very good possibility of the next Tales game coming out for the Wii (as if Bandai could EVER make use of the PS3s graphical capabilities).

Also, I still stand by my assessment that there's no logical reason why FF13 won't be ported to the Wii. If they can do the sequel to FF12 on the DS, they can port FF13 to the Wii. I don't care how much people dump on the Wiis specs, but it's a lot closer to the PS3 than the DS is to the PS2.

I have a feeling we're gonna halfto chalk up this debate up to a gross difference in taste, in terms of video games. I could give two shits about graphics, myself. In fact, I flat out hate 90% of photorealistic games, I think, in some cases, the battle for photorealism takes away from the creation of unique stylistic creations. My favorite graphics, to date, are in Okami... a low budget PS2 game with a polygon count that would have quite possibly been shamefull on the DreamCast (okay, maybe an exaduration, but it's still a very low horsepower game). If that's my favorite graphics of this era... I can't really see why the Wii can't satisfy what I'm looking for in games.

Re:The PS3 won't make a Comeback in 2008

[grumbel]

Still, I don't think that game design, even last generation, took advantage of all the horsepower available.

Neither do I, the problem however is that hardware is still what is driving this industry. After 3D graphics came around, 2D was dead, almost instantly, not because it was bad, but just because it no longer was the trendy thing to do. Today you have the physics engines, crowed AI, HDR lighting, shader and all that stuff, they are less of a change then 2D -> 3D, but they are still new things to explore and the industry will do so and if they do that means XBox360/PS3 versions of a game only. That doesn't mean that you couldn't do nice new innovative games on a Wii, it however means that many companies will be busy doing non-Wii related games. UnrealEngine3 is for PS3 and XBox360 only, CryEngine2 has a good chance of a PS3/XBox360 port, but no chance for a Wii port, id Software doesn't seem to have big plans for the Wii and so it goes on and on. If anything, the Wiimote is the very confirmation for this fact, its also new hardware that should force the developers to build their games around it, it just happens to be input, not CPU/GPU power.

The crux on all this however is that I just don't see where all the Wii games should be coming from, many companies are busy with XBox360/PS3, those that do have Wii development going on are wasting their time with porting and tackling on motion control, not with creating new games. The one group that is known for innovative games that don't just follow the trends of the industry, namely the independent game developers, might actually be interested in the Wii, but so far Nintendo hasn't shown any sign of opening up for them. Back before the Wii was released there was talk about Sam'n Max on the Wii, now half a year later, its still not there, not even an announcement, or even an announcement on when we will see non recycled games on the Virtual Console. Ironically the XBox360 and the PS3 are open for independent developers and Sony and Microsoft are actively pushing them and there are plenty of new original small-scale games on both consoles.

It comes even worse, back around Christmas Nintendo Europe had a cool little Flash jump'n run on their side, Mission Snowdriftland, it was a pretty awesome little game, especially for being free. In terms of length it might not keep up with a NewSuperMarioBros, but in terms of gameplay it was just as fun. Now what happened? After Christmas was over the game was taken offline and never to be seen again. It would have been easy to change the resolution and controls to have the game properly running on the Wii, it however never happened. Nintendo isn't even using those resources that they have for the Wii and that is really disappointing.

Wii success.

[BeansBaxter]

Nintendo did an excellent job marketing the Wii. That being said those I work with bought the Wii as their first Nintendo console since well the first NES in some cases. Since I'm a fanboy it is easy for me to be happy with the system and games. My co-workers however are finding that they aren't sure what games to pick up and are starting to look at the 360 with a lot more intrest. Nintendo has created a market. Their sales of systems will continue for a while yet. If they truely want to dominate however they need to release some solid games and market them to the console owners. Seriously GH coming to the Wii is huge. It is a simple game that could run on anything but having it on the Wii will improve it's image. Along those lines Nintendo, I think, Should be pushing quilty GameCube games. I know there isn't a lot of money in selling 10.00 games but it could introduce a lot of players to Nintendo franchises before the Wii releases later this year. Games like Smash Brothers / Sunshine / Batallion Wars and Prime should be in the Wii cabinets and visible to gamers. All good titles with Wii sequals on the way. Maybe they could sell them with a pack in GC controller. Ok just giving my thoughts on the subject of game releases.

ObFuturama

[Guppy06]

Nobody drives in New York: there's too much traffic.

Re:Sony by 2008? Where will Nintendo be in 2009?

[JFMulder]

Well, Nintendo appears to be dominating right now, but if you look at sales in North America since it launched, you'll notice that Microsoft has sold 200K units more than Wii's so far and about a million more than PS3. So what does this mean. Since the Wii sales seem to be slowing down if you look at the chart, it means that the 360 and the Wii are pretty much going to be neck to neck in the next few months, until heavy hitters like GTA4, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Halo 3, Mario Sunshine and Metroid Prime 3 launch. I'm sure there's a few other AAA titles on the Wii coming soon, I just don't know about them. If the 360 can match the Wii in sales and Sony doesn't pick up steam real quick, the North American market will pretty be much owned by the 360. As for Europe, I can't tell. Japan is pretty much a no brainer. I bet the Wii and DS will continue to dominate there for a few years I think. Unless the Wii becomes just a fad. Which, I hope it won't be because I'd be sad to see Nintendo go away, but I wouldn't be surprised if people got bored of their Wiimotes.