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Nintendo - "Everyone is a Gamer"
There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs dominated the opening of Nintendo's E3 conference. Fortunately, the event had more than just business to discuss. They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks. They showed off a number of third party titles to prove the outside-the-company commitment, such as a Soul Calbur and Medal of Honor (which will be playable online) designed specifically for the console. Hardcore gamers were the focus of the early portion of the conference: Smash Brothers Brawl has a launch date of December 3rd in the US. They heavily hyped online play, with several EA titles and a Pokemon-like Dragon Quest title. Mario Kart for Wii will be launching early next year, will be playable online, and will have a Wiimote driving wheel housing packaged with the game. With the hardcore discussed, the attention shifted to mass market games. A new channel, 'Check Mii Out' will allow for a HotorNot-style voting mechanism and contests to make the most realistic celebrity Mii. There was much discussion of the Nintendo approach to expanding audience; Super Mario Galaxy was brought up as bridging that gap, as a second player can 'assist' the primary player in various ways. Galaxy will be launching on November 12th. Targetted more directly at this 'outside the norm' group was WiiFit, which uses a dedicated device called the Wii Balance Board. It allows for a daily exercise routine, can track data over time (and compare it to other family members) and includes some simple minigames like a soccer heading game. The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal to make videogaming one of the pre-eminent forms of entertainment, across all age groups.
There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs
That's just outreach to all the hardcore gamers in accounting, obviously. Feel welcome guys!
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
The proper reference is Voltron.
Or Beowulf clusters if you want to strech it out a bit.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I remember when the big 3 was announcing their forthcoming console. The Xbox 360 press event made it to slashdot's front page. So did the PS3, while the Wii was tucked away in the game section. Forward two years from then, and it's Nintendo press conference that made it to the front page, while Sony and Microsoft are nowhere to be found. How things changes...
I think it also depends on your age group. If not for /. I'd probably not know what a Wii was. Most people I know my age are too busy to mess with gaming much. And in their free time, they like to spend it out..dining out, seeing a movie...clubs, bars...festivals, etc.
When I want to veg out at home...I like to just veg, which means listening to the stereo, or watching something on the projector (movie, tv show)...veggin' to me is a passive thing.
When I want action...I go out.
I used to like computer games, and I think I might still play the occasional one if I thought of it. But, back when I used to play them alot, while I had more free time, I also had less income to go out and do things. Now I can afford to go out and do things, which eats up more of my limited time I have these days.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Don't give them any ideas.
Wait... Did you say zord? As in "MegaZord"? As in "Giant Robot"?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Well you can wirelessly link your DS and Wii together with some games. Is that close enough?
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I am the same way to a certain point. However, I've been more interested in downloading the classic games and that is where I spend 90% of my Wii time. I had the same attitude with my DS when it first came out. I played it for about a month or two and then it sat on my desk collecting dust. Then games like Meteos, Kirby, and Castlevania came out and I started playing again. The Wii has the problem right now where there are no new good games. Give it till the end of the summer when metroid comes out.
-Dipster
I invented a word for that feeling -- "enwii".
But I am definitely not feeling it.
The News and Weather channels were a fast-fading gimmick for me, and I haven't used the browser to play all those Flash games or anything, but I'm still very happy with the console.
Super Paper Mario was a game my wife and I had a lot of fun playing together, and I even just dusted off my old copy of Trauma Center that I never finished. Also still enjoying the Virtual Console stuff and making Miis. Looking forward to all the cool new toys.
I guess I'm their target audience.
I still play WiiSports with my nieces all the time. I still play Mario Party 8 with my wife often. Resident Evil 4 is even more fun then when I played it on my cube and I just got a few new VC games with some gift cards from a few friends.
So in short: yes.
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There was precious little news in that conference. No indication of how multiplayer networking will be improved, no striking new games to talk about, just video montages of people raving about their Wii. The reveal of plastic steering wheel was its lowest point, reminding me of something you might get in a Happy Meal. The balancing pad looked as though it might have some fun uses though.
For nearly all the gamers that actually watched it, this conference was a disaster. They didn't really reach out to hardcore gamers, they basically told them to shut up about online, and yes, the three or four games you already knew about are still coming out. Yay. The rest of the show was about how people who don't normally game were getting into the Wii and DS. That's great for Nintendo and the shareholders, people who would classify themselves as gamers were basically shoved over to the MS/Sony side of things. Then they trot out Miyamoto, the genius that is the only reason Nintendo still exists, especially in the minds of regular gamers, and then reveal his amazing new project! Wii Fit. It's basically a two pad DDR pad that's pressure sensitive. There was even a horrible DDR-style step exercise program, it was pathetic. The only mildly entertaining thing in it was the Soccer headbutting mini-game. Good to kill a few minutes at a friend's house, but not something to replace, you know, a real game. Oh, it had a scale function too! Now THAT'S Next-Gen!! You can find out what your BMI is!!!! Nintendo is making Super Rub-A-Dub look like an epic. And this is what Miyamoto's doing now, coming up with new ways to disguise a gaming system to sell to people who don't want to play games? For all the gamers I know, Wii Wept.
Depends. Do they grow 50 stories tall after they link up?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Didn't get to watch it live since Gamespot was having some kind of issues with their live stream and I couldn't find another one for free. Guess I'll have to check on google video for it later. I did read through about five different live blogs to get a good feel for the presentation though and overall I think they did alright.
I would have liked to see more focus on some of the third party exclusives that were being brought to the Wii, something that seems a little lacking. I know that a lot of companies have pledged support and are releasing games, but a lot of them turn out to be crappy ports that no one's interested in. They probably should have shown something from Square Enix in more detail.
I'm glad that Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. are dated now and it'll be nice to finally have some AAA games coming out. Hopefully, I'll be able to stand the wait between now and then. Announcing Mario Kart for 1Q 2008 also helps to let everyone know that there won't be another gaming drought, at least not for a while. Hopefully there will be some good AAA third party releases by then to start picking up the slack.
I'm glad they made some announcements about expanding online play in games on the system, but I still want to know more about it and how all of it will work. I'm not a huge fan of friends codes and would prefer that they used a set-up more akin to Xbox Live. At least they're finally catching up to Sony and Microsoft in terms of online play.
The Balance Board and their new light gun look like some interesting additions. I can see how the light gun adaptor would help to break down some of the barriers between casual and hardcore gamers. I also suspect that WiiFit will do a lot better than most people will give it credit for.
I'm going to go see if I can find a stream for the Sony conference now.
If the conference is anything to go by, their strategy is to produce a continuous stream of add-ons. Gun "zappers", steering wheels, balance mats and so on. The wheel was just silly, the gun zapper wasn't much better since aiming down the barrel isn't going to work plus the awkward position of the nunchuk. I could see a mat that could weigh you and do other things having potential though.
Remember what you (may have) thought about the Wii controller when it was announced. WiiFit is very much in line with the Wii philosophy, and shows promise. I suspect this will be a million seller in 3 months or less.
Revealing? They said the same thing last year (and I think they said it two years ago too), but I suspect the number of people who are taking them seriously has increased a hundred fold.
As someone who grew up with the NES and SNES, Nintendo has always been "gadget-happy" and looking for alternate interfaces. I know back home I have the following:
NES: Zapper, Power Pad, Advantage (Arcade joystick styled controller), Max ("Analog" style controller.. also has wings like a PlayStation controller)
SNES: Mouse, Super Scope
More Nintendo peripherals isn't anything new.
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Just release Metroid Prime 3 (when it's ready) and I'll be happy. I rarely ever buy a Nintendo console for anything else than Zelda and Metroid. All other games are just bonuses.
Now if only they'd add MPEG-4 video support (H.264, even) along with external USB drives, people could use their Wii as a media system as well. Rip DVDs to 500GB USB drive and you got a DVD library on your TV with the help of the Wii.
If you had said "I disagree with him", I doubt you'd have been modded as a troll. But calling someone "batshit crazy" ain't exactly the way to start off a conversation. As Jules Winnfield once said, "Personality goes a long way."
...because they seem less and less interested in me.
And as someone who has owned literally every Nintendo console ever (yes, even the Virtual Boy, though not yet the Wii as it hasn't yet sold me) that makes me pretty sad.
Of course I understand why they're doing this from a business point of view. But as a long-time, moderate gamer, I don't really care - I'm a fan of their games, not their business - I just want good, engaging, and deep games to play. And that's not the direction they're going. I have seen the future and it's a collection of mini-games.
Sorry Nintendo, but Wii Yoga isn't going to win me back. I see a lot of new experiences for non-gamers, but for all its promise the Wiimote has yet to really add anything compelling to traditional gaming (waggle doesn't really count). I didn't see anything in that conference to convince me otherwise.
The rest of the show was about how people who don't normally game were getting into the Wii and DS.
... and then invariably discovers that she has no idea how to play these convoluted things and lacks the years of experience necessary to do so with agility. Upshot is potentially lucrative enthusiastic customers are discouraged from continuing before they reach the critical mass of fun that will propel them into the "hardcore" realm.
Maybe they're finally realizing that there are a lot more would-be customers out there who want to play console games but can't last 30 seconds in games designed for the hardcore. My wife spends far more on console games than I do, and does so in hopes that she'll have fun
You're a hardcore gamer. You're going to buy more games. There are more games coming for you. You're not going away anytime soon.
For just one conference, they decided to focus on trying to attract and retain more customers. You may sneer at Wii Fit, but that (a typically lame attempt at reaching out to the luddites) is a step toward figuring out what non-"gamers" want in a game.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
My wife and eldest daughter are the only "non-gamers" in the house, but they both love the Wii.. from playing with Miis, to Wii sports to Wii vote they love the thing.. so now while i'm fragging away online they can play the Wii.. win win!
I still play my Wii at least 10 hours a week (got it about a week after launch). I'd play more, but my limiting factor is that I'm currently unemployed so I can't go out and buy game after game (I currently have 5, all of which have at least some, if not a lot, of replayability). Every time I go to a relative's house, they're still begging me to bring my Wii so they can bowl (and some of them have dozens and dozens of rounds under their belt). There are a couple games out there that I still want to get and there is at least one more on the near horizon that I'd like to try (Metroid Prime Hunters is set for next month... I haven't played Metroid since the original, so I'd like so see where things are now).
In a way, your post reminds me of the hardcore raiders back when I was playing EQ. They'd burn through content as fast as possible and then spend the next 3-5 months bitching that there wasn't anything to do. Meanwhile, I played just as much as they did but spent more of my time in the depths of EQ doing quests, exploring, etc that they never did because it wasn't part of the raid game (and thus didn't matter and might as well not exist). So, rather than fix current content, the pressure was always on to come out with another raid oriented expansion to keep the people who raid 40 hours a week happy. The game became mostly about raiding at that point. Keep raiding to keep up, burn out your guild, replace them with people from the next level down raid guild, rinse and repeat until most raiders are burned out and gone and most casuals are sick of being left behind... and where does the population of EQ stand today because of the decisions SOE made due to the pressure from the hardcores that rushed through a quarter of the content and ignored the rest? mmogchart data seems kinda stale (last EQ numbers are a year old) and it shows that almost 2/3rds of the peak number of subscribers have left.
Perhaps the problem is that you aren't the demographic Nintendo is trying to capture with the Wii... I'm thoroughly happy with mine (and so are all of my family members who haven't played a game since pacman on the Atari, if ever). I'm happy with the direction things seem to be going and the pace isn't too bad for me. Then again, maybe I am the demographic they are targeting (30 year old retiree from hardcore gaming who still wants to sit down an hour or two a night to play a game, especially if it means playing with pretty much anyone of my friends or family).
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Would the balancing pad work for movement in a FPS?
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
How could you forget the Power Glove and ROB the robot thingy?
My critism is that the accessories are just gimmicks. I'll exclude the Advantage and Max since they featured turbo and are pretty much the one and only time Nintendo produced alternate controllers (ignoring the NES 2 redesign or multicolored functionally-identical ones) for any system.
R.O.B. supported 2 games. Zapper: about 5. Power Pad: 2. Mouse: 2. Super Scope: 1 (six I guess, if you're the type of person who would count Wii Sports as 5 games).
The accessories, almost by axiom, can't be used in a whole lot of different games because the system didn't come with it. And the system shouldn't come with it because all the games don't support it. So you get a catch-22 kind of thing. In the meantime all those accessories cost money and take up space.
Then again, I've got a nasty little rhythm game habit which results in owning a dance pad for only 2 PS2 titles, beatmania controller for one, guitar controller for two, maybe the slap in the face with peripherals makes me feel good in dirty dirty gamer kind of way.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Two words: Power Glove.
Power Glove was Mattel's disaster unleashed upon the world, wasn't it?
Looks like crappy 3rd party accessories have been around for ages.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Actually, the light gun was apparently used in an arcade shooting game in 1936, but was more like a lazer tag setup with a sensor on a moving target.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Artificial demand? Looking at the numbers I think that the problem is just that they can't get them out the door fast enough. They've almost sold as many as the 360 which had a yeas lead over them. In fact on closer inspection you can see that the 360 gets a boost due to the launches of the Wii and PS3. Without that effect (essentialy help fro Nintendo and Sony) they would have already sold more.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
"It's so baaaddd!"
The irony of that line kills me.
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I agree. I also happen to play my Wii about 10 hours a week. However, I only got it 2 months ago. Anyway, I find there's a lot of people complaining that they don't like the Wii, or that it's just a passing fad. The same could be said about the PS3 or the XBox 360. There's people who are going to like different consoles. That's why it's nice that this time we have 3 distinct consoles, and not 3 consoles that have the exact same feature set. If you don't like the Wii, don't buy it, It don't care. But there are obviously (based on sales) a lot of people who do like the Wii, so I wouldn't write it off as a failure. In less than a year, it's already sold 1/3 as many xboxes/GC that have ever sold, and that is while being supply constrained.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Maybe this sounds racist but I think most Miis look pretty much the same. I don't own a wii so maybe it's been updated since the last time I've played with it but the options seem pretty limited. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it for what it is and I made one with a beard that looked halfway like mine but if they are going to make a contest on creating the most "realistic" celebrity I think we're going to see a whole lot of nearly identical miis that don't look all THAT much like any particular celebrity.
It's a very rough caricature. How realistic can people make them? Someone will make Madonna and when it's pointed out I might even agree that it kind of looks like her but if I would never have looked at the mii and immediately thought MADONNA!
My nephews own a wii and they created a mii for everyone in our extended family. They did as good a job as anyone could do but I couldn't pick out who people were because the options would have to be a lot more detailed to distinguish between my nose and my brother's nose, for instance. So how are people going to vote on celebrity miis? This one's head is a LITTLE bit bigger. That one has a slightly darker skin color. How do you decide which is better when they are all nearly identical?
I feel the same way, I owned mine for a total of seven weeks. I played zelda for about three then it sat there unused for the rest of the time as I had no more motivation to play it (who cares about everybody votes or miis).
I was offered $450CAD by somebody who was having trouble finding one in the stores and literally bit their hand off.
Interesting observation: PS3 has been selling at the same rate as the XBox360 if you look at the initial as well as current slopes. And the Wii has been selling roughly more than twice as fast. Which essentially means that the revenue generated by the Wii is probably comparable to that generated by the PS3 and the Xbox. Of course, MS and Sony have been taking losses on their console sales while Nintendo has been making a profit.
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
"They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks"
I have been waiting for this for ages!! now playing a shooter will make far more sense on the Wii!!
On the flip-side:
Look at DDR and Guitar Hero. Both feature accessories that are incredibly limited in scope. Yet Harmonix and Konami are raking in cash with them. Which you pointed out.
Also, a lot of arcade games these days center around non-traditional input devices.
Talk to HCI people and I think they'll agree that custom inputs will always be preferred to a general device by users. Especially if it maps a lot better to the task at hand. If the game industry wants to expand beyond the core audience, they need to break down the barrier between the game and the user. Which means, doing away with the abstract link between pushing buttons and what happens on screen. Which is pretty damn evident when you look at the near universal appeal of something like Guitar Hero.
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Yeah, well I bet you thought "Wii" was a dumb name as well. It didn't do the console any harm. And WiiFit seems to fit in (pun definitely intended) alongside Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Music nicely. You might not go out and buy it, buy there are a lot of people who will. Apparently it's all about the casual gamer now; and for me that's good as I seem to like games aimed at the casual gamer; probably because I am one, I just don't have time to dedicate a 20 hour gaming session to my latest game (unless it's Civ, but that's another matter; we all have our vices ;p).
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Did no one else look at this thing and instantly think "Tony Hawk"?
Come on - medium sensor board, that's light and wireless, detects weight and pressure both?
Slap a shock-absorber attachment on the bottom so that it doesn't snap in half when you come down on it and you have an instant virtual skateboard. Hell you could even make a velcro attachment to the WiiMote so you could strap it to your leg to mimic pushing off.
Way to get angry over ONE game.
They are releasing a lot of minigames, I'll give you that, but there's also a lot of other stuff out there. Metroid Prime, Zelda, and the Mario series are all very much not minigames. Actually, they become more and more "epic" with each new game they release from any of those series.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm not.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
I find it interesting that the preceding post got 5 points for being "interesting" -- come on, the guy is just talking about getting outside once in a while instead of staying indoors, continually mesmerised by some vapid gaming console! Really, it's not all that unusual! This is news to you kids??
It's the trend I'm seeing here. It started with the DS - which I ended up selling out of disinterest - and it's continuing onto the Wii. More and more focus on getting non-gamers and party games, nothing new for the existing gamer base.
My point was that they announced new casual / non-games, and said "Hey we're not forgetting about the hardcore" but didn't show us anything new to prove that.
Have you tried a Wii yet? Dismissing the remote as just something to "waggle" while you play does not begin to cover the capabilities that it's already demonstrated. I'll agree that much of what has been done with the Wii has been less about adding to traditional gaming, and more about creating new types of gaming, I still think we've gotten some hints at ways that the wiimote can improve even "traditional" game types. Redsteel certainly wasn't a perfect game, but the ability to point and aim like that in a FPS is ridiculously awesome. I'm extremely excited for the new metroid game. Madden football on the Wii is a significantly different experience than it is on other consoles.
Whether you were a gamer five years ago or never picked up a controller in your life until the Wii came out shouldn't really have a bearing on whether or not you enjoy something like WiiSports. It's not a new experience for non-gamers, it's a new experience for everyone, because games didn't work like that before.
Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid, SSB, Zelda...Nintendo is working on as many "deep" games as they always have, they're just also making a bunch of more casual games as well. Not to be too accusatory or anything, but you sort of sound like another "real" gamer who just feels like whining because "normal" people getting more into your hobby devalues it in your mind.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Super Scope: 1 (six I guess, if you're the type of person who would count Wii Sports as 5 games).
Super Scope had at least 2 others. Yoshi's Safari and some robot battling game. Might've been more, but those were the interesting ones.
There's always talk of expanding the audience at Nintendo conferences these days. They're reaching out to the casual gamer, they're growing the gaming market, they're making gaming mainstream and they're doing it in style, or so they say.
Last generation, the gaming market was somewhere around 150 million console sales in total, and 100 million+ of that was PS2 sales. In order to grow the market, they're really going to need to sell more than their rivals last sales total of 100 million consoles, right? And something makes me wonder exactly how many Wii customers are first time buyers...
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." - George Orwell, 1984
Mario Kart Online? No? really?
I think you're missing what created the hype in the first place. It wasn't you. It wasn't the gamers. It was the old people playing videogames for the first times in their lives. It was the parents, gaming with their kids. It was the kids, getting off the couch and jumping around. It was was the soccer moms, touching a videogame controller twenty years after they last played Pong.
The Wii Fitness thing may very well be huge. This may be the next Nintendogs, the next Brain Training, the next Wii Sports. The fact that most "hardcore" gamers don't really care doesn't factor in at all.
Metroid, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy may all seem like important games, but it's possible that they won't be able to compare to the importance of something casual like the Wii Balance Board.
I'm not a gamer but I did play wii tennis one evening, great fun.
Just wondering if there's a game equivalent of Amazon's one-click patent for games (be surprised if there weren't). It seems to me that the wii is the first console to implement several "obvious" concepts; will the other console makers have to license any of them?
Aiming works perfectly well if you calibrate the pointer. In fact, most modern arcade shooters don't use light guns at all, they use a similar mechanism to the one used by the Wii. Although the Zapper did look pretty stupid, I would have preferred a one-handed gun for stuff like the new Resident Evil.
DC: twin-stick, maracca controller, fishing controller, dance pad, seaman mic, driving controller, light gun, arcade stick, mouse, keyboard
PS2:eyetoy, singstar mic, dual shock pad, fishing controller, driving controller, rez vibrator,novelty chainsaw and katana controllers, dance pad, guitar controller, beatmania controller, keyboard, mouse
Yeah, they're going to get hammered. Hammered by money showers which... hammer money down on their... heads. Or something. Batshit crazy? Batshit crazy like a fox!
Did they still pay you after you bit their hand off?
And some people thought the PS3 cost an arm and a leg
It's fun. Wii sports is a great party game. It works ok for FPS gaming. But a control scheme becomes transparent once you're playing the game - after a certain point the game has to stand on its own, fancy controller or not.
I was sold on the controller at the outset and hoped it would create new experiences. It does that but so far those experiences seem very shallow.
I'm not whining because my hobby's being devalued - the more the merrier - I'm simply sad that Nintendo's changing directions and it's not a direction that interests me.
Don't get me wrong - I'm still excited about the Zelda's and Metroid's of the world. But a lot of Nintendo's franchises on the DS felt very phoned in (and most of them were outsourced) and it seems like they're so focused on the casual segment that they're not really coming up with new ideas for the traditional gamer.
I've used mine just about every night in the last 3 weeks, mostly for Wii Sports (yes, it still hasn't lost its appeal even after 6 months), since I can just turn it on, play a few games and then turn it off again. I have plenty of games for PS2 and X-Box I could work on finishing, but I love being able to just turn it on, play for 20 minutes and turn it off. Sure there have a been a couple of stretches where I didn't use it much for a while, usually because I had a new PS2 game or something, but I always come back to it later. I can't think of any reason for any Wii to be getting dusty, especially since RE4 was just released, unless of course you're a student or unemployed so you have more than 2-3 hours of free time a day. Sure Wii has had a lot of mini-game type stuff released for it, but that's because its fits the casual gamer target audience. You could just as easily argue that the XBox360 has too many FPS games on it and are there really more worthy titles out for the PS3 at this point as compared to the Wii? Smash Bros and Mario Galaxy alone should be worth hanging onto your Wii for. 3rd party support is definately coming - it's just taking a while since a lot of developers anticipated the sales of PS3 and Wii to be switched and they have to figure out what to do with the new controllers. I think a lot of hardcore gamers and PS3/XBox fanboys fail to realize that part of the reason the Wii is selling so well compared to those is because a Wii is cheaper than both systems, works on a standard TV, and just about anyone can pick up the games and play. Would I like a PS3 eventually? Maybe, but it would cost me about $1500 to make it worthwhile even after the price drop because I, like most households in the US, don't have an HDTV yet, and other expenses have to take priority. No point in paying for a system with all those fancy graphics if I can only view them at 480i. Just an aside to anyone whining about the presentation this year being about business - that's what E3 is now. If you're looking for a presentation aimed at hardcore gamers, wait until TGS.
Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore?
Are you kidding? In some days I have to fight people at home to play on a PSOne! We would kill one another if we had a Wii...
So say we all
This year (and a bit into next year, I guess), we're going to get Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros and a new Mario Kart (oh, and a bunch of awesome DS games, such as a brand new and apparently fantastic Zelda game). I don't know what you expect from a Nintendo console, but if that doesn't make you happy, no Nintendo console ever did.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the Nintendonut.
I doubt it. People buying a 100$ console and people buying a 500$ console are an entirely different market, I think.
I don't think the PS2 is competing with the PS3. If anything, it's competing with the Wii.
GOW2 seems like a big hit for Sony. But why isn't it a big hit for the PS3? I doubt that every PS2 sold is a lost Wii sale. Nintendo last time I looked was selling every Wii they made.Which actually means that a lot of people looking for a Wii may end up with a PS2 instead. They wouldn't pay twice as much and buy a PS3, but they might pay half as much and buy a PS2. I doubt it happens often, but it seems more likely that the PS2 is stealing from the Wii than from the PS3.
Some of us find the abstract concept of "outside" very fascinating. Maybe one day we can design experiments to yield observable results that might prove the existance of "outside". Until then, we can only speculate as to its nature.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I didn't finish Trauma Center because of that stupid star. The detection on that wasn't very intuitive and made it frustrating when I screwed up at a crucial moment. Had I been in a real emergency room, I'd have been dragged out waving my hands in the air wildly as my patients died cursing the air blue about a star.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Nintendo should be ashamed that you still can't go into your local big box store and buy a Wii off the shelf. Almost 9 months since release and they're still as rare as a cow grazing in a field.
-Kinsey
10 hours a WEEK? Jesus, dude.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The "given up on it gamer"........
;)
Which as the article states is the audience they are now going for.
I totally hear your sentiment, I was one of them too. Hell, I even picked up Zelda and was disgusted after spending 30 minutes to get a goddamned fishing rod and threw it out... But Tuesday night mahjong in Beijing with my far ranging expat crowd has now been replaced with Tuesday night Wii bowling league or Wario Whatever madness.... Laughing the whole time about how my bowling alley serves the finest wine and provides footwear par excellance
Have you actually played this thing? One of our friends just got back from a 4 week stint in the States and it was the first thing she mentioned. I cant even make the word of mouth marketing on this thing up.
Sorry, im sold. This thing is Just Plain Fun -
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
On an interesting note, one of the major reasons I haven't done much time with either my Wii, 360 or PS2 is because of WoW, and not because of Raids.
I figured out that I grew very accustomed to playing video games with an audience. In college I had my roommate around all the time to play with or around. Now that I've graduated and have my own bachelor pad, I simply can't sit down and play games for inordinate amounts of time without someone else present in one capacity or another.
To some extent, WoW allows me to simulate my college days. Whether it's text only or vent, the social aspect is what has me playing more than anything else. Ironically, I brought my old college pals into the fold, bringing everything full circle.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Yes, I play mine almost every day. My wife also plays it often, she is a sucker for anything Mario Bros. and loves Super Paper Mario. I currently have a stack of games that will take me at least 2-3 months to burn through.
I almost feel like the Wii was made just for me. I burnt out on the hardcore online gaming scene about 5 years ago, and haven't been able to keep interest in any serious games since then. It's not that I don't like new games, it's that I no longer have hours a day to invest in a game that takes 60 hours to complete. My gaming time has been cut down to an hour, hour and a half at a time max.
I even thought for a couple years that I was no longer a gamer, until the DS rescued me from that dark vision.
I guess if I was still a "hardcore" gamer and was into online play and FPS or MMORPG games I'd be underwhelmed by the Wii. But I'm not, my glory years of gaming are in the past and now I feel like there's a game company that understands that.
In short, I've become an old man.
Randal: I hope it feels good.
Customer: You hope what feels good?
Randal: I hope it feels so good to be right. There is nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Well, at least you understand why they're doing it.
As someone whom gaming has been steadily leaving behind in terms of skill dexterity (and patience), I'm glad to see someone is accounting for the fact that old geezers like me still want something to pick and play with in short bursts, and doesn't need 40 hours/week to play or preternatural dexterity to control 15 buttons simultaneously in a fast-paced game. I last about 10 minutes on a modern game, get frustrated, and stop playing it altogether.
Nintendo does seem to be abandoning you as a segment. But, in order to sell more games with a wider appeal, they're focusing more on other segments (those without l337 gaming skills). Give it time, if the Nintendo platform keeps selling as it has been, the other game makers will have to start releasing their more "hard core" games on the platform.
Unfortunately, the choice seems to be between "amazing graphics but unplayable for many people" or "moderate graphics, but playable by anyone". There's obviously more people interested in the latter category.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, all the accessories nintendo announced today, come with the game that they are designed for, so free wheel with mario kart, free gun with resi, etc.
I hear this argument about "my dusty Wii" all the time. Nintendo didn't make the Wii for you. Nintendo doesn't care if you don't like the Wii. Nintendo made the Wii for Casual Gamers and Families. Not hardcore gamers. So it was novel for you initially, and now it's boring. Fine. Good for you. You can play your PS3/XBOS360. But a casual gamer who really doesn't care about the super-extreme technical goodness offered by the PS3/XBOX360 is satisfied by the Wii, because it is FUN and it is something that the whole family can enjoy. My parents and my aunt and uncle, who never play games actually enjoy playing the Wii. This is more than I can say for any console that I have ever owned.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I don't understand how a "long-time moderate gamer" who has owned every Nintendo console (a description that nearly fits me) could say that a company that's releasing Twilight Princess; Mario Galaxy, Party, Paper, and Kart; Super Smash Brothers; and Wii Sports (have you actually played it?) is "ignoring you." What exactly do you WANT?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Is that for The Simpson movie game?
Insert Sig Here
I don't own a Wii, so I only get to play when I'm at a friend's house, but we play almost every time we get together. I can see how it wouldn't be as fun playing with your Wii by yourself (sorry, couldn't resist). It's been great for us late-20's geeks, though.
Within 5 minutes of getting my wii i realized this and while shooting games are easier and more fun on the Wii, its not an exact pointer. You cant aim the wii-mote, its not exact, its relative to the screen and the sensor bar and behaves much like a mouse. So unless theres some kind of calibration for it that hasn't been done in any other game, i see the zapper only causing problems.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
For a lot of operations, you don't need the star. The secret is the antibiotic gel. The syringe is too slow to fill up and should only be used in extreme emergency situations. Apply some gel everytime you can, even if there are no wounds in sight. It'll make your patient recover 2-3 hp, which may sound ridiculous, but anything that slows down the hp's fatal descent is a good thing.
Although, they WOULD like your party scenario to come true - and heck, so would I, Karaoke Revolution totally made the New Year's party I went to this year, blew away the Pictionary from earlier in the night easily. Having a video game in the room doesn't reduce socialization, it's just one more fun thing to do with your friends.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
One of the most bizarre instances of up-modding I've seen recently.
... that it was up-modded so much.
I find it very.. hmm... interesting
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Please, please, please, please... Even combining the balance board with the Zapper could provide a cool way to duck and move with an FPS.
I think the 360 boost is more due to Christmas than any help from the Wii or PS3. I think the accelerating rate of sales in November and December followed by an instant return to the previous rate of sales right around December 25 gives that away.
Exactly. I think people would call Suda51 "batshit crazy" after playing Killer7, and at the same time call him a "legendary game designer". I know I did.
"It's a beautiful day. Let's go rock climbing." "Hmm, sounds like fun, but I'd rather stay home and play with my Wii."
Well, let's think of densely populated metropolises like NYC and Tokyo, where access to rock climbing isn't quite available to everyone. In fact, where access to any outdoor activity is severely limited unless you get yourself out of the city and pollution.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
This thing launched what, eight months ago? And I've still never even seen one on a store shelf. Amazon still doesn't have them, the few sites that do seem to be still only selling them as fat, expensive bundles. I have never had an opportunity to just pick up a wii.
Now, no, I'm not sleeping outside of stores. I'm not waiting for the circulars with their coded statements that they have 5 in stock and rushing down to get in line. I'm a grown-up now and done camping out for products like that. I'll buy one when I can casually walk into a store and pick one off the shelf. I would expect an initial sell-out of a hot new product, maybe a month or two or three before stocks become readily available. But we're coming up on a year now and I've still never seen one, and neither have any of my friends. It may as well not exist for most of us - the people who don't have "connections", aren't going to wait in line all night, and don't care to get raped on ebay.
I'm a Nintendo fanboi all the way back - have 6 working consoles from NES through gamecube in my house - but what a colossal fuck-up the whole thing has been. Eight plus months and the store employees still laugh when you ask if they have any coming in. They not only misread the initial demand, but they've been utterly unable to ramp up production to meet it over the very, very long time now since launch.
Sorry, Nintendo, you lost me about six months ago. I got tired of trying and now my interests are elsewhere.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Which ones? New Super Mario Bros was great. Mario Kart DS was the best so far, Zelda PH, looks crazy good already... Metroid Prime was good as an FPS (even if it was a deviation from the Metroid formula of Exploration, and isolation)... The only real disapointment I had was Starfox: Command, and EVEN That could have been vastly improved just by offering traditional controls, vs the touch screen controls that "Kinda work... most of the time"...
Which games / franchises are you referring to specifically? Just curious.
The problem is simple, Zelda one of their flagship games was watered down, tiger woods was rushed to production leaving out many features and jumpy game play. They need games that would lend them selves to using a pointer, besides call of doodey, star wars games seem to fit the bill. The potential for great games is what people were sold on, it's now a 10 months since their release, and their best game is Zelda. It's not about revolutionizing the gaming industry it's about having quality games.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
### Metroid Prime, Zelda, and the Mario series are all very much not minigames.
They are not mini-games, but they are the same kind of games that I already played over and over again on past Nintendo consoles. There already have been multiple Metroids, Zelda, Marios, PaperMarios, MarioKarts and even SmashBros. They are not bad games, but I don't buy consoles to play the same games I already played some years ago. With the Wii its especially bad, since those games don't even look all that different, you really have to look closely to not mistake them for their Gamecube counterparts. That Nintendo games aren't exactly big on story either doesn't help. So instead of continuing a storyline, those games are just the same thing with a few details shuffled around.
There is close to nothing happening on the Wii when it comes to new franchises that are meant for the gamer.
Get some friends, then. If you're looking to just play with yourself, get something with the standard "joystick" interface.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
So far the only 2 games I've liked have been Zelda and Elebits.
Man, I wish I hadn't posted in this thread already.
I just want to add... "ditto".
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I still use my a lot: Mario Strikers, Elebits, Excite Truck, SSX Blur
Yeah, if you have friends.
You types creep me out.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Kill the non-believer!
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
"Good job hoarding Wiis and DSes to create artificial demand, you scum-sucking marketing pigs."
Yeah, they delivered millions of machines by hording them.
It didn't make sense when Microsoft and Sony were accused of this, it doesn't make sense now.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Seems like this question keeps popping up. . .
Yes. Lots of folks still use it. I am still working through Twilight Princess for the first time. Yeah, the weather and news channels get old REALLY fast. I've also been playing my PS2, so I've never burnt out on the Wii. I'm also looking forward to Strikers Charged at the end of the month.
You don't give any hints, but generally the folks who are terribly bored with it are "gamers". The traditional gamer fodder just isn't on the Wii right now (if it ever is).
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
I never understood the appeal of metroid, but to each their own. Personally I can't wait till Animal Crossing comes out! It was a big reason I bought a Wii, that and the Virtual Console. I knew before I bought it that I would more than likely never dish out $50 for a game, that's just way to much money. But getting to play classic games for $5-10, internet browsing, news, weather, it's been a treat. If only they would add streaming media support (not flash in Opera) I think Nintendo could completely ditch it as a gaming machine and market it as a wonderful entertainment box, and I would buy it for that reason alone.
Your "closer inspection" is a bit flawed I think. The reason that the 360 sales spiked a bit at that time will be because it was coming up to Christmas. If you look at the sales history of pretty much any console I would expect that there are similar spikes every 12 months. I can't really remember but there may well have been a lot of 360 games launched in that time period that drove sales as well. I suppose it is possible that lack of PS3 hardware for the initial stint (weeks?) might have fueled sales, but I think the real explanation is a bit more reasonable. The kind of people desperate to get a PS3 would likely know exactly what they wanted and wouldn't just buy a 360 because they were in stock.
I like how Id games do it. You can connect to a central server, get a list of open games and open people and just play. after a while you can gain (game friends) and it's easier to setup times with people you've at least talked to before.
Meanwhile after adding countless friends codes and knowing NONE of them, it's VERY VERY rare to get a game with anyone. So it virtually kills net play for me. The only game I've had any luck playing online with was Animal Crossing for DS.
I know people are going to respond "it was designed to be safe for kids to keep sicko's away" and I can see that as a valid point. But don't make games like Metroid, and market to everyone and impose this rule that destroys the online gaming experience. If I was a parent I would monitor my kids gaming, don't hard code it so everyone is screwed. Done venting, lol.
Definitely Starfox Command - it was pretty weak. I tried so hard to enjoy it but failed.
Sorry but Metroid was not that great - positively carpal-inducing controls and it just felt like Quake 2 on a handheld; nothing particularly Metroid about it.
Both of those were outsourced. The worst offenders, though, were the awful Yoshi's Island game and Partners in Time. Dry games that were complete rehashes of previous installments and failed to capture the charm or fun of their predecessors.
Mario basketball and Princess Peach were astoundingly mediocre as well.
That said, I agree 100% on Mario Kart and 80% on NSMB (I liked it but did not love it). I'd also throw in the brilliant Kirby's Canvas Curse, which is one of the more memorable and unique games on the system. But it seems like the first party stuff misses more than it hits these days.
On reflection you're probably right, I totally forgot that the launches of the Wii\PS3 were in the run up to Christmas. However I don't think that you can entirely rule out the impact of the increased media interest in consoles helping the 360 either. I'd guess it was a mix of both: around 80% Christmas, 20% Wii\PS3 (Yes I made those numbers up, but this is /., if I can't make stuff up here, where can I do it ;p).
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
I think the mat will definitely have applications for skate or snowboard games.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Yeah, I've conceded that in a sibling post. I totally forgot that the launches were in the run up to chritstmas. Well it was a nice reminder that coralation doesn't equal causation anyway.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
In either case, the main point you were making about Wii sales still stands. If things keep going the way there are Wii will be in front before we get to the holiday season - it's only 1 million behind xbox 360 after all.
I'd be interested in seeing some statistics on how many of those giving up on the Wii were social gamers, and how many were solitary. In my experience, most single-player games get boring quickly. The console games I've played the most is Death Tank on the Sega Saturn (secret game on the Duke Nukem 3D disk), which supports up to 7 players (with a multi-tap). The graphics are laughably primitive (your 'tank' is a trapezium), but the game is great fun on a decent sized screen. Rounds last a minute or two, and a whole game can take around half an hour. The people knocked out first get a hand free to grab their drink for a bit (which doesn't necessarily help them in the next round...).
I used to play a lot of FPS type games, but I never really got into Internet play, and getting a load of people and machines in the same place is a lot harder than just getting the people. I haven't bought any of the current generation of consoles, but if I did then I'd be looking for something with party-gaming potential.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
2004- When the DS was revealed, they laughed at it. PSP would destroy it, and Nintendo would go third party.
2005- When the "Revolution" was revealed, they laughed at it. "Nintendo cannot compete." Meanwhile, they went 'ONE CONSOLE FUTURE' to the Sony Killzone 2 trailer and Microsoft's Xbox 360 showing.
2005- (TGS) When Nintendo revealed the Wii controller, they laughed at it. They compared it to the Powerglove and that it would flop. They hailed Xbox 360 launch as start of 'high definition' generation.
2006- When the Wii name is announced, hardcore gamers laughed and considered the Revolution to be 'dead' on arrival. After all, who would play the 'Wii' when there were much cooler names like Playstation 3 and Xbox 360?
2006- Nintendo's excellent E3 showing was not worth thinking about, they said. After all, Nintendo fans go ballistic on every Nintendo E3 presence. PS3's brand name would sail it past very fast. And while PS3 was expensive, you got so much value in it! Wii wasn't future proofed.
2006- Wii's $250 price shocked them and they declared it too expensive for any reasonable person to buy. The bundling of Wii Sports would destroy third party software sales. Don't bother pre-ordering since you can walk in the afternoon and buy it anytime.
2007- Wii is still selling out. Obviously, it must be a fad. A novelty. Hardcore gamers believe they are the mainstream after all. PS3 is not 'dead'. It is just 'slow' in starting. It will overtake the market in time. It just has too.
2007- Wii Balance Board? "Nintendo is DEAD as a gaming company!" they proclaim. "I don't even turn on my Wii anymore," they keep telling us. Obviously, the end of Wii had come and everyone will rush to get Xbox 360s and PS3s.
The pattern shows that Hardcore Gamers have been 100% wrong on Nintendo ever since the DS. Why should we listen to them now? They're wrong then, and they are wrong today.
Hardcore gamers say, "I understand Nintendo trying to expand the audience. But why don't they listen to us?" It is because hardcore gamers ARE the problem with gaming. Microsoft and Sony listened to them and look at where that got them. The more Nintendo defies the hardcore, the more their success.
You know gaming is heading downhill when Smash Bros and Pokemon are considered hardcore gaming on slashdot...
No, I'm in exactly the same boat as you. I read on a different post that someone was about to play Wii Tennis for 4 HOURS! 4 games is about my limit before I'm done with that snoozefest. Seriously, I quite like the voting channel, Rayman was a lot of fun until I finished it, and Bowling is good with a non-gamer crowd for half an hour or so. But it really has lived up to my worst fears as just being a big gimmick, and all I see from the E3 presentation is more of the same (steering wheels, guns and speak-your-weight machines).
Still, I'll keep it because my wife loves everything Mario, so she'll get SMG when it comes out. I'm working my way through DiRT and Forza.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I'm curious why they haven't come out with a dedicated YouTube player yet. You'd think a large part of their target audience is the same as the crowd all the cell phones are aiming for that have such apps.
The Farewell Tour II
"The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal"
I think I saw that movie, Reggie Fills Aimee, and I must say it wasn't exactly Wii material if you ask me.
However, pron with the wii-mote could be interesting...gives a whole new vision of the old C64 game, Stroker...
...that in my opinion the majority of the great DS games are 3rd party. I've been talking about Nintendo's first party software here, which even on the DS is a little underwhelming (Mario Kart, Mario 64DS, Advance Wars and Kirby are great, NMSB is ok, and the non-games don't really appeal to me).
Almost all of my favorite DS games were 3rd party.
I don't see why aiming down the barrel can't work. Obviously it doesn't work in current games, but I've never understood that either. Zelda already gets pretty close, though I haven't seen any other games that let you calibrate the pointer in any way, which should have been built into the system in the first place.
The Farewell Tour II
Aiming down the barrel won't work because the wii remote simply isn't accurate enough to do it. It might be more or less correct, but if you stand up or move, or if you hold the gun to your shoulder and sometimes hold it by your waste it will lose calibration. And even when calibrated it could still be off by a good margin depending on factors such as your distance from the set, position and so on. I bet games using the zapper still feature an onscreen crosshair.
I know that this is going to be modded down as flamebait (and rightfully so) but I'm sick of the goddam Wii and the watered-down bullshit games for it. The games are fun, but they're shallow and the fun doesn't last long. Everyone that I know that owns a Wii, had an absolute blast with it for the first few weeks they had it and they became bored by the overly simplistic gameplay and the Wii sits unused in their living rooms. You can offer the arguement that it has widespread appeal and it's not for the hardcore gamer, but that's a crap arguement. Popularity is not a sign of quality. As someone once rightfully said, "The masses are asses." Michael Bay keeps on making movies that financially successful, but that doesn't mean that any of them are worth a damn. That being said, the DS is a wonderful device with a wide variety of games that manages to cater to thetaste of pretty much any gamer. More DS, less Wii.
The Zapper isn't coming with Umbrella Chronicles. It is coming with some pack of games for $19.99. It'll probably end up being something like Wii Play, but with guns. Maybe it will include a Duck Hunt update, but I don't think we'll be lucky enough to see an online FPS where you get to shoot the heads off of Miis.
The Farewell Tour II
I call bull-shit on this remark. If they actually mean across all age groups then why can't I as an over thirty gamer play Manhunt2 in it's original form. What a crock of shit.
Another reason to blow
The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
I probably fall more into the hardcore category than I do the casual category, and I still love the Wii. I like the fact that it's fun and interactive. I thought the new Paper Mario was great, even if it was a bit easy. The best part of the Wii is that everyone can play, though, so I can actually enjoy games with a group of friends and family now, instead of by myself or just online. The Wii is just plain fun.
rm -rf
you got a virtual boy but not a wii? why?
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
[...]
I guess you mean 'literally' in the metaphorical sense?
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Other games may not have functions that are so clearly mappable to hand movements and therefore any movements they have might not be so obviously compelling. However I think that motion controls will (assuming they are usable, obviously bad controls of any sort can ruin a game) provide a more enjoyable experience over-all, if for no other reason that physical activity helps good things happen in the brain.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Everyone plays Wii!
Wii Wii Wii!
Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii!
Everyone plays Wii!
And so this is the end of our story
And everyone is playing their Wii
It took from me my best friend
My only true pal
My only bright star (he's addicted to his Wii)
Well I'm gonna march on the E3
Lead the fight and charge the brigades
There's a gamer inside of all of us
I'll make them see everyone plays Wii
My father (Wii!)
My sister (Wii!)
My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (Wii Wii Wii!)
The gays and the straights
And the white and the spades
Everyone plays Wii!
My grandma and my dog 'ol blue (Wii Wii Wii)
The pope has played it and so have you (Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii)
C'mon everybody we got gaming to do (Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii )
We gotta break down these baricades, everyone plays
Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii
Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii
Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii
Wii Wii Wii Wii Wii
.
Circumcision is child abuse.
My family does. Interestingly, the most ardent and consistent fan is my two year old, who'll sit on the coffee table with a wiimote in one hand while watching TV. He'll glance at the WII ever so often and flick the wiimote to "participate" in whatever he's got up on it's screen. My ten year old plays a couple times a week but it gets a serious workout when she has friends over. It is engaging enough that my wife's planning the kids a WII party and has tasked me with buying two more remotes as well as a new game (Mario, I think she wants). My teen came home on Spring break and had a whale of a time playing with her siblings.
Instead of seeing diminished use over time, I'm seeing the opposite. I, like the OP, had basically stopped playing after the first few week but the toddler has literally dragged me back to the WII and I now do find myself happy to spend a couple of hours with him on it over a weekend. I really do wish he'd stop thinking that 2:00 a.m. is a good time though...
Just in case I've given the impression that I've got screen-fixated, all-geek kids, let me hasten to note that the college kid sings, did the dance troupe bit, and parties hard with a (seemingly) alright clique, while the ten year old bikes, sings, roller blades, plays with bugs(!), does gymnastics and studies drums, piano and guitar. The two year old is active enough that my wife is insisting that we start him off at martial arts next year in hopes of bleeding off some of the boundless energy that makes watching him a tag team effort.
This is sort of OT, but I've recently been playing X-Men: Legends on the original Xbox. It's really fun, doesn't require a lot of dexterity (but has combos you can learn if you want), and you can pick it up and play for just a short period of time. Why, just yesterday I played for 20 minutes then went back to studying. It's a really fun game.
Ditto. My mother, who hasn't played a video game since the original NES version of Super Mario Bros., tried the Wii for the first time last week and loved it. She must have played Wii Play fishing for an hour.
There's actually a bar here in Boston that does this... Every Tuesday night is Wii night at the Wonder Bar. You put down a $40 deposit for the remote.
I haven't gone in(I noticed it the other week while on the way somewhere else), so I can't comment on how successful it is.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Personally, I'm a solo gamer (I live in a small, middle-of-nowhere town where vidya games and them thar compooterizing things are new fangled gizmos), and I haven't really played mine in a while. I mean, I've used it to finish up some old Gamecube games I didn't complete...
But I'm still happy with my Wii. I don't expect a new Must-Have game every month. I enjoyed the hell out of Zelda, Trauma Center, DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, and Super Paper Mario. It also gave me a chance to relive some classics from my youth, like Streets of Rage 2, Super Mario World, and Zelda: Link to the Past.
And coming soon, I get another Smash Bros., I'll try to pick up Wario Ware, and I'm awaiting a few more titles for the Virtual Console (namely Mario RPG).
Really, considering it's not even been a year, I think that's a good deal. I may be what I consider a "hardcore gamer" but I don't expect my entire free-time to revolve around one system. Plus, the little multiplayer time I've had has been a blast. If Nintendo can get some decent online matching up, it'll be worth the wait.
Besides, if you're a "real" gamer, I'm sure you've got a backlog of games for other systems. I know I do. DS, PS2, PC, GCN...
Please note, this does not mean I didn't wish there weren't more immediate goodies, but... Jesus, patience, people.
Man, I'm with you, I totally prefer to play refined rip-off of a Mario 64 rehash starring an anthropomorphic critter with guns #6, now with better graphics, too.
The point being that in that department, no one else has anything either unless you're shallow enough to only care about the window dressing that surrounds the gameplay.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Interestingly, that is what I like about the Wii. Just like the DS, I don't feel I have to commit to a game (because I have to master it, or I will forget the goals of the game). I can pick it up and play for a while, forget about it for a few weeks, then come back to it. I understand that if you're a hardcore gamer that needs deep commitment experiences the Wii may not be the console for you. Maybe the PS2 and to an extent the X360 are better options. But remember, one of these days you'll become a casual gamer too.
Making it worse?! How could it be worse?! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ThIBLy1tYg
Try not to fall asleep at the sound of the guy's voice...
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
I should clarify this because I've been belaboring this point for a few days.
Say for the sake of argument the new Jak & Daxter or Ratchet & Clank(or whatever) and Mario Galaxy both turn out to be absolutely fantastic platformers. Great level design, great controls... the only appreciable difference apart from characters is that Galaxy doesn't have a teen angst storyline, and the other does. That's what I meant by window dressing. If you love 3D Platformers, why would the fact that an excellent 3D platform features Mario turn you off? If both are out for the same console, you love 3D platformers, and you own that console, wouldn't you pick up both?
That's with all things being equal. If Galaxy was a better platformer... wouldn't it make more sense to grab it?
People do this to Nintendo franchises all the time. The characters are old, so the game is a rehash. Then they'll turn around and praise the 4th sequel to a game that itself was originally a rehash of another game that defined or created a genre, for some reason I can't comprehend. The only thing I can come up with is that they are very shallow in their gaming tastes.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The Wii isn't designed to replace bars, parties, and hot sex. It's designed to replace "400 hundred channels and there's nothing on!!" or "Dude, I'm so bored" or "Let's go to the movie theater". I'd go out on a limb and say that that's the nightlife for most people 4-5 nights a week. The only people I know with a life like you describe every single night are college kids failing their classes.
(Disclaimer: I am not you. You might have a life where-in you do go out or have sex every night of the week. If so, congratulations. But that's not typical).
The purest gamer are these new casual players who are only looking for fun. They don't make top ten lists. They don't put photos of Japanese vending machines on a blog. They don't try to analyze the industry. They don't try to imagine games as a type of 'high art' like literature.
They are much more picky with their time. It is easier to make a game for a hardcore player than a casual player. As you said, most people in the games industry are hardcore players. So all they have to do is make a game for themselves. But that is the route to failure.
Movies began to suck when Hollywood began making movies for *themselves* rather than the mass population.
Most books suck because the writer will write for himself/herself instead of for a mass population.
Games began to suck when programmers and all began making games for themselves. Iwata's first speech as president was the "Heart of the Gamer" where he asks, "Are we just making games for ourselves?" One of the Oliver twins echoed the same thing telling todays game designers that they must make games outside their own narrow interests.
And Miyamoto is not a hardcore gamer. He is probably a bored gamer. If people are tired of playing the same games with fancier graphics, don't you think guys like Miyamoto are tired of making them? For all we know, part of the reason why Wii was made was because Nintendo got bored.
Console gaming is supposed to cater to the casuals. Atari 2600 appealed to everyone. The NES was a family console. Only as time went on, the consoles catered more and more to the hardcore. They were the fools with no lives spending fortunes on getting every system, every hot game, buying new home theaters and tvs just for their game console, and even willing to pay half a grand for a game console. Sony and Microsoft view hardcore gamers as 'useful idiots' where they can trojan in all their REAL non-gaming crap from Blu-Ray to downloadable movies.
Nintendo is the true gaming hardware company right now. It is Sony and Microsoft pursuing the non-game route. Hell, they don't even call their systems "game consoles". To them, they call it 'computer entertainment systems'.
It was the casual games that defined this industry. Casual Pong made this industry, not hardcore Computer Space. Pac-Man was huge. Beserk was not. Super Mario Brothers was huge. The 'epic games' on the computers then were not. Tetris was huge while other games, with far superior graphics, were not. Wii Sports is huge while Gears of War was nothing but a fad. And don't get started on computer gaming with huge hits like The Sims or Myst.
Casual gamers are the true axis in which this industry revolves around. Hardcore are not in the center but on the far edges.
The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were mostly designed with hardcore gamers in mind.
Hardcore said, "We want bigger, more epic, games."
So the games kept getting bigger and more epic.
Hardcore said, "I want my game console to take advantage of my new HD console and uber speakers."
Lo and behold, those consoles do just that.
There is no pleasing the hardcore. All they do is whine, whine, and whine. The reason why consoles now cost $400-$600 dollars is because of the hardcore and their constant demands. They are driving the bread and butter of the industry, REGULAR gamers away. The market was already shrinking in Japan and beginning to stagnate in the West. These expensive HD systems would have shrunk the market. As the market shrinks and costs esculate, well, listen to what Cliffy Blezinsky said in December 2005:
"If video game pricing continues to go up, we will crash." http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1515122/20051128
Xbox 360? Let's see...
-Estimated 33% units are defective (probably 100% since it is a design flaw. Not a question of IF the console will fail but WHEN).
-N'gai Croal of Newsweek has called on Microsoft to recall the system.
-Xbox 360 has flopped in Japan.
-Xbox 360 is doing poorly in Europe especially outside the UK.
-Xbox 360 can't even outsell the PS2 in the United States. And PS2 is like six years old!
-Xbox 360 is tracking near the original Xbox sales. And Xbox was a failure as it sold around as much as the Gamecube.
I would not call the above 'doing well' in any sense.
The only silver lining is that Xbox 360 is outselling the PS3. But the difference between those systems is only around four or five million. With Microsoft dead in Japan and low presence in Europe, PS3 will likely surpass it in the long term.
I'm not being 'hateful'. I am trying to be 'truthful'. Game journalists are all hardcore gamers. They have not been expressing how really 'bad' things are currently going for Microsoft and Sony.
Sure it is. It does the left/right movements fine. And furthermore it does the up and down movements fine, they just don't properly offset the readings they're taking. There's no reason that they shouldn't be able to at least make it close enough that people won't notice. Changing angles relative to the TV should make no difference since the sensor bar is stationary.
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it isn't possible, but just saying that it isn't doesn't make it so and observing the system in action it sure seems like it wouldn't be hard to do right. Not sure why they aren't, but I highly doubt that it's because it isn't possible.
The Farewell Tour II
If you want to sell it, my roommate has been trying to buy one for a few months now. You could probably get the new system price out of him pretty easy too.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
The Wiimote is accurate enough. The problem is that the Wiimote has no idea where your TV is. You can calibrate it for one combination of Wiimote and sensor bar position - "This position is the edge of the TV" - but then if you move it will be wrong. There are too many unknowns for the Wii to be able to solve the equations. Personally I don't care, it's not like you need to use sights anyway: I've seen lots of people hit nearly every target in the Wii play shooting game.
The sensor bar is a specific size and stays in one place. There are not too many calculations to do. Of course if they assumed a standard sensor bar it'd screw things up for everyone using some third party one or a home made setup. But even those could be accounted for. In fact, when you're pointing the IR at the television the Wii should be able to tell EXACTLY where the TV is, either assuming the standard sensor bar or another one given calibration. The left/right calibration they already have down pretty well and shouldn't be too much work to get 100%. Clearly the vertical alignment can be adjusted because they allow for an above or below option. Just need to offset it and they should be able to get centered. There is NO reason for it not to be 100% accurate other than lazy, stupid programmers. That or Wii being so under powered it can't do the calculations, but that seems far fetched.
The Farewell Tour II
One problem is that the Wii can't really tell how far away from the bar you are. All it can see is the two IR LEDS. When you move further away, they get closer together. But they also get closer together when you move left or right, as the angle of the bar relative to the wiimote changes.
The sensor bar does but the player doesn't. If I pause the game to go to the toilet I am not going to return and stand / sit in exactly the same position as when I left. If I get tired holding the zapper to my shoulder and put it down by my waist the accuracy is screwed. If I have to budge up the couch because someone else comes in the room the accuracy is screwed.
The Wii remote approximates where you are aiming from the sensor bar and the attitude of the remote (since there is no vertical bar). There is NO WAY that you can aim down the "barrel" and shoot where you are aiming. Even if you calibrated it perfectly and stood like a statue it is bound to be off by a bit. Aiming might be more accurate if there were horizontal and vertical strips on the TV but there aren't so the vertical aiming is likely to the thing that suffers most.
I think the reviews of this gadget will reflect this. People will believe you can aim down it like a gun which won't be true at all.
### why would the fact that an excellent 3D platform features Mario turn you off?
It wouldn't, I still consider Mario64 by far the best 3D platformer around, Jak&Daxter and Ratchet&Clank don't even get close from that little bit I have played. The thing however is that MarioGalaxy looks like a mission-disc to MarioSunshine/Mario64, not like a new game. I mean, come on, this is Nintendo, they are famous for innovation, right? Why is it then that Little Big Planet looks a a lot fresher and more innovative then Galaxy? Platforming didn't stop with Mario64, there are still areas to explore, if nothing else, how about online multiplayer, coop and build in level editor or heck, what about Luigi, Yoshi and all that bunch? Its not rocket science, its what fans have wished for, for a long long time. Mario Galaxy however doesn't seem to provide any of that.
The issue isn't even MarioGalaxy alone, its that all games look like that, been there done that. Zelda:TP was an incredible boring and uninteresting game to play, since I already played way to many Zeldas before. I haven't even finished the last PaperMario on Gamecube, got bored half the way through, again I just finished Mario&Luigi before which is basically the same game, so why exactly should I get excited about the Wii one?
Looking at Nintendo games these days feels like Dejà Vu, been there done that, nothing interesting to see here, move along. And no, I am not claiming that Sony or Microsoft are without fault, but at least there I can see quite a few games that I haven't seen before, beside all those sequels.
PS: I am ignoring Wii Sports, Nintendogs and friends, because I don't even consider them games in the classical sense.
Buffalo Wild Wings bars are starting to do this, actually.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
They do kinda. The Opera browser supports flash. I often enjoy watching YouTube and video.google.com using my Wii. There are also several public domain movies you can watch. If you like old sci-fi or horror try doing a search.
The reason this wont work is because the pointer device only has 2 LED's to work with, which are a fixed distance apart.
This gives it the ability to work out how far you are, and the relative angle between yourself and the LED's. Your brain does the rest in convincing you that the pointer and your hand movement are actually aiming at one another. If you get too close to your tv, the illusion breaks down.
If they added a 3rd LED to give you height info, you could probably get more 'true' aiming, but only so long as all 3 LED's were visible to the camera in the Wii remote.
Alternatively, if you put the led bar in the center of your screen, you may also get the results you seek, but that would be retarded.
END COMMUNICATION
An in-depth analysis of what Wii Fit might mean to gaming can be found here:e r-are-wii-ready-for-more-16
http://www.standandcount.com/index.php/a-year-lat
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Little Big Planet is fresher than Mario Galaxy, but that's not really surprising. The only things I know of that Mario Galaxy is introducing is some physics, a bee suit, and planetoids. Little Big Planet otoh is basically a sand-box physics simulator, and that's pretty new outside PC games w/construction modes. One is an established series in a long-existing genre, and the other defies classification. A Wii corrolary would be stuff like Elebits and Trauma Center(or the DS version), both third party. Or things on the Horizon like Zack & Wiki.
Paper Mario has a cool twist to it, but it's still an RPG. Twilight Princess is like Ocarina and Link to the Past had a love child(and Phantom Hourglass looks better than TP). Smash is Smash. Metroid Prime is Metroid Prime. Of all of them, Paper Mario is probably the most unique. It plays differently than Mario & Luigi, but it lacks the charm Super Star Saga had.
You also have stuff like Project HAMMER, Endless Ocean, etc. The bulk of nintendo's truly new stuff is all "non-games" though.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
So, you got bored of playing *one* game for three weeks straight and decided that meant the console sucked, eh? Yeah, Mii's are kind of silly...except to my kids, who insisted they ahve their own look-alikes as soon as my wife made one for herself.
Leaving the "quitters never win" joke aside for the moment, I was looking forward to Super Mario Universe, but have been surprised at how much fun I have playing Wii Sports with my kids. My son now wants to go *real* bowling. My wife likes the paper mario games, and Super Paper Mario has been fun, too. Granted, that one can be completed, and then it's pretty much over, but Wii Sports, etc (Wii ping-pong is coming Dec 31st...no room for a table, but much love for the game) are always fun.
Maybe you should have tried a few games where multiple players were involved, and the goal was to best each other somehow...
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Good point. The terms aren't (necessarily) mutually exclusive, or derogatory.
Add 3 more people and Beer. Yup. I can see playing WiiSports Tennis for 4 hours. If you're playing solo, and don't find it challenging play some more as the computer AI ramps up the difficulty pretty well.
"It has gotten to the point where I feel like I am forcing myself to turn it on once a month or so."
It's a console six months after launch; is this any different than for any other system?
Myself, I've been playing my Wii almost daily since December. It's only taken a crunch-time moonlighting project to derail my Wii gamining time. I'm hoping to get things wrapped up before Mario Strikers and Metroid hit the shelves.
"I can't really imagine what they could come out with for the system that will bring back that hype I felt late last year."
If Metroid, Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, or Mario Kart can't interest you in the least, you need to get yourself checked. Super Mario Galaxy alone looks like a major leap forward in 3D platformers.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Not really, it's a pain in the ass to use because the text and interface are so small.
The Farewell Tour II
But why did the name have to sound like 8-track?
But Sony's format track record isn't all misses. PlayStation beat Saturn and N64 in the market, and PlayStation 2 beat Xbox and GameCube. Moreover, the Compact Disc Digital Audio format that Sony developed with Philips did prevail in the mid 1980s through early to mid 2000s.
I turn it on once a week or so, usually just to check out the polls and the news. I occasionally play Wii Sports or Excite Truck or Monkey Ball, but I'm waiting for Metroid and Super Mario Galaxy to come out. Oh well, gives me more time to finish up Kingdom Hearts II :) Where's the DS Download Station channel???