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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!
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The proper reference is Voltron.
Or Beowulf clusters if you want to strech it out a bit.
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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.
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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 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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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.
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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...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?
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.
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I kind of agree with the steering wheel and the zapper shell. The wheel looks more advanced (has buttons and such), but it's still just 'meh.'
The platform on the other hand, is HUGE. Look how many "non-gamers" like the Wii. Now give them an exercise device that is kind of fun to use, lets you do step-robics. It's like the mat from the NES days, but updated. Having all the balancing mechanics in it can open some more very interesting possibilities. It may die a quiet death, but it may be another game changer.
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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?
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
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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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.
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??
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.
And some people thought the PS3 cost an arm and a leg
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 $1500 to make it worthwhile even after the price drop because I, like most households in the US, don't have an HDTV yet, and other expenses have to take priority. No point in paying for a system with all those fancy graphics if I can only view them at 480i. Just an aside to anyone whining about the presentation this year being about business - that's what E3 is now. If you're looking for a presentation aimed at hardcore gamers, wait until TGS.
Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore?
Are you kidding? In some days I have to fight people at home to play on a PSOne! We would kill one another if we had a Wii...
So say we all
I doubt it. People buying a 100$ 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.
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...not much of a stretch. I would be inclined to disagree...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 -
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I hate to break it to you, but Nintendo has realized that there is far more money to be made doing exactly what they're doing, then catering to the "hard core gamer", and looking at how things are going it's hard to argue with the strategy. What you call a lame/pathetic DDR style game is going to be a humongous hit with all those people who've never heard of DDR.
Is this wise? Again, time will tell, but hard to argue with the results so far. It's clear Nintendo has tapped a new market here, though, and personally I think they're onto something. Web games have shown us the future; it's important to realize that "fun" is defined very differently for this type of gamer.
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.
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.
Maybe if it was an FPS where you rode a heavily-armed Segway around...
Actually, that sounds like it might be fun.
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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?
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From personal experience, I know of five purchased Wii's, my own included. Two own another console, and the non-me one is my brother in law who is a huge Nintendo fanboy.
One of them is my 74 year old father, who plays more than I do. The only consoles he ever purchased before were for me. He hasn't played one since the Atari 2600.
Actually, I'd bet a significant number of purchasers would say the 2600 was their last one, same sort of appeal.
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Just because you can, does not mean you should.
I don't know where you are in the world but in the UK there are a few sites which do online stock-checking for Nintendo Wiis. Over the last month or so, availability seems to have improved significantly. For example if you just want the console there are several places where you can get one. There are even more if you are prepared to spring for a bundle. I've been in several stores recently where they have had signs up saying that they have Wiis in stock. This is in Manchester in NW England.
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I think the mat will definitely have applications for skate or snowboard games.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.