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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
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...
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.
Insert Sig Here
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
Yeah, if you have friends.
You types creep me out.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
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.