Slashdot Mirror
Where the Wii Fits In
AGFlamey writes "On Angry Gamer is an interesting and lengthy article about the new direction Nintendo are taking with the Wii and in particular "non-games" like Wii Fit and Big Brain Academy. From the article: "Hardcore folks don't like to admit it, but Mario and Zelda are relics of the past. It's become quite clear that Nintendo is losing interest in remaking the same old games over and over. They want to pull us into something new, if only we can give them the chance." Is it such a bad thing that Nintendo are neglecting their roots?"
Don't count out the classics just yet. AAA titles like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid are pretty much the main attraction for Nintendo fans, and without them, Nintendo wouldn't be able to support itself with novelty alone. AAA titles have always been Nintendo's pillar of strength, and the only reason they didn't call it quits when the Gamecube lost out last time round.
Zelda Twilight princess and Super Mario Galaxy not to mention the upcoming Metroid shooter kind of make this guys argument seem silly. Nintendo is pursuing the casual gamer but they are not about to "neglect their roots."
In case you have forgotten, the old lines are the better sellers. Among all the newer things like wii sports, and many others, Mario and Zelda still have a huge fan base and still sell. It is not a bad thing that Nintendo is moving for more lines, but they should still keep the old tried and true (and the better) series until sales begin to drop (which they never will, if the quality keeps up and only when fans become bored). I still play all the older sets, and my friends still do, and we all find enjoyment in things like Smash and Zelda and Starfox and mario party.
They are simply growing branches.
What they're trying to do is create an entertainment console that everyone, not just hardcore FPS gamers, can have a go at. There are far more ordinary people out there than hardcore gamers (that market is pretty much completely saturated), and this is probably why some people from Microsoft and Sony have got surprised and upset over the success of the Wii.
When will there be a store which actually has a Wii for sale to go along with their fancy store display?
Yeesh. Hardcore gamers are still struggling to "get" the Wii in the first place. Every single Wii story on Slashdot since November has been littered with the following post, usually modded up by another gamer (mix and match sentences as appropriate):
;)
"Yeah, Nintendo may make a few dollars from Grandma, but I'm a hardcore gamer. I bought one on release and there just aren't any good games that I like now. I've gotten bored of it and it's collecting dust in my closet. I'm back to playing GTA for the 14th time on my PS2. I'm selling my Wii as I wait for MGS to come out for PS3. The Wii's graphics look dated, come on Nintendo, you're going to lose my dollars here! I don't see what the big deal is with the Wiimote, it's just a gimick and will rapidly become boring to people. I'm already sick of the Wiimote and wish Nintendo would release some good 70-hour long RPGs."
Etc, etc, etc.
The hardcore gamers STILL don't understand that the Wii, with all of its perceived warts (to them, anyway), is outselling EVERYONE. By the end of the summer there will be more Wiis out there than 360s (the next largest market). And Nintendo still can't keep these things in stock. All with "no good games" to buy.
No shit the hardcore gamers don't understand the new games - hell, they never understood the old games in the first place (ie: why any of us enjoyed Twilight Princess as much as we did - the Wiimote was just a gimick, right??).
Now to watch people respond to this post with exactly the dialog I quoted above
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Nintendo isn't the only one making games for the Wii. Not to mention that the point of any game system is to amuse and entertain, something that nintendo seems to have realized very well. If nintendo were to go out and forbid third party developers from making shooters or RPGs that'd be one thing, but frankly this is like accusing McDonalds of not catering to salad lovers when they introduce a new burger. If you don't like McDonald's salad offerings go buy a salad from some place else, and in the meantime, try that new triple bacon 4 cheese double quarter pounder and see if you like how it tastes.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
I have to say I disagree with the writer's conclusion here.
Nintendo is "oriented" in the same direction all companies are orientated: making the bucks. To do that they have to have a product people prefer over that of the competition, and right now they've got one.
Nintendo discovered itself with a game player capable of things other players could not previously do. If you take away the new control interfaces however the Wii has very little on the playstation 2 let alone the playstation 3.
Nintendo may realize that they have to capitalize on these advantages, and are attempting to do so. XBOX and Playstation six axis game controllers are already in development. The Wii could lose it's spec ial charms at any time. What they have at the moment is the opportunity to get a jump on the competition with new interface formats and new game styles. We may be seeing a frantic research project on the part of Nintendo to find a way to get a lock on the "new thing" while they still have exclusive access.
A surf or skateboard game would seem to be very preferable over a yoga game, but they don't have to make one. They just have to get the board into the marketplace before microsoft. I'm sure the yoga game was a lot quicker to write. Where they make the money is not by making a semi-popular game with a controller that is probably a wash profit wise. They make it when "Tony Hawke" comes out for their patented controller and everyone's got to buy a Wii so they can play it.
It wouldn't surprise me if the company comes out with yet more weird controllers. Throw it at the wall and see what sticks, because if something does they have it all to themselves.
I'm sure the yoga game was a lot quicker to write. It wouldn't surprise me if the company comes out with yet more weird controllers. Throw it at the wall and see what sticks, because if something does they have it all to themselves.
Come on. If there's one thing that you can't accuse Nintendo of it's lacking originality in coming up with new games.
Look at the WarioWare series of games, for example. If WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii isn't an example of "reinventing the entire story behind a game" then, please tell us, what out there is?
As for the Gamecube being a failure, well, if you go by the number of consoles sold then, sure, it wasn't as popular as the PlayStation 2, and was a "failure" but if you use that whacky profit metric that those crazy kids down at Wall Street are so fond of, the Gamecube did quite well.
I've never owned a Nintendo console in my life but it seems that they've made plenty of original games along the way, as well as making plenty of sequels (and let's not forget that sequels can be original too!), and made plenty of money doing it.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The problem with Nintendo was that after SNES they held the same position in development. The n64 was an amazing system but compare it to the play station, it wasn't moving forward in "NEW" technology and im talking the cdrom. The same thing happened with the game cube also just wasn't up to par to what the consumer was looking for.
These days were looking for a game console that can do more then just play games. Nintendo blew that opportunity the last generation. This generation the new consoles go online, can browse the web, download games, listen to music, but thats all been done. Nintendo on the other hand is bringing something to the table that no one else has and thats actually trying to make you feel like your part of the game.
Will it work out for Nintendo in the end? I don't know, I own a Wii and I haven't played it in weeks. I own a 360 and I play that almost everyday. If anything Nintendo is holding to the past with its slow delivery. Online play should have worked out of the box on the first day, the lack of launch titles other then Zelda just reminded me of the n64 and game cube era again, and their online system is pretty lame right now.
As for Nintendo neglecting their roots, they never will neglect their roots but they also know that hanging on to their roots will sink their ship back into third once again. And from my last check they are about to take the crown back shortly. So I guess their doing something right.
I dont see this as abandoning the past as much as I do widening the future. Mario, Metroid and Zelda are all there or coming soon, Nintendo has simply expanded its horizons to attract a new audience. The Wii has created a buzz that hasnt been seen in the home gaming market since the Atari 2600, its become the cool thing to have for families, its very social and its accessable to anyone at any skill level. I had my in-laws who have trouble operating their dvd player participating in a game of Wii sports last night, if they can figure it out anyone can. Wii fit and Brain Training are perfect for them as well. The Wii is carving out a market that ensures it survival and expands the base of gamers across the board.
There is no doubt in my mind that the "Winner" in terms of product sold will be the Wii, however the important number for "traditional gamers" will be who comes in second. Either the 360 or ps3 could reach ps2 type sales numbers and still come in second. The "traditional gamers" are still there and are still a huge market to abandon them would be stupid, even Nintendo is aware of that.
A market where each company is pursing a somewhat different customer base is better for consumers and better for the companies involved.
Which would you rather have, a choice between three consoles who are all somewhat different, each catering to a different set of gamers, or a market where all three console manufacturers shipped boxes that were essentially identical and catered to only a narrow market?
Whining about the Wii being too casual is like whining about how Cheerios don't taste like Frosted Flakes. If you don't like the Cheerios, just buy the fucking Frosted Flakes!
The cake is a pie
LOL... I thought the same thing. Nintendo made sure to get it's classics out right away. Now that they have a solid library of base games they're branching out and trying new things. There are even some new Mario games on the way. I think that the author kind of missed the point, but it's interesting to think about the new directions that nintendo is opening up.
I think that new types of games are a necessary thing, and focusing on new types of gameplay is a very good move by nintendo that will benefit the entire industry. Microsoft and Sony systems now have production and development costs that are so high that the manufacturers cannot afford to take risks, but nintendo not only is focusing on the gameplay with their in-house development, but they also have begun to open the platform to independent developers so we can start to see a bunch of great smaller titles in the future.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
That might be a valid comparison if every TV sold came with a Wii.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
This made me pull a WTF? Proves us wrong? I'd say it's been pretty clear for a long while now that Nintendo has indeed pulled out of the hardcore section of the market.
If you had read the whole article, you would have seen that the writer made the point that Nintendo never aimed for the hardcore audience. "Hardcore" is a bullshit word anyway--a hallmark of geek pretension.
Miyamoto "proves us wrong," because he is often causing change for the better, but gamers, journalists, and developers question his vision at first.
Why does every article think that when Nintendo's hyping their "practical game" type stuff, it automatically means they'll never make another Mario game ever again? I guess the authors don't know about the word "expand" because this is what Nintendo is doing. Nintendo's even said it themselves (scroll down to the question about market share). Or to put it in MS terms (maybe these marketing-heads will understand it now), "The Wii is introducing a paradigm shift, thus unilaterally expanding the user experience to new high growth areas in untapped markets." I mean, who can't understand that?!
Twinstiq, game news
I'm sure a vast majority of the crowd here wasn't around for the heydey of the arcade. I'm not talking about Street Fighter II era, I'm talking about the oldschool games that munched quarters like crazy like Frogger or the original Mario Bros (not Super). You didn't need to know 9 controller/button combos to play efficiently. You could simply walk up and play. The game-play got more difficult as you progressed but the basic principal was that anybody could play, and it didn't take a lot of frustration trying to learn. Fast forward to now. I'm not a Nintendo fanboy by any means, but I do know when I'm having fun. Fun is a relative word, and for some people having fun is memorizing the zillions of button combinations & intense story-line required to play some games on other systems. For the rest of us that just want to pick up a game and simply enjoy it the Wii has amazing allure, and will continue to grow in its fan-base. No wonder people over 30 are buying it in droves...they're of the few that remember the simple (but fun) days of the arcade.
I don't want to get into any elitist intellectualizing about this, but there are a lot of hardcore gamers who have ignored Nintendo for a long time as a kiddie console. These gamers have grown up on the standard games that have become the 360 and PS3's stock in trade: mass market sports and Michael Bay action.
I think Nintendo has done a very smart thing by leaving Sony and MS alone to play out the tragedy we've seen many times before (e.g. ATI vs. NVidia). Trying to win a 3-way graphics battle is a losing proposition, so what other direction can video gaming go in? How about instead of increasing the number of pixel shaders or whatever, increase the ways that people can control a game? In the same way that we have not seen what the PS3 is capable of with its nine graphics cores and blah blah blah, we have not seen the limits of what the Wii control scheme offers.
So now we have a lot of gamers who grew up on the PS2 who now have become site writers and game reviewers, and they just can not make sense of the Wii's appeal. They start to use epithets like Grandparents and throw a giggly aside at "Cookin' Mama" about how it's kind of cool but what's the point? The Wii has caused tremendous congnitive dissonance in the gaming industry and it just so happens that a lot of loud people are writing about it.
The Wii is as significant a transition as the move to D-button gamepad controllers (Nintendo again), and now all of these game writers who are dependent on their DualShock style controllers are pissed that FIFA 08 doesn't come out for months and months so they turn their frustration to the console that *is* getting popular and playable games throughout its launch honeymoon. PS3 and 360 people are stuck waiting for the next wave and convincing themselves they like to using motion sense mode in Motorstorm.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
And prior to the most recent generation of games, Mario was somehow hardcore only or completely different?
The only major change that Mario has undergone is a transition from 2D to 3D, but beyond that the game hasn't changed a lot. If you think the new Mario games are too easy have you ever collected all 120 stars in any of the more recent titles? It's not too terribly hard to collect enough stars to fight the final boss and beat the game, but to collect every single star requires a lot more effort. It's a game that's accessible to most people who are able to work the controller. You can do the bare minimum and finish the game, or you can collect everything. It's fairly accomodating.
I'd say the only major change is that the new 3D Mario games are on a whole less accessible to people than the old 2D games. I think using more simplified control methods make these games available to other audiances who would not have given them a chance otherwise.
I also fail to see how Zelda isn't "feeling its roots lately either." The last incarnation of the game in Twilight Princess was easily the best since Ocarina of Time and in some ways surpassed that game. I had a great time with Twilight Princess and it's one of those games that can easily suck up forty hours of your life. I fail to see how a game like this with dungeons that can take hours to fully explore and solve can be labled as more casual. If anything, Twilight Princess and Phantom Hourglass make the game more accessible with their new control schemes while at the same time providing a new and novel approach for vetrens of the series. Repackaging the same exact game over and over with a slightly different story doesn't necessarily make a game good or exciting.
Don't mistake more accessible for more casual. Accessible means that more people are able to pick it up and play it and enjoy their experience. Casual means that they are able to do this while not devoting hours to it at a time in order to enjoy it.
I was really big into video games from the old Atari onwards. I found, later on, that the games stopped being fun for me. I am not the core demographic that these games are written for, and I understand that. I am old, female, and not exactly the first person shooter type. Nor, am I the sims kind of play house person.
I found several titles on each system that were weird cheap offshoot games, that I liked. I am not, and have never been interested in how hard a game was. I want fun games.
I got the Wii, with some trepidation, as I was beginning to think buying game consoles would just net me another system with a couple dozen unfinished games on it.
Six weeks ago, I got the Wii, with Raymans Rabbid Rabbits, Zelda, and just recently got Resident evil 4. My husband is a more hardcore gamer type, and loves RE4. I have nearly finished RRRs, and just started Zelda. It's been a long time since I put in 13 hours on a game with no stops.
I plan to get Brain Age, and the workout one. I already have Metroid on pre-purchase.
I feel like the 360 (not going to even talk about PS3) is geared towards harder games for the sake of being hard. Plus the games come in the same genres. FPS, RPG, race or sports. I have played those over and over in every incarnation. I am big on RPGs, and have played those since the Atari Adventure. I want something different. The Wii has those original styles of games for me, and all sorts of quirky new stuff.
I just don't have time in my life for the same stuff, made harder by pixel hunts and artificial toughness levels, to be the same crap. At least now, with games like Raymans Rabbid Rabbits, I can laugh hysterically with my friends while we hunt rabbits with plungers. (Tip: Punch your friend in the arm, and you get to shoot more rabbits than them!)
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
Nintendo has always tried to innovate. This time, they've succeeded, and their fans want to hate them for it. Oh well. I don't think Nintendo cares very much if they lose their hardcore followers (and they haven't lost all of them, I'm part of the proof of that). They more than make up for it with the ex-non-gamers they've picked up. Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of people who did not generally play video games before are out there buying Wii. Look at the numbers and tell me if you think Nintendo is scared:
Total units sold (approx., in millions):360: 11.5
Wii: 8.9
PS3: 3.8
Units sold 1Q 2007 (approx., in thousands)
Wii: 1029
360: 721
PS3: 501
Oh, and just for the record, DS sales more than doubled PSP sales in 1Q 2007. I take these numbers to indicate that Nintendo's current strategy is working very well for them.
At this point, I think that the term "hardcore" really means "catering to crude adolescent power fantasies and sexual frustration" more than anything else.
The first thing I thought when I saw the Wiimote was how every arcade game I'd seen at bars in recent memory A) was based on something familiar to non-gamers (those fucking golf games), and B) had abandoned the joystick/multiple buttons control scheme. Nintendo may risk losing the basement dwellers, but it's a really smart bet on their part.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
"The Wii is great in social conditions, but just for sitting around by yourself, the 360 and PS3 shine far brighter."
That's true. The 360 shines really brightly when it spontaneously catches on fire.
What remakes? I'd love to get some Mario or Zelda remakes, but since Mario All Stars on the SNES, I have seen none.
If you mean to say that all Mario and Zelda games are alike, well, there's usually more difference between two Mario games than there is between to FPS from different franchises, so I don't understand the complaint. Apart from the main character and the fact that you can jump on stuff, there's no a whole lot of similarities between Super Mario Bros. and Mario Sunshine - and in those cases where Nintendo did go back to the roots with a new game (New Super Mario Bros, for exmple), it was very well received by gamers. If anything, Nintendo is not doing enough "retro games" in the vein of New Super Mario Bros.
Finally, I can't see how games like Zelda or Super Paper Mario would be better if they featured characters other than Link and Mario. Who cares? They're awesome games.
And I hate to say this, but I've *never* been able to stand Mario and friends. I can't put my finger on why exactly, they just grate. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with the characters (Nintendo weren't that big in Europe until the SNES came out). But then, I hate Mickey Mouse too, despite being a fan when I was seven or so. And perhaps it's that (for me), Nintendo sometimes out-Disneys Disney in the worst way possible, with a healthy dose of Barney-style annoyingness thrown in... actually I'm not sure that's correct either, though.
Anyway, I'm glad that the DS doesn't seem to be overly reliant on the Mario franchise and Nintendo's kiddy-oriented past; I'd never have bought one if it had been.
Possibly someone will say that they enjoy playing Mario and "childish" games because they're past their adolescent obsession with "adult" sex and violence... but I don't like those games either. I like the games like Brain Training, Brain Age and so on- it's just that I find Mario genuinely childish. And believe me, for all that teenagers and adults enjoy indulging their childlike fun side with shows like Spongebob Squarepants (which can appeal to adults), when it comes down to something exclusively child-oriented like Barney the Dinosaur, it's not appealing to adults at all- at least not those who haven't grown up with it.
That's how I feel about Mario, and plastering the franchise (**) on a game is a near-guarantee that I won't want to buy it. Even hearing that Mario appears on the new DS version of Tetris is offputting.
Feel free to differ, but not all of us are Mario fans.
(*) Rather fanboyish expression, sorry.
(**) Damn, I hate that word too- or rather the new usage describing filmic and cultural "franchises" that has suddenly become so common in the past five or six years. (Ever notice that? In everyday speech, "franchise" always used to refer to some guy who got a license to run a Prontaprint photocopying shop, or whatever.) Even though it accurately describes the status of such things within Hollywood, it's still unpleasant- possibly for that exact reason. Or more likely because it makes us all sound like fanboys, and I hate that. Sorry, rant over
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As opposed to what? Speed run through the game, then get a new game? Diablo II style, where the map is always different, not like it matters anyway? Hell, most LAN parties are FPS, and they generally use the same level over and over again.
I don't think that the same level is necessarily boring all on its own, just that it is easy to do poorly if the company doesn't care to put enough effort into making it right.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
That is bumper sticker material.
Maybe that explains why the title of the article is "Where the Wii fits in".
Only if you have a very wide car.
Read Pynchon.