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Nintendo Unconcerned By Motion-Control Competitors
The Guardian's games blog reports on comments by Nintendo discussing why it's not worried about competition from Microsoft and Sony after their recent motion-control announcements at E3. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime said, "The only thing I'll say is a rhetorical question. Is it fun? If it's fun, then I tip my hat and say, 'Well done.' But what's happening sounds to me a lot like, 'Who's got the prettiest picture. Who's got high-definition. Who has the best processing power?' It sounds like technology, when the consumer wants to be entertained. Our focus is how do we take active play and make it entertainment. And that's what we're going to continue to focus on."
While we're giving subjective impressions, I'll go against the grain and say that I think the Wii is grossly overrated.
Many of the games are a mile wide but one inch deep, and most seem more like technology demos than actually games. The Wiimote is interesting and is a good start, but there's a general feeling that it is more accurate and capable than it really is (if you're really trying to do special twists and flares in Wii Bowling, you're significantly over-estimating the device's capabilities). Mariocart is interesting, but only really comes into its own in multiplayer, but there you find that the 480 lines of resolution of the Wii is grossly ill equipped to handle two onscreen players at once.
And for buying a terribly dated bit of hardware, you're still paying a price comparable to or exceeding some of the vastly more capable competitors, which just can't be excused.
Wiis everywhere sit doing nothing, while their owners try to justify it by remembering that hour of fun they had on the first day playing Wii Sports, before putting it away until the next big thing. Now they just need to find somewhere to store that wii Fit board.