Slashdot Mirror
Does the Wii Provide A "Watered-Down" Game Experience?
CNet is running a story inspired by comments from Ubisoft's Ben Mattes about how the Wii affects game development. When asked why there was no Wii version of Prince of Persia, Mattes said, "The reality is that from a technical standpoint, the Wii cannot do what we wanted the game to do. The AI of Elika was highly advanced and required a lot of processing power; the world size and dynamic loading, the draw distance, the number of polygons in the characters... If we had done a Wii version, it would have been toned down, probably linear; it wouldn't have been an open-world game, and so it would have been a very different experience." The article goes on to look at a number of Wii games that are stripped-down versions of their Xbox 360 or PS3 counterparts. Of course, part of the Wii's drawing power is that it's much simpler than the other systems, and has brought casual gaming to millions more people than it would have otherwise. The question remains, as Kotaku points out, whether the Wii's audience will persist after the other systems match its casual-gaming capabilities.
provide a watered down computing experience?
Wii's are fun.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If you design a game for a machine with 360 specs, it doesn't run very well on the Wii without redesign.
In other news, Mattes tried running Wii Sports on the 360, but it provided a "Watered down" experience.
There is nothing at all wrong with working within the constraints of a system and eeking out the absolute best you can from 'inferior' hardware.
Infact, having limited headroom forces innovative and new methods of doing what was taken for granted before.
The liqbase UI I am creating for the nokia handhelds makes use of these principles as well :)
it simply does the best it can within the low headroom of the available hardware.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMXp0Dg_UaY
liqbase
The AI of Elika was highly advanced and required a lot of processing power; the world size and dynamic loading, the draw distance, the number of polygons in the characters... If we had done a Wii version, it would have been toned down, probably linear; it wouldn't have been an open-world game, and so it would have been a very different experience."
Then the platform is not your target. The Wii isn't about pushing the latest fast hardware to its very limits, just so you can push a ridiculous amount of polygons per second onto the screen. It is about making games that are fun... and you can CERTAINLY do that within the confines of just about any machine. Remember the IBM XT? NES? Gameboy? Some of the best games I ever played had nothing but text, running on a 10mhz processor.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
That game wasn't exactly what I'd call non-linear.
The Wii isn't designed for these kinds of games.
That's what the X-Box 360, PS3, and PC are for. The Wii is for people who want to play games they can quickly pick up and put down.
D13 H4rD G4M3RZ are NOT the target audience.
(Score -1: Obvious)
Of course it provides a 'watered down' experience - when the games in question are ports of the PS3 or the Xbox 360. The hardware and capabilities of the machine cannot compare, so the developers have to shoehorn the equivalent game into the Wii's specs and in the process, trim it down. If you look at individual titles made for the Wii (not ports of other console's games) then no, I really don't think the experience is watered down. Games are games, and people (should) be playing them for the enjoyment and competition. Maybe we should ask the question about some other consoles games that rely so much on graphics that the point of the game is lost and the entertainment factor is lost. Is this a watered down games experience?
I think that the Wii provides a different gaming experience. It can be summarized thusly:
My mother owns a wii. My father owns a wii. My sister owns a wii. My brother owns a Wii. My cousin owns a Wii. My 3 years old nephew uses a Wii. My grandparents have played on a Wii. Nursing homes have Wiis.
None of those people have PS3s or XBox.
Call it watered down, call it casual gaming, call it whatever. It appeals to the masses in a way that the other gaming systems don't.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
"whether the Wii's audience will persist after the other systems match its casual-gaming capabilities."
i.e. in the next generation. The Wii is so far ahead in this category that it is laughable to think the others will catch up.
I guess you could flip the flamebait around and ask do PS3 and XBOX360 provide watered-down game experiences for offering games that depend on pretty graphics and not enjoyable gameplay.
Hahah, yah because a product that only recently managed to stay in stock at most retailers, still makes a profit for their company and is really the most "value" for the money (yes, the 360 arcade is cheaper, but when you add in the $99 wireless adapter the Wii has built in, its $300). Why would Nintendo lower its price?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
While certain games (mostly sandbox) require massive ram, processing power, etc to stay competitive (Dead Rising), is it a bad thing that there is a less capable gaming platform out there? Yes, while games like Cooking Mama, Wii Fit, and Mario Party are watering down gaming, the graphics limitations aren't necessarily the cause here.
I wonder what the development cost for a top notch wii game is. I wonder if its less than one for the PC or other newest gen console. I get the feeling that the reduced graphics and memory put a limit on how many nosehairs you need to bump map for the protagonist. Hopefully, the reduced hardware capabilities mean that the devs don't have to shoot for photorealism and don't need the huge teams to create content. The reduced hardware capabilities = less people required to push a system's graphics to its limit and you don't need a stadium full of graphic artists, AI programmers, mappers, and the more technical side of development just to keep up with the competition. Hopefully this reduced cost will allow GOOD (key word here, as in not bad or cheap) developers to focus more time on building more maps, fleshing out the story more, and generally trading graphics for immersion/world/playtime. I realize that last sentiment is wishful thinking, but a nerd can hope, right?
I fired up AVP2 not too long ago and it was still a very enjoyable experience. There are also wii games that are very enjoyable. You don't need to have the world painted in photo-realistic brown rubble to have an enjoyable experience. You also don't need to be looking at characters so realistic they're this side of the uncanny valley to suspend belief into believing that something is trying to kill you and facehump your friends.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
The Wii doesn't provide a "watered-down" game experience.
The developers who port a game to the Wii as an after-thought provide a "watered-down" game experience.
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
No.
The Megadrive, SNES, Cell Phones, and Game Boy all have exceptional games created for them. The only difference between those devices and the WII is that the WII almost requires you to use the motion capture controller and while we've spent over thirty years designing games using joysticks, controllers, and similarly keyboards this motion capture thing is still very new.
Let's also consider, that because out of the top three platforms only one supports motion capture, you might see less of a return on your investment as opposed to just creating a traditional game with existing code and hitting the 360, PS3, and PC.
TLDR:
- Technology
- Creativity
- Existing Code / Legacy
- And most of all MONEY
Stand in the way of exceptional games on the WII.
While I agree that most games on the Wii tend to be lacking in depth compared to the types of games that you get on other systems, I take issue with this:
If we had done a Wii version, it would have been toned down, probably linear; it wouldn't have been an open-world game, and so it would have been a very different experience."
If the DS and PSP can handle Grand Theft Auto III games including dynamic loading (the PSP definitely can, though I only noticed the DS version of GTA was out the other day and I don't feel the urge to dust off my DS to have a go of it), there's no reason at all that the Wii can't do dynamic loading too.
I agree that the AI would probably need optimisation/cutting back and the graphics would need simplified models and effects, but I expect they probably just don't consider it worth the time it would take to do all of that rather than it being impossible to create a game that approaches the same level of gameplay. Having said that, I haven't played any of the Prince of Persia games since the 2D original (and the HD remake). Perhaps the AI is something rather special, or there are hundreds of enemies to simulate at once? Attempting a situation like the last level of Heavenly Sword with literally thousands of enemies probably wouldn't be possible on the Wii without slowing to a crawl.
which is totally what she said
The Wii has the hardware to make very solid, deep, complex games work. That was possible on a 386. Sure, the Wii is going to have "watered-down" graphics, but graphics don't stand in the way of greatness.
So why would the Wii version have, as mentioned in TFS, a likelihood of being linear and less satisfying for certain players? The Wii has attracted huge numbers of casual gamers, hence it's gigantic install base. Most of these people, however, aren't interested in a very deep experience, because that's never been how the Wii was advertised. I'd wager that the number of potential customers looking for very involved games is much higher among PS3, 360, and of course PC owners than among Wii owners. If you're going to make something for the Wii, it's extremely hard to target this small subset when the casual gamers offer a potentially much more lucrative alternative.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I am one of those that doesn't give two shits how many polygons does the animation have. I find shooters to be utterly boring. Finally, since Ubisoft put their mitts on Heroes of Might and Magic, they (IMHO) devastated the game, which used to be fun - now it's just a big 3D graphic masturbation (I hate when I can't rotate the view in any way, to see what is the path a creature can walk on).
If the typical Wii user is like me, Ubisoft should keep the hell out of it. Ubisoft wouldn't know a fun game if it hit them in the collective head.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Obviously another journo-troll saying something stupid to get people worked up. Fuck it, I'll bite.
The gaming arms race has been about fancier graphics, bigger worlds, and more shiny. Consoles are fucking expensive these days! Seriously expensive. Games cost a mint and don't even get me started on the dev costs. GTAIV cost $100 million to make? Insane. Good game but insane. But this is the battle Sony and Microsoft wanted to fight.
Nintendo said "Hey, is shiny shooter 2.0 any better than shiny shooter 1.0? If the gameplay is pretty much the same but the graphics look better, does that make it more fun? What if all the budget was spent on the shiny and nothing was left to pay for fun?" So their idea was to not go for the high-end. There were two consoles already competing on shiny. Nintendo decided to do something very, very different with the motion controller.
What's the end result? Games unlike what's available on the other consoles, at least when it's done right. By keeping the specs on the machine down, not going HD, Nintendo said they were emphasizing affordability. It can certainly run games that would have been considered shiny last generation but it can't keep up with the ps3 and 360, it wasn't meant to. Complaining that the Wii can't handle a AAA title originally meant for those two systems is missing the point in the most spectacular fail tradition imaginable.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The Wii itself is not the problem. It's technical specs are not the problem. The problem is the people making games for it and their overall lackluster approach to the whole process. Nintendo and their marketing are to blame for this.
When they ported Resident Evil 4 to the Wii with new controls, they managed to make it look worse than the original Gamecube version which could be run from the very same console. This is typical of the kind of shoddy workmanship that is put into most Wii games. Games like Mario Galaxy and Metroid show what the Wii is capable of if effort is put in, but most developers aren't willing to go to such lengths.
It's not just graphics. The overall quality of Wii games is consistently lower than the average for PS2, DS and Gamecube titles. Games are short, rely too much on motion control, lack additional content and generally fall far below the value for money mark. Universally, developers have decided that Wii owners are 4-10 year olds and soccer moms who will spend $60 and 60 minutes on a game before becoming bored. The way you have to flail your arms about to play some titles, I can't say I really blame them.
As an experiment, the Wii has both hugely succeeded and epically failed. Yes, it has succeeded in selling game consoles to a massively wider mainstream market. But it has also succeeded in proving that in any industry, the mainstream market does not desire quality. The mainstream wants crud. They spend huge amounts on sugary gop and if you serve them up sirloin they'll complain because they prefer the slop.
The doom of the Wii has been sealed by its user base and existing game library. It doesn't matter if the next Zelda game surpasses the Ocarina of Time or if the definitive FPS of our time is a Wii exclusive. Most existing Wii owners do not want "Triple A" titles or anything close to it. They want Cooking Mama and Wii Fit and Mario Kart, because that's want Nintendo has told them they want, and that's what they got and thats all they'll ever want now.
So, no developer is really going to spend the effort making a quality Wii title. They're going to make crud. As times passed, this became a self fulfilling prophecy to the point that normal video game players stopped buying Wii's or sold them. The fate of Madworld, poor as it was, is indicative of this trend. It's now a vicious circle which the Wii, and probably Nintendo, have no hope of ever escaping.
The Wii could have been a success story. Ultimately, graphics don't count for a awful lot when it comes to quality titles, and the breadth and depth of titles on the PS2 prove what can be done with limited hardware. Alas, the Wii did not take this route. Instead of providing affordable quality, it has provided cheap, and you got what you paid for.
It didn't have to be like this. The Wii could have been the next PS2. But it isn't. Instead it's the next MySpace.
May the Maths Be with you!
Did the PS2 persist once the Xbox came and reduced the PS2 to a graphically "watered down" experience. Its not the tech, its the games - the first time Microsoft or Sony show the ingenuity and skill to produce something as intuitive and universal as Wii Sports or Wii Fit, then Nintendo might have some competition in the "casual" arena. Until we see some games and support Natal and whatever the PS3 motion controller is called is nothing but a Sega Activator/Eye Toy/Six-Axis wannabe and not a real factor.
It isn't a matter of demanding that the Wii fit into a particularly shaped hole. It's the fact that a 360 or PS3 can be marketed to both casual gamers and hardcore gamers (keep in mind that I think both of those terms are, at best, vague, and probably near-useless in terms of actual population specifiers). The Wii cannot. Yes, you can make some relatively complex games with the Wii, but it will not push the envelope in terms of complex or AAA titles.
If Rockstar managed to release San Andreas on the Playstation 2, a piece of hardware which was inferior to the gamecube, let alone the Wii, then I somehow doubt it's impossible to release an open world style game on the Wii. This basically just sounds like they don't really know what they're doing, and are wasting processor cycles on things they really don't need.
The PS3 and 360 can handle casual games.
But they'd never attempt to make that their main market. The PS3 and 360 have been made dependent on catering to hardcore gamers, because casual gamers simply will not tolerate the combination of mechanical noise they emit, the 50% hardware failure rate of the 360, or the 200-300W they consume.
So in other words, the problem is not the Wii, it's the capability of the developers? Why is it the Wii's fault that third party developers water down games because they can't develop properly for the Wii? Do third party developers not have all the tools, knowledge, etc they need to develop for the Wii? Is Nintendo holding back on third party developers to ensure Nintendo always publishes the "best" titles (I hope not!) Based on this paragraph, I am led to believe that Nintendo is perfectly capable of writing awesome games for the Wii while everyone else is incapable of doing the same.
Someone earlier identified the developer's "poor AI" argument as a red herring, and they were absolutely spot on, but I would take their line of argumentation in a different direction.
If anything, the developer needed to call out the lack of power on the Wii in order to hide the fact that if the game had been ported to the Wii, it would have had nothing going for it at all. At least on the PC/PS3/360, it was graphically gorgeous, but the gameplay was lacking, the story was subpar, and the experience was altogether repetitive and boring. Sure, it was fun for awhile, but all of the people I've talked to agree that the game did not live up to the hype and that it was not as fun as past titles in the series (standard disclaimers apply that this is merely anecdotal evidence and not indicative of the experience for everyone).
Given that the Wii has subpar hardware by modern standards, and this is true for nearly any title on the Wii, the focus falls on solid gameplay and the "fun factor". Solid graphics on other systems can enhance enjoyment, but they rarely create enjoyment. If you stripped away the graphics of the game, such that the worlds had shorter draw distances, the characters could not be as animated, and the polygon count had to be lowered, I'm of the opinion that there just wouldn't be much else to catch and hold the attention of the gamer. For a game that relies so heavily on the graphics as a selling point, not only would the developer need to "water down" the game to make it simply run on the Wii, they would also need to significantly rework the game in order to make it enjoyable, period.
In a case like that, it's easier to blame the console's lack of power than your development teams' lack of innovation.