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Does the Wii Provide A "Watered-Down" Game Experience?

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-pun-intended dept.

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.

8 of 582 comments (clear)

  1. does an iphone.... by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    provide a watered down computing experience?

    Wii's are fun.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:does an iphone.... by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. The Wii is fun, functional, and innovative. The problem isn't the Wii, it's the damn publishers. The Wii's more powerful than the most powerful gaming machines a few years ago and there were a lot of good games back then (unreal tournament 2004, Doom 3, etc). There's enough power in the console, but the creators of the game apparently can't adapt to lesser hardware, so they throw a public tantrum or water the game down so that they don't have to actually think about the problem and develop around it.

      The really ironic thing here is that the market for the Wii is so much larger than the market for the other consoles. Publishers and developers are really shooting themselves in the foot here.

    2. Re:does an iphone.... by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is, games are not about AI and flashy graphics, no matter how much money grubbing publishers want em to be. They're about friendly interaction with your peers. That's why more people use computers to play cards with each other than the latest flashy crap to come down the pipe.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    3. Re:does an iphone.... by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry, what?

      It's a fact that the hardware is less capable than the others. And the others aren't exactly swimming in RAM by modern standards. No, sorry, it's not that they can't adapt, it's that the games they are making now just can't work in the same way on the Wii.

      Now, that doesn't mean the Wii is somehow a bad console - it's a very successful one - it just means that either it's going to hold back the capabilities of games that are released across all three platforms or (far more likely, and in fact happening) encourage an entirely different set of games aimed at a totally different audience.

      What would be the point of owning all three consoles if they all got the same games and had the same capabilities anyway?

    4. Re:does an iphone.... by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's a fact that the hardware is less capable than the others.

      He didn't say that the Wii was as capable as its peers, he said that it was as capable as the best gaming systems around several years ago when we were getting games like Unreal Tournament 2004. Don't mis-quote and then dispute - That's cheating (i.e. strawman).

      Is the Wii weaker than Sony and MS's systems? Yup. But, like the other guy said, it's novel and fun. And near-zero learning curve (my 2-year-old can play it and my 4-year-old can play it pretty well). It's fun to play with friends with a wide array of genres. It's just not for serious gaming. It's a toy.

      But I agree with GP - The developers are lacking. It hadn't occurred to me before his post that UR2004 could be ported to Wii. But that UR football thing might just be awesome if it was done right.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  2. News at 11 by adamwright · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Why not look at it from another point of view? by tonypeters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  4. Um, no by SIR_Taco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.