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Sega Not Giving Up On Mature Wii Games
Sega has recently taken a few attempts at developing games for the Wii that were targeted at adults rather than kids. House of the Dead: Overkill and Madworld haven't been incredibly popular, but they've done well enough to turn a profit. In Sega's eyes, this makes mature-themed games for the Wii a successful experiment, or at least one they're willing to continue. Other companies are looking to get into the act as well. EA will be releasing M-rated Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii, and Bethesda has a project in the works too.
House of the Dead: Overkill was great fun. Recommended for two player zombie-killing action, 70s style!
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Quite frankly, that's the first thing that went through my mind when the Wii came out: here you have this console with a wireless remote that vibrate and senses accelerations, and nobody has come up with a massively multiplayer online gangbang sort of game yet? It can't be that hard to make a dildo sleeve for the wiimote (and a snatch-shaped attachment for Sir) and come up with a piece of software that transmits accelerations and make faraway wiimotes vibrate accordingly.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Really, I'm amazed it's taking companies like Sega to take the lead on this.
Nintendo captured the casual market this console generation with an innovative controller style whilst Sony and Microsoft have fought over the hardcore market who tend to prefer these type of games.
Both Sony and Microsoft have announced their competing products to the Wii mote, and both certainly appear better than the Wii mote, although perhaps not with the Wii motion plus addon. They've also taken strides to increase their casual offerings (i.e. Microsoft's investment in games like Lips on the 360). It's clear Microsoft and Sony realise that whilst the hardcore market has more cash in it, it doesn't have enough when they're fighting each over over it so to make the kind of profits Nintendo has with the Wii they seem to understand they've got to start taking from Nintendo's market too.
The problem is Nintendo doesn't seem to recognise this, and are sticking with their casual market despite the fact it'll slowly start getting eaten away. It's hard to know if they have a trick up their sleeves or if they've become complacent with their success, but certainly I'm suprised they haven't pushed more mature games themselves to try and pull in some of the hardcore gamers from Sony and Microsoft. The problem for Nintendo is it's not as if this is the first time they've had a massive success and then just fallen back into obscurity for a few years, with something like the Wii I think many had wondered if they'd finally broken this cycle and had moved into a new era of innovation to stay permanently ahead, but right now, particularly judging by their rather weak E3 showing where they basically just showed more of the same that doesn't look like it's the case.
I suppose though historically we should probably not be suprised that it's Sega taking the lead here and not Nintendo, whilst Sega dropped out of the hardware market they always seemed to produce generally more mature games than Nintendo, so perhaps Sega are even doing it as part of a deal with Nintendo that Nintendo will remain a producer of casual games and Sega make mature games. Who knows, hopefully they're not that blind to the competition and do have a trick or two up their sleeves, but at face value this seems to absolutely not be the case right now.
My brother has hit the same problem. At first the whole Wii-mote concept seemed cool. Looked gimmicky to me so I skipped on it and bought an Xbox 360 (despite me traditionally being a Nintendo person - I've literally owned every home console they've made up until the Wii. I've owned lots of the others too, but I ALWAYS had the latest Nintendo system).
He liked it for a while. WiiFit was cool and such and he got a few more games like that (Resident Evil 4 he liked), but now the system is just sitting in a corner at his house unused every time I go over there. Any time a new video game commercial shows that looks cool he always makes the comment "You know that looks awesome. Wait till we get to the end of the commercial; I bet it's out on 360 and PS3 but not Wii.". And he's always right. He's not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. Even when he's got a game he wants to play through he might put in an hour or two per week tops. Still though, the Wii's kiddified games eventually just don't cut it. It'd be like if every movie that came out from now on were from Pixar. Sure they're "fun for the whole family!", and I can say that I enjoy them quite a bit, but realistically SOMETIMES I want something that's a bit more mature (say, "In Bruges", which if you haven't seen you really should).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Madworld was interesting, but I returned the rental after beating the first boss. The controls weren't so hot. All the game did was make me miss the right stick for controlling the camera. I kept approaching enemies in round about ways to get the camera oriented the way I wanted (at a spike wall, for example) when I grabbed them. The monochromatic graphics were cool initially, but they made the eyes weary after a while.
Oh, I'd agree with that. I just get tired of the assumption many people have that natural==good.
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