Slashdot Mirror
Is There a Future For Mature Games On Wii?
digitalfever writes "There are more than 50 million Wii systems worldwide. Logically, the audience for a wide range of games and interactive experiences should be rather big, but based on the evidence so far, either that's not true — or publishers have been hedging the wrong bets. No one has conclusively proved the case for (or against) the viability of mature games on Wii, but 2009 was a litmus test on a number of fronts, including the DS. The results aren't encouraging. "
wii remote for a mature games, use it as a axe for a postal type game would rock
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
No, the two Wii owners who expected mature games on the wii (I am one of them) have already given up.
Next questions.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
The Wii has plenty of games for "mature audiences", like your grandmother.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
When is "International Mapouka Challenge" going to be released?
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Firstly, why does the content have to be M rated to be for a mature audience?
.etc. makes great sense and is proving very successful.
Secondly, why would they want to target that market? PS3 and xbox 360 are in tight competition for that market. It seems the cost and risk of competing in that market is high, while the potential pay off is low (How much money is MS making from the 360 again?). For Nintendo targeting children, families, casual gamers
I'd guess there is a large correlation between the people that like "hyper-violent" games and those that like fancy graphics, the Wii is not a platform they are likely to own. If you release games with mature content, that is needed for the atmosphere and not just for the sake of making a "hyper-violent" game, you run into other problems on the wii, but it sounds like the article is going on about a bunch of games that were mature for the sake of being mature. The only thing that surprised me is that a resident evil game is listen in those that didn't do well, I played one of them on a Wii and it seamed to be done fairly well, it was bloody but not unnecessarily so.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
So, if we have to believe TFA, "mature games" are those with dark ambient light, based on killing everything that moves and splashing blood in the walls... yeah, very mature. Maybe they haven't realized yet that Wii is a console for real "mature" people, you know, those who bring their mates to home after work and play simple games with beers and snacks, only looking for some laughs.
I mean come on, the Wiimote makes a perfect virtual penis, why haven't developers taken advantage of this yet?
Monstar L
Say it out loud and you can't help but notice that "mature games on Wii" is an absurd, even oxymoronic, phrase.
Our Wii sees the most action with games that entertain the largest possible number of people. I think a lot of people have bought the Wii due to a lot of great games to play in groups. The same people are unlikely to buy games that focus on a single- or two player experience.
I'm probably going to get House of the Dead: Maximum Overkill at some time. But I have a lot less time to game for myself compare to the time I can put into trying to beat my brother-in-law in (pick your favorite) in Wii Sports Resort, playing Mario Kart with the kids, or rediscovering social adventure gaming (everyone on the couch tries to solve the puzzles) with Monkey Island.
The Wii has a huge adult audience, but for a game to be successful it has to be more than just rated for adults. Most adult rated games forget that the key thing that made the Wii a success was not motion controlled stuff, it was social gaming. Factor in that a lot of Wiis get much of their use by women as well as men, and you have to design for a whole new target group.
I'm sure there is a future for mature games on the Wii, but traditional mature games aimed at the solo-gaming male? Much more limited...
.: Max Romantschuk
As far as I remember, Nintendo has been trying to build up the corporate image of a "family friendly" entertainment company. The elderly people on slashdot might remember the ridiculous censorship that Nintendo forced on "Maniac Mansion" before they backed its release for the NES (link: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/maniac.html). Nintendo financially relies on embracing new target audiences for their products to evade direct competition with Sony and Microsoft. Just recall the introduction of the Gameboy, which was technically inferior to its main competitor, the Atari Lynx or think of the WII, which shares most of its components with the not-quite-new Gamecube. Directly targeting the same audiences like Sony or Microsoft got Nintendo in trouble really soon. So, as long as Nintendo does not make an U-turn in its sales strategy it is therefore very likely that "mature" content will be nothing more than a niche that they accept but don't actively promote.
Their business model, now enthusiastically adopted by all the other console makers, Apple on the iPhone, etc. has always been to have an iron grip over who and what gets the privilege of running on "their" devices. So whatever market there could be for non-kid games on the Wii, it doesn't matter, because Nintendo have developers' arms twisted behind their backs in order to preserve the Wii's "image".
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Too little too late.
I bought a Wii a few months after release, hooked it up, played Wii sports and thought "this is cool".
A month later I sold the Wii because of the following.
1) Horrible Graphics compared to the XBOX 360 I had at the time (got a PS3 now).
2) Games were fun to play with others but for some reason I couldn't find that many people to play with at 1 AM.
3) No good singleplayer titles that I could play online.
To be honest, the XBOX 360 was better then the Wii in every aspect except social gaming, and although my girlfriend would play sometimes, in the month I had the Wii, after the first week, I hardly ever turned it on.
Finally, the majority of people I know who like console gaming who have a Wii, also have either the XBOX 360 or a PS3.
Nintendo did find a nice segment and are not competing with the other consoles as much as MSoft and Sony are competing with eachother, but I have to agree with TFA, that segment does not include many single-player online gamers.
Now back to COD 4 on the PS3, feel the wrath of my P90!
Resident Evil 4 was one of the best selling Wii games. Just because The Conduit and Mad World didn't sell well, does not mean that there's not a market for M rated games. Fact of the matter is that they just weren't very good games, regardless of what the media said.
http://kotaku.com/5395956/the-10-most-avidly+played-wii-games-in-america-as-of-nov-1
Honestly, look at that chart. I'm seeing a shitload of hardcore games there (no, I don't judge whether a game is for the hardcore or not by the rating, any more than I judge movies that way). What I'm not seeing a lot of is deca sports and catz, regardless of what the media tells you. The Wii market is starving for hardcore games, and the 3rd parties just simply have not delivered. Nintendo sat this one out and made casual games, because the 3rd parties have been bitching bitterly for years that they can't compete with Nintendo. And what do they do? They follow in Nintendo's footsteps again. Pathetic.
Nintendo just needs to come back and rule the roost again. Metroid: Other M is a good start. New Super Mario Bros Wii, Mario Galaxy 2, and the rumoured new Zelda should do the trick. Hardcore gamers still own their Wiis. They just aren't buying anything because there's fuck all to play.
I can't think of any game more mature than Endless Ocean. You go there, sit down and relax a little bit after a hard day of work with some fine wine. Not always I want to get into some teenage carnage.
You know, the penultimate paragraph where the author states exactly that: "mature" is being used equivocally: on the one hand, in the ratings sense, where it refers to a requirement on the player, and on the other hand, in the content sense, where it refers to the presentation and experiences given. Paradoxically, when we say "mature content", we mean mature in the first sense: "We deem this (puerile) content suitable only for those above a certain age", and not "We deem this content interesting to those past their teenage years."
Not that I don't enjoy some quality violence myself.
Monster Hunter Three is an interesting example. It's a pretty 'hardcore' game, if you label games as such, and traditionally offered on Sony consoles. It was going to be on the PS3 this gen; but the developers looked at the multimillion dollar expense of creating it on that console, and decided to switch to the Wii. It might sell less, and yet be more profitable at the same time.
Monster Hunter Tri is actually the best selling 3rd party title in Japan among any of the home consoles of this generation. It will reach a million sold some day. So it didn't sell less than it would have on other consoles. It will stay the best selling 3rd party title until Final Fantasy XIII is out on PS3 in December.
Apart from that, I disagree with you that it will happen, and that's a good thing.
I mean, some 3rd parties advertise they are making a "mature" game for the Wii like it's an amazing thing, and media are quick to come saying they are failures.
Something is wrong in this picture, especially when some of them (Resident Evil) are actually big successes.
There's several problems, like the gaming media wanting to convey the belief that mature games can't sell on the Wii, as if it was a problem. At least they see it as a problem.
But the mature Wii audience sees through the BS, and won't buy a bad game (Madworld) just because it has a M on it.
One other problem, is that all these 3rd parties believed they could fool the Wii audience with their stupid scheme. How come you start making "mature" games 2.5 years after the console was out? These 3rd parties actually expected people wanting "mature" games to wait this long for a "mature" game on Wii, while they made several elsewhere? And they expect people to buy these games, whatever their quality, even though there is no promise of more to come to those that absolutely want "mature" games?
This makes no sense. Unless there is a load of "mature" games that are very good in quality coming to the console, it just won't work.
It's pretty apparent to me that some part of the gaming industry realized too late the huge market available on Wii and is struggling to take advantage of it because it's too late, while another part is afraid that these games would work on Wii, which would remove lots of resources from the competitors' home consoles for these same games.
Please, that's a complete oversimplification of what is a "mature" game. To make an analogy, would you say R rated movies are "just crap that try and shock and entertain children with some adult themes (violence & sex)"? Sure there are some movies(and games) which use that formula to generate hype and sales, but lets take a look at games which, may have violence as part of the game, and in fact might have some sex in there, but which also have a richly developed story and plot, which requires a deep understanding of adult "themes". Case in point, there are no Mass Effects for the Wii.
[citation required]
I am also surprised by two other things. I am surprised that despite the dozens of previews and reviews, you act like that you didn't know that Deadspace:Extraction was a rail shooter until after you bought it. Many of the previews talked about it trying to reach the same demographic as Resident Evil:The Umbrella Chronicles (which is also a rail shooter that is on Wii because Capcom's newest offering at the time, RE5 wasn't being developed for Wii). I am also surprised that you could pretend to believably compare the state of PC gaming to Wii gaming given the differences in demographics and control style. There is no reasonable way anyone can expect a mature title from a Nintendo game that wasn't shoehorned in from somewhere else, because on other systems, PC especially, the actual state of development is genuinely mature. Developers making a game for Wii are trying not to take a bath in red ink at this point. On PC, we've had over twenty years to develop what works and what sells. Nintendo, on the other hand, is constantly changing the playing field for itself. It makes it easier for them to profit, but it leaves third-party developers scrambling to make things work every singe development cycle. Maybe if a mouse and keyboard (not that you couldn't connect a USB keyboard) were standard you could have resource management sims then. I thought those didn't get done on anything you hook to a TV becase you can't read enough information on 480 lines of resolution.
I'd bet you're more likely to find mature titles on Wiiware than on a physical disk due the lower cost of entry for developers. Could you argue that "World of Goo" is a mature game, since we've had physics since before 1687?
I've always had a Nintendo system, but one the XBox first came out I started maintaining the Nintendo and Microsoft console line in my house. New system? I bought it and upgraded. In this current generation of consoles especially, the graphics look much better on the 360, so if a more 'mature' game came out for multiple systems I don't think it's hard to see that I'm going to stick with the better looking system rather than buy it for the Wii. Any game I buy for the Wii falls more into the traditional Nintendo games/series that aren't out for the 360 or PS3.
I also think most 'serious' gamers who would go for games classified as mature are likely to have multiple consoles as well. This assume the game comes out for multiple consoles. If the Wii was my only system, then I'd definitely purchase any range of games for it.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Here come the 50 slashdot fuddy duddies bemoaning the label the ESRB has chosen to distinguish games with content not meant for children.
Please tell us more stories about how checkers and Mario Party are the most mature games you've ever played. It's a very interesting and fresh perspective.
if not, it won't.
There should also be a bit more to ``mature'' than splashing blood, gore and violence onto the game and ``decorating'' it w/ T&A.
- Make games which aren't on-rails, and have large, interesting environments to explore --- while exploration should be challenging, it needs to _not_ be frustrating and moving up / down ladders shouldn't require a perfect alignment of the character, the remote and the stars
- Provide a compelling story-line and universe which makes me want to explore and discover things
- Be sure to use the Wii motion controls and provide a customizable control scheme (Conduit allows for this while playing the game which is a nice touch) --- pointing w/ the Wii remote using a gun shell is an obvious and easy way to do this (though I want to see more games which allow for the archery style of Wii Sports Resort)
- Allow the user to control the character including the character's in-game appearance --- use the customized character for all cut-scenes (Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga does this really well)
Things which I haven't seen yet and would really like to see:
- take advantage of multiple Wii remotes --- I'd love to see a game which would allow me to find multiple weapons in the game and map them to different Wii remotes, so that Remote 2 could be a pistol shell, Remote 3 the machine-gun like Wii Zapper, while Remote 1 is the bare Remote attached to the Nunchuk and used to control a knife or sword, but has to be put down to switch to the Pistol --- I'd also like to be able to find multiple pistols, map them to 2 different Wii remotes and then dual-wield
- have a persistent on-line game environment which changes and evolves and has a scripted story arc, or at least a story which makes re-loading the game make sense --- C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine saga would make a good template for this
- try a vertical split-screen and allow for co-op play
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
So the process seems to go like this: 1) Make a mature game or franchise for the known mature markets on the PC, X360 and PS3. 2) Make a version for the Wii with dramatically gutted gameplay and worse graphics. 2a) Make it a rail shooter so you can make it look as good as possible, gameplay be damned, because you know your consumers expect a Wii game to look like a PC game. 3) Fail to sell a ton of copies of your terrible, boring game. 4) Blame the failure on the Wii's more casual audience. Not the fact that you made a terrible, boring game. Take note, fancy executive guys: Good games sell well. Bad games don't. If your game is good enough, your AUDIENCE WILL FIND YOU.
Just recently I got Deadspace for the Wii (an FPS) and it turns out you can't even control the movement of your character - the game boils down to, as your character moves on his own, moving your aiming reticule as fast as possible to aim at the head of whatever comes your way and pressing button and pressing other-button to open doors and other such "puzzles". You could train a monkey to beat that game.
You lose the game by aiming only for the head. The series is famous for its "strategic dismemberment". I recommend you google it. :)
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
"A Little Kings Story" looks like a cross between Pokemon and a Fairy Tale
From the Wikipedia article, it's called "Osama Monogatari" in Japanese. Since when was Osama bin Laden crowned king?
But seriously, there are TV shows for adults that look cartoonish too, like The Simpsons and Family Guy.
Metroid: Other M
Will it really be Other M, or just Other T? A lot of people who prefer gritty games definitely won't buy it if it ends up Other E10+.
My wife and I are still waiting for a version of Wii Golf, simple fun gameplay, that alows you to play on any of the world famous courses.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
It seems to me there is a future for mature games on _any_ platform if the company wishes to allow it. I'm not sure what percentage of web pages in the world are devoted to porn, but I'm pretty sure most of the legal money being made on the internet is being made by purveyors of porn. Amazon did not increase the number of people who bought books in the world. The web however made it much easier to publish pictures and distribute videos than ever before.
However, if Wii cannot get a new reputation as a hard core gamer package without losing the current rep. What they ought to do is more of the immersive world games and ones you can create your own stuff in and grab that part of the gamer market. Those folks are also hard-core gamers, they just don't have a label and cannot be grouped with the 1st person shooters or grandmas bowling.
An analogy on slashdot that isn't about cars. Say it ain't so.
I didn't like Mass Effect at all, it seemed like a few other games that have been released over the past 10 years or so. It's far away from what I would call a "richly developed story and plot". There have been games that I would put well above Mass Effect in that regard, some of them only had 2D graphics for crying out loud.
Case in point, there are no Mass Effects for the Wii.
Criticize me then suggest a console fps, hilarious.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There's also a lot of badly ported "mature" games for the Wii. Games that are obviously made for the xbox360/ps3 and were stripped, dumbed down for the Wii. Prime example is Call of Duty 5: World at War. They literally removed 20% of the content (available maps, vehicles, player modes) and toned down the graphics to make it fit on the Wii. The result is very choppy and the Wii sounds like it's going ballistic processing the game. This is what developers have turned to now to publish more mature games on the wii.
I just got a wii. I also have the balance board thing.
I was hoping there would some really good golf, and skiing, games. The potential is certainly there. The fitness stuff is okay, but it seems to me that it could be so much better.
My nephew has some WWII combat game. That seems fairly mature - unless you really get off on seeing gore.
The real problem is one of marketing. It's not just a complete failure to market -though frankly many third parties are failing to market their Wii games at all- but also that the few who do market are going about it the wrong way.
The Wii's market is largely driven by the blue ocean: new gamers who have not been subjected to the marketer-conditioning that makes veteran gamers believe graphics matter. It also contains veteran gamers who have recovered from such conditioning or who never succumbed to it. This means that you cannot market a game to them with shiny trailers and awesome screenshots, the way you do on the HD consoles, because the Wii audience doesn't care about graphics. What they want to know about a game is something that trailers and screenshots cannot tell them: is the game fun?
How do you market a game to such gamers? Nintendo hit the nail right on the head with its Wii _____ series, though given its failure to market its other games this way I have doubts that Nintendo actually knows what it has accomplished here. You take some of your focus off of the pretty pictures and put it on the player: on people having fun with the game. This is what impresses the Wii audience.
Does it work? Let's first look at the Wii _____ series, which is perhaps the most famous for this marketing style. Most of this generation's best-selling games are there, but let us examine Wii Music: the weakest game of the series, sales-wise. This game was reviled in the gaming press and released into an extremely hostile market, yet it still broke 2.5 million copies: a figure that surpasses even LittleBigPlanet, the biggest success of the "casual HD" market. For all that Wii Music had against it, it still made insane money, largely because of its marketing. Let us also consider Mario Kart Wii: one of the few games to be marketed this way despite not being in the Wii _____ series. It is one of only 20 games in history to break 15 million copies sold, and the only one from this generation that wasn't in the Wii _____ series. It far outstrips its own predecessors sales-wise, having successfully broken into the Wii's player base. Coincidence? I believe not.
So, then, how do you market other games on the Wii? It's simple, if not necessarily easy: convince the Wii audience that the game is fun by focusing on the player. Is it truly so hard for third-parties (and most of Nintendo's own dev teams) to do this? Can it really be that the people playing these games just aren't visibly having any fun? And if that's the case, then what does it say about the games themselves?
School shootings have been happening for the better part of two centuries, more if you count attacks not including guns (though the power disparity between modern arms and unarmed kids allow the attacks to last much longer).
Its just that it didn't become a matter of national media attention until the late 1980's/early 1990's.
In the vast majority of cases it is caused by unstable young boys that are bullied or ostracized by their peers and do not have any adults they feel they can turn to for help.
It has nothing to do with violence in entertainment in general or in video games specifically.
If you have a problem with your kids playing mature games, the solution is simple, don't buy your kids mature games. The retailers will not sell to a minor. You want to keep your kids from becoming a school shooter? Spend time with them, be their friend, talk with them and here is the part where most people fail... listen to them.
is how much gameplay each system actually gets in any given home. The gaming platforms in my home include multiple PCs, a 360 and a Wii. In a typical week, the gameplay (of my wife and me) breaks down to this:
PC: 12 to 20 hours
360: 12 to 20 hours
Wii: 0 to 2 hours at most, often going up to a month between power-ups
While our home is technically counted among those with a Wii, from our avg use numbers it looks like we barely qualify being called a Wii household. I suspect there are other Wii's out there in a similar situation. If a game that we wanted did come out that is truly multi-platform (Wii, 360, pc, etc), we'd most likely get the PC or 360 version instead.
The article also mentions that the DS Game - Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sold poorly, selling only 89,000 copies, way under expectations. This bums me out, since I bought it, bought copies as gifts, and loved it - the DS touch-screen interface is something I find very enjoyable to use. With such low sales, a sequel seems unlikely, in spite of the fact that it received the all-time high score for the DS at metacritic - http://www.metacritic.com/games/ds/
I have a strong suspicion that the easy availability of ROMs for the game might have had something to do with the low sales (although objective data is hard to come by). By comparison, an iphone game was 80% unpaid copies, 20% paid - http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/26/developer-claims-80-percent-piracy-rate-for-latest-iphone-releas/
The "change your business model" idea suggested for music companies is actually happening for games - Dragon Age: Origins now ships essentially crippled, with magic items to boost stats and useful party-member NPCs held back until you register an EA.com account and use the "free" code contained in a sealed shrink-wrapped game, or pay extra for it as DLC (downloadable content). This then adds all the server-overload fun of an MMO launch to a single-player game. It also required a tedious install reboot install loop on a console. Argh.
I'm not sure what the answer is long-term, other than everything will eventually be network-enabled only, as that's the only way to ensure payment. Standalone games will wither and die. Bummer. (With various exceptions for things like Dwarf Fortress which are free and take donations.)
In the meantime, Wil Wheaton's advice should be extended beyond just playing games, to include publishing and acquiring games - "Don't be a Dick."
Since this is becoming a console flamewar, I own both a PS3 and a Wii. I am happy with both of them. I play Bioshock and Fallout on the PS3. I play Wii Sports, HotD Overkill, and Mario Galaxy on the Wii. When I have friends over, it's usually the Wii that gets booted up. When I want an immersive single player experience, it's the PS3. They're both have some really fun games. They both have some total crap. What's the big deal?
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Sales are not the measure of a game's financial success.
Profits are.
Game development costs on the Wii are between 1/4 and 1/2 those of development costs on the HD consoles. Prices, by contrast, are about 20% lower. What that means is that you don't need to sell NEARLY as many copies of a game to make money -- and that means more successful games that target "niche" audiences.
People talk about how "badly" No More Heroes sold -- but it sold several times more copies than Killer 7 did on the Gamecube and PS2 put together, even though it came out in a much smaller market (the number of Wii systems out when NMH was released was a fraction of the number of PS2 systems out when K7 was released). By most accounts, it was profitable enough that they plan to do a sequel.
This is exactly the stuff we saw people saying about the DS, and here we are, with DS games being hugely profitable for people who put real time and effort into them. There have certainly been profitable third-party Wii games; RE4 was one, Mario & Sonic Olympics (Sega) was one... And there have probably been others. The big problem is still the casual fallacy; the notion that people who want an approachable game don't care about quality. I care a ton about quality, just not very much about graphics resolution. People who make fun games are selling them to me quite effectively. People who make more flavor-of-the-month shooters aren't. (That said, I did get The Conduit, because it looked really polished.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
On wii, huh? Yeah, I'm suffering from it a little with Nintendo right now.
I'm sure they'll bring some neat titles to the system. Besides, there are also Gamecube games like Eternal Darkness, and VC games from any number of "more mature" systems of old.
-
[citation required]
For which part?
The sales figures can be found here: http://www.vgchartz.com/chartsindex.php
The anecdote about Monster Hunter Tri is here: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2007/10/10/afx4204151.html. 'Due to high development cost of titles for PS3, we have decided to switch the platform to which we release our Monster Hunster 3 title,' Capcom managing corporate officer Katsuhiko Ichii said.
The new controller for mature games would need to have force feedback and be waterproof and washable.
Too many games are retarded, and a lot of people who play them are probably retarded too. It's like any other form of mass entertainment. Supposedly "mature" games are mostly mindless violence. I think "mature" means "appeals to 13 year olds instead of 10 year olds" here. It's one or two steps up from "My Pony Party". Do you want a good game for the Wii? Try Muramasa. It has a good story, incredible art, and it's a lot of fun to play. Is that a mature game? I would say so. It's a lot more mature than sawing people to death (what the hell?). Developers: stop complaining that your retarded shit doesn't sell. I'm sure lots of even more retarded shit sells like hotcakes, and that seems mighty unfair, but nobody cares nor should they care. Try making something that isn't totally brain dead.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Wii sales fell off a cliff? Did they land in a pile of money or something? The Wii was SOLD OUT for almost 2 years after launch, that's well beyond any conceivable novelty factor. I'm sorry you think the wiimote isn't an elegant controller like the rest of the world does (and it is), but it's accuracy and ease of use is second only to the mouse and keyboard for FPS's. The stick controls the ps3 and xbox rely on for shooters is clumsy and requires autoaiming for most games, something development houses have to accomodate or their games feel inaccurate.
The reason so many third party games are considered sub-par for the wii is because three dimensional interfaces have never been fleshed out, and no one knows yet how to fully utilize all the extra input options. So to play it safe few games (besides first party ones) really take a chance on 3d motion input, instead relying on the well known stick and button controls we've been using for decades. It's the same story with the iphone right now (tell me thats a novelty too, i dare ya) Few game developers get creative and utilize multitouch in fun an interesting ways, and most end up treating touch input the same as they would a mouse.
Long story short, it's the Wii that has yet to really come into it's own. The PS3 and XBOX have their niche crowds and eye candy, and netflix is a nice bonus, but after 50-100 hours of gameplay i really could care less if it's rendering in 1200p at 240hz. I still think Quake is fun, and X-Com, and HoMM. I even get a kick out of MUD's, and they have no graphics at all. The Wii is only going to get more fun as developers find more creative ways to use this newfangled "third dimension" that they've been raving about on the tubes.
Lots of console games have level editors.
Zack and Wiki does not. The joke was about a misleading title.
But seriously: Apart from a handful of games like RPG Maker and LittleBigPlanet, even those console games with level editors tend to have crippled level editors. For example, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has a stage builder, but 1. it builds only brawl stages, not adventure stages or any form of character; 2. it can start only from a blank page, not one of the 41 preset brawl stages; and 3. I'm limited to "stage builder parts", not the more interesting stuff that appears in the rest of the game or parts whose appearance and (more importantly) behavior I can create.
Just looking at Nintendo and the Wii rationally, Nintendo couldn't have painted a cleared picture of what the Wii was supposed to be to consumers: A family and/or group oriented gaming console. It just couldn't have been clearer. They sold *a lot* of consoles on this basis! The games that the article cite as not doing well all made me say to myself (as a Wii owner, and near middle-aged gamer): Little wonder. They do not look interesting.
My opinion may have been different 25 years ago, but honestly playing Seven Cities of Gold, Rescue on Fractalus or MULE (some games from 25 years ago) on my old Atari 800 still sounds more appealing than a session of any of those games in the article. I think that's the problem with these games that don't do well: They aren't fun.
No, "harcore gamer" opinions on this don't count. That's a rarified market composed almost exclusively of teens (or younger). And going back to the beginning of my statement, it's not who Nintendo has been targeting *or selling* their console to.
Personally, I'm still pleased with Wii Sports (will be upgrading to Sports Resort when the budget allows), Play, Mario Kart Wii (the only Mario game I've ever really liked after Mario Bros), Zack & Wiki, Punchout!, among several others. I've also got a slew of WiWare games. I love "Cards" - best Euchre game I've seen on any computer platform; has several other card games as well. Donkey Kong, DK Jr, Spellunker and Load Runner are all great games to sit down and play for a few minutes.
I can't speak for Nintendo to say how this is working out for them, but from my angle as a customer, I'm pleased with the experience *and* that I only spent $200 vs $400+ on a new console. Go Nintendo!
-Matt
Goldeneye and Perfect Dark are fun to this day, and their graphics by today's standards are terrible. The graphics don't have to be next-gen or hyper-realistic. There is only one crucial element: gameplay. If it's done well -- if it's fun to play the first time and gamers have a reason to keep coming back -- then yes, there is a future for mature gaming on the Wii.
Unfortunately, I think it's going to take a babysteps approach, because Nintendo's current fanbase seems to be mostly casual gamers and the family-friendly types. Anyone not in that category who has a Wii is probably a loyal fan, so Nintendo doesn't need to focus on them -- those fans will find the games they want either way.