Wii Hardware Upgrade Won't Happen Soon

As high-definition graphics become more and more entrenched in this generation of game consoles, Nintendo has had to deal with constant speculation about a new version of the Wii that would increase its capabilities. Today, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime bluntly denied that a hardware revision was imminent, saying, "We are confident the Wii home entertainment console has a very long life in front of it." He added, "In terms of what the future holds, we've gone on record to say that the next step for Nintendo in home consoles will not be to simply make it HD, but to add more and more capability, and we'll do that when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii. And we're nowhere near doing that yet."

Comments

It makes sense really

[sopssa]

Wii has a large userbase of casual gamers. There wouldn't really be anything that new for then. HD sure, but I know many people who really aren't that interested in it. I am, sure, I would love a Wii HD with Motion Capture Plus. But thats probably not the case for majority of people, especially girls who usually don't understand why their boyfriends/husbands want a huge HDTV.

The only thing Wii was missing was the better motion sensors, but it wasn't possible financially at that point, the technology was too costly for competing with better priced console. After that it would be just everything that more hardcore players would want, and that isn't Nintendo's largest market.

Re:It makes sense really

[xtracto]

Yeah, similarly as Sony CEO denied the existence of a PS3 Slim before they unveiled it.

Re:It makes sense really

[phantomfive]

In addition to that, half the games don't even make full use of the graphics capabilities already available. Zelda, for example, looked basically the same as on game cube. Right now I'm playing fire-emblem, and while it's a great game, the graphics aren't much better than you would see on PS1. It's kind of amazing to me now, that after all these years of chasing graphics, finally there is a console that ignores the race and still does well.

Re:It makes sense really

[fm6]

Well, they already made the decision to drop out of the graphics arms race, and instead concentrate an features that made the system more usable. That strategy has paid off handsomely. Why go back on it now?

I wonder if consumers are beginning to get tired of all that expensive tech that ends up being obsolete in a year or two. The recession is a factor, but even before, we saw people asking themselves if they really wanted Blu-Ray, HD, or whatever. The fact that cheap-but-fun Nintendo products are outselling the fancier competition is consistent with that.

Re:It makes sense really

[10Neon]

Twilight Princess was a ported GameCube game, if that helps explain anything.

Re:It makes sense really

[Lussarn]

especially girls who usually don't understand why their boyfriends/husbands want a huge HDTV

I must be lucky, my GF already talks about 3DTV. Last year I tried unsuccesfully to hold her back on the home cinema system.

Re:It makes sense really

[zmollusc]

Might it be that, for most people, DVD resolution is 'good enough' for video, like mp3 is 'good enough' for audio? Or am I just restating the '640k' thing?

Re:It makes sense really

[Toonol]

I've stopped caring about advances in graphics since about the time of the PS2. There are new things the current gen of consoles offer... networking, motion sensing, better storage... but if you look fundamentally at the games, I don't think the improved graphics make them any more fun. There's nothing on the 360 that couldn't have been done on the x-box, if the developers had just cut back the complexity of the graphics; and it would have been no less fun.

At some point, the majority of televisions will transition over to HD, and so it will make sense that the Wii needs to upgrade to meet that. But I see no point in upgrading purely to get a boost in graphics.

Fire Emblem, by the way, is the best game I've played on any console this gen... and they could have made it for the Nintendo DS with almost no changes in gameplay.

Re:It makes sense really

[bronney]

Exactly bro, ever notice the people in Pixar's film don't exactly look like people? Yet their movie completely rocks? It's always the content. The actors do play a part but if you've seen great actors in shit high budget movies you'd know what I mean :)

Re:It makes sense really

[Z00L00K]

One really interesting thing when it comes to the Wii is that the controllers are talking Bluetooth, which makes them useful for other applications too.

Just take a look at the Wiimote library.

And recently I have interfaced a Wiimote with a windows mobile device, so anyone stating that it can't be done is wrong.

Re:It makes sense really

[sonamchauhan]

"I would love a Wii HD with Motion Capture Plus."

Its Wii MotionPlus not Motion Capture Plus, but ... so would I :)

you may have just started something here...

Re:It makes sense really

[Isbiten]

But thats probably not the case for majority of people, especially girls who usually don't understand why their boyfriends/husbands want a huge HDTV..

Yes because women and girls are so dumb, am I right? My girlfriend was just as excited as I was when we got our HDTV to play Xbox on.

Re:It makes sense really

[Inda]

Are you two kidding? Full blown HD graphics with shadows, complex textures, high poly count and the like are what I want. I want to see blemishes on skin, blades of grass moving and reflections in water. I want to hear footsteps on metal, birds tweeting and monsters breathing. I want downloadable content, voice chat and massive multiplayer events.

Any gamer who's pulled out a GFX card and replaced it with a better model will say the same.

Wii? It's a child's toy. It's a child's toy that my child doesn't even play because it's a poor and expensive experience.

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy... I thought that you were being sarcastic. Are you?

You do realize that audio generally requires much less processing power than video, right?

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

Any gamer who's pulled out a GFX card and replaced it with a better model will say the same.

False.

Re:It makes sense really

[isama]

I am jealous.

Re:It makes sense really

[BikeHelmet]

Are you two kidding? Full blown HD graphics with shadows, complex textures, high poly count and the like are what I want. I want to see blemishes on skin, blades of grass moving and reflections in water. I want to hear footsteps on metal, birds tweeting and monsters breathing. I want downloadable content, voice chat and massive multiplayer events.

Sounds like you need a PC rather than a console.

Consoles are great. I need one so that when people visit, they keep their mucky hands off my computer. Guess which console I went for?

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

How about streaming HD content via a Wii channel, or just watching BluRay films on the Wii?

Plus when a Wii is been displayed on a 40"+ TV it looks very N64ish imho.

A bit more GPU grunt would also be very welcome for developers!

Re:It makes sense really

[ThePhilips]

DVD resolution is 'good enough' for video

Most of the time - yes. Many movies gain little to nothing from HD.

Or am I just restating the '640k' thing?

Yes and no.

My point is that many movies/games jumped on HD (and next - 3D) without actually trying to add anything new to it. My friend after seeing a new movie in HD once commented that only difference to experience was that in the boring moments of the movie he could entertain himself by reading the signs and numbers on the license plates.

Where HD could make huge difference in games IMO are the action scenes. Pixel count really helps to understand what's going on the screen. Though to date I have seen very few (if any) games which were able to do it properly: huge mess of flashy special effects spilling from the screen is really a huge unparsable mess. Only truly properly applied HD in games remain the cut scenes. And even those out of the long standing PC gaming habit I normally skip....

Though game-wise HD at the moment is largely misplaced, Wii needs to support HD simply because in few years one wouldn't be able to buy a non-HD TV. And Wii on HD screen looks really bad: jagged edges and overall over-smoothness of graphics really hurts my eyes. Upgrade of Wii to simply properly render in/scale to at least 720p would help.

Re:It makes sense really

[clickclickdrone]

>I must be lucky, my GF already talks about 3DTV. Last year I tried unsuccesfully to hold her back on the home cinema system.
It's a trick. Mine was the same until I married her. Now she just complains about all the Hifi, TVs, speakers etc cluttering the place up.

Re:It makes sense really

[Calinous]

People are used to a kind of look, and won't accept anything less.
      I started gaming on the Sinclair Spectrum clones, with their 256 * 170 something displays. I still think those games were looking great, but I hate the look of the flash-based clones with similar resolutions.
      People that are used to a level of graphics in games won't accept something lower, even if the play is fun. While Doom could look nice on a phone screen, they look terrible on 19" displays.
      So, people don't really want all that realistic look, but they'll downrate the game if it's looking blocky (Doom, X-COM, other old games).

Re:It makes sense really

[hattig]

Never mind that this guy isn't about to Osbourne Wii sales.

Until they want to show it off, it won't exist. Simple really.

You don't see Microsoft talking about the XBox1080, or Sony talking about the PS4 - that's because they don't want existing sales to tank as people wait for the new product. I don't see why Nintendo would be any different. The only guaranteed thing is that all three companies are more than likely well into the design process for their next generation consoles.

Re:It makes sense really

[Toonol]

It's more powerful than the PS2. Did you not enjoy a PS2? I would give up all my current gen consoles before I gave up my PS2.

I guess I look for very different things in a game than you do.

Re:It makes sense really

[Toonol]

Doom is the best selling game on xbox live, if I remember correctly. Unenhanced graphics. My son at college just recently beat Nightmare mode, and called me to brag. Pixelation and all.

Re:It makes sense really

[Calinous]

Wow... Just wow :|

Re:It makes sense really

[Negatyfus]

I have often wondered if what I saw the Xbox 360 put out would have been possible on the Xbox. My conclusion is: no, it wouldn't have been. It would have been a scaled-down, lesser experience. The consoles are power-beasts this generation and can barf up some very impressive things. Not only in terms of graphics do the games provide a better feeling, but also in amount of enemies on-screen, AI and animation. The latter plays a big role in gameplay. I also like in-game cut-scenes. The Xbox could do that, sure, but for the first time they actually look like something worth watching. No blocky polygons and blurry textures to distract you from the story that is unfolding. I appreciate all the people shouting "Gameplay over graphics, rawr!!" but they are both important. The fanatics can play with their emulators, if they'd like, but I do like a good graphical experience (both on consoles and PC).

Re:It makes sense really

[bronney]

good for him :)

Re:It makes sense really

[timmarhy]

here is the counter arguement - HD graphics allow you to place details in the game that otherwise would be impossible. translucent walls, fog, 3d sound. they all add to the atmosphere of the game and CAN make a more enjoyable and immersive experience.

having said that, i'm flat out thinking of more then a handfull of games that actually make use of it. that's not a problem with HD however, it's a problem with our current distribution system for gaming, which favours the wrong people.

Re:It makes sense really

[L4t3r4lu5]

Talking of 3D (off topic) but I can't watch it. My depth-perception kicks in and I try and focus on different parts of the scene. Avatar was pretty, but gave me a headache.

Does anybody watch a movie by staring dead-straight at the centre of the screen?

Re:It makes sense really

[Kugrian]

Guess which console I went for?

PS2. Cheap ass.

Re:It makes sense really

[Kugrian]

I got one of those. T2000. What model are you using?

Re:It makes sense really

[polar red]

Any gamer who's pulled out a GFX card and replaced it with a better model will say the same.

wrong. did you ever try the wii out ? the controller is at least half what it makes interesting, and i'm waiting for "red steel 2" to come out, it will blow your mind ...

Re:It makes sense really

[WillAdams]

A woman marries a man thinking he'll change... he doesn't.

A man marries a woman thinking she won't change... she does.

I doubt this will ever change.

Re:It makes sense really

[ThePhilips]

Does anybody watch a movie by staring dead-straight at the centre of the screen?

Majority does.

And that's what Hollywood execs care about.

I have similar problems though not to such extent: during Avatar I had to take off glasses not once but otherwise I was OK.

In fact it is not so much of an off-topic. HD has similar problem - supplying too much redundant information which human perception simply can't swallow. Most people ignore it. Though some like me (or you) who like to look not only at what film/game makers expects us to look at get the headaches.

Re:It makes sense really

[DrXym]

I've stopped caring about advances in graphics since about the time of the PS2. There are new things the current gen of consoles offer... networking, motion sensing, better storage... but if you look fundamentally at the games, I don't think the improved graphics make them any more fun. There's nothing on the 360 that couldn't have been done on the x-box, if the developers had just cut back the complexity of the graphics; and it would have been no less fun.

The "graphics don't matter" argument doesn't hold much water. If we go down that route, then through backwards induction there was nothing in the PS2 that couldn't be done on the PS1 with cut back graphics. And nothing on the PS1 that couldn't be done on the Sega Saturn. And nothing in the Sega Saturn to Sega Megadrive. And nothing in the Sega Megadrive to NES. And nothing in NES to Atari 2600. And nothing Atari 2600 to the Telstar. etc.

Except of course graphics wasn't the only thing that changed between console generations. Processing power, memory, storage, general throughput, controllers, number of players, modelling, animation, audio, networking, physics are all improved. Each generation was capable of delivering experiences that you simply couldn't get on the one before. Do all these things guarantee a better game? Of course not, but they are powerful tools that can and should be used to deliver the best experience.

An obvious example of this would be Dead Rising. The concept worked so well on the 360 because the console had the power to render hundreds of zombies. A veritable horde of them. When the game was ported to the Wii, even with cut down graphics, the game had been emasculated so you were lucky to see a dozen zombies at once. The game lost its soul in the transition. Some games simply do not translate well even if you cut down the graphics.

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

What I don't get is that the Wii already supports HD. Depends on your definition I guess but 480p is, per definition, HD. Sure, you'd need to buy an extra cable or break out the proper output yourself (I recall seeing someone hack this together a while back), but 480p should look a lot better than 480i or whatever VHS players of ye olden days used (that we still, for some reason, use).

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

Lack of understanding doesn't exclude ability to enjoy. I wanted to hook up my old Logitech 4.1 surround speakers at home to at least get better sound than the TV's built in speakers but my girlfriend didn't like the idea of extra wires and such. She was away visiting family for a few days this Christmas though, so I seized the opportunity to do it anyways, and since she got home and heard the difference there has been no argument.

Also, I am currently trying to hold her back from buying some large-ass plasma TV. She doesn't bother with properly understanding things like contrast and resolution, so she tends to get a bit blinded by the "CHEAP SUPER-PLASMA 50 inch WOWNESS"-advertising. Just have to keep telling her that anything below 720p is a complete waste of money no matter how big it is, since we already have a decent non-HD wide-screen TV.

Credit where credit is due though, she's quite the technophile (for a girl. I can say that, right?). She loves gadgets and utterly rocks right off the bat at pretty much any game she plays. The best gift I have ever given her is an official Star Wars lightsaber. Every time we have new people over, she takes it down from it's shelf to show off. ^^

Re:It makes sense really

[Khyber]

Only with the Wii MotionPlus. Regular Wiimote SUCKS for such things.

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

Well, as guys we generally notice girls who look good and girls who spend time tending to their appearance don't often care about gadgetry and tech stuff. Ergo, we mostly notice the women who are "dumb" when it comes to anything we care about.

On a related note.. has anyone here considered the skill required in putting on a decent face of make-up? I can do amazing things with php, mysql and jQuery in no time at all, I am proficient in a good handful of languages, I can setup and configure servers and networks...

..but I can't for the life of me put together an ensemble that makes me look good and stand out at a social gathering, much less do so in 30 minutes.

Re:It makes sense really

[NeMon'ess]

It sounds like you're in the minority of console gamers who never has moments like "holy shit that looks amazing!" Better graphics make that possible.

Re:It makes sense really

[Mr. Vage]

I had the same problem. If I looked at anything on screen that wasn't in focus, it gave me a headache trying to focus on something that can't be focused on.

However, I don't think video games will suffer from the same problem if depth of field effects are disabled while playing in 3D.

Re:It makes sense really

[tangelogee]

I was going to say 2600, but that works too...

Re:It makes sense really

[tangelogee]

...Good to see where his tuition is going. Unless they have a "Beat old games class" at that school...

Re:It makes sense really

[Bai jie]

Yeah because Sony lying totally means that Nintendo is too.

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

No. 480p is, per definition, Enhanced Definition.

Re:It makes sense really

[Obyron]

They jumped out of the graphics arms race and into the peripherals arms race. In Canada the Wii costs around 200 bucks at Costco, which is the cheapest I've seen it, and around 200 dollars cheaper than the xbox. But you need to get a nunchuk to play certain games: 25 dollars. A second controller and nunchuk, around 50 bucks total. Want to get motionplus for both of those to improve the motion sensing? 50 dollars. You're now at 325, compared to the xbox with a second controller which gets you to about 450 (and also comes with the Elite system, Modern Warfare 2, and a 250gb hard drive). The average new game for the 360 up here runs 60-70 dollars. For the Wii they're slightly cheaper... unless they're some hokey peripheral game like WiiFit, where you're going to pay 100 dollars. Want another balance board? That'll be 60 or 70 dollars. Want to buy Mario Kart and get two little steering wheel controllers? 90 dollars. If the Wii is not the most outright profitable console of this generation I'd be shocked, because they nickle and dime you to death with cheap peripherals, and people buy them. It seems like every game they come out with comes with some new gadget you need to buy, and I hardly think that's an accident. I'd like to see Microsoft and Sony put out a commercial comparing Total Cost of Ownership, because even if you're paying for Xbox Live Gold every a year, you'll probably end up spending more money for your Wii.

Re:It makes sense really

[JayAEU]

It's a good thing there's actually a customized version of the Wii just for those girls that don't want their boyfriends to have a proper HD setup...
http://bit.ly/7wnVfm

Re:It makes sense really

[sopssa]

I never said every girl was. But what I've dated, they've always been ok with smaller tv and such, mostly caring about the content and not the technology. Wii fits good into this. That being said, I don't usually date geeky girls or who share the same amount of interest in computers, because even if I hate it, I need someone to drag me out and do other fun things in life.

Of course people are different and so they should be. But some generalizations are true and to certain lengths will always be. If you have a different kind of gf, good for you. But try to go talk to random guys about technology, sports and beers. Now repeat this experience with random girls and see how interested they generally are.

Re:It makes sense really

[SargentDU]

If the son is playing games instead of drinking - Dad is money ahead!

Re:It makes sense really

[Hurricane78]

I’ll make a bold statement:

I am a game designer. And you know which games I personally like to play most?
Small innovative (flash) games and the like! (Think kongregate.com.)

It sees that big budget games tend to go all aesthetics and technology.
But small games go more in the direction of good gameplay (mechanics).

I wish people would not forget, that it’s all four (story, gameplay, aesthetics, and technology) that are relevant.
And the quality of a game, is all those things, multiplied with each other. (With story having the biggest factor, but the others being not much less relevant.)
They have to support each other.

Re:It makes sense really

[JayAEU]

If you're paying so much for all that gear, you're doing it wrong... ;)
http://bit.ly/8Mjw6x

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's Doom! It is renowned for its pixelated, retro-goodness. I know many youngsters that play this game just because of its infamous portrayal in the media.

Had it been Pony Simulator II - Late night stable bonanza you'd have to be a bit worried.

Re:It makes sense really

[blahbooboo]

Aren't all big screen flat panel TVs HDTV at this point? FYI, there are so few makers of plasma now (samsung and Panasonic) that any plasma is as good or better than the best LCDs(led backlit are probably about same and better depending on situation) so picking any plasma is a safe bet for a fantastic TV.

Re:It makes sense really

[Hurricane78]

That’s because Pixar avoids the uncanny valley like hell. And they are right to do so.
Pixar could already go practically 100% on making realistic humans. But that tiny bit missing would make it a very creepy experience. Which perhaps works if it’s supposed to be a monster in a horror movie. But not in your typical Pixar movie. ;)

I agree, that we are past “realism” as an ideal.
Nowadays, it’s like art: You try to create a style. Its own “realism”.
Like Finding Nemo, which at first had so much realism, that it creeped people out. Then they changed the whole style to something less realistic, and more fitting. Which worked nicely.

Re:It makes sense really

[HaZardman27]

Ergo, we mostly notice the women who are "dumb" when it comes to anything we care about.

I can't for the life of me put together an ensemble that makes me look good and stand out at a social gathering

has anyone here considered the skill required in putting on a decent face of make-up?

I'm really confused...

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

More specifically it favours the people who... erm... sell a lot of games over the ones who... don't.

Re:It makes sense really

[Spatial]

720x480 is a really low resolution. It doesn't matter what marketing people call it, it's still pixelated and blurry.

I'm using the best output right now and it doesn't look much better than the standard one. There's no interlace-induced flickering - that's about it.

There's a Wii/GC emulator called Dolphin that can render Wii games at any res you like. It looks excellent, way better than the real thing.

Despite the poor resolution they were designed for, Wii games generally have sufficiently high model complexity and texture quality to look quite good in high resolutions. It's a shame it can't be taken advantage of.

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

... it will.

Re:It makes sense really

[tepples]

Dead Rising. The concept worked so well on the 360 because the console had the power to render hundreds of zombies. A veritable horde of them. When the game was ported to the Wii, even with cut down graphics, the game had been emasculated so you were lucky to see a dozen zombies at once.

But how many zombies at once could Super Smash TV on the Super NES or Doom II on the PC show at once?

Re:It makes sense really

[bberens]

..because they nickle and dime you to death with cheap peripherals, and people buy them.

Generally speaking the peripherals you mentioned are geared towards different markets. Wii fit and its platform is really popular with moms. The Wii motion plus is popular with FPS players (young men), the "put this thing on the wii-mote so it looks like a golf club" type stuff is generally for the younger kid crowd. The success of the Wii is that it markets to many different demographics. It's going to be unlikely that all of those peripherals would be purchased for the same person, even if they happen to be purchased within the same household. Meanwhile the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 are still focused almost solely on the young male crowd. That's fine and all, but it's unfair to suggest that any single demographic targeted by the Wii must purchase a bunch of peripherals. Besides, those cheesy peripherals are part of the fun.

Re:It makes sense really

[tepples]

There's nothing on the 360 that couldn't have been done on the x-box

Xbox Live Indie Games. I don't think the original Xbox HW had enough CPU and RAM to absorb the overhead of the managed XNA environment.

Re:It makes sense really

[sopssa]

Wii fit and its platform is really popular with moms.

Well.. Thank you!

Re:It makes sense really

[tepples]

But you need to get a nunchuk to play certain games: 25 dollars.

Since when was Player 1's Nunchuk accessory eliminated from the standard bundle?

unless they're some hokey peripheral game like WiiFit, where you're going to pay 100 dollars.

It's not the only peripheral game. Cross-platform peripheral games include DDR, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band, even on your favored X [] O. And if you're including MotionPlus in the Wii's price, do you plan to include Natal in the 360's or Eye in the PS3's?

Want to buy Mario Kart and get two little steering wheel controllers? 90 dollars.

The Wii Wheel is a piece of plastic. There are third-party replacements: after you buy the game and one wheel, additional wheels cost $15 or so.

Re:It makes sense really

[Stavr0]

Never mind that this guy isn't about to Osbourne Wii sales.

Ok, raise your hand everyone who got the "to Osbourne" reference without having to look it up. ;)

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

Confused? I don't see why.. First off, I am a guy and a geek by nature.

Ergo, we mostly notice the women who are "dumb" when it comes to anything we care about.

Guys notice girls who look good. Girls who care about appearance don't generally care about tech. As geeks and nerds, anyone without a basic understanding of simple tech-stuff qualifies as "dumb". Ergo, we are attracted to "dumb" girls, and "Most girls are dumb" is perhaps a result of this.

The rest was just a random rant, a bit of support for the gals we so easily disregard as being dumb because they have no interest in or understanding of the things we all love. I was making the point that someone we consider dumb because they could never build a pc from scratch or learn (and enjoy) programming might have other skills and interests that they value.

For example a sense of style. The reason I mostly wear black, dark blue and gray'ish colors is that I'm safe from total failure no matter what I throw on each morning. Why do you think every guy out clubbing wears essentially the same thing, while no two girls would be caught dead looking the same? Why do you think men are very comfortable looking like a bunch of suit-wearing clones while women go out of their way to look good and unique?

Do you think that doesn't require extensive skill and experience? I advice you to ask your girlfriend, wife or a female friend to let you do their makeup. Perhaps you'll acknowledge their non-tech related skill when they end up looking like they've been shot with Homer's makeup shotgun. =P

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

Oh, sorry, my bad for not looking that up. But at least it's digital right, and thus retains it's crisp color no matter what? And higher definition than, say, normal TV broadcasts? So it's better, and it's available. It's not 1080p but when I watch movies in 480p on my friend's streaming website, it looks just fine and dandy whether it's on my monitor or my TV.

Re:It makes sense really

[plastbox]

Dolphin works now? I recall trying it a few years back, way before the Wii was announced, and I couldn't even get it to run properly.

Re:It makes sense really

[bluefoxlucid]

I appreciate all the people shouting "Gameplay over graphics, rawr!!" but they are both important.).

I found and still do find the graphics in Golden Sun amazing.

Re:It makes sense really

[osgeek]

I've said that and then quit the game shortly thereafter because the gameplay sucked.

I don't recall ever quitting a game with great gameplay because the graphics sucked.

I wouldn't say that I "don't care about graphics", but I'd agree with the grandfather post and the overall Nintendo stance that focusing on gameplay and the uniqueness of their system will get them further then adding a few pixels.

Re:It makes sense really

[tangelogee]

If the son is playing games instead of drinking - Dad is money ahead!

touché good sir, touché

Re:It makes sense really

[osgeek]

That's kind of a straw man argument, isn't it? You even quoted the part where he said he stopped caring around the time of the PS2. Regressing his position to before that time wouldn't seem to make much sense.

Besides, when people say that "graphics don't matter", they mean that gameplay mechanics are typically paramount with them. They normally say that because graphics are too often used as a crutch that can never really make up for poor gameplay.

It's really a style vs substance debate, which is a matter of personal preference. YMMV.

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

you just pointed out two games that started life as gamecube game and were just ported to the wii for their first release. good job picking games actually designed for the wii

Re:It makes sense really

[Hatta]

You're not a gamer, you're just a graphics whore. Individually rendered blades of grass have nothing to do with gameplay. Not that graphics aren't appealing, I just got a nice graphics card. Well worth it, but I still spend a lot of time on my PS2 (and SNES).

Re:It makes sense really

[Hatta]

Translucency and fog have been used to great effect on previous gen consoles. Hell, on the N64 it seems like there's nothing but fog. :)

Re:It makes sense really

[bilbravo]

At first I thought it meant to "assassinate" as in... Lee Harvey Oswald. Did I get it right? Or do I need to visit google?

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

But your argument assumes that games have gotten better over time. Have they?

What makes a game "better" than another game?

I still miss the days of Space War on the Atari.

Re:It makes sense really

[nloop]

Are you two kidding? ... I want to see blemishes on skin, blades of grass moving and reflections in water. I want to hear footsteps on metal, birds tweeting

Look around, see that door? Yeah, that one with the sunlight behind it. Close the computer, and walk out it.

Fixed that for you.

Re:It makes sense really

[VGPowerlord]

Doom is the best selling game on xbox live, if I remember correctly. Unenhanced graphics. My son at college just recently beat Nightmare mode, and called me to brag. Pixelation and all.

When I looked at the Xbox Live Arcade list just recently, I don't remember seeing Doom on the Best Sellers list. Instead, that list had things like Castle Crashers and Portal. I do recall that Duke Nukem 3D is on that list, though...

I'll check later when I'm at home; xbox.com is blocked where I work.

Re:It makes sense really

[nxtw]

I've stopped caring about advances in graphics since about the time of the PS2.

I found PS2 graphics in some games underwhelming, primarily because many of them seemed to disable anti-aliasing/image quality enhancements for higher frame rates. AA made graphics look better on the Dreamcast, which was actually released before the PS2.

but if you look fundamentally at the games, I don't think the improved graphics make them any more fun

There is one important exception you might consider: frame rate. Games that can't keep the frame rate around 30 fps are rather annoying to me, especially when the frame rate drops during action.

I think having a high frame rate is important in racing games - it makes games like Burnout series, which aims to render at a constant 60 fps, much more enjoyable.

Re:It makes sense really

[VGPowerlord]

Oh, sorry, my bad for not looking that up. But at least it's digital right, and thus retains it's crisp color no matter what? And higher definition than, say, normal TV broadcasts? So it's better, and it's available. It's not 1080p but when I watch movies in 480p on my friend's streaming website, it looks just fine and dandy whether it's on my monitor or my TV.

It's not TV broadcasts you have to compare it to, it's the Wii's other display options... of which there is just one; 480i.

Re:It makes sense really

[nxtw]

But at least it's digital right, and thus retains it's crisp color no matter what?

Wii output is analog. 480p is not interlaced, and at 60 Hz, this means there are 60 full frames per second.

And higher definition than, say, normal TV broadcasts?

480p is potentially higher definition than 480i broadcasts, and possibly more efficient for transmitting 24 fps content. But since lots of TV content is progressive 24 fps, progressive 30 fps, or interlaced 60 fps, there isn't much difference between 480p and 480i (at least when video is processed correctly).

Re:It makes sense really

[VGPowerlord]

*raises hand*

While I was extremely young when the Osbourne thing happened, I've heard about it enough to know what you were referring to.

And I don't mean Ozzy's TV show!

Re:It makes sense really

[Duradin]

And I'd rather have a good game play experience.

Bit Trip Beat in all its pong-y graphics was fun. It didn't need to be photo-realistic.

Re:It makes sense really

[bronney]

exactly. If people find pixar's stuff still too realistic as a comparison to the Wii, try beavis and butthead, the simpsons, even chip and dale.

Content is king. I wish I can name a realistic cartoon that sucked but with HD. I can't.

Re:It makes sense really

[goltzc]

That takes me back, If I recall correctly, fog was used on the N64 as a visual trick to limit the rendering depth of a scene.

Re:It makes sense really

[AnotherShep]

Nah, No More Heroes 2 is going to be way more interesting. Fuckhead!

Re:It makes sense really

[eln]

That's kind of funny, because historically translucency and fog have been used to limit the number of things that had to be rendered on screen, and to reduce the detail needed on each one. Most games that advertised levels in big open areas tended to obscure the open areas with fog so they wouldn't need ridiculously expensive hardware to render them. Similarly, windows would be translucent rather than transparent in order to simplify the rendering of stuff on the other side of them.

Re:It makes sense really

[pugugly]

Hmm - Actually I have, and, ah, no I wouldn't say the same.

There is a game experience that depends on graphical immersion. Between them X-box and the PS-3 (and the PC of course) have that market cornered.

They have however ignored, yknow, every game genre that *doesn't* require graphical immersion.Afterall, wtf would you play Tetris on a PS3 for.

Except -it turns out some of us like a quick game of Tetris. On my 55" HDTV even. for $5.

When I want a heavy duty game, I go to my PC anyway. But for light, fun games, basic internet/news access, all the general light games you can enjoy with family?

Wii rocks man.

Re:It makes sense really

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, I was high through most of the N64 Generation too.

Re:It makes sense really

[pugugly]

Now there's a thought.

WiiHack!!!!!

Re:It makes sense really

[FiloEleven]

He doesn't even have to go that far. Just turn on a light and check the mirror to see skin blemishes, all in the comfort of his (mom's) basement!

Re:It makes sense really

[timeOday]

It's not just Sony; most companies do this. I've noticed Apple will swear up and down that there's no reason not to buy their current products until the day they unveil the new one. Even if the "new Wii" were announced 11 months from now, is there anything definite enough (like specific dates) in the Fils-Aime's statement that he could be called a liar? No, of course not. Of course not.

Re:It makes sense really

[timeOday]

Maybe that's why I perceived Avatar as a breakthrough; with the combination of 3d and how they composited things, the humans looked very real, in an unreal yet very convincing setting, and it didn't feel weird (as opposed to, say, the Polar Express).

I think the uncanny valley has been bridged.

Re:It makes sense really

[Maxo-Texas]

Everyone learned the lesson of Osborne computers.

If they said there was a new WII coming out in 11 months or that the new Wii's controllers would impale your hand with spikes, sales would plummet.

Re:It makes sense really

[timeOday]

I have a PS2, which I always and only play with my son in split screen mode (Star Wars, Burnout). For splitscreen, it really would be nice to upgrade to 1080p. Splitting NTSC gives you 240i which isn't really satisfactory.

Re:It makes sense really

[pugugly]

I went through a lot of hunting - For the price the Vizio 55 (VF-something) inch at Costco for $1350 is the best we found - lacks some features of the higher end models, but not very darn many.

Paid $200 for the stand though - old farm house, was not *about* to trust a wall mount. But it *is* purty, and definitely made my consumer reports subscription worth it.

YMMV.
Pug

Re:It makes sense really

[tlhIngan]

Wii has a large userbase of casual gamers. There wouldn't really be anything that new for then. HD sure, but I know many people who really aren't that interested in it. I am, sure, I would love a Wii HD with Motion Capture Plus. But thats probably not the case for majority of people, especially girls who usually don't understand why their boyfriends/husbands want a huge HDTV.

Or, who don't want to buy an HDTV for their kids so they can watch TV.

Kid's TVs are usually cast offs, that old tube TV in the living room that was replaced by an HDTV, well, it'll hook up to a Wii well enough and is still playable. PS3 and Xbox360 suffer from games that cannot handle SDTV - text/details get too blurry to be useful.

There exist many old tube TVs that are perfectly servicable, and unless the family is particularly rich, not many families have multiple HDTVs.

Also, you think Nintendo is going to say "there's a new Wii coming out that'll support HDTV!" and promptly stop all Wii sales (see Osborne effect). Stores had issues when the PS3 Slim came out and people wanted to return their "fat" PS3s - when the Slim came out, there were huge piles of returned PS3s.

Re:It makes sense really

[polar red]

for red steel 2, the motionplus is required ... the motionplus is indeed a big step forward.

Re:It makes sense really

[marcosdumay]

"Wii? It's a child's toy. It's a child's toy that my child doesn't even play because it's a poor and expensive experience."

Thanks for proving the point. Why, again, should Nintendo make Wii a better experience for you if it will still be below what you get from your PC?

Re:It makes sense really

[artemis67]

Sure; it takes years to develop a new console. If they waited until sales of the Wii were seriously waning before working on a next-gen console, they would lose much of their customer base.

Re:It makes sense really

[marcosdumay]

"While Doom could look nice on a phone screen, they look terrible on 19" displays."

Oh, came on! Just go buy a 386 and stop complaining!

Re:It makes sense really

[petermgreen]

t's the Wii's other display options... of which there is just one; 480i.
depends where you bought your wii, if you bought it on this side of the pond you get the choice between 576i 50Hz, 480i 60Hz and 480p 60Hz.

Re:It makes sense really

[marcosdumay]

"Or am I just restating the '640k' thing?"

Yes, but you are doing it the right way. 640k is really more than enough for single task, command line, slow processing computers*. What went wrong with that quote is that computers changed, and the way we interacted with them also changed. Audio won't change, neither will video (but here I disagree, HD video is just not economical now, it is not enough).

* Computers simulating nuclear explosions, and whatever banks had by the time already used more than 640kB.

Re:It makes sense really

[PitaBred]

Why are those exclusive?

Re:It makes sense really

[marcosdumay]

I'm still to meet somebody from your "majority".

Re:It makes sense really

[PitaBred]

Hehe. I got halfway lucky... my wife likes the high-def TV, but couldn't care less about the 5.1 surround ;) At least she doesn't complain about the speakers mounted on the walls and the wire tacked to the ceiling. I've gotta get some raceway one of these days.

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt this will ever change.

It will.

(Sorry, just had to say it)

Re:It makes sense really

[ThePhilips]

I was watching 3D Avatar with two my friends and not once they had to take off glasses. Nor they had any problems after the movie.

According to the recent article on the topic, 4-10% of people have the problem.

Re:It makes sense really

[sremick]

Nope. 480p is still "standard definition", by definition. Maybe not "de facto" SD since most peoples' TVs only supported 480i but it was part of the spec and there were plenty of devices that existed that supported 480p all along.

"Enhanced definition" was a marketing term coined after "HD" was defined, to make people now able to see 480p feel special. It wasn't actually a spec.

Re:It makes sense really

[petermgreen]

Oh, sorry, my bad for not looking that up. But at least it's digital right
The wii has no digital outputs. Afaict your choices are officially* composite, RGB scart or component and of those component is the only one that allows 480p.

Component or RGB scart is definately a big improvement over composite and a huge improvement over VHS but IMO the difference between 480i and 480p over the same interface is pretty marginal.

*There are also unofficial VGA cables though they have the issue of being a little annoying to set up (and for us europeans the further annoyance that european virtual console titles and gamecube titles generally don't support 480p) since there is no way for them to tell the console that they don't support the interlaced stuff.

Re:It makes sense really

[VGPowerlord]

That's kind of a straw man argument, isn't it?

That argument kind-of is, but the Dead Rising argument isn't.

Re:It makes sense really

[Just Some Guy]

The "graphics don't matter" argument doesn't hold much water. If we go down that route, then through backwards induction [...]

Nope. He established a baseline and said "this is good enough". I'd tend to agree. I played Jak and Daxter on the PS2 and it was stunningly beautiful. There's nothing wrong with advancing past that, but my aesthetic meter was already maxed out. As long as a new console can look that good, I'm cool with it.

Re:It makes sense really

[VGPowerlord]

t's the Wii's other display options... of which there is just one; 480i.
depends where you bought your wii, if you bought it on this side of the pond you get the choice between 576i 50Hz, 480i 60Hz and 480p 60Hz.

Yes, we on this side of the pond don't have a 576i PAL resolution option.

Re:It makes sense really

[DrXym]

But your argument assumes that games have gotten better over time. Have they?

Define better. Is a 2010 pinball machine "better" than a 1910 bagatelle game? By what criteria? I'm sure people had great fun playing bagatelle 100 years ago.

Besides, I made no such assertion about betterness. What I did said "Do all these things guarantee a better game? Of course not, but they are powerful tools that can and should be used to deliver the best experience.".

There are plenty of classic titles which were state of the art at one time and pushed the hardware to the limit, so why shouldn't that be the case any more?

Re:It makes sense really

[Monkeedude1212]

Also as a game designer I fully agree with 99% of what is up there.

The only discrepancy is, I tend to think that good Gameplay outweighs story just a tiny bit more. A game can actually have Very Little in the way of story and still be a major success. Demon's Souls for the PS3 has a 1 Paragraph story that you learn from the opening cutscene, and does not develop at all throughout the game, until you beat the final boss. It is currently among one of the top selling games, and I would venture its in my top 10 for Console games.

Moreover, there are flash games on Kongregate (like you mentioned) that have little to no story, and they manage to take up hours of my evening. Monster's Den. Linerider. Practically Any Tower Defense Game. All of them have maybe a sentence that describes the entire summation of their storyline but are still addicting enough to the point where people play them relentlessly.

But you hammered the nail right on the head - they all support each other, almost multiplicatively. Mass Effect is an amazing example of a game with no real "Innovative" gameplay elements. It had the cover and fire elements of Killswitch: Engage, and the dialogue elements of Wing Commander 4 onwards. The gameplay itself was on par with many of the third person shooters of the time. However, the reason it was shot into stardom was the absolutely amazing storyline delivery. They paced it in such a way that it kept you wanting to play it to find out what happens next. Each level was another piece of the puzzle that you just wanted to finish.

Runescape vs WoW is an example where technology (and Aesthetics) play a much bigger role. Albeit, the gameplay in WoW is a bit more complex, it really does boil down to a "who has bigger boots" contest - at least for a good portion of the game, from the beginning onwards. WoW however, has the technology to handle more people across a single server. It has the technology to do parties and instances. It also LOOKS a lot better. Runescape is of course free, with optional membership, so it does pretty good for itself. But there is a reason why WoW has 11 million+ subscribers, and truth be told, it is not all a majority of Blizzard Fanboys. Simply put, it has all the Technology built in to it that no other MMO before it had quite perfected.

I guess it really comes down to what kind of game you are developing. Essentially there are those who have really great gameplay mechanics they'd like to implement, and there are those who want to immerse their players more deeply in a story for hours of entertainment. Obviously they each rely on different parts of development.

Re:It makes sense really

[Atriqus]

In my desktop, I have an nvidia GTX 285, which replaced an 8600GT, which replaced a fried 7900GT, which replaced a 5900, which replaced a 5200, which replaced a Ti 300, which replaced a 256. But I cannot agree with your sentiments.

Sure your list of wants in a game are a nice addition, but when they supercede or outright replace the definition of fun, then something somewhere has gone wrong.

Re:It makes sense really

[DrXym]

But how many zombies at once could Super Smash TV on the Super NES or Doom II on the PC show at once?

You're missing the point. The grandparent was claiming "There's nothing on the 360 that couldn't have been done on the x-box, if the developers had just cut back the complexity of the graphics; and it would have been no less fun.". I just provided an example of a game which was distinctly less fun and emasculated when someone cut back the complexity of the graphics and other areas to run it on a less powerful system.

I have never said that there weren't fun games on older consoles. Of course there are. But fun is not equated to (lack of) graphics, and indeed there are many games that couldn't exist at all in the form they do if not for the state of the art at the time they were made. It seems some people think it's okay for old games to have pushed the envelope graphically or otherwise when they appeared but somehow not okay for modern games to do the same. Which is a very weird position to take.

Re:It makes sense really

[tepples]

The grandparent was claiming "There's nothing on the 360 that couldn't have been done on the x-box, if the developers had just cut back the complexity of the graphics; and it would have been no less fun.". I just provided an example of a game which was distinctly less fun and emasculated when someone cut back the complexity of the graphics

And my point was that they either didn't cut back the complexity of the graphics far enough (e.g. to Doom/Doom II levels, which even the N64 could handle), or the Wii graphics engine was unoptimized, or (most likely) both.

Re:It makes sense really

[Gravatron]

Nintendos stance was actually closer to "It doesn't matter what the hardware is, people will buy it because of our name, meanwhile, we save boatloads of cash".

Re:It makes sense really

[ckaminski]

That's exactly how you're supposed to watch a 3D movie.

Unfortunately, for most cinemas, there is a sweet spot in the theater where you have to sit where watching 3D is effortless, and for the Imax cinema I went to, that was back-row center. Anything else, and the parallax issues cause the 3d effect to look like shit and increase the nausea/headache effect.

Maybe that's just me.

Re:It makes sense really

[MarcQuadra]

Most of the people I know with HDTVs have them connected to their cable boxes by coax or composite, so they're looking at an SDTV signal. I know quite a few FIOS users who do have HD signals between their set-top box and HDTV who watch the channel numbers that they're familiar with, meaning that they only browse the SDTV channels, not knowing that all they have to do to get dramatically better picture is -look at a different channel-.

I'll guess that 90% of WII users don't care at all about HD, or picture quality. What comes out of the box with the composite cable is 'great' for them as-is.

Re:It makes sense really

[rugatero]

Hardly. The Wii followed two generations of poor Nintendo sales. They were looking to re-establish themselves in the home console market, rather than relying on their bruised reputation.

Re:It makes sense really

[AnotherShep]

Someone has never seen the No More Heroes intro movie.

Re:It makes sense really

[TemporalBeing]

And nothing in NES to Atari 2600. And nothing Atari 2600 to the Telstar. etc.

I still play my NES you insensitive clod.

I would also still be playing an Atari 5200, but my parents gave it away years ago.

Re:It makes sense really

[gameboyhippo]

Woohoo! I can't wait for spike impaling controllers! I guess I'll have to wait on getting a new Wii until that feature comes out.

Re:It makes sense really

[DrXym]

I liked Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2 and part of the reason was the graphics. I like Uncharted 2 also in part because of the graphics. Both games are classics in their own right and I don't see any point of drawing a line in the sand and saying "graphics must be this sophisticated and no further".

As far as Shadow of the Colossus is concerned I know a great many people are wetting themselves at the thought that Sony might "remaster" it the way they did with God of War 1 & 2.

Re:It makes sense really

[Hurricane78]

Ah, now I get what we both mean:

The overall experience is the point! Story is just one way to get to an experience. And the only way that books have. One of two ways that films have. But for games, gameplay is also a way.

Yet, yes one should not emphasize one part too much. Why not make every element great? (I guess that’s the art... :)

My favorite game ever — System Shock ” is my favorite game, because of the atmosphere. The feeling. It was reaaally creepy. System Shock 2 too, but SS1 was not creepy in that horror movie way. It was more that you got really drawn in, and felt how it was to be there, with that crazy Shodan who felt nearly alive. Things like hearing the audio log of some girl, and then finding her cut off head in an air duct. While you were still stunned, a crazy robot startled you, and your only reaction was, to throw the head at it!! You rarely get such experiences nowadays. (Yes I was disappointed by the oversimplified BioShock.)

Re:It makes sense really

[Hurricane78]

Oh, damn. You’re right about that. They DID pass the valley! I did not think about that.

Wow, if we now got to that point, the... oh boy, we’ll be in for a ride, guys! :D

Re:It makes sense really

[spazdor]

If socializing ever consisted of talking to random men and women about technology, sports and beers, you might have a point. But it's interesting that you've lumped 'sports' in with that stereotypical list of guy interests.

What percentage of Slashdot users do you imagine are sports fans?

See, when you're posting to Slashdot, you're not talking to random people. You're talking to a very specific, very narrow cross-section of people. The people who don't enjoy discussing technology? They aren't here. They didn't bother with an account at Slashdot, and they're over on YouTube making video comments or something instead.

And so the women who are here, as statistically rare as you might be sure they are, those women do like discussing technology. Those are the ones who we need to not alienate by joking about how this is a boys-only club. See where i'm going here?

Re:It makes sense really

[djnforce9]

Yup. Dolphin works very well actually and it's surreal being able to play a current gen console game on a PC (usually this kind of thing only happens with portable game systems which are relatively simpler or otherwise wait at least 10 years after the console is released (which is why we are only now starting to get competent PS2 emulation)). You can even use real WiiMotes w/ Motion plus if you have the right bluetooth receiver.

Here's a good demonstration of "New Super Mario Bros Wii" on Dolphin at an HD resolution and why it can look better than the real hardware:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MurWPRzmzo

I've tried this myself and to be honest, I find it MUCH more comfortable when played using an Xbox 360 controller than a real WiiMote (no more fierce shaking to do that spin jump and rotating cannons and the platforms feels less awkward when using the triggers instead of actually rotating the controller)

Re:It makes sense really

[sznupi]

Sound to me like he needs to go outside more often...

(as for your PC suggestion I would add that large portion of releases making gaming on PC interesting is not about gfx...)

Re:It makes sense really

[Golddess]

As far as I am aware, sales of the DS, DS Lite, and DSi did not plummet when the DS Lite, DSi, and DSi XL were announced (respectively).

Though I will admit that when I personally heard about the DSi XL I decided to skip the DSi.

Re:It makes sense really

[fm6]

Actually 640K was a reasonable limit, if you assumed that MS-DOS was just a stop gap until OS/2, and the hardware to run it became available. And that was the assumption IBM and Microsoft made originally.

By the same token, your "good enough" argument might or might not be correct, depending on which assumptions you make. I tend to think you're right.

Re:It makes sense really

[spazdor]

Girls who care about appearance don't generally care about tech.

Aaaaaaaaaand I stopped reading. Good day.

Re:It makes sense really

[Tutorgiant]

I'd rather have a good game experience as well!

Re:It makes sense really

[Anonymous Coward]

Might I recommend an old Homebrew game they actually put on an old Playstation Underground issue called "Garzu vs Garzu".

It was a very basic game and the soundeffects sound like they came from Simpson sound bites but it was very fun for 2 players.

Re:It makes sense really

[Maxo-Texas]

The first part's serious (and history)... the end is a monty python reference to the "spring surprise" chocolate treat.

Re:It makes sense really

[Golddess]

Oh I don't doubt that there are some goods that, were it to leak that a new iteration were on its way within a year, sales of the current iteration would plummet. It just appears to me that, despite my personal preference to wait for the next DS iteration, Nintendo is not and has not suffered a serious decline in sales of the current DS iteration each time a new DS iteration is announced.

Obviously that doesn't mean that the Wii would be safe, but it's the only thing we have to compare when it comes to Nintendo.

Well, I guess sales of the GBA, SP w/ frontlight, and SP w/ backlight might also be something to look at.

Re:It makes sense really

[phoenix_rizzen]

In Canada the Wii costs around 200 bucks at Costco, which is the cheapest I've seen it, and around 200 dollars cheaper than the xbox. But you need to get a nunchuk to play certain games: 25 dollars. A second controller and nunchuk, around 50 bucks total. Want to get motionplus for both of those to improve the motion sensing? 50 dollars. You're now at 325

The Wii comes with 1 wiimote and 1 nunchuk. And you can now buy Wiimote+MotionPlus in one box, for less than buying a Wiimote and a MotionPlus separately. The total price is still below $300 CDN for everything you need for 2 players.

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

Pfft. The PS2 played Earth Defense Force 2.

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

For most people PS2 level is the cutoff point where they'll stop paying extra for more graphics. Or the other wayaround, PS" level is sufficient to not prevent them from buying a console. HD on the Wii would be nice, nobody disputes that but no HD is no reason not to buy the system.

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

What I'll add is that mechanics are fine and all but it ultimately comes down to the content you run through those mechanics. Modern Sonic games have no mechanics that would make them automatically inferior to old ones, it's the level design that does. Those who only look at mechanics see New Super Mario Bros Wii and say "been there done that", those who look at content see "more Mario levels!". Those who look at mechanics only produce games like Little Big Planet where you are supposed to provide your own levels, those who look at content decide they'd rather buy a game that already comes with content they want (and so LBP flopped).

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

I heard that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has a similar terrifying atmosphere though in a different way. Alternatively there's the classic Silent Hill 2 that apparently got a re-print recently.

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

Digital depends on the cable. I don't think the component cable is digital at all. The 360 doesn't come with a digital cable by default either though.

Re:It makes sense really

[petermgreen]

holy shit that looks amazing!
Oh there are such moments, the ending credits of GTA4 with thier incrediblly detailed flyovers are the example that immediately springs to mind.

but at least what i find is that when i'm actually playing (as apposed to staring at credits etc) that stops mattering as all my concentration is focused on the task in hand.

Re:It makes sense really

[DrXym]

Reality says otherwise. Lots of people have bought consoles & PCs beyond the PS2. Indeed, the Wii is selling extremely well and demonstrates people will pay for a new console, one which has (modestly) better graphics than the PS2. Besides, if paying extra was their only consideration, the Wii is looking a distinctly whiffy value proposition since it costs double what a PS2 costs, and some models of 360 are actually cheaper for a more powerful system.

Re:It makes sense really

[KDR_11k]

The Wii didn't sell because of the better graphics, it sold because of games no other system has. People do pay extra for things that improve their experience like the motion controls, they don't pay extra for better graphics.

darn it!

[irp]

And here I was waiting out for the Wii2 (Wii-ii?)

Re:darn it!

[Misanthrope]

My own speculative name was the Wii-Wii....

Re:darn it!

[Anonymous Coward]

John Dvorak got there before you.

Re:darn it!

[Toonol]

I think that Nintendo's going to go with a new paradigm for console releases: They'll follow the iPod route. Their next Wii will just be the new model of Wii, with improved features, and slightly changed styling, but fully backwards compatible.

They want your WIFE to want to upgrade.

Re:darn it!

[polar red]

that's 'wiife'.

Re:darn it!

[Comboman]

Sounds more like the Sega route (Genesis,SegaCD,32X) and we all know how that turned out. Incremental hardware upgrades are not enough to get most people to buy (which in turn means not enough developers will support it). A 'next gen' console needs to truly be 'next gen' otherwise all you do is fragment your market share.

Re:darn it!

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. Consoles have traditionally always had the advantage of being set hardware. If the game says it's for a Wii and you've got one, then by golly you're good to go. When "system requirements" get introduced you might as well be playing back on a PC again.

Getting the SegaCD and 32X units was quite nice when they all went on clearance though :). I ended up getting both (at the time Sega CD's were down to $49 and Sega 32x was $29). TECHNICALLY from my understanding, if a developer wanted to, they could access and use the two 32x processors, as well as the original Genesis processor and a duplicate of the original processor that was in the SegaCD. As a system if it was maxed out a Sega 32x-CD was roughly Saturn-ish in capability (certainly in capacity - they both used CD's), but was terribly difficult to develop for and, as you said, no developer wanted to waste the resources since such a tiny fraction of the market had both addons.

So what he's really saying...

[myddrn]

In terms of what the future holds, we've gone on record to say that the next step for Nintendo in home consoles will not be to simply make it HD, but to add more and more capability, and we'll do that when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii.

Translation: We still have MOUNTAINS of shovel ware to sell!

Re:So what he's really saying...

[electrosoccertux]

In terms of what the future holds, we've gone on record to say that the next step for Nintendo in home consoles will not be to simply make it HD, but to add more and more capability, and we'll do that when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii.

Translation: We still have MOUNTAINS of shovel ware to sell!

Why so terribly negative? Yeesh. Next Zelda game with REAL sword tracking motion will be GREAT. Not shovelware.
Shovelware is what EA makes.
Nintendo does not make shovelware.

nowhere near

[Reed Solomon]

>"when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii. And we're nowhere near doing that yet."

exactly. they've only just come out with a black wii. then they will have a blue wii, yellow wii, green wii, then they still have to do the special edition pokemon pikachu wii, the clear see through wii, the smaller wii with a different disc loading mechanism, an even smaller wii with a new controller, then FINALLY they'll release the WII HD, after all our waiting, then 6 months later they'll release the wii 2 electric boogaloo

Re:nowhere near

[FrostDust]

While Nintendo has indeed released such variations of their consoles in the past (except for disc loading, are you thinking of Sony?), you're omitting that none of the redesigns introduced new features to the console. The user is not disadvantaged by not buying the new models.

Having differently colored casings does nothing to the capabilities of the system. The smaller redesigns use less material and may be more "stylish" compared to when the system was first released, but still add no new features.

The only system I can remember with it's redesign having a new feature that the older model lacked is a newer DS having a built-in web browser, but this was previously available on the older models via a cartridge.

Offering redesigned systems, where the features are still the same as the original model, is not detrimental to Nintendo users. If anything, it'd be Microsoft and Sony that are worthy of such criticism.

Re:nowhere near

[Reed Solomon]

original gameboy, then came the gameboy pocket, then came various versions with different colours, then came the gameboy colour. then came the GBA with various colour editions. then the GBA SP, then came the coloured editions of that, also the NES styled edition (which I admit I own and still play) then the GBA MICRO. Then the DS, which wasn't supposed to kill the GBA but did anyways.

Nintendo always does this. they milk the cow until blood comes out, then they kill it, bring in a new cow, and feed it to the new cow.

As for the disc loading, I was mostly referring to the mechanisms of the original NES vs version 2. top loading vs front loading.

Re:nowhere near

[Anonymous Coward]

While Nintendo has indeed released such variations of their consoles in the past (except for disc loading, are you thinking of Sony?), you're omitting that none of the redesigns introduced new features to the console. The user is not disadvantaged by not buying the new models.

No! The ones sold with flame decals on the side go faster! Everyone knows flame decals means speed!

Re:nowhere near

[hey!]

exactly. they've only just come out with a black wii. then they will have a blue wii, yellow wii, green wii,

Exactly, indeed. It worked for Apple, didn't it?

This, my friends, is how you make profit in business. Figure out what a large group of people really want at a price they'll pay and give them the cheapest to manufacture product that meets that criterion. It's all about profit, not gross. The best way to increase your market share is to stay profitable and avoid changes that disturb the cheap product that gives your customers something they want to pay for.

If you've done this, you'd be surprised how bizarre people's buying behavior is. If you interviewed them, they'll tell you all kinds of things that they want, but if you put them into your product, they won't pay any more. So you cater to the customer's slightest whim, so long as its cheap. Then the customer gets all kinds of neat things, and the thing he really needs, but not luxury features unless the unit cost of that feature is low (attractive design has the cheapest unit cost).

That's why tech enthusiasts are usually bad product designers. They mistake the expensive features they're excited for something customers will pay for. You have to engineer a product, not just to perform its ostenisble job, not just to *sell*, but to sell profitably. That aspect of the product has tradeoffs, just like its physical parameters. You can't make a widget arbitrarily strong and arbitrarily light at the same time. You can't expand a product's appeal to arbitrary breadth and produce it cheap enough to make a profit.

Nintendo can't keep this up forever, but stretching out the tech cycle has a huge number of benefits for them. Developers know how to target the platform and can concentrate on game design rather than learning to use new features. If somebody moves in on Nintendo's profitable casual gamer market, they can simply cut their costs and starve the competition for profit. If they need to pull a tech rabbit out of the hat, they can produce better controllers and more specialized ones -- in fact they're doing both. They can't keep this up forever, but they can make a lot of money for a long time.

Re:nowhere near

[Anonymous Coward]

>"when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii. And we're nowhere near doing that yet."

exactly. they've only just come out with a black wii. then they will have a blue wii, yellow wii, green wii

If they have green wii they should really go see a doctor...

Re:nowhere near

[delinear]

And the fact that they removed the wider cartridge slot from the DSi, so anyone who had the old cartridges (or more recently, the Guitar Hero add-on that fits into the slot) suddenly finds that tech redundant.

Re:nowhere near

[VGPowerlord]

The Game Boy, Game Boy Colo(u)r, and Game Boy Advance are all different product lines that just happen to have the name "Game Boy" in them.

Re:nowhere near

[petermgreen]

The original gameboy and the color are pretty damn close architecturally though and many games were released that took advantage of the GBCs color support while still supporting the original gameboy (though there were also some color specific titles).

The GBA was a totally different device though with far more processing power.

Re:nowhere near

[VGPowerlord]

As I understand it, the GBC had a different processor than the GB (not really sure why... color graphics rendering required it?).

Re:nowhere near

[petermgreen]

There were some differences, a high speed option was added (aka run everything at twice the clock), the die was shrunk the color features were added and the die was of course shrunk.

IMO we are talking about a difference comparable to that between a DS and a DSi, some incremental improvements and new features but not massively different.

Re:nowhere near

[masdog]

Except that in the early days, Nintendo didn't refresh the product as quickly as you make it sound. The NES was out for 8 years before the NES101 (top-loading model) was released that corrected design flaws in the original side-loading model. The Game Boy example that you use above had a similar life-span: the original gray model was released in 1989 and didn't receive an update (the Pocket model) until 1996. The next update two years later added a color screen and (mostly) maintained compatibility between models.

My recollection of Nintendo in the 1990s (and supported by Wikipedia) shows that Nintendo didn't just discard the NES or Game Boy when they had something new. New NES games and a system update came out after the SNES was released. Game Boy lasted for over a decade with minimal changes, and the Advance models maintained backwards compatibility with games that were written almost 20 years ago.

If Nintendo was milking it for what it was worth and throwing it away, they wouldn't have cared about backwards compatibility on the Game Boy lines.

Re:nowhere near

[Reed Solomon]

Sure I'm exaggerating by including the NES, however every time I bought a gameboy revision a better one came out within a year.

And honestly I don't see how difficult it would be to include at least a 720p hdmi output on a wii. They will do it, and then release the Wii II not long afterwards.

Re:nowhere near

[phoenix_rizzen]

Original GameBoy and GameBoy Pocket were the same hardware in different packages, but they played the same games. If you had a GameBoy, you didn't need a GBP.

GameBoy Color added a faster CPU, but GBC games were still playable on GB and GBP, and all the old non-color games were playable on the GBC. If you had a GB or a GBP, you didn't need a GBC.

The GBA was the first one that offered something really new, requiring a new purchase. But it was still backwards compatible with the GB/GBP/GBC. If you had a GB/GBP/GBC, you could get a GBA and still keep playing all your old games.

The GBA Slim (or whatever that ugly folding brick thing was called) was the same hardware as the GBA but in a different package. If you had a GBA, you didn't need a GBAS.

The DS is the only line where they've changed things enough that you almost have to have all the different variations. The original DS played GBA games. The DSi doesn't. The DS Lite is the same as the DS, and the DSi XL is the same as the DSi.

IOW, you only need 1 version from each line. Just because there are dozens of variations of the hardware in each line doesn't mean you have to get each one in order to keep playing your games. A single GB/GBP/GBC, a single GBA/GBAS/GBAM, a single DS/DSL/DSi.

Re:nowhere near

[Reed Solomon]

backwards compatibility was not the point. the point was that they always came out with a slightly more incremental improved version. which was an annoyance. the moment you bought one, you'd have a new version. buy the GBA SP, you get the GB micro. thats the point.

you're right, you don't need to get it, but they release those revisions on purpose

Tapped out, eh?

[gaelfx]

So that means the next lame dancing game for wii will be "Tap-dancing with the Stars"? Or another tap-fest like WarioWare titles of yore? I just can't read far enough into what all these execs say when they talk about the "long life" of their consoles that remain entertaining for 2.5 years at best.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Toonol]

I just can't read far enough into what all these execs say when they talk about the "long life" of their consoles that remain entertaining for 2.5 years at best.

I think I disagree. Why upgrade, if the only difference is going to be better graphics? That doesn't make games any better. The weakest console, graphically, won this gen by a landslide. The weakest console, graphically, won last gen by a landslide. It's the games, not the hardware, that make a console enjoyable... and the games get BETTER throughout a console's lifespan.

If a new console cycle started, we would be in for two years of really bad games before developers got back on an even keel. The games would become ANOTHER 400% more expensive to create, and probably shorter. Is there any game you want that can't be made on current hardware?

I would love to get another five years out of ALL the current consoles.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Loomismeister]

The games on the Wii are the weakest part about it. The novelty is what sells Wii consoles, not the games.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[magnusrex1280]

Obviously you haven't played any of the numerous Wii games that are really good. Are there also a bunch of Wii games that are gimmicky and simple? Yes. But don't assume that just because there are some crappy games for a console, that said console is successful only because of a unique feature. No console does as well as the Wii has without GOOD games. I own a PS3, a top-of-the-line gaming PC, AND a Wii, so this isn't just some Nintendo fan boy sounding off. I'm pretty picky about what games I buy, and the Wii has a bunch that are lots of fun, and have actual replay value.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[feepness]

According to MetaCritic, there are 26 Xbox games with 90+ ratings, 20 PS3 games with 90+ ratings, and 9 games on the Wii with 90+ ratings.

I don't see the value proposition in the Wii now that the more powerful and capable competition with better games have come down to a point where the price difference is largely irrelevant.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[quadrox]

I have a wii, and I regret getting it so far. The Only thing I play on it is Guitar Hero, and I certainly don't need a wii for that. Wii sports gets boring rather quickly.

Then I have one of the Resident evil games. This one is fun enough, but the graphics suck balls so much it's unbelievable - mostly due to the low resolution. Most of the other games I see in the stores don't look even remotely interesting, and those that do usually have very bad reviews.

If you know of any good games, please tell me.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Toonol]

Visiting slashdot? How's 4chan?

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[xtracto]

Agreed, I have played quite a lot of game sso far*, and no game has blown me as much as Army Of Two (the first one) for the PS3.

Wii games are just *meh*. The ones that are part of a multiplatform release are always terrible. For example take Need4Speed Nitro, they had to do a different version from NFS Shift...

* Games I've played (I might miss one or two now):
Wii Sports Red Steel, Zelda Twilight Princess, Excite Bike, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, Yourself Fitness, Wii Play, Rayman Rabing Rabbids TV, Super Monkey Ball Banana, HeatSeeker, Resident Evil 4 - Wii Edition -, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Worms A space Oddity, Call of Duty: World at War, Wii Sports Resort, Grand Slam Tennis, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, World of Goo , Super Smash Bros Brawl, New Super Mario Bros, Super Paper Mario, Swords and Soldiers, Mario Kart Wii, Deadly Creatures, Need for Speed Nitro,

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

All posting a Metacritic statistic proves is that select journos who are largely from the same demographic prefer the PS360 over the Wii.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Angostura]

I'm having a lot of fun with Call of Duty Modern Warfare on the Wii at the moment - the multiplayer option is rather nice.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[ookaze]

According to MetaCritic, there are 26 Xbox games with 90+ ratings, 20 PS3 games with 90+ ratings, and 9 games on the Wii with 90+ ratings.
I don't see the value proposition in the Wii now that the more powerful and capable competition with better games have come down to a point where the price difference is largely irrelevant.

Staying locked in your bubble won't allow you to understand where you're wrong.
But it's pretty obvious : "Metacritic", "more powerful and capable competition with better games".
You are stuck in your old values that the Wii is disrupting right since before its launch, and you use Metacritic to confort you, a site that compile reviews from site stuck exactly in these same old values.
Sorry, but the Wii just shattered the record of sales for a console in one month in the USA this december (3.81 millions Wii sold, PS2, previous record owner for home consoles, was at 2.69).
It more than exceeded the sales of PS3 and XB360 combined.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Calinous]

As a matter of fact, bringing Wii graphical (and compute) power at the level of PS3 and XBox360 would make Wii ports cheaper - one could use the same polygonal models and textures (which one can not do now as it would overpower the Wii graphical engine in geometry and texturing, and probably memory use and so on).

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Calinous]

That's all good and well if you agree with the results of the MetaCritic. However, this might not be the case: as a car-related analogy, while 90% of the people might love black cars, you might hate them.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Need4Speed Nitro is absolutely the worst Wii game (out of 30 or so that we own).

Among my favorites are Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 and Wii Fit (helped me shed 40 lb).

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur.
But check out the gamecube games. They're not better looking, but they appeal better to me.
Metroid Prime 1 & 2.
Pikmin. (Pikmin 2 for wii)
Paper mario.
Fire emblem (as mentioned above).

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[fredrik70]

well, that novelty have lasted since it's release in 2006, quite some novelty...

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[quadrox]

Well yeah, but I got the wii in order to play games that were unique to it (or consoles in general), not to play a game that I can play much more comfortably and with better graphics on my PC.

Is there any game for the wii that matches that description? I haven't found it yet, but then again I gave up looking quite soon due to the insane amounts of shovelware.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[WillAdams]

Depends on what you like. I like sword-play and archery, so the Wii caters better to my desires better than other consoles --- I'm also tolerable of what the OP would consider ``poor'' graphics, so take that into consideration. Notable games among the ~30 which we've bought so far:

Wii Sports Resort is quite engaging --- if one is interested in one of the specific mini-games/sports (my son likes sword-fighting, my daughter likes Rhythm Kung-Fu, my wife likes the various water games and I enjoy archery and showdown duel)

Link's Crossbow Training is a wonderful shooter w/ three different modes (on-rails target shooting, spin in a circle defense and ``ranger'' which is a full-blown first person shooter experience) --- I enjoyed it so much that I've been making wooden Wii Zapper pistols (w/ Nunchuk pass-through) and giving them to co-workers along w/ used copies of the game. Hard to pass up at least trying it since the used game is $2 --- and one probably wants a Zapper for most other light-gun games.

Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors --- this is an on-rails RPG w/ no character creation (typical, mute Japanese anime protagonist) which was the first attempt at sword-fighting on the Wii which for not having Motion Plus available worked out well enough for me to finish the game and to play out all but the final bonus boss battle (seems to take more than 45 minutes w/ no health meter for the boss....) and to temper up a full collection of swords and armor.

Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga is a good Japanese role-playing game w/ endless customizability and basic on-line WiFi co-op play --- the controls work quite well, though the only support for motion controls is a shake to activate the burst attack. Still playing this --- maxxed out my character but need to finish buffing my equipment and collecting all of the armor sets

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn is a well done strategy combat game, but is basically a GameCube game and makes no use of the motion controls

William

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Remember this from 2007?

I don't trust game critic scores anymore. I either play a demo myself, or I don't buy the game.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[xtracto]

Yup, pretty crappy. Could you recommend a decent Wii racing game? (ala Gran Turismo or classic NFS?)

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 43 games rated better than the really-good Mario Kart Wii, which is the only one I own at the moment. I bought that after playing Wii Sports for about a year. (My Wii only gets used when we have drunk people over for dinner.)

At this rate if they stop releasing games now I'm all set with good ones until 2053. Your value proposition is not the same as my value proposition.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[fprintf]

We thought exactly the same thing when my 14 year old son bought a Wii with his hard earned and saved money last Spring. It sat gathering dust almost all summer, with his younger sister and I most often playing it. We only had Smash Bros, Wii Sports and Wii Fit to play and did not bother buying any more games because it really wasn't all that fun.

Fast forward to Christmas Day and I bought the family Wii Sports Resort and the required MotionPlus add-ons. The Wii has been played almost every day since. Our favorites are, in order, Archery, Swordplay and Table Tennis. Tons of replayability.

However we also bought my son an XBox360 with Assassin's Creed2 and ModernWarfare2. The difference between the two is dramatic, and if it wasn't for Wii Sports Resort I would still say that purchasing the Wii was a waste of money. The XBox is just soooo much better and the lack of motion sensing controllers for it does not seem at all to detract from the gaming experience. (Of course I hate the controllers, preferring a keyboard/mouse myself)

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[plastbox]

New Super Mario Bros for Wii

Seriously. Get it! I've only played through it with two players, but that game is so unbelievably entertaining I lack words. The only bad thing I have to say is that the controls feel a bit "sluggish" compared to the old NES/SNES games where responsiveness was a very important priority, but it's not so bad as to be an issue and is quickly forgotten in the glee of playing such an awesome game!

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[plastbox]

Also, Super Mario Galaxy ranks as one of my favorite games. Despite me being quite the SNES fanboy I actually liked Super Mario 64 and have it on my Wii, and I am eagerly awaiting more chaotic platform jumping in SMG2.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Spatial]

Metroid Prime Trilogy. Three brilliant games for the price of one. I bought the console for it and regret nothing.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I shall throw statistics at your decision to like/dislike $item until you realize you're wrong!

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Burpmaster]

That's silly. Let's say you're going to get one console and the top twenty games for it. For the 360, the game 20 has a score of 90 (Bayonetta). For the PS3, game 20 has a score of 89 (WipEout HD Fury). For the Wii, game 20 has a score of 86 (Punch-Out!!). You're making a big deal out of literally a few points in a 100 point scale, even though each console has a largely different set of reviewers, judging the games by different standards.

What's more important is variety. Are you really going to get both Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? If you look at the 26 Xbox 360 games with 90+ ratings, about 10 of them are first-person shooters. Do you need that many shooters? In fact, if you pare down your 90+ list for each system by eliminating games that play similarly, you'll shorten the 360 and PS3 lists severely.

Speaking of paring down, the 9 games scoring 90+ on the Wii include both Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime Trilogy. Trilogy includes corruption, so subtract 1 from the Wii's count. Oh but Trilogy is a pack of three 90+ games, sold for the price of 1, so add back 2.

Now with that correction, the Wii has 10 games with 90+ ratings. And that points out the problem of lasting value, totally unaccounted for by your metric. Game scores generally measure how good a game is while you're playing it, but completely ignore how long you'll be playing. There's no real difference between two games with a score of 90 where you'll play each for 10 hours and one game with a score of 90 that you'll play for 20 hours. Well, except the individual game has twice the value for what you pay yet counts half as much by your metric.

And that's the problem. What you're doing is similar to taking a bunch of objects, measuring their density, and summing the quantities. The result is meaningless. It will go up if you simply cut something in half. What you want to do is measure the mass, the actual entertainment value.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[delinear]

My experience is pretty similar - we got a Wii the Christmas before last (well it was a gift to my other half, even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't play on it but I thought at least I might get some use out of it). We played it for a couple of days over Christmas while all the family was together but already after a few hours I was bored, and in terms of tactile response the controller felt cheap and uncomfortable to use for prolonged periods - we've not touched it since then (I was half tempted to try the new Motion Plus, but until the killer game comes along I think I'll pass).

Meanwhile I play my 360 regularly - I'd say the biggest difference is that the Wii bridges the gap between the non-gamer and the hard core gamer and lets them play together, but coming from the hard-core gamer end of that spectrum, playing the Wii solo just wouldn't be a rewarding experience for me. Playing it with the family slightly increases the fun quotient, but no more than, say, playing a board game together (and a lot more expensive in that case).

Having said that, I'm sure a lot of other people love the Wii (the sales figures seem to suggest that's the case), my biggest concern is that the more hardcore gaming console manufactures are looking at that much bigger pie and wondering how they can get a slice, I'd hate to not at least have the choice of a more "serious" gaming machine (other than going back to the configuration hell of PC gaming which, frankly, I don't have the time or stamina for these days).

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[VGPowerlord]

The weakest console, graphically, won last gen by a landslide.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Sega Dreamcast was a commercial failure.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[VGPowerlord]

Metroid Prime 1 & 2.

Not not just get Metroid Prime Trilogy if you've got a Wii?

I mean besides that Nintendo isn't making any more copies (but then, they aren't of MP and MP2 either).

That reminds me, I should call my cousin and ask if he's played any of the MP games yet, as I got him a copy of MPT for the holidays...

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[VGPowerlord]

My personal experience (as in just me; I don't have kids) is that the Xbox 360 is the one of the two that gets all the play time. While the Wii has a few gems, they are few and far between.

Nintendo's rationing of new WiiWare titles doesn't help... the Xbox Live Arcade just has a wider variety... with ratings... so it's much easier for me to find cheap titles on it that are still good.

Still, my most used system for gaming is still my PC. (Team Fortress 2 for the win!)

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[QQ2]

No More Heroes, hands down for style and insanety. You have to enjoy it's humor though, otherwise the game

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us only own 3-6 games ... for a Gamer, Wii lacks, for a family using this as occasional fun w/ the kids, Wii is perfect. Under $400 w/ games & controllers for the family to play with.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Turiko]

metacritic allows people to vote if they want to - in the end, only fanboys or assholes end up doing so. It's hardly a fair rating system.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Immerial]

Two factors to consider on this data point:

1. The order seems to match the order the consoles were released. A console out longer will have more games for it and a longer time for companies to refine their development process.
2. I place most of the blame for the lack of good games for the the Wii squarely on the publishers and not on the technical limitations of the console. Most did not take the platform seriously (some still do not) and therefore didn't develop good games for it. When the Wii started to sell like gangbusters they were caught flatfooted and just threw whatever junk they had together ('we gotta get in on this... this market is huge'). At least now it looks like some developers are now doing some serious work on the console.

It's true that there are technical limitations with the Wii but that doesn't mean you can't make fun games.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[petermgreen]

What's more important is variety. Are you really going to get both Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?
I haven't played that particular series but if I like a game and find it completable then i'll amost certainly buy the sequal (sometimes if I like it enough i'll buy the sequal even if I can't complete the first one), heck the last two consoles I bought (PS3 and XBOX 360) were bought primerally because I wanted to continue following a series (R&C for the PS3, GTA for the 360)

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[feepness]

Mcdonalds sells a lot too. This doesn't make their menu any more palatable.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Hatta]

the graphics suck balls so much it's unbelievable - mostly due to the low resolution.

That is unbelievable. RE4 on the gamecube was gorgeous (and still is). There's more to looking good than lines of resolution. Honestly, a game like Xenogears with low resolution textures, but fantastic architecture and cinematography is more beautiful than some generic pixel pusher.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[SwordsmanLuke]

Good games for the Wii... Okay.

House of the Dead: Overkill
Don't underestimate this game just because it's a rail-shooter. It's got a wicked sense of humor and fast-paced arcade-style action. I rarely replay anything, but I replay this game regularly.

Metroid Prime Collection
The classic Metroid Prime games, all in one package with some of the best use of the motion controls in any Wii game. Great adventuring fun.

Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
Ignore the cutesy graphics. There's a solid, well-paced adventure game underneath. Each section provides a clear, concise puzzle, so you always know what you're trying to do, and though the puzzles can get fiendishly difficult you can always buy a hint if you need to.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
A puzzle game with light RPG elements. This game puts a twist on Bejeweled-style gameplay and uses the board as your combat arena. Combining different gems causes different effects.

No More Heroes
This slick game is all about style. Dice cannon-fodder enemies into pieces with your totally-not-infringing-any-trademarks light...sword while earning enough money (via hilarious odd jobs around your city) to buy your way into high-energy one-on-one duels with the worlds greatest assassins.

The New Super Mario Bros
The new multiplayer mechanic is... really fun. While you'll spend the first few levels getting in eachother's way, once you learn how to really cooperate, it's amazing the new tricks you can pull off. This is one of the few games my wife and I played together to completion.

Mad World
Another highly stylized game, Mad World is all about over-the-top arcade action. Sure you've got a chainsaw on your arm, but it's more fun to stuff your enemies into a barrel, then shove a sign post through their heads and *then* hurl them into one of the varied death traps set throughout the level. Additionally the stark, black and white (and frequently red... very, very red) stylized graphics play nicely within the Wii's graphical limitations.

So, there you go, 7 recommended Wii games - and of those 5 are third party!

On the other hand, if you're having a hard time getting excited about Wii games in general, consider installing the Homebrew Channel. There are a number of entertaining homebrew applications. I recommend Super Mario War - get some friends and try to stomp eachother's heads, or play ctf, or smear the chicken... There are also emulators for most of the classic systems, so if you like old school games, you can load those up.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[scot4875]

Then I have one of the Resident evil games. This one is fun enough, but the graphics suck balls so much it's unbelievable - mostly due to the low resolution.

This, to me, is hilarious. The RE remakes and RE4 for the Gamecube were, and still are, incredibly pretty games. I might go so far as to say that the Gamecube RE4 was the most graphically impressive game of last generation.

The Wii RE games look as good as or better than the Gamecube ones, but somehow their graphics "suck balls."

IMO, and I've been playing video games since shortly after Pong, last generation the hardware got good enough for any competent art director to make his vision come to life in a video game. Since then, the good looking games have been far more dependent on art than they have on hardware. The N64/PS1 era wasn't quite there, and even the PS2 was somewhat lacking due to poor texturing (yes, PS2 fanboys, your system was the least powerful, despite what Sony marketing says. Sorry.), but the XBox and Gamecube were both capable enough that any improvements are really just incremental -- and HD resolution is very much just an incremental improvement.

Oh, and for game recommendations? I have about 20 Wii games, all of which I consider to be worth owning, and there are several titles that I would like, but haven't had time to play. I'm not going to bother listing them, because I suspect that we have substantially different tastes in games. The fact that you spend time paying attention to the resolution suggests to me that my approach of actually, you know, playing the game and finding fun ones won't work for you.

--Jeremy

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[IronChef]

If you like light gun style games, House of the Dead Overkill is good.

It's no Time Crisis, mind you, but it's good.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[DigitalCrackPipe]

First, you should have the component video cables and set to widescreen to get the best out of the Wii. However, if you hate Resident Evil 4 graphics, you are probably a graphics junkie and should recognise that when you make purchases.

I've enjoyed the new retro games such as mega man and contra. The new mario was fun so I'm going to get it. I'd say that the Wii is going strong with new Wii-ware titles going for $10 that are fun but not a big investment.

And for the record, I'm one of the people who is perfectly satisfied with progressive scan DVD and has no interest in Blu-Ray.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

If you know of any good games, please tell me.

In no particular order...

• de Blob
• Boom Blox (& Boom Blox: Bash Party)
• Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
• Elebits
• Little King's Story
• Wii Sports Resort
• Metroid Prime Trilogy
• Super Mario Galaxy
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[pnutjam]

I'm primarily a PC gamer, but I love the wii, granted I've only played Mario Cart and Wii sport, but that has provided hours of fun for my family and I.

I do have children who are all under 8 years old. My last game system was an xbox and the younger ones still have problems with the controllers on that, however, the wii is very easy for them to use (girls).

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excite Truck/Excite Bots and Mario Kart are fun, but "Gran Turismo" tells me that you're more interested in realism than fun.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any game for the wii that matches that description? I haven't found it yet, but then again I gave up looking quite soon due to the insane amounts of shovelware.

This comment tells me that you gave up looking after around five seconds or so.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sat gathering dust almost all summer, with his younger sister and I most often playing it. We only had Smash Bros, Wii Sports and Wii Fit to play and did not bother buying any more games because it really wasn't all that fun.

It isn't the Wii's fault that you haven't purchased any more games for it. Buying a console and then deliberately neglecting it like that seems pretty silly to me.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[rtechie]

It's difficult to believe that EVERY game reviewer is involved in a vast conspiracy. And even if they were, reviews you read from customers on Amazon or elsewhere generally line up with those of professional reviewers. Are they all part of the conspiracy?

The reality is that the wii is the king of shovelware. Yes, there are good games for the wii (Mario Galaxy, Zelda, etc.). Most of these are first-party (made by Nintendo) and for every good game there are 10 AWFUL ones. And that's another point, the 360 and PS3 have lots of "eh" or middle of the road games, on the wii it's a few gems among a sea of complete garbage.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[rtechie]

What's more important is variety. .. Do you need that many shooters? In fact, if you pare down your 90+ list for each system by eliminating games that play similarly, you'll shorten the 360 and PS3 lists severely.

Yeah, I do. Are you arguing that the LACK of diversity in games is somehow an asset? And certainly all first-person shooters don't play the same, Halo and Modern Warfare 2 are completely different. I think you simply have a bias against the genre.

Speaking of paring down, the 9 games scoring 90+ on the Wii include both Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Prime Trilogy. Trilogy includes corruption, so subtract 1 from the Wii's count. Oh but Trilogy is a pack of three 90+ games, sold for the price of 1, so add back 2.

So do I get to count Orange Box as 5 games?

Game scores generally measure how good a game is while you're playing it, but completely ignore how long you'll be playing.

No, reviewers almost always take game length and replay ability into account. Read some reviews.

What you're doing is similar to taking a bunch of objects, measuring their density, and summing the quantities.

It is a fact that there is a wide consensus among those that review games professionally that the vast majority of wii games suck. This view is shared by most consumers writing reviews on Amazon, Gamestop, etc.

Your only argument against this is to attack the CONCEPT of aesthetics. By your reasoning "Schindler's List" and "Freejack" are equally good because different viewers might be looking for something different.

This view basically argues that there is no "craft" at all to making games or movies. By your view, the average moron off the street SHOULD be able to make games equivalent to Call of Duty 4 or Mario Galaxy with no experience at all because the "value" of a game is wildly subjective. It doesn't matter that it crashes at the loading screen, maybe some people WANT to play the "crash your system" game.

Video games are art. And art criticism exists. So either all art criticism is meaningless, or video game reviews are valid. It's as simple as that.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[rtechie]

I place most of the blame for the lack of good games for the the Wii squarely on the publishers and not on the technical limitations of the console.

The wii is almost literally an overclocked Gamecube and Nintendo's SDK sucks. Nor did they give developers any good guides to using motion controls. Nintendo's attitude was "we'll build it, they will come, and they will make the tools". This, plus Nintendo's licensing scheme and content limitations, have really cooled third parties on the console.

Believe me, the hardware limitations are crippling if you're making a "serious" game. The big problem is that you really have to commit to the wii and it's control scheme to make a decent game, that means no multiplatform. Your game won't look very good unless you have a keen understanding of the wii's limitations (which involve very small environments). And remember the lack of good tools, so you have to make your own. All of this drives up the cost of developing a wii game.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23118

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Burpmaster]

What's more important is variety. Are you really going to get both Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?

I haven't played that particular series but if I like a game and find it completable then i'll amost certainly buy the sequal [...]

Fair enough, but in comparing consoles I examine things from the perspective of someone starting fresh, because that's who the comparison would be useful to. I imagine such a person will typically buy just the latest and greatest of whichever series and genres catch their interest. If they like a game they may still just wait for the next game rather than buying the previous one.

Remember, they have fewer games that they've already purchased so they have more options open for their next purchase. If they have enough interest in racing games to buy just one for their new system, chances are they haven't bought it yet, and that option is competing with the choice to buy the prior game. Whereas you might have the same level of interest in the game but already have your one racing game. The extra alternative options for a new console owner combined with a potential sequel on the horizon make people more likely to wait for new games in a series they like, rather than getting the older ones.

There's also the issue of online play. The online communities for older games die down and to the degree a person cares about online play, those games lose value. I know there are people out there that basically ignore single player modes in shooters and play online constantly. To them, only the newer games will be worthwhile.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[xtracto]

I have Exciter Truck and Mario Kart. They are OK but I am starving a bit for realism or driving real car models. NFS Nitro just does not cut it.

Talkign about NFS Nitro, can someone tell me if changing the car configuraiton improves the car? The car personalization interface is horrible and I haven't realized how to know if the new thing I put to my car makes it better or worst (I do not know a lot about cars :(

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Burpmaster]

Are you arguing that the LACK of diversity in games is somehow an asset?

No, I am not. You're missing the point. I'm saying having ten shooters isn't as great as you think it is. It's not twice as good as having five shooters. Each new game in a given category counts less and less as the category fills up, because you're less likely to get that game. If you ultimately don't choose to get a particular game, then that game's existence didn't do you any good.

So do I get to count Orange Box as 5 games?

Yes, of course, you sure do! Oh, but it didn't make the list, sorry... Only 89 points. Too bad, so sad... Oh, are you looking at the Xbox 360 score of 96? Well, then by all means, feel free to adjust the count, but you missed the point again.

I wasn't arguing that the count was off, I was arguing that the method is inherently flawed and inaccurate. Metroid Prime Trilogy was just a clearly demonstrable example of how a review score can grossly mis-estimate the value of a title. Truth is, it happens all the time, but not in such an obvious way.

Game scores generally measure how good a game is while you're playing it, but completely ignore how long you'll be playing.

No, reviewers almost always take game length and replay ability into account. Read some reviews.

Look at some review scores. I didn't say reviews ignore length and replay value. I said review scores ignore length and replay value. Like for Metroid Prime Trilogy. Apparently adding 200% more game (approximately) is worth 1 point on a 100-point scale.

Not only that, Metroid Prime 1 & 2 have scores of 97 and 92, respectively, so why is a pack that includes both worth only 91 points? If review points measure value and are linearly additive, then the trilogy should have a score of 279.

It is a fact that there is a wide consensus among those that review games professionally that the vast majority of wii games suck.

First of all, that's true for everything. But if you mean to say that the Wii has more awful games than the other two consoles, then yes, I agree. That happens to the winner of every generation. The PS2 had the greatest quantity of awful games last generation, for example.

But it's not a big deal. Just don't buy the bad games. People choose consoles based on what good games they have, not how many bad games they have. SPOGS Racing does not have cooties. It doesn't "taint" the Wii.

Your only argument against this is to attack the CONCEPT of aesthetics. By your reasoning "Schindler's List" and "Freejack" are equally good because different viewers might be looking for something different.

I never said or implied anything even remotely like that. Work on reading comprehension.

Video games are art. And art criticism exists. So either all art criticism is meaningless, or video game reviews are valid. It's as simple as that.

I never said reviews are invalid. And there's a difference between the review scores and the reviews themselves. How hard is that to understand?

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[Loomismeister]

Are you trying to piss me off with that terrible list? That group of games is offensive, much less "good"! *shudder*

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[brkello]

It seems to me you are locked in your bubble as well. I honestly don't care that the Wii sells more consoles. They are targeting a different audience than the PS3 and the 360. The PS3 and 360 are targeted towards people like me who started out on the Atari and the NES. It is a continuation of a long cycle of better hardware and iteratively different controllers.

Nintendo decided to back out of the hardware race, and went the route of keeping their price cheap and innovating on the controls. Obviously, financially it paid off. But they lost gamers like me because they just don't really have the games I want to play anymore. Everything is built around the gimmick of flipping your wrist when often a button press will do.

Don't get me wrong, I am not belittling them for it. I am glad they innovated and are doing well this time around after being so weak last gen. But really, let's be honest. Most games on the Wii suck. Of course, Nintendo still delivers but they did the same on the gamecube and failed. Their success this time is not due to games...it is purely the price point and the controller and tapping in to a new market.

To someone like me, who doesn't give a crap about the company, I only chase the games I like, the 360 won this gen (where the PS2 won the last round and I was all Nintendo before that). Your sales info is stupid to me because it doesn't really prove anything other than that you are a fanboy that pays attention to irrelevant things instead of just caring about the games.

It is good to have competition. I just hope that Sony and MS don't follow Nintendo's lead. I like playing with a traditional controller. I don't want wii-motes and Natal to play my games. I like a console that pushes the edge on hardware and capabilities at the time it is released. The Wii does not impress me at all. And just because mom's, gfs, wives, and grandparents are buying them, doesn't change the fact that it has the least selection of games I am interested in, is significantly inferior hardware-wise, and has a control scheme that is enjoyable for parties but a bit annoying otherwise. Again, the brand on my console doesn't matter...they have to deliver the games I want to play and the Wii went too far to the cater to the new gamers rather than sticking with the people who grew up with them.

Re:Tapped out, eh?

[brkello]

Using any metric to compare consoles is ultimately stupid. Metacritic, console sales, attach rate are all interesting but garbage to the individual. The 360 has the most games I want to play, so I got that. I am very happy with that decision. Any data anyone gives isn't going to make me less happy about that decision. It would take a game I loved (say like a Final Fantasy) to be released only on the Wii to make me regret my decision (not really though, I would just buy a Wii too). But to be honest, I would be disappointed if any game I really wanted was released on the Wii because the only thing it can offer better is the control scheme. In every other aspect it would have to be an inferior game to run on the Wii.

But my opinion is equally as useless to someone who loves their Wii. So really, buy what you like and everyone should just drop the fanboyism.

Applaud the man.

[ledow]

Good for Nintendo. I don't really care about flashy sequels and having to re-buy consoles/accessories/games or hope that the backward compatibility works (if there is one). I just want people to carry on making games for a console that almost everyone has played. It's good business sense to keep your customers on a stable platform and sell optional extras / games that enhance their original purchase's value without *forcing* them to upgrade and alienating them, not to mention keeping the online Wii stores alive - how many people who have never touched emulation have been playing emulated titles on Wii without even knowing? It's good gaming sense (what matters is the game and the price, not the number of / type of peripherals, graphics, sound...) and at the end of the day, the Wii is forefront on the general public's mind... not including persistent gamers, people would struggle to give the correct name of the current version of the Xbox / Playstation, and would probably name Wii first.

"Wii 2" isn't required. Wii already proved that state-of-the-art isn't required, just a little bit of fun and know-how and something a bit different. Whether you hate it or not, you've played Wii at least once and tried it. I know that I can't say the same about the Xbox (any version) / Playstation (any version past the original PS1) consoles, yet my PC is full of every genre of game. Give it another 5 years or so, then people will be making games that actually test the limits of the Wii to the extreme all the time, then a successor that has full backwards compatibility will sell like hot cakes. And, to be honest, everyone I know that owns a Wii would actually be happier with some bundled accessory that enhances the whole console rather than a whole new console... a "HD addon" or even some processing upgrade that the Wii can interface with (like the N64 memory expansion modules, or the SuperFX/DSP chips that were in SNES games - Nintendo know what they are doing when it comes to getting the most out of a huge investment, which is why they're pretty much the only one making a decent return on hardware alone, not just the software).

If it works, and it sells, and it makes money, don't ditch it for a sequel... enhance it a bit at a time, one expenditure at a time, and keep your customers happy without shoving them between major purchases and platforms. If only MS could follow the same suit...

Re:Applaud the man.

[AbRASiON]

"Good for Nintendo. I don't really care about flashy sequels and having to re-buy consoles/accessories/games or hope that the backward compatibility works (if there is one). I just want people to carry on making games for a console that almost everyone has played."

So you want Nintendo to keep re-hashing the same thing OVER and OVER and OVER as they've done (although there's some innovation with the Wii, it's the same thing again and again and again but with a new controller)

Nintendo are famous for it, the users seem to continue to lap it up, they are the apple of the gaming industry it seems.
Throw me the dumb FPS and action games on the other 2, I'll gladly take them - at least the stories have some variety.

Re:Applaud the man.

[ledow]

Played the new mario game? It's a combination of all the previous Mario games.
Played Wii Sports Resort? It's Wii Sports with knobs on.
Played Mario Kart Wii? It's like every Mario kart game.

So, yes, the Wii itself is almost *entirely* rehash. Really hurt their sales figures, didn't it? And why? Because it's still *new* and *fun* at the same time as being *familiar*.

I don't care about them rehashing, so long as it's still fun to play with a crowd of friends. And there's still new stuff too. If you want to get technical, Half-life 2 was just a rehash of Half-life 1, which was a rehash of Quake, which was a rehash of Doom... just because it's the same thing again doesn't mean you can't be innovative and create a game that people want to play.

I don't mean rehashing specifically, but just the fact that you can make a game for a stable platform that's going to be around for years to come. I'd rather know that people were still making Wii games than focusing all their efforts on some "Wii 2"... hell, I still play NES, SNES, and N64 games and I'd love that people were still making them, even if they were within the limits of the technology of those consoles.

Re:Applaud the man.

[tangelogee]

If you want to get technical, Half-life 2 was just a rehash of Half-life 1, which was a rehash of Quake, which was a rehash of Doom...

...which was a rehash of Wolfenstein 3D...

Re:Applaud the man.

[nine-times]

"State of the art" isn't required, but it doesn't hurt. One move that could be smart, assuming their console sales are flagging, is to not produce a Wii 2 (where Wii:Wii 2::XBox:XBox360) but produce something more like a Wii Rev2 (more like Wii:Wii Rev2::Playstation2:Playstation2 slim).

So they could keep both backward and forward compatibility with all the games and peripherals, but just upgrade the hardware. They could provide some extra features like HD upscaling of games, DVD playback (or even Bluray), HDMI-out, and any other tweaks or upgrades they can think of.

I don't know of a game console that has done this sort of thing, where they add features but keep backward and forward compatibility with the last-generation console, but it seems like it could be a good idea.

On the other hand, I bet then everyone would start asking them to allow developers to break compatibility with the past console to take advantage of the newer hardware, so maybe they wouldn't be able to maintain their position of complete compatibility with the previous version.

Re:Applaud the man.

[delinear]

That kinda illustrates the GP's point about stories - by all means give us the same games so long as there's a strong narrative behind them so that there's some interest beyond "press X when Y appears, repeat ad nauseum", but narrative seems to be the thing most lacking in Wii games (or I've not seen the right games, but it certainly seems the ones that are in the charts all the time follow this rule). Run around collecting stars and save a princess, or play some sports, or driving around collecting stars... not particularly engaging. Obviously the narrative isn't the only thing that can engage, and innovative gameplay is just as important, but how many Wii games are truly innovative, and how often does their innovation just get rehashed over and over and over.

I'm all for a stable platform and giving developers the chance to make the most out of it, and truth be told some of the best games on previous platforms have been released at the end of the product's life cycle when its successor is already shipping, but you have to admit that the Wii's success is based largely on appealing to the widest possible audience, which in turn often results in a slightly bland product. Just look at Hollywood movies, or the X-Factor/Pop Idol trash music - it does well financially by being bland enough that a wider audience can watch/listen without being confused/offended, but huge sales do not automatically mean a quality product. For people who are happy with that type of product, I'm sure it's great.

Re:Applaud the man.

[marcosdumay]

Except for Koules (I finished it just to see what will be written before the next level), what that hell is the point with narratives in games? Games are not movies.

Re:Applaud the man.

[brkello]

The Wii proved that state of the art isn't required to make a lot of money. That doesn't mean there isn't a market for people who want something that pushes the edge. You may be happy with the Wii, but if all three companies did the same thing I would be disappointed.

And seriously, what are you talking about? Nintendo is the king of making you buy a million different accessories to play its games. The longer this generation goes on, the more apparent the weakness of the Wii will be. Not just graphically, but in AI and type of games possible.

Honestly, they are going to deny having another console until they are about to release it. So really, you can't say good for Nintendo since you have no idea what the real situation is.

Re:Applaud the man.

[petermgreen]

they could do what they did with the GBC, the GBC could run old gameboy games but it was also possible to make both dual mode games (taking advantage of the GBCs better graphics but still retaining compatibility with the original gameboy) and GBC only games.

I'd like one change

[samael]

An HDMI cable. Every other device connected to the TV has one, but the Wii insists on converting to analogue and back again. I can't think of any reason why this would be terribly expensive or difficult to do. They wouldn't even need to support higher resolutions - just the same ones over HDMI.

Re:I'd like one change

[Custard Horse]

I'll second that. To continue selling it needs to be 'connectable' to modern equipment. My first-version 360 doesn't have HDMI which makes it near useless in a modern setup. Component just doesn't cut it with a lot of TVs.

The Wii was never about graphics, it is an inexpensive console which does not try to compete with the 360 or PS3. An HD version would have to be the same price or maybe 10% more expensive otherwise it would price itself out of the market.

Re:I'd like one change

[samael]

They could always do what they did with the component cable (which is what I currently use) and price it higher. That way only those people that care would spend the extra cash.

Re:I'd like one change

[Professor_UNIX]

What do you mean component just doesn't cut it? I watch HDTV perfectly fine with component cables on my HDTV. In fact, I'm not using HDMI anywhere.

Re:I'd like one change

[the person standing]

I don't see a problem with analogue connection. Most people wouldn't be able to use it anyway and there would be no noticable improvement in picture quality, not even for the highest resulution the Wii can support. I prefer to use my HDMI inputs for devices which really benefit from it. HDMI would just add production cost without actual benefit.

Re:I'd like one change

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second that. To continue selling it needs to be 'connectable' to modern equipment. My first-version mouse doesn't have USB which makes it near useless in a modern setup. PS/2 just doesn't cut it with a lot of computers.

FTFY

Re:I'd like one change

[Calinous]

The use of a lower quality analog connection leaves you with washed colors and an overall reduction in sharpness. I used one of those (15 feet long), and there is degraded quality from PC to TV.

Re:I'd like one change

[LordVader717]

I agree that it would be a great idea, but not because of any picture quality. The advantage would be being able to use it with computer monitors which don't have SD component inputs.
Even the GameCube had some kind of obscure digital output for japanese TVs, even on the american and european models. Surely a HDMI port can't be that challenging.

Re:I'd like one change

[samael]

Yup, absolutely. HDMI is fast becoming the standard interconnect for video to all displays. And it does sound too - what's not to like?

Re:I'd like one change

[Nimey]

And since the Wii's got a proprietary connector on its end, it's another chance for Nintendo to make a mint on accessories.

I know you can get component cables for it from 3rd parties at a lower price, but the average user won't know that.

Re:I'd like one change

[Juju]

They should offer higher resolutions with HDMI and they could probably keep it compatible and do some better texturing/upscaling like what was done for PS2 emulation on the PS3 (or PS one on the PS2.)
There is no reason to remain on low def analog!

Re:I'd like one change

[tangelogee]

I'll second that. To continue selling it needs to be 'connectable' to modern equipment. My first-version mouse doesn't have USB which makes it near useless in a modern setup. Serial just doesn't cut it with a lot of computers.

FTFY

FTFY more

Re:I'd like one change

[Anonymous Coward]

Some HDTV's don't allow for 1080P over component. I had a Sony was like that, my current one doesn't have that limitation though.

Switching from component to HDMI on my cable box really did improve my picture quality, plus running audio on the same cable is brilliant.

Re:I'd like one change

[nxtw]

What do you mean component just doesn't cut it? I watch HDTV perfectly fine with component cables on my HDTV. In fact, I'm not using HDMI anywhere.

Only HDMI has built-in digital audio, and it's the only way to get digital multichannel audio that isn't encoded as Dolby Digital, DTS, or WMA Pro (in home theater systems).
With HDMI, source devices can be connected to a home theater receiver or HDMI switch and a single cable can be connected to the display.

I actually have HDMI audio capable equipment, but use 6 channel analog instead (for my PC).

The Wii is a potential annoyance for those with home theater setups. The only audio output is two-channel analog and it's through the video port. Unless the HT receiver supports pass-through for the kind of video being used, special cabling is required to hook up the Wii to a TV and to a home theater system.

Re:I'd like one change

[VGPowerlord]

I know you can get component cables for it from 3rd parties at a lower price, but the average user won't know that.

I haven't had the best experiences with third-party video game equipment (to be specific, PS1 memory cards and GameCube controllers), so I tend to stick to first party parts whenever I can.

Needless to say, I bought "official" Wii Component Cables that I bought when I got an HD TV... and wish I had an HDMI cable, as I have more open HDMI inputs than Component.

Re:I'd like one change

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean component just doesn't cut it? I watch HDTV perfectly fine with component cables on my HDTV. In fact, I'm not using HDMI anywhere.

He's not arguing picture quality, he and I just want easier/cleaner cable management. 1 cable to rule them all.

Re:I'd like one change

[PitaBred]

Component is perfectly fine. It's just that it's 3-5 cables instead of one much smaller one. When you start getting 3 or 4 things connected to your receiver, that starts being an issue. I don't like having a rat's-nest behind my entertainment center... I'd love to just have 2 cables for each piece of additional equipment: HDMI and power. And that's it.

Re:I'd like one change

[Nimey]

My Wii component cables were about half the price of the official version & work just fine.

Same for this controller I got for the PS2. The blue LEDs in it are irritating, but the controller functions OK.

Re:I'd like one change

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second that. To continue selling it needs to be 'connectable' to modern equipment. My first-version mouse doesn't have USB which makes it near useless in a modern setup. Serial just doesn't cut it with a lot of computers.

FTFY

FTFY more

No, you really didn't fix it. USB = Universal Serial Bus.

Re:I'd like one change

[Bl4d3]

JFYI I'm using this setup: Wii component -> Panasonic TX-P50S10 S/PDIF -> Logitech Z5500. And it works really well.

Re:I'd like one change

[atamido]

Indeed. The only think you would need to change is increase the power of the GPU (or overclock it) to render more pixels. Do that and slap an HDMI port on, and I'd buy one.

The audio chip used in the Wii already supports digital audio out, it just isn't enabled and there is no port. So literally the only thing you'd need to change is increase the GPU power.

Re:I'd like one change

[Anonymous Coward]

HDMI is actually a replacement for 11 cables if you want 7.1 sound. But I guess that the Wii couldn't support that anyway. Does it even support surround at all?
It also has capability to do automatic input selection and remote control passthrough by CEC.

Re:I'd like one change

[petermgreen]

The Wii is a potential annoyance for those with home theater setups. The only audio output is two-channel analog and it's through the video port. Unless the HT receiver supports pass-through for the kind of video being used, special cabling is required to hook up the Wii to a TV and to a home theater system.
Are phono stacking leads really considered that special?

Re:I'd like one change

[Custard Horse]

Overlooking the obvious here: PS/2 can't do 15 buttons. Why would you want a mouse with less than 15 buttons?

USB: All your mice are belong to us.

Re:I'd like one change

[tangelogee]

OK fine, DB9 serial

Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little...

[cyxxon]

I don't own a Wii myself, I own a Xbox 360, on which I rarely play though. One of my best friends owns a Wii though, and of course we throw in a game or two when we are at their place. And everytime, after some minutes, I am at the point where the graphics really get to me. Not that it doesn't have the latest whatchamacallit-shaders, huge textures, hardware geometry tesselation and all that, no, but that that it simply does not do antialiasing and / or HD. It is just all so freaking jaggy it is a pain to look at (on a 52" LCD in this case). I personally might buy a Wii HD if it came out if it added nothing to the feature list but a very good upscaling algorithm to 1080p and HDMI. That's all.

Like they would really tell

[otie]

No savvy console manufacturer confirms a hardware upgrade before it's just about to hit. Otherwise it'll hurt sales before the upgrade date.

Re:Like they would really tell

[Anonymous Coward]

No savvy console manufacturer confirms a hardware upgrade before it's just about to hit. Otherwise it'll hurt sales before the upgrade date.

MS did it and plunged XBox sales before 360

Re:Like they would really tell

[delinear]

That's slightly different - they actually wanted people to buy the new console in preference to the old one and all console manufacturers do this (the worst thing in the world would have been for everyone to buy original the original XBOX just before the 360 hit and then decide, "I'll stick with this now and see what the PS3 can do", they would have totally wasted their first-to-market advantage). However, if all you are doing is adding functionality to an existing console but not making that console obsolete in the process (such as when the 360s got HDMI, or the Elite with a bigger HDD), then you definitely keep that under wraps for as long as possible because it will hurt current sales and there's a chance those customers won't go on to buy the newer version.

Re:Like they would really tell

[VGPowerlord]

All of them do this. Mainly to generate hype for their new system and to "trash" the competition's newly announced system that will come out roughly the same year.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, google "Nintendo Revolution" and note that the news articles that come back are from more than a year before the Wii's release... which would place it around the same time the Xbox 360 was released.

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[Anonymous Coward]

For best viewing on new lcd tvs you have to use component cable. Av standard cable sucks on any lcd tv. Have you seen a xbox360 or ps3 with av component on huge lcd screens? Looks like crap.

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[dougisfunny]

It still has pretty bad jaggys even over the component, since it does no AA and its only 720x480.

He would say that no matter what

[Lord Kenja]

Nobody would ever admit they have an updated product coming, until they are close to releasing it. Official confirmation of a new Wii would kill the sales of the current one. So they would have to be ready before doing so.

Nintendo does good

[mikeFromBavaria]

not to upgrade the hardware for now. I think they better should come up with some more new gameplays. the Wii has already proved that it is not important to have the best graphics engine but to have good games! Webdesign

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[walshy007]

sd consoles always look like shit on HDTV's unless you either have a really good upscaler or you have an analog HDTV (huzzah for analog rear projection)

needs hard drive

[MickyTheIdiot]

It looks like no one has even mentioned the biggest problem I have with the Wii (a console a otherwise love): no hard drive.

Of course, I don't think this would be a massive hardware change for it. Homebrewers are already putting hard drives on it. Maybe they release a Wii 2.0 with hard drive?

Re:needs hard drive

[LordVader717]

Hard drives are history. I don't think any of the next generation consoles, presumably 2012, will come with one. They're too expensive for the functionality they'll provide. Flash drives make much more sense. Even now you can buy a 16 GB SD card for the Wii which will hold more games than you could afford to download.

Re:needs hard drive

[MickyTheIdiot]

But maybe not more music than you can afford to download for music games. At least that has been my experience. And, furthermore, the drivers are part of the games themselves, so the old ones will never be able to access more than the 2Gb for the old type SD cards (though some 4gb non HD type cards work).

Of course, the hard drive isn't going to help the old games. So you have me there.

Re:needs hard drive

[LWATCDR]

The next gen of SD cards will now support terrabytes of data. 16Gb cards right now are affordable. If they scale at Moore's law that means in less than 3 years you will see 64Gb cards being affordable.
Where I feel Microsoft is being DUMB is by not allowing the 360 to use an HD on a Windows Home Server.

Re:needs hard drive

[delinear]

A feature I love on the 360 is the ability to install the game to the HDD - for one thing it negates my biggest gripe with the console, that INCREDIBLY noisy DVD drive that seems to be spinning constantly whenever you're playing, even if the game's doing nothing that should require disk activity (just idling in a menu, etc), then there's also some speed benefit, etc. but even with the limit of DVD they burn through the disk space fast, with blu-ray the problem would be even greater - my original XBOX has 20gb and with all the NXE updates, a few themes, game saves, etc I had just over 11gb of actual usable space, just space for one game, two at a push, 16GB wouldn't cut it and I don't want to be juggling memory cards every time I want to switch games.

I now have 250gb, which should be ample for the time being, but throw in stored music and HD movies and again you're going to hit the space issue pretty soon, and as the console manufacturers want us more and more to use them as rich media devices this becomes more of a problem.

Re:needs hard drive

[maxume]

If 32 GB SD cards are $40 in 2012 (that's likely high, slower ones are $80 right now), the inconvenience of having to swap 1 or 3 in and out probably won't bother most people.

Re:needs hard drive

[VGPowerlord]

Unfortunately, the way the Wii uses SD cards means that you can never have a downloadable game larger than 512MB. Actually, that limit is probably considerably lower, because 512MB is the size of the *entire* on-board storage.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the "SD Card Channel" on the Wii copies games from the SD card to the on-board storage before running them. The on-board storage is 512MB of Flash memory.

This limit also means that games can't be copied from discs and run from the SD card.

Re:needs hard drive

[LordVader717]

I was talking about the next generation. Obviously Nintendo isn't going to make major changes to the Wii system now to make games run directly off SD cards, and I believe the size limit is still about 50 MB for games anyway.

Re:needs hard drive

[Dwedit]

Pirates are using modified system software to run disc based games off of USB hard drives.
Nintendo wouldn't need to make any changes to the hardware to make games run off of SD cards, they would only need to change their software.

Play Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree with the execs - hardware is fine for now - but they really need to figure a way to play dvd and cd content.... would love to drop the dvd player from my living room....

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[Khyber]

A decent LCDTV has built-in smoothing when you drop to lower resolutions. My Samsung S550 does it. It's like a built in 2xSAI filter.

it will make me consider another system

[pyster]

I just picked up a 55 inch tv... I've not picked up the hdmi cable because 480 wont look much different from composite. I have doubts I am going to by many more wii games because of this. Seems like it would be a wasted investment.

Re:it will make me consider another system

[MrMickS]

There is a noticeable difference in image clarity when going to 480p via composite. If you can't see this on your TV perhaps you bought the wrong TV?

Re:it will make me consider another system

[Anonymous Coward]

idk... l4d2 at 1080i with everything bumped up looks pretty sweet... I think the 480 might just loose the appearance of quality with the size of the screen.

Re:it will make me consider another system

[VGPowerlord]

I've not picked up the hdmi cable because 480 wont look much different from composite.

No, you've not picked up the hdmi cable because the Wii doesn't have an hdmi cable.

See the comment above mine for info about the component cable you can get.

Re:it will make me consider another system

[atamido]

I think you mean component. 480p component video is significantly better than NTSC over composite. Of course, it still looks like crap compared to 1080p.

wasn't possible financially?

[postermmxvicom]

The only thing Wii was missing was the better motion sensors, but it wasn't possible financially at that point, the technology was too costly for competing with better priced console.

Citation needed. The problem with the Wii's sensing capabilities is that has three accelerometers x, y and z. Any good mathematician/physicist/engineer would recognize the wiimote has six degrees of freedom and therefor needs more than what it has.

This could be completely solved by adding the exact same sensing hardware in another place inside the wiimote, which I highly suspect that is all the "motion plus" is.

The problem is their controllers not the console. So, yes, it would have increased the price of the controllers to do it right. By how much? 50%? That would make them $60 controllers. That is still completely competitive. How much did xbox 360 and ps3 controllers cost at launch?

Re:wasn't possible financially?

[maxume]

I imagine they are more likely to switch to a chip with rotation sensors in it (rather than adding a second chip):

http://www.analog.com/en/mems/imu/adis16362/products/product.html

The integration and manufacturer costs should be lower, offsetting any extra expense for the chip (which probably doesn't need to be much more expensive, if you can put 3 MEMs devices on a chip, you can do 6).

I messed with this stuff some for school (almost ten years ago) and 2-axis chips were just coming to market, so things are moving right along.

Re:wasn't possible financially?

[Zerth]

The motionplus is a set of angular rate sensors, which is why you have to "calibrate" it, because it detects rotation, not absolute angle i.r.t. gravity. The nunchuck, on the other hand, does have linear accelerometers, which is why it is awkward to do a hook in the boxing game.

If they had them initially, they would have had a worse shortage of extra controllers and it would have cost more like $100. The price has dropped greatly since the Wii came out, but the motionplus is still an additional $20 over the cost of the base controller.

Re:wasn't possible financially?

[Zerth]

As far as I'm aware, there aren't any equivalent all-in-one chips yet. Most pair a 3-axis accelerometer with two 2-axis or one 3-axis gyros in the same package but separate chips.

Re:wasn't possible financially?

[postermmxvicom]

If they had them initially, they would have had a worse shortage of extra controllers and it would have cost more like $100.

But did it necessarily have to increase the price so much? It seems to me that they could have gone with a small increase in the price and a large shortage of controllers (i.e. make half as many controllers) or gone with a large increase in price and a small shortage of controllers (i.e. buy the components at any cost).

It seems to me that Nintendo had no problems running shortages on their hardware at launch anyways. I think having a shortage of well built controllers would have been the path to take. Especially considering the controller is the platform. However, no one pays me to make decisions for their company.

Cel shading

[tepples]

No blocky polygons and blurry textures to distract you from the story that is unfolding.

Let me guess: you don't watch anime or animesque. One can still tell a compelling story with simpler meshes and cel-shaders.

Re:Cel shading

[Gravatron]

Except most of the most beloved anime were those that pushed the art envelope, giving us amazing visuals to match the story.

Re:Cel shading

[springbox]

I think you're missing the point. "I want better graphics" could be stated as "I would rather have visuals that actually match the artists' conceptions."

480p/576p is EDTV

[tepples]

As I understand it, the resolutions commonly called "480p", "576p", "VGA" (640x480), and "SVGA" (800x600) are considered enhanced-definition television.

Natal bundle?

[tepples]

You don't see Microsoft talking about the XBox1080

But you do see a lot of press about Natal, which Microsoft talks about almost as if it'll be bundled with future Elite systems.

GB Pocket, GB Color, GBA SP

[tepples]

The only system I can remember with it's redesign having a new feature that the older model lacked is a newer DS having a built-in web browser

If you include the DSi, you have to include the Game Boy Pocket with its dramatic reduction of motion blur, the Game Boy Color with its finally-Game Gear-class graphics core, and the GBA SP with its finally-visible shadow details.

but this was previously available on the older models via a cartridge.

The DSi also offers DSiWare. Something like that had been available before (R4 card + pdroms.de), but Nintendo has a history of legal action against manufacturers of hardware that enables individuals to develop and run software for its platforms.

Re:GB Pocket, GB Color, GBA SP

[Dwedit]

Game Gear had twice the color depth of the Game Boy Color, it could display 16 colors per tile, while the Game Boy Color could only display 4.

Nintendo is more closed than Microsoft

[tepples]

I just want people to carry on making games

People don't make games for Nintendo; companies do. From Nintendo's developer qualifications: "In addition, an Authorized Developer will have a stable business organization with secure office facilities separate from a personal residence ( Home offices do not meet this requirement )". You must have Nintendo confused with Microsoft and its XNA Creators Club.

how many people who have never touched emulation have been playing emulated titles on Wii without even knowing?

They know it's emulation; it's called "Virtual Console" for cricket's sake. The big problem is that Nintendo isn't willing to rewrite Earthbound for Super NES to take out the Beatles music.

yet my PC is full of every genre of game.

Except possibly the sort of multi-controller party game that sells well on Wii (and on the other consoles). Well-known publishers don't see a big market for those on PC because PC monitors (e.g. 13" laptop or 17" desktop) tend to be much smaller than TVs that four people can actually fit around. They haven't yet made PC games to take advantage of the fact that flat-panel TVs work as PC monitors too.

Different consoles, different games

[Khelder]

The best console for you depends on what games you like.

I have young kids, so I'm really happy to have a Wii instead of another console. It's also a great platform to have if you've got family or friends who are casual gamers.

I have a PC and play my serious games on that. This configuration works great for me.

YMMV. Void where prohibited. If nausea, vomiting, or death occurs, discontinue use.

Two art envelopes

[tepples]

There are two distinct art envelopes: the anime art envelope and the photoreal art envelope. Anime that pushes its own art envelope need not be as visually complex as James Cameron's Avatar. So perhaps Wii games can push the animated art envelope and still look amazing.

Re:Two art envelopes

[Gravatron]

but if they had the added power, it could be pushed even father. Ratchet and Clank isn't realistically rendered, but looks amazing, ditto for a more anime styled game like BlazBlue.

No matter how much you push graphics on the wii, in the end your still only looking at a 640x480 image. that's like giving an artist a postcard versus a canvas to paint on.

Re:Two art envelopes

[tepples]

that's like giving an artist a postcard versus a canvas to paint on.

Yet Salvador Dali painted The Persistence of Memory (the famous "melting pocket watch" painting) on a 9.5" by 13" canvas.

Re:Two art envelopes

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Seriously, are you a retard or something? You just reinforced that dude's point. It was a canvas, not a piece of paper.

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[$1uck]

I also have an Xbox 360, I do play it fair amount and like it. Every once in awhile I'm tempted to get a wii. More to play old school games that you can download than to play any of the new stuff (which seems largely gimmicky and mostly shovelware imo). If they would re-release classic games (like the original zelda, smb, metroid, even kid icarus) in high def, I would be all over that in a heart beat. Seriously change nothing about the games except the graphics/artwork. That would sell me on a wii as it is the virtual console *almost* does.

The problem with scaling...

[Millennium]

Most TVs (or, more precisely, monitors) do indeed have built-in smoothing. The problem is, it's crap. Seriously, it's nothing like 2xSaI, not that the SaI family of algorithms would work anyway, because there's a fundamental problem with HD resolutions that runs much deeper.

480 content does not scale neatly to 720 or 1080, nor does 720 scale well to 1080, because the ratios between these resolutions do not lend themselves well to scaling. To be more specific, it increases by a ratio of 1:1.5 with each step, rather than a more sensible 1:2, and this throws off fine details. This isn't so much a problem when dealing with actual photography, where the eye is so overloaded with fine detail that it doesn't notice the problems with scaling. Games won't be at that stage for a long time, however, and especially with older games, where pixel-width lines and details were critical to many games' art styles, it's much more problematic. Even the simple problem of walking across a screen becomes a problem when the widths of the lines keep changing to accomodate the upscaling problem.

The cynic in me wonders if that's the reason these resolutions were chosen for HD in the first place: to limit the potential of scaling and therefore drive people to unnecessarily upgrade their content.

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[acohen1]

The Jaggies are actually far worse with Component. I got my Wii from a store and had to wait for my components to arrive for like 2 weeks from Hong Kong since the in-store prices were absurd. When I switched from composite to component on my 42" Panasonic Plasma, I immediately noticed the sharpness and color saturation difference, but also that I could see the jaggies everywhere where before it was just a blurry mess.

It's the Netflix, stupid

[Luyseyal]

The reason I care about Wii HD is so I can watch Netflix HD and maybe Hulu if they ever allow the Wii on their videos. We're not really interested in a PS3 or 360, though a convergence device would be awesome.

-l

Re:Hm. It sure wouldn't hurt to update it a little

[PitaBred]

If he has an HDTV, make sure he has the component cables. That fixed all of the issues I had with the Wii's graphics (other than the resolution). Let the TV do the upscaling... most of them are pretty good at that any more.

Wow. Just wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

>well it was a gift to my other half, even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't play on it but I thought at least I might get some use out of it

More peripherals... *sigh*

[rxan]

the next step for Nintendo in home consoles will not be to simply make it HD, but to add more and more capability, and we'll do that when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii. And we're nowhere near doing that yet.

Translation: ...and we'll do that when there's no way that we can add another piece of plastic to the platform.

Come on Nintendo. Stop with the peripherals PLEASE. The classic controller is awful. Motion Plus is an afterthought. The Balance Board is a failure and is already being replaced by third-party peripherals. All you're doing is fragmenting your market and providing players with half-baked experiences. Come to your senses already.

I just bought a Wii Fit

[X86Daddy]

I've owned a Wii just over a year... first console owned since my 8-bit NES. I find that my desire for high-quality graphics games, networked play, innovation, and so much more (like the ability to modify with 3rd party content) is completely satisfied with PC gaming. No console can compete in those arenas, IMO, so I saw no need to buy any.

The Wii actually did something new for me: made games more physically interactive. I remember daydreaming about hacking a PC joystick to a treadmill to control Doom in 3 screen mode for immersive gameplay and thinking how cool that would be. I bought one of the no-base motion sensing PC joysticks, 3D shutter glasses, and the P5 Glove in the late '90s / early '00s, which worked sorta okay to various degrees, often requiring cooperation of multiple parties (game dev + driver authors) to deliver a really good gaming experience above and beyond the norm. The Wii, as a console, gets that cooperation by default, while introducing truly interesting innovations in game-play. The developers can actually rely on the installed user-base having the peripherals and not worrying about compatibility issues, etc... so games keep coming out for the balance board, the nunchuck, the DDR pads, the guitars, and now the Motion +. They're absolutely right that they haven't finished exploring this space. The loveliest graphics will always be on the PC... frankly, I expected innovations to remain there too (LAN play, expansions, 3rd party mods, the whole FPS genre, neat new peripherals, 3D), but the Wii has really impressed me in bringing some of that back to consoles.

No console's graphics are going to impress me... even if top-of-the-line or ground breaking at release time, the PC will bypass it shortly. Nintendo spent its efforts in areas that actually could impress me. My only (minor) complaint is that Nintendo has failed, software-wise, to deliver the media-playback set-top-box functionality that the others do decently. MPlayerCE is okay, but Nintendo really should deliver something like that for all of its customers (not just homebrew hackers, who they actively oppose anyway) to further reduce the benefits of the other consoles.

Re:I just bought a Wii Fit

[WillAdams]

Have you tried the Wii-Ware game Overturn yet?

One of its control options is to use the Wii Balance Board to move your robot around --- very cool.

William

Re:I just bought a Wii Fit

[sznupi]

What is innovative about 3D & FPS?... (BTW that genre owns much of its success to how easy it can show shiny gfx; which in itself is a bad thing usually, IMHO - takes away the focus from other aspects of games; makes for example 1st gen games on any console shitty & mostly about gfx)

Similarly with peripherals (c'mon, you know well that in practice we're stuck mostly with mouse & keyboard game mechanics on PCs... ;/ ) or even "LAN" to a degree - there was a time when link cables were relatively practical, even with the requirement of two TVs, in comparison to the practicality of having two PCs in one place; and there's multiplayer mode almost not existing on PCs - all players using one screen.

Compare Persistence to Mona Lisa

[tepples]

You just reinforced that dude's point. It was a canvas, not a piece of paper.

The size difference between The Persistence of Memory and, say, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at 30" by 21" is roughly comparable to the size difference between Wii's 480p and PS3's 1080p.

Not sure I want upgrade

[MatthewEMacLeod]

With everything beginning to be less and less focused on controllers, I am going to have a hard time winning. Age really is a factor in video games.

LOL @ graphics haters

[TheBuzzSaw]

It is painful listening to people moan and groan over "how terrible the graphics are on the Wii". Did you know that the Wii has superior graphics power to that of the original XBox? Last generation, everyone geeked out over how beautiful XBox graphics were. Suddenly, that level is inadequate and terrible? I'm not implying that Wii rivals its current competitors' graphics power at all, but the hypocrisy over ripping on the Wii's graphics becomes old fast. "The Wii's graphics suck." OK, so, have you tossed all your PS2 and XBox games into the trash yet? Those games are most certainly UNBEARABLE by today's standard. How can you even look at them?

I like graphics. I recently purchased an NVIDIA GTX 275 because I wanted my games to perform better. My NVIDIA 8500 GT simply was not doing the job (plus, it overheated and died a miserable death). However, graphics cannot save a game from terrible gameplay. If I want "flawless graphics", I'll go watch a movie. At least those approach actual realism. For my games, I welcome the idea that graphics improve my level of immersion into the game, but I better be having fun. If I like a game HIGH settings, I guarantee that I like the game on LOW settings too. I can't think of a game I played and said, "It had potential, but the graphics were not good enough for me." Yes, I am one of those gamers who runs DOSBOX and fires up the classics in their 320x240 glory now and again.

Wii took the industry by storm, and the competitors refuse to admit it. Sony has been the most mathematically challenged at times. One month, the Wii outsold it 4:1. The following month, Wii only outsold it 3:1, and Sony interpreted that as "catching up". Well, it is certainly a step in the right direction, but the gap in sales still WIDENED that month. Phailure.

Re:LOL @ graphics haters

[brkello]

Most people didn't have HDTV's in the previous generation. We do know, so the graphical inadequacies of the Wii are much more obvious. After playing stuff that looks beautiful and going to the Wii, it looks like crap. Everything is relative. People used to think the Super Nintendo graphics were amazing. They aren't. And neither is the original Xbox by TODAY's standards. This should be obvious.

good game != graphics...duh. But a good game can be enhanced by good graphics. More processing power allows for better AI and more AI on the screen. It is more than just a graphical difference.

The Wii out sold its competitors. I am sure that matters to the people who work at Nintendo and invest in it. That doesn't mean it makes better games or that the model of releasing weak hardware is the right model for everyone. I, and many others, would much rather stick with our traditional controller and continue to push the cutting edge of technology. It is great Nintendo fills the casual market. Doesn't mean the rest of us can't want more and are disappointed in Nintendo this gen.

It's funny how Slashdot bashes everything that is massively successful. They say that it is dumbed down to appeal to the masses. But suddenly when Nintendo does it, it isn't dumbed down, it is the best console ever.