Editorial: Nintendo Wii, Harbinger For The Death Of Gaming

[fearsomepirate]

Oh my. I hope I wont sound offensive but I cant take you seriously after this post

That's OK, I quit taking you seriously after you started talking about your "rights" and were bewildered by my analogy.

I hope when a developer decides to make an advanced game for Wii or Capcom decides to make DMC on Wii they dont get sued by Nintendo for violating their ...."patent". Or take my Wii away from me when I ll finally get one and play a game that satisfies serious gamers

"Could" is in what we call the "subjunctive mood." That means it's a possibility, but not necessarily an actuality. It does not necessarily express likelihood. Many languages have a subjunctive mood, so this should be a familiar idea. For example, considering the following statement:

I could vote Democrat.

The likelihood of this event is very, very low. But it's a possibility, because it's my legal right as a US citizen over 18, and I am allowed to change my mind at any time.. That's why I use the the subjunctive mood.

So when I say "Nintendo could refuse to license anything but Pong clones" that means it's in some way in the realm of possibility; i.e. the option of it occuring exists. I'm not saying that Nintendo actually refuses to license anything but Pong clones. I'm saying they have the legal right to do so, which is a true fact of US law, not my opinion. The only reason gamers have access to Wii is that Nintendo has chosen to manufacture and sell them. There is no moral or secular law forcing them to sell it to you or even license games for it.

 

[_xxx_]

BTW, "moral" and "secular" don't have anything to do with any sort of law

 

[Natoma]

Hey guys. Sorry about dropping this "bomb" on the forum and leaving for a few days. Got swamped at work. Now for the fun part of winding my way through the responses.

 

[Nesh]

That's OK, I quit taking you seriously after you started talking about your "rights" and were bewildered by my analogy.

"Could" is in what we call the "subjunctive mood." That means it's a possibility, but not necessarily an actuality. It does not necessarily express likelihood. Many languages have a subjunctive mood, so this should be a familiar idea. For example, considering the following statement:



The likelihood of this event is very, very low. But it's a possibility, because it's my legal right as a US citizen over 18, and I am allowed to change my mind at any time.. That's why I use the the subjunctive mood.

So when I say "Nintendo could refuse to license anything but Pong clones" that means it's in some way in the realm of possibility; i.e. the option of it occuring exists. I'm not saying that Nintendo actually refuses to license anything but Pong clones. I'm saying they have the legal right to do so, which is a true fact of US law, not my opinion. The only reason gamers have access to Wii is that Nintendo has chosen to manufacture and sell them. There is no moral or secular law forcing them to sell it to you or even license games for it.

Exactly thats the point. Thast why we are discussing actualities. Possibilities are limitless. Anyone can come up with outlandish possibilities like the one you mentioned in order to prove theirselves right and others wrong. I can name you a hundred possibilities right now too. But that would be crazy.

The actuality is tangible right now, its a fact, and it expresses nothing about "patents" which is nothing more than your assumption and a possibility with perhaps almost zero probability. An assumption that has no place in this discussion. Nintendo (Sony, MS, Panasonic, AIWA, Toyota) legally have the right to join the fast food industry and make hot dogs too. So who on earh cares whats on realm of possibility if its NOT going to happen? And even if we do you the favor and assume it WILL happen, again how do you know that this WONT have a negative impact on the console?

Also another assumption from you: wii is and should be only designed solely to be enjoyied for certain people, again another assumption and absolute opinion of yours. How about ALL (which includes these people and others)? Perhaps Nintendo would hate extra sales and more fans.
Lastly you also avoid the fact that even casual gamers may complain or want more as well.

But you insist that they should and have to enjoy only certain games only because you decided to group them in a certain demographic. As if that demographic doesnt have the ability to think and expect anything better. Even more importantly that "different kind of" demographic you seem to repeat may not even exist. They could be nothing more than an inexperienced audience who saw interest on the new concept and found the opportunity to join for the first time due to low price. How do you know these inexperienced people or these new fans of the motion sensing control scheme WONT like anything better or advanced offered on Wii in case it IS offered? Suddenly thats not even in the realm of possibility isnt it?

 

[Natoma]

Does everyone here honestly think that last generation's traditional gamers (about 125 million people) are going to pass on GT, GTAIV, Halo 3, FFXIII, etc... so they can play Wii tennis? I don't think so. Price is a huge factor so far with next-gen gaming and it won't be long before MS and Sony come knockin' with big price drops.

Do you honestly believe that 125 million gamers will all buy GT, GTAIV, Halo 3, FFXIII, etc? Given the prior sales of those franchises, I would think it's a small fraction.

That said, Wii Tennis isn't the only kind of game for the Wii, graphically or game mechanics.

As for price drops, Microsoft will be in the $200-$300 range with their premium far sooner than Sony will, particularly since Sony just discontinued the 20GB model. As long as the 360 and PS3 cost $399+, it'll be a very long time before there is a repeat of last generation's penetration, other than what the Wii is accomplishing to date.

 

[Natoma]

There is truth to the editorial. I have both a Wii and an Xbox 360. Most of my gaming time is done with the 360. However where the Wii excels is when I have a group of friends over and play some Wii sports. The Wii works great with drinking games also .

I can understand this approach. However, do you think that's more because the Wii has only been on the market for 5 months, and you're comparing its library to your 360, which has been on the market for 17 months?

What if you had a PS3 instead of a 360? Would the library comparison be as valid? I bring this up only because there are many good-to-great games for the Wii other than Wii sports. But on the flip side, it is again only 5 months old.

 

[Natoma]

Thanks Natoma.

The article seemed like a bored rant to me, a half-assed attempt to spin negative on the Wii while everyone else is slurping it up. That's all IMO.

I agree with Joshua's points regarding Nintendo not being able to keep momentum, but I believe that they powered themselves down from the trap of the previous cycle. Nintendo fizzed out with their last offering because the consoles were too similar - in power and 3rd party titles. The differentiating factors were first parties and Nintendo didn't create enough to bring in more new, diverse fans, who could bring in new and diverse 3rd parties (the same problem for N64, along with media limitations). The Wii however is cheap to dev for and by default forces 3rd parties to make exclusive games. I am still of the opinion that the Wii will be a complementary console and be used as the wise sage, lion2, said, "for drinking games". It will be interesting if MFST and SNY just say, screw it, and make a similar wand peripheral

There is a qualifier to that statement that I'm not sure anyone has made. The Wii is cheap to dev for in comparison to the 360 and PS3. However, the dev costs are the same, if not higher, than they were the prior generation considering the fact that the Wii is still much more powerful than any console of the last gen.

So while it does offer a respite for game developers from the 360/PS3 paradigm, it's not the panacea that many think it is, imo.

 

[Natoma]

Nintendo's core market is not people who love FPS's. The "hardcore gamer" would not benefit hugely from owning a Wii.

You buy consoles on the type of games they have on them - to think that just because you bought a Wii suddenly Nintendo is obligated to release or get 3rd parties to release games you would have played on another system is pure arrogance and inevitably is going to leave the owner pretty miffed.

I am not buying a Wii simply because I have outgrown the kind of games Nintendo and its console excels at. Really fun games they are too but I prefer car arcade or simulations and/or beat em ups.. I know in the long run I won't get that from Wii.

Once my daughter is slightly older I will consider buying her a Wii (no funny jokes please) and will probably enjoy it with her and the missus as a family entertainment unit.. just like the original SNES was billed as.

What if the Wii does get those games that you have stated you enjoy? In the end, sales do talk more than preconceptions.

For racing games, the Wii sensing offers the opportunity for significantly increased play experience imo. The ability to use the Wiimote as a steering wheel, for example, could be far more immersing than the standard button mashing. I'm a racing fanatic myself btw. Extreme G3 was my fav racing game from the last gen.

 

[Natoma]

But it remains to be seen whether or not this will happen. Who's buying Wii's? It's difficult to say for sure, but there are certainly 10 million hardcore Nintendo fans out there so it's not surprising that a strong Nintendo-style offering is drawing those fans to purchase. My own evidence suggests that at least half of the Wii buyers are Nintendo fans. At the $250 price point they can pretty much buy it right away instead of waiting for price drops. That doesn't mean that Nintendo will sell more Wii's than Cubes, they just might sell them earlier.

For the record though, I'm sticking with my original prediction of 35-50 million Wii sold over the next 5 years. Nintendo will do great, but I seriously doubt they'll take over the market.

The Wii has sold ~6 million to date. Not even the 360 has a previous-owner adopt rate that high, and I was quite frankly shocked that half of the 360's sales were Xbox owners. Not only that, but if that were truly the case then we would've seen these kinds of early explosive sales with the Gamecube. Or with the N64. Or with the SNES.

These kinds of sales simply didn't occur. It can't just be previous Nintendo owners as you've speculated.

 

[Natoma]

You do need to explain why. There is no evidence of huge publisher support for Wii until the games actually get announced. Claims that Nintendo now has huge publishing support are not verifiable at this time.

This was definitely the case at launch. There were only a few big publishers like Ubisoft who took a chance on the Wii and profited handsomely. Many other publishers sent shovelware, or nothing at all, to the Wii.

However, now that the Wii has dominated sales since launch, there are tons of reports from publishers that are promising top notch support. Whether it's EA or Take Two or Square or Konami or Capcom, you name it. They're all announcing support for future titles. Granted it usually takes 9-12 months for games to materialize, so we probably won't see titles en masse from developers who missed the boat until Christmas.

I think publisher support at E3 is going to be crucial. If support is sparse there, I don't think the Wii has much of a shot, even with its crazy sales to date.

 

[Natoma]

I think if the userbase is there, there will be a shift of support toward the Wii and by all accounts it looks like that is starting to happen.


The notion that Wii will destroy gaming I find is a bit ridiculous. Sales for 360 and PS3 are not flat, there is support and publishers will support the platform regardless. Nintendo may make Sony and Microsoft think twice about their strategies but thats it.

I disagree on this. Sales for PS3 have been flat and/or declining ever since launch. The 360 sales have generally been well above the PS3, but well below the Wii. I think the pricing structure is definitely affecting sales of those consoles. At the current rate of sales, the Wii will outpace the 360 by Christmas. Sooner if Nintendo can actually ramp up supply to meet demand.

For instance, what if one of Sony or Microsoft choose to compete with Nintendo next gen by using a low cost but "innovative" approach to the control scheme?

That would leave the market wide open for the other competitor to come in and release a console that offers something completely different from the other two by showing off great tech. So that leaves a huge possibility for some kind of competitive advantage right off the bat for whichever companies sticks to their guns and continues to up the ante on system power.

This doom and gloom stuff is purely media garbage.

Unless the true market predictor really is price, not tech. Otherwise, the Neo Geo, 3DO, and other consoles that were far and away the superior technologies at the time would've dominated the market imo.

 

[Natoma]

The moment I found out the Wii was basically an overclocked GC selling for $250, half of my interest in it vanished. The fact the title I'm most interested in is a remake of a GC game (RE4 Wii) and only because it's going to sell for $30 to me is pretty sad. When I look at the Wii's game selection most of it is shovelware/ports. Conversely I could easily name at least 12 titles for X360 that I'm interested in compared to only about 3 for Wii. I'm glad Nintendo is making lots of money, but my days of cheering for them are over. If they had packed a little bit more processing power into the console, I would've been happy...the stupid thing can't even play DVD movies!!! The Panasonic Q could play DVD movies.

1) The Wii isn't basically an overclocked GC. There are games such as Mario Galaxy that simply could not have been done on the GC. And frankly if developers would stop porting PS2 games to the Wii with some motion sensing functionality (shovelware basically), and would actually develop for the machine itself (Eggbrecht bemoaned this in an interview several weeks ago), then you would see truly beautiful games for the machine.

Remember, even Zelda TP is a maxed out GC game. And yet, the Wii is at least 2x the GC in processing power, and 3x the storage capacity. What do you think it'd look like with significantly higher res textures and geometry to max out the Wii's power?

Give it time.

2) The Wii has been on the market for 5 months. The 360 has been on the market for 17 months. What did the 360 library look like after 5 months?

3) The Wii can play DVD movies with a software update from what I've read. Besides that, DVDs are so cheap, and most people have DVD players, that I'm not particularly surprised why Nintendo left this functionality out of the base console.

Is it really and truly necessary, or even convenient?

 

[Natoma]

That excuse doesn't hold water since it's just an overclocked GC which developers are already familiar with. We shouldn't need to wait a year for the good games to come out with new controls. That's why RE4 will be released shortly (6 months after launch) since all the development was already done on the GC version. Nintendo released Wii a year later not to mention underpowered even for its price. The Wii controller seemed compelling initially but not many games have made good use of it so far, most fall into the gimmicky bin. Kinda funny that a $30 remake of RE4 will be more compelling than most of the Wii games out there to date. At least this gives people a good excuse to wait for the Wii to drop in price like the PS3.

No, developers aren't familiar all that much with the GC architecture. Remember, the PS2 was the baseline platform last gen. Because of that, developers targeted the PS2, which was the weakest of the 3 platforms, and ported to the GC and Xbox. Games that truly pushed the GC and Xbox, which were few and far between, easily outshone the best PS2 offerings.

See RE4 on the GC vs RE4 on PS2, for example.

As for the Wii controller and game use/gimmickry, didn't the same thing happen with the DS when it launched? There were games that made good use of the stylus, but not that many. The same has happened with the Wiimote. Give the time to the Wii as you apparently did with the 360 for game library support to occur.

 

[inefficient]

Give the time to the Wii

No amount of time is going to make the Wii ever output in HD.

Comparisons to the last gen platforms are not going to help you at all here because of that. Strictly from a graphical stand point no amount of time or developer investment is going to make the Wii comparable to the X360 or PS3 - the HW support simply isn't there.

You will be hard pressed to find a talented developer with even an iota of ambition to willingly target an SD platform over an HD one.

The era of SD 480i/p games is over. Wii buyers just don't know it yet.

 

[Natoma]

In the end there were some responses that directly addressed the author's comments, but it didn't seem like many did.

Personally, I think the Wii is a confluence of two things.

1) Innovative controller and design
2) Price

If the Wii had enough processing power to place it at the level of a 360 or PS3, it wouldn't be selling like it is even with the innovative controller and design because the price would have to match the technology.

In short, I don't think the early stages of this generation is a repudiation of "hardcore" gaming per se. I think it's a repudiation of $300+ gaming. The additional design and controller of the Wii accelerated the desire and sales for that console, but in the end I believe price is the primary driver.

When the 360 Premium drops below $300, then I think sales will skyrocket there. Not only will the library be mature, but it will be in the price range that many consider acceptable for a gaming console.

Sony otoh will have a difficult time pricing the $600 PS3 in half, anytime soon. Frankly I'm worried about the PS3's fate as no console has competed well at those prices. See 3DO and Neo Geo for example.

In the end, if the Wii does end up dominating this generation, it will temper the race to see who can come up with the most boundary-pushing technology and cram it into a tiny box. I think that it may very well return us to the days when a console was just a console, and not an attempt at being the media-processing hub of the digital living room, i.e. the dream of Sony and Microsoft.

Which philosophy is good for the gaming market is anyone's guess at this stage of the game.

 

[Natoma]

No amount of time is going to make the Wii ever output in HD.

Comparisons to the last gen platforms are not going to help you at all here because of that. Strictly from a graphical stand point no amount of time or developer investment is going to make the Wii comparable to the X360 or PS3 - the HW support simply isn't there.

You will be hard pressed to find a talented developer with even an iota of ambition to willingly target an SD platform over an HD one.

The era of SD 480i/p games is over. Wii buyers just don't know it yet.

HD penetration is only about 5% worldwide right now. In the US, the leading market for HD, it's maybe 10-12%. Will that change in the next 5 years? Yes. Enough to make a significant dent in HD gaming? Probably not.

Even still, will we see Wii-HD and NextBox by then? Probably. We'll probably even be hearing rumblings of the PS4 as well.

SD gaming is here, and will be here, for a very long time.

Regardless, that wasn't what I was talking about when I made that comment. The comment "Give the time to the Wii" was in regards to the library. Capeta was comparing a 17 month old Library to a 5 month old Library. The comparison just isn't fair at all. Compare the 360 to the Wii at 5 months.

 

[Capeta]

The comparison just isn't fair at all. Compare the 360 to the Wii at 5 months.

I think it is quite fair, afterall that is the reality of the situation when one is looking to purchase a console. The fact is developers aren't interested in investing lots of money/resources in making high production value games which are all going to X360/PS3. Only the low production (cheaper development) games are going to Wii. I don't see that changing in the next few years and that's too bad.

 

[oli2]

I think it is quite fair, afterall that is the reality of the situation when one is looking to purchase a console. The fact is developers aren't interested in investing lots of money/resources in making high production value games which are all going to X360/PS3. Only the low production (cheaper development) games are going to Wii. I don't see that changing in the next few years and that's too bad.

How can you draw this concluson after only 5 months life span ?

What is questionning is : can you define "high production value" ?

If we think about those 2 questions, we come rapidly to the conclusion that it is a bigger concern for PS3 than for Wii.

Are those who are buying Wii at the moment really caring about these ?

IMO, why are many dealing with the weakness of the line-up of Wii as (ATM) PS3 have even weaker line-up ?

Please, stop with this "in 2008 you will see all the AAA games", because we are not in 2008, yet.

 

[Capeta]

I give up...

 

[oli2]

...

The weakness in what you say, is that you positively could have said the exact same thing a year ago... And can continue for a whole year, given current situation.

Do you really expect games powerhouses to have this reasonning : "Ok, Wii's install basis is x millions, but let us not invest on it because we won't be able to implement all those shaders and advanced physics".