Nintendo Abandoned the Core? The Myth Exposed

That seems like a strange idea to me. You could still play your Cube games on your Wii and if some Wii title appeals to you get those as well. It kind of seems a bit of a money waster, IMO, unless your 100% sure about abandoning Wii gaming incl. future titles.

 

I haven't really found "Wii gaming" to be all that enticing myself. It's very gimmicky and the games that actually use it well are almost limited to those that came with it! It feels mostly like a new way to do button combos.

I don't have a PS3 or a 360. I am missing some of the genres that Cube had, even though its line-up was a wreck too for the most part. Wii has a rather strange lineup that doesn't really feel like a usual console game lineup. I'm not sure how to describe it. The library really makes it look like it's never going to go anywhere that really interests me.

 

De Blob was quite a good title - I spent a fair bit of time with it and found it to be enjoyable. If anything, it made me crave a Jet Set Radio Wii given the "style" of the game was kind of similar. It has a pretty good soundtrack, too, though it doesn't top JSRF's.

 

Its all personal preference. I prefer the Cube's core games to the Wii ones by far.

 

No argument there. My Cube library consists of:

-Rogue Squadron 2 and 3
-Eternal Darkness
-Waverace Blue Storm
-XG3
-F Zero GX
-Star Wars Bounty Hunter
-Resident Evil 4

When I look at the Wii library, I see: lots of poorly-made games for little kids, titles that feel like afterthoughts from the other consoles, a select few 1st party games that range significantly in quality, and strange inexplicable games that appear to be cash-ins. The few first-party games aren't really my thing anymore and actually make all nostalgic for N64 again more than anything else. Wii lacks entirely for some genres. And most disappointing of all is that there doesn't seem to be much on the horizon (I've been looking at the usual sites for previews). There are also very few games that take the machine seriously enough to really utilize both the cpu/gpu and the wiimote well. And then there are the "buy me again, plz" Virtual Console releases.

I'm not sure how it can be argued that it's better off than Cube, unless one is a part of the strange demographic that its library really appeals to. I actually wonder if that demographic cares about the library or just the marketing materials showing people having fun swinging their arms around to unrelated on-screen activity lol.

The one advantage to using a Wii for Cube games is that the component AV cable is readily available. The component cable for Cube is expensive and rare, and only older Cubes can use it. I prefer the Cube's lack of UI over Wii's inteface though, because you need to use the Wiimote to start the Cube game and then switch to the Cube controller to play.

I have to say that it feels very strange to sell a console during its active lifetime. I've never done this before. But I've also never had a console sit unused for months and months before either!

 

Yeah I agree, Wii sux. I defended wii for like 2 years, saying that at some point devs/pubs must realize there is plenty of money to be made but it didnt happen. If any it seems that cashing in on wii is used to make ps3/x360 games... Also nintendo pretty much dropped their old fans in favour of releasing stuff like wii music (I actually wonder what all those nintendo devs are doing. Wii play, sport, sport+, music, fit etc all seem like games that could be made by small teams unlike a zelda or mario). Oh well, im sure nintendo at some point will discover that they should have paid a bit more time on their long time fans instead of going for the quick cash. Because it worked out great this time, but given overall quality I think next time even the average joe wont be stupid enough to buy a Wii2 if its Wii1 all over again.

I wont sell my wii, mostly because you wont really earn money on it anyway and there will always be that select few games that will be worth playing. Other than that I'll just use the homebrew channel for the Snes EMU along with the classic Snes controller I bought on Ebay from Japan (still not here after waiting a week, I want it...).

 

The Wii doesn't have a bunch of well selling third party games simply because the Wii software market is heavily overshadowed by Nintendo themselves.

Nintendo has way less incentive to provide the level of support third parties receive from Sony or MS. Nintendo probably makes 3 to 5 times the profit off first party sales then they would off third party sales. With Nintendo having the capacity to provide 14-16 first party titles every year, who's sales Nintendo wants to maximize to the fullest, I see why Nintendo doesn't give third party the red carpet treatment.

MS and Sony sees and treats third parties as partners but third parties are literally competitors to Nintendo. Nintendo has never been the kind of company that completely open its arms to third party especially when Nintendo is in a dominating position. Given Nintendo's historical relationship with third parties why would anyone think the Wii's market be a compelling market even with the Wii being #1.

Furthermore, third parties have spent years catering to the more mature market due to Sony's past dominance. Nintendo has never really embraced this market and even with the Wii being #1, its not like the mature core gamers make up a big part of the Wii's demographic. Given, that the PS3/360 markets together seems to support third party offerings just as well as the PS2, I don't see any reasons for third party to really be attracted to Wii market, not enough to warrant the type of investment they put toward PS3 or 360 projects.

 

let the market have the wii, when they are done..

ok guys,


i used to be a nintendo fan from young age, and now i have grown out of it..playing mario in the past "oh i love jumping on those little turtles"..now "where is my BIG FAT GUN, i just want to blow those stupid turtles to pieces". anyway, as much as I personally dislike what nintendo is doing, I think its great what they are doing for the overall market, they are bringing all these people that would never play games. Ok so soon they will realize, and I hope that they realize, is that all these games they are playing are STUPID, and they will start to open up to more "hard core" games. That will happen, OR it will back fire, and they will stop playing games like wii music, wii sport, and just shelf it, and not recommend any kind of gaming to anyone. Lets hope the former. Nintendo is branching to a wider market bringing them to the gaming world, lets hope they keep them, by not brain washing them with crap.

 

IMO wanting to blow things up with big guns all the time is more about being brain washed by the violence obsessed culture we live in then growing up/out of something.. Not that I don't like games with guns, we're all a little bit brainwashed

I know what you mean here. You hope that some of the new gamers playing games like Rayman Raving Rabbids or using Wii Fit will start to play more typical games. But common, there games are stupid?, that comment is stupid.

 

Its not only that, but those 'gun action' games are not aimed at 'mature' gamers at all, but in fact teenage boys!!!
exactly the same in films, compare the audience ages of the viewers a 'hardcore mature' film like rambo with something thats is actually a 'mature' film eg the cartoon 'spirited away'.

 

Well, no, by definition. 'Mature' games are not for children, period. E for Everyone are.

 

Well 18 and 19 are still teenagers and surely say 14-15 and up will can and will play any mature game out there. I still don't agree with that, If I enjoy a movie or game with guns in them, that I'm somehow childish, atleast in a bad way.

On topic. What first party games did Nintendo launched or is launching this holiday season for the Wii?

 

Punchout?

 

Wii Music, Animal Crossing were the big ones.

 

That sounds rather weak... If I had a Wii, I'd probably be a little upset to see a holiday lineup like that. Nintendo is probably too busy making money, so no time left to make games.

 

People buy the things even though the lineup hasn't gone anywhere really. Everyone who I know that wants/wanted one seems to be wanting to do Wii Sports or Wii Fit, basically. Non-gamers, gamers losing interest in the usual selection, and people who just want to jump on a fad. Not the usual weathered bunch of veteran gamers like me who bought a Wii at launch and regrets it. I think my expectations of the thing were just way off the mark. It is never going to be a 360 or PS3 simply because it can't impress with pretty visuals, and the controls are too different and awkward for some genres.

Gotta say the homebrew stuff is looking fun though. I love to mod consoles and make them do things the manufacturer would prefer you not (or couldn't offer anyway!!). Like have a Xbox that is a retro gamers' dream or the ultimate home media center!! The real library might as well not exist. Hell, I loaded a bunch of LucasArts adventure games on there cuz there's a port of ScummVM!!! And, I am not kidding when I say that I've used my Xbox to watch more video than play games. The Wii community is just getting started on that stuff. So, all is not lost if you have one and want to figure out something to do with it.

 

Yeah thats what I did too. I bought one of those Snes wii controllers from ebay (snes ftw) and installed the homebrew channel for snes roms (because seeing how nintendo refuses to build me decent wii games, I refuse to pay 8 euro's (!) for a 15+ year old game, not to mention I dont want to wait untill nintendo decides to release games like mariokart).

I kinda agree with you one the rest. Wii didnt turn out what I expected it to be. I never expected it to be a x360 or ps3, every gamer that bought a wii should have known from the start what he bought wasnt going to be for the visuals. But I did expect to see games that would be made around the controller and because of that would offer something in exchange for the loss in visuals. However I think there are a few points why it failed.

1. The controller. Apparantly its just not up to what initially was expected. Motion plus will fix that, but it appears that it wont do much more than know if you go left, right, up down etc. The pointer is the only thing that is actually usefull.

2. Nintendo. Instead of doing what nintendo did since the 80's, build real games and now start using their talent on using their new controller they instead decided to go the cheap way and use the controller for crap like wii music. And the single 2 wii made games they released that are actually good could have been played with a normal controller just as well (SMG and SSBB).

3. Third party's. Even though the wii sells like crazy, and the software doesnt do half bad either. Just about every dev fails to deliver anything that isnt a absolute piece of garbage that they wouldnt even have dared to release on the n64. It boggels my mind how with 2 to 3 times the power of GC you'll have a hard time to name 10 games that even manage GC re4 gfx. Hell, apparantly you should be happy if for a change you get something that doesnt look like a average or worse ps2 game... The fact that the games look like shit says enough about the quality of the other parts of the game.

4. No quality. If you take the top 5 wii games half of that is GC and PS2 ports.

5. No sights of a better future. There are about half a dozen 3rd party games on their way that have some sense of not going to suck complete balls but unless nintendo has atleast a dozen of mega teams working for 2+ years already on new big games that are all going to surface in the next 2 years I think your going to be happy if you got 1 good game to play every 6 months.

But that is probably all not going to happen. All you hear from nintendo are either stuff like wii music and when they ''announce'' some real games it are wiimakes of GC games. You'd think they'd better put that effort into something new. OTOH, why would they. They make tons of cash, why bother making something that your customers is going to make them feel like they didnt spend 250 euro's on something useless...

 

I think the non-popularity of this thread and the non-talk about Wii in the forums here is proof of Wii's death for most, frankly.

3rd parties didn't and don't know what to do with the machine. It's risky to try to make a big budget Wii-specific game -

• the control hardware isn't good enough.
• not everyone is interesting in waving their arms around (esp when it's mostly a new and annoying way to do button combos)
• is there really a large group of Wii owners that will buy the game? What do these mysterious Wii owners really want?
• It will never be as pretty as something for PS3/360 or use a HDTV well and that definitely is a factor when I talk to 360/PS3 people. People do care about graphics per dollar I think. So I think a huge number of the PS2/Xbox/Cube/PC people are on 360/PS3 instead of Wii or even Wii + PS3/360.
• the control scheme is quite unwieldy if you try to use it like a traditional controller and a company can not rationally require gamers to own the classic pad. Console peripherals are a bad idea, especially with Wii IMO because the regular Wiimote is a major investment when the owner buys more of them.

And as said earlier here, Nintendo isn't trying to make the platform more appealing by helping to reduce risks and costs. This right here is something that should dramatically cut "warm fuzzy Nintendo love" because Nintendo is not out to please the gamer or their audience as much as they are to control the platform to make the most money possible with the least effort. They've definitely got a good thing going right now, at least in the short-term.

 

I agree with some points, but I think there are some very common misunderstandings too in your post.

1. The controller indeed cant do everything. But I dont see that as a reason not to make a game for it. Work with what it can do, like on any other platform.

2. Ofcourse not everyone wants to wave their arms around. Most people who own a wii dont even want that I think. But this is one of the screw ups alot of devs keep making. Thinking that every action needs to be linked to some stupid waving. No it doesnt have to. You have to link the actions that work to it, not the common small actions. The godfather is a suprisingly good example on what to do. Beating someone up by waving is fun because you interact more. Opening a door by waving, isnt. Just use a button for that.

3. I think there is a large group. Just look at smg, zelda, re4, re:uc sales for example. The need for such games is defenitly there but you cant expect to build a half assed game, do no marketing and than expect it to sell as well as the x360 eqiv that you spend 4 times as much on and gave tons of marketing.

4. GFX indeed will always be lesser/bad compared to x360/ps3/pc. Than again this is what everyone knew when buying a wii. Secondly, if the wii is 2 or 3x GC, than 2x RE4 gfx shouldnt be that hard so its not like a game has to be eye hurting ugly on the wii. It wont be as pretty as other games but it can still look good in its own right. Third, the wii isnt about games centerd on gfx. Wii games should look good enough not to be disturbing (and its quite capable of that I think) and the focus should be on the actuall game. This means that you cant just do lets say a CoD on wii the same way as you would do it on x360. You need to center games around its strenghts and that is what devs fail to do.

 

I do feel like the Wii is a bit ancient by now. When I look at some of my PS3/360 games, even they look outdated. But since you can't upgrade consoles, I guess we have to live with it.