Gotta Have Faith...in the Wii.

Written by Daniel Lloyd

Wednesday, 14 January 2009 04:03

Ah, Nintendo. My first true and only love. They single handedly revived a dying industry, fell to the bottom of the barrel, and unexpectedly rose to the top again just within the past 3 years. Now, for better or worse, the Wii is here to stay. Both gamers and our culture have latched onto it, and it's reign over this generation is non-disputable. Yet still, most "core" gamers have abandoned the white box. Is it the honeymoon over for Nintendo, or is this just the beginning?

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I consider myself a Nintendo fanboy. I'm a lover of all systems, but there's nothing like the Big N that gets me all worked up. I bought the Wii at launch and loved it....up until about last year's E3. Wii Sports 2? Wii Music? Animal Crossing? These were the AAA titles I had to expect the next year? Oh no. Nintendo let me down big time. Third parties had already jumped the shark, figuring out early on they could make a quick buck with cute minigames (see Carnival Games.) Where was a hint of a new Zelda? A new StarFox? The return of Pit? My dreams were shattered, and my Wii sat alone for a good number of months with no power. But I haven't given up.

The Wii isn't over. I still believe in it's potential. I know the next Mario and Zelda and hopefully other franchises will blow me away. I also think the Wii is going to stick around longer than anything else. While we may see a PS4 or Xbox360-2 (?) in the next couple years, Nintendo really doesn't have to do anything. They're still selling like crazy. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

That's not to say Nintendo should rest on its laurels. 2008 started well. No More Heroes was a delight. Super Smash Bros. Brawl wasn't far off, but after SSBB, the year sucked. Mario Kart Wii disappointed. WiiFit wasn't worth the hysteria. And did we really need another Mario baseball game? Here's some advice Nintendo: Lay off the peripherals and gimmicks and give us good games. Super Mario Galaxy relied very little on motion control and was fantastic. Zelda used the Wii Remote in a way that was fun and a little cheesy, but not annoying or distracting. Think outside the box. The Blue Ocean strategy worked....now get back to gaming.

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They rode the line wonderfully with the GameCube. Excellent games with an attempt at connecting to the non-gaming community, but it was shunned in the shadow of Sony and Microsoft and wasn't given a decent fighting chance. Nintendo was on the verge of going the route of Sega, and would have broken many a heart. They slipped up with the N64 by sticking with cartridges. They provided Sony an in to crush them by failing to agree on the PlayStation add-on for the SNES. Years of minor mistakes that cost them gravely, now are made up for by the smash success of the Wii. I'm glad for them, but don't want it to go to their head. That's how we got in this mess in the first place.

So even though my Wii has only seen the light of day a few times in the past few months (World of Goo, Tatsunoko VS Capcom) I'm still okay with it being where it is. I haven't given up hope. 2009 is full of opportunity, and hopefully some wonderful surprises. Games like MadWorld and The Conduit are proving that third parties aren't giving up either. Like Wilson Phillips, we just need to hold one, for one more year.

Comments (10) Add Comment

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written by Ryan Hewson, January 14, 2009

I find the subtext of this interesting. Everyone knows the Wii is a huge (unprecedented, really) financial success. But there's something, or several somethings, about Nintendo's publishing setup that precludes 3rd parties from really putting their best foot forward on high quality franchise titles for the Wii.

One part is the technical aspect. That has hurt them with some developers who like to stretch their legs and want to work in HD.

Another is the nature of Nintendo themselves – the long time Ninty fans love their in-house games to the extent that it seems to almost hoover up the air around any other 3rd party stuff.

By 3rd party stuff, I mean the stuff that core gamers typically care about.

Nintendo almost seems like they want to be the Disney of the game industry now. Disney makes gobs of money and is very successful witha happy, shiny, kid-friendly image. But apart from the occasional Wall-E (i.e. Super Mario Galaxy), I really don't care to watch Disney movies, myself. I'm glad they exist, but it's not for me.

It's not a matter of "holding on one more year". They've shifted focus. I think this is the first year in a long time that there hasn't been a new Zelda home console game, correct? And even TP was a GameCube port. They don't care because there may not be as much money in going after us.

I say "may not" because I still believe that a majority of Wii systems sell to people who a) never would have bought one of the other consoles, and b) genuinely just wanted Wii Sports. To these people, they've bought an electronic version of a ping pong table. If it does other stuff (other games), great, but this is why they bought it: to play Wii Sports when friends are over. And yes, the rest of the time it collects dust.

Meanwhile oldskool Ninty fans like yourself are left holding the bag so to speak, marvelling at their financial resurgence but at the same time wondering where the fuck the old beloved Nintendo has gone to.

Stuff like Mad World and No More Heroes seem to be aberrations. I doubt you can count on many more titles like that, despite the huge installed base, for the reasons mentioned above.The Conduit just looks like wishful thinking to me, a fleeting glance at what the Wii platform could have looked like, if Wii Play wasn't so much more lucrative.

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written by Xerxes3rd, January 14, 2009

"Lay off the peripherals and gimmicks and give us good games."

The peripherals and gimmicks have been selling the system! It'd be unwise for them to pursue a different avenue if their current one is working well. The Wii is an entirely different beast from the PS3 and 360; therefore you can't apply traditional rules to it. It's a brand-new marketing model, and we're all still struggling to define it and predict where it's going.

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written by Jim Squires, January 14, 2009

I'm in a weird space when it comes to the Wii. While 80% or more of the softwatre is shovelware (and that's being kind), there seems to be a real gem every 6 months or so that I couldn't live without. Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams, World of Goo, Boom Blox and De Blob all rocked out in 2008, and were all stellar titles. But asides from that, yes, my Wii is a dust magnet.

Also -- WiiWare is filled to the brim with potential and has a number of solid titles on the service. For some reason, it always seems to be overlooked. smilies/sad.gif

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written by Daniel Lloyd, January 14, 2009

all good points. i'm glad this spawned discussion rather than ranting.

I too go back and forth with the Wii. A gem of a game comes along once in a blue moon that revitalizes my love in the system, but is always followed by a 5 month drought of despair and lack of hope.

cant live with 'em, cant live without 'em.

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written by Ryan Hewson, January 14, 2009

I don't know if you guys saw the comments from the 2K Boston guy lately, but he made an interesting point about some companies pursuing a "make 10 games and hope 2 stick" sort of mentality, which floods the market with shovelware and confuses customers... and this phenomenon is what contributed greatly to crashing the Atari 2600 market. Interesting observation.

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written by Xerxes3rd, January 15, 2009

Yeah, people have been drawing parallels between the Wii game market and the 2600 game market for a while. I suppose there are some similarities, but Nintendo really is in a league of their own this time around. The type of consumer that Nintendo's after is not one that owns a 360 or a PS3. If Nintendo causes a crash, I don't think it will have as much of an impact on the market that Sony and Microsoft are after; conversely, it'll likely hit Nintendo quite hard.

I think the similarity ends when you look at the games themselves. I'm not arguing that the Wii's shovelware is good, but compare it to the junk that came out for the 2600. The shovelware we're seeing today is usually production quality software, but is simplified and repetitive. The point is, most of it is playable, and offers a thin-yet-acceptable experience. The shovelware for the 2600, on the other hand, was usually barely playable and riddled with showstopping bugs.

For me personally, the few Wii titles that interest me couldn't justify my keeping the console, and Nintendo couldn't care less that I don't own one. Again, I don't fault them for this; it was my fault I bought the Wii in the first place- it just took me a while to realize that the product is aimed at a different consumer, and as such, is not tailored to my interests like the 360 and PS3 are.

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written by Dr. Cossack, January 15, 2009

I actually realized about a week ago that I couldn't think of a single title being released for the Wii in 2009 that I wanted to buy, and that bothered me for a while since I never run out of potential games to play. I'm not too worried since I back a large enough stack of past games from which to choose. Besides, not everything to be released this year has been announced yet: the game I'm looking for is still being kept under wraps.

... ohh, there's still Sonic and the Black Knight that looks fun. Yup, that's one. It's a beginning!

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written by Marc Deangelis, January 15, 2009

Whoh, whoh, whoh. Whoh. Dan. Did you just say you have Tatsunoko VS Capcom? Dayum, I'm jealous! I didn't order it because of A. the price and B. I'm trying to finish all my Wii imports so I can update the firmware and play the newer VC games. I'm a vertical shooter whore, so the VC looks like heaven to me.

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written by Tralfaz, January 15, 2009

Ugh... I'm sorry, that turned into quite a reply. So, instead, the 30 sec. version:

I think it's a little early to give up hope on Nintendo. There are some very exciting things to look forward to, from both the Big N and 3rd parties alike. I think all this ballyhoo about Nintendo abandoning the core gamer demographic is really overblown, akin to a "inverse hype machine" or something.

So yes, while for now I'm playing mostly on my PC and DS, I don't think there's any reason to cash in my Wii.

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written by TheBBPS.com (Bits, Bytes, Pixe, January 15, 2009

[...] of the few gems that is keeping my Wii alive with a sliver of blue light, TVC is a Japanese release in the grand tradition of Capcoms other 2D [...]