The irony of the Wii

[neo_bahamut1985]

Notice how much people bad-mouth the wii, saying it's not gonna match up to the other consoles (Xbox 360/PS3)? I also find it strange when nVidia said graphics are everything (when they announced the PS3 GPU), and at the same time, Nintendo's Wii kicked the crap out of the competition. Just read a recent Wii IGN arcticle saying it sold over 13.17 million units. Now, before you come kick my butt or something, I'm merely stating what is my own biased opinion. So, I'd like to hear your feedback as well.

[grinvader]

Nintendo fanboi since '88.

UNITE AND CONQUER

[snkcube]

The situation right now is kind of like last gen. The PS2 had the least powerful specs but managed to oust the GameCube and Xbox.

[ReRuss]

PS2 still sells apparently cuz PS3 isnt 100% backwards compat

[neo_bahamut1985]

yeah, kinda weird how in each generation, the console w/the weakest specs (NES vs. SMS, Snes vs Genesis, PSX vs N64, etc), always seem to sell more. And, don't get me wrong, I've been using Nintendo stuff since '93.

[Panzer88]

yeah, they are pulling an NES all the way, I would be very interested if they pulled an SNES next gen (not in terms of sales but in terms of impact)

things are looking very good for them, and they are really taking Japan back for real.

I was nintendo and sega back in the day, nintendo lived, go retro.

I was born in 88' o_O but I've been a fan since 92'

I just played Mario Galaxy at gamestop today, and it's official, they are playing with POWER.

my Wii has really been a fun system to own, now I just need a good RPG to top it off.

[blackmyst]

my Wii has really been a fun system to own, now I just need a good RPG to top it off.

There's a new Tales coming out for it. There's Opoona which I'm inexplicably drawn to. There's two separate Chrystal Chronicle games. There's that one game with the boy king and the knight riding a cow ("project O"). And we get Monster Hunter 3.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

[corronchilejano]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212

[ReRuss]

Atleast on my wii friends list I havnt had multiple friends sending a message that says

"To (specific names , or everyone on list) my box gave me red lights of death so I'll be off a while and waiting on my (3rd or 4th) box to come in , see ya in a few weeks while my paid membership rots a month away"

atm 2 friends on my list are waiting on new xboxes , I'm on my 3rd (if M$ listened that PDZ was a bad disc I would been on #1) , one of my friends is waiting on #3 , another #4 , and I think my HS buddy is on #2 , and I'm not even sure bout the others , one guy I know owns 2 in case one breaks , that way his paid membership doesnt get wasted...

and I know sony will have problems , PS1 and PS2 did , usually after a year , then yea original xbox had a HDD that would crash lol

my wii runs rock solid no extra cooling (so my wiiconnect24 is not on standby) , my xbox 1 runs solid but it'd modded so if the HDD crashes (which may take a while since I'm running the same models in my PC , the oldest being 5+ years) or DVD drive (modded sammy drive) screws up I can still use it...

I've always bought Nintendo without worries , I never had one fail me yet , and I own NES , NES (Gen2) , SNES , N64 , GC , Wii , GB , GB Pocket , GBC , GBA , GBASP , and a DS... no DS lite quite yet... they still dont have that blue I want, even then I doubt...

N64 was quite sturdy hardware , does anyone remember carlos mencia smashing random shit? that N64 didn't go down in one go

[FitzRoy]

Notice how much people bad-mouth the wii, saying it's not gonna match up to the other consoles (Xbox 360/PS3)? I also find it strange when nVidia said graphics are everything (when they announced the PS3 GPU), and at the same time, Nintendo's Wii kicked the crap out of the competition. Just read a recent Wii IGN arcticle saying it sold over 13.17 million units. Now, before you come kick my butt or something, I'm merely stating what is my own biased opinion. So, I'd like to hear your feedback as well.

Obviously, graphics aren't everything, but the idea is to try and push graphics to allow for developers to do things that they haven't been able to do before. Graphical detail and processing power enhances immersion because it allows real or stylistic presentations in games to look better, and it can create more interaction between character and environment. There used to be a time when stuff like trees and foliage looked terrible or couldn't appear to be moved, because the number of polygons needed to make this stuff look real was just too much for technology to handle. Even now, you can't cut branches off, but I'll bet we will in the future. So it's not a completely aesthetic issue. If you were a developer back then and wanted a forest setting in your game, it was totally unfeasible to do this. I wouldn't fault Microsoft or Sony for continuing to push graphics beyond what a company like Nintendo can afford. It's also true that something like Super Smash Bros on the PS3 or 360 would play exactly the same but look better as well, resulting in an overall better experience. So there's really no argument that these systems are inherently less fun or that fun is second-tier to graphics just because the graphical potential happens to be getting pushed more on these systems.

I also wonder why Wii fans tout sales figures. If you want to look at gaming from a business success standpoint, that's fine, but be wary of making quality correlations using sales success. According to that rationale, Jessica Simpson is an incredible musical artist and Fox is the best news channel.

That said, I think the Wii obviously found a new market to tap into with the elderly and other traditional non-gamers. They've taken Apple's design philosophy and brought it to gaming. They have extremely popular and enduring IP with Mario and company, and there's very little they could do that would result in their going the way of Sega. Personally, though, I have no interest in any of it besides the IP. I'm unimpressed with the airmouse and the lackluster netplay. I owned a DS for a few weeks and was glad that they finally chose a resolution that allows for better ports of old consoles (256X192), but was disappointed by the dual-screen gimmick. I can not look at two screens at the same time. I would have rather had a single, larger screen. I also wanted the PSP to actually be a portable PS1 just like I wanted the GBA to be a portable SNES.

yeah, kinda weird how in each generation, the console w/the weakest specs (NES vs. SMS, Snes vs Genesis, PSX vs N64, etc), always seem to sell more. And, don't get me wrong, I've been using Nintendo stuff since '93.

I'd be careful with falling into absolute statements like that as well. Despite having less resolution and clock speed, the SNES could do many things that the Genesis couldn't and had a vastly superior sound chip. The PSX could also do some things the N64 couldn't and had a tremendous media storage advantage over ROMs.

[Panzer88]

Obviously, graphics aren't everything, but the idea is to try and push graphics to allow for developers to do things that they haven't been able to do before.

I also wonder why Wii fans tout sales figures.

yeah, kinda weird how in each generation, the console w/the weakest specs (NES vs. SMS, Snes vs Genesis, PSX vs N64, etc), always seem to sell more. And, don't get me wrong, I've been using Nintendo stuff since '93.

I'd be careful with falling into absolute statements like that as well. Despite having less resolution and clock speed, the SNES could do many things that the Genesis couldn't and had a vastly superior sound chip. The PSX could also do some things the N64 couldn't and had a tremendous media storage advantage over ROMs.

graphics are important, they are the skin, but if the heart of the game is getting stale, then doing something about it IS important. In this case I'm not going to argue that the wii has achieved this at all, but they are trying, and I figure by next gen it'll really make a difference in a lot of games. with Zack and Wiki we are seeing adventure games again for the first time in a long time and with Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 FPS on wii are really getting tightened controls, to the point that you can't have that level of control on other consoles.

nintendo peeps tout sales figures because that's what the competition does, it shows that the strategy is realistically successful, whether you like the games or not is not a matter of statistics but just personal preference.

as for him comparing the systems, I think he was saying that the genesis won the war with the SNES, not the other way around, and the Saturn was more powerful than the PS1 hands down but it still lost, so I think his model holds up.

[blackmyst]

Even now, you can't cut branches off, but I'll bet we will in the future. So it's not a completely aesthetic issue.

Far Cry 2 does it. Still... that sounds pretty damn aesthetic and useless to me. Unless they're going to have gameplay where you shoot off branches to drop em on enemies' heads. Yeah right.

I wouldn't fault Microsoft or Sony for continuing to push graphics beyond what a company like Nintendo can afford.

I wouldn't assume so quickly what Nintendo can and cannot afford. I mean, they're already larger than Sony in Japan besides being a games-only company which is just mind-boggling, but even in the past they've always been rich as hell. Their move to de-emphasize graphic power to be able to make a physically tiny game device, with very little in the way of ridiculously high-budget requirements on the developer's part just to make any damn game, was a choice that worked out for them, even if some people would not like to acknowledge this fact because they cannot stomach that Nintendo is doing well while their super-l33t HD console of choice is failing.

It's also true that something like Super Smash Bros on the PS3 or 360 would play exactly the same but look better as well, resulting in an overall better experience.

It wouldn't be made by Nintendo, so it would most likely suck.

Even still, every game has a budget, and the less of that budget goes towards graphics, the more is left for other game aspects. Already we're seeing HD games growing smaller and smaller in scale and still be many times more expensive to make than they used to be.

I don't know for sure if Smashbros would feature less characters and content if it had HDR and high res graphics out the ass. I wouldn't have liked to find out, though. Also, you cannot possibly say the game doesn't look visually awesome either way. No reasonable person can.

I also wonder why Wii fans tout sales figures.

Mostly revenge. I'm serious, Sony fanboys et al have bashed Nintendo and its games and consoles for so long using sales-based "arguments", and now that their console of choice is down in the gutter they're crying like fucking babies, downplaying the importance of sales. Me, I still don't care whether Nintendo games sell well, they'll still be awesome, but I won't pass up a chance to rub Nintendo's total marketshare domination in a Sony/MS fanboy's face just for the hell of it. Well, if they're the type who deserve it anyway. ; )

I owned a DS for a few weeks and was glad that they finally chose a resolution that allows for better ports of old consoles (256X192), but was disappointed by the dual-screen gimmick. I can not look at two screens at the same time. I would have rather had a single, larger screen.

Gimmick? MP Hunters and Phantom hourglass would like a word. Among many others. Really, it's fine that you don't like the DS, just don't account it to anything but your own personal preference instead of making it out to be the hardware's fault by using terms like that. It's not.

The PSX could also do some things the N64 couldn't and had a tremendous media storage advantage over ROMs.

Yeah, developers were all too happy that they now had the storage space to boost sales of their game by means of a flashy intro FMV that looked absolutely nothing like the game people would be playing. Remember the FF7-8-9 commercials that were exclusively made up of FMV clips? All while 99.9% of the PSX's game library would easily fit on a single cart if the FMV were cut.

The ingame PSX graphics themselves were to N64 graphics what unaccelerated 3D on the PC was to 3DFX visuals at the time (actually, the difference was greater). There was no comparison, yet it didn't matter in the end. The difference is that while Sony had insubstantial fluff to tide people over, Nintendo now has something genuinely different and important to the way games are played.

[Panzer88]

Even now, you can't cut branches off, but I'll bet we will in the future. So it's not a completely aesthetic issue.

Far Cry 2 does it. Still... that sounds pretty damn aesthetic and useless to me.

I wouldn't fault Microsoft or Sony for continuing to push graphics beyond what a company like Nintendo can afford.

I wouldn't assume so quickly what Nintendo can and cannot afford. I mean, they're already larger than Sony in Japan besides being a games-only company which is just mind-boggling, but even in the past they've always been rich as hell. Their move to de-emphasize graphic power to be able to make a physically tiny game device, with very little in the way of ridiculously high-budget requirements on the developer's part just to make any damn game, was a choice that worked out for

yeah, the whole being able to cut a branch for the sake of cutting a branch is a weak argument.

also like you said it's a business decision. Nintendo is making good games while making good business sense, if you are hemorrhaging cash to make the shiniest games that people still aren't going to remember, then what do you accomplish?

a good point is that while shiny gfx are nice, they age, something that looks mind numbingly realistic and cool today, will look trashy in 10 years, the only thing that will remain is the way the game plays. I'm not saying visuals don't matter, I'm just saying that they can be remade later if the game is good enough and deserves it, but what really matters is the meat of the game.The bigger the budget of the game, the more inclined publishers are to force a developer to make a clone of something successful to protect their cash but the irony is that this tactic is only going to work on consumers for so long before it becomes the bad move to make.

[corronchilejano]

Even now, you can't cut branches off, but I'll bet we will in the future.

It isn´t due to hardware limitations, but more like emphasis on other areas. Any machine nowadays can have a game with decent destructible enviroment if they just change focus a bit.

I wouldn't fault Microsoft or Sony for continuing to push graphics beyond what a company like Nintendo can afford.

It´s not what they can afford, it´s what it would be best.

[casualsax3]

OP needs to stop being an insipid fanboy. The Wii still has only a handful of games worth playing right now. Also, Metroid Prime 3, while fun, has officially ruined the series for me. It was a good game, but it was *not* a Metroid.

[DancemasterGlenn]

OP needs to stop being an insipid fanboy. The Wii still has only a handful of games worth playing right now. Also, Metroid Prime 3, while fun, has officially ruined the series for me. It was a good game, but it was *not* a Metroid.

How so? I still haven't played it (working my way through the first two), but if it isn't spoiler-related I'd be interested to know why you think so.

EDIT: referring to MP3, if that wasn't clear.

And also, just to stay on topic, I love my wii and am going to great lengths to stretch my enjoyment of it... I've promised myself I'll only buy a new game when I beat the last one I bought, so couple that with my gamecube games and you've got a happy, drought-less fan here. With a lot of spare cash.

[Neo Kaiser]

If the PS3 and 360 are 2 kind of pizza then the Wii are the bread sticks and most people like their pizza with bread sticks. I know most people who ether have a 360 and a Wii or a PS3 and a Wii. That's why the Wii sells very well because people see it as a extended library.

[DancemasterGlenn]

If the PS3 and 360 are 2 kind of pizza then the Wii are the bread sticks and most people like their pizza with bread sticks. I know most people who ether have a 360 and a Wii or a PS3 and a Wii. That's why the Wii sells very well because people see it as a extended library.

Turtle power!

[FitzRoy]

Even now, you can't cut branches off, but I'll bet we will in the future. So it's not a completely aesthetic issue.

Far Cry 2 does it. Still... that sounds pretty damn aesthetic and useless to me. Unless they're going to have gameplay where you shoot off branches to drop em on enemies' heads. Yeah right.

Okay, what about sand? Or hair? What about the ability to grab clothing? What about a puzzle which requires you to bend a malleable object inwards with blunt force from another object in order for it to fit through something? How about long, realistic landscapes that aren't fogged out in fifty feet, or two massive armies in 3d without slowdown. What you seem to be saying is that if everyone was drawn as a box, that has no effect on gameplay, right, because it's purely aesthetic to care about what a character looks like? This is stuff that once wasn't or still isn't possible. Some of it may not have gameplay implications by your standards, but you have to understand what most 3D representations of worldly things are trying to accomplish. If it's a game that takes place in our world, like a civil war game, it's a great bonus to have that world look and act more like our own. It will eventually give people the ability to experience things that the average person never would. And in the case of fictional worlds, what no one would.

I wouldn't fault Microsoft or Sony for continuing to push graphics beyond what a company like Nintendo can afford.

I wouldn't assume so quickly what Nintendo can and cannot afford. I mean, they're already larger than Sony in Japan besides being a games-only company which is just mind-boggling, but even in the past they've always been rich as hell. Their move to de-emphasize graphic power to be able to make a physically tiny game device, with very little in the way of ridiculously high-budget requirements on the developer's part just to make any damn game, was a choice that worked out for them, even if some people would not like to acknowledge this fact because they cannot stomach that Nintendo is doing well while their super-l33t HD console of choice is failing.

Nintendo does not have the production capacity or R&D clout to compete with companies like MS or Sony. You're right, though, that Nintendo wants to make money and let third parties create assembly line games instead of advancing technology. I don't know how you see supporting this helps gaming, though, or why all technological progress should just stop due to inevitable obsolescence. If they're not pushing graphics, what are they pushing? The same IP that would look better on other consoles? The wiimote that is too slow to aim with and has no applications for most genres?

It's also true that something like Super Smash Bros on the PS3 or 360 would play exactly the same but look better as well, resulting in an overall better experience.

It wouldn't be made by Nintendo, so it would most likely suck.

Actually, it would be. I was imagining if Nintendo focused on developing instead of building consoles.

Even still, every game has a budget, and the less of that budget goes towards graphics, the more is left for other game aspects. Already we're seeing HD games growing smaller and smaller in scale and still be many times more expensive to make than they used to be.

I haven't noticed a decrease in game length, size, or quality in most of the new games I've played, unless you count the fact that old PC games used to do infinite randomly generated landscapes with no trees to give the impression of size. It is more expensive, but I think that this is a necessary transition to decrease the overall library of games coming out. Even with previous gen, we were getting so many shitty games on the shelf because they were cheap to make. A more expensive production cost may actually dissuade this kind of thing.

I don't know for sure if Smashbros would feature less characters and content if it had HDR and high res graphics out the ass. I wouldn't have liked to find out, though. Also, you cannot possibly say the game doesn't look visually awesome either way. No reasonable person can.

Sure, it looks good, but so does the gamecube version of Smash Bros. If this wasn't a new console they were pushing, your case would be much more convincing to me. I can't help but think a little before buying into this new strategy of deemphasizing graphics, but releasing a new $250 console for me to buy anyway.

Gimmick? MP Hunters and Phantom hourglass would like a word. Among many others. Really, it's fine that you don't like the DS, just don't account it to anything but your own personal preference instead of making it out to be the hardware's fault by using terms like that. It's not.

Since you can't look at two screens at the same time, it seems more logical to simply toggle the screen to show the map using a button. If you could go into more detail on how the two screens are necessary, I might agree with you, but I found myself doing nothing but darting my eyes back and forth when a bigger screen with toggles for special screens would have been totally sufficient.

The ingame PSX graphics themselves were to N64 graphics what unaccelerated 3D on the PC was to 3DFX visuals at the time (actually, the difference was greater). There was no comparison, yet it didn't matter in the end. The difference is that while Sony had insubstantial fluff to tide people over, Nintendo now has something genuinely different and important to the way games are played.

When I think about all the PSX soundtracks I enjoyed, particularly Symphony of the Night, I think about how much poorer they would have sounded on the N64's synth chip, necessitated by the limited storage capacity of ROM cartridges.

I want to know more about your last statement. What is Nintendo offering right now that is so different and important for the future of gaming?

[funkyass]

I want to know more about your last statement. What is Nintendo offering right now that is so different and important for the future of gaming?

by offering an affordable consumer device that lasts at least as long as the tv its connected too.

[FitzRoy]

I want to know more about your last statement. What is Nintendo offering right now that is so different and important for the future of gaming?

by offering an affordable consumer device that lasts at least as long as the tv its connected too.

Guess you should buy a PS2 then, since it's just as durable and half as much.

[funkyass]

I should have qualified: on launch.

the PS2 took 7 years to get to the price point its at now, and thats not helping PS3 sales either.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Even still, every game has a budget, and the less of that budget goes towards graphics, the more is left for other game aspects. Already we're seeing HD games growing smaller and smaller in scale and still be many times more expensive to make than they used to be.

I haven't noticed a decrease in game length, size, or quality in most of the new games I've played, unless you count the fact that old PC games used to do infinite randomly generated landscapes with no trees to give the impression of size. It is more expensive, but I think that this is a necessary transition to decrease the overall library of games coming out. Even with previous gen, we were getting so many shitty games on the shelf because they were cheap to make. A more expensive production cost may actually dissuade this kind of thing.

As games have gotten more expensive, developers ahve become less willing to try new things.

That's why you're seeing more and more sequels and "me-too" clones than in the past. It's also why downloadable games are becoming so interesting. Since they're less complex by necessity(gotta keep teh file size down), it reduces the dev costs significantly.

Since you can't look at two screens at the same time...

if you're a retarded monkey.
I find keeping track of both screens to be no trouble at all.
And the extra view makes Mister Driller MUCH easier. Especially in "Pressure Driller" mode, which would be impossible on a conventional 1-screen setup.

When I think about all the PSX soundtracks I enjoyed, particularly Symphony of the Night, I think about how much poorer they would have sounded on the N64's synth chip, necessitated by the limited storage capacity of ROM cartridges.

A lot of PS1 games used the exact same sort of sample-based music as the N64.
Star Ocean springs to mind as one I was quite fond of. I believe Valkyrie Profile used the same technique.


And the sound quality on SotN really isn't that good, despite the fact that it IS streaming audio. Unsurprising given that there's 151 minutes of streaming audio on the disk(which consists of voice samples as well as music).
The composition is great, though. Which is why I listen to the soundtrack.

[DancemasterGlenn]

When I think about all the PSX soundtracks I enjoyed, particularly Symphony of the Night, I think about how much poorer they would have sounded on the N64's synth chip, necessitated by the limited storage capacity of ROM cartridges.

I would definitely have to disagree at least partially on that one. Some of my favorite soundtracks use nothing more than synths. Chrono Trigger comes to mind... SotN is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm glad it is the way it is, but it's so good because it happens to be appropriate. Just like chiptunes matched older Nintendo games (Contra, anyone?), and (to really really stretch my point) just the way that I feel that a game does not in any way HAVE to look photo realistic or interactive down to the last blade of grass to be enjoyable. Which is, of course, not EXACTLY what you're trying to say, but we're both stretching like crazy to make our points anyway.

Making a new system instead of building off the Gamecube makes perfect sense anyway... the console wasn't terribly popular compared to other systems, and people get WAY more excited about the idea of buying a new system than they would be if Nintendo said "hey everyone, graphics don't matter, now we'll need you to shell out some cash for this new, motion sensing Gamecube controller, a mandatory Ethernet adaptor, and an extra piece of crap you can attach to the top so we can use DVD-sized discs this time around." At least, it doesn't sound exciting to me. Yes, this is very much hype, this is very much "gimmick" (if we can forget about the negative connotation for a moment), but people are buying it, and people are enjoying it. That doesn't mean that we're never going to achieve amazing graphical technology in a Nintendo system again... and it doesn't mean any other company has to follow suit. All I can say is that I'm pretty content right now, and obviously a lot of other people feel the same way. That's all.

And I'm sorry, but really, I have to say it... it's really not that hard to watch two screens at once. I don't even notice the space between them any more.

[grinvader]

PS2 still sells apparently cuz PS3 is 104% craptacular

lol fiexd