A series of posts and my own response on The Wiire encouraged me to write this followup.
I have read and responded to many comments here and on Blogcritics…many well reasoned arguments that have caused excellent debate.
Now, I obviously expected to take backlash from this article. I’m well aware of the excitement being generated over the Nintendo Wii and I think it’s great that many gamers seem up to the challenge of a completely new style of play. It’s promising.
I’ve been writing about games and technology for a long time and based on what I said in my article, It is my opinion that the Wii will be ahead of its time and end up #3 over its lifespan compared to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
But certainly, if we’re going that way, Wii will open the door to a future generation of “player motion” consoles. The main point of my article, however, was that I don’t think gamers are 100 percent ready for a total immersion into this completely new technology and never-before-seen style of play.
You are definitely, definitely looking at an Xbox 360 screenshot
I gave the Sony controller points–knowing full well that it doesn’t have the same capabilities as the Wii Remote–because it is a “baby step” into this technology. I never said it was a better controller, and it might not be in the end. But it is a conservative step in an industry where major innovations (changes) seem to always have a guinea pig. Sony’s marketing has been terrible with regards to the Playstation 3. Their E3 showing, as we all know, was shameful. I properly prodded Sony for that and even hinted that the departure of a major public relations person at Sony might be related to their E3 failure.
The Nintendo Wii E3 video is a work of genius. It shows a diverse age group, including people that don’t normally play video games such as grandmothers and an older couple playing a golf game. From a public relations perspective, it’s perfect. If it works, this effort will go down in history as one of the great technology marketing initiatives.
Major changes like this have always taken a few steps to become mainstream. The analog stick that we saw on the Nintendo 64 took a lot of criticism but now analog is the standard on this generation of consoles. It took the N64 to get us ready for it. The D-pad back in those days was another revolution that gamers took their time warming up to at first.
Maybe ‘fail’ was a strong word to use. I meant that in terms of market share being below the competition over the next few years–much like I predicted about the Dreamcast several years ago.
The Wii will be the first step toward what could be a new standard of playing, but my point is that history shows that new standards are rarely completely ingrained in American video game culture with the first try, which happens to be the Nintendo Wii in this case.
So, critique the article and argue with me, but please take the time to read the whole article first, and I don’t respond to personal attacks. (I actually got an e-mail saying: “I didn’t read your article, but you’re a moron for saying that!”) I’ve responded to some good comments on here as well as Blogcritics that were completely against my argument, but that were well reasoned and thought out.
As for the screenshots, the one in question is assuredly from the Xbox 360. You can click HERE to verify that. That link will take you to the EA Sports E3 shots for Madden 07 on the Xbox 360.
3 Responses to “On Wii.”
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You constantly stereotyped gamers, and yet you never mentioned it in this article, not even in apology.
Gamers want something that would entertain them, pretty graphics and sound apparently entertain someone, but for how long?
Multiplayer is a factor, immersion, story, innovation… so apparently gamers are braindead morons that cannot make decisions for themselves.
So a mega media conglomerate needs to release a powerful and extraordinarily overpriced machine, then say, “Buy this, because it looks good and we’re awesome.”
Don’t stereotype gamers by two factors that only make up part of a game.
Duke Nukem 64 was a good game, my friends and I played it for hours on end, with the AI being some of the most hilarious ever with glitches and things. The single player with witty dialogue, although poorly done at points helped to make a funnier experience. Aliens were surprising at points, and on “Damn I’m Good” settings, sliding up behind you and slaughtering you in seconds just after you killed them and forgot to destroy their bodies. Duke Bots (the AI) in the game were insane at points as well, they get their hands on a shotgun with explosive shells, suddenly, you hear an explosion and your screen goes black.
Oh wait, did I miss the graphics and sound? Oh yeah. They sucked. It was a poor PC port and it probably would have failed horribly without any support from it’s other parts.
Another game, same genre. Now a TPS (third person shooter) but still Duke Nukem. Zero Hour. Looked like a beautiful game, Duke was put into full 3D, it was well presented, the explosions were releastic and convincing, it had a semi-interest storyline with a time-travel portion into a apocolypse-ravaged New York (iirc).
Oh wait. How was the gameplay, or the AI? Yep… it sucked. Hard to aim, hard to move, aliens were about as stupid as muck, and this time it wasn’t very funny. I don’t ever remember any Duke bots or such, no really interesting multiplayer effects.
You see, two games, two blaring differences, both in gameplay and graphics and what game was more fun?
I don’t have a friend that would say that they’d stop playing the multiplayer mayhem into the next decade, even on an outdated system.
Gamers are interested in being entertained, but mostly, it truly reflects on the heart a game is built upon, the humor at points, or the interesting story, but never, ever has a game truly been judged only by it’s prettiness. It’s judged on it’s message, on it’s entertaining qualities past visual and audio, it’s mulitplayer, it’s ability to bring about emotion and other factors.
When gaming started, it never was about graphics, it just wasn’t a factor considerable, now that it is, everyone shoves aside a good playing game for a good looking game.
What happened to the industry?
That is a fair question.
i just have 2 things to say. 1, u keep citing that x box 360 pic as if it meant something. but the fact that it has better graphics means absolutely nothing. nintendo came out and said it. showing a picture proves nothing, cuz nintendo didn’t even try and hide it. 2, sony and microsoft aimed all their advertising at gamers. nintendo aims it at gamers and everyone else. now who do u think was responding to ur blog on blogcritics about the wii? do u think it was a 90 year old grandma? do u think it was a 12 year old girl? no. it was gamers. and, most of them disagreed with you. i just do not see how u can claim to be right when 95% of the gamers who read ur blog disagreed with you, and that’s who the ps3 and the x-box 360 are completely aimed at. not to mention the fact that sony and microsoft both told people to buy a wii. so all the hardcore gamers that care only about graphics will buy a wii too. and all the people that don’t wanna blow 600 bux will buy a wii. i just don’t understand how u can think that with every single gaming poll on the net saying that wii will win means it’ll lose. how u can say that an attempt to expand an industry (which in response to ur claim about dreamcast, it didn’t try and do. it tried to be innovative, and it was. but it didn’t try to expand the industry. it’s no the same thing as the wii) i just don’t understand how u can believe that.