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[shanafan]

the most controversial thing about the wii was that it lacked a HDMI port.

(But in all honesty, it did have its fair share of fans and haters, so I suppose it was quite controversial.)

In all fairness, neither did the Xbox 360 when that launched

 

[Sub_Level]

Except this fire burned twice as bright and kept burning for exactly the same amount of time as every other Nintendo console. It even followed roughly the same sales curve: peak in Year 3, slow decline in Year 4, utter drop-off in Year 5.

And now it is nowhere to be found. Wii U was a far departure from the Wii, and the industry is no longer hyping up motion gaming. It's more about online experiences and phone games these days, with vr on the horizon.

And for the record, fad =/= bad. Something can be a huge hit and a cool experience without being influential in the long term.

 

[Currygan]

just because a bunch of whiners complained about it for six years doesn't make it controversial

 

[LegendofLex]

And now it is nowhere to be found. Wii U was a far departure from the Wii, and the industry is no longer hyping up motion gaming.

Well, duh. Nintendo basically abandoned that take after the smash hits that were Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus in 2009. 2010 was full of Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, and DKC Returns--hardly worthy successors to the Wii direction. The only meaningful motion software to even hit following that was Just Dance. Is it any surprise that the market went soft since no one was serving it?

 

[kswiston]

Except this fire burned twice as bright and kept burning for exactly the same amount of time as every other Nintendo console. It even followed roughly the same sales curve: peak in Year 3, slow decline in Year 4, utter drop-off in Year 5.

That was only true of the Nintendo consoles that weren't market leaders. NES and SNES had long lives. The difference is that those systems had every third party on board with their best stuff.

 

[Spineker]

Lets face it, the Wii sold crazy numbers but in terms of quality consoles in history, it ranks toward the very bottom. Even the Dreamcast was better.

 

[shanafan]

And now it is nowhere to be found. Wii U was a far departure from the Wii, and the industry is no longer hyping up motion gaming. It's more about online experiences and phone games these days, with vr on the horizon.

And for the record, fad =/= bad. Something can be a huge hit and a cool experience without being influential in the long term.

I expect VR to go the same way as motion controls, if even as far as motion controls did go.

 

[LegendofLex]

That was only true of the Nintendo consoles that weren't market leaders. NES and SNES had long lives. The difference is that those systems had every third party on board with their best stuff.

Those systems also had extended first-party support beyond Year 5, which kept the sales (and therefore the third-party content) flowing much longer than most other recent Nintendo consoles.

 

[Theognosis]

Wii was never controversial. This was.

 

[Sub_Level]

Well, duh. Nintendo basically abandoned that take after the smash hits that were Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus in 2009. 2010 was full of Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, and DKC Returns--hardly worthy successors to the Wii direction. The only meaningful motion software to even hit following that was Just Dance. Is it any surprise that the market went soft since no one was serving it?

Absolutely not. If there was more support perhaps we'd be living in a different time. Maybe the industry will go back to motion. The tech would certainly be better and maybe able to accommodate more 'hardcore' games while simultaneously offering a uniquely motion experience.

I expect VR to go the same way as motion controls, if even as far as motion controls did go.

Perhaps. I figure it might splinter off into its own thing without replacing traditional gaming.

 

[MrBadger]

Wii was never controversial. This was.

Sega's advertisements were always so god damn weird.

 

[entremet]

Lets face it, the Wii sold crazy numbers but in terms of quality consoles in history, it ranks toward the very bottom. Even the Dreamcast was better.

I enjoyed it more than the DC and GC.

The Wii also had true 3rd party exclusives that you didn't find anywhere else, many middle tier affairs that are basically dead these days. I never understood the Wii hate. Sure it was underpowered, but it was a nice system.

 

[LegendofLex]

Absolutely not. If there was more support perhaps we'd be living in a different time. Maybe the industry will go back to motion. The tech would certainly be better and maybe able to accommodate more 'hardcore' games while simultaneously offering a uniquely motion experience.

TBH, I was hoping Skyward Sword would be the catalyst for a movement of games like it, but in the end the game's content was really sour and half-baked, which coupled with the fact that it released in a Wii wasteland period with relatively little redeeming software certainly didn't do motion controls any favors for the long-term.

 

[JJDinomite]

The Wii was loved beyond all belief. I have never seen a console so hyped. The PS3, conversely, was utterly hated, I'd wager far more than the Xbox One.

Funny how all of that changed within years of their launch.

 

[shanafan]

TBH, I was hoping Skyward Sword would be the catalyst for a movement of games like it, but in the end the game's content was really sour and half-baked, which coupled with the fact that it released in a Wii wasteland period with relatively little redeeming software certainly didn't do motion controls any favors for the long-term.

Wasn't Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition the 'definitive' version with the added motion controls?

 

[Malio]

Probably Xbone. The Wii was a real gamble that paid off for Nintendo, just not fans looking for HD graphics on their new consoles. The Wii eventually ended up with a great library, and many gamers' hatred turned to delight. I'm doubting the same will be true of the Xbone.

 

[Malio]

Lets face it, the Wii sold crazy numbers but in terms of quality consoles in history, it ranks toward the very bottom. Even the Dreamcast was better.

Hopefully you're referring to the Wii's sub-par processor and graphics, and not the final Wii library of games.

 

[kswiston]

I enjoyed it more than the DC and GC.

The Wii also had true 3rd party exclusives that you didn't find anywhere else, many middle tier affairs that are basically dead these days. I never understood the Wii hate. Sure it was underpowered, but it was a nice system.

I'd put Wii ahead of the N64 as well. Most Nintendo franchises were arguably better on the Wii (other than Zelda and some of the MIA franchises like Star Fox), and Wii had way more worthy third party games.

 

[Flachmatuch]

Lets face it, the Wii sold crazy numbers but in terms of quality consoles in history, it ranks toward the very bottom. Even the Dreamcast was better.

I don't think that word ("quality") means what you think it means ("Spineker likes it").

 

[shanafan]

I enjoyed it more than the DC and GC.

The Wii also had true 3rd party exclusives that you didn't find anywhere else, many middle tier affairs that are basically dead these days. I never understood the Wii hate. Sure it was underpowered, but it was a nice system.

I have been playing WWE 13 on the Wii recently, and my younger brother saw me playing and said, "This is a Wii game? Wow."

The wrestling models are not as sharp as their 360/PS3 counterparts, but the Wii could do some pretty impressive things.

 

[trixx]

it's a pretty good console, and enjoyed some of the motion controls. Would have been awesome if it were HD though.

 

[Theognosis]

Sega's advertisements were always so god damn weird.

You betcha. Sega of America thrived on shocking people and it backfired on them when the Saturn was released. We're now seeing a similar backlash against Nintendo when they used grandparents, non-gaming girls and moms to advertise the Wii. These new faces invaded the Nintendo faithfuls' turf and they didn't like it all. Thankfully, Nintendo has gone back to serving the "hardcore" gamer with the Wii U after the casual audience deserted the consoles and played with their smartphones.

In hindsight, the Wii had plenty of classic games. I think it was only in the way that Nintendo presented the console that made it "controversial" in eyes of the gaming community. Nintendo never lost its soul.

 

[Mr-Joker]

I was not aware that the Wii was controversial. Honestly the Wii is a good gaming system and has great library of games.

Sure the Wii was underpowered compare to the HD twins but it designed that way to help keep development cost down.

Yes. Polarizing.

I introduce to you, G4M3RRSSSSSSSZZZZ:

I don't see a problem with those images at all. Or are you saying that old people can't play video games?

Wii was never controversial. This was.

I had no idea why Sega thought releasing another pricey add-on was a good idea.

 

[Pancakes R Us]

To this day you still see drive by non sense posting when discussing the console or one of its games.

Hah, this made me laugh. To be fair, you see drive-by nonsense posts in most threads.

 

[TheSlySoul]

I think the only controversy was how dumb the name was. Going through still today, it is still pretty dumb.

 

[Theognosis]

I don't see a problem with those images at all. Or are you saying that old people can't play video games?

It's a heart-warming image and I love it. But then again, that kind of advertising alienates the majority of the audience. How would the market react if Nike used people with cranes to promote a pair of Jordans? It's an image thing.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

Whoa there. Speak for yourself!

I (sorta) am. That's why I said "for us" as in, people with the same like mindedness towards the Wii. I'm not alone in this thought because plenty of people I personally know bought a Wii, was dissapointed and then bought a PS3/Xbox. From reading forums and watching videos, there are plenty of people. That being said, if people enjoyed the Wii then that's cool. I'm not going to shit on peoples enjoyment. I (and others) felt it sucked after the gimmick wore off.

That certainly explains why Super Mario Galaxy is the best-selling 3D Mario, New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold better than any 2D Mario bar the very first, Twilight Princess was the best-selling Zelda game with the vast majority of copies sold on Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold about 4-5m more copies than Melee, Donkey Kong Country made a seriously triumphant comeback, Monster Hunter Tri outsold the previous entries which were on PlayStation 2 of all things, and Mario Kart Wii somehow topped the lifetime sales for every other console entry combined.

Yup, that was a console that sucked for people who wanted to play the latest games. None of those people were satisfied, clearly! And those new gamer grannies were definitely big fans of Twilight Princess and Smash Bros!

I'm gonna be honest and say the blunt truth about this, but whenever you buy a Nintendo consoles, it's almost default to have those games as points for an argument case. Every one who buys a Wii U, know what to expect. You're going to get the same obvious Nintendo titles and therefore, have a reason to come back to it, whether there is third party support or not.
For example:
Even though I don't have a Wii U (at least until Bayonetta 2 comes out this month) I already know what to expect and why I should buy one.
For:
The Mario sidescroller
The Mario Party
The Mario Kart
The Mario spin-off
The Smash Bros
The Mario 3D game
The big Zelda title
The Zelda Spin-off
The Metroid title
The Donkey Kong title
The Donkey Kong sequel

Replace Wii U with any other Nintendo and that's pretty much every Nintendo system ever made(with some slight variations). Don't get me wrong, they're aren't bad titles but let's not pretend they aren't obviously coming and that we haven't seen them over and over.

Then the rest are the hidden gems that not many of the Wii/Wii U owners even know about.
Those being: Muramasa the Demon Blade, No More Heroes, The Conduit etc etc. But it's not much to keep me coming back.

The problem with using sales as a points is that you're using the obvious titles. The reason why people like myself even bought a Wii and now Wii U. I have no interest in the Wii U but there are people who bought the Wii U just to play Mario Kart and the upcoming Smash. Obviously those titles are going to sell a lot because like I said earlier, you know they're coming. The obvious high-quality Nintendo titles. I expect the same with the new Zelda. "Time to dust off the ol' Wii U since the Zelda is coming out".

Sorry but if it wasn't for me dropping the Wii and getting an Xbox 360 in early 2008, I would've missed out on titles that Nintendo wished they could've gotten. Not CoD, Halo or Uncharted(not that they're bad) but some truly special titles such as:
Spec Ops: The Line, Bioshock 1, Alice: Madness Returns, El Shaddai, WET, Bayonetta, Deadly Premonition, Dark Souls, DeathSmiles; the list goes on and on with so much variation between genres and quality.. So really, Wii owners never got to play the latest titles. Whenever you did it would be a vastly inferior product to the point that the Wii to PS3/Xbox 360 differences where completely different games (See Sonic Unleashed).

I have no problem with making the gaming industry more inclusive, but for people who bought the Wii to play games, it just wasn't the place for us. It had titles but on a sparing level as opposed to PS3/Xbox 360 and PC which pooped out quality titles for everyone each year.

 

[Pyrrhus]

As others have said, polarizing is probably the best word for it. As far as I see it, the Wii was a very successful fad and did a great deal of good for Nintendo in the short term. Sold a ton of stuff, no way to get around that. But it finished weak. The fire was definitely gone post 2010. Long term, I'm not sure most of its contributions are going to be carried forward.

Motion control is dead, Nintendo is currently being punished pretty soundly for trying to sell an underpowered gimmick with bad network functionality a second time, Iwata's beloved blue ocean is long gone, and Nintendo is left with only the fools like me who they captured back in the '80s and '90s who will still play a premium for a first party software box with no real legs.

For me personally, despite signing on early and waiting out in near freezing temperatures to get one on launch day, I quickly found the promises made about the Wii to be a lie. The weak hardware, the mostly nonfunctional motion controls, and Nintendo's arrogance and general game philosophy in that era to be a huge disappointment. Yes, I loved me some Xenoblade and Mario Galaxy and Sin & Punishment. But those were brief sparks in a long night.

All things considered, I'm glad the Wii is cold and dead and I hope Nintendo take some constructive lessons from it and the Wii U moving forward.

 

[Metallix87]

As others have said, polarizing is probably the best word for it. As far as I see it, the Wii was a very successful fad and did a great deal of good for Nintendo in the short term. Sold a ton of stuff, no way to get around that. But it finished weak. The fire was definitely gone post 2010. Long term, I'm not sure most of its contributions are going to be carried forward.

Motion control is dead, Nintendo is currently being punished pretty soundly for trying to sell an underpowered gimmick with bad network functionality a second time, Iwata's beloved blue ocean is long gone, and Nintendo is left with only the fools like me who they captured back in the '80s and '90s who will still play a premium for a first party software box with no real legs.

For me personally, despite signing on early and waiting out in near freezing temperatures to get one on launch day, I quickly found the promises made about the Wii to be a lie. The weak hardware, the mostly nonfunctional motion controls, and Nintendo's arrogance and general game philosophy in that era to be a huge disappointment. Yes, I loved me some Xenoblade and Mario Galaxy and Sin & Punishment. But those were brief sparks in a long night.

All things considered, I'm glad the Wii is cold and dead and I hope Nintendo take some constructive lessons from it and the Wii U moving forward.

A LOT of nonsense in this post.

1.) The Wii U is much more in-line with other Nintendo systems and not the Wii. It doesn't go for a bold gimmick, and instead seems like it was designed specifically to target kids and the core Nintendo audience.

2.) Nintendo is basically being punished for abandoning the casuals and trying to give the core consumers some love, in a roundabout way.

3.) The Wii's motion controls were anything but "nonfunctional".

4.) The Wii concept basically lives on in the mobile space. If Nintendo has learned anything from the Wii U, it's that giving up the gimmicky controller in favor of a more traditional controller design with more traditional content was a mistake.

 

[Pyrrhus]

A LOT of nonsense in this post.

1.) The Wii U is much more in-line with other Nintendo systems and not the Wii. It doesn't go for a bold gimmick, and instead seems like it was designed specifically to target kids and the core Nintendo audience.

2.) Nintendo is basically being punished for abandoning the casuals and trying to give the core consumers some love, in a roundabout way.

3.) The Wii's motion controls were anything but "nonfunctional".

4.) The Wii concept basically lives on in the mobile space. If Nintendo has learned anything from the Wii U, it's that giving up the gimmicky controller in favor of a more traditional controller design with more traditional content was a mistake.

Your opinions are no more substantiated than mine.

1.)The Gamepad is a gimmick. It's something designed to differentiate the product without having any truly fundamental change on it. They just looked at the current market in a superficial way and said, "Hey, tablets sure are popular now." Nearly 2 years on it has no real application to justify its existence. The Gamepad being a boring, pedestrian, bad gimmick does not mean it somehow escapes the label. The fact that its cost necessitated crippling the important hardware just makes it tragic.

And Nintendo's marketing and focus with the Wii U have been scattershot and indecisive. Shitty, awkward marketing campaigns with little kids and teen girls in skits and cheesy voice overs on one hand and bizarro, niche fare like Wonderful 101, Fatal Frame, and Bayonetta on the other. Meanwhile, they can't get any of the titles the tradtional mainstream actually plays because they seriously blew it designing the hardware. And so because Nintendo's software is so thin on the ground it comes off less as the PS1/PS2 era's "something for everybody" and more as schizophrenic flailing.

2.) Nintendo is not being punished by the casuals. The casuals don't care about them, their brand, or their legacy enough bother with that. The quick, easy, non-threatening time wasters Nintendo had success with in the middle of the last decade have just been overtaken by similar fare in a more convenient delivery vehicle and price point. Nintendo pitched their tent on quicksand with an imperfect understanding of what their audience found appealing. Yes, simpler, less imposing games were part of the puzzle. But it turns out convenience and cost were the most important factors for them and Nintendo is not positioned to compete with things like the App Store.

3.) The pointer worked well. The waggle did not. In most cases it was some shit bolted on as a gimmick rather than something that tangibly improved the experience, much less made a completely new one possible. Even in Nintendo's first party games.

There, my opinion cancels out yours. You notice that nobody's continuing to hold the torch, though. Should say something about whether most people liked it or whether it was liked by developers.

4.) The Wii concept in particular? Packaged software, waggle remotes, vastly underpowered hardware sold at a premium, holding games at artificially high prices with the belief that the audience has no choice but to come to you, etc.? Doesn't sound like the current smart phone market at all to me. Or do you mean the industry-wide realization that there are millions and millions of people who will pay a pittance for something to play while taking a dump or waiting in line. Nevermind that Nintendo didn't really do microtransactions and that's where most of the casual lucre comes from.

There's no real way you can spin the complete collapse of their casual audience as beneficial to Nintendo or to long form, traditional games. Nintendo may have gotten this ball rolling or at least been there right as it happened but I don't see how the current state of the industry really benefits them at this point.

No, Nintendo's being beaten bloody because they thought they still bestrode the world like a Colossus and could dictate terms or outright ignore market trends, particularly outside of their little island, and third party publishers. The Wii U, which I have enjoyed personally, is nevertheless an expensive, underpowered piece of hardware that cannot run most of the important titles in this generation. It's an albatross, a millstone, a flaming bag of dog turds on Satoru Iwata's front step.

If they learn anything from this, it will hopefully be that they can't try the same trick endlessly or that they appeal to nobody when they make confused, half-hearted attempts to appeal to everyone while simultaneously hamstringing their appeal with ungenerous, backward design and branding decisions.

 

[fart town usa]

I definitely think it's one of the worst consoles ever. EVAR!!!!

Granted, there are numerous gems on the system but gah, F**K waggle and the wii-mote.

This'll sound crazy, dumb and controversial but I think the wii was a failure overall. Its sales broke records but I don't give a sh*t about ever revisiting the majority of titles on it and I don't really foresee a lasting legacy. It was just a cultural craze at the time. Also, the wii definitely made me lose a lot of respect and faith in Nintendo. I own a WiiU but Nintendo is a shell of its former self and it really bums me out as I grew up a Nintendo loyalist and have so many great memories of the NES,SNES,N64,GB and GCN.

Just my personal opinion but I would have vastly enjoyed the majority of the games if they had options to use the classic controller or the GCN controller (I'm looking at you mario galaxy 1&2). Waggle is such horse sh*t.

 

[gngf123]

I don't think the Wii was controversial, but I don't think history will remember it well. Personally, I find a massive shame. It had a decent library, but nobody bought a lot of the actually good games the system had. In many cases I feel like people don't even realise those games exist because they got lost in a pile of garbage.

Controversial would be the X1 before the changes, or the PSP Go.

 

[LegendofLex]

I'm gonna be honest and say the blunt truth about this, but whenever you buy a Nintendo consoles, it's almost default to have those games as points for an argument case. Every one who buys a Wii U, know what to expect. You're going to get the same obvious Nintendo titles and therefore, have a reason to come back to it, whether there is third party support or not.

Yes, but as we've seen with Wii U, just because these games are always there doesn't mean that they will sell as well as or better than they did in the past.

Meanwhile, in the "core games" category, Wii saw some the best-selling games Nintendo has had since NES. On Wii:

NSMBWii sold better than any console Mario game since SMB in 1985
Galaxy sold better than any 3D Mario game period
MK Wii sold more than all the previous console entries combined
DKCR managed to sell better than every game since the first
SSBB outsold SSBM by about 4m
TP is the best-selling Zelda game since OoT (and tops it if you count GCN sales)

But on Wii U:

NSMBU sold worse than any console Mario game
SM3DW then proceeded to sell even worse
MK8 is not tracking well compared to past MK games
DKC:TF has sold less than 1m WW (as of June)

SSB4 and Zelda are obviously pending.

Why are the core Wii software sales a point in Wii's favor? Because those sales show that Wii attracted more gamers to Nintendo's "core games" than past Nintendo consoles.

The data seems to suggest that Wii managed to retain a large number of N64/GameCube era customers (with N64/GameCube sequels) while at the same time attracting new gamers (with motion games) and lapsed customers (with retro-style games). Even if you want to argue that they didn't retain a large number of customers, they were certainly doing a capable job of replacing those customers with new customers.

And it's no surprise, really.

NSMBWii was the answer to the 2D Mario drought that had been ongoing on consoles for about 15 years. It was a new 2D Mario that even if it wasn't terribly ground-breaking at least did a good job of showcasing tech advancements since SNES (with simultaneous multiplayer, its clean 2.5D visuals, etc.).

Galaxy was a course-correction from the overly-un-Mario direction of Sunshine back to the old SM64 feel... oh, and with the added curveball of gravity to make you feel like you're playing your very first 3D platformer all over again. The art direction was really stellar and they did a good job flexing Wii's muscle, too.

While MKDS was a dev-declared effort to make the best MK game since the first, MKWii was an effort to make the best MK game possible using Wii technology. Clearly they did a pretty good job at bridging the "best possible MK" and "accessible to new audiences" concepts in one game, even if some of the mechanical changes didn't stick. TBH I have very little insight into how this game was received when it was announced/launched since I was in a weird transition period at the time.

DKCR followed a similar template to NSMBWii, and had similar success, although obviously scaled to DKC-level proportions. Not much else to discuss here.

Before SSBB launched, there was a very well-coordinated hype campaign that really pushed home the character roster and the Final Smashes. Obviously in hindsight the game was seen as unnecessarily messy and cluttered (hence the prevalent Melee renaissance), but there was a lot of energy behind its launch. And as a mascot-heavy game Smash Bros. is hardly a poster child for "games that sell to people who are new to gaming." (It will sell to children, but not to older non-traditional gamers.)

I don't think the reception of Twilight Princess needs to be thoroughly discussed, either. That game was on fire even before it was slated for Wii. It was a great tease during the final years of the GameCube that had everybody excited about Nintendo, which was great fuel for the Wii launch fire.

That said, the Wii end-of-life and Wii U transition is a pretty good case study for how not to retain customers.

Remember how most of Nintendo's biggest games from the GameCube era were front-liners for the Wii launch period? That's because those were Nintendo's "core games" - and by that I don't just mean their games for "core fans," mind you, but "core games" as in "their biggest source of revenue." With Wii, their biggest source of revenue - their new "core games" - were new market games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit.

But Nintendo basically abandoned new market games after 2009, with the release of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit. They seem to have thought that Just Dance was enough to keep the momentum going in the meantime. And at the Wii U launch, the only real first-party answer for the new market was Nintendo Land--a game that is covered with Nintendo franchise branding and thus incredibly unaccessible to anyone who is not familiar with those franchises (from a marketing perspective, the exact opposite of Wii Sports, which used no pre-established brand image).

Is it any surprise that the new market didn't return for Wii U? Nintendo basically stopped selling to them in 2009. If you asked Nintendo, they would probably say that they did have games for this audience that debuted after 2009--they were games like Metroid: Other M and Skyward Sword. But obviously these were such failed compromises that they did a poor job of attracting both their traditional audiences as well as the new market. And unlike Twilight Princess, which got lots of people pumped about Nintendo going into 2006, these games actually generated brand friction which brought any excitement about Nintendo to a halt.

NSMBU and SM3DW, while both fun and polished games, are token efforts at best, and the market has definitely reacted to them as such. NSMBU has refined level design compared to its predecessors, but does very little to really show off the hardware differentiation between Wii and Wii U; SM3DW likewise was not positioned to be a show-stopper like Galaxy was, which is a death sentence for a 3D Mario game.

DKCTF is a great game and a good follow-up to DKCR, but only to the same extent that DKC2 was a good follow up to the original DKC. Gating it off on a more-expensive platform three years later (remember, DKC was an annual franchise on SNES) was not the best way to satisfy DKCR fans.

MK8 seems to be doing OK (as it should; it borrows a little heavily from MKWii and 7 but otherwise rises above a lot of the trappings I just described), but it's not going to turn Wii U around by itself.

Instead of debuting Wii U with the next Twilight Princess, Nintendo released an HD remake of TWW, citing the poor GameCube sales as the reason for its low popularity and declaring that Wii U will give it a new audience. Do the sales suggest that TWW is more accepted today than it was during the GameCube era? I don't think so. Despite being part of a premium bundle, TWW HD did very little to drive Wii U sales.

The new Zelda game looks great (to me personally), but it seems like they've grabbed the NPC shaders and lighting engine right out of TWW HD. I don't think it's going to fit in alongside modern expectations for how fantasy should look--which is not to say it should look like Skyrim (maybe more like TP's LotR-esque style), but that today's "all-ages" fantasy adventures like Tangled/Frozen have a better (read: more appealing) art direction that it doesn't even try to match (much less surpass).

Wii's software was all incredibly relevant and exactly what it needed to be given the time, place, and market conditions. Wii U's software, on the other hand, has (at least so far) been exactly the opposite.

tl;dr - Just because the software lineup has familiar names doesn't mean that expectations of Nintendo haven't changed. Wii represented a time when expectations were at an all-time high, such that Nintendo was both retaining lots of old customers and reigning in lots of new customers. But Nintendo hasn't really done a good job on either front with Wii U.

 

[Metallix87]

Your opinions are no more substantiated than mine.

1.)The Gamepad is a gimmick. It's something designed to differentiate the product without having any truly fundamental change on it. They just looked at the current market in a superficial way and said, "Hey, tablets sure are popular now." Nearly 2 years on it has no real application to justify its existence. The Gamepad being a boring, pedestrian, bad gimmick does not mean it somehow escapes the label. The fact that its cost necessitated crippling the important hardware just makes it tragic.

And Nintendo's marketing and focus with the Wii U have been scattershot and indecisive. Shitty, awkward marketing campaigns with little kids and teen girls in skits and cheesy voice overs on one hand and bizarro, niche fare like Wonderful 101, Fatal Frame, and Bayonetta on the other. Meanwhile, they can't get any of the titles the tradtional mainstream actually plays because they seriously blew it designing the hardware. And so because Nintendo's software is so thin on the ground it comes off less as the PS1/PS2 era's "something for everybody" and more as schizophrenic flailing.

2.) Nintendo is not being punished by the casuals. The casuals don't care about them, their brand, or their legacy enough bother with that. The quick, easy, non-threatening time wasters Nintendo had success with in the middle of the last decade have just been overtaken by similar fare in a more convenient delivery vehicle and price point. Nintendo pitched their tent on quicksand with an imperfect understanding of what their audience found appealing. Yes, simpler, less imposing games were part of the puzzle. But it turns out convenience and cost were the most important factors for them and Nintendo is not positioned to compete with things like the App Store.

3.) The pointer worked well. The waggle did not. In most cases it was some shit bolted on as a gimmick rather than something that tangibly improved the experience, much less made a completely new one possible. Even in Nintendo's first party games.

There, my opinion cancels out yours. You notice that nobody's continuing to hold the torch, though. Should say something about whether most people liked it or whether it was liked by developers.

4.) The Wii concept in particular? Packaged software, waggle remotes, vastly underpowered hardware sold at a premium, holding games at artificially high prices with the belief that the audience has no choice but to come to you, etc.? Doesn't sound like the current smart phone market at all to me. Or do you mean the industry-wide realization that there are millions and millions of people who will pay a pittance for something to play while taking a dump or waiting in line. Nevermind that Nintendo didn't really do microtransactions and that's where most of the casual lucre comes from.

There's no real way you can spin the complete collapse of their casual audience as beneficial to Nintendo or to long form, traditional games. Nintendo may have gotten this ball rolling or at least been there right as it happened but I don't see how the current state of the industry really benefits them at this point.

No, Nintendo's being beaten bloody because they thought they still bestrode the world like a Colossus and could dictate terms or outright ignore market trends, particularly outside of their little island, and third party publishers. The Wii U, which I have enjoyed personally, is nevertheless an expensive, underpowered piece of hardware that cannot run most of the important titles in this generation. It's an albatross, a millstone, a flaming bag of dog turds on Satoru Iwata's front step.

If they learn anything from this, it will hopefully be that they can't try the same trick endlessly or that they appeal to nobody when they make confused, half-hearted attempts to appeal to everyone while simultaneously hamstringing their appeal with ungenerous, backward design and branding decisions.

The entire thrust of your argument is that the Wii is the same "trick" as the Wii U, when they are colossally different in numerous ways.

 

[Mexen]

I don't know if "controversial" is the word I'd use but I think I get your point.
TBH, the real reason I respect the Wii is the amount it sold and the user-base it garnered(I thought Nintendo was brave for realising the Wii and had possibly changed gaming). I played SS at a friend's but besides that I wasn't too interested in it enough to own it. The Wii U on the other hand is on my radar.

 

[uncredited male]

I considered having to pay 650$ for a Neo Geo in 1990 controversial. We should have been given government subsidies to help pay for that shit.

"We cannot afford your Neo Geo"

"Then play in an arcade"

 

[III-V]

Wii certainly wasn't controversial, nor was it any sort of pinnacle for Nintendo. For, me the pinnacle was SNES, and the most controversial was (but potentially will be replaced by WiiU) the Gamecube.

NeoGeo was not controversial, only rich kids had it.

 

[uncredited male]

NeoGeo was not controversial, only rich kids had it.

Don't forget about everyone who grabbed it on Video Power.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Wasn't Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition the 'definitive' version with the added motion controls?

No, just the easiest.

 

[Pyrrhus]

The entire thrust of your argument is that the Wii is the same "trick" as the Wii U, when they are colossally different in numerous ways.

No, not the same trick, exactly. The same philosophy, but a different gimmick that spoke less to the wide audience they were after. Yes, some token lip service was given to the core audience at trade shows, but that amounted to the Pro Controller and the weakest versions of a handful of Western titles. And I guess throwing a couple of bones to Platinum. It's not like they've appreciably changed course. Or at least they had not at the time of the Wii U release. We'll see what they do in a couple of years.

But how are they colossally different? Nintendo releases their most expensive yet also most behind the curve console yet, charges a premium, justifies it (or more accurately, tries and largely fails to) with a gimmick meant to underline the "Nintendo difference," and do the least possible to get third parties on board. Sounds like their game plan for 2006 to me.

The difference this last time is that they weren't able to create a cultural phenomenon. Motion control, at least as it was billed, was something novel to the audience. But everybody already knew about tablets and had better looking, better performing ones in their homes already. Small wonder that it didn't fly off shelves.

 

[JohnChang]

Don't forget about everyone who grabbed it on Video Power.

so awesome, barely remember that show, was so envious of the kids who got to run the maze and stick games on themselves

 

[Sanke__]

How are you using controversial here? The Wii never garnered the level of vitriol that the Xbox One did early on.

Any definition I could think of would at least put wii u ahead of wii

 

[Sanke__]

A LOT of nonsense in this post.

1.) The Wii U is much more in-line with other Nintendo systems and not the Wii. It doesn't go for a bold gimmick, and instead seems like it was designed specifically to target kids and the core Nintendo audience.

2.) Nintendo is basically being punished for abandoning the casuals and trying to give the core consumers some love, in a roundabout way.

3.) The Wii's motion controls were anything but "nonfunctional".

4.) The Wii concept basically lives on in the mobile space. If Nintendo has learned anything from the Wii U, it's that giving up the gimmicky controller in favor of a more traditional controller design with more traditional content was a mistake.

A tablet controller that drastically inflates the price of the console with no legitimized benefit to gameplay in site (saying off screen play is integral to a system and shouldn't be optional is insane) definitely counts as a gimmick

 

[Wreck-It Ralph]

No, just the easiest.

I always loved this.

People - like you, judging from your post history - bitched and moaned about motion controls and how they'd never be as good as a good old gamepad.

Then RE4 came out and proved that, when done well, motion controls, and especially pointer controls, can be undeniably superior to the gamepad alternative.

The reaction from people like you? "B-but it makes the game too easy now!"

RE4 Wii Edition was undeniably the best version of the game before the HD releases. Even if you were of the insane mindset that the pointer controls somehow ruined the game by making it too easy, the game still let you play with the Classic Controller if you wanted to.

 

[Metallix87]

A tablet controller that drastically inflates the price of the console with no legitimized benefit to gameplay in site (saying off screen play is integral to a system and shouldn't be optional is insane) definitely counts as a gimmick

I never said it didn't count as a gimmick, I said it doesn't count as a bold gimmick made to appeal to the Wii audience.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I never said it didn't count as a gimmick, I said it doesn't count as a bold gimmick made to appeal to the Wii audience.

So who was it supposed to appeal to? Traditional, hardcore gamers? They didn't want a low quality, standard definition screen in the controller at expense of hardware power. Anybody could have told you that.

It was a pretty transparent attempt to copy the "accessible" touch screen control scheme of the DS that somehow missed the problems inherent in the difference in usage and form factor between a portable and home console. An attempt, like the rest of the system, to try to do things that worked in different contexts in the past in the same fashion in the present, to poor results.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

I always loved this.

People - like you, judging from your post history - bitched and moaned about motion controls and how they'd never be as good as a good old gamepad.

Then RE4 came out and proved that, when done well, motion controls, and especially pointer controls, can be undeniably superior to the gamepad alternative.

The reaction from people like you? "B-but it makes the game too easy now!"

RE4 Wii Edition was undeniably the best version of the game before the HD releases. Even if you were of the insane mindset that the pointer controls somehow ruined the game by making it too easy, the game still let you play with the Classic Controller if you wanted to.

That's an interesting comment, considering my very brief posting history here. You may have me confused with someone else? I certainly don't recall the "bitching" of which you speak.

And you shouldn't get so upset that I pointed out the fact that easier aiming in a survival horror game makes that game easier. I mean, duh. Of course it makes it easier when part of the challenge is danger closing in while you try to line up your shots. It doesn’t make it any less awesome of a game, but it does (almost?) break the difficulty. Easier doesn't make it superior.

You make a valid point about playing with the classic controller (though I prefer the Gamecube one). Hadn't thought about that. If you take that into account, with the options available on Wii (and the fact that RE4, one of the greatest games of all time, wasn't in HD anyway), I have no problem considering it to be the best version (it did have Separate Ways, after all).

It's just a lot easier to survive with the wiimote. ; )

 

[Chmpocalypse]

So who was it supposed to appeal to? Traditional, hardcore gamers? They didn't want a low quality, standard definition screen in the controller at expense of hardware power. Anybody could have told you that.

It was a pretty transparent attempt to copy the "accessible" touch screen control scheme of the DS that somehow missed the problems inherent in the difference in usage and form factor between a portable and home console. An attempt, like the rest of the system, to try to do things that worked in different contexts in the past in the same fashion in the present, to poor results.

Your posts make sense. I find myself in agreement.

 

[Metallix87]

So who was it supposed to appeal to? Traditional, hardcore gamers? They didn't want a low quality, standard definition screen in the controller at expense of hardware power. Anybody could have told you that.

It was a pretty transparent attempt to copy the "accessible" touch screen control scheme of the DS that somehow missed the problems inherent in the difference in usage and form factor between a portable and home console. An attempt, like the rest of the system, to try to do things that worked in different contexts in the past in the same fashion in the present, to poor results.

I think it tried to appeal to "everyone", but the design of the controller as a whole aims more towards hardcore gamers.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

I think it tried to appeal to "everyone", but the design of the controller as a whole aims more towards hardcore gamers.

All the hardcore gamers I know (and working for a major game developer, I know a lot) like their games to be as immersive as possible (hence their excitement for things like VR). Being constantly reminded that they're playing a game ("look at the gamepad") and not part of the world they're enjoying breaks that.

Nintendo might have thought they were designing for the hardcore crowd; I'd argue, however, that it was only for the Nintendo hardcore. I don't think they know what hardcore gamers at large actually want.