Support NeoGAF

[Labrynian Rebel]

The Wii didn't appeal to me at all when it came out. I could play TP on the Gamecube and although I did want Brawl I told myself I couldn't buy a new console just for that. Anyways for most of the Wii's life was when I started getting into retro gaming. I bought tons of N64 and NES games I missed out on, and then I got into the SNES (I had skipped right from NES to N64) and that opened up a whole library that I'm amazed I passed over in my childhood.

So SNES games kept me busy until DKCR, Skyward Sword, and Other M got me excited and I bought a Wii. We all know how Other M turned out, but the hype train for that game, man, I got into the Metroid series and played most of the series in preparation for Other M so I'd know the world and lore and... yeah.

DKCR and Skyward Sword were amazing, and then I got Pikmin 1 & 2 cheap (I never gave the games a chance on the Gamecube) and I was blown away, and then Xenoblade came out...

I think I got my Wii at the right time.

 

[Blobbers]

The Nintendo Wii exclusives are some of the best games ever made.

"Wubadubadub, izzat true, Blobbers?"
Yes, it is.

 

[Astral Dog]

No. It changed nothing. If it changed everything, the PS4 and Xbone would have been built around motion controls. They aren't. Not even the WiiU is. The Wii really was a fad.

Xbox One was built with Kinect in mind, Kinect itself was an answer to the Wii, as was Move and tons of games, hell Wii U and 3DS are named after the previous systems, motion controls or not. maybe if Nintendo used motion controls the Wii U would had been slightly better recieved.
Im not saying it changed everything, things always have to be black and white for some reason.

d.

So SNES games kept me busy until DKCR, Skyward Sword, and Other M got me excited and I bought a Wii. We all know how Other M turned out, but the hype train for that game, man, I got into the Metroid series and played most of the series in preparation for Other M so I'd know the world and lore and... yeah.
.

Well at least you got your reward

 

[Spieler Eins]

The Wii unveiling was handled so well. It's hard to believe that the same company was responsible for the disaster known as the Wii U launch.

Arrogant-Sony-syndrome. But this time, the unveilings and launches pretty much changed roles between Sony and Nintendo, lol.
I guess at one point Nintendo really thought they could live off the NSMB and Wii Sports hype forever, so they did jackshit to prepare for the inevitable jump to HD and completely misinterpreted what made the Wii successful in the beginning. Despite the stigma, this conference and 2006 didn't only focus on soccer moms after all. Twilight Princess and Red Steel (despite how it turned out) was great hype fuel for core gamers, alongside some crazy looking new Mario game, Metroid Prime 3, Virtual Console, 3rd party exclusives, tons of ,,smaller'' Nintendo franchises from the get-go, etc. etc.

The whole new concept and how they've been teasing it before was exciting for most gaming groups.

While the WiiU (re-)unveiling only tried to desperately keep the non-gamers and completely abandon core-fans. With lazy and ,,safe'' iterations of NSMB, Wii Fit, minigame collections and other shit only existing because casuals liked it before and it was easy to bring over from the Wii, on top of barely getting outdated PS360 ports from 3rds, which I guess were supposed to appeal to people upgrading from Wii Fit to Wii Fit U or something (not realizing that they probably were on 360/Kinect already)... And the weak tech wasn't justified by anything.
There was so much profoundly wrong with how the WiiU was handled, completely lacking any kind of proper vision, I feared the same staff couldn't possibly be competent enough to ever put out a decent Nintendo console again (not to mention recreate how they've handled Revolution), but I'm getting a little hopeful for NX again. The DeNa thing finally seems like a rather reasonable step. Next E3 (2016) will show.

 

[jroc74]

Wow...never knew Nintendo themselves used the labels Core and Casual gamers...interesting. New gamers....yea they hit it out the ballpark with that with the Wii.

 

[MilesTeg]

Wii really was the perfect console at the time. HD TVs were still pretty uncommon (hell I didn't get one til like early 2010). Downloading retail games wasn't really a thing for awhile. I mean, consider that MKWii sold like 35 million and not a single copy was a digital one. The games were decently priced. The Virtual Console was awesome at the time. They must have sold hundreds of millions of Wii Remotes. It really maximized the current state of the retail market at that time when the transition to HD and downloading games had just begun.

Sadly, I really think the Wii made Nintendo far too complacent. Almost as if they can do whatever they want, because hey, we are Nintendo and we make the games and hardware that people will buy.

Lol at that online Crystal Chronicles game though. Did that end up being My Life As A King? That game didn't even have online play. And also, "we are currently developing several Wi-Fi launch titles". So, did Excite Truck have online play? Honestly don't remember.

 

[Gonzo The Great]

Lol at that online Crystal Chronicles game though. Did that end up being My Life As A King? That game didn't even have online play. And also, "we are currently developing several Wi-Fi launch titles". So, did Excite Truck have online play? Honestly don't remember.

The first Wi-fi enabled title was Pokémon Battle Revolution, and it didn't come until June 2007 in North America. But at least the Virtual Console was available at launch. Wii U owners had to wait two years for (badly emulated) N64 titles.

 

[Sadist]

Man, how time flies.

Now the reveal of the controller... that was some legit shook.

Lol at that online Crystal Chronicles game though. Did that end up being My Life As A King? That game didn't even have online play. And also, "we are currently developing several Wi-Fi launch titles". So, did Excite Truck have online play? Honestly don't remember.

Crystal Chronicles eventually turned into the Crystal Bearers; you know, that Final Fantasy action game which was all over the place.

 

[ec0ec0]

Next E3 will tell us if Nintendo is back on track or not. Not gonna lie, i'm a little scared. They really need to nail it again. If not, Nintendo as we know it may disappear...

 

[Fredrik]

How fitting, I just started over right from the beginning of Super Mario Galaxy today and it gets me mad to see posters on this core gamer board saying they just played some Wii Sports and sold it after a few months, it's like buying a beefy PC and just play Minesweeper :/

Seriously, Wii might be THE most underrated console of all times, among core gamers.

Yet, this is the system where you can play:

Super Mario 1,2,3,World,64,Sunshine,Galaxy 1,2
Metroid, Super Metroid, Metroid Prime 1,2,3
Zelda 1,2,3,Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword
Super Castlevania IV, Shinobi 3, Contra 3, Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, Sonics etc
You can even play Commodore 64 classics as Last Ninja 1,2,3, plus NeoGeo, PC Engine classics etc

How can you not like this console?

Edit: Added some lost gems

 

[Cosmozone]

I'm a bit bummed that Wiimote acceptance is still so low. People are asking for "Pro"Controllers left and right.

 

[ec0ec0]

Zelda 1,2,3,Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Twilight Princess

no skyward sword love

 

[SalvaPot]

Lol, we all are OLD.

 

[TheMoon]

Xbox One was built with Kinect in mind, Kinect itself was an answer to the Wii, as was Move and tons of games, hell Wii U and 3DS are named after the previous systems, motion controls or not. maybe if Nintendo used motion controls the Wii U would had been slightly better recieved.
Im not saying it changed everything, things always have to be black and white for some reason.

Wii U is heavily built around motion controls. The first thing you do in Nintendo Land when you boot it up is move the GamePad around as a camera.

Crystal Chronicles eventually turned into the Crystal Bearers; you know, that Final Fantasy action game which was all over the place.

Before that was Echoes of Time, the DS/Wii cross-platform multiplayer game. Plus My Life as a King and My Life as a Dark Lord, which technically both use Wi-Fi for buying DLC^^

 

[Spieler Eins]

I'm a bit bummed that Wiimote acceptance is still so low. People are asking for "Pro"Controllers left and right.

Yeah, but for that Nintendo should have improved the Wiimote and just make a Wii 2HD, instead of coming up with this convoluted ,,mandatory touchscreen thing + dozens of other sometimes compatible and sometimes not supported secondary controllers''-mess. So stupid.

 

[TheMagician]

The system will contain 512 megabytes of onboard flash memory,

The Wii U's internal memory option is even worse in today's market IMO.

 

[MilesTeg]

I'm a bit bummed that Wiimote acceptance is still so low. People are asking for "Pro"Controllers left and right.

Nintendo should have at least put a Wii Remote in the box with Wii U. I mean, they put the sensor bar in there. Not having it in the box sealed it's fate as a last generation controller that third party devs will not develop their games around. I guess maybe Nintendo wanted devs to focus on the Gamepad, but still, it hurt. Nintendo went a whole generation touting this controller, designing their games around it, only for it to quickly fade away. All that time spent developing for it, essentially now it seems like a waste of Nintendo's time, especially since they were so far behind on HD and internet capability.

 

[foxuzamaki]

I predict that no one hence will read the OP and this thread will be pages upon pages of fighting about the name.

Ha! I actually read the OP and dnt give a rats ass about the petty arguments that I just read.

 

[SerTapTap]

Wow...never knew Nintendo themselves used the labels Core and Casual gamers...interesting. New gamers....yea they hit it out the ballpark with that with the Wii.

It's weird to me when people try and pretend there's "no such thing" or that companies don't think about it like that. Companies are often very meticulous in curating, labeling and targeting their audience. There's no way any of the big 3 aren't aware there are different types of players.

 

[TheMoon]

The Wii U's internal memory option is even worse in today's market IMO.

Eh, not really since it's easily expandable, unlike the Wii's which forced you to load everything from the SD card back onto the system before you boot it up - a feature that in itself was only ever introduced years after you filled up your memory with N64 VC games already.

 

[MilesTeg]

The Wii U's internal memory option is even worse in today's market IMO.

I agree, because with a 2GB SD card you are basically all set on Wii. Less than $20 cost to user even back then. There are no full retail games to download on Wii, the storage solution works for what is being offered.

Wii U if you want to download games an external HDD is a requirement.

 

[Angry Fork]

Shitty console with a worse library than Gamecube and pointless, less functioning controls that spawned Kinect and Move. Doesn't deserve any positive recognition unless you're a ceo/board member at Nintendo.

 

[Fredrik]

no skyward sword love

Sorry missed that, I'll add it now. Reminds me that I actually haven't played Skyward Sword much, I need to sort that out after Galaxy 1 and 2.

 

[pinkurocket]

I remember the E3 dearly, it was one of my first I followed so closely. More that anything the build-up to it was just crazy. So many rumours, so many hoaxes. The Nintendo On is legendary. Not only was that video really awesome, it got analysed to hell and back with people enhancing reflections and whatnot in order to try and uncover secrets.

How relevant this hoax is even now 10 years later.
Awesome times, man. Can't believe it's been 10 years! Wii ended up being a console that had some great and creative games.

 

[Green Yoshi]

Bought it day one and it still works. Tried homebrew for the first time a few weeks ago. There are some nice emulators out there (SNES- and Genesis-emulation is almost flawless, N64 trial&error).

I really liked the pointer function, too bad that most games rather relied on shaking the remote. And Wii Motion Plus should have been integrated from the beginning.

 

[Bubba_Sparks]

Very exciting times, I can vividly remember all of the internet speculation and hysteria. On the other hand, the console turned out to be more of a fad than anything. Nintendo never managed to capitalize on the motion controls, and once people had had enough of the "Wii" games it basically just died. Motion controls didn't get adopted by Microsoft or Sony as the defacto standard so I would hesitate to call it revolutionary, more of just something unique.

 

[rekameohs]

I remember how hyped I was from that Metroid Prime 3 teaser all those years ago.

 

[TheLastCandle]

I really attribute my getting back into gaming in a big way with the DS and Wii. There was so much excitement surrounding the new ways to play.

 

[Smokey]

E3 during this time was shit. Wasn't this during the whole downsize movement? Terrible.

 

[Spieler Eins]

E3 during this time was shit. Wasn't this during the whole downsize movement? Terrible.

Pretty sure that was a couple of years later. And only affected people that were actually attending (although many mid gen conferences were pretty bad regardless iirc).

 

[Portugeezer]

The graphics would make us say WOW.. It did, but for the wrong reasons.

I am glad it was sold out for months, made me get a 360 instead and I'm happy for that.

 

[Sky Interloper]

Time really flies by, eh? I still remember buying a magazine back in 2005 and seeing the machine for the first time. Although at the time I was much more hyped for Zelda, the Revolution was the first time I followed on a system launch. And what a launch it was.
Even if I only watched the conference a few years later and with a better Internet connection, those days defined the path that Nintendo started with the DS and is still going through.

But goddamn at those PowerPoint style slides.

 

[shinobi602]

Much better name than Wii.

Yup.

 

[DrEvil]

God, I was in the audience for this. It's been 10 years already? hot damn.

Nintendo press conferences were amazing back then.

 

[Lexad]

That was back when I was only a Nintendo gamer and was a member of the NSider forums.

I remember this hoax coming out before E3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX2smM87r14

Sad to say I just can't justify the purchase of a Nintendo console anymore. Not enough content and what little gaming time I have is for my PS4. Won't deny that Nintendo pretty much rejuvenated the Video Game Industry though

 

[TheMoon]

Shitty console with a worse library than Gamecube and pointless, less functioning controls that spawned Kinect and Move. Doesn't deserve any positive recognition unless you're a ceo/board member at Nintendo.

Man your name is surely appropriate lol. It's okay to be dramatically wrong, though.

Spoiler

Wii library > GCN library

 

[cyba89]

edit: GAF reaction thread here

It's so bizarre reading these reactions today.

 

[NeoFaff]

Why do all the mockup shots show the discs going into the Revolution the wrong way up?

 

[thefro]

I remember the E3 dearly, it was one of my first I followed so closely. More that anything the build-up to it was just crazy. So many rumours, so many hoaxes. The Nintendo On is legendary. Not only was that video really awesome, it got analysed to hell and back with people enhancing reflections and whatnot in order to try and uncover secrets.

How relevant this hoax is even now 10 years later.
Awesome times, man. Can't believe it's been 10 years! Wii ended up being a console that had some great and creative games.

I wish we would have gotten the full planned Nintendo ON hoax video with the Metal Gear teaser and everything. Dude's HD crashed so he lost a lot of what he was making.

 

[oti]

I often find myself thinking about what would've happened if Skyward Sword came out at the beginning of the Wii's lifetime. Man.

 

[Mass Effect]

It's still the best-looking console ever made.

And it had some great games. Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 are some of the best games in existence. And I still need to try and track down some of the games I missed out on, like Red Steel 2.

Much better name than Wii.

Not really. Wii was really the perfect name for it.

 

[Hale-XF11]

10 years since it was first revealed and we still don't have a proper Elebits sequel. Why, Konami, why??

 

[Plinko]

10 years since it was first revealed and we still don't have a proper Elebits sequel. Why, Konami, why??

Only game to ever give me horrible motion sickness to the point where I had to lie down and close my eyes for hours so I wouldn't throw up.

 

[Solid Samus]

I find it interesting that Nintendo was talking about a peripheral used to play movies but that never came out with the final Revolution/Wii system. Also, I don't think Metroid Other M was really what they had in mind -- I guess they were doing something after Metroid Prime 3 but that fell through or was changed.

Iirc MP3 was supposed to be a game about Samus planet hopping and literally bounty hunting

 

[TheAdmiester]

Much, much better name than Wii. I can't believe they're still going with that shitty name even to date.

Of course, the console itself was pretty terrible.

 

[EulaCapra]

I'm still waiting on that lime-green, Nintendo!

 

[Storm Kyleis]

And I took his name. His name was Reggie. As Nintendo president, I'm also all about asking questions. So Reggie, I have a question for you. Who's your daddy?

This part. lol

Nintendo felt so confident about the launch of the "Revolution". They weren't this confident about the Wii U, at all.

 

[Zombegoast]

The Channels and using the 32gb was wasted potential. I never used them.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Still got mine, still play it every once and again. Great system.

 

[grim-tales]

Much better name than Wii.

Yeah.
Shame the DVD playback idea was abandoned.