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Ten years ago at E3 2005, Satoru Iwata unveiled Nintendo Revolution

The revolution is over. We lost.

Gamecube was my last Nintendo console. Didn't really see the appeal in the Wii other than some drunken good times playing Wii Sports in college.

Best selling console of all time with some really great games and easily hackable made it one of the best consoles of all time.
 
How I feel now about the "Revolution":

The success of the platform was based on capturing a compelling idea that people found novel and riding it out for a few years. Nintendo learned all the wrong lessons from this episode, namely that they no longer had to invest in state of the art technology nor price competitively. As a result it has ruined their brand and potentially left them with no place in the home console market going forward.

The Wii was the quintessential example of winning a battle but losing the war.

Best selling console of all time with some really great games and easily hackable made it one of the best consoles of all time.

Both PS1 and PS2 outsold it, and 360/PS3 will end up being around 10 million behind it when all's said and done.
 

PAULINK

I microwave steaks.
Really brings me back, I was drinking the nintendo kool aid at the time so I hyped anything they said. I still remember the concept video with the controller pretty well.

I loved the console at launch but deep down in my heart I knew I needed more, that's when I went down the dark path of the hd twins.
 
I actually think the Wii is the best Nintendo system since the SNES.

There are many reasons as to why I think so.

The Wii has better and more numerous games than on GameCube.

- Of Nintendo's big franchises, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Wario had better games on Wii than on Gamecube. Zelda, Smash, and Mario Kart are better or worse depending on who you ask, and it was mostly just Metroid that really suffered.

- Outside of those standard franchises, Nintendo brought to the Wii Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven Fever, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Wii Sports Resort, Disaster: Day of Crisis (well, kinda), Punch-Out, and Excite Truck / Bots. The GameCube had Wave Race Blue Storm, 1080 Avalanche, Eternal Darkness, and Geist. Most of those aren't even held in that high of regard.

- Third party games were more numerous on GameCube, though. However, it isn't like the Wii had no third party games. The Wii had the best version of Resident Evil 4 for a while (the controls really made that game more awesome) and also had a large number of exclusives such as Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, MadWorld, Conduit (lol), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, A Boy and His Blob, No More Heroes, Resident Evil: Umbrella / Darkside Chronicles, and House of the Dead: Overkill (the last of which were much later on ported to other platforms).

- A larger variety of genres and games were on the Wii. From Nintendo, it was a haven for 2D platformers, and they even threw in a few JRPGs. Third parties gave us lightgun shooters. We also had more inventive games, such as Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki.

- The controller was great, not because of the "waggle", but because of the pointer controls. It made first and third person shooters awesome, and it brought a resurgence of the lightgun shooter genre. (I highly doubt we would have received Typing of the Dead: Overkill on PC if it wasn't for the Wii's controller.) It also made menu navigation much more intuitive, which is a small thing, but it's definitely a perk.


Basically, I sometimes feel like most of those who say the Wii was a bad system only checked out the most mainstream games (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, maybe Mario Galaxy or a couple other games) and wrote off the Wii as a system that's not for them. The Wii is much more than Just Dance and Raving Rabbids, though. It actually had a rather nice and diverse library.

I think the GameCube had a better library at the start of its life, while the Wii had a better library towards the middle and especially the end. I think that helped with the whole perception of the Wii not having many great games.
 
I remember this, I was at another forum, and I had info about the system being nothing btu swinging your arms around and I used the term" Flopsy" but people beleived it would be this powerful modern console, and at the time the info i had showed the machine didn't even have a complete online set-up yet and would be limited at alunch (and stayed that way.) Well I ended up being right, although the term people use for the system is waggle now.

The system was gaining quite a bit of hype, although the 360 started taking that away on the hardcore end, but once the casuals started paying attention it was only a matter of time. They got the gimmick to work for them, and that combined with it's price pretty much picked up the sales.

Of course only having Wii Sports to a lot of customers ended up hurting the system for a bit even during it's peak years.
 
- Of Nintendo's big franchises, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Wario had better games on Wii than on Gamecube. Zelda, Smash, and Mario Kart are better or worse depending on who you ask, and it was mostly just Metroid that really suffered.

"It was mostly just Metroid that really suffered."

Oh brother. Tell that to Star Fox and F-Zero fans. Given how badly it sells, Metroid has been treated very well by Nintendo.
 

Cyd0nia

Banned
I actually think the Wii is the best Nintendo system since the SNES.

I agree.

If Nintendo had the confidence and supply chain to marry ideas like the Wii with more grunt, and the sensibilities needed to court western third parties successfully they would be unassailable. From 2006-2010 they practically were.

The Wii U is great too, it deserved a better execution, better marketing and better support.
 
"It was mostly just Metroid that really suffered."

Oh brother. Tell that to Star Fox and F-Zero fans. Given how badly it sells, Metroid has been treated very well by Nintendo.

Yeah, I should have included F-Zero in hindsight (and yes, I'm a big fan of F-Zero GX, oops, lol), but Star Fox I kind of felt like people stopped caring about it since the GameCube games.

There's probably more games I missed, too.
 
I actually think the Wii is the best Nintendo system since the SNES.

There are many reasons as to why I think so.

The Wii has better and more numerous games than on GameCube.

- Of Nintendo's big franchises, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Wario had better games on Wii than on Gamecube. Zelda, Smash, and Mario Kart are better or worse depending on who you ask, and it was mostly just Metroid that really suffered.

- Outside of those standard franchises, Nintendo brought to the Wii Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven Fever, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Wii Sports Resort, Disaster: Day of Crisis (well, kinda), Punch-Out, and Excite Truck / Bots. The GameCube had Wave Race Blue Storm, 1080 Avalanche, Eternal Darkness, and Geist. Most of those aren't even held in that high of regard.

- Third party games were more numerous on GameCube, though. However, it isn't like the Wii had no third party games. The Wii had the best version of Resident Evil 4 for a while (the controls really made that game more awesome) and also had a large number of exclusives such as Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, MadWorld, Conduit (lol), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, A Boy and His Blob, No More Heroes, Resident Evil: Umbrella / Darkside Chronicles, and House of the Dead: Overkill (the last of which were much later on ported to other platforms).

- A larger variety of genres and games were on the Wii. From Nintendo, it was a haven for 2D platformers, and they even threw in a few JRPGs. Third parties gave us lightgun shooters. We also had more inventive games, such as Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki.

- The controller was great, not because of the "waggle", but because of the pointer controls. It made first and third person shooters awesome, and it brought a resurgence of the lightgun shooter genre. (I highly doubt we would have received Typing of the Dead: Overkill on PC if it wasn't for the Wii's controller.) It also made menu navigation much more intuitive, which is a small thing, but it's definitely a perk.


Basically, I sometimes feel like most of those who say the Wii was a bad system only checked out the most mainstream games (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, maybe Mario Galaxy or a couple other games) and wrote off the Wii as a system that's not for them. The Wii is much more than Just Dance and Raving Rabbids, though. It actually had a rather nice and diverse library.

I think the GameCube had a better library at the start of its life, while the Wii had a better library towards the middle and especially the end. I think that helped with the whole perception of the Wii not having many great games.

mb6MGsu.gif


Actually, Wii was still received positively during the beginning and had core games selling rather well until at least No More Heroes. The problem was that they never stopped making great core games for the system, but publishers and Nintendo themselves stopped advertising or pushing them. Nintendo practically just showed Wii Fit in commercials after a few years. But if you actually looked games up for yourself, you found some of the best games of the generation and tons of creative content from 3rd parties which still went beyond the limited scope that indies offer. In America, it of course went so far, that they didn't even want to localise certain core games anymore, despite them already being produced and well received everywhere else. Ridiculous self sabotage. Thankfully I live in EU, but these games were obviously just sent to die here.

I feel N64 excels at flagship titles, but falls flat when it comes to smaller franchises (and the lack of many), while on Gamecube the flagships fall flat (Mario Sunshine plus Wind Waker being blatantly rushed and Double Dash just kinda shitty), but the other Nintendo franchises excelling, while Wii got almost everything right
(and WiiU right now excelling at nothing)
. Most flagships were amazing again (Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Donkey Kong Country) and then there were so many great takes on smaller, long paused or even new franchises which felt still fresh and not milked yet, like Excite Truck, Xenoblade, Another Code, Metroid Prime god controls, Epic Yarn, Punch Out, etc. Oh, how I couldn't stand people whining about Nintendo's Wii support back in the day just because they've dropped a mostly bad series like Starfox. Sin & Punishment 2 absolutely shits on any title from that series, but no one cared. Other than Other M, only Paper Mario was kind of awful and Mario Kart too.

My preference of the 3rd party support post-SNES varies depending on my mood. N64 might have had the worst (excluding the lolwiiU again obviously) except for a few of the great multiplats it got, with GCN getting a little more again, but mostly shining through Capcom 5 and its share of Dreamcast leftovers. Wii had very little worthwhile multiplats, but tons of exclusive (Japanese) gems, which were niche, but therefor much more creative than the AAA support during that time. Muramasa, Silent Hill, Rune Factory, Zack & Wiki, No More Heroes, Red Steel 2, Sonic Colours,... I got much more out of it than the early PS360 years. Unfortunately, the support collapsed after 2010 and everyone thought they were putting everything into their next console (while in reality it was the 3ds, a precursor of the problems that would follow).
 

NaviLink

Member
Two things:
- can't believe it's been ten years already
- how the hell do you guys know when it's the x year anniversary of something, seriously? Do you set up reminders ten years in advance? I forget everything.
 

bumpkin

Member
I liked the Wii, but Revolution was a way better name. Not even a question. But... The GameCube was still my favorite modern Nintendo console. From the great exclusives to the design of the console to the super comfortable controller, it was the best system of its generation.

Still, I wish the Wii's capabilities were what the Wii U's are. If they had done that instead of putting out a system with guts a generation behind its competition, things might be different now in terms of market share; because the Wii U would then have been on par with the PS4 and XB1 (in theory).

Just my two cents though.
 
Revolution is too much of a loaded word. Sure it's motion sensing revolutionaized gaming industry, but its hardware was by no means revolutionary. Iwata touted on graphics and wifi so much, but both were a total crapshoot when compared to their competitors.
 

bryanee

Member
That conference is not nearly as good as I remembered lol.

Do a show like that now and the internet will crucify ya.
 
And what a Revolution it was. It brought me back to gaming which i already abandoned after the dull PS2/GC/Xbox era.

Being a gamer since the 80s the PS2 era was just stale for me. Just more of the same. Few highlights between all the streamlined marketing nonsense. The Wii brought the fun back to this industry. 4-5 years of straight No.1 sales happened for a reason.
 
The Wii is an extremely under-appreciated console. It features some of the best entries in Nintendo's series as well was a return to form of traditional 2D Nintendo. And while they get a lot of hate, when the motion controls worked well they worked very well. Skyward Sword was fantastic with motion controls and I had a damn good time with Punchout!. It's a shame that motion controls were mostly regulated to casual games at the time. While the system certainly wasn't a big hitter with third party games but the ones it had were unique from other systems offerings and were fun. No More Heroes, A Boy and His Blob, and Muramasa were great. Last but not least was the Virtual Console. So many games I got to try for the first time. All of the greatest hits from the SNES, Megadrive, NES, and N64. As well as the introduction to the incredibly under-rated PC Engine. All of gamings best games all on one system.

While the Wii could be considered to some as a poor "main system", as a supplementary system it was incredible. Going WiiC (Wii + PC) that generation was the best of both worlds and is something I have continued on with this generation (Wii U + PC). Even then so, if you told me that I could choose between a Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 and the choice of two dozen games, I would go with the system with Sin & Punishment 2 and Xenoblade every time.
 
I liked the Wii, but Revolution was a way better name. Not even a question. But... The GameCube was still my favorite modern Nintendo console. From the great exclusives to the design of the console to the super comfortable controller, it was the best system of its generation.

Still, I wish the Wii's capabilities were what the Wii U's are. If they had done that instead of putting out a system with guts a generation behind its competition, things might be different now in terms of market share; because the Wii U would then have been on par with the PS4 and XB1 (in theory).

Just my two cents though.

GCN level tech probably allowed them to have such a high quantity of 1st party titles and give mid-tier developers one final home console platform before they started dying out because of the ridiculous AAA expectations nowadays. Theoretically, with all the money they've been printing, they should have expanded their resources over the course of the gen to just keep going once they inevitably had to jump to HD also. Unfortunately, they kind of started living in a bubble after a certain point and didn't do anything, until they've realized their misery around 2012 or so.
 
GCN level tech probably allowed them to have such a high quantity of 1st party titles and give mid-tier developers one final home console platform before they started dying out because of the ridiculous AAA expectations nowadays. Theoretically, with all the money they've been printing, they should have expanded their resources over the course of the gen to just keep going once they inevitably had to jump to HD also. Unfortunately, they kind of started living in a bubble after a certain point and didn't do anything, until they've realized their misery around 2012 or so.

Must be a bubble from a different universe then. In our current one they expaned heavily and even build a new HQ way, way before 2012. But you know.. these things.. they take time.
 
Must be a bubble from a different universe then. In our current one they expaned heavily and even build a new HQ way before 2012. But you know.. these things.. they take time.

They've whined about how hard HD development is until like 2013. Which shouldn't have happened after dominating the market with two devices. They clearly did absolutely nothing to be future proof, stopped caring what their competitors did and probably thought their Wii brand will be strong forever anyway (same shit that got the equally arrogant Sony into their early PS3 troubles back then). For the sake of the 3DS being viable the Wii support stopped waaay too early and the WiiU support will most likely never even reach the better years of the 3DS and Wii.
 

Hale-XF11

Member
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.

Weird, I wonder why it made you sick. That's mine and my wife's favorite Wii game ever and we never experienced motion sickness from it.
 

ozfunghi

Member
I remember saying "wow"... but not in a good way. That Metroid footage made it clear from the getgo that our expectations had to be dialed down. Luckily it had an awesome controller. Still the best way for FPS for me personally.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
I actually think the Wii is the best Nintendo system since the SNES.

There are many reasons as to why I think so.

The Wii has better and more numerous games than on GameCube.

- Of Nintendo's big franchises, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Wario had better games on Wii than on Gamecube. Zelda, Smash, and Mario Kart are better or worse depending on who you ask, and it was mostly just Metroid that really suffered.

- Outside of those standard franchises, Nintendo brought to the Wii Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven Fever, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Wii Sports Resort, Disaster: Day of Crisis (well, kinda), Punch-Out, and Excite Truck / Bots. The GameCube had Wave Race Blue Storm, 1080 Avalanche, Eternal Darkness, and Geist. Most of those aren't even held in that high of regard.

- Third party games were more numerous on GameCube, though. However, it isn't like the Wii had no third party games. The Wii had the best version of Resident Evil 4 for a while (the controls really made that game more awesome) and also had a large number of exclusives such as Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, MadWorld, Conduit (lol), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, A Boy and His Blob, No More Heroes, Resident Evil: Umbrella / Darkside Chronicles, and House of the Dead: Overkill (the last of which were much later on ported to other platforms).

- A larger variety of genres and games were on the Wii. From Nintendo, it was a haven for 2D platformers, and they even threw in a few JRPGs. Third parties gave us lightgun shooters. We also had more inventive games, such as Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki.

- The controller was great, not because of the "waggle", but because of the pointer controls. It made first and third person shooters awesome, and it brought a resurgence of the lightgun shooter genre. (I highly doubt we would have received Typing of the Dead: Overkill on PC if it wasn't for the Wii's controller.) It also made menu navigation much more intuitive, which is a small thing, but it's definitely a perk.


Basically, I sometimes feel like most of those who say the Wii was a bad system only checked out the most mainstream games (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, maybe Mario Galaxy or a couple other games) and wrote off the Wii as a system that's not for them. The Wii is much more than Just Dance and Raving Rabbids, though. It actually had a rather nice and diverse library.

I think the GameCube had a better library at the start of its life, while the Wii had a better library towards the middle and especially the end. I think that helped with the whole perception of the Wii not having many great games.

I very much agree with this post.
 

Trago

Member
I think it's a crime that this console never got an F-Zero or Star Fox game. Pretty much all the major Nintendo franchises would have been represented greatly.
 
Weird, I wonder why it made you sick. That's mine and my wife's favorite Wii game ever and we never experienced motion sickness from it.
Those that are potentially prone to epilepsy (without being active sufferers) can be very sensitive to wildly varying framerates.

This usually appears as motion sickness. Two seizures over the span of 31 years. Both related to fluctuating framerates in videogames. Can come up even worse in colorful games with fluctuating framerate like Elebits.

I actually decided not be buy Elebits because of that potential. Worst for me personally was the DC port of Omikron the Nomad Soul. It caused my first seizure.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
I actually think the Wii is the best Nintendo system since the SNES.

There are many reasons as to why I think so.

The Wii has better and more numerous games than on GameCube.

- Of Nintendo's big franchises, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, and Wario had better games on Wii than on Gamecube. Zelda, Smash, and Mario Kart are better or worse depending on who you ask, and it was mostly just Metroid that really suffered.

- Outside of those standard franchises, Nintendo brought to the Wii Sin and Punishment 2, Rhythm Heaven Fever, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Wii Sports Resort, Disaster: Day of Crisis (well, kinda), Punch-Out, and Excite Truck / Bots. The GameCube had Wave Race Blue Storm, 1080 Avalanche, Eternal Darkness, and Geist. Most of those aren't even held in that high of regard.

- Third party games were more numerous on GameCube, though. However, it isn't like the Wii had no third party games. The Wii had the best version of Resident Evil 4 for a while (the controls really made that game more awesome) and also had a large number of exclusives such as Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, MadWorld, Conduit (lol), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, A Boy and His Blob, No More Heroes, Resident Evil: Umbrella / Darkside Chronicles, and House of the Dead: Overkill (the last of which were much later on ported to other platforms).

- A larger variety of genres and games were on the Wii. From Nintendo, it was a haven for 2D platformers, and they even threw in a few JRPGs. Third parties gave us lightgun shooters. We also had more inventive games, such as Boom Blox and Zack and Wiki.

- The controller was great, not because of the "waggle", but because of the pointer controls. It made first and third person shooters awesome, and it brought a resurgence of the lightgun shooter genre. (I highly doubt we would have received Typing of the Dead: Overkill on PC if it wasn't for the Wii's controller.) It also made menu navigation much more intuitive, which is a small thing, but it's definitely a perk.


Basically, I sometimes feel like most of those who say the Wii was a bad system only checked out the most mainstream games (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, maybe Mario Galaxy or a couple other games) and wrote off the Wii as a system that's not for them. The Wii is much more than Just Dance and Raving Rabbids, though. It actually had a rather nice and diverse library.

I think the GameCube had a better library at the start of its life, while the Wii had a better library towards the middle and especially the end. I think that helped with the whole perception of the Wii not having many great games.

As much as I dont like the Wii U....the Wii was one of the most played consoles in our home...and it wasnt all Wii Fit. One of my fav games was A Boy and his Blob and some game about shadows...cant remember now. The Wii was played more and I had more games for it than my N64 and Gamecube combined. I still had a Gamecube when I got the Wii.
 
It was the console that turned me into a PC gamer, after over a decade of sticking very, very closely to Nintendo platforms.

In that sense I'm grateful it happened, because if the console hadn't been such a massive disappointment, I would never have been forced to look outside of the Nintendo bubble and discover all the great games on other platforms.

I swore after the Wii that I'd never buy a Nintendo console ever again. I didn't want to miss out on so many great 3rd party games for yet another generation. Enough was enough. But Nintendo's hold proved too strong. I ended up getting a Wii U eventually... :p My PC makes up for the missing 3rd party support now.

Funnily enough, I still like the Wii's library more than the Wii U's though. Wii at least got a Metroid, and *2* amazing new 3D Mario's.
 

openrob

Member
I wasn't really following gaming that closely when the Wii came out. I actually only got one when my girl at the time won a Wii and let me keep it. It was a time where I had moved outta home, after I had stopped buying gaming mags but before I started following gaming online. But truth be told I didn't even pick up a PS3 or 360 that gen. Wii was enough for me.

But Gamecube reveal/release was the most hype I had been for a console. By the time ps3/Wii/360 were revealed I was outta the gaming loop and this gen has been quite underwhelming for me personally. Hardware just hasn't excited me in a while - and I think that the consoles of this gen being all named succesors doesn't help.

But watching this makes me wish I was 'there' at the time as that newness is what I really miss from gaming today
 
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