Topic: FEATURE: The Greening (or Not) of the Wii Software Library

[Jonnyboy117]

Please discuss the feature article found at:

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/specialArt.cfm?artid=16741

[RABicle]

In Mr Jack's "I hate life" section I spotted a big typo.

The Panzer Dragoon series started as an on-rails shooter for the Sega Saturn, and had striking similarities to Nintendo's Star Fox series. The series eventually progressed into the RPG realm, but returned to its roots with Orta,

The bolded word is of course meant to read as regressed.

[KDR_11k]

The "not green enough" section is pretty pathetic, Fahrenheit is an old game now, Katamari has already overstayed its welcome quite a bit and Panzer Dragoon is a very minor series that I don't think has anything in development anymore. Those games didn't give the impression that the Wii is lacking much, just minor complaints. I was expecting some bigger hitters like Mirror's Edge or whatever people like on the HD consoles.

[RABicle]

Yeah Fahrenheit is fucken trash. I wouldn't want that nonsense on our system. Time travellers and robot and **** fighting over a little girl. It's some Haruhi Suzimiya **** that is.

[Jonnyboy117]

I'm more surprised at the lack of Katamari on DS than on Wii, but either would have been more interesting than the Xbox 360 version.  Panzer Dragoon would be perfect on Wii and is similar to a franchise Nintendo fans already know (Star Fox), so I think that's why Nick selected it.

[Stogi]

Nice article. Basically sums up my feelings (though not specifically).

Everyone wants more games that are perfect for the Wii, but we've been saying that for a while. Honestly, it's ironic the timing of all this. I think next year will be Nintendo's best and I really think we shouldn't worry.

[planetidiot]

I would really like a lot of the PS2 franchises I never got to play to come over to the Wii.  Katamari, Time Crisis, etc. 

[Ian Sane]

So I read the first half and felt that the "could be greener" section would kill it.  The "look what we have" stuff I found to be pretty weak.  Fatal Frame is a pretty big deal but since we've lost the real Resident Evil I'd say we traded down.  Rail shooters and a Pokemon knock-off?  THAT is the best you can think of?

But then the "could be greener" half, which is the side of the argument I side with, brings up really weird choices of what we don't have.  It looks like nit-picking.  Panzer Dragoon is awesome and I'd love to have it on the Wii.  But the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 don't have it either.  NO ONE has it.  It's not a franchise that's not on Nintendo consoles it's a franchise that is currently dormant.  So it makes no sense to mention it.

Mention how the other consoles got the real sequels to Soul Calibur and Resident Evil.  Mention how they're getting Street Fighter IV and the Wii isn't.  Mention how they've got Virtua Fighter and Devil May Cry and Ridge Racer and the Wii doesn't.  Mention how multiplatform games like Rock Band or Splinter Cell get compromised on the Wii, to the point that they have more in common with the last gen PS2 versions.  The "could be greener" side of the argument is EASY to make.  The old rule of most major third party releases being released on every console BUT Nintendo's is still in place only now Nintendo is the market leader so it is completely unacceptable.  Even if we're technically better off than we were with the Cube (I'd say we're about equal) we're the market leader.  We should have the BEST third party support, PERIOD.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Rail shooters and a Pokemon knock-off?  THAT is the best you can think of?

Rail shooters are awesome, and Monster Hunter isn't a Pokémon knockoff.  What do you think hunters do?  Keep deer as pets?

[Nick DiMola]

Ian, my intention was to bring forth a number of games/series that would be vastly improved with Wii control and were interesting in prior iterations.

Sin & Punishment 2 will likely do exactly what Panzer Dragoon would accomplish well (unfortunately this was written before that game was announced). Indigo Prophecy used the sticks to emulate lifelike control - the Wii can do this to an even more engaging degree. Finally Katamari is all about rolling a ball around, and for obvious reasons this would be interesting to do with Wii controls.

All three have never appeared on Nintendo consoles and with the obvious Wii functionality, all three fantastic series should be continued on Wii given this fact, and the fact that, as you mentioned, the Wii is currently the market leader.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Rail shooters and a Pokemon knock-off?  THAT is the best you can think of?

Rail shooters are awesome, and Monster Hunter isn't a Pokémon knockoff.  What do you think hunters do?  Keep deer as pets?

The only thing that you can consider monster hunter ripping off is PSO, but Monster Hunter is much much deeper than what PSO will ever be. The ironic thing is after seeing the huge Monster Hunter boom Sega made a Monster Hunter ripoff with the Phantasy Star series.

Sorry Nick but I think Indigo Prophecy is a bit overrated but we are seeing a renaissance of Adventure games on Wii, Sam and Max appearing on a console. Telltale seems interested in the Wii as a avenue for their games so maybe we will see Wallace and Gromit on Wii and probably we will see even more adventure games from Telltale's Wii publisher The Adventure Company since the interface is perfect on Wii.

While Panzer Dragoon series is "dead" I think Sega should give it a chance on Wii because look how much risks Sega is taking on Wii with "dead franchises" Nights, House of the Dead, Ghost Squad and others.

[IceCold]

I've been saying since the controller was revealed that many of Sega's franchises are a perfect fit for it. I especially want Panzer Dragoon. Too bad they don't have the talent to develop those franchises well onto the Wii anymore. At least they've been trying with NiGHTS, Ghost Squad, House of the Dead, Samba de Amigo, etc.

Still, Panzer Dragoon Orta was an incredible game and it was made fairly recently - the same team could make a great Wii entry for the franchise.

[Jonnyboy117]

If Sam & Max is the leader of an adventure game revolution on Wii, I fear for the genre's future...

[NWR_Lindy]

I've been saying since the controller was revealed that many of Sega's franchises are a perfect fit for it. I especially want Panzer Dragoon. Too bad they don't have the talent to develop those franchises well onto the Wii anymore. At least they've been trying with NiGHTS, Ghost Squad, House of the Dead, Samba de Amigo, etc.

What blows my mind is that they haven't released an updated version of Space Harrier.

[Ian Sane]

Too bad they don't have the talent to develop those franchises well onto the Wii anymore.

I know.  I mean we got NiGHTS.  That was like the ultimate "I wish Sega would bring this back" game.  Years ago it seemed like getting such a game as an exclusive would be a big deal.  Early in the Gamecube's life it seemed like the sort of exclusive that would really help out as a killer app.  Well we got it... and it sucks.  So it's worthless.  This is probably the first time anyone on this forum has even mentioned the game since a week after it was released.  With the old Sega designing it that would probably be one of the Wii killer apps.

Ian, my intention was to bring forth a number of games/series that would be vastly improved with Wii control and were interesting in prior iterations.

Fair enough.  I honestly don't think in those terms regarding third party support because the Wii is the market leader.  When you're the market leader you don't need to sell the unique features of your console to attract support.  You SHOULD be able to just show sales figures and that's it.  The PS2 had it's pros and cons but the reason to support it was simple: this is by far the best selling console.  We used to talk about such-and-such game being a good fit for the Gamecube because the Cube wasn't the market leader.  Some other justification had to be made to rationalize why a certain game should be on it.  The Wii isn't some lowly niche console that should be grateful for the support it gets.

I remember when the SNES was current and Nintendo was last the market leader.  This was back in the day when magazines were the place to get videogame news.  Every year each mag would have their E3 issue (or CES issue) and you could see what new games were in the works.  If it wasn't made by Sega you could assume it was coming out for the SNES.  Every year there would like one big third party game that was exclusive for the Genesis.  But you just thought "aw nuts" and it rolled off your back because there was like five SNES exclusives to make up for it.  Every game was SNES until proven otherwise.  That was the default.  That's what the Playstations 1 & 2 had.  That's what the market leader is supposed to have.  Anything else should be considered crap.  I know Nintendo consoles were jokes for ten years and that many fans are too young to have even been a Nintendo fan back then.  And many of the older fans probably forget what it's like.  But that is the norm and we should expect that.

When a portable game is announced what system do you expect it to be on?  DS?  That's what I'm talking about.

[Armak88]

Grass is greener - it felt like the two games that were mentioned were exceptions and not nearly the norm. I have to admit that I am pretty excited for monster hunter, but both monster hunter and fatal frame aren't really well known in north america, and to me, rail shooters are more of an icing on the cake thing. Even given this though, I feel that kairon showed that things are better than they were on the gamecube. (But this doesn't mean that things are better than on other systems)

Could be greener - I almost felt like this section was pandering to forum members who love to talk about games that very few people have played. I'm not saying that these are bad games, but this is not the reason that most people who own a wii feel like they are being ripped off by third parties. Ian hit the nail on the head here, we get umbrella chronicles, not RE5, we get soul caliber legends, not SC4, not to mention the fact that there wasn't a single mention of the lack of quality fps's on the wii. I know that the conduit is coming soon and I really enjoyed umbrella chronicles, but the conduit is ONE fps and UC is not a AAA capcom effort. The point is that the grass could be greener because we still aren't getting the AAA efforts from third parties. None of the games mentioned in this section demonstrated this. I also realize that Nick was trying to pick games that would benefit from wii controls, but if this is the case then where are the first person shooters?

[Guitar Smasher]

It would probably be worth mentioning the brand new, original games that aren't sequels (well for the 2nd part, a complaint at the lack of them).

[NWR_Lindy]

Third-parties apparently want to develop for the console technology leader(s), not the console sales leader.  I guess third-parties don't want to play by Nintendo's rules.

[DAaaMan64]

If they wanna stick to $60 PS3 mediocrity, be my guest. However, I do wanna see more games from the big guns.

[KDR_11k]

Third-parties apparently want to develop for the console technology leader(s), not the console sales leader.

No, they just want to ignore Nintendo because they believe they cannot beat Nintendo on their own platform even though lots of companies flourished on the NES and SNES while going head to head against Nintendo. Otherwise the GC would have gotten the games the PS2 did.