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My argument is that very little of what Wii Fit is looks like a game.
Yeah, Brain Age didn't really look like a game either. What were we supposed to expect- shooting aliens on a distant planet while being yelled at by the disembodied head of a famous Japanese neuroscientist? Oh joy! Math problems! Not everything in Brain Age is what we'd perceive as 'fun'.
How many copies did Brain Age sell, again? People don't buy these things because they want engrossing, billion-polygon immersive gameplay experiences. Instead, all it really takes is for the game to be at least a bit more interesting than the alternative (doing a sheet of math problems, pushups in your bedroom, et al) for it to sell. People like having their progress tracked and displayed for them to see. It's common sense that the fat guy who goes on an exercise/diet regiment and sees he's losing a pound every week or so is more motivated to continue than the guy who does the same without a scale and is wondering
is it really worth it all? Ultimately, that, and the interactivity, are what really make the difference.
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Nintendo never learned how to compete in the old market.
The old market was
not worth the effort. People wouldn't fully accept Nintendo games when they were innovative. They'd claim that Nintendo does no-imagination rehashes, and then happily snap up the latest generic FPS or sports game. What happened to all the unique games on XBox 360? How well did they sell? Nintendo had
fundamental issues with the so-called self-identified gamer market, and they weren't magically going to go away 'if only Nintendo put in more effort'. Third-party relationships, public perception, the emergence of disruptive franchises like Halo, internal company culture...all these things make long-term planning a exercise in futility at best.
Nintendo could have taken the painstaking old road. Here's what would have had to happen.
- Nintendo keeps up in terms of hardware capabilities for the next ten years or so.
- They repair relationships with important third parties and get games like GTA and Final Fantasy.
- They have to get the public to accept that they are 'cool', even while their two established competitors throw more and more mud at them.
- They have to work on first-party games more 'in-line' with the majority perspective without losing their existing fans.
- They have to hope that some new innovation or game doesn't run away with the market and deal them a KO before their plans go through.
All while staying in 3rd, or at best 2nd place for a long while. Does it really make sense? When compared to the risk that people will lose interest in the Wii
en masse, Nintendo really did make the better decision.
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I figure if Nintendo thought there games have always been accessible they would be mentioning how Mario Kart continues to be accessible since it was already instead of it becoming more accessible. To say it the way they're saying it now is like putting down the old games as if they weren't okay to non-gamers but now these new ones are. Considering they have a whole VC of "old" games that they would like everyone to buy I think acting like the old games needed to be fixed is not the best thing to say if your goal is just to trick non-gamers.
There are different levels of accessibility. It's not like a game can only be 'accessible' or 'non-accessible'. Mario Kart is more accessible than, say, Halo, (at least in terms of the learning curve) but it is not the be-all, end-all of accessibility. Nintendo understands that the interface is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means for the console's software to understand what the player's desires are. And the more we can cut out the middleman, the closer we are to that goal. Dedicated buttons are easier to understand than a keyboard, and motion controls are easier to understand than dedicated buttons. Maybe one day we'll have direct brain control, but even if that happens the Remote is still much closer to that end of the abstraction spectrum than the standard controller.
And quite frankly, the VC is targeted towards a completely different market than the non-gamer. Gamers are the ones who have experience playing the old VC games, they are the ones buying them, and they are the ones who would be complaining if anything were to be changed. I can't disagree with the assertion that Nintendo wants everyone to buy their VC games, but then again they'd probably be even happier if everyone just gave them cash without them having to produce anything. They know that the VC's primary market is more 'experienced' gamers and they've positioned it that way.
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