Topic: Nintendo Trademarks Wii Fit Plus and Art Academy

[NWR_pap64]

The two new trademarks hint at possible future releases, one of which could be the follow-up to Wii Fit.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=18556

 With E3 2009 a week away, two new Nintendo trademarks have appeared that may indicate what Nintendo will reveal at their press conference.    

   

The first of these is Wii Fit Plus. While the sequel to Wii Fit has been rumored for a while now this is the first time concrete proof has been shown in the form of an English logo.    

   

The second trademark is for Art Academy. There is currently no word on the specifics of the platform.. Rumors tie this game to being a new Mario Paint-inspired title.    

[Ian Sane]

I'm making the obvious connection between Art Academy and Big Brain Academy.

In another universe Art Academy sounds like it COULD be interesting.  But Wii Music sounded like the most easy "can't-****-this-up-in-a-million-years" idea and, well, Nintendo fucked it up so yeah...

[ThomasO]

Oooh. I still play Wii Fit (I aim to do 40 push-ups in Push-Up Challenge by the end of this summer), but I've been looking forward to a sequel for a while. If it incorporates Wii MotionPlus (which it probably/obviously will), that'll be good for the 3 or 4 Strength-Training activities in Wii Fit that used the Remote only but weren't very effective.

I personally liked Wii Music... 

[TJ Spyke]

I wouldn't get too excited about Art Academy, Nintendo registers trademarks all the time (I remember last year they registered like 20 Pokemon trademarks in the same week.

[Jonnyboy117]

Source?

[GoldenPhoenix]

Source?

Nintendo World Report!

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I'm making the obvious connection between Art Academy and Big Brain Academy.

In another universe Art Academy sounds like it COULD be interesting.  But Wii Music sounded like the most easy "can't-****-this-up-in-a-million-years" idea and, well, Nintendo fucked it up so yeah...

Actually Wii Music does what it does successfully, and sold successfully.  The product has its fruits.   It's just not the the exciting arcade-like entertainment product that internet opinions like to jump on, cuz we know the vocal majority lacks creativity which is why they're drawn to cheap (actually, expensive plastic) "matching colors" video game experiences in the first place.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I guess the rumor thread can check off another rumor becoming fact.

WiiFit+ is a reality

[NWR_pap64]

Source?

Added. Sorry about that.

And Pro has already spoken for me. The only thing Nintendo f*cked up was its first E3 showing. Wii Music, despite what the hoards of angry fanboys might tell you, was indeed a success and found a solid fanbase.

[Ian Sane]

Actually Wii Music does what it does successfully, and sold successfully.

Yeah but it could have been so much more.  It could have allowed people to write their own material, but instead you can just record a performance of already written songs (most of which are cheap ass public domain music).  Nintendo is so afraid of scaring away the apparently easily confused non-gamers that they never go for broke with these games.  They intentionally restrict them.  So they very specifically become non-games instead of great games that everyone can get as much or as little out of them as they want.

The whole Wii Series in general would have benefitted from a quality standpoint if Nintendo designed them like they design their core games where the basic gameplay is simple to understand but the game itself has tons of depth.  So if grandpa just wants to play three innings of baseball with auto-fielding, fine, but someone who wants more can play a full baseball game.  In Wii Music's case there is no reason why the resulting product couldn't have just been part of a bigger game that strives to be the ultimate music game.

If it's a real product Art Academy should strive to be like a bigger better Mario Paint but it probably won't because Nintendo thinks that you if provide options for those that want something with more depth and complexity that it scares away non-gamers.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"Yeah but it could have been so much more"

"just been part of a bigger game that strives to be the ultimate music game."

You're only kidding yourself, really.  ______ could have been so much more, EVERYTHING could have been so much more.

If Nintendo were to set out to consistently make "the ultimate ____ game," they'd either develop themselves out of existence since there'd never be a "next game," or they'd end up a one-game-a-decade company like Blizzard, since you're asking all projects to have 4-year+ development cycles.

You really are stuck in the N64 era.

[Jonnyboy117]

Sales don't equal quality. Wii Music is lame, sounds terrible, and isn't fun. I hope the next "Wii ___" game is much better. And I don't mean Resort, which should be solid.

[ThomasO]

Forgive me for briefly derailing here...

It could have allowed people to write their own material, but instead you can just record a performance of already written songs (most of which are cheap ass public domain music).

You don't just record a performance of written songs, it allows you arrange the songs in a way that you see fit. It encourages people to be creative and try out different playing styles. Not many people can easily write their own material (plus all I can see with such a feature is more copying existing songs) nor is the control scheme for Wii Music really appropriate for professional song writing. There are dozens of computer programs that already do that. Instead it allows the player to mess around with the soundtrack for the song, playing it as they want. I've made at least 20 arrangements of songs that I'm happy with, others I need to find ways to improve them. To me, Wii Music is not just a free form music game, but I also see it as a sort of introduction to music theory: how music actually works. I'm happy with the finished product.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Sales don't equal quality. Wii Music is lame, sounds terrible, and isn't fun. I hope the next "Wii ___" game is much better. And I don't mean Resort, which should be solid.

Who let the noncasuals in here.  Is this more "i already know how to play music so the rest of you should learn it first before you can have fun" snobbery that Ian used to preach?  Or just more disappointment there's no moving colors for pretend musicking.

"Not many people can easily write their own material (plus all I can see with such a feature is more copying existing songs)"

This.

[Ian Sane]

EVERYTHING could have been so much more.

Yeah but I'm not talking about some game that was unanimously praised and I'm just being this unrealistic dolt nitpicking the greatest game of all time.  Wii Music is widely considered to be complete horseshit.  In the views of the vast majority it does not even approach the level of quality that one expects of Nintendo.  I think expecting the game to at least attempt to be as good as Nintendo's core games is reasonable.  But it doesn't attempt that at all.

Not many people can easily write their own material

So all the more reason to include it.  Mario Paint included it.  So has society degraded so much that this was appropriate in 1993 but isn't now?  Nintendo could easily have made something that musicians and non-musicians alike could enjoy.  Instead of a fucking SNES game THEY MADE that doesn't even have music as its main focus complete squashes it.

And all the arranging and such could be done by just providing pre-written songs as well.  There is no reason to exclude the ability to manipulate notes, except to dumb things down.

I want to see the Wii Series just try to be great games and not be at all concerned about scaring away the non-gamer audience.  The truth is that audience is not NEARLY as stupid and helpless and Nintendo acts like they are and we'll get much better games as a result.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"In the views of the vast majority"

Who are you speaking for?

"The truth is that audience is not NEARLY as stupid and helpless"

There you go again, are you one of the casuals you speak of?

Who's expecting what of Nintendo?  The "seasoned minds" didn't expect Nintendo to receive so much success by catering to the "uninitiated" but they did just that.  I'm not sure the "uninitiated/vast majority" expected ANYTHING, be it quality or other, from Nintendo--the Pokemans-GameBoy company.  They were the NON-gamers, after all.

Mario Paint was capable of a lot, yet so little, cuz it would take forever to produce so much result with so much variety via learning from scratch.

Yeah society has degraded quite a bit since 1993, evidenced by it embracing games much more now than it did back then.

[NWR_pap64]

Um, I hate to break up the party but since Pale just finished warning Morari over derailing the Grinder thread shouldn't we stop with the Wii Music argument before the whole thread gets derailed? I understand that this is directly related to Wii Music, but its evident that people that hate Wii Music is going to bash it while those that love it will defend it.

Its a very old and EXTREMELY tired argument so maybe we should just end it there and speculate on what Wii Fit Plus and Art Academy might be.

[ThomasO]

Wii Fit Plus might be hard to speculate on because... what can you do with both the Balance Board and MotionPlus to create new exercise activities?

What I'd really like to see though, are more Aerobics games. Wii Fit only had 4 distinct games. Also a "Play-All" feature that can automatically have the player circle through the Yoga and Strength Training exercises either consecutively, randomly, or alternatively.

[NWR_pap64]

Wii Fit Plus might be hard to speculate on because... what can you do with both the Balance Board and MotionPlus to create new exercise activities?

What I'd really like to see though, are more Aerobics games. Wii Fit only had 4 distinct games.

I just hope there are more exercises and more balance games and hope they don't force the unlocking system on us again.

[King of Twitch]

Ian does have a point, if they approach art like they did music, it will simply be paint by number. But if the actual translation is "Art Academy" and not another entry in the Wii __ series, it could be deep enough to keep all 3 Mario Paint DD64 owners happy and then some.

[Jonnyboy117]

If there really is an Art Academy, I hope it will live up to the name and not only encourage creativity but also actually teach you some art techniques. That would be really useful for some of us (my stick figures look bad) while also potentially entertaining.

But the control interface for such a thing is very interesting. If you're really drawing on the screen... the Wii Remote is not very good for that. It can capture broad strokes, at best. So perhaps this is a clue towards Nintendo's next Wii peripheral. MotionPlus might help with certain aspects of the drawing motion, as well.

[Peachylala]

it would take forever to produce so much result with so much variety via learning from scratch.

Yeah society has degraded quite a bit since 1993, evidenced by it embracing games much more now than it did back then.

But...but...

I want Mario Paint Wii. 

[NovaQ]

If there really is an Art Academy, I hope it will live up to the name and not only encourage creativity but also actually teach you some art techniques. That would be really useful for some of us (my stick figures look bad) while also potentially entertaining.

But the control interface for such a thing is very interesting. If you're really drawing on the screen... the Wii Remote is not very good for that. It can capture broad strokes, at best. So perhaps this is a clue towards Nintendo's next Wii peripheral. MotionPlus might help with certain aspects of the drawing motion, as well.

A drawing pad peripheral would make me very happy. It would also let the upcoming Drawn to Life Wii release potentially make more sense. And as an art teacher, I'd be interested to see what an art tutoring Wii product could do for many people's art skills -- especially with Jonny's suggested new peripheral and WiiFit-level popularity. Who knows -- the age of stick figures might soon be over!

[Ian Sane]

Ian does have a point, if they approach art like they did music, it will simply be paint by number. But if the actual translation is "Art Academy" and not another entry in the Wii __ series, it could be deep enough to keep all 3 Mario Paint DD64 owners happy and then some.

This is more or less what my point was.  Sorry to derail things.

[NWR_insanolord]

Why are we assuming Art Academy is a Wii game? I think the very fact that Wii is not in the title and also that Big Brain Academy was initially a DS game indicate that this could be a DS game. The stylus/touch screen interface would be much better for drawing than the Wii pointer as well.