Topic: What Bubble?

[Nick DiMola]

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=17392

  I've been hearing for a while now that somehow the bubble is going to burst with the Wii; that the fad is going to end. People surely won't care soon, right?    

Wrong. The Wii is here to stay whether people like it or not. Did the DS bubble ever burst? Of course it didn't, because it wasn't (isn't) a fad. I find it particularly surprising that people still don't see the parallels between Nintendo's two systems.    

Casuals signed on with the DS when Brain Age, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, and New Super Mario Bros. made their debut, and since then the system has become one of the best selling pieces of hardware in gaming history. Furthermore, the system has become a haven for all games of any type, not just a dumping ground for shovelware and cash-in "casual" games.    

I can only assume stubbornness has prevented most big companies from jumping on the Wii bandwagon, but it looks like with Dragon Quest X and Monster Hunter Tri in line for Wii releases, it's going to be impossible to eschew Wii development. Similarly, the "hardcore" crowd will be forced into a Wii purchase in order to continue playing the series they covet from prior generations.    

A recession won't stop this train either. Even if it does drag down entertainment sales as a whole, the Wii is no more likely to lose sales than either the PS3 or the Xbox 360, especially with its competitive pricing.    

Perhaps people want to keep predicting when the "fad" will end because they fear they will have to sacrifice what they covet about gaming. Traditional games will not cease to exist simply because companies shift focus to the Wii. More than likely, shifting these properties to Wii will ensure them a healthier future and a larger user base. Though games will suffer a resolution hit, it will hopefully allow a larger portion of the budget to be focused on substance rather than flash.    

I say sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride, because the Wii has got this generation on lockdown.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

There is no bubble, just one big ocean.

Come sail with me.

[Plugabugz]

There is no bubble, just one big ocean.

Come sail with me.

Lets fly lets fly away.............

[Urkel]

Once everybody buys an HDTV they'll realize just how shitty their Wii games look on it and then they'll sell it for a PS3 to get Killzone 2.

[NWR_Neal]

...Or that's when Wii HD will come out.

[DAaaMan64]

Eh I hook up AC via RCA onto a nice 42" and it looks crisp, with very little jaggies. Thats good enough for now.

[Djunknown]

Similarly, the "hardcore" crowd will be forced into a Wii purchase in order to continue playing the series they covet from prior generations.

Or, they'll quit gaming altogether, cursing up a storm saying Nintendo 'ruined' gaming, stamping their feet like spoiled children saying that gaming stopped being about them. In short, they'll cut their nose to spite their face.

Good, short blog post.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Eh, I own two HDTVs and while Wii games do look a bit worse on average than on standard def, they aren't chasing me off or anything. Some games definitely are hurt more by HDTVs than others...but just like how high-quality GC games looked better on an HDTV, so do high-quality Wii visuals.

[Urkel]

Lol, my comment about the Wii and HD was sarcastic.

That was the sort of thing Wii haters were saying a year ago, as if all these Wii owners didn't care about the graphical gap between Wii Sports and Gears of War, but would suddenly care once something with even more awesome graphics came out.

[KDR_11k]

This may have been relevant a year ago but I think even Pachter has shut up by now.

This whole "oh noes SD is hurting mah eyes" talk seems to me more like buyer's remorse. When the N64 came out PC gamers were already playing in 640x480, when the Gamecube came it was up to around 1280x960 already and now that consoles are HD some people are playing at 2560x1920. Yet people have never whined about consoles running at SD (or 320x240 or lower) before. Why did people suddently start complaining about SD when HD came out despite gaming at HD resolutions having been commonplace on the PC for a long time already? If SD is so unbearable why haven't you gone PC-only last gen?

One theory I heard was that many people have HDTVs that are REALLY bad at coping with lower resolutions, thereby making SD uglier than it should be.

[chrono disorder]

I can't see why everyone here is focusing on resolution as a limit to traditional gaming. The issue, for me, is control.
Traditional gaming, particularly in Nintendo's history is about giving unobstructed  precise control to the gamer. Nintendo broke this tradition with the Wii remote : it is badly designed, with poorly placed face buttons. I understand the reasons behind their placement, but I can't believe the investment in a better arrangement would not have been worth it. Because of the current design, traditional games lack the flexibility required to come up with good button layouts and end up using some unoriginal gesture to fill up the most essential functions. Unfortunately, shaking the Wii remote to perform basic attack movement is imprecise, distracting, anti-ergonomic and embarrassing, while having no advantage from a gameplay perspective. Having a Wii MotionPlus level of precision would probably have compensated, if more relevant and precision-conscious gesture had been used, and if the device is successful,  my faith may return in the future. For now, the Wii is nothing more than a good casual-gaming device.
I rented Super Mario Galaxy, the sequel to one of my favorite game of all time, Super Mario 64, and I was happy with mostly everything. Now I am waiting for a solution to experience this Wii game in  its deserved glory : with a face button as an attack trigger. I hope I don't have to wait for Wii emulation on PC but rather that  some clever person soon comes up with a way of tricking the Wii into perceiving traditional input from a traditional controller as if it was a gimmicky gesture from a Wii remote. I hope more and more games allow the optional use of the traditional controller and Gamecube controller, but what about those that won't, like Super Mario Galaxy? Nintendo has yet to allow people to launch Super Smash Bros Brawl with a Gamecube controller, that alone would raise the concern of people still attached to “hardcore” gaming on Nintendo's home system.

[KDR_11k]

Generally if you start mapping digital commands to analog inputs you should step back and think if there's really no better way (i.e. something that actually benefits from analog inputs being mapped there instead). Maybe you could drop some of the actions you added that aren't really useful anyway or merge them together, many games have massive bloat there that was probably just added to have some features the previous iteration of the series didn't have.

I don't see a problem with the movement to attack in SMG though, it's a rare command anyway and the slapping gesture is fitting, like saying "get outta my face!". If you can't execute that consistently maybe you should go and see a doctor.

Movement also adds something to the game since it releases more adrenaline and creates a stronger connection with the action. Quick, snappy actions being performed by a quick movement of the controller can very well increase the fun in a game. Many games use pretty sloppy movements though where you have to repeat the input a lot to actually trigger it (I think the grabbing thing in Metroid Prime 3 was unresponsive at times), that hurts the game massively because it creates a disconnect and sometimes makes it just annoying.

[Ian Sane]

The DS isn't a fad and no one considers it one anymore.  But it actually deserves it's success now.  It has a pretty respectable library of games.  G!mmicky bullsh!t touchscreen usage has been toned down and the DS is more like the next Gameboy now, that just happens to have a touchscreen.

The Wii comes across as a fad because it doesn't deserve its sales.  It has a really weak ass lineup of games.  Third party support, until the current DQX announcement, was a complete joke and Nintendo now actually releases crap games (like Wii Music or Wii Play) and those actually sell.  Crap sells on the Wii.  That is the most backwards bizarro-logic in the world.  So of course it seems like a fad.  Great games get released on the other consoles and make no impact while junk sells like hotcakes on the Wii.  Now the DS was like that at first as well.  The DS was crap at first.  Total crap with crap games.  But it got better.

My only concern about the Wii is it's potential to get better.  It's not exactly the same as the DS as it has two major restrictions holding it back.

1. The hardware is not a significant upgrade from last gen.  The DS however is a significant step-up from the GBA comparable to the jump from SNES to N64.

2. The controller is inflexible and g!mmicky.  It's been out for two years and I can say it's a crappy controller.  With the odd exception like Wii Sports it's unsuitable as a controller standard.  It's like a lightgun or a flight stick or a dance pad in that it's suitable for certain games but is too unconventional and inflexible to be a default controller.  The DS has no such issue.  The touchscreen is an ADDITION to the GBA control scheme.  Take it away and the DS still has a SNES controller based design that is perfectly suitable for portable gaming.

Take away the g!mmicky controls and the DS becomes what a conventional follow-up to the GBA would have been anyway - a clear step up in hardware power, 3D capabilities, online gaming and two extra face buttons.  Do the same for the Wii and you've got Gamecube 1.5 that doesn't even come with the conventional controller.  Uh oh.  See the difference?  The only real step up is the online gaming that Nintendo SHOULD have introduced last gen anyway.

The whole justification for the Wii is the remote.  But it's not a suitable conventional controller.  It's quite clear the whole design for it was based on the theory that a, you know, USEFUL controller is too confusing so an NES controller with waggle will get your parents to buy videogames.  It's a marketing tool like R.O.B. except it actually has some decent games that use it.  The problem is for the Wii to truly turn out like the DS it has to make a transitional from g!mmicky non-gamer system to conventional videogame system that just happens to also be popular with non-gamers.  It has less potential to do so because unlike the DS the ideal conventional hardware isn't hidden within the g!mmicky shell.

I hope DQX will attract some decent third party support but to truly shed the fad label waggle has got to go.  Maybe Motion+ can do it but I think we need to start seeing the Classic Controller be regarded as the default and the remote as the speciality controller that only gets used when appropriate.  That was for the most part what happened with the DS.  The system got going once everyone realized the touchscreen sucked and stopped using it.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Ian by your definition a  Blu-ray Movies and UMD movies are a fad do people give a **** about them? No because DVDs are cheaper, still look pretty damn good (even upscaled on my PS3) and is still the predominant format because of the HDTV and HDMI fad .

[NWR_insanolord]

Out of the two dozen or so Wii games that I own I can't think of a single one of them that would control significantly better with a standard controller but I can think of quite a few that would be worse with one.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Out of the two dozen or so Wii games that I own I can't think of a single one of them that would control significantly better with a standard controller but I can think of quite a few that would be worse with one.

Well Insano the interesting thing is some of the games that might control better on a traditional controller probably have classic controller or gamecube controller support.

[KDR_11k]

Ian, don't censor your language by hand, the forums have a filter that fails to work if you do that (wasn't it even against the rules to circumvent the filter?) and those who browse with the filter disabled are just confused.

Also you can't call Wii Play crap, many people actually enjoy it. It's not a shoddy game that you wish you'd never bought, it's actually good enough to warrant buying. Other people might very well enjoy what you don't like.

I don't think you can go "traditional" without losing the new customers from the new approach, they don't want "traditional" gaming.

(isn't UMD an ended fad that was never big?)

[NWR_insanolord]

Out of the two dozen or so Wii games that I own I can't think of a single one of them that would control significantly better with a standard controller but I can think of quite a few that would be worse with one.

Well Insano the interesting thing is some of the games that might control better on a traditional controller probably have classic controller or gamecube controller support.

Yeah I didn't count Brawl or Mario Kart because they give the option, even though I personally play Brawl with remote/nunchuk.

[D_Average]

The bubble has already burst for many gamers but the casuals will continue to stare at it and be amazed.

I however, don't regret purchasing the Wii as it successfully sucked my wife into gaming and now she makes me play Pixeljunk Monsters until my eyes bleed.  So I say well done Nintendo, "Mission Accomplished!"

[DAaaMan64]

Also you can't call Wii Play crap, many people actually enjoy it. It's not a shoddy game that you wish you'd never bought, it's actually good enough to warrant buying. Other people might very well enjoy what you don't like.

Plus it was only 10 bucks. It was worth that.

[Kairon]

According to some youtube videos, Wii Play is a hardcore game. *scared*

[Ian Sane]

Ian, don't censor your language by hand, the forums have a filter that fails to work if you do that (wasn't it even against the rules to circumvent the filter?) and those who browse with the filter disabled are just confused.

What do you mean by this?  What is my manual censorship doing to the post?

Does NWR still censor normal words like g-i-m-m-i-c-k or k-i-d-d-y?  I can understand the censorship of swear words but with anything else if using the word without a manual censorship is going to prevent my post from making any sense I'm going to manually get around the block.

Also you can't call Wii Play crap, many people actually enjoy it.

What the hell logic is that?  Many people like it?  SO?  There's a whole huge gaggle of non-gamers that like all sorts of crap.  I can't call a game crap because it's popular?

Ian by your definition a  Blu-ray Movies and UMD movies are a fad do people give a **** about them? No because DVDs are cheaper, still look pretty damn good (even upscaled on my PS3) and is still the predominant format because of the HDTV and HDMI fad

UMD wasn't a fad because it was never popular.   It was just a dumb idea that the public justifiably rejected.  Blu-ray is a niche format comparible to Laserdisc for videophiles.  While something will likely replace DVD someday it will be far enough away the Blu-ray likely won't be the successor.  It probably won't even be an optical disc.  HDTV is not a fad, it's the new standard of television like how color TV was way back when.

No one crapped on HD until Nintendo declined to support it.  Now it sucks just like online sucked last gen but doesn't now because Nintendo now supports it.

[DAaaMan64]

gimmick kiddy

[Kairon]

Now it sucks just like online sucked last gen but doesn't now because Nintendo now supports it.

What are you talking about? Online still sucks.

I'm still waiting for an MMO to make me feel like the next generation of consistent online worlds has arrived, or at least to last more than 6 months against the WoW juggernaut that was nice but which I have since quit forever. I'm still waiting for people to be connected to each other by things more meaningful than their urge to blow each other up, though yes Team Fortress has created an experience that manages to reduce a lot of the excess aggression that can boil over. And I'd still rather play a game with people in my own living room, even if Mario Kart Wii goes Online just fine.

[D_Average]

Now it sucks just like online sucked last gen but doesn't now because Nintendo now supports it.

What are you talking about? Online still sucks.

"Sucks" is an understatement.  Nintendo basically re-released Melee so we could finally Smash online and they STILL haven't fixed it.  Grrrrrrrrrr