Wii Jack of All Trades, A Master of None…
posted on May 29th, 2007 | Written By FarmerA combanation of this interview and a bad day sparked this rant.
Nintendo’s George Harrison at next-gen.biz:
“We also have a belief that we can be, of this lifecycle, 40-45% of the hardware that’s being sold…we could get over 50%. And a lot of that depends on what our competitors do. If they only focus on the Grand Theft Autos and the Halos and things of that nature, they’re focusing on a very tiny part of the market. The overall market is growing so dramatically that they’re going to miss out on the opportunities that we’re seeing in the expanded audience.”
This is great and all, given their enthusiasm and great expectations for the Wii but I have a problem with it. That is the chance for neglect to the core gamer. Sure it’s almost a given that if the focus for Sony & MS are set on your GTA’s and Halo’s they won’t be able to match the success of the Wii given it’s broad target audience. But I would rather have another generation over saturated with GTA & Halo clones than with Wii Sports & Brain Age clones.
This is where my issue comes in and that’s the Wii’s expanding target audience and the general business sense to go where the money is. What will happen to a publishers mind set when deciding on a game to promote for the Wii when the Wii Sports and quarky games like that out sell the GTA’s and Halo’s by a margin that can’t be ignored when it comes to profit?
Will we be subjected to an onslaught of Far Cry: Vengeance games that are sub par, watered down, thrown together by a monkey with duck tape, type of games for the core gamer? In turn leaving us with a once in a blue moon hit to play with for a generation. While the “ipod” trend followers flood to the Wii demanding more Wii Sports and stupidly easy “casual” games in which they are given just that due to the greater numbers trumping the core gamer who can actually comprehend something more complicated than a bowling game.
There is one thing I do know and that is I can count on the 360 & PS3 to continue to deliver the games I’ve come to enjoy playing. I will also keep in the back of my mind when these doubts start to come forward that Nintendo has stated they won’t forget the core gamer but what are they doing to ensure that the 3rd parties don’t over saturate the casual niche with clones and rejects while forgetting about the core?
Don’t get me wrong I love my Wii (hehe) and I’ve stood by what Nintendo has done thus far but now…I’m having a bad day and the pre-summer drought blues are kicking in.
Just give me online play in Metroid Prime: Corruption and I’ll be happy…for a second and then I will start bitching about the need for new IP’s that have nothing to do with Mario, Metroid, or Zelda…or any other game that has ever been created before from 1st to 3rd party.
