So there are these two basketball teams going at it on the blacktop; at first, one team just continues to throw down rim-rattling dunks and continues to dominate. It's like the Globetrotters goin' nuts. Then, the other team starts to recruit some star players, and now, the once-trod-upon team is rapidly making a comeback and cutting into the lead. Now, across the way, there's a baseball team practicing; no game going on, just a practice. They've already won a championship, and they're just breezin' along with an easy workout.
In this scenario, if you couldn't already guess, the Xbox 360 is the first b-ball team, the PS3 is the comeback competitor, and the baseball stars represent the Wii. The point is obvious: the PS3 and 360 will continue to do battle for quite some time while the Wii won't even factor in because, contrary to popular fanboy belief, the Wii is not a direct competitor. Why? The PS3 and 360 caters to gamers while the Wii caters to non-gamers; the families, the gadget-lovers, the trend-followers, etc. All one has to do is check the marketing campaigns for all three interested parties, and that should be more than enough evidence. The Wii commercials so far have featured senior citizens bowling, parents and children playing together, two adult women wandering around in Animal Crossing, dozens of people in the background trying out the new Wii instruments, and the like. All of this indicates one common focus. It's the worldwide appeal of something accessible, and there's nothing wrong with that, but...
In any Wii commercial you have ever seen, would you ever locate someone you would perceive as a "gamer?" Honestly? Furthermore, it's painfully obvious Nintendo isn't interested in producing impressive software; it's all about the gimmick and always has been. Just look at 2008. Of the top 25 titles of the year, how many are on the Wii? 1? 2? Any? Or perhaps the better question is, will any Wii titles be considered for Game of the Year against the likes of MGS4, GTAIV, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, LittleBigPlanet, etc.? The Wii defenders will instantly play the "yeah, we like to have fun" card, which of course implies that those who prefer the PS3 and 360 aren't having fun. ...yes, that's a water-tight argument there. You Wii lovers certainly can't hide behind a tower of top-notch software; it's basically all on the PS3 and 360, so that's a waste of time. The titles that push the envelope and make this generation what it is aren't possible on the Wii.
And that's because the Wii kinda operates in a weird parallel universe outside the gaming industry. Yes, they're video games...um...kinda. They're appreciated so long as the gimmick is appreciated. Look, I will forever applaud Nintendo for going a different direction in this new generation and deciding not to challenge Sony and Microsoft; they simply targeted a demographic that - as far as I can tell - is the exact opposite demographic that would buy the PS3 and/or 360. While I'm aware it's purely anecdotal evidence, let me just say that everyone I know who owns a Wii most certainly isn't a gamer, and would never own either the PS3 or 360. They saw the commercials and thought it'd be a cool electronic toy for themselves or the kids; the last video game they played was Pac-Man. What, with the trillions of Wiis around the world, do you really, truly, honestly believe we're talking about the sudden explosion of gamers? Or, and I'm just tossing this out there, we're talking about everyone else...?
I hold nothing against Nintendo, nor do I care if you're a Wii fan. If you're having fun, great. It's all entertainment, but no logical human can ever say that the PS3 and 360 are in direct competition with the Wii. Totally different target audience, and a totally different method of delivering entertainment. One is a video game, the other is more like one of those old Tiger handhelds brought to life in your hands with a fancy peripheral. The point is, Sony and MS should just focus on themselves and each other, as should those who follow the industry. And I'll tell you this- the more we move through this generation, the more my theory will become accepted...the more everyone will start to recognize the distinct difference between the PS3/360 and the Wii.
I liked this article not because it brings up an all too familiar topic but because the writer focuses on Nintendo not really even fighting the same console war as MS and Sony. I believe that even Nintendo themselves have said as much in the past, but fans and haters alike still tend to make the mistake of clumping the three companies together as if they were in the same market. I know I've personally done it in the past because I've always wanted to see Nintendo back on top. But now that they're back in the spotlight we need to ask ourselves what is it they're really back on top of? What do you who've read the article think about the topic?
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well you could take this in the way that they can now focus on fighting for second place...
The article doesn't see the forest for the trees. Living and profiting off a hardcore fanbase can been done, but its difficult and basically Nintendo is the only one that has managed to pull it off. Sega never really made any money and had to pull out of the hardware market. The X-box lost billions and if it were produced by stand a lone company and not MS they would have went out of business as well. Sony is teetering on the brink because the market that bankrolled their success is playing gimmicky not quite video games.
The Wii isn't in competition with the 360 and PS3. Not because its not a game console but because it's so far ahead of them the race for this generation is over. The truth of the matter is the 360 and PS3 have no choice but to compete for runner up.
The article came off as "moving the goalposts." When the Wii was announced industry at large thought it was going to "get killed" by the 360 and PS3. It reminds of the DS/PSP battle all over again. Let's flip the situation. If the Wii was dead last and the PS3 and 360 were fighting for first, would anyone by this brand of logic? "The Wii isn't competing, its going for new market. It doesn't matter that it's last." We all know that no one would buy that. So why this logic fit the current reality of the situation.
Every time I see an article like this, it always misses the biggest point. There are only one set of third party developers. Not only that, go into your local retailers. Look at the shelf space. Think back to when the Wii and PS3 launched. Now who has lost shelf space and who has gained it?
Darc: It's true that there's only one set of third-party developers, but who are they really putting their support behind? They're making money off the Wii with inexpensive efforts and putting the real time and effort into the HD consoles that they feel hold a higher concentration of their target market.
The article came off as "moving the goalposts." When the Wii was announced industry at large thought it was going to "get killed" by the 360 and PS3.
It has nothing to do with "moving the goalposts" at all. Nobody knew that the Wii would turn out to be more of a novelty than a game machine. Likewise, nobody knew that the majority of the people who would own/play the system would not be gamers but rather people who care very little about gaming at all. These suggestions could only have been made now, after seeing what each system has become over the past 2-3 years.
Let's just call casual gaming for what it really is: Mainstream. And anybody who's ever cared about any industry knows that the product and the industry as a whole gets severely compromised when it turns mainstream or goes commercial. Was Nintendo the first company to turn gaming mainstream? No, but they're certainly capitalizing on it and if it weren't for Sony and especially MS right now we gamers would be sitting in the middle of a completely altered and watered down hobby right now. If the Wii were a rap artists it would be known as a "sellout", which is a bad thing in other industries so why is it seen as a good thing in this case?
What Sony was able to do with both the PS1 and the PS2 by selling 100 million units each without casting aside the core gamer in the process is something that will never be able to be done again. So video game companies need to forget about that and decide which side of the market they are on, either the core game side or the casual game side. I believe that a console maker should be able to be content with putting out the type of core games that it wants to and be able to make a profit off of the software and eventually the hardware. This quest for the biggest slice of the pie is hurting those who take gaming seriously altering the very thing they love and have been loyal to right in front of their eyes.
It always irritates me when I hear people say this:
Quote:
Furthermore, it's painfully obvious Nintendo isn't interested in producing impressive software; it's all about the gimmick and always has been.
People seem to forget the fact that Nintendo has published Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Zelda: Twilight Princess. They produced these "hardcore" games in rapid succession near the beginning of the Wii's life cycle. And, as Nintendo has stated, these types of games take a long time to make. Of course you're going to see more Wii Sports-like titles come out. They don't nearly take as long to cook in the oven compared to these deeper titles. Does this necessarily mean that Nintendo "isn't interested in producing impressive software"? No, it doesn't. It means that while, yes, they are shifting focus more (although certainly not all) to casual games, that does not mean they are using their resources solely for shallow games.
This quotation is also a little bit strange for me:
Quote:
The point is, Sony and MS should just focus on themselves and each other, as should those who follow the industry.
Does that make sense from a business perspective? Aren't businesses trying to have their product appeal to the largest number of available consumers? Already you can see that Microsoft is trying to follow in Nintendo's footsteps. They have those new Xbox avatars that are similar to Miis and they are trying to push more casual games like Lips. I don't think Microsoft and Sony can ignore Nintendo at this point. Nintendo has shown what a large audience video games can draw in and Microsoft and Sony have to be looking now.
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^Yes those quotes you quoted are awful and show a stupid inflected bias. The second one basically says, don't bother supporting the largest cash cow if you're a real game maker and care about/follow the industry. The first one you hit well enough, stupid comment by a slanted writer.
Darc: It's true that there's only one set of third-party developers, but who are they really putting their support behind? They're making money off the Wii with inexpensive efforts and putting the real time and effort into the HD consoles that they feel hold a higher concentration of their target market.
Which is why 80% of games released tank. You can't ignore the largest part of the market. The casual market has been the larger part of the market since the PS1 took off. You didn't see third parties ignore the Playstation for the more hardcore Sega and Nintendo fans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MR EPIC
It has nothing to do with "moving the goalposts" at all. Nobody knew that the Wii would turn out to be more of a novelty than a game machine. Likewise, nobody knew that the majority of the people who would own/play the system would not be gamers but rather people who care very little about gaming at all. These suggestions could only have been made now, after seeing what each system has become over the past 2-3 years.
Let's just call casual gaming for what it really is: Mainstream. And anybody who's ever cared about any industry knows that the product and the industry as a whole gets severely compromised when it turns mainstream or goes commercial. Was Nintendo the first company to turn gaming mainstream? No, but they're certainly capitalizing on it and if it weren't for Sony and especially MS right now we gamers would be sitting in the middle of a completely altered and watered down hobby right now. If the Wii were a rap artists it would be known as a "sellout", which is a bad thing in other industries so why is it seen as a good thing in this case?
What Sony was able to do with both the PS1 and the PS2 by selling 100 million units each without casting aside the core gamer in the process is something that will never be able to be done again. So video game companies need to forget about that and decide which side of the market they are on, either the core game side or the casual game side. I believe that a console maker should be able to be content with putting out the type of core games that it wants to and be able to make a profit off of the software and eventually the hardware. This quest for the biggest slice of the pie is hurting those who take gaming seriously altering the very thing they love and have been loyal to right in front of their eyes.
Epic what Sony did was no different from what Nintendo is doing now. They had to draw in a new audience because Sega and Nintendo diehards would be slow to accept them. Not only that, as a fan of 2D games, Sony damn sure cast us aside. They did everything they could to discourage 2D game development. The bulk of the gamers that try to marginalize Nintendo either never were fans of the company or became fans of Sony well over a decade ago. You can't abandon a group of gamers that had already left you.
The criticisms of the Wii and Nintendo shift like the wind. At first it is competing, but now its not. It was fad, but after two years of exploding sells that one can't be used anymore. For the longest time, people insisted that Nintendo hadn't expanded the market at all. Now because it continues to sell that isn't questioned any longer either. Just because you don't like what Wii does, does not make it a non competitor. If Sony or MS follow this notion they'll find themselves out of the industry.
Sascha I know it's an editorial and opinion based, but I think it's still safe to say that an opinion can be slanted depending on the writers taste. He's going off of feeling instead of reality which is why I made the comment.
Which is why 80% of games released tank. You can't ignore the largest part of the market. The casual market has been the larger part of the market since the PS1 took off. You didn't see third parties ignore the Playstation for the more hardcore Sega and Nintendo fans.
Point me to the distinctly casual games on the PSX, those equivalent to the distinctly casual games on the Wii. The best selling games on Playstation were, in order:
Gran Turismo
Final Fantasy VII
Gran Turismo II
Tomb Raider II
Metal Gear Solid
Tomb Raider
Crash Bandicoot
Final Fantasy VIII
Crash Bandicoot 3
Crash Bandicoot 2
Resident Evil 2 Spyro the Dragon
Tekken 3
Dragon Quest VII Rayman
Resident Evil 3 Spyro 2 Frogger Parappa the Rapper
Final Fantasy IX
Resident Evil
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Driver
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Final Fantasy Tactics
WWF War Zone Everybody's Golf
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Driver 2 Derby Stallion
Namco Museum Volume 3 Crash Team Racing
Twisted Metal 2 Namco Museum Volume 1
Syphon Filter A Bug's Life Spider-Man Everybody's Golf 2
NFL GameDay '98
Tomb Raider III Dance Dance Revolution
Spec Ops
Chrono Cross
Cool Boarders 3
Cool Boarders 2
Dragon Warrior IV
Dino Crisis 2 Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon
Syphon Filter 2
Grand Theft Auto 2
Jet Moto 2
Twisted Metal III
Xenogears
Resident Evil Director's Cut
NFL GameDay '99
Arc the Lad Beatmania Crash Bash Derby Stallion '99
Jet Moto
SaGa Frontier
Devil Dice
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Parasite Eve II Pac-Man World
Test Drive 5
Twisted Metal
Arc the Lad II Densha de Go! Monopoly Intelligent Qube Simple 1500 Series Vol. 1: The Mahjong
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Tomorrow Never Dies Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Parasite Eve
These are world-wide sales, some accounted for entirely by North America, others entirely by Japan, most a mix of NA, Europe and Japan. I've bolded all the games I think could be argued as 'casual' in the same sense as casual Wii titles. I think you'll find that 3rd parties have been delivering equivalents to those titles to the Wii.
I've said it many times and I'll say it again, you can't compare the 'casual gamer' as it was defined during the PSX era (and to a lesser degree the PS2, although there was definitely a transition happening) and the current 'casual gamer' of the Wii era. If the success of the PSX and PSX games was due to an influx of casual, infrequent gamers (which I agree with), then those gamers were simply drawn towards traditional games that were marketed in a different way and offered different subject matter.
Are you going to argue that Gran Turismo (the deepest racing simulation ever made), Final Fantasy (once considered so dense that westerners pretty much avoided it), Resident Evil (difficult and scary), Tomb Raider (difficult, requires multi-tasking and problem solving), Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the like were 'casual' games as we define them today, played by the same types of people that buy Wii Fit or Wii Play en masse? The casual gamer of the PSX era was just a gamer that played traditional 'hardcore' games less; car nuts who had never picked up a controller drawn in by the depth of Gran Turismo, consumers attracted by the production value of Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, hell, the average guy that noticed Lara Croft on magazine covers.
The 'casual gamer' as it is now defined by Nintendo is very different, and third party developers are taking that into account as they develop their games.
Epic what Sony did was no different from what Nintendo is doing now. They had to draw in a new audience because Sega and Nintendo diehards would be slow to accept them. Not only that, as a fan of 2D games, Sony damn sure cast us aside. They did everything they could to discourage 2D game development.
There is a BIG difference between what Sony did and what Nintendo is doing now. First of all, I wouldn't say that we were "fans" of 2D gaming but rather fans of video games in general. 2D games were all that we had up to that point and 3D was just the natural progression of the industry. And at least what Sony was pushing were more video games. A lot of what makes up the Wii library are mini-games and titles that traditional gamers wouldn't take a second look at. When I owned an N64 and would look at the wall of PS1 games, I admit I was a bit envious at times. Now when I look at a wall of Wii games, I search for the nearest receptacle to throw up in.
Street Racer
Asteroids
Nut Nut
Plops
Yankee Go Home
Hook Line & Sinker
Mad Shark
Mumu
Hexxagon
Crazy Closet
Mini KickUps
Starcastle
Grand Prix Challenge 2
Linear Mode
