6 things that’ll make the Nintendo Wii a success August 3, 2006
Written by: ryansgoblog.com
As everybody knows, motion sensitive input is nothing new to the console world. Others have tried to make motion sensors a popular part of the gaming experience over the years, including SEGA and Microsoft. And you know what? They failed. Most people of today haven’t even heard of the old devices, and even fewer have ever used one.History has a tendency to repeat itself, so what’s to stop the Wii taking a few steps and then falling flat onto its face? If past efforts went so badly, why won’t this one? As far as I’m concerned there are six things that when combined will give the Wii the success Nintendo wants.
1. The Wii’s motion sensor device will not be optional
This is probably the most important point of all. Put simply, consumers will get no choice in the matter of whether or not their console supports motion sensor technology. They don’t need to buy anything extra to make it work; it’s there right out of the box.
Why is this important, you ask? It’s all about necessity. People like to spend as little as possible if they can. Think about yourself. You generally buy games and a memory card for your consoles, right? But what about all the other things that’re available? How many of you own the addon for the GameCube that lets you play GameBoy games? What about the EyeToy for the Playstation? Super GameBoy for the Super Nintendo? Just three examples out of dozens.
That’s right: most people don’t bother with extraneous hardware. Anything not included with the main console is almost always discarded as a gimmick. By including the device with the console from the outset, a massive group of people who wouldn’t otherwise bother have been penetrated.
This is why those who say “They might as well just release the Wiimote for the GameCube� are talking garbage. If Nintendo did this, it wouldn’t sell. You know it and they know it. Nintendo understands that the only way to standardise a piece of hardware is to push it as a mandatory component. Nintendo invented neither the D-Pad nor the analogue stick, but by respectively making them an included part of the NES and N64 they standardised both. That’s a fact.
2. Developers will have to cater for the Wiimote
What’s the best way to make sure developers for your console embrace your new input device and make games that exploit it to its fullest? You give them no choice. As many heard around E3 time, the Wii will come with a second controller known as the “classic controller�, designed for playing pre-Wii games and apart from its appearance is basically a GameCube controller.
However, a lot of fans have deduced that instead of messing around with the Wiimote, developers will simply use the classic controller and continue doing things as they’ve always done. Even with the Wiimote as a mandatory piece of hardware, it’ll be ignored and point #1 of this list will be rendered redundant.
Problem is, this might not be an option. What’s to say Nintendo hasn’t designed the system so the classic controller can only be used with classic games? Or more specifically, it’ll only become usable when in backwards compatibility mode. This’d mean that even when developing fairly conventional games, utilising the Wiimote would be necessary. Therefore it’d be in the best interests of developers to at least use it well.
But that’s not all. Everybody knows Nintendo has no problem with hardware; they’ve a history of creating superb technology, and have often led the way with graphics. The GameCube was an excellent piece of hardware for its time, as was the N64, SNES and NES. So why does the Wii have hardware with far less brute force than its two main competitors? Why would Nintendo openly let themselves fall behind?
Two reasons. The first is of course cost: developing advanced technology requires a lot of money, which ends up falling on the consumer’s shoulder. Because of the Wii’s relatively light hardware, it’ll have an appropriately light price tag, rumoured to be an absolute maximum of $250 but probably less. The second reason is focus: by making sure developers can’t rely on graphics as a major selling point, they’ll be forced into impressing people with innovative gameplay, the Wiimote of course being the most accessible way of doing this.
Developing for the Wii and not using the Wiimote would be bad resource management at its worst. This is a console that makes focusing on graphics impossible, so not making full use of what it does have  a new input device  would be ludicrous. Of course, this could result in publishers simply telling Nintendo to stuff it and working on games for the Xbox 360 and PS3 instead, but since lots have already signed up to work on the Wii this isn’t likely.
3. The Wii will be a lot cheaper than its competitors
The Wii is going to have a massive advantage as far as pricing goes. At the moment an Xbox 360 costs around £280 ($360) and its games go for about £50 ($93) a time. The Playstation 3 is said to debut at £425 ($800) with games more expensive than the Xbox 360’s. If those prices look a bit high to the American readers out there, that’s because we get inflated to pieces in the UK.
They are scary numbers. They’re not the kind of prices your average gamer wants to pay, and definitely not the kind your family wants to spend on a Christmas present or whatever. The Wii on the other hand is as far as I’m aware confirmed to be less than $250 at launch, and Nintendo has hinted it will cost the same as their past consoles have launched at ($200/£130).
I don’t think I even need to elaborate on this point. The Wii’s price will be a lot more attractive to most people, and will at the very least grab their attention.
4. The DS has reestablished Nintendo’s credibility
The GameCube was extremely damaging to Nintendo. Because of its poor execution, a lot of people lost faith in the company. Even the most supportive of fans couldn’t help but be underwhelmed by the game selection and repressed by the general opinion others had of the machine (“You have a GameCube? Heh, heh, heh!�). Public perception of the Nintendo brand fell to an all-time low.
Then the DS came along. Originally it was discarded as another Nintendo gimmick, or a spin-off of their excessively large GameBoy line. But people couldn’t help noticing that the DS didn’t go away. It didn’t fail. Games didn’t stop being made for it, and they weren’t all ports. The DS was and is a massive success story.
Just to put into perspective how well the DS has done, let’s look at some rough numbers. Since last June, the DS has sold over 21 million units (source). That’s on par with what the GameCube has sold in its entire life (source), and only three million less than the Xbox has sold in its life (source). In other words, a bloody lot of DSs have been sold…
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Article Thief
Article Thief
Hi. Thanks for stealing this article wor
Hi. Thanks for stealing this article wor
Article Thief
Hi. Thanks for stealing this article wor
Did you notice the “Source” at the bottom?
This site gathers articles from MANY sources and ALWAYS posts the sources.
I’m in the process of hosting the images elsewhere, so there is no bandwidth theft.
Should I put on the top WIININTENDO.NET DID NOT WRITE THIS ARTICLE!
Did you notice the “Source” at the bottom?
This site gathers articles from MANY sources and ALWAYS posts the sources.
I’m in the process of hosting the images elsewhere, so there is no bandwidth theft.
Should I put on the top WIININTENDO.NET DID NOT WRITE THIS ARTICLE!
Did you notice the “Source” at the bottom?
This site gathers articles from MANY sources and ALWAYS posts the sources.
I’m in the process of hosting the images elsewhere, so there is no bandwidth theft.
Should I put on the top WIININTENDO.NET DID NOT WRITE THIS ARTICLE!
I’m certain you are not familiar with something called ‘fair use’ and ‘copyright’.
Putting a ‘source’ link at the bottom does not entitle you to posting the whole article as is. That’s ‘copyright’. You can post an excerpt – that’s ‘fair use’.
What you did was a violation of the law
I’m certain you are not familiar with something called ‘fair use’ and ‘copyright’.
Putting a ‘source’ link at the bottom does not entitle you to posting the whole article as is. That’s ‘copyright’. You can post an excerpt – that’s ‘fair use’.
What you did was a violation of the law
I’m certain you are not familiar with something called ‘fair use’ and ‘copyright’.
Putting a ‘source’ link at the bottom does not entitle you to posting the whole article as is. That’s ‘copyright’. You can post an excerpt – that’s ‘fair use’.
What you did was a violation of the law
Fair enough, I’ll post half and have a “Read More/ Source” to read the other half.
I’m just spreading the word of the Wii, I’m not claiming to write anything. People submit articles and I usually do just post a portion. I’m in the middle of still editing this one and when I eventually saw that there was nothing more on the “Source” I would have removed half the article.
I lose money on this site and I’m not here to exploit anybody, make money, or take credit. This site exists to spread the word of the Wii and read stuff from TONS of sites.
Good call, and I’m glad you brought this to my attention.
Fair enough, I’ll post half and have a “Read More/ Source” to read the other half.
I’m just spreading the word of the Wii, I’m not claiming to write anything. People submit articles and I usually do just post a portion. I’m in the middle of still editing this one and when I eventually saw that there was nothing more on the “Source” I would have removed half the article.
I lose money on this site and I’m not here to exploit anybody, make money, or take credit. This site exists to spread the word of the Wii and read stuff from TONS of sites.
Good call, and I’m glad you brought this to my attention.
Fair enough, I’ll post half and have a “Read More/ Source” to read the other half.
I’m just spreading the word of the Wii, I’m not claiming to write anything. People submit articles and I usually do just post a portion. I’m in the middle of still editing this one and when I eventually saw that there was nothing more on the “Source” I would have removed half the article.
I lose money on this site and I’m not here to exploit anybody, make money, or take credit. This site exists to spread the word of the Wii and read stuff from TONS of sites.
Good call, and I’m glad you brought this to my attention.
6 things that’ll make the Nintendo Wii a success…
nice…..
I appreciate that you’ve cut the article in half so that people at least have an incentive to visit my blog, but could you please rehost the images too?
I’m not the type to replace the filenames with something nasty, but you should bear in mind that people could very easily do so if you hotlink to them.
Plus it’s generally not nice to sap the bandwidth that I’m paying for. :/
No hard feelings though. If you’re just trying to spread the word then that’s great, just try to be courteous since everyone else has to pay for hosting too.
I appreciate that you’ve cut the article in half so that people at least have an incentive to visit my blog, but could you please rehost the images too?
I’m not the type to replace the filenames with something nasty, but you should bear in mind that people could very easily do so if you hotlink to them.
Plus it’s generally not nice to sap the bandwidth that I’m paying for. :/
No hard feelings though. If you’re just trying to spread the word then that’s great, just try to be courteous since everyone else has to pay for hosting too.
>> I always go through and replace the images, I’ve been busy at work today, I’ll host the images myself.
Great article by the way!
>> I always go through and replace the images, I’ve been busy at work today, I’ll host the images myself.
Great article by the way!
I sure hope it will. Look at all of the games coming from Midway, Ubisoft, Activision, and EA this year for the Wii, with hopefully more support from Sega, Konami, and Capcom later to come!
I sure hope it will. Look at all of the games coming from Midway, Ubisoft, Activision, and EA this year for the Wii, with hopefully more support from Sega, Konami, and Capcom later to come!
I sure hope it will. Look at all of the games coming from Midway, Ubisoft, Activision, and EA this year for the Wii, with hopefully more support from Sega, Konami, and Capcom later to come!