PD: Nintendo Wii Is All About Casual Games, Sad Trend

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j145/LauraThug/reedwii.jpg

Patrice Desilets, creative director of Assassin’s Creed, thinks that Wii is bringing a new audience to gaming but that the “bandwagon” of casual titles is making him sad. (Buck up it will be ok

“The Wii is all about casual games,” he told the Guardian. “In terms of processing power and graphics capabilities the console is roughly equivalent to the PS2 and the first Xbox.”

Funny, I don’t remember either of those systems being purely about casual titles…do you? He went on to say that while he likes the Wiimote, Assasin’s Creed could never run on the console. And his biggest fear is publishers running to make what he apparently considers to be lesser titles. Which is true in some cases like which would you rather have Nintendo Wii: Rapala Trophies or Assasin’s Creed ,but it’s not that you can’t make good Wii Game but people just don’t.

“It would be sad for everyone to jump on the casual games band wagon now because I think that we are very close to delivering the best of both worlds. A game with the very best production values that’s accessible enough for the mass market,” he lamented.

I could spend pages debating exactly why this is ludicrous, but I’d rather go play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption at the moment and drool over videos of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl.



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  • http://www.xanga.com/relaxing_roth Roth

    The best thing to do when you meet someone new is to greet them with friendly “casual” gestures.

    Sup with all the 3rd-parties doggin’ on Wii all a sudden? I wanna see to the bottom of this!

    Guitar Hero III and Rock Band will be accessible enough for the mass market, and they don’t require much development but bring original master recordings of the songs to the game.

    // Roth

  • Nat

    It is so sad that people are this foolish, they pretend that the Wii is comparable to the PS2, when the GC before it was significantly superiour to the PS2. It’s almost as if they’re off in their own little world, ignoring reality and just letting their hunches rule them.

  • Hollis

    wow this guy just earned my respect

  • flamingsquirrel

    that wouldn’t happen to be Nat from buttonmashing, would it?

  • Nat

    flamingsquirrel:

    Definately not. I am just someone who’s named Nat.

  • flamingsquirrel

    Ah. Ok. Good comment though.

    I’ve been playing the Destroy Al Humans games recently, on Xbox. A new Destroy All Humans game (Big Willy Unleashed) is coming to Wii, I was checking out the screen shots, and they look A LOT WORSE THAN EVEN DESTROY ALL HUMANS 1. Hopefully, that’s just because the game is in early development stages, hopefully when it’s done it will look better.

  • Nat

    flamingsquirrel:

    A part of it is the lack of experience with the GameCube style hardware, the way one takes full advantage of the graphical abilities of the hardware is not as simple as that of PC-style hardware. Factor 5 in particular knows how to use the hardware well, it would be wonderful if Nintendo had a open suite of development tools that were available for free, including the Twighlight Princess’, Metroid Prime 3′s, and Super Mario Galaxy’s 3d engines, so that the graphics of the games for Wii would be improved, it’d really pay off for the Wii community were Nintendo to make a bunch of their code free to developers via an SDK that any developer could get.

  • Nintendog66

    @Nat

    You just read my mind. In the end it’s all Nintendo’s fault… First off the kind of marketing they do for the console but then again even if third parties don’t assist the console in the future I’ll be happy with just first party titles from Nintendo which is the main reason i bought the console.

    But I still disagree with these developers that don’t make games for it just because it’s “kiddy” or underpowered. I think they should take their chances and make them anyway, even if the titles have significantly lower graphics than the other consoles the games will sell like hotcakes because most(if not all) Nintendo fans(the ones that bought the console for playing Nintendo’s brand games) will support the developers so they continue on making quality titles, and they get happy because they’re making money.

  • Nat

    I wouldn’t say the word, “fault,” really comes into play. It’s perception, everyone takes part it molding the perception of something. Sure, Nintendo is actively cultivating the neocasual video gamer market, but that’s because it has already spent years cultivating the already existing market, a market which they brought from the brink of destruction.

    Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about what most people call hardcore, just look at the games that they’re producing and have produced, they’re actively wooing the new girl, but they haven’t forgotten their first love.

  • http://intendo.wordpress.com Rollin

    Guys, i know it sucks to be treated this way, but you really shouldn’t be surprised. Nintendo marketed themselves into this position. You’re offended, understandably, but don’t be. If Assassin’s Creed means that much to you, play it on another system. Otherwise, take it like men and women, cause Nintendo brought this upon themselves.

    His last quote is exactly true. Nintendo and their Wii are holding back gaming from reaching its true, mass market potential. But this is not gonna last.

  • Nat

    Rollin:

    You’re increadibly confused, the Wii isn’t holding gaming back, it’s expanded the size of the marketplace significantly.

    Noone takes insult at games like Assassin’s Creed being on only a couple platforms, it’s the idiotic misconception about who owns a Wii that causes affront.

  • PaulT

    @Nat

    Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. I’m personally sick of hearing “anyone who owns a Wii isn’t interested in ‘hardcore’ games”. I don’t own a 360 or PS3 because I already have a Wii and PS2, and don’t have HD. I’m not interested in buying those other consoles right now, but I am interested in buying games that aren’t ‘casual’ or minigame collections. I’m sitting here with cash ready to give to any developer who gives me the games I’m interested in, only to be told “you’re a Wii owner so you don’t want these games”. Fine, if Assassins Creed would have problems on the hardware I can accept that. Just don’t tell me I don’t want that kind of game at all!

    @Rollin

    How have Nintendo “marketed themselves” into this position? So, their commercials have concentrated on attracting a new market instead of ‘hardcore’ gamers. Does this really mean they don’t want to attract existing gamers? Of course not, they just had to concentrate on the new market.

    Saying that Nintendo don’t want the hardcore market or that the Wii is ‘only’ for casual players is dumb. It’s like saying that because all the new McDonalds commercials are aimed at kids, they don’t want to sell to grownups and grownups don’t want to eat there. Of course they do, the commercials just concentrate on the new market.

  • dam

    Wow you guys really got into this discussion.
    I was just going to post the typical stupid “damn that chick has nice… ummm assets”

    In the end though, as long as some developers try new things on the Wii then I don’t care what others think. They will eventually see that just about everyone has a Wii and maybe will change their minds. Until then I will enjoy all the kick ass games the other developers are making

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