During the Game Developers Conference this week, IndustryGamers had the pleasure of speaking with industry legend Will Wright about the latest happenings at his company Stupid Fun Club, the legacy of The Sims (which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary), the impact of social gaming, the upcoming motion controllers and more. 

We hope to bring you the full interview soon, but in the meantime we thought you'd like to hear Wright's thoughts on the Wii's place in the market and publishers' difficulties on the platform. Wright, who is trying to converge gaming and toy experiences at Stupid Fun Club, pointed out that the Wii in many ways belongs more to the toy market than the video games space.

"I think the Wii is a very unique platform, and that's kind of its core value. That's why it's been so successful – because it's pretty clearly different than the Xbox or the PlayStation. I think the Wii provides very fun experiences for the most part, but it's kind of a different level of experience; it's not like these 40-hour involved RPG games as much as it is like these fun toys to pick up and start playing in five minutes. And it's really fun with a group of people sitting around... It really is more into what I would call the toy market, because most of the Wii games I've enjoyed felt more like toys than like games," he stated.

Wright continued, talking about the now clearly longer console cycle the industry is in: "But in a broader sense, I think that whole model [has changed]. We've gotten very predictable in terms of when the next console generation is coming along – it was usually on a 4-year cycle and then it was in a transition cycle... but that's been shattered. I don't think this will necessarily be the last console generation we'll see, but I don't think it's going to be this clockwork-like, predictable business that it had been. I think the fact that people are struggling on the Wii in a business sense isn't necessarily indicative of the Wii. What we'll be seeing going forward is that the console businesses will each have a very specifically defined niche. And Nintendo is just about the only manufacturer that invests in much as software as they do in hardware – or probably even more in software than hardware actually. So it's always been a very unique platform in that sense because the biggest competitor as soon as you go into that market is always going to be Nintendo."

We followed up by asking Wright about developers or publishers feeling somewhat limited in making Wii games if they can't build core experiences on the console. He responded, "I think it's the direction that Nintendo chose to go down. I think if you have a hardcore gamer that's 22 years old and he wants to play a first-person shooter, he's going to go buy an Xbox to play Halo. Microsoft has done a great job of covering that market. So Nintendo said, 'Ok, we're not going to go head-to-head with that.' So Nintendo decided to lean younger and they took the industry in a really interesting direction, where we have games appearing on the Wii that people never would have dreamed of five years ago. And that broadened the market in really interesting ways. I think it's kind of cool that they decided to go off and find a different sandbox to play in; I think it's been very good for the industry."

Ultimately, although the Wii has helped expand the industry audience, its biggest strength (its unique design) has also been its biggest weakness it seems.  Wright continued comparing the three console manufacturers: "Sony, on the other hand, is really in the same kind of mindset as Microsoft for the most part - except that Sony was looking to build an entertainment center for your living room a little bit more, with Blu-ray discs and all this other stuff. Microsoft has been working their hardcore fans, or more considerably their Halo players, and working their way out from that, building up their online services, etc. They've also been leveraging their accessibility as a development platform relative to the PS3; the fact that the Xbox is basically a PC provides a certain type of developer advantage that allows them to do things like Xbox Arcade and stuff like that. So I think that each of these platforms is kind of finding their specialty. It's just that Nintendo kind of tripped over an unexpectedly larger void. If you're a publisher and you can do a hardcore thing on an Xbox, PS3 or PC, those are more in the same ballpark than the Wii, which is way over here in left field."

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/gdc-10-wii-belongs-in-toy-market-says-will-wright/

I agree with this guy 110 percent.

I am surprised to hear this kind of talk anymore. Would this mean that PS3 and 360 will belong "In the Toy Market" after they get their motion addons?

Its a shame because he laid it out plainly. Thereason Nintendo is leading right now is because they formed a niche market and then focused all their efforts onto not only that niche, but supporting all markets with good software. As well as not just tryingto make a super powerful piece of hardware and pummel people with marketing ,expecting them to buy something because its 'the best'.

As well, he showed that third parties are 'struggling' because they don't take the Wii seriously. In effect, the only one taking the Wii seriously is Nintendo itself. And as a result, Nintendo was the one to make the major profit off the Wii (which I find it ironic because arguably the next biggest company after Nintendo to make a profit on the Wii is his company, EA, with a big help coming from some of his IPs like The Sims and Spore).

But when all is said and done, the only think people will get out of this interview is 'Wii is a toy'.

you are focusing on the toy comment while he said way more. And I agree with him, Nintendo was able to expand the market while Sony and MS only focused on the hardcore. Now it seems they are interested in that market which is huge.

Guarentee that people wont actually read the article and come in all guns blazing.

He only had really good, balanced and insightful things to say.
Which of course is expected from such an awesome dev thats been around for so long.

lol

Well it's is true he did elaborate on that I just think those were a poor choice of words on his part. Then again when I made that comment I had only skimmed the article.

Lesson learned.

Good read. I pretty much agree with everything he said.

@Lastgengamer: You could have done a better job with the thread title. Something, I don't know... more representative of what he said instead of a cherry picked quote?

Truthfully I didn't really change it from the source article probably should have though. -_-