I must say that lots of people on this thread are misrepresenting why people are disappointed with the Wii and then attacking this misrepresentation.
Third parties are also not to be blamed. Nintendo hasn't really taken advantage of the Wii Mote and other companies have done more in this department but met with financial failure as a result.
What people are disappointed with is not the graphics of the Wii alone. They are disappointed by games that have no real strengths over the competitions.
The issue is that the Wii is taking the PSP approach to gaming and not the DS approach. DS made unique games that utilized its abilities well while PSP was just a watered down console and getting inferior console ports or equivalents as a result.
Yes Mario Galaxy was fun. The Wii Mote contributed very little to this. Shooting stars was actually something I wish they didn't add too. Mario Galaxy would have been more fun if it was on another console with even more fluid animations and larger environments as well as more details.
Zelda - This is clearly a game with cinematic potential. The Wii Motes waggle did not help make Zelda a more immersive experience. What would have made it better was better graphics, more detailed environments, more objects to interact with, better animations, more control over the character and all the benefits of more processing power
MP3 - Same story. MP3 has a beautiful setting that is marred by bad graphics and very sparse amounts of details. The puzzles became somewhat predictable and the shooting mechanics were OK for a Wii game but not for the other consoles. MP3's autolock feature was fun but many other games have this as well. The Wii mote really did not contribute to the gameplay so much. Better processing power could have brought more to the series than just:
-A twisting lock mini-game
-Pulling back on bricks
-Auto-aim system
MKWii - Aside from Wheelies and tricks... what does the Wii Mote serve? Yes it can be used as a steering wheel but its not all that great and you are artificially encouraged to use it by being award with a wheel. This will never come close to a force feedback wheel. Again, this game could have been much more beautiful and had more content from better processing abilities.
SSBB - Still using the standard controller. There is absolutely no reason why this game just wouldn't be flat out better on other consoles.
And here is the problem. If you want to claim that graphics isn't important and that innovation and gameplay is, what is the major innovations that you have brought compared to other consoles?
Wii Play is not inherently more innovative than MGS4 because it uses motion controls.
Mario Galaxies gravity and use of the Wii mote is not more innovative to me than Portal, which uses physics and very unique presentation to bring about new gameplay.
MP3 is not more innovative to me than Gears which brought a very functional and standardized cover system that has basically revolutionized the TPS genre.
Mario Kart Wii is not nearly as innovative to me compared to games such as Forza which pushes more physics than prior gens, or Burnout, with its fairly revolutionary online interface.
Basically all these games haven't really been all that innovative and would have probably been better on other systems.
What is the great innovations that the Wii mote has brought so far? Some argue that there is good third party games that uses good use of the Wii Mote.
Yes this is very true and I think the best games I played for the Wii that actually stood out from other consoles would have to be:
A marble game(I only have a Japanese Wii so I don't know what this game is called but its a marble game and it uses the controller REALLY good)
Boom Blox
Zak and Wiki (man this is old school)
Elebits
RE:UC
These games did very well in utilizing the Wii for what it is. But aside from RE (which is a long established franchise with movies and a big name behind it), all others have fallen flat on its face.
The Wii toutes innovation and gameplay but proves to have neither of them over the competition. There is the argument that small developers will make good games (often referred to as hidden gems) for the Wii because its cheap to develop for but we could count those "hidden gems" on two hands. We can also count just as much games off of XBLA or PSN and probably more.
The only kind of small developers that its attracting, is the bad kind for the most part.
Games like Highschool musical(68%) Game Party(20%), Carnival Games(58%), Mario and Sonic (67%) and Wii Play(61%) to name a few, overshadow many good third party games on the console.
This is in contrast to the 360 which has 10 games rated above 90%+ in its top 16 best sellers. Out of the 360's million + sellers, there is also only like 2-3 games that have high 70's and nothing that goes lower. Most games are in the 80s and 90s and this is why the 360 is getting plenty of [quality] third party support as opposed to the Wii.
People just too often use numbers to back up the Wii without understanding them.
What does this say to third party devs? That Wii gamers are uneducated consumers and that investing effort into making a quality Wii game isn't just gonna make you money because of a high install base. In fact, the sea of bad games is more likely to drown out your game from being noticed and will never sell as well as something made by Nintendo(regardless of quality) or something with Mario in the name.
The lack of quality control, direction, vision and support is what I am disappointed with as far as the Wii goes. There is no doubt that the Wii is a financial success. But this in no way makes it a good console. At the rate its going, its certainly gonna be the best selling console ever but probably won't even make it into the top 20 countdown of good consoles.
The DS is still the best thing about this generation though so I cannot say that Nintendo as a whole, disappoints me. Just the Wii in particular. My favorite consoles were the SNES, NES and N64 (I fell for the PS2 over the NGC :P)so I don't hate on Nintendo and there franchises use to be all triple A stuff(to me). But what they have been doing in the console department has been highly disappointing to say the least.
Well sorry about the long rant. I use to lurk and recently decided to put my 2 cents in. I apologize if I offended anyone and a lot of this is just my opinion on the situation.
