| c0rd said: Compare that to Wii Music, where music creation is the focus of the game, and you'll find they're entirely different. Put aside the fact the game may be "shallow," as Wii Sports had all the same problems - you can't even move in the games (tennis, boxing, or baseball), all the game has you do is simply "waggle" when the time comes. Technically, that's a large step backwards, but people were okay with it. |
You have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to walk before you can run. It's easy to forget amongst the massive success of the Wii series (except Wii Chess) that these games are still Nintendo largely experimenting with an expanded audience, and feeling around for to new niches to sell to.
Wii Sports was the first experiment, trying to build an entire series of easily accessible games (Sports in this case) built of the Wii Remote's motion sensing capabilities. None of the games in Wii Sports use the cursor, it’s all on motion sensors and minor button usage.
Wii Play was made specifically to emphasize other combinations of the remotes unique features in more traditional gaming environments. You had basic cursor shooting, cursor with tilting, handle bar steering, shooting and control stick, etc.
Wii Fit served the dual purpose of introducing the balance board and it’s various uses, as well a game specifically built around some less traditional and more enticing to the non-gaming ground. (Fitness in this case)
Wii Music seems to challenge traditional gaming memes. Despite Sports, Play, and Fit being designed for a new audience, they all still follow fairly traditional gaming rules with high scores, and simple goals. Wii Music appears to be designed to avoid these kinds of things, and foster a different play style entirely. Another experiment entirely.
Sports Resort will further the original Wii Sports experiment next year by adding Wii Motion Plus to the mix.
The Wii series has constantly been using trial and error to make in roads with non-gamers. Even as the company primarily spear-heading these things, Nintendo is still very new to these things themselves, and are still learning from their mistakes.
It’s why they don’t talk about their “core” titles very much. They’ve been doing those for decades now, and feel like they’ve got them down. But touch generation games and the Wii series are still something their new to, and want as much feedback as they can get.
