Paul_Warren said:
Personally, I hope it fails. Then maybe real gaming will make a comeback some day and people will forget the pablum Nintendo has been spoon feeding the masses to generate sales for its technologically weak console.
There is nothing genius about this product. If there is anything genius about Nintendo it is that they do know what has the potential to appeal to many people and experience they've gained overtime primarily with their handhelds has given them this insight.
But really what have they done this console generation?
1. They looked at how scarcity drives demand for toys from Cabbage Patch Dolls to Tickle Me Elmo to the 360's holiday season of '05 and decided that if they could create a console that was in constantly short supply versus demand, then it would be able to generate a lot of word of mouth value which would increase its desirability to certain demographics of people including a lot of people that had no knowledge of gaming but only heard co-workers or the media saying this was something they must have, so they decided that they must have it. Though in retrospect things that would appeal to most people that really know anything about games such as strength of software library really hasn't factored much into the thinking that has led the Wii into being the best-selling console on the market.
2. They took a last gen game like Yourself!Fitness on the 360 and moved it into a more utilitarian / user friendly environment. Props from the likes of Ellen Degeneris also assisted with the popularity of this product. It has generated some nice Youtube videos.
3. They did put out some newer editions of some of their older classics that do appeal to longtime Nintendo faithful. However only one of these games was noticeably better than the last gen version -- Super Mario Galaxy. Super Smash Brothers Melee and the new Zelda were only at best slightly better than the last gen versions (although certain reviews would indicate that neither one was any better than the last gen iterations), and two of these games were noticeably inferior to the last gen versions -- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Mario Kart Wii.
4. Now they've seen the popularity of music games that require some skill like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and they are thinking that if they Nintendify, dumb down, and remove the part about Guitar Hero and Rock Band having to have any skill from their game, then they will have yet another mass market success. They don't care about the games critical reception they only want the moolah.
So in short, Nintendo is happy that they have managed to think of yet another game that will appeal to children, the unskilled, and those that are a little bit bored and have no intention of getting into real games.
Good for Nintendo's pockets, bad for gaming in general if it sells well, and another product that allows Nintendo to keep their sales lead this generation without having to invest in any actually games which would showcase the limitations of their machine. On the DS Nintendo is being preserved by the classics remakes that they're getting from Square-Enix and as games like FFXIII Agito come out on the PSP we will see that handheld continue to cut into the DS's lead, and on the Wii Nintendo's most recently made real games like Disaster: Day of Crisis show they just can't make games that are really that superior to anyone else's unless they are a Mario or Zelda.
The true genius of Nintendo is in being able to establish a place in the marketplace and hold on to it without there being any real justification (not all the time but quite a bit of the time) for them being able to do so (another example of this, the decade long success of the Gameboy Green and Black. The only real exceptions to this are the SNES, GBA, and DS all three with great thanks to Square and the Gamecube because it did have a game library that should have enjoyed more success than it did. If only they hadn't designed it so that it was technologically so much better graphically at doing cell-shaded graphics than anything else in a climate that was ready to embrace more realistic graphics).
I hope that real games like Heavy Rain,, Final Fantasy XIII, continued success of MGS4, Gran Turismo 5, God of War III, Litle Big Planet, and more will allow the PS3 to cut into this lazy success enjoyed by Nintendo and force them to either show what they are truly capable to continue their success of and if they aren't capable of it (Uncharted being such a much better game than Disaster would lead one to think that at the least they would have difficulties in the arena), then lose since they don't deserve to win based on lazy marketing gimmicks like Wii Fit, Wii Music, and Animal Crossing: The Totally Wiik Version.
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