This will be my final posting on this thread and I will simultaneously post it on the counter thread created in response. Unfortunately it is becoming too personal for my taste and that was not my intent. But fortunately some of you have posted very nice illustrations of some assumptions and prejudices that I personally find rather bizarre and perhaps just a bit disingenuous. I have removed the poster’s names on purpose because my argument is not with them but with a mindset they have apparently bought into:
1. People who find traditional controls [too difficult] dont deserve to play videogames. Learn it or leave it. Why should I be forced to play dumbed down and simplified games while the newbies arent forced to learn the hardcore way?
I beg your pardon, when exactly did video games become a secret society with an initiation? I thought they were commercial products that anyone could buy and play if they chose to. And how exactly did “your group” become the selection committee. And no, I have no more wish to force you to play in any way whatsoever. You can play with a Kazoo and a Moonpie for all I care. Please extend the same courtesy to me. You are just another person playing video games not the Gaming Inquisition charged with keeping out heretics.
2. (a) Most hardcore gamers and gaming journalists dont hate the wii , they just ignore it. No amount of sales can make these people care about the wii.
(b) No, the real battle this gen is between PS360. HD-gamers ignore the Wii.
First, ignoring someone or something because it is “different” is just a slightly more subtle form of showing contempt, but I could probably learn to live with it, if that were true. I just spent an enlightening few hours reviewing the forum archives and oddly enough this wasn’t always true. Before Wii sales starting soaring out of reach and again during the launch of the various “Wii killers” like MSG4 and GTA4, some of these same individuals seem to have found the topic a lot more interesting. If I were cynical, I would have to suspect that this lack of interest is in fact, more a lost of hope, so maybe if we ignore it, it will go away. But I’m not cynical so I will take their disinterest at their word and merely wonder why they find these threads so hard to ignore.
3. I personally think the Ninty strategy is a dangerous strategy. Is gaming (the wii way) a fad? will all those 'new' gamers become bored as quickly as they became interested? who knows? but its possible.
Is it really your job to protect the industry? Even so, increasing console sales, increasing software sales, a very decent attach rate just a few tenths below the PS3, the number of gold, platinum and double platinum games don’t show any red flags of impending ennui. We do have fairly sound evidence, both within and outside this forum of lapsed gamers retained or brought back to the fold by the new controls.
4. The Wii became a clown at a grown-ups party, because it wasn't trying to fit into the party, but bring new people to the party.
Once again, we find that we have some secret bar to reach, some litmus test to pass. “They are “grown-ups” and we are “clowns” and worse yet, we actually invited “outsiders” to this “private grown up party.” Wow, I just wish they had given us the paper work when we plunked our money down so we could have applied or pledged or whatever it is one does. Does this mean I don’t get to learn the secret handshake?
5. If you really like the platform, make it your personal crusade to see that general consumers buy the quality titles instead of the budget dreck, which is very likely to disappoint.
Oh My! Now let’s see it I have it all: I have to give up my clown suit, grow up, wait to be invited to the private party, learn a control system that I hate and have no use for to prove I’m worthy, correct Nintendo’s dangerous ways and now in addition I have to make it my personal crusade to tell people what they should buy. My Bad! And I thought I could just buy a console, a few games and actually just have fun.
6. And accept that the gaming press is unlikely to ever warm to the Wii as a platform because of the change in direction the Nintendo market has made.
Yep, guess so. I must respect their right to denigrate and/or ignore 49%+ or 63%+ (depending on whether you include the DS) and still be regarded as serious professional “journalists”. Even when the official mouthpiece for the largest gaming retailer puts so many negative and snide comments in their Wii and DS newsletter that I had to send it to junk mail. I’m OK with this one actually. It doesn’t even lower my opinion of them much over that which I had of them before the Wii was even invented. Of course when (as I believe will happen) motion control becomes standard, they will lead the parade with all the enthusiasm of reformed whores and swear it was all their idea.
7. I dont see why Wii is so popular.....I played it and the control is garbage and very small, the sensor barely registers accurate movements, and the games on Wii (besides Mario, Zelda & SSBB), generally are crap (ex: Wii Sports, Play, Fit, Music = shovelware).
Well, damn, that settles it, I’ll sell mine tomorrow. Thanks for pointing out all the things I haven’t noticed after playing it since week one. Now can I tell you what I don’t like about yours? …No, I won’t because you like it apparently and that’s should be enough. By the way the way, the often overused buzzword shovelware is almost exclusively reserved for poorly ported games and rehashed compilations. Whether you happen to like them or not, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit and Wii Music are definitely original, perhaps even revolutionary IPs and can no way be seen as shovelware.
8. Nah, there are so much games that won't benefit at all from waggle. Motion controls are good for minigames and that's about it. Maybe next gen motion controls will be good enough for something.
Nothing makes me more suspicious that someone is basing their conclusion on little practical experience than the term “waggle”. I own 52 games for the Wii and I haven’t been able to waggle my way through a single one of them. I disagree about the usefulness of motion control but even if you’re right, the next generation is only a few months away. Keep in mind that while Vectrex in 1982 was the first analog controller, Nintendo popularized the idea and they might have as good an idea as anyone when its time has passed.
9. [on a suggestion that motion controls might catch on after motion plus] god i hope not.... i would have to stop gaming... i dont want to have to figure out what screw ball motion the dev thought up for various actions, where opening a door is not an obvious motion..... ill go back and play my rts tbs games.... and classic console motion controls have not as of yet lived up to the promis
I just loved this one from a few days ago. Here a gamer used to the often arcane combinations of buttons and stick combinations of the traditional controller is worried about opening a door after motion+. Actually one of the specific examples of motion+ with one to one and rotational control is that opening a door would consist of reaching out with your had and turning the knob. If that’s too tough I couldn’t help imagining the poor guy stuck in the same room is whole life.
So all I’m saying is that I’m sorry, If you are in fact the appointed guardians of the game with the power to select those worthy of playing and dictating the correct and acceptable methods and standards of play; then I need to see your badge. Otherwise I ‘ll feel free to play what , where, when, on what and however I damn well please. If you really can’t help looking down your nose at me for that, so be it. By the way, you may want to trim those nose hairs.
