twesterm said:
You can try, but I'm not going to really be around until Saturday likely since I'm preparing for New Years Party tonight (we get to cook comfort food!) and I'll likely be out of it until tomorrow evening. I might remember, the red helps, but I also ignore that just as much sometimes when I don't feel like reading. >_> But sure, and here are my thoughts on that:
Now, that said, I know Sony and Microsoft are now going to start introducing their major motion tech (I'm not counting SIXAXIS, that should just be forgotten) and those might do something to define gaming, we'll see, but I don't believe the Wii did it for motion controls. I think it opened the doors very wide and was a beyond excellent start, but motion controls aren't something that have become a standard like in-game achievements and online multiplayer. Don't get me wrong, I think the Wii did wonderful things and worked towards defining gaming by defining some things of its own or paving the way for others, but did it define the decade for gaming more than the 360? In the eyes of the parents that don't know anything about gaming, sure, the Wii is the word they probably know, but in the eyes of gamers? No, I think the 360 did the most to define gaming this decade. I absolutely acknowledge the Wii did something to define gaming this decade, I just don't think it did the most. When I see a new game announced, people don't ask where are the motion controls (unless it's specifically a Wii game of course), they ask what are the achievements, how will I play online, and what about multiplayer? |
You have chosen.... poorly.
There are two ways in which we may consider "defining gaming". The first case would be that it has personified gaming, has become the object that people think of when they think of gaming. That is to say, it is exemplary of gaming. Like it or not, believe it or not, as you will: the fact remains that the Wii, Nintendo, is emblematic of gaming now, far moreso than the 360. That may not be true for "gamers", as you refer to the demographic, but they are neither the largest nor the most influential demographic to which one may refer.
The other part of "defining" gaming would be in the case of introducing change, as in actually changing either the face of gaming or certain design paradigms, or even demographic paradigms. The question, then, is which has done more to change gaming: the Nintendo DS/Nintendo Wii (for this they will be interchangeable) or the Xbox 360.
The 360 has created definitions in itself through the refinement of old gameplay modes and gamer expectations: wireless, Live, on and on, almost all of them were just building on previous values, and it did not actually change anything, even in the unification of these. The PS3 has all of that stuff, too.
The difference here is achievements. Achievements build off an old value - points - but integrates them with the online service that already existed, making them into a universal score that allows us to measure our gaming peens. That's special. No doubt. Sony ripped it off for a reason. It very much appeals to the demographic that Microsoft and SOny were trying to appeal to.
But that is what Microsoft did, summed up: capitalize on old values and introduce a universal points system. As much as any one person likes it (I love it too), it did not define the last decade of gaming. No sir.
What did Nintendo do, in contrast?
In the first place, the question of "expanding the audience" is not as simple as it sounds: it's actively changing the face of the industry. Gaming is no longer nerds-only to the average person, even the people who traditionally disparage the pasttime for being nerds-only. The Wii and the DS have changed who games can be for. This is more than jsut a demographic expansion, or at least "demographic expansion" cannnot be used in a reductive way to describe it. It's as massive a thing as can be imagined. Gaming, as the public understands it, has changed. Nintendo did that.
The other place, I think, is in the paradigm shifts that the industry has undergone, embodied by the Wii. What do I mean by that?
Gaming up to this point, from the NES until 200-....either 4 or 6, depending on your reckoning, has always been about "Bigger, Better, More Bad-ass", though not in as many words. Blast processing, the Ultra 64 processor, the 128-bit generation, culminating in the Playstation 3, it's been about games and game systems that are bigger, more expensive, more awesome.
But it's not like that anymore.
The Nintendo DS and the Wii symbolize ideas that were, previously, only in the indie space: lower cost, higher accessibility. What's more is that these design paradigms have changed gaming in two ways.
Firstly, lower cost and higher accessibility has changed the face of game sales for the foreseeable future. The Nintendo DS will be the best-selling game-specific hardware ever before too long, and does not look to actually be slowing down. The Wii is moving faster than any other system ever, though it may not be able to hold onto that momentum. Accessible games have changed the popular culture image of what a game is, or what a game should be: instead of just Halo or Mario, we also have Wii Sports, and Mario Kart, and dozens of other games that are selling copies in the tens of millions.
The tens of millions. Do you know how insane that is? We have 35 games listed on this site that have sold over ten millon copies. Over a third of them are on the DS and the Wii, and there are three games on the Wii right now that are going to break that barrier before the end of the year. When you get above twenty million, the number is even more bizarre. Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort and Mario Kart are now more emblematic of video games than Halo is. Games have changed.
But that's not the only way, either: the "cheaper, more accessible" paradigm is spreading like a virus throughout the gaming world. Developers who don't adhere to it are dying. People are scrambling to try to understand exactly what it is that Nintendo has done, Microsoft and Sony first and foremost. This isn't just changing the way we control games, it's changing the way we approach games, the way that games are expected to operate as part of a closed system. I can't overstate the enormity of that: developers look to Nintendo to try to see how they're supposed to be making money, and they either adapt or they give up on the idea. But that simple motto, "cheaper, more accessible," is changing the way games are made.
How can I make this clear to you? I have no magic mirror, to show you how different the transition to the next generation will be, how Microsoft and Sony will do their best to adhere to "cheaper, more accessible," but can't you see it too, to some degree? Is this not Nintendo's doing? Were they not the first to take this industry by the throat, to shake it and say "No. We can do more"?
There is no question what defined the industry in the last decade. It had two screens. Nobody thought it could do anything. But it conquered the world, and has begun to erode the culture that came before it.
You will see.
