Kantor said:
Wii Sports didn't invent motion control or anything like it. The Power Glove came out 17 years earlier. It was also imprecise and awful, but that's neither here nor there. SM64 was different to everything that came before it. Wii Sports was a fun diversion that appealed to a wide range of people, and nothing more. |
Just as Wii Sports didn't "invent" motion control, yet was the first to truly make it successful, so too was Mario 64 not the first 3D platformer. Early 3D platformers include Congo Bongo (1983, released by Sega for Atari, Commodore, and others), 3-D WorldRunner (1987, made by Square for Famicom/NES), Alpha Waves (1990, released by Infogrames for Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS - widely considered the first true 3D platform game), Jumping Flash (1995, released by Sony for the Playstation), and Crash Bandicoot (beat the N64 to market in America).
What both games did was take something that had until then been unsuccessful, and turn it into a massively successful thing. Of course, innovation (which is different from invention, by the way) requires success, otherwise it's just a gimmick. Mario 64 changed how games were made, and most modern 3D games can attribute at least some of their design to Mario 64. Wii Sports is massively affecting game development, to such an extent that both Sony and MS are making efforts to have their own motion controls be supported as much as possible.
Whether the Wii U will prove to be innovative is yet to be seen. NintendoLand may end up being the game to prove it. Or it may end up being just another game. At this point, it's all speculation.
Anyway, Nintendo cutting employee bonuses by 20% is fairly reasonable, and to be honest, I think it shows just how much Nintendo means business - I mean, it's the first time they've ever had an annual loss, and the CEO took a massive pay cut, and then they cut employee bonuses by a smaller amount. How many companies go to such extents? It's why Nintendo is going to be around for a long, long time.
