By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
happydolphin on 30 August 2012
Edit Thread
TruckOSaurus said:
Chark said:

I just played a bunch of Nintendo Land games and I firmly disagree with the OP. Nintendo Land if bundled with the Wii U will have a similar effect and a much more solid one than Wii Sports. The games are better and the new controller does provide a new "wow" factor. The games are intuitive and at the least interactive physically giving the game a solid feel that helped separated motion controls from traditional ones. It has multiplayer games, ones using their big name IPs. I see Nintendo Land being the ultimate mini game collection for the Wii U and it will do wonders for the console if they bundle it in. That ninja star game alone would bring in the "casuals".

I have no doubt that Nintendo Land will be a solid game that draws from the strength of the new controller. After all, the people at Nintendo are the ones that came up with the concept and since they usually build their hardware to cater to their software ideas, it's fair to assume they must have great games planned to go along with asymmetrical gameplay.

That being said, I still wouldn't put Nintendo Land on the same level as Wii Sports. No matter how intuitive the mini-games are they can't compete with the simpleness of "swing the controlller like a golf club". Also what Wii Sports did was dispel a very common stigma attached the videos games which is that gamers do nothing but sit on their asses in front of a TV for hours. Wii Sports shattered that preconception and people who would never have considered buying a gaming console before were suddenly interested, intrigued by the Wii.

This is true, but there are two flaws I see in the reasoning.

1) Chark saw it first hand and says it wows. Already a little more weight to his PoV in my view.

2) As much as golf games removed the stigma of video games, so do touch generation experiences like Nintendogs and Brain Training. That also breaks the video games from their traditional mold. As such, the possibility of playing chess, touch games, casual experiences on a tablet is a big factor in favor of the U.

3) Though Wii Sports is simple and intuitive, I find we truly underestimate the ability of people to understand certain gaming experiences. Asynchronous play is already much more organic than other play experiences, because it leads to vastly different perspectives of the same game simultaneously, and that is much more in tune with real life. At the same time, the stylus games which involve puzzles and drawing also have that simplistic appeal, just as much as a sports game would imho. So it's all on the same playing field from that PoV.

4) Revisiting a bit my first post, I think that though the Wii was like buying an arcade for your home, and as such warranted the premium, buying the WiiU is like buying an uber-powerful tablet that the whole family can enjoy in many different ways. It has a premium value as well, only in a very different way than the Wii did.

@rhutnic. I understand your skepticism, I just don't agree with your resistance to prediction because of the attitudes of some in the past, that's all.