AngryLittleAlchemist on 02 October 2017
| RolStoppable said: The Wii was misunderstood and still is. That's why Switch was predicted to fail by the vast majority of people. The success of the Wii created the hardcore gamer/casual gamer dichotomy which became popular in gaming journalism and consequently infested discussions in gaming forums. Of course, analyzing the video game market in a strictly binary manner leads to huge errors. The Wii was deemed to be a non-repeatable success story. But who bought the Wii? What was Virtual Console about? Didn't it send a strong message that classic games are worth remembering instead of being shoved aside in favor of modern games which are oh-so-good? The difference of 80m units between the GC (21m) and Wii (101m) didn't come exclusively from people who didn't play video games before; those people really only accounted for a small portion. Fans of classic video games and consoles drove Wii sales, because they like games that exist to be played, not that tutorial and handholding nonsense in modern games. Then the Wii U came and Nintendo was all about AAA third parties all of a sudden. They didn't end up getting much after wasting most of the Wii U reveal time on EA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. and others, but that hardly mattered in the big picture, because Nintendo's new message buried the console quickly. After another 180, Nintendo unveiled Switch and emphasized the classic gamer again. Sure, Virtual Console is missing, but the new The Legend of Zelda was built on the foundation of the original The Legend of Zelda. Modern games that honor classic games are an even bigger deal than classic games themselves, because it means new games instead of something that has already been played before. Super Bomberman R and Ultra Street Fighter II were laughed off, but ended up as the best-selling third party titles so far. Coincidence? I guess it's worth looking up during which era Super Bomberman and Street Fighter II were popular. What the Wii meant for me personally is that it made me realize how great classic games truly are. I've always bought the latest Nintendo console, so the gradual change over time in gaming was something that I considered normal and basically the way that things have to be, despite playing classics on my old Nintendo consoles every now and then. Virtual Console really drove the point home because I bought games that I had missed during their time. Many games were new to me and they were only a few hours long, but that wasn't a problem because they were fun from beginning to end. That made me really question if all the fluff in modern games is needed, or rather, if it should be tolerated. Unfortunately, Nintendo was inconsistent with the Wii, so what felt like a return to form and a breath of fresh air ultimately drifted towards Skyward Sword and the Wii U, so back to GameCube times. While I liked the GC a lot during its time, in hindsight it became more and more apparent how much Nintendo had lost their way. The Wii U was for the most part a "what if the Wii never happened" console, save for remnants like New Super Mario Bros. U which were carried over to trick people into believing that Wii U was a true successor to Wii. The same goes for the Wii U name itself. In any case, the Wii spirit is back with Switch. I am very happy about that. The big question is how consequent Nintendo will be this time. |
Ahhh, a quality Rol post. Thank you for sharing your perspective 
