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Forums - Nintendo - Miyamoto: Wii Music Directors "shocked" by reactions

WereKitten on 16 October 2009
Khuutra said:
--OkeyDokey-- said:
Khuutra said:
--OkeyDokey-- said:

That joke almost seemed serious in combination with your avatar.

I'm not bing sarcastic. I have been vocal in past conversations concerning my affections for this title.

Okay, but how does it define this generation. Wii Fit and Wii Sports maybe, but Wii Music? Please explain.

One of the defining games in that it embodies the reactions of the public to many of the ideas exemplified in the Wii - indeed, it exemplifies them perhaps more strongly than the more iconic games do. It breaks all the conventions of games - even Fit and Sport give you scores to grade your performance. Wii Music was a throwing aside of what we tend to think of in video games, a game in the purer sense, a game one played solely to have fun and make music. It was beautiful for that.

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with WiiMusic and what activities it offers. But I remember a Maxxis guy talking about the distinction between videogames and videotoys more than 15 years ago. He was talking about SimCity and SimLife, but I guess what he said was still valid with The Sims.

Is this the distinction you're making? Goal oriented activity versus experience oriented activity? Because it sounds like a recurring idea more than a breakthrough.

 



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Khuutra on 16 October 2009
WereKitten said:
Khuutra said:
--OkeyDokey-- said:

Okay, but how does it define this generation. Wii Fit and Wii Sports maybe, but Wii Music? Please explain.

One of the defining games in that it embodies the reactions of the public to many of the ideas exemplified in the Wii - indeed, it exemplifies them perhaps more strongly than the more iconic games do. It breaks all the conventions of games - even Fit and Sport give you scores to grade your performance. Wii Music was a throwing aside of what we tend to think of in video games, a game in the purer sense, a game one played solely to have fun and make music. It was beautiful for that.

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with WiiMusic and what activities it offers. But I remember a Maxxis guy talking about the distinction between videogames and videotoys more than 15 years ago. He was talking about SimCity and SimLife, but I guess what he said was still valid with The Sims.

Is this the distinction you're making? Goal oriented activity versus experience oriented activity? Because it sounds like a recurring idea more than a breakthrough.

Not a breakthrough - just indicative of certain directions Nintendo has taken in this generation.



WereKitten on 16 October 2009

@Khuutra
What directions are you thinking about, exactly? Because as you yourself remarked even WiiSports has the form of a game. An accessible one with a low entry barrier, but still a game.

WiiFit now is a different beast because the main appeal for customers doesn't seem to come from the experience vs goal focus shift, but from the fact that it is a friendly fitness experience.

Maybe that was what puzzled the designers about the public reception of WiiMusic: they could have misinterpreted the success of WiiFit, lending more importance to its form than its specifics.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman

Dinomax on 16 October 2009

Waaaaat? Nintendo tried something new and people complained?

Color me surprised.



angrypoolman on 16 October 2009

I am sorry, you guys, I agree with Khuutra.



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Mr Khan on 16 October 2009

I at least supplied a voice of reason in those comments

 

:)



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Killergran on 16 October 2009

Wii Music is like Uncharted 2.
It really makes me want to get a new console.



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student on 16 October 2009

I just think it was too little for too much. In a mario paint setting with a variety of distractions, it's great. but standalone, it's not what people are lokoing for



mike_intellivision on 16 October 2009

Wii Music was fun if you wanted to create music.
Wii Music was not fun if you expected a Guitar Hero or Rock Band type of experience.

I knew what it was and had fun with it.

A lot of people though did not.

Basically, it was a highly successful niche game.

Mike from Morgantown



      


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Zlejedi on 16 October 2009
stof said:
while the gameplay certainly left people divided. I think the games relative failure wasn't so much the concept as it was the execution; primarily music selection and quality and a lack of game options.

Games like Guitar Hero based much of their success on having songs people wanted to play, where Wii Music's public domain and franchise music was hardly exciting to anyone outside of the Nintendo core. It also didn't help that it was all Midi. No matter how good you made a song, it could never quite qualify as "beautiful music"

Also, a lot of people were expecting the ability to make music, not just offer your own spin on existing songs. A music creator would have brought in so many more created minded people than the limited and mostly uninteresting songs provided.

And finally, the lack of online. For a game all about collaborating to make music, it was quite bizarre that you couldn't actually get together with people who weren't sitting on the couch right beside you.

Just imagine if the game had online, a great selection of songs, Downloadable content, non midi and even a song creator.

Instead of talking about why the game failed, we'd have the "official VG chartz band thread" in which people from all over the world get together online to rock out to newly available songs or even to make their own. And with a sound quality good enough to actually want people to listen.

I really hope that they eventually make another one (with either M+ or the next Wii) and give it the muscle and attention to detail that a concept like that needs to succeed.

Actually music selection is very easy to explain.

They have chosen music that they could put there while paying minimum royalties.



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