In the interest of fairness, Wii Music actually does score you (in certain modes, at least). I don't know how that changes things from your perspective, but I wouldn't say that makes the game as a whole goal driven. On the other hand, I agree Wii Sports has clear goals, but not to any greater extent than what is necessitated by the competitive nature of sports in general. People expect to "win" at sports. Scores are a natural extention of that. Wii Fit and Wii Music do not simulate inherently competitive events - perhaps that is the primary reason for the apparent discrepancy in design principles?

^But of course a game designer could have enveloped WiiFit and WiiMusic into a more competitive frame if he wanted. My points were simply that

a) free-form videogames have always existed. From Little Computer People, to SimCity/SimLife/SimEarth to The Sims to all proper flight simulators. Some of them offered scenarios you could play with a goal and definite rules, but it was more of an extensive tutorial than the core of the experience. The core was that you had a toy, and it was up to you how to play with it.

b) Nintendo doesn't seem to be focusing particularly on free-form games. They are still mostly publishing very traditional games, even those that like WiiSports exemplify their accessibility philosophy.

As such I couldn't understand Khuutra's claim that a) WiiMusic throws aside all conventions for games and that b) it somehow embodies an underlying philosophy Nintendo is pushing with the Wii.

Edit

disclaimer: I come from computer gaming, and only got into consoles very recently. Maybe the conventions on what videogames are have been historically more strict in the console gaming scene.

I always thought that the appeal of Wii Sports, Fit, or Brain Age was in feeling like you weren't really wasting your time in playing them. In Wii Music, it seems they lost this. I feel if they took the approach of "learning" rather than "playing", it might have had more appeal.

Also I think it would have made a big difference if the game was bundled with some type of instrument. A guitar, keyboard, or anything that would make the idea of music creation more concrete than it was from the Wii remote and nunchuk.

Console games up until very recently shared their conventions primarily with arcade games, and in many genres this is still true.

I have to admit I have barely played the title (after buying it). The little gaming I have had has been spent on various other games.

One of the big issues for me was the music selection. In games like GH, people tend to play the songs they *like* - but Ninty went with the standard music selection they always use (aka same as Jungle Beat) - a generic list of unlicensed songs, nothing really up to date. Trying to appeal to everyone, but in the process - not really including any current songs that anyone really loves. I'm only going to play the Zelda or Mario tunes so many times...

This also tied into the nature of the game, the fact that the Wii doesn't have a lot of storage for saving, non-digital songs, etc.

Looking back, it definitely wasn't the hit it was meant to be.

The non-challenge nature of the game made it hard to play as well. In the end, they created a title that appealed to musicians - rather than a title that appealed to gamers (or even the casual gamer/public). The sales reflect this.

WiiMusic was fantastic. And yes it was incomplete. Not that it needed more content. It needed a superior sharing distribution system. Requiring the FC system to share your songs FING BLEW CHUNKS. Though I still love this game. Though some more songs would have been nice.

WiiMusic needed an easy way to share song parts with other people by email not by FC. WiiMusic also needed a way to have finished songs exported to an email in .swf format. Better yet a My Music page that was sorta like FaceBook where your posted songs could be seen on the internet. And a Wii Music brower in the game to see other peopels work. The entire FC system for a sharing oriented piece of software was it's achilies heal.