The Wii and the Nintendo philosophy of 2005—the console and company with such promise—are dead. They just don’t know it yet.
Nintendo itself confirmed as much today with one of the most strange and rudderless E3 press conferences in recent memory. What’s that mean? I think Popular Mechanics said it best during its head-scratching recap of whatever it was Reggie, Iwata and Miyamoto were talking about earlier today:
That hardware complexity is partly why the U didn’t make our stomachs drop like they did when the Wii, with its simple controller full of unlimited potential, was announced. The Wiimote was one of the most intuitive, simple control schemes ever imagined—the TV remote reinvented to support natural human movement. Five years later, Nintendo has built something that’s completely opposite of the Wii’s original design philosophy.
Indeed, it was confirmed today on this very web site that there will only be one magic touchscreen controller per console. Just one! Sorry. No More. Cave-dwelling, keep-that-in-the-basement single player gaming is back, baby! Hell Nintendo even actively showcased a feature that depicted TV watching supersede gaming: When someone wants to watch TV, it kicks the game to the controller. Sounds great, except it was coming from a company that previously wanted MORE people to game.
The community and party atmosphere created by amazing feats like Wii Sports are gone or are, at the least, hindered by the fact that there’s going to be a “master” controller and four Wiimotes. Maybe gamers can pass the touchscreen around like a hot potato. Won’t that be fun.
I’d say it pisses me off and makes me mad, but I haven’t touched a Nintendo console since January. “I guess I’m disappointed,” I should say, sounding like my mother. From the looks of sales in Japan and of the 3DS pretty much everywhere, I’m not alone. Has anything worth playing even come out for the Wii since Christmas? That wasn’t made by Nintendo?
One can’t help but wonder if Nintendo really had no idea what it was doing all along. Back in 2006, the company could do no wrong. Or so it seemed. Faced with a frothing mass of ignorant, short-sighted “hardcore” gamers who decried them as a company that “abandoned” true gaming, they stood their ground and offered up a braindead-simple Wiimote. Wirelessly connected to a DVD case-sized Gamecube 2.0 console, this TV-remote styled David easily defeated the PS3 and Xbox 360 to the tune of sales that saw the Wii outselling the so-called “HD Twins,” combined.
Now, thanks to what I saw today in Los Angeles (via video feed), that simplicity has been taken out back and shot in the head. GoW3 style or Halo… your choice, but whatever it is, Nintendo has caved. In its place? A gigantic, $300 multi-button tablet (no multitouch) that requires two hands and, let’s be honest here, puts an end to all those silly-but-fun situations where people are standing, laughing and waving their arms around in a slightly dangerous, haphazard fashion.
Are third parties on board? Of course they are. Sort of. You saw their talking heads paraded out in front of a somewhat subdued audience in that theater doing pretty much the same thing they’ve done for new Nintendo consoles and portable since the dawn of time. Trouble is, after that initial deluge of games on launch day, they kind of just go away, mostly back to the Microsoft and PS3 camps, where clearly defined hardcore strategies and sure-fire blockbuster hits will support their bottom lines.
But perhaps you’re of the mind that Jack is being his ol’ pessimistic self again. You might be right. Maybe I’m getting jaded in my old age. Or maybe I see things like this and realize every game showcased as a launch title today was actually being played on an Xbox 360 or PS3:
In a bizarre twist to an otherwise exciting news day, during an interview today just following Nintendo’s showing of its new Wii U system and games, company honcho Reggie Fils-Amie told GameTrailers that the sizzle reel of games shown today were not actually from the Wii U. Instead, when asked if they were from PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, Reggie replied “Absolutely, because we’re talking a year away from when the console will launch.â€
One wonders why Nintendo, a company that literally created a new market for gaming with the Wii and did so predominantly by word of mouth Ambassador Parties, would even show a system at all under these conditions. No game play. No grassroots marketing. No games!
Could it be the resurgent Xbox 360-equipped Kinect, with its amazing sixth-year sale bump? Apple, and it’s oft-unacknowledged game-friendly iOS platform? Probably, as history shows a glossy new portable from Sony never made the Big N sweat much&,dash;especially so for one partially named after a processed cheese product, so we know it’s not them.
Remember when the Wii was officially revealed? The Glory Days? The lines that formed immediately afterward? The absolute dominance of Wii Sports from the first second it was available for game play sessions? Remember how “Wii” meant “we” and gaming was starting to mature and become more mainstream and all-inclusive and less headshot counts and dick-measuring? All gone. Not present this time around. But at least Darksiders 2 and some Tom Clancy games with realistic blood splatter are present and accounted for, right? Hell, there was even a GTA rumor kicking around before the crap hit the white plastic this morning.
In a smoking Wii-shaped crater smoldering in LA this evening is a psuedo-tablet that will live in a 2012 and beyond world that will be inundated with cheap, multitouch mobile devices and tablets tethered effortlessly to HDTVs and cloud-based services provided by companies that understand what online services are all about (save Sony, which, come on, shouldn’t be trusted with anything online ever again).
But hey, enough negativity. I hear ya! At least Wii All About U is 1080p. Nintendo finally delivered on that. No more complaining about heigh definition. And EA Sports told me that the HUD is coming off the screen and landing on my tablet screen. Well, for Player 1 it is anyway. Player 2 through 4 can go screw and play with their Wiimotes.
Wii U? More like F U. Play what we want you to play. Guess I’ll check back in a year. Ish. When’s this come out again?
Image note: The above image was apparently sent out post-press conference because there was some confusion about whether the controller was the new console, if there was a new console at all, or it the controller was meant for the Wii. Or something. Anyway, it’s a great sign they had to clear things up like that.
@ Artefacto
Yes, I read that Iwata Asks, and I heard him state it as the E3 conference too. Unfortunately just saying that doesn’t make it so. Now, were that what it looked like they were doing, everything would be fine and dandy, this article wouldn’t exist (as Jack would be among the throngs chomping at the bit), and Nintendo’s stock price would be up 5% than it currently is.
I can SORT (forgive my usage of bold, but I know not how to use italics) of see how the Wii U could be a player in the less profitable so-called “core” market (although whether it has a chance of succeeding there or not is another matter), but I’ve yet to see a single piece of evidence that the Wii U caters to the expanded audience, to old-school gameplay values, or in other words, the majority of the market which made the Wii and the DS such massive successes.
Thus as I see things right now:
The Wii U has primarily shown thus far trailers of 360 and PS3 games
Of the two (as I recall) Wii U games shown, one was New Super Mario Bros. Wii with the cast replaced with Miis, and the other seems to be a prototype tweaking of Wii Sports. The Wii U needs games like Wii Sports and 2D Super Mario Bros. (as both games are massively popular and push large quantities of systems), but I have my doubts as to whether trying to sell what your audience likely already owns is enough to fight disinterest.
A primary feature of the device is being to isolate the playing experience to a single player, be it through making the system less important than television, or be it through isolating a player from the rest of the game in the name of “asymmetric gameplay”, whereas the Wii was focused on bringing players together.
Nintendo has expressed strong interest in publishing a system like Microsoft and Sony and producing the kind of games that they do (instead of publishing a distinctly Nintendo system centered around producing Nintendo games). Keep in mind that the 360 and the PS3 were far from cash cows for either company, and their idea of appealing to “everybody” was to first ignore the expanded audience, incorrectly deride them as idiots and “casual gamers” (but in industry speak, I repeat myself) , and then throw degrading table scraps at them in the form of the Move and Kinect, whilst still utterly failing to grasp what made the Wii a success.
Trust me, I REALLY want Nintendo to succeed, if only because they’re one of the last companies out there with a remote interest in producing the kind of games I want to play. I’m just worried, because I’m looking at the facts here, and they don’t seem to be painting a pretty picture thus far.
@ RisnDevil
Sorry there, it seems that I missed your post. Regardless, if I might comment on a few points of note:
“Am I the only one that was not even close to disappointed by WiiU Battle Mii and WiiU Chase Mii? Is this not the exact kind of “innovation†you said is not present?”
One looks to be an uninspired 3rd Person shooter and the other looks like a rehash of Pacman Vs. Or in short, 404 – Innovation Not Found. On a more serious note though, I’m wasn’t demanding innovation so much as I was thinking that a minor rehash of a game you already own isn’t going to be enough to sell you. Besides, what I was hoping for was the kind of games that move systems. Super Mario Bros. moves systems. Classic Zelda moves systems. Wii Sports moves systems. Wii Motion Plus COULD have moved systems if Nintendo actually supported it instead of releasing Wii Sports Resort and sitting on it. Games like Battle Mii, Ghost Recon, and Darksiders on the other hand won’t.
“And not family friendly/conducive to “group play†is also wrong: it supports all of that just fine AND supports single play AND SHARING (such as sharing of the TV). I am married with two kids. My oldest child is just getting old enough to play games, though she doesn’t do so often. Mom isn’t much of a gamer, so that leaves dad. I want to play games WITHOUT having to be banished to another room from my family. Makes perfect sense to me.”"
Whether or not it supports it isn’t the issue (keep in mind the myriad of “supported” Nintendo features throughout the years which were never used). The ideal gaming system is one wherein you turn it on and you don’t get banished from the room, but instead people from the other rooms want to come in and play too. That Nintendo chooses to market the ability to ISOLATE the gaming experience makes it fill the role of an anti-console if you would. Now, while simply HAVING that ability admittedly isn’t entirely a bad thing (although as I said, the moment you turn that on you instantly turn off any social appeal to the fame), the fact that Nintendo ISN’T focusing on expanding the Wii experience AT ALL is what worries me and has me wondering if, left alone, Nintendo will be heading down the same line as the XBOX and the Play Station.
Scenario 1:
Wii U is the Godtier of all consoles and entertainment devices ever — everyone in the world owns a tablet controller and carries it at all times in their Nintendo attache and uses it instead of their iPads. They make videochat calls on it to their professional friends and all the happy people get together online and in person to play the best hardcore games, Ninty franchises, funtimes casual party shlock.
They will be able to download movies off the internet onto their TV or controller, turn their lights on and off from the controller using a 3rdparty app, join online Smash tournaments, have 30 person online F-Zero races, go to cafes and order their food using their controller, download Nintendo classic games off the Wii U and play them on the go wherever they like, and Retro will make a brilliant sequel to everyone’s favorite Nintendo franchise.
Every Sony and Microsoft exclusive title will not only be present on the Wii U but will be enhanced by the unique controller. Nintendo will make a hardcore FPS starring Tingle and it will be the most popular game of all time.
The Queen of England will personally go to Gamestop, buy the Wii U, use it every day and carry the controller religiously.
Scenario 2:
Wii U tries to beat Apple, Sony, & Microsoft all at the same time, on turf they dominate, while abandoning their core audience and their own philosophy. The Wii U tries to do everything and instead does nothing well. A godawful system, controller, and wifi setup destroys the self-esteem of even the most devoted Nintendo fans. Every title is a pun ending in “-Wii U” and there are Zs at the end of most words. There are no games and popular Nintendo franchises get turned into mini-game collections. A few buy the system, find it to be confusing, convoluted and ugly and never turn it on again.
Cat Daddy Games buys Nintendo.
Apparently you didn’t see the demos Nintendo showed. Find Mii? The battle Mii thing? New Super Mario Bros. Mii? These games aren’t bloody, epic shooters. Though, I must point out there’s nothing wrong with those games at all. Those demos they showed utilized the simplistic Wii Sports-type gameplay brilliantly! Just because Wii Sports won’t be fuzzy, and rather in beautiful full-HD doesn’t mean Nintendo is abandoning anything.
I’m sure the presentation could be better and many questions remain unanswered, but at the end of the day i believe this is what i’ve been looking for. Nintendo IPs in HD and heavy 3rd party support with great multiplatform games.
I couldn’t care less if Nintendo is accused of forgetting the casual audience, the Wii was for them. Wii U is, at last, for me.
The Wii U looks rad. It is unique. It is interesting. We will see the games. If they are awesome, it will be awesome. The end.
@Xelpud – I’ll just say this, to me the Wii is the second NES for Nintendo. It’s the second time in the history of the company where they really grabbed the mainstream customer and re-defined what gaming was. So after the massive success of the NES what type of console did Nintendo release? A little something called the SNES, which a) was more complicated, it had a more complex button scheme b) fixed a lot of the hardware shortcomings of the NES c) Didn’t sell as well as the NES, BUT those types of successes are extremely rare d) had strong 3rd party support for the platform. See any parallels here? That’s why I’m excited about the Wii U because if Nintendo does it right it has the potential to be the next generation SNES, which is fine by me.
Why the heck do you guys have a blog about Nintendo when all you do is hate on them? You guys are pointless! good bye forever
Jack, welcome to my side. Nice to finally have you….bwahahaha!
I have seen too much hating on wii u in just two days, and i can say only one thing: i talked with many friends about it and the all want to buy it like crazy! and they are not even nintendo fans! I dont think it is going to fail and it looks more than OK to me.
The only fail is that you can’t connect 2 of the new controllers at the same time… i hope this is not true!
Oh, and also, the presentation isn’t everything, look at 3ds: everyone was extremely impressed, not very good content/sales.
I am sure that during the next year we are going to see more stuff about the new system: 1st party titles are SURE to come, i mean come on, they never stop developing them, 3rd parties seem eager on making more games (they wanted to share a piece of wii’s success but it was too hard to do, now it will be easier for them).
I smell success hear. Not as much as with wii, but success anyway. And give me a break, new mario, zelda, donkey kong (?), metroid, whatever along with A quality 3rd party titles like arkham asylum? And all that with a brand new fun looking controller and decent graphics? It sounds perfect, i really cant understand why noone is happy! crap conference? You will not buy the conference, you will buy the system and it looks GOOD!
I personally believe the Wii U is a stroke of genius. My head swims just thinking of the possibilities. Plus I don’t have to stop playing when someone wants to do something else with the TV.
This is an interesting take, but like you said: you haven’t played your Wii since January! The same goes for me too! So what I gather is you complaining about Nintendo changing their ways, but currently those ways aren’t working on you at all.
I think the Wii U (terrible name, I know) is more than just a gimmick like the Wii was. This new controller has beneficial gameplay functions going for it, and if it also has the same games as PS3/360, then why not play the controller enhanced version on the U?
Actual gameplay improvements, unlike the Wii’s waggle, is what Nintendo needs to keep doing. Sure motion controls are important now, but I think this is just another big innovative step being taken by Nintendo…
So being a hardcore gamer and never playing my Wii, this is an important step being taken to get me, and other gamers to care about Nintendo again. Oh and the Wii mote is still being used, so I have no clue why you would be complaining. You can still waggle all you want, but until the Wii U comes out, I’ll be playing consoles that matter and have triple A titles released all the time.
Haha… Hahahaha… Funny Jack… You’re a funny guy….
Nintendo are still way behind the competition, I expected more, especially since it’s not out till next year
deepthought:
“you know what i’ve heard a lot of? “there are so many possibilities!â€
and I think “like what?!—
Yeah, exactly. I wonder if we’re seeing those famous viral messengers that Malstrom is always talking about, because I don’t know how anyone can get so excited about the controller and not be able to articulate why. The main thing the controller seems to do is allow the screen to display things like inventory and radar, but that’s hardly anything to gush over. It’s the same old functionality, it doesn’t change the way you play the game like the Wiimote did.
As for hardcore gaming, my PC and 360 already do that a lot better. I doubt console players will be interested in switching over just because they get a minor improvement in graphics. The Wii players won’t care either.
I agree with the sentiment Jack is carrying throughout his post. Nintendo seems to have completely backpedaled on the Wii in terms of philosophy–the very philosophy that made the Wii a popular alternative to the 360 and PS3. Most of the “casual” players who were responsible for making the Wii so successful bought one on the assumption that there would be many games like Wii Sports to follow, and that Nintendo had a line-up of more fun and creative ways to use motion controls. Apart from a few titles like New Super Mario Bros Wii (which barely made use of motion control) and Wii Sports Resort (which needed Wii Motion Plus, anyway), this promise was woefully unfulfilled.
Now that we are going through this drought of quality Wii titles (which is why the Wii is currently selling so poorly), what is Nintendo’s response? They announce a new console (which they seem insistent on emphasizing that they wanted to make in the first place, as if the Wii was some sort of placeholder that they never really believed in but sold anyway) and then mention that they won’t put out any other big titles after Skyward Sword. Pardon my arrogance, but why should I buy a new console based on more promises of “innovative gameplay,” “fun motion control,” and “broad appeal” when that was the whole damn reason why I bought a Wii in the first place? If they didn’t deliver in the past 5 years, why should they be able to deliver now? This time, it’s going to take a lot more than one awesome pack-in game to convince me to buy their console.
Unlike the Wii controller, which has the appeal of being like a simple NES controller and television remote with a couple extra features (pointing, motion control), the Wii U controller looks like an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink disaster. Isn’t it just a little sad the new controller looks strikingly similar to many of the pre-E3 mock-ups (the bloated, ugly ones) that were circulating on the internet just weeks ago? The thing looks like it was designed by a committee that just couldn’t reach a consensus on what not to include, so they included EVERYTHING–face buttons, trigger buttons, home button, control pad, circle pads, touch screen, accelerometer, gyroscope, camera, microphones, IR camera, and a PORT to attach even more stuff?
So the product vision video showed the touchscreen being used in some interesting, albeit simplistic, ways. I’m not going to waste my time imagining all the possibilities that exist with the controller because I made that mistake with the Wii (and the Kinect, and the PSmove, etc.). I don’t get to play possibilities; I only get to play GAMES. If developers hardly ever made good use of the extra features of the Wii (beyond tacking on motion control vis-a-vis “Substitute motion for button press!” or “You get to use your pointer in the game menu!”), I don’t expect them to suddenly go out of their way to create a deluge of creative AND fun gameplay experiences just for the Wii U.
Also, the ability to play games just on the controller screen being touted as a feature (the one that they opened their Kinect-style, I-guarantee-the-controller-will-not-be-as-cool-as-this-in-real-life product vision video, no less) was absolutely pathetic. First, their video showed gaming taking a backseat to other forms of entertainment, which is an admission of inferiority (yup, videogame are niche and boring to watch). Secondly, it defeats the whole purpose of a home console, which is to make family and friends gather around the SAME television (if I wanted a tiny screen for myself, I’d buy a handheld). Thirdly, if this console is FINALLY outputting HD, why the hell would I want to play my pretty games on a crappy 6-inch screen rather than the big-screen display that I bought? Lastly, and most concerning, is that if a full game can be pulled onto the handheld at any time, then the touchscreen can never serve any important purpose that cannot be superseded by what is on the main screen. In other words, there can be only two possibilities: either the touchscreen function is critical, and the the play-on-just-the-controller feature is not actually a feature in that game, or the touchscreen serves as a dumping ground for HUD information and inventory. I would hope that games followed the former, but I can imagine that that many multi-platform games and ports would follow the latter.
What bothers me the most about all this is that, for all their talk about “low cost,” “gameplay over graphics,” “expanded audiences,” and “the Wii has a long lifespan ahead of it,” Nintendo is now ABANDONING the Wii and the very audience that made them more successful than the other two consoles. Instead of offering something that DEMANDS for games to be different from the mainstream attitude of the “cinematic, epic, story-driven gaming experience” as the ideal, they now want to offer the EXACT SAME THING that the 360 and PS3 offer, plus motion control, which they ASSUME 3rd parties will flock to (just like with the Wii, Kinect and PSmove, right?). I’m sorry, but fighting for 3rd-party support was a losing game with the N64 and Gamecube, and I don’t see the situation changing. If I’m going to play “hardcore” games, I’d rather buy a Sony or Microsoft system with better media center features, online, and, ultimately, 3rd party support.
In the end, I do see myself buying a Wii U, but not until the first price drop or until I see the strong 3rd-party support and expanded-audience, Wii Sports-like games that Nintendo is promising. Promises, promises. In other words, I foresee myself waiting for the price drop. You’re all excited now–just wait until you see what bombs Microsoft and Sony drop at E3 2012.