Nintendo Wii Gathering Dust
I’ve heard it from others and I’ve experienced it myself. After the initial euphoria of the Nintendo Wii wore off, it has become nothing more than an expensive paperweight, a gimmicky piece of hardware that’s fun with a few friends around but easily eclipsed by other current gen systems.
When speaking about the original Xbox, Steve Ballmer got stuck chanting ”Developers Developers Developers” in a record style loop. Simply put, you’ve got to have developers making games if you expect your console to survive.
Post SNES, that’s what Nintendo has failed at the worst. Their first-party games continue to be superb, but name the last third-party killer app they’ve had? Golden Eye for the N64 maybe? And that was more a second-party game than a first-party one.
The greatest thing the Wii has going for it is the innovative control scheme that has opened up the system to millions of non-gamers. But what games thus far have really taken advantage of that?
Wii Play is still probably the most consistently fun game, which really worries me about the developer base Nintendo has. A more advanced bowling game would be amazing (there are two bowling games released thus far, both to sub-par reviews). Same with tennis. Hell, just give me a deeper Wii Play and I would be happy.
While the Xbox 360 continues to have games released that I’m interested in (and an old game library that I’d like to steal some gems from too), anything interesting Wii related has been minimal. I am looking forward to Tiger Woods 2009, which promises a near 1 to 1 control mechanic, but one game does not a system make.
What makes the Wii even worse is the fact that Nintendo is trending away from the hardcore gaming audience, something they’ve been doing for years might I add, and into a more casual gamer and now even non-gamer market. I hate what they’ve done to the Mario Kart franchise, all in the name of opening up the game to more players. That strategy might work for getting the initial hardware off the shelves, but it’s hardcore gamers that buy the most games, and there is very little they want on the Wii. Dumbing games down in order to make a few more sales is only going to drive them away in droves.
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