Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 12 August 2009 13:13
Opinion and Analysis
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Some are concerned that the popularity of the Wii has diluted the once deep and rich gaming landscape, but instead they should embrace the legitimacy to the hobby that the Wii has brought to the industry.
iTWire colleague David Swan is lamenting the loss of his hobby. He is resentful that what the Nintendo Wii
represents will be the downfall of video gaming as he knows it.
The problem is the Wii’s immense popularity, this was unexpected by the major players in the video-game market. Not too many, paid to foresee these things did so. On the back of the game-cube’s relative failure, the rise of the Xbox brand and continued success of the PS2, there was not much reason to believe that a game-cube V1.5 would capture the market in the way it did.
I grew up in the digital age, and was captivated from my early teens of the possibility of interactive entertainment. As I grew up, tastes change in many areas, and so it goes in entertainment. Movies are a prime example (and one so often utilised in comparison to video games) where sophistication satisfaction levels change as one ages.
And whilst on one level this is a parallel truth for one engaged in interactive entertainment, there is also a fundamental joy in playing simple games, perhaps in bite sized chunks, and with others less ‘into’ gaming as yourself. This is the niche that the Wii has stepped into so successfully.
Back in December 2007,
I mentioned that, for me, the Wii was not enough . Whilst the local multiplayer was fun, the pick-up and play mentality had all family members joining in, the depth of play craved by the more mature gamer in me needed to be sated elsewhere. Hence the catch cry of a Wii60 (combination of Wii and an Xbox 360) was needed for a broad console experience.
But market forces drove many developers to scramble into the emerging Wii market. Behemoth Electronic Arts, was one in particular that shifted a number of internal resources to work upon Wii projects in an effort to cash in on the perceived increase in demographic introduced to gaming via Nintendo’s genius move.
But, as David pointed out in his article, much of this shift by third parties has ended in failure; with only cheaper – yes poorer – products outside of the Nintendo branded titles have done very well sales wise.
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