How Nintendo saved gaming

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 12 August 2009 12:13

Opinion and Analysis

I said it as recently as April this year, for many venturing back into “serious” gaming after the turbulent 80’s and stagnant 90’s, the captivation of the motion controls and Wii Sports was all they needed for what they used the Wii for, that is, to be dragged out as a novelty during family get-togethers.

David fears some dilution of his sophisticated gaming experience.  But, whilst the video-game industry is still considered an emerging one, and one that has suffered for development resource shortages, instead of lamenting the kinds of games being produced in an attempt to grab some Nintendo generated income he should be celebrating the awareness of interactive entertainment Nintendo has created.
 
With so many Wii’s in the market, why wouldn’t developers try for a slice?  After all, budgets for a Wii title are significantly smaller than getting something up to Xbox 360, PC or PS3 AAA release standards.  The expectations are different, they game style is different, one could go on to say that they are indeed different beasts altogether – hence the Wii60 advice comes to the fore again.

In my opinion, the Wii’s opening up of the market place, bringing millions of new punters to the hobby and therefore injecting both money and potential resources (people attracted to work in the industry) is a good thing.  A company like EA, for so long mired in repetitive and iterative products is now able to fund more experimental titles such as Mirrors Edge, that perhaps might initially fail, but can be bolstered by returns on cheaper, and therefore more revenue inducing Wii projects.

I don’t see a dilution of the more ‘hard-core’ products, perhaps PC titles are dwindling, but there are still companies willing to take gaming to the extreme edges of technology.  ArmA, Halo, Gears of War, Dragon Age, Operation Flashpoint, BioShock,  Mass Effect, Killzone, Alan Wake, Heavy Rain and many others are still with us, many made possible by direct injection of Wii game capital or simply by encouragement of the expanded demographic now in the buying market thanks to the Wii.