First we
looked at whether or not the Xbox 360 was future-proof (click here), then
we discussed whether the Playstation 3 was future-proof (click here), and now we will finsih up this editorial-series by delving into the family-friendly Nintendo Wii.
Nintendo didn’t invent video games – regardless of what any fanboy will tell you. Video Games were invented in the 1960s and refined in the 1970s by companies such as Atari and Activision. While neither was able to half the impending crash of the video game industry in the early 1980s, it was Nintendo who would revive them. A Japanese company that had little experience with video games, having been a lumber and hanafuda card producer for much of its previous existence, Nintendo spurred the Second Renaissance of electronic games. Taking their time to step in and fill the void of the home market left by American companies following the crash earlier in the decade, Nintendo revolutionized a market that has continued to evolve to this day. Thus, it didn’t come as a surprise when Nintendo released the Wii. The Wii was everything its predecessor, The GameCube, was not. Nintendo had opted to discard the standard controller that had been included with every single game system for the last two decades in favor of the Wii Remote. Capable of utilizing the motion of the player, or more appropriate, the player’s arm, and reflecting that in the game being player it seemed like Nintendo had done it again. Release titles for the console would see the return of Legend of Zelda in a way that people had known and loved since the 8-bit era along with the possibility of new iterations of Mario Kart, Smash Bros. and any number of intellectual properties that Nintendo could mobilize to introduce new players and remind faithful fans what the Seal of Quality meant. That is, if they could find it.
For almost twenty-four months following the initial release of the console though, it was unable to be found. Retailers would see shipments come and go, occasionally holding them in the back for an impending sale to drive up demand. Many would accuse Nintendo of the same thing, creating artificial scarcity in an attempt to place the console among the status symbols of parental love for their children. It slowly stopped being a matter of owning a Wii for play as much as the sheer fact of owning it. Nevertheless, consumers hunted endlessly for the device, turning to eBay for the sole purchase of owning the console. Curiously enough however, a divide was growing between those who had purchased the console and those who were yet to do so. Where those who had yet to buy a Wii searched relentlessly for one, those who had owned one for an extended period of time noticed their systems had begun collecting dust. This wasn’t because Nintendo had poorly designed the system. For the time being, the system was adequately outselling both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The problem that slowly became apparent was the amount of shovelware being created for the system. Quietly, unbeknownst to many in the gaming community, let alone amongst the average consumers, Nintendo had altered the Seal of Quality to simply read the Nintendo Seal. The company that had built a reputation on creating and publishing games of exceptional qualitative value had discarded this for the sake of allowing a veritable tidal wave of easily produced, cheap, disappointing titles to be produced for their new flagship console.
While this struck many as a pandering to the casual crowd, it was anything but – even games that appeal to those who play at a more relaxed amount than most gamers are accustomed can have a distinct exceptionality to them – Geometry Wars 2, World of Goo and Castle Crashers have all proved that to be true. Nintendo was looking to expand their market share as quickly as possible, artificially creating a large, distinct library of games by throwing the doors open to anyone who could develop for the system. For every great game produced and published on the console, at least ten, if not twenty, would be complete and utter garbage. Titles that had no business being produced as games – that would go from shovelware on the shelves to regretware when people would bring them home to discover quickly that they had bought total crap. Regardless of how financially laudable the act of massive development was for the console, it still punished up-and-coming gamers as well as faithful who had stuck with the company through the GameCube era. To add insult to injury, the console went from being touted as a console to simply a toy. Most notably, Wii Music turned off many players enough to begin selling their consoles for the sake of buying a PlayStation 3 or a 360. Nintendo just seemed to be ignoring the core audience that had grown up playing their games or their consoles and it wasn’t catching up to them initially, but it seems to have done so now.
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This feature editorial continues on the next page, please click below to see our final breakdown of whether or not the Nintendo Wii is really future-proof.
