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Nintendo - "Everyone is a Gamer"
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Jul 11, 2007 01:30 PM
from the or-they-soon-will-be dept.
from the or-they-soon-will-be dept.
There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs dominated the opening of Nintendo's E3 conference. Fortunately, the event had more than just business to discuss. They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks. They showed off a number of third party titles to prove the outside-the-company commitment, such as a Soul Calbur and Medal of Honor (which will be playable online) designed specifically for the console. Hardcore gamers were the focus of the early portion of the conference: Smash Brothers Brawl has a launch date of December 3rd in the US. They heavily hyped online play, with several EA titles and a Pokemon-like Dragon Quest title. Mario Kart for Wii will be launching early next year, will be playable online, and will have a Wiimote driving wheel housing packaged with the game. With the hardcore discussed, the attention shifted to mass market games. A new channel, 'Check Mii Out' will allow for a HotorNot-style voting mechanism and contests to make the most realistic celebrity Mii. There was much discussion of the Nintendo approach to expanding audience; Super Mario Galaxy was brought up as bridging that gap, as a second player can 'assist' the primary player in various ways. Galaxy will be launching on November 12th. Targetted more directly at this 'outside the norm' group was WiiFit, which uses a dedicated device called the Wii Balance Board. It allows for a daily exercise routine, can track data over time (and compare it to other family members) and includes some simple minigames like a soccer heading game. The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal to make videogaming one of the pre-eminent forms of entertainment, across all age groups.
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What gamers? (Score:5, Funny)
That's just outreach to all the hardcore gamers in accounting, obviously. Feel welcome guys!
Re:What gamers? (Score:5, Funny)
Function Call of Duty
Age of Accruals
The Balance Sheets of War
Extreme Audit III: Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
Parent
Re:What gamers? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Two years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two years ago (Score:4, Informative)
Nowhere to be found [slashdot.org], eh? Microsoft's conference was last night. Nintendo's was this morning. Sony's is next. Slashdot will cover all three.
Parent
Re:Two years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that both the Wii and the DS are smash hits at the moment, I'd say that Nintendo is a "Two Trick Pony". Unless you count the continuing success of the Gameboy Advance. In which case Nintendo is a three trick pony. That is, unless you also count their unrivaled success with the Super Nintendo. In which case they're a four trick pony. Oh, but what about the original Gameboy? Make that a five trick pony. Six if you count the market-reviving, competition-stomping powerhouse that was the NES. Oh, but what about the games?!? Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Mario 3, Zelda, Metroid, Starfox, DK:Country, Mario Kart, Link to the Past, FZero, Mario 64, Starfox 64, Ocarina of Time, FZero X, Metroid Prime-- oh to hell with it. I'll just give you a grand total.
By my count, Nintendo is a 3,421,978 trick pony.
I can certainly see your point. By my count Sony has innovated much more than Nintendo with a grand total of... erm... two tricks. 1.5 if you believe in Sony's (rather confusingly put) "more than 10 years" philosophy of console design.
Parent
Different Market (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt it. People buying a 100$ console and people buying a 500$ console are an entirely different market, I think.
I don't think the PS2 is competing with the PS3. If anything, it's competing with the Wii.
Which actually means that a lot of people looking for a Wii may end up with a PS2 instead. They wouldn't pay twice as much and buy a PS3, but they might pay half as much and buy a PS2. I doubt it happens often, but it seems more likely that the PS2 is stealing from the Wii than from the PS3.
Parent
Not bad (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have liked to see more focus on some of the third party exclusives that were being brought to the Wii, something that seems a little lacking. I know that a lot of companies have pledged support and are releasing games, but a lot of them turn out to be crappy ports that no one's interested in. They probably should have shown something from Square Enix in more detail.
I'm glad that Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. are dated now and it'll be nice to finally have some AAA games coming out. Hopefully, I'll be able to stand the wait between now and then. Announcing Mario Kart for 1Q 2008 also helps to let everyone know that there won't be another gaming drought, at least not for a while. Hopefully there will be some good AAA third party releases by then to start picking up the slack.
I'm glad they made some announcements about expanding online play in games on the system, but I still want to know more about it and how all of it will work. I'm not a huge fan of friends codes and would prefer that they used a set-up more akin to Xbox Live. At least they're finally catching up to Sony and Microsoft in terms of online play.
The Balance Board and their new light gun look like some interesting additions. I can see how the light gun adaptor would help to break down some of the barriers between casual and hardcore gamers. I also suspect that WiiFit will do a lot better than most people will give it credit for.
I'm going to go see if I can find a stream for the Sony conference now.
Mii Hot or Not? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a very rough caricature. How realistic can people make them? Someone will make Madonna and when it's pointed out I might even agree that it kind of looks like her but if I would never have looked at the mii and immediately thought MADONNA!
My nephews own a wii and they created a mii for everyone in our extended family. They did as good a job as anyone could do but I couldn't pick out who people were because the options would have to be a lot more detailed to distinguish between my nose and my brother's nose, for instance. So how are people going to vote on celebrity miis? This one's head is a LITTLE bit bigger. That one has a slightly darker skin color. How do you decide which is better when they are all nearly identical?
Re:Mii Hot or Not? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Mii Hot or Not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I'd hate that. I still don't see the benefit of micro-transactions other than as a way to fleece a couple extra bucks out of the customer.
Parent
Hardcore Gamers are idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
2005- When the "Revolution" was revealed, they laughed at it. "Nintendo cannot compete." Meanwhile, they went 'ONE CONSOLE FUTURE' to the Sony Killzone 2 trailer and Microsoft's Xbox 360 showing.
2005- (TGS) When Nintendo revealed the Wii controller, they laughed at it. They compared it to the Powerglove and that it would flop. They hailed Xbox 360 launch as start of 'high definition' generation.
2006- When the Wii name is announced, hardcore gamers laughed and considered the Revolution to be 'dead' on arrival. After all, who would play the 'Wii' when there were much cooler names like Playstation 3 and Xbox 360?
2006- Nintendo's excellent E3 showing was not worth thinking about, they said. After all, Nintendo fans go ballistic on every Nintendo E3 presence. PS3's brand name would sail it past very fast. And while PS3 was expensive, you got so much value in it! Wii wasn't future proofed.
2006- Wii's $250 price shocked them and they declared it too expensive for any reasonable person to buy. The bundling of Wii Sports would destroy third party software sales. Don't bother pre-ordering since you can walk in the afternoon and buy it anytime.
2007- Wii is still selling out. Obviously, it must be a fad. A novelty. Hardcore gamers believe they are the mainstream after all. PS3 is not 'dead'. It is just 'slow' in starting. It will overtake the market in time. It just has too.
2007- Wii Balance Board? "Nintendo is DEAD as a gaming company!" they proclaim. "I don't even turn on my Wii anymore," they keep telling us. Obviously, the end of Wii had come and everyone will rush to get Xbox 360s and PS3s.
The pattern shows that Hardcore Gamers have been 100% wrong on Nintendo ever since the DS. Why should we listen to them now? They're wrong then, and they are wrong today.
Hardcore gamers say, "I understand Nintendo trying to expand the audience. But why don't they listen to us?" It is because hardcore gamers ARE the problem with gaming. Microsoft and Sony listened to them and look at where that got them. The more Nintendo defies the hardcore, the more their success.
Re:wow (Score:4, Funny)
Or Beowulf clusters if you want to strech it out a bit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So in short: yes.
Hardcore Gamers don't really matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Mario Kart Online? No? really?
I think you're missing what created the hype in the first place. It wasn't you. It wasn't the gamers. It was the old people playing videogames for the first times in their lives. It was the parents, gaming with their kids. It was the kids, getting off the couch and jumping around. It was was the soccer moms, touching a videogame controller twenty years after they last played Pong.
The Wii Fitness thing may very well be huge. This may be the next Nintendogs, the next Brain Training, the next Wii Sports. The fact that most "hardcore" gamers don't really care doesn't factor in at all.
Metroid, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy may all seem like important games, but it's possible that they won't be able to compare to the importance of something casual like the Wii Balance Board.
Parent
Re:Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
NES: Zapper, Power Pad, Advantage (Arcade joystick styled controller), Max ("Analog" style controller.. also has wings like a PlayStation controller)
SNES: Mouse, Super Scope
More Nintendo peripherals isn't anything new.
Parent
Re:Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
Which as the article states is the audience they are now going for.
I totally hear your sentiment, I was one of them too. Hell, I even picked up Zelda and was disgusted after spending 30 minutes to get a goddamned fishing rod and threw it out... But Tuesday night mahjong in Beijing with my far ranging expat crowd has now been replaced with Tuesday night Wii bowling league or Wario Whatever madness.... Laughing the whole time about how my bowling alley serves the finest wine and provides footwear par excellance
Have you actually played this thing? One of our friends just got back from a 4 week stint in the States and it was the first thing she mentioned. I cant even make the word of mouth marketing on this thing up.
Sorry, im sold. This thing is Just Plain Fun -
Parent
Re:Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, if you have friends.
You types creep me out.
Parent
Re:Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:NinTardDuh (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I find myself less and less interested in Ninte (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, at least you understand why they're doing it.
As someone whom gaming has been steadily leaving behind in terms of skill dexterity (and patience), I'm glad to see someone is accounting for the fact that old geezers like me still want something to pick and play with in short bursts, and doesn't need 40 hours/week to play or preternatural dexterity to control 15 buttons simultaneously in a fast-paced game. I last about 10 minutes on a modern game, get frustrated, and stop playing it altogether.
Nintendo does seem to be abandoning you as a segment. But, in order to sell more games with a wider appeal, they're focusing more on other segments (those without l337 gaming skills). Give it time, if the Nintendo platform keeps selling as it has been, the other game makers will have to start releasing their more "hard core" games on the platform.
Unfortunately, the choice seems to be between "amazing graphics but unplayable for many people" or "moderate graphics, but playable by anyone". There's obviously more people interested in the latter category.
Cheers
Parent
Re:I find myself less and less interested in Ninte (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
A Heretic (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:The preeminent form of leisure entertainment? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Disclaimer: I am not you. You might have a life where-in you do go out or have sex every night of the week. If so, congratulations. But that's not typical).
Parent