Wii May Be Succeeding in Widening Game Market 184
superdan2k writes "When Nintendo brought the Wii to market, one of their stated goals was to get people who didn't normally play video games using their console. Based on an article from the AP, it seems they've made some headway in capturing the senior citizen market. With the Wii's price point, and it being a good way to get people engaged in physical exercise, it's easy to envision it catching on with other retirement homes beyond the one mentioned in the article."
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Indeed (Score:1, Insightful)
Lets take tennis as an example. a 70 year old who played tennis in his/her 30's would like to play now but they can't because of bad hips. Playing tennis on the PS3 requires you to press buttons and arrows to move around. Thats not playing tennis, thats playing a tennis video game. The wii lets them go through the same motions of playing tennis while playing against someone else. That is something they can do and feel comfortable trying because the mechanics of playing are very much the same in real life.
I think you're discounting old people playing video games because they dont already. They aren't going to buy the Wii to play a video game, they are going to buy the Wii for something fun and simple to do. its not technology that scares them, its their lack of knowledge about new technologies thats scares them, big difference.
Re:Top rated games (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Top rated games (Score:5, Insightful)
Pros: Fun for all ages, lots of replayability
Cons: Control scheme takes some getting used to, outdated graphics, no blood
Common PS3 review:
Pros: Amazing Photorealism, Super Ultra Deadly Combat 9 almost as good as Super Ultra Deadly Combat 7 (Super Gore Edition)
Cons: Didn't we play this last year? (And every year for the past 8 years?)
Re:Wii isn't widening it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Exercise? c'mon (Score:2, Insightful)
Boxing on the other hand is a completely different matter, with it's remote and nunchuk action if you want a workout that's the one to choose.
And of course there are other games, Rayman Raving Rabbids has plenty of games that require frantic high speed shaking of one controller or the other (or both in some cases).
Re:Top rated games (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh... yeah, similarly to how we played The Legend of Zelda, The Adventures of Link, A Link to the Past, Links Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle Ages, Oracle Seasons, Four Swords and The Minish Cap before Twilight Princess...
Or what about Mario Party 1 trough 8
Or Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros. 2 Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, , Super Mario Bros. 3 , Super Mario Bros. Deluxe , New Super Mario Bros. Super Mario World, Super Mario world 2, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2.
Re:Do it for the kids (Score:2, Insightful)
Even more so since games are a good aid for learning about co-operation, teamwork and sharing. The other social aspect is that kids talk about games in school a lot so this actually helps your kids fit in rather than the urban myth of social outcast loners.
Aside from that, there have always been multiplayer games. Most of the enjoyment I recall comes from the teamwork in gaming rather than just defeating the end of level boss on your own or something.
Re:Top rated games (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to say that these numbers don't show anything, but I've always been one to argue quality versus quantity.
Look at how many of those "top 19" games are cookie-cutter sports titles [metacritic.com] available on other consoles? I wouldn't count that as a testament to the "PS3's greatness" (was NFL2k6 really that much different from NFL2k7?) as these titles always do well, because they appeal to (more of) a non-gamer demographic. I'd also like to note that one of these sports titles is also in the top 9 list of Wii games, which only proceeds to prove my point.
Also amongst these titles are a few that we've already seen before. How is Virtua Fighter 5 any different from its predecessors aside from looking prettier on the new console? The same goes for Tekken, it's always been the same game, and it's always been great. But it's nothing new.
How many of these titles are single-player, or multi-player? Sure, Elder Scrolls IV looks amazing, and is probably about as interesting as its predecessors, but requires a huge amount of (MMO-like) dedication to actually progress through the story. And unless your friends like watching you play ESIV (I can imagine it would be about as interesting as it was for me to watch one of my friends play ESIII - and it wasn't) for hours on end, those with an interest in multi-player games come into question.
On the PS3? You've got sports titles, fighting titles, and a few racing games. But does that really warrant shelling out $600+ just to play it on a new, pretty console? As I have already stated, they're nothing new, nothing different from what has already been the mainstream gaming market for years. First person shooters? I have an Xbox, why not just play Halo? In my opinion, the original Halo was much better than Halo 2, anyway.
The Wii comes packed with a game (Wii Sports) that has tons of simple mini-games with a high-replay value for those with the multi-player mindset. The games are easy to understand, so even the novice gamer can pick it up and play it (unlike games like Elder Scrolls, which requires MYST-like patience or worse).
Before we go ranting and raving about game reviews, we have to keep in mind that the Wii is also aimed at people who don't even read these reviews. Aren't most game reviews written by avid gamers? What about those who aren't? The Wii seems to appeal both to people who are gamers (with titles like the new Zelda), and to non-gamers (with titles like Wii Sports, Wii Play and I'm sure the new Mario Party will have the same appeal as I'm sure it did on the Gamecube).