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Nintendo Businesses Wii

Nintendo Admits They May 'Lose Some Purists' 110

Posted by Zonk from the five-year-old-action-me-is-offended dept.
njkid1 writes "GameDaily has up their full E3 interview with Nintendo of America's George Harrison, SVP of Marketing and Corporate Communications. Harrison talks about the move of the company's sales and marketing force, acknowledges that Nintendo may 'lose some purists' while attempting to broaden the audience, and he doesn't rule out a Wii revision: 'It's interesting, console hardware has always historically been on a sort of fixed, sequential pattern almost every five to six years and it takes you about five years to develop a new piece of console hardware. The handhelds and portables, like Game Boy and now DS, we've always been continuously innovating, and whenever we feel like it's time or have an upgrade, we'll do it, whether it's an improved screen for the handheld or slimmed down like the DS Lite - those types of things. So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.'"
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Nintendo Admits They May 'Lose Some Purists' More

Nintendo Admits They May 'Lose Some Purists'

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  • What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:23PM (#19961837)
    Videogames are still a new and rapidly evolving artform. So what's a purist? A traditionalist, perhaps... but then I remember being extremely unhappy when I heard that my two favourite 2D franchises (a popular side-scrolling platformer, and a popular top-down action/RPG series) were going to be made into 3D games.

    Until I played them.

    Now Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are considered all-time classics, even by 'purists', even by old hands like me. Should Mario have stayed true to his 2D roots to satisfy purists? Should Zelda have stayed top-down? Certainly not. Purism of that kind leads to stagnation; while the occasional throwback like New SMB is wonderful, games have to evolve or become stale.

    • Re:What's a purist? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by moogaloonie ( 955355 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:44PM (#19962081)
      There are certainly 2D and 3D purists, who especially balk at seeing one mixed with the other. I think in Nintendo's case it's concerning a type of player. The purists are the gamers who've beaten insanely difficult games, find secrets and glitches, master 5-10 button combos (kombos?) and complain that a 40 hour game is too short. Nintendo, in trying to appeal to a larger market, are making easier, more immediately satisfying games which often don't even have endings in the traditional sense.

      • Re:What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Carrot007 ( 37198 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @08:21PM (#19963795)
        Where are these sort of purists?

        Todays generation did not grow up with the old games so did not play them.

        As someone who grew up with the older games I welcome the newer games because as an adult I can not afford to play games non stop for X hours.

        Nintendo seems to know where things need to be if you ask me.
        • I hear ya. I've been playing through Twilight Princess, and it's pretty slow going. If you don't have at least 1 hour to sit down and play, it's not even worth playing. Optimal is probably 2 hours. Some sections of the game take more than 2 hours to get through. Thank god for that headless wonder that lets you warp out of the dungeon so you can save. Too bad he's hidden (although not too well) in all the dungeons. I've currently played 25 hours, and I haven't seen any triforce yet. I love the game,
          • I remember playing games like Bionic Commando and Rygar. They took so long to beat that we ended up leaving the NES on overnight sometimes, praying that it wouldn't glitch up before we came back to finish the game. Those were the days.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Altus ( 1034 )

              Even today I remember one jump in Bionic Commando that I tried over and over again, it must have taken me days just to finally beat that level.

              Yea, I don't have time for that these days.
              • You can't jump in Bioonic Commando..

                On a more serious note, I used to leave the Nintendo on all the time because I wasn't done playing but wanted to go do something else. I remember we used to unplug the RF adapter from the back of the nintendo so we could still watch tv while the unit was still on. There was more than one time that I accidentally pulled the power cable instead. Not Fun :(.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Altus ( 1034 )

                  well yes, I know it wasn't a jump per say but im not sure what to call it. I seem to remember it was a place where you had to swing across a pit and then in mid air shoot out your bionic arm to catch on to another hold or something like that. It was a perfect timing sort of thing. Once I got it it was possible to do it again, but it was brutally hard to get it right the first time (and you really only had to do it once if I recall correctly).

                  Either way, it took enough that I remember it today.

                  I too, ofte
                  • The bird in Ninja Gaiden one one of the last levels. You had to some how swing your sword at a perfect time to kill it and actually make the jump. Fortunately it didn't force me to start the game over just had to go back a couple of levels when you were out of guys.
        • These are "purists" defined by marketing babble trumped out for a slow news day.

          What - you didn't get the fucking memo? Here's your talking points the next time someone asks you to talk to the general public. Human resources demands it.
      • that is correct.

      • The purists are the gamers who've beaten insanely difficult games, find secrets and glitches, master 5-10 button combos (kombos?) and complain that a 40 hour game is too short.
        Nintendo is no stranger to long games. How many hour game is Animal Crossing: Wild World, even to complete the first objectives of paying off the whole house and all expansions, totaling 3.5 million Bells, and making the environment perfect?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bob9113 ( 14996 )
      An appeal that is clearly from the heart, and yet also supported by rational evidence. Very well written. Sorry I didn't get a chance to cap the score.

    • Re:What's a purist? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@NOspAm.yahoo.com> on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:57PM (#19962247)
      Videogames are still a new and rapidly evolving artform.

      So is film, so is recorded music... hell, in the grand scheme of things, so is literature. These things have been around only a fraction of even human history, let alone the history of the world, and all of them are still rapidly evolving.

      If your argument is that there can be no "purists" unless the art form is no longer "new" or "evolving", then there really cannot be purists of any art form.

      I don't think it's a stretch to think there could be video game purists at this point. There are people who were there at the beginning and who have grown up with video games, knowing them a certain way. If they have developed a set of expectations based on those experiences, that would make them a purist.

      You may not be one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It further doesn't mean that your opinion is superior to theirs.
      • I don't think it's a stretch to think there could be video game purists at this point. There are people who were there at the beginning and who have grown up with video games, knowing them a certain way. If they have developed a set of expectations based on those experiences, that would make them a purist.

        A certain way? What way is this? Infocom text game? Roguelike? Endless early-eighties high-score hunt? 2D platformer? JRPG? Block-sorting puzzle? Hegemonising god game? Rodent rescue operation? FPS? RTS?

      • Re:What's a purist? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @06:43PM (#19962773) Homepage
        But in terms of human civilization and culture, which have both been around for a lot less time than humans themselves and move much more rapidly than our species itself, literature is very old and does have a very well established tradition on which to base your notion of "purity". Recorded music is just a way of experiencing music, and music is even more ancient than writing, and again has established traditions and parameters and a codified way of talking about it. Painting is ancient. And while neither of these things are static and unchanging, any new development can be discussed in terms of the history.

        Movies? Relative newcomer. Movies are still in their infancy as an art form -- compared to other human artforms, not just geologic time as it seems you were doing. Movies are starting to have a significant history that would inform anyone calling themselves a "purist", though I've never heard someone doing so.

        Video games? Not even three decades of existence, and founded on technology known for doubling its operational parameters in only two years. This isn't even comparable to the other art forms as far as having an established history, a canon to which one can wish to remain true as a "purist". In the grand scheme of things we're at the "discovering that banging a stick on a hollow tree stump in a regular beat makes a pleasing noise" phase. Acting like their is an established way for banging ones stick against a hollow tree stump against which new stump-stick-beaters should be judged is foolish, because there is an ongoing explosion of people trying various beaters and various objects upon which to beat and nobody has found a "good" way to do it.

        Call me in 50 years, when we can look back on this period of infancy in video games, assuming we are not yet even in it, and we can discuss what "purity" means. In the meantime, there's no point because there simply isn't enough history, and yes that's different than other art forms.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Stormwatch ( 703920 )

          Video games? Not even three decades of existence
          Incorrect. [wikipedia.org] If you mean game consoles only, the Magnavox Odyssey was released in 1972. If you count computer games, they've existed since the early 1950s.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fbjon ( 692006 )
            Not to mention the blatantly ovbious: games are probably as old as music. Video games are just a recent extension. It's the new capabilities than are recent, not the ideas.
            • Yeah, many's the time when I used to go on a rampage out into the streets and beat the crap out of everyone, safe in the knowledge that when I died I'd be magically regenerated or reincarnated at the nearest checkpoint. Then there was the time when I went into space by rotating bricks falling from the sky, organising them into lines of power which disappeared into the ether. I could never beat my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather's high score at the-idea-where-we-rotate-the-falling-bricks-into
              • So you never played cops and robbers or cowboys and indians as a kid?

                Or had to pack the trunk of a car for a family vacation or pack your own groceries at the store?

                There's no reason to be an asshole about disagreeing with someone. There are obviously new capabilities brought forth by video games, but many video games are merely digital replications of pre-existing games or even what would normally be considered to be "work". Many are not as new as you might think.
                • Yeah I was kidding, sorry if I was being too much of an ass :P I did feel that games where you can die and then just be brought back to life are different from anything you can do in reality, but I was thinking more of actual games with rules, that obey reality, rather than games that you play in your head, where anything can happen.. I guess since I was brought up on computer games (we had a Commodore 100 when I was about 4 probably..) then I'm not used to having to do that (not to say that I have never pl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by F34nor ( 321515 ) *
        BULLSHIT. Film, Music & Lit are barely moving at all. I see one original work on film ever 3 to 5 years. Everything else is a painful remake of a remake ad infinitum. Music is even fucking worse. There is a new type of material maybe every 25 years. Lit? Heaven help us but in order to be original is has to be almost unreadable, abstract, or obtuse. Have you ever read Ulysses? Fuck me running but you either have no radar for creativity or you are an apologist.

        Creativity is one of the rarest things on the
    • A traditionalist, perhaps... but then I remember being extremely unhappy when I heard that my two favourite 2D franchises (a popular side-scrolling platformer, and a popular top-down action/RPG series) were going to be made into 3D games.

      Until I played them.

      Currently the opposite happened to me: I remember being extremely happy when I heard that Delphine Soft, the makers of "Flashback: The quest for Identity" made a 3d remake of their popular platformer. It was called "Fade to black".

      Until I played it. Yuck
    • Mario made a great transition into 3D. Zelda, not so much. Sure, it was worth a try. And they made a good effort. But I will always disagree with calling Zelda 64 a "classic". It's an unwieldy 3D mess with a large fanbase. I don't consider myself a "purist", but I just couldn't stand Zelda in 3D. I'll take Four Swords Adventures (Zelda for Dummies) over OOT or WW any day. And there's just no comparison to something as epic as LTTP.
      • Hm, oddly enough I have the exact opposite opinion of you (granted, I didn't play 2-D Zelda games until after 3-D ones, so that may have an influence). I think Zelda does great in 3-D, but Mario 64 should never have seen the light of day. New Super Mario Bros was the first Mario game I considered remotely worth playing since SMW... that's kinda ouch (although I do recognize that most people disagree with me, of course... that still doesn't change the fact that I hate Mario in 3-D).
        • Personally, I think both Mario and Zelda did very well on transitioning to 3D. Z:OOT wasn't my favourite, but I've found that WW and TP are both excellent games, and much more fun than playing Zelda 1. Do you remember the second quest of Zelda 1? Seriously, you're just supposed to guess which walls to walk through, and hope you have 100 rupees in your wallet or you give up a heart piece. Thank god for the Nintendo Atlas. Also, Mario 64 was about equal to where its 2D counterpart was. It followed Super

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by morari ( 1080535 )

      [...] I remember being extremely unhappy when I heard that my two favourite 2D franchises [...] were going to be made into 3D games. Until I played them.
      You obviously have not played any 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games...
    • In the context of the crowd Harrison is referring to, a 'purist' is synonymous with a 'hardcore' gamer. It's simply a less demeaning way of calling someone a nerd who thinks fifty hour long mildly-interactive movies qualify as games. Nintendo's new strategy evidently doesn't include that kind of gamer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 )
      Now Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are considered all-time classics, even by 'purists', even by old hands like me. Should Mario have stayed true to his 2D roots to satisfy purists? Should Zelda have stayed top-down? Certainly not.

      I don't know if i'm a "purist," but i guess i'm an "old hand" since i got (or rather convinced my parents to get) a NES when it first came out when i was 10. I thought Mario 64 was an awesome game, and although i think the 2D Metroids were better Metroid Prime is also a lot o

  • Hula Hoop? (Score:3)

    by dj_tla ( 1048764 ) <<tbekolay> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:26PM (#19961875) Homepage Journal
    "like the one where you're on the balance board doing the hula-hoop on the board and trying to see how many you can catch and keep going."

    I don't know what kind of hula-hoop Harrison's been using, but there's usually no catching involved where I come from...

  • A Good Deal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:30PM (#19961913) Homepage Journal

    Harrison talks about the move of the company's sales and marketing force, acknowledges that Nintendo may 'lose some purists' while attempting to broaden the audience

    If you lose 100,000 purists but gain 50,000,000 new customers, then I'd say the tradeoff is a pretty good deal!

    That being said, I haven't seen any sign of the Nintendo faithful ditching Nintendo. Everyone who was going to leave already left during the Gamecube generation. Now some of those players are coming back, and some of them are ranting about how they're "too grown up" for Nintendo now. I imagine that Nintendo will just shrug its shoulders and move on. They're creating a large enough NEW market that they don't need to worry about a vocal minority.

    Personally, I tend to laugh at the "grown up" comments. What's "grown up"? Sex, violence, disturbing imagery, and online play that lets you swear at each other? I'm not really sure why any adult would want to exclusively subject themselves to such content, but that is their choice. It just doesn't make the "kiddie" argument against Nintendo any stronger.

    When people use the term "too old" for something, they usually mean that the item in question can no longer support the person (e.g. a playground) or that it does not challenge the person at a level commiserate with their age. (e.g. Leapfrog Leapster) Thus the only argument I could see is that the storylines are too simplistic to hold an adult's attention. Which would be a good argument if we were talking about My Little Ponies. But half the games don't actually have storylines (e.g. Excite Truck, Metal Slug, Smash Bros., Strikers) and the majority of the remainder are anything but insulting. (e.g. Zelda, Super Paper Mario, Metroid, Red Steel, etc.)

    The truth is that the Wii simply does not appeal to some people, regardless of the excuses they make up. Whether they used to be or not, these people are NOT Nintendo's customers any longer. Nintendo would be foolish to try and chase them around when the truth is that these customers are better satisfied elsewhere.

    • Re:A Good Deal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:45PM (#19962083)
      Personally, I tend to laugh at the "grown up" comments. What's "grown up"? Sex, violence, disturbing imagery, and online play that lets you swear at each other? I'm not really sure why any adult would want to exclusively subject themselves to such content, but that is their choice. It just doesn't make the "kiddie" argument against Nintendo any stronger.

      It's a quirk of language. Adult content very rarely means just that; it usually means juvenile content. Gratuitous boobies, exciting gunplay, lots of blood, the typical action-movie recipe targeted at teenagers. Same goes for games. The core market right now is the Playstation generation, mostly boys who began gaming in around 1995 but who, twelve years on, are late teens and early twenties and want games that reinforce their image of themselves as manly men.

      Nintendo's core market on the other hand is slightly older, NES and SNES veterans from the late eighties, early nineties. And as CS Lewis said, when I became a man I put aside childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be seen as being very grown up. The nice thing about having that as your core fanbase is that you can easily recruit the new generation of little kids with the same games you're selling to your base of gamers who are pushing thirty.

      At any rate, Nintendo have never made bloodthirsty games. All the hardcore action games on the NES and SNES were made by the likes of Konami - I'm thinking Gradius or Contra here. The ultra-long JRPGs were again usually third party jobs, at least until the Pokémon era. I certainly can't speak for the whole demographic, but as a NES-era Nintendo fanboy who defected long ago to PC gaming, well, in this generation Nintendo have won me back. I said before that I was proved wrong in my traditionalism once before, insisting that Mario should be 2D, that Zelda should be top-down, right up until the moment I got hold of an N64 and played two of the greatest games there've ever been. What Nintendo are doing now... well, the third parties are making a bit of a hash of Wii at the moment, too many PS2 ports with poor Wiimote implementations, but going by the record of the DS they won't take too long to catch on.

      • "The ultra-long JRPGs were again usually third party jobs, at least until the Pokémon era"

        Blasphemy!

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Emblem [wikipedia.org]
        • I don't know about the NES one, but Earthbound (Mother 2) for the SNES is not "ultra long", I beat it in a weekend. As a comparison, it took me several weeks to beat Final Fantasy III (then again, it has a lot of level grinding).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khaed ( 544779 )
      Personally, I tend to laugh at the "grown up" comments. What's "grown up"? Sex, violence, disturbing imagery, and online play that lets you swear at each other? I'm not really sure why any adult would want to exclusively subject themselves to such content, but that is their choice. It just doesn't make the "kiddie" argument against Nintendo any stronger.

      meringuoid responded in a good way, but I have something further to add: If you have to constantly remind everyone that you're "grown up" or "mature" -- yo
    • That being said, I haven't seen any sign of the Nintendo faithful ditching Nintendo.

      What you mean is fanboys.

      LK

    • When people use the term "too old" for something, they usually mean that the item in question can no longer support the person (e.g. a playground) or that it does not challenge the person at a level commiserate with their age. (e.g. Leapfrog Leapster)

      Unless kids are said to outgrow things like ritual begging in costume on Halloween [wikipedia.org] at age 13. There are some things that the police expect grown-ups to stop doing so as not to give the appearance of even non-erotic paedophilia.

      Thus the only argument I could see is that the storylines are too simplistic to hold an adult's attention. Which would be a good argument if we were talking about My Little Ponies.

      Unless WOTC actually makes that My Little Pony d20 RPG that it promised as part of an April Fools joke 15 months ago [wizards.com] ;-)

  • Oh Honestly! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:34PM (#19961977) Homepage Journal
    Who doesn't like to play with their wii? I've got two co-workers who have them now and they often invite me over to play with their wii. I have yet to take them up on the offer as I'm concerned that playing with your wii excessively may lead to carpal-tunnel so I'm going to wait to see if it becomes an issue now that everyone is playing with their wiis all the time. Maybe a medical study after a year or two. I wouldn't be surprised if it's unsafe to play with your wii more than 3 or 4 hours a day. Future wiis may need to come with a warning sticker. Something like "Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that playing with your wii excessively can cause carpal tunnel, tennis elbow and blindness." So for me at least the Jury is still out on the wii and whether it's really the best at what it does (Although the market appears to have decided that it is.)

  • "... So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.'"
    I think that it is interesting that time is measured in holidays and not weeks or months.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by triso ( 67491 )

      "... So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself.'"
      I think that it is interesting that time is measured in holidays and not weeks or months.
      Sorry for being so dense. The little light came on and reminded me that certain holidays are when the units really sell.

      • Re:Time Measurement (Score:4, Informative)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Monday July 23, 2007 @06:10PM (#19962415) Homepage Journal
        Did you know that prior to the Atari 2600, video game systems were ONLY sold during the Holiday Season? 'Tis true. Atari themselves started the trend when they manufactured their home Pong console for only the holidays. Sears (the only store that sold the unit) experienced long lines and stock sellouts very similar to what was seen with the Nintendo Wii. The only catch is that once the stock was sold, there were no more on the way until next Holiday Season.

        Atari's primary competitor at the time, the Maganvox Odyssey, was sold year-round. However, its sales were relatively poor in comparison.

        And there is your useless bit'o'trivia for the day. :-P

  • purists? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:47PM (#19962115) Journal
    As someone mentioned the other day, games never used to be hundreds of screens of options and thousands of button combinations to press in a specific order to win. They were on the whole pretty simple to play.

    Don't get me wrong nethack is hard the first time you play on it (although it's such a good game). But as soon as you look at the controls and figure out that they use the vi commands for movement you can pick up and play - just add more detail into the game as and when you're ready... it goes with you more than the new games seem to.

    Mario is an even better example, easy as you like at the start, gets harder... but very much "pick up and play".

    The Wii follows from this "pick up and play" idea. That's where the purists should be, not playing these games that you get on the 360 (I went into gamestation and tried to play a game demo they'd got on - I couldn't even figure out how to do anything... there was about 800 context sensitive button combinations before you got to any kind of action... I'd already given up before that happened)
    • Hmm, you complain about

      thousands of button combinations

      and yet you praise Nethack because all you have to do is

      look at the controls and figure out that they use the vi commands for movement

      :)

      I agree with you though. Anyone off the street, so to speak, should be able to pick up a new game and figure out most of the controls within a few minutes of messing around with it. In fact, figuring the control scheme out should be part of the charm, not a horrifying ordeal.

  • Real 'Purists' aren't going anywhere (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday July 23, 2007 @05:56PM (#19962237)
    The first video game system I ever owned was the original NES. I still vividly remember the first time I ever played one and it's an interest that's stuck with me to this very day. I had all of the games that are generally considered Nintendo classics: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and a myriad of other games. Eventually I upgraded to an SNES and picked up the 16-bit versions of those games and many others. I never purchased an N64, but some of my friends had them and I got my fix over at their houses, however, I still enjoyed Mario Kart and other SNES games and played them excessively.

    The next game system I bought was a PS2, but a while after that I purchased a GameCube to catch up on all the new games that Nintendo had brought out. I eventually picked up an Xbox as well and even a used Dreamcast to complete that generation. I enjoyed all of them for different reasons and like every other generation there were some incredible games that were produced that you couldn't help but enjoy.

    Last November I decided to camp out in front of a Wal-Mart and freeze my ass off so that I could get a Wii on launch day. After playing some of the latest incarnations of games (Zelda) and seeing what's in store for others (Mario, Metroid) I don't feel any differently about them than those old classics I played on the NES and SNES. As someone who's grown up around these Nintendo franchises I don't understand how people who claim to be long time fans can be disappointed in the Wii or the latest versions of their old favorites. I'm wondering if they really ever played and enjoyed these games or if their tastes have simply changed over the years. If you want bleeding edge graphics in your games, I suppose that's fine, but please don't try to pass yourself off as a purist if that's what you really want.

    I'm quite glad that I grew up experiencing those games so that if I go back to play them today I'm not turned off by the lack of powerful graphics like some people are today. As cool as the graphical powerhouses that games such as Crysis and others like it with brilliant graphics are, will they ever be able to claim the same level of interest as Pac-Man ever commanded?

    I don't think that purist should be confused with graphics whore, or whatever term would be most appropriate. I would think that purists play games to enjoy games, whether they're made using 8-bit sprites or ray traced using the powerful hardware we'll likely see in the future.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by grumbel ( 592662 )
      ### As someone who's grown up around these Nintendo franchises I don't understand how people who claim to be long time fans can be disappointed in the Wii or the latest versions of their old favorites.

      NES, SNES, N64 or even the Gamecube had a lot of games beside Mario, Zelda and Metroid. StarFox, Pikmin, PilotWings, Waverace, YoshisIsland and all that stuff, it never was just about Mario/Zelda/Metroid alone. On the Wii however there really isn't much interesting happening beside Mario/Zelda/Metroid so 'puri

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by meringuoid ( 568297 )
        Zelda:TP felt more like a OoT mission disc then a new experience

        Ironically, that's exactly what the purists wanted - indeed, what the purists insisted upon, very loudly. Remember the fuss, right here, when we first saw what Wind Waker was going to look like? Well, we got what we wished for. Twilight Princess: it's Ocarina but rather bigger and not quite as well lit.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by shoptroll ( 544006 )
      I've been playing Nintendo games since I was 5 on the original NES. I've grown up with this industry. Honestly though, once I hit college I started doing other things and I really haven't had as much time as I used to for video games, and that's been the case since sophomore year of high school when I got onto the advanced college track of courses.

      Anyone who considers themselves "hardcore" and rails against the Wii really need to re-evaluate why they game. I game because it's fun. Good gameplay is fun f
      • Here's my point of view on "not enough good games". Personally, I only need a couple of games a year to satisfy my gaming needs. Between Zelda, Super Swing Golf, Super Monkey Ball, Wii Sports, and the virtual console, I'll be quite busy with my Wii until well after Christmas. I don't understand my friends who play through 10 FPS games in a year. If you can finish a game in that short a period of time, you're either spending too much time playing games, or the game wasn't worth the $60 you spent on it.
        • YMMV, but for my tastes, it's RPGs. It's been that way since I first played Ultima I on the Atari 800. I was hooked on them after that... because before, it was about high score, repetition, and the twitch factor. (I had a 2600... adored Space Invaders and Asteroids I think a little too much..) For me, 'pick up and play' means sitting down to an hour or two exploring a dungeon, or a few hours clearing a region of some unknown terror for gold. :) I probably should get out more... but at the price of gas
  • Revised Wii == "Re-Wii"?!

  • Tourney bastards? (Score:4, Funny)

    by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <<tukaro> <at> <gmail.com>> on Monday July 23, 2007 @06:19PM (#19962525) Homepage Journal
    Does it include those retarded "hardcore" tournament players for Super Smash Bros. that demand you only ever use Final Destination, no items, and only allow half the roster? If so, I would like to say that not only do I hope the door hits their ass on the way out, but it also knocks them on their face.

  • ...Isn't he...? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Thad Boyd ( 880932 )
    Isn't he the dipshit who yammered about the superiority of the N64's cartridge format and dismissed Final Fantasy 7 as a slow and tedious game nobody would want to play? ...And before the Nintendo fanboys jump me...I own a Wii. I like my Wii. It cost less than $500 and it still works a few months after purchase, which I think puts it leaps and bounds ahead of Sony and Microsoft. But the fact remains that George Harrison is a moron.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )
      Isn't he the dipshit who yammered about the superiority of the N64's cartridge format and dismissed Final Fantasy 7 as a slow and tedious game nobody would want to play?

      To be fair, outside of Japan very few RPGs sell very well. That comment is how the general public feels about 99% of RPGs. Final Fantasy 7 obviously turned out to be one of the most glaring exceptions to that rule. It was popular mainly because of the presentation, not the gameplay though.

      As for the cartridge format, yeah it's horrible if yo

    • Isn't he the dipshit who yammered about the superiority of the N64's cartridge format and dismissed Final Fantasy 7 as a slow and tedious game nobody would want to play?

      If that's what he says then I am one of his biggest fans. When the N64 and PS1 came out, CD technology was way too slow for consoles. Loading times on the PS1 and PS2 were unbearable for me. Sorry if that makes me sound impatient, but waiting minutes for things to load is not what consoles are about. Also, FF7 was terrible. It's really

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rjhubs ( 929158 )
        oooh, its pretty bold to be bad mouthing FF7 on slashdot.. we will have to see how the mods will treat you. Although I won't say FF7 was terrible. I agree that it isn't one of the best in the series. PLaying it today you realize a lot of the appeal was the new shiny graphics and fmv's. Not to mention I hate trying to play it because for some reason Circle is the accept button instead of the Cross.. Makes switching between games a pain in the ass.
        • No it's not bold to say that. If anything your average Slashdoter, if an FF fan, has a preference for one of FF4, 5, or 6, and views 7 as overrated.

          7 is mainly god's gift to RPGs amongst people for whom it was their first RPG. Slashdoters trend older and more geeky than that.
  • Namco announced the sequel of Tales of Symphonia as a Wii exclusive. Do we -really- need anything else? That justifies the console right there for me.
  • I would like to hear less from Nintendo about what kind of gamers will or will not enjoy their games, and more about when they are actually going to start releasing some serious titles for the Wii. A glance at their Australian release schedule [gpstore.com.au] (where I happen to live), for example, suggest that precious little in the way of non-franchise, serious games is coming this year.

    If you take that list and remove everything that's a console download, a "classic" of some sort, a weird Japanese/manga game, a silly fi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LKM ( 227954 )
      A real bowling game is out, there are some sword fighting games coming, there's at least one on-rails lightgun game (Nintendo even released a Zapper thingie for it), the Wii has more FPS than minigame compilations (not to mention Metroid will be out soon), Adventures are coming, and Lucas Arts seems to be working on a "real" Star Wars game.

      So the following are missing: serious baseball game, serious tennis game, and a cricket game. Serious sports games are hardly Nintendo's forte, but I have no doubt that w

    • a cricket game

      You mean like the Frogger clone [wikipedia.org]? But seriously, if you mean the baseball-like team sport played outside the United States [wikipedia.org], such a game would sell poorly outside of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and unfortunately, Australia is not nearly as commercially important of a market as Japan and North America.

      adventure games - for the first time mouse-driven adventures are a serious option on a console

      Was there a problem with the Super NES Mouse?

  • I am quite pissed about the Manhunt 2 fiasco and I don't even want to buy the game...but I want it released FOR ADULTS. Am I a purist when it comes to censorship? YES, I AM!!! Do I think that avoiding a showdown with the US Congress over Manhunt 2 or other AO games is part of Nintendo's strategy to expand the Wii market? Absolutely. Is the hardcore gaming market turned off by Nintendo's expansion? Not one bit...but I think many will remain pissed over not having AO titles available on the Wii (or any
  • They can't look past the horsepower of the CPU, or the polygon numbers, and seem to think that if something isn't the biggest and the baddest, then its not worth having.

    So many Wii games are about gameplay; sweet, simple, pick up and have fun gameplay. The controls are innovative and the Mii concept is pure genius. How cool is it to play a game where you, yes you, are the character on-screen? I had a quick flick through my Mii roster - more than half of them are female, from friends and relatives who'

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