Thursday, May 11, 2006

Wiidiculous

I kicked around a few different titles for this post (Wiitarded, Wiigretable, etc). They basically are all just a wiiflection of my thoughts about the new Nintendo Wii. Originally titled the considerably cooler "Nintendo Revolution," the Wii is the latest in a long line of decisions by Nintendo that I just simply don't understand.

Before we chat, watch Nintendo's promotional introductory video into the World of Wii:



Okay. Now, notice anything dumb about that thing? Absolutely every game on there has the player Vogueing this pose:

pWiiPostureous

What the eff, Nintendo?

I know that everyone has had that moment in life when you're sitting in front of your TV, you point the remote at it, and nothing happens. What do you do? You extend your arm out in front of you and get annoyed. No one likes to do that for more than a few seconds at most. Somehow, someone at Nintendo has decided that this is a good posture with which to tackle a 100+ hour RPG. In fact, I think I know who that someone is. I'm pretty sure it's the same sadistic fuck who designed the Nintendo Powerglove. I see wiimarkable similarities.

Well, news flash, Nintendo: your Power Glove didn't change the way we play games, and I don't think the Wii will either. I used to be a really big Nintendo fan. The Wii, however, marks my official "not on-board" status with them.

pWiiPostureous

I'm just so not on-board anymore.

2 comments:

EmoRiot said...

Word has it that lines to try out the Wii and a wee-bit long (6 hours and 1,000 people deep) while there's no similar lines for the 360 or the PS3 booths.

TWO CAN PLAY THE YOUTUBE.COM GAME!

If E3 interest in any indication, I wouldn't rule this console out on a bad name and a dumb actor.

Bug said...

I'll admit - it's certainly interesting. But to me, it's interesting from an almost academic point of view. Not necessarily from a "wow! fun!" view.

Obviously the motion sensing wand technology lends itself really well to things like baseball, tennis, or lightsaber games. But, driving games? FPSs? Stealth games? RPGs? I don't know.

You there are other issues. In Nintendo's press conference, they said "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will make great use of the Wii's new technology." And I found myself thinking "shit. I'm gonna' have to buy this damn console just so I can play a new Zelda game." But the next thing they said was "And the game will be available for the GameCube, too." Rad! I get to play the game and don't have to buy the Wii to do so. Bad move on their part.

Another bad move in my book: creating the only Next-Gen wireless controller with a wire. (lame)

The big point Nintendo tried to make at the outset of their pWiisentation (is it old yet?) was that you don't know anyone who hasn't read a book, watched TV, or seen a movie. You know plenty of people, however, who haven't played games. They look at the Wii as a way of reaching that untapped market.

So, I thought "well, Mom doesn't play games. Let me look at the Wii from her point of view." What did I see? An incredibly daunting system to try and get used to. Mom is never going to fire up a Wii and start waving her arms all around to try and control Mario as he jumps through outer space.

I just think Nintendo is kidding themselves a bit with that entire line of thinking.