f13.net

Partly because it annoys schild, but mostly because it truly is a stunning achievement. I think everyone more or less assumed Nintendo would be the "also ran" of the current console generation. They didn't have a lot of developer support, the financial muscle of a company like Sony or Microsoft and were a lot more limited in their technical options. For them to achieve something like this;

"Cumulative sales of Nintendo’s Wii have overtaken those of the Xbox 360, making it the world’s best-selling next-generation games console in spite of having been on the market a year less than Microsoft’s machine." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/51df0c84-6154-11dc-bf25-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/51df0c84-6154-11dc-bf25-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html)

Is really quite impressive. If they have half a clue I imagine the new money coming in is subsidising a hardware refresh soon and an enhanced wii capable of HD resolutions in a year or two. Long term victory will be determined by software availability of course, but it's hard to see such a large market not attracting developer interest.

I am counting the days until Super Smash Brothers Brawl.  If the online functionality is good, my career might lie in ruins shortly thereafter  :heart: :heart:

I do not "yet" have a Wii. I am sure I will get one at some point . But the point is they "thought outside of the box" and have really brought a lot of non computer gamers into computer games. I love the fact that they succeed.

How could the online functionality possibly be good?  There are no microphones for the Wii, so you can forget about communicating with people you're playing with, and then you've got the insanely, stupidly, retardedly long friend codes.

Neither of those things make for "good" online functionality.

I submit that online will suck because it's Nintendo.  Friend codes.  There is a microphone for the Wii, insofar as any USB microphone will work if you have the right software (Boogie, for example).  However, using a Karaoke Revolution mic to play Call of Duty is retarded.

Let me clarify what I mean by "good".  Not a lot of lag, and easy to get into a random game.  If it has friends codes, it will be retarded- no disagreement there.  But as always, I am puzzled by the insistence on being able to speak with random raging retards in games.  When I don't have to talk to people, I view it as a plus.

There will be a shitload of lag and an asston of people for random games.

Take what you can get.

Nintendo is shooting for the LCD here and as far as consumers is concerned, it's all Wifi. Not a great combination for a fighting game. But then, fighting games aren't quite ready for prime time online play anyway.

As I blogged just today, the Madden 08 online play for the Wii is monkey ass. Shitastic, anal-pounding monkey ass. Thankfully, EA is using their own servers instead of anything Nintendo is providing, so I blame EA. Blaming EA is easy.

I have Mario Strikers Charged rented, but haven't tried the online play yet. The game itself is super fun. If the online play is mediocre, then Brawl should be good (in theory) because they will have time to fix it.

Expect the HD Wii in 2010, maybe Christmas 2009 depending on how pressured they feel.

The real problem I see with the Wii is that a good number of the latecoming developers are half-assing their games in a rush to get them on the box. Madden NFL 08 is a perfect example. It could not have been a lazier effort in terms of improvement over the 2007 version unless it exploded in your Wii. The Bigs is another good (or I should say BAD) example. Half-assed gameplay and half-assed game design.

The standard for not-half-assed game dev is Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, IMO. More developers need to follow the design credo that was behind that game.

Wii's are also still incredibly hard to get.  My local game stores only have one or two in at a time and have been forcing people to accept package deals in order to sell them.  Sure, could've ordered online, but I prefer in-person stuff.

The Wii is the Toyota Camry of game systems.

Well... if Nintendo feels any pressure, it would be to not modify the Wii.  It is selling fantastically, so any change would be viewed as bad.  Even without that, it goes against their LCD philosophy that got them to the #1 spot in the first place and they will need some dynamite to blast their asses into a redesign... I think.

Also consider that one of Nintendo's favorite things to do is sell people peripherals.  MicroSoft learned this one at the feet of the master, Nintendo.  Not that you can add HD via a peripheral, but Nintendo will most likely leverage their installbase to sell add-ons rather than try to sell everyone a newer and perhaps more-expensive console.  I, myself, would feel a tad irritated if they replaced my Wii with something better, and I'm a technophile.  They might, but I really don't think so.

The dynamite to blast their asses SHOULD be the fact that HD penetration will be getting to a critical stage by about the end of 2008. I know they are awful myopic, but I figure another year or two should be enough to shake them out of the no HD haze.

You are much more measured in word choice on your blog.  You must be catering to a more sophisty-cated crowd that would be offended by cumguzzling or monkey ass  :lol:

You can't sell to the masses with blue content.

Yep. Impressive alright.

Famitsu says they just canceled Project H.A.M.M.E.R.

They now have what? 4 games in development that aren't non-games?

Mario Galaxy, SSBM, Disaster and uhhhhh uhhhhhhh.

No, that's it.

Yes, their popularity sure is impressive. Like a Furby. The product sucks.

More like Pong.  People bought Pong, not a console that could play Pong.  I bet most people out there want to "play Wii", not "Wii Sports on the Wii".  I'm not saying you are wrong, but I suggest you think of it like a Pong machine instead of an Atari 2600, might help your blood pressure.  If you think of it that way, Twilight Princess instantly becomes gravy instead of useless ballast.

Unless you have game consoles and a PC.  I need a GameCube emulator for the PS3 or PC, that would rock.

You are correct, sir. I'm trying to not write game reviews like forum posting. I did say the online play was "fucking awful" because it really is.

I love when "hardcore gamers" get all snitty over the Wii's success, as if Nintendo has defied the holy writs by making a console that caters to more than Cheeto-encrusted fat asses longing for the next Japanese anime wankfest with leveling.

I don't know if this is "impressive" as much as "expected" ever since the initial sales numbers came out for the Wii.  The console still has incredible buzz and is still selling out all over the place despite tales of still limited availability.  Although I did for the first time the other day see someone ask for a Wii and get one with no delay (at Best Buy).  Good for Nintendo, I'd hate the company that turned me into a gamer to wither up and die.

This still means shit to me and that's all I really care about.  Until this starts hurting or helping me by providing or denying me games, I don't care.  The business means nothing to me. I'm done with the Nintendo staples of Mario, Metroid and Zelda until they do something substantially new and interesting.  I'm not a social gamer, I don't need extra exercise through gaming, and quite honestly non-HD gaming that isn't stylistically amazing does very little for me anymore.  Only the best looking PS2 games are now barely above "too fucking ugly to play on my TV". 

Is this going to lead to good third party games or innovative first party games going to the Wii?  Is this going to lead to a HD Nintendo system?  Is this going to lead to less games coming out for the 360?  Is this going to lead to Sony making braindead decisions?

I just want my games, I don't care who finishes first, second or third. I don't care about my mom buying a Wii so she can waggle her arms. So far Nintendo's success so far as been a non-factor for me.  The PS2/360 current and future line ups have me satisfied for now.  I would like to have more games that are worth playing.   

There you have my frustrated attempts to clarify my feelings on the Wii's success.  It's the number one current generation console, and I would be pissed off if I got one for a gift next week for my birthday.   :|

I'm still convinced the Wii will reach a point of market saturation and totally stagnate in both console sales and attachment numbers.

Also, not counting turning it on for a firmware update, I am now at...nearly 2 months without turning my Wii on to play something.

Mario Strikers online is apparently good and does not use friend codes for random matchmaking.

So.

NPD sales numbers for games came out.

The XBOX (ONE) version of Madden sold more than the WII version.

Guys. This Wii fad...

is a fucking fad.


I lolled hard.

I'm lolling that the PS2 version of Madden sold more than the PS3.

You do realize that over twice as many Xboxes were sold than the Wii has sold to date, right?

120 Million + PS2s.
4 Million PS3s.

And yes, I know the xbox sold twice as many. But the last xbox game that was released that had any business on the market was like oh, last year's Madden. I'm just saying. Hilarious.

I think this is the Wii's Achille's heel.  The problem with selling a system to non-gamers is that by definition they don't buy games.

Nintendo is basically selling a toy, and like all toys the novelty fades.  Those people who bought the system to play tennis and bowling aren't looking for new shit.  Likewise, the people satisfied with Mario Party and minigames further push Nintendo into the "it's for kids" camp.  If E3 and Leipzig are anything to go on, Nintendo also seems to making a concerted effort to push their core franchises into the shadows; Metroid Prime Corruption and Mario Galaxy were shown in the back rooms at those conventions; up front they were showcasing the usual mini-game bullshit.  This kind of bias against serious gamers is going to bite Nintendo in the ass eventually, because counting on the casuals is a loser's bet, their attention will fade.

MS and Sony may not be pushing as many systems, but I'd wager that pound for pound their game attachment rates are astronomically higher than Nintendo's.  You can knock "core" gamers all you want, but they've kept this industry alive throughout the drought periods and aren't to be ignored.

But how much per game sold and per system sold is Nintendo making versus the others per unit sold? If Nintendo sells 1/10 as many units but is making 10x the money, then it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

They aren't. Wii Sports probably broke even as a pack-in. And Wii Play is bought for the Wiimote, even non-gamers think it's trash (except the shooting game). They are probably making less than a 360 title is on Wii Play.

These are the two best selling games.

Nintendo has recorded massive profits every quarter since the DS Lite came out. The Wii hardware is actually profitable, unlike the Xbox and PS3, so Nintendo can turn bigger profits on a lower attach rate.

Additionally, Nintendo's focus on party games and "4 guys on a couch" multiplayer drives a lot of peripheral sales, although I expect Microsoft does very well on its subscription business.  I bought Wii on launch day, and the only software I've bought for it is Zelda, Metroid and Paper Mario. 

I definitely think Xbox is a more serious gaming system, but I like a lot of the games on the Wii, and it's very cheap compared to other systems. I am not looking to the Wii for online multiplayer. I'd maybe do a Smash Bros match or two with some of my friends, but I expect Halo 3 and my WoW arena team will be getting most of my multiplayer attention.

As for Madden sales, so what? The 360 version is clearly the flagship version of Madden.  The graphics are there, the online is there. The motion control doesn't bring a lot to the game and EA has not invested a great deal in making a great Wii version of Madden.  I do expect Corruption to ultimately outsell Bioshock, though.

Schild, could you tell me what stocks you would absolutely, positive recommend NOT buying?  I have a few hundred dollars to spend, and I'd like to have my own Caribbean island by 2008.

Triforcer, I don't think you get it. It's great that Nintendo is making money. I have no problem with them making money. I have no problems with a profitable $250 system or a loss-leader $600 system. This isn't about money.

This is about games.

And the Wii ain't got shit.

Also, fads tend to make their parent companies a whole shitload of money.

Doesn't the wii have the well reviewed new metroid game?

So many funny things, so little time.

The Wii's attach rate, last I heard, was BETTER than the PS3. This link (http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News-30100.aspx) says by Feb. of this year (before Metroid, before WiiPlay), the Wii had a 3.6 attach rate compared to the PS3's 3.4. No mention of the 360's. At launch time last year, the Wii had a 3.0 attach rate, compared to the PS3's 1.5 and the 360's 5.2, according to this link (http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2006/11/23/game-attach-rates-15-per-ps3-3-per-wii-52-per-xbox-360.htm). Best numbers I can find from July of this year say the 360's attach rate is 6.1 (super deluxe gud) with no listings for the other two consoles. I've heard that the Wii's is 4.2, but I can't find a corroborating link I trust.

So yes, right now, the 360 is probably the top of the charts for attach rate. Only, they are still losing money on the hardware, while Nintendo is making money on the hardware AND the games. I hardly think a AAA title like say Gears of War is more profitable than a Wii AAA title like Metroid, simply because the budget for Metroid will likely be half what Gears was.

As for games, again, they don't have much for the hardcore. Woopie doo. As I've said before, FUCK THE HARDCORE. The hardcore is choking on their own dicks. The hardcore is the reason raiding is the only endgame in MMOG's, they are the reason games like Halo and Final Fantasy sell more than better games like Gears of War or Bioshock. They strangle the industry by not buying things that are different and insisting that only tiny iterations on the DualShock can be acceptable gaming interfaces.

The casual players buy games, they just don't buy HARDCORE games. They could give a fuck about the next Squeenix Movie with Levels, they want fun, quick, accessible games. And there are many many more of them than there ever will be of hardcore gamers. The right path is not to forget one segment or the other, but to adapt some of the things that interest casual gamers into the games already made. Ease of use, simple interfaces (with deeper complexity), smaller time commitments (or breaking the time commitments up into smaller chunks) etc. It doesn't have to be an either or.

As for Mario Strikers, having played the online version, it's butter. I had one really laggy game, and two games that were smooth as glass. I used no friends codes (though had the option if I had any friends connected). It was easier than finding a game in Madden, with much better results. I wouldn't worry one bit about the online component of Smash Bros.

Halo's not a hardcore game, you fucking fruit.  What the fuck happened to you?

In terms of the casual gamer, yes it most certainly is. It's a shooter, which the casual gamer doesn't give a shit about. By casual gamer, I'm talking about the people who are buying the Wii that many of you here seem to hate so much.

Grandmothers aren't buying Halo (or other shooters). Housewives aren't buying Halo.

I put Maddenites in the same category of Hardcore Gamer as Halotards and Japantards.

Can we quit dumbing down the definition of casual gamer? If we keep at this pace, it's going to be only people playing mine sweeper or solitaire on their lunch break. Where does Metroid fit? Are you equally as pissed off that a hardcore game managed to bully it's way onto your waggle-wand, wave-a-mole casual box? What's Mario (Galaxy or Strikers, take your pick) then?  Takes coordination Grandma Sally can't handle.


wut? See previous quote.


Ok, you're just a fucking moron.  Case closed.  I know Maddenites that buy a console just for that game, own only that game and other EA sports titles, and couldn't get on XBL without technical assistance.

I don't hate anyone that buys a Wii or plays a Wii (hell, I may eventually have a Wii since my nephews have my gamecube).  They're just not relevant to me (as I'm likely as equally irrelevant to them).  Are you guys seeing that yet?  I'm not doomcasting or minimizing it's accomplishments.  I just want my "hardcore" games.  You know, the ones people play and talk about on this site.  :roll:

Edit: For the talk of the new Metroid, is anyone here actually playing it? Is it anything new from the GC ones? Is it even worth talking about?

Mario Strikers Charged is most definitely a casual game. It's got really simple controls, doesn't really use the waggle a lot (so not much coordination needed) and yet has a good bit of depth and strategy for those who go after it.

I have no problems with games like Metroid on the Wii, I think it's a good thing. Metroid is a hardcore gamer franchise, and will sell based on that. What I bitch about is the people who take unholy offense that every single game isn't a hardcore game on the Wii, or take such zealous stances like "teh Wii's non-hardcore games will stop hardcore games from being made!!!!1!!1" It's horseshit and you know it. The point of the Wii's success is that you don't have to go HD to sell a video game console, you don't have to tailor ALL your games for the traditional hardcore gamer crowd, and you don't have to iterate the same formula that video games have been stuck in since the Playstation 1. You can do other things, so long as you don't count out those potential customers you've ignored for years.

I'm not dumbing down the casual gamer definition, the definition has to expand with new data. That new data has to take into account that there's a lot of people out there who traditionally have never owned a video game console, and if you want to make money off of those people, you don't need to forget them. The Wii's success just means there's more than one model for success in video games. Goddamnit, hardcore gamers should be HAPPY about that, not offended that the Big N isn't stroking their joy button with every release.

The PS3 was made for nobody BUT the PS2's hardcore base. It reeks of hardcore catass gamer. And it's sold for shit, while the Wii hasn't. The 360 has sold well because not only did it have a year head start, it's also kicked ass in terms of getting games out there for the hardcore gamer and its price isn't so crazy as the PS3's.

Hardcore gamers aren't complaining about the lack of hardcore gamer games on the Wii. They're complaining about the lack of motherfucking games period. I think everyone is more than flooded with mini-games and bullshit life training simulators as well. In fact, gamers could say STOP and Nintendo would just keep pumping them out. I hope that entire genre dies with this generation.

Edit: Basically, what I'm saying is gamers are OK with fun, casual games that are actually games. Like Peggle. Peggle is _awesome_.

Guess what? Those are games to the bajillion other people who are not schild. They have money too.

Halo and Madden are hardcore? Fuck off. Like Rasix says, I know people who purchased a console to specifically and ONLY play either one of those games. They are the very definition of casual. They own 2 games, Halo and Halo 2 or whatever the last couple of Madden games are. They have no idea what World of Warcraft is, or what an timesink an endgame is.

I rarely do, but I agree with Schild on this, the Wii severly lacks in games. It's an electronic boardgame, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's all it is at this point in time.

For those saying it lacks games, how many games do you have for the Wii? That you buy and own?

At least the Wii has more games that I want to play than the PS3.

A bajillion? You're using non-number to describe non-gamers playing non-games?

And they might have money, but they won't be spending it on games.

Edit: I have Cooking Mama, a copy of Wii Sports that will go to Ebay, and Trauma Center. Cooking Mama is not open. Trauma Center requires a precision that the wiimote just can't achieve. If something doesn't come out soon, my Wii will have not been turned on for the entire last year. We're on month 10 now (obvious?)

If they bought a Wii, bought a game for the Wii, they are gamers. Your insulated little world is no longer protected from the drooling masses.

Man, my world hasn't been insulated since the first sports game. That's not the point, gamers implies something completely different than casual gamers and whatever is below that. We haven't even defined what's below that.

Let's go with Non-Gamers.

If you haven't picked up Metroid or Zelda, well, then no, you're not going to get a use out of your Wii.

Mario Galaxy in 2 months.

I bought Zelda twice, you weren't around for that. Horrible, horrible fetch quest game. And shitass Wiimote controls.

As for Mario, I'm done with Nintendo first party console games for good. A sidescrolling kid icarus is about the only thing that would even get me to rent a home nintendo game now.

If you don't like Smash Brothers Brawl, you are wrong. 

Super Smash Bros is the one Nintendo first party game that I still look forward to. I have a lot of fun playing that with my nephews.  Nothing like getting pwned by someone a third your age. 

Super Smash Bros is great fun but I'm skipping it.

I wouldn't see it getting a lot of play as long as you have the arcade cab in your house.

Correct!

I've got Smash Brothers for my old Gamecube, but truthfully I never really played it.  Maybe it's just that I only ever played it two player at most (does more people equal more fun?), but it felt simplistic to me.  If I need a fighter I'd much rather either play Fight Night Round 3 or Soul Calibur 2.

Did I just not give the game enough of a chance?  What the hell am I missing there?

It's deeper than it looks and Capcom hasn't released a Powerstone since the Dreamcast, so it's the king of the hill for party fighting games. It's reasonably fun but quite a goddamn mess. There's some deep stuff going on there, but not enough for me to get a big hardon over the inclusion of the head from Brain Training.

Yeah, what Schild said.  Check out www.smashboards.com or watch some videos from top level smashers.  The high level stuff is just fucking crazy deep.  And if you've only played TWO player, you are missing out- it is four player nirvana, rivalling Goldeneye in its heyday.

EDIT:  BUt I disapprove of the unveiling of the Ice Climbers today, my least favorite fighter from Melee and pretty much universally reviled.  It must be one of those Japanese love cuteness things.

Hey, I can come out of the closet in not liking Smash Brothers.  Thanks, Gulp, for giving me the courage.

Ok, let's see. It doesn't rival Goldeneye OR Powerstone 1 or 2. But that's not a knock to Smash Bros. Not much can top those other games. Well, actually, nothing can.

You also hated Ocarina even though it's regarded by almost everyone as one of the best games ever.

I can't see how you can bitch about the 3D Zelda games as much as you do. They're marvelous, and they still make 2D Zelda games for portables. Okay. You think Zelda peaked with "Link to the Past." Big ups on your old-school cred there.   

I really like Twilight Princess.  The dungeon design is really incredible.  The puzzles manage to be really inventive, and even though it's a consistent theme throughout the game, the variations keep it really interesting. It's also got really inventive boss fights.

It's not about old-school cred. Link to the Past was just the goddamn pinnacle of 16-bit gaming. Ocarina was NOT the pinnacle of 32-bit gaming.

Well, the consensus is against you on this one.

Dude HaemishM you seem to be burning with the fury of a couple suns there my man. Chill, it's all good.
Anyway now in my book and, silly me I assumed most everyones. "Casual Gamer" simply meant a gamer who just didn't play a whole lot of games. Be it because they simply didn't have a large interest in them, only liked a few, or most likely because they had to many other obligations to play them as much as they liked. They still played the same games the rest of us do. Be it WoW, Halo, Tony Hawk, or whatever. Now your using "casual gamer" to denote some sort of anti gamer or stick-it-to-the-man and his Halos/GTAs gamer. Or as shilid said maybe even non gamer. However this is just not the right term. IN MY OPINION.

The definition of gamer is growing rapidly. And insofar as our little board is concerned we need better definitions of who is who.

An example. I know a woman at work plays Pogo after work. Now considering pogo is mostly word puzzles and simple flash games like bejeweled. Would you call her a gamer? Casual gamer? However nearly any time I question her about what she plans to  do with her evening she responds with something along the lines of 'go play pogo'. I've heard many a boast from her about winning a prize or her latest accomplishment. Indeed she talks about it more then any of the people I know from work who are "true gamers" who play the Halos and GTAs talk about games. Is she a "Hardcore Gamer"? There is also the grandpa who bought a Wii to play with his grandson and thinks it's a blast. (Yes Timmy, the world has stereotypes for a reason.)

Now I'm tired and loosing track of where I was going with this. Guess schild has something going with his one to three line replies.

OK! Raping up. When I think gamers I think of my brothers. Right now one is playing some Diablo 2 mod I have never heard of with his friends. And the other is in the other room playing Gears of War online and yelling at me of his achievements between matches.

I don't think of the woman or grandpa at work.

While they are gamers yes they don't play the games we do and we think of as the definition of games (things with WASD and Thumbsticks). And I agree with schild that they are not gamers as we think of them.

Gaming is becoming a very broad genre. And we need to be able to define when someone is talking about a gamer do they mean someone who enjoys Fallout, or waggling their arms around in Wii Sports. 

I think we (on this board at least) need a new term for the non-gamers who play games that don't fit into any of our usual meanings. These are the grandpa, the pogo lade, and people like my sister, who loved Fake Bowling but doesn't play any other games, or my 68-yo mum who also likes fake bowling, and also plays pogo. She's not someone who I would call "a gamer" either. So that way we can stop getting people like my mum grouped together with the guy who buys Madden and Halo every year and you guys can stop arguing about pedantic semantics.

Also, I have to agree with Schild on the Zelda thing. SNES was my first console (I was Amiga and C64 before that) and Link to the Past was the first Zelda game I played, and the only one I bothered to finish. Ocarina of Time was ok, good enough for me to put a good chunk of time into, but not good enough to hold my attention long enough for me to finish it. It was a long way off of 32-bit's pinnacle. Regardless of who thinks they decide what the consensus is. And why does the gaming press always seem like they're playing Virtual Blow Job when Nintendo release any new 1st-party title.. even those not developed in-house.. ?

Also, for the record, I bought SSB for GC but found it mind-numbimgly boring, and returned it. Big Meh.

Just stop confusing "casual games" with "casual gamers" and everything will be fine.

Tell that to those two...

But seriously, the "non-gaming" people we've been discussing do need a label since they keep getting talked about on this forum, specifically as consumers and buyers for the Wii .

Which I think is a fine machine for what it is and the kind of games it works well with, none of this "these are not games" drivel.
No I haven't turned mine on in several months either, but then again the only use my XBoxes have gotten in months has been on the XBMC one, and the PS2 only gets a bit of GH action now and then.

I really don't know whether I agree about the usage of "casual gamers" describing the people who only buy a single game like Madden or Halo, but I certainly wouldn't put them into the hardcore category either. So, essentially there needs to be three different terms to describe the non-gamer, the one-title gamer, and the part-time gamer, and casual gamer should be left in what I believe was it's original usage: describing part-time gamers. Of course a part-time gamer is also what most "regular gamers" are, so maybe a fourth label is required as well.

I went to sleep with this thought in my head, and came up with these:

regular gamer = "ordinary gamer"
part-time gamer = "casual gamer"
one-title gamer = "informal gamer"
non-gamer = "entrant gamer" or "novice gamer"

This type of breakdown would leave the hardcore gamer description the same, but it's also unlikely that any usage of new labels will appear or catch on as more and more people fit into the part-time gamer subset, thereby making them casual gamers again.

I think the idea has merit, but you are making a spectrum across two logical data groupings, which tends to confusion.

In the above list, you've got two data categories:

--amount of time a person plays
--type/number of games they play

In my opinion, unless/until we separate those two data categories, the definition spectrum will be muddled. I'd break it down something like this (early morning brainstorming--I probably am going to violate my own statement above somehow)

game enthusiast -- general category that covers someone that plays one game, period (could be spread to one genre of game, but our genre terminology is also confused so that's difficult to make a classification on)

Then, within the spectrum of time spent playing, we could have:

xxx gamer -- plays very occasionally (don't have a non-negative connotation name for this myself)
casual gamer -- plays to spend time in small intervals -- "because they can, not because they want to"
core gamer -- plays as primary form of recreation
hardcore gamer -- plays as only form of recreation

Even with the release of Metroid Prime 3 the Wii's library is a desert of shovelware.

I'm fine with the Wii not having a lot of games since I'm a Smash Brothers addict and have over a dozen friends who are incredibly into the series. I was hoping the Cube would get more games, but between SSBM, RE4, and Tales of Symphonia I was pretty much happy with my purchase. Is that good for Nintendo? Not really if you think about it.

But they ARE gamers. They are casual gamers, and they have either been under-served, or fed free (ad-supported) shit for years because no one thought they were sticky customers. Only they are, the game industry just has had no idea how to market to them because the game industry is made up of hardcore people who think things like Wii Fit aren't games. Even more, they have the same arrogant attitude that schild does about Wii Fit, like it's BENEATH them.

Fuck that noise. Those people are gamers. They bought a video game console and they will buy games if you give them something they give a shit about. They don't give a shit about sci-fi, they don't give a shit about sword-and-sorcery. They want genres like they see on TV and frankly, so do I. Where are the cop drama games? Where are the soap opera games (other than the anime Japanese stuff that annoys me and that casual U.S. gamers wouldn't touch). We need the game industry to treat those genres with respect, instead of just shoveling out a licensed CSI game that plays like shit. Where are the murder mysteries?

The video game industry has been an incestuous circle jerk of elitist hardcore assbags for years. And now, when the industry is on the verge of mass market acceptance, the old guard of hardcore gamers are pissed because the Wii has games for people who don't care about their traditional games.

But I'll give schild this argument. Yes, the Wii needs a ton more games, of ALL types, for casuals and for hardcores. I blame part of that on the typical hardcore elitist game industry mentality that said if it didn't appeal to the hardcore, no one would buy it. That attitude caused 3rd party devs to shovel out shit like Far Cry or the Bigs instead of putting real effort into Wii game development. It's infested both versions of Madden, though at least there was a kernel of a refined game in that one. I'm hoping that by this time next year, the 3rd party devs will have put out something original of serious quality, like a fixed-up, less buggy Red Steel sequel. But I also want the industry to stop disrespecting the casual gamer market, because that's who bought the Wii.

EDIT: And for those pissy about my use of casual gamer, that's what the industry is calling them, over and over again. They are the people who are NOT US, though we likely will share similar interests in games provided the games aren't shit.

Didn't mean to be pissy. Maybe we need to change our definition not yours/theirs. w/e

All I can hope is that these 9million new gamers can bring us some now games to play. Ones that don't suck.

Also Wiis are expensive. To play the new Smash Bros with my Bros would cost me $500. Thats almost PS3 prices. Them fancy controllers are damn costly.

Er, the game will be best played by GC controllers.  Not that expensive.

That came is actually best played on a Hori digital pad.

(http://www.the-nextlevel.com/features/hardware/hori-digital-controller/hori-vs-snes-1.jpg)

But I digress, Super Smash Bros does not a system make. I bought my Gamecube - modded for $100 - it can play any regions games, it was worth it. I'm still feeling the burn from the Wii, which is approaching it's one year anniversary of being OFF.

Wii has an old graphics system and poor online support, and the motion controls aren't really that compelling for a football sim that really uses all the buttons on an Xbox control. I don't see how the fact that the sales of Madden are proof of anything. How many Madden gamers have a Wii but no other next gen console? Not that many. But there are a lot of Wii games on that list.

Incidentally, Nintendo stock is at $60. If there is a Fed rate cut this week, it will raise global markets and Nintendo will probably see $75 by christmas. Its quarterly reports have demolished every quarter since DS Lite came out. Nintendo now has a greater market value than Sony. Not the Playstation. More than Sony. And Hiroshi Yamauchi recently became the richest guy in Japan. Fad my ass.

Uh, the point is, or should be, that the top selling game on 360 is ~3-4x the top Wii seller. Not that it's a battle of Maddens.   :roll:

Selling a lot of Wii's is pretty meaningless if they aren't selling Wii games.

Mario Strikers charged has zero slowdown in online play. I play it regularly, my sad record has everything to do with my lack of skill.

Metroid prime plays very well. Control is better than any FPS I've ever encountered on a console. It's not a revolutionary game, but it's one of the better games I've played.

I'm passing on Madden 08, but I will be picking up FIFa 08 and PES 2008.

SSBB will be a Christmas gift for my son, so it will be a bit before I see that one.

SMG will ikely be the same, save for the wife.

But why would you talk about the wii here? Seriously.

The Madden for the Wii is hampered by a lot of things, and the more time I own it, the more things I see wrong with it. It's buggy, it's multiplayer is SHIT (tried another game and while there was less lag, there was a great deal of control response lag that totally fucked me), and it's being ignored in after-release support. Next-gen consoles have gotten two offline roster updates, the Wii has gotten fuckall. It's graphics aren't as impressive as the next-gen stuff (obviously). It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it sells worse than all the other system versions. Both the 360 and PS2 have larger install bases than the Wii (as does the original X-Box) and despite what you guys may think, it IS more of a hardcore game for systems like the PS3.

EA Sports needs to decide if they really WANT to support the Wii, or just half-ass it like Madden 08. If they half-ass the Fifa 08, Peter Moore needs to have a diamond-studded cock shoved up his ass until he tastes the bling.


They are selling a lot of Wii games, with an attach rate that is higher than the PS3's.

The numbers Schild just produced don't support that claim.  Unless you are just looking at Wii Play sales?

If you're counting Wii Play and Wii Sports, you need to count Sixaxis sales. And uhhh, I don't know, copies of the Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which is of course, at least 2 Million.

In the top 20, the Wii and the 360 had 5 games, the PS2 had 4 games, the PS3, XBox and PSP each had 1, and the DS had 4. How exactly is that NOT selling a lot of Wii games? Even if you take the WiiPlay out of the equation, they still had as many spots in the top 20 as the PS2, which has an install base of over 100 million. The only sad part about that number is only one of those Wii games is a 3rd party game.

However, those numbers also are likely skewed because they cover the weeks both Bioshock and Madden got released, and you KNOW those games were going to be blockbusters.

I know quite a few parents who are thrilled with the idea of buying a console for their kids that requires body movement.  People who never considered buying a console before are buying Wiis.  The parents are quite looking forward to WiiFit.

Just because it may not appeal primarily to your particular demographic (single young males) does not make it a fad.  Don't forget that the kids growing up with the Wii are going to be driving the game market in the not-so-distant future.

Favorites here: Mario Strikers Charged, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Wii Play, Zelda, Mario Party 8

Getting MySims this week.

The classic games are likewise getting much use.

There are not enough games out for the Wii, and several of those out are crap.  What's new and different about that with a new console system?

From a business standpoint, Nintendo doesn't need as high an attach rate as other consoles because the hardware is not sold at a loss.

Also, Nintendo will be publishing most of its big games, while Sony and MS will primarily be reaping license fees from their multiplatinum titles.

I think that the software situation on the Wii is primarily an issue of developers not seeing it as a platform for serious development resources. The sheer number of the things sold dictates that there will be some quality software for it, but AAA software doesn't materialize overnight. Metroid is going to generate strong sales through Christmas. Wii Fit will get a lot of attention. Mario looks really good. But it's going to be next Christmas before the third party developers start putting out high quality software on this platform.

I would not offer the Wii as platform upon which a serious gamer can expect to sustain a several-games-a-month habit (or really even a single game-a-month habit). However, there is certainly software on the Wii which no serious gamer would want to miss out on playing.

God how I wish that were still true.

I'm fairly certain Sony is larger both as a dev house and publisher than Nintendo. Microsoft is pretty large as a publisher as well iirc.

I'm not suprised at all that the attach rate of the Wii is higher than that of the PS3, after all there's mostly shit to be had on the PS3 atm. Sadly Lair sucked because that seemed to have the potential to become a really nice game. It will be exciting to see how the holiday season will look like, that's when I think the PS3 will start to really accelerate.

I know you disagree, but I am going to get MP3 and I'm going to like it.  Other than that, however, it's pretty bleak.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/wi-fi/wi-fi01.html

lolfriendcodes


Maybe they're making shit like Wii Fit since they don't understand gamers at all anymore. It's not that they're avoiding the hardcore gamer, it's that they have no fucking clue what they are.

They are very afraid of the Internet.  Deviants.  Pedophiles.

I'm stunned they actually added online play considering what a bitch it had to be to get decent network code for a twitchy 4-player fighting game.

Friend codes I expected, but the anonymous playing with no overt communication I did not. That's almost ballsy for Nintendo since they're awful big on being disgustingly Disney-esque in making 100% sure Dateline doesn't do a Wii-Stalker show.

I was buying smash to play with live people together in front of a single TV myself, so this is merely bonus. I can't wait for it to come out so I never have to buy another Wii title ever again.

They already have the decent network code from Mario Strikers, which should require just as much twitchy-ness as Smash Bros.

Haemish, about that Smash Bros. vs Mario Strikers - NOT EVEN IN THE LEAST. NOT EVEN CLOSE. COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG.

That is all.

I gotta disagree man. Smash is deep enough for tourament-level play on par with that of a lot of 2d fighters with the button glitches and tiers and shit. Even 100ms is too much lag for some stuff in Melee. Me and my friends play at the level where playing on a WAVEBIRD results in a noticible disadvantage.

50ms is too much for a fighting game.

Have either of you played Mario Strikers? No?

It's irrelevant. We know how fighting games work and why multiplayer (for fighters) over the net doesn't work. You're wrong whether we've logged 400 hours or 0 hours.

I've forgotten just how right you can be about everything game-related including network code you didn't write and haven't experienced in anyway shape or form.

Keep thinking I'm wrong. It's making you look better.

Yes, online soccer is the same as a fighting games.

Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 :roll:

HaemishM: Man I don't want to sound like a jerk here, but net coding for a fighting game and net coding for ANY other type of game are completely different animals. Mario Strikers having decent net coding at this point in the game is a given. We should be surprised if it was bad, not if it was good. You even attempting to compare the packets being sent and their importance to the current situation int he game are way different. Great net coding for fighting games is almost unheard of, save for stuff running on Killarea and GGPO and the net code on DOA (which is about the only thing that game does right in my opinion) I think that good net code for competitive Smash would be a fucking nightmare. Not at the level of say Guilty Gear (which has moves that require 1-5 frame input windows, running at 60 FPS), or Virtua Fighter or Tekken, (both of which are known to have moves with 1-3 frame input windows for moves, known as the "just frame" moves) but it would be a tough thing to accomplish. So yes, expect a difference in how it runs and how often it will be running lag free. If you think that 4 players sending the silly amount of data that they will be sending while fighting will not have some sort of lag or lose sync in some way is just absurd. Nintendo just doesn't have the experience or know how in my opinion to do this right.

So... how will this affect those of us who aren't completely anal when it comes to fighting games (http://f13.net/index.php?itemid=585)?

Especially since the  move sequences in SSB have been  maybe one direction and a button.

Virtua fighter, it aint.

A lot of the more complex moves are the button glitches, some of which require obscenely good timing.

Perhaps it wont affect you much, but any fighting game only exists as long as the community is willing to play it. And a game that is playable at a intermediate to advanced level has a better chance at sticking around. I think that whether or not Smash has good net code is really not an issue either way, especially here, because not many people here could really give a crap less whether or not lag will affect your ability to L-cancel Falcos short hop lasers, or if it will make the Ice Climbers wobble infinite harder or easier. From what I have heard, Brawl got dumbed down a bit, and maybe this is why. But if that is the case, and the game is truly aimed at an audience who is less "anal" about their fighting games, then that is bad news for Nintendo. People don't keep playing Smash because they enjoy easy, shallow game play. They play it cause it has an incredibly friendly pick-up-and-play low-mid level party brawling game, that turns into a very deep, execution focused fighting experience at high level play. This is  hard thing to accomplish for any fighting game, being ACTUALLY easy to play and ACTUALLY hard to master, AND hold up at a competitive level. Competition is the ONLY reason people keep playing fighting games. It is really important Nintendo doesn't break the formula, cause if they do it can hurt the franchise in the long run.     


High level Smash is ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE. It really is MVC2 jr. There is a silly amount of stuff happening that you don't see if you are not very knowledgeable about the high-level techniques. There really is a lot more going on than just directional input plus button. This is something that even pro Smash players talk about, not even a jump is just a jump in that game. All the stuff that happens in Smash has always been interesting to me, as an avid fighting game player/designer. This game some how hovers around being both an example of terrible design and foresight as to how the fighting game public will play a game,and absolute genius, masterful competitive fighting game design.

I wouldn't mind seeing a handful of the button glitches (wavedashing for one) eliminated and characters (oh...all of Tier 1) nerfed a bit. Tired of fighting people playing Falco and Marth thanks.

So, what percentage of users will be affected by this?

Sigil: All of them to some degree. If they were to remove the button "glitches" (and they are not glitches, Nintendo knew they were there. This kind of stuff is flagged in script) it would change how a majority of the upper tier characters play, as well as making the lower tier characters more usable, seeing as they are not hindered by a lack of movement options and such. This could be a good idea but also disastrous, as removing a lot of this stuff from the game may over simplify it. This discussion was the topic of many threads at SRK and smash boards. IF a player should always L-cancel a move, and ALL advance players L-cancel ALL their moves, why should L-canceling be there at all? It adds steps to a fundamentally simple concept. The L- cancel is only only cutting recovery on specific jumping moves for specific characters, why aren't those characters moves fixed (shortening the recovery frames on their jumping smash attacks) so that L-canceling is not needed? I think it comes down to further separating the larger intermediate level players from the advanced level players, and the idea is that advanced players should have advanced versions of the same move intermediate players have at the cost of more complicated execution. This is easier than introducing radically new techniques such as jump installed false roman canceling,  (Guilty Gear) or resets and unblockables (Third Strike) or complicated dodge/throw/low punch forced choice situations (Virtua Fighter) and other advanced advanced setups. (Although Smash has a lot of stuff like this too.) I think that  having this abnormally large mid-level player base is a good concept cause it allows the beginner player to move up faster and have a larger competitive player base, while still allowing there to be a high level set of techniques to learn that are not too difficult to comprehend and still accessible to the average player. For example, everyone barfs the first time they see wave dashing and crouch canceling in Smash, but it is something everyone can do with minimal practice, while the same reaction is associated with massive multi-shift combos in KOF XI or huge combos in Guilty Gear, but a sizable amount of practice and execution ability is needed to play at that level. (Smash still had some pretty tough things to execute in play as well)     

Anyway, any kind of homogenization of characters and system design can really take away from a fighting game and make it feel a lot more shallow. I really don't see Nintendo taking out a lot of it, and if they did they would replace it with something else.

Because Nintendo has never done anything like Wii Fit before. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Pad)

ehhh, in my opinion the fit board falls into the Power Pad category. Nintendo has done the health bit before, just not with so much publicity. The health benefits were something that Nintendo had mentioned numerous times during the Power Pad release, then it released in Japan as the Family Fun Fitness pack, later releasing here with world track meet. Nintendo has been here before.   

Green is for sarcasm.

Oh wow, I really did not know that...  :-o

The Force Unleashes on the Wii
http://videogames.yahoo.com/news-530592

Nerds...

Man, Star Wars fans have wanted to control a motherfucking lightsaber since the first movie. The motion controls didn't change dick. Lucas Arts has been using this in their PR since the day the Wiimote was publically announced. I expect complete failure.

But you always expect complete failure from Nintendo these days, so this is no surprise.

Smash Bros. will be fine to all but the hardiest of assholes, most of whom aren't even playing or buying Wii games in the first place anyway.

The Force Unleashed SHOULD be giant fat bags of awesome, but since Lucasarts can manage to make about 1 good game in house a decade these days, who the hell knows. 

Star Wars fans have been using florescent lights, nine irons, broom handles, car antennae, pvc pipe, bongs, fire stokers, glow sticks, baseball bats, paper towel tubes, crayola markers stuck end to end and fucking swiffer sweepers as light sabres.  Shit, I bet they're using the Wii-mote already, even without a game.

Haemish, re-read my post it was all about LucasArts.

...on the Wii, not the other consoles.  Far from complete failure, I'd expect the title to sell over a million, with the Wii having more units moved than either of the other platforms.  It's the sort of game that works well there (as opposed to, say, football).

Football would work just fine on the Wii, if the developer wasn't a fat, lazy bag of ass that can't add established netcode onto an established iterative game engine without fucking it up.

I don't want to get into this argument at all, but I'm pretty sure you have to blame EA for Madden.

I blame EA for the game.

I blame God and the Turducken for Madden.

I was.

I was supporting you again!  Fuck!  It's like when you offer bacon to that starving dog in the alleyway and he growls at you!

Yeah, I fell into the sarchasm there, when you weren't even using sarcasm. I am a mean little twisty dwarf instead.

ZZZSSHEEEEEWWWWWWWWW

Aside from the motion control, have you people seen what Force Unleashed looks like???

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/Unleashed.jpg)


Whacky motion control aside (which we know won't be 1:1, but some half-assed "sorta works" scheme), how much will they have to dumb this game down to run on an overclocked gamecube?  There's a good reason games like BioShock and Call of Duty 4 aren't ported to the Wii.

That's concept art. But I think you know that.

Actually, no, I didn't.  Actual screenshots for that game are damned near indistinguishable from concept art:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/Unleashed2.jpg)

But really, that just makes my point.

BioShock wasn't ported to the PS3 either.  It's not like they couldn't strip out all the fancy graphical bells and whistles for a Wii version, and certainly I could see the appeal of firing off electricity with your left hand and then using the Wiimote in your right hand to hit a splicer with your wrench.  The AI is fairly crap so that wouldn't be much of a hold up either.

Let's fix this "screenshot:"

(http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/853/unleashed2ya6.jpg)

Now blow 752x480 up on your TV.

What I don't get in all this malarkey is how Sony's products continue to take a nosedive yet Schild insists Nintendo is doomed.

And fuck, Resident Evil 4 and the Gamecube Rogue Squadron games were amazing looking and are still gorgeous.

An overclocked Gamecube can do some pretty games unless everything simply HAS to be in 1080p 60fps 4x antialiasing with bloom lighting and whatever other happy horseshit that makes my games play poorly yet doesn't do fuck all for actually making them any more fun.

Of course I am not a mouthbreather frat gamer and don't care much about graphics other than that I have a smooth framerate and it is pleasing to the eye.  The X Box 1 was more than adequate for that as was the Gamecube.  Not that I mind what the 360 can pull off mind you, but ultimately I do not give a shit.  Hell, I just finished replaying Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries again.  (I would have replayed Crescent Hawk's Inception but its really a shitty game and was wanting even for its time.)

These days my first question on a game is: Is it turn based?

Generally if the answer is no and nothing else is compelling I go elsewhere.

I agree. Particularly on Resident Evil 4. But you just used the best, most shiny example of a gamecube game. It pushed the system to it's limits and Nintendo hasn't even tried to get anywhere near that yet. And RE4 Wii was absolutely identical to RE4 GC on the graphics front.

The PSP outsold the DS this week in Japan. Now, granted, a Final Fantasy game was released (Crisis Core), but once again, it just goes to prove that it's all about the games.

And Crisis Core supposedly hints at a full remake of FF7 on the PS3.

I wonder if the core of the gaming population even remembers FF7?

That's lolworthy.

I think some folks are still crying about Aerith.

And some people are still arguing if its "Aerith" or "Aeris"  :-P

Nah, I think everyone settled on "flower girl."

A FFVII remake would move quite a few PS3s.  No question about it.

Has this video made the rounds here yet?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kDdErzFwrRY

He's not a 22 month old video gamer. He's a toddler swinging a stick.

Fuck I hate people.

Got sent this at work, seems to summarize the situation well.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1383-Zero-Punctuation-Console-Rundown

I am positive that was the only entertaining and useful thing to ever come out of the Escapist magazine.

Oh come now, that's a bit bitter even for you.  That kid is often waiting to swing until the right moment in the game.  That qualifies as playing as far as Wii sports tennis is concerned.

Even then it's not really theirs. The guy who does those videos is a Something Awful goon who was making them (and getting emails from devs) long before the Escapist grabbed him to prop up their awful website.

That kid is playing.

My kid played Mario64 at that age.  Not well, but he could make Mario run around and fly.  His first game that he could play solo was either Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing.  He was about 2.

Schild: About kids playing games, Julian tells me yesterday..."k' is off my KOF XI team" I was like, what? you been playing K' since 2k1! and he tells me, he replaced him with Clark. At this point the story could end, cause Clark is just freaking cool and he could justify the change in line up with just that, but instead, he says, "you need to teach me how to use Clark cause I need a throw character on my team, and also how to combo the command kick into the Clark tackle so I multi-shift terry in and land that Buster Wolf >  Power Stream combo...  :cry: he's growin' up Schild....

Ousama Monogatari (Project O) trailer. (http://media.wii.ign.com/media/892/892457/vid_2133032.html)

Zack & Wiki trailer. (http://media.wii.ign.com/media/893/893610/vid_2129980.html)

Taking K' off his team makes me want to beat him.

F' that. K' is not nearly as cool as terry. But you can keep em' if you like that girlee man character type. Terry would beat that cats ass into oblivion. jajaja

You guys are seriously using Madden as a statistical point? A peculiarly American game in the heart of the XBOX homeland? How about if you are going to draw inferences on a global market you use data that allows for those minute and irrelevant parts of the world that aren't in the US.

I don't like the term "casual gamers" much, but it is unarguable there are a variety of markets albeit with significant crossover.

Casual to me means that the gamer is time constrained, they can't afford to play often or for long periods. So games with insanely complicated control schemes (which are forgotten the next time you sit down) and requiring long gaming sessions, forming groups, insanely competitive play or rewards for massive time invested (achievements?) aren't going to work that well. You can be casual on any console, but are going to be better supplied on some than others.

Social means you game to play with others. So dominated by MMORPG's and team based games but also weird stuff like sims online, second life, and the multitude of odd asian titles.

Hardcore gamers are in it for the intensity of the experience. They tend to be non-social (because they want to focus on their own gameplay experience. They tend to be non-casual because they really want to immerse themselves in the experience. They demand that graphics, music and gameplay all come together so they can sink in to the point where it almost becomes real. Something like the wii is naturally incomprehensible. A board like this is, for talking about games, is likely to be skewed towards this category especially for some of the most active posters.

I think there's probably one or two more categories. I think one group consume games as media (eg. adventure games) and another as mental fodder (puzzles up to strategy).

What global market? Madden sold more copies than the top 6 games in japan put together last year. Nothing in Europe came close. FIFA and WES maybe would have if they weren't in a transition period (this years iterations weren't that great - that said...)... FIFA and WES are just Madden for people who like Futbol.

So, yea, using Madden as a statistical point seems fairly reasonable.

We could use CARS to show how shitty kids games are still some of the best money makers in the industry. Second best selling game of last year, sold more than the top 4 Jpy games put together.

Basically Japan really doesn't matter for the non-japanese. America matters a LOT for smaller japanese companies (The N1s, KOEIs, etc of the world), and Europe is a big clusterfuck. No, really, it is. Localizations cost way too much when 5 languages are involved.

Your boy kicks ass.

I'm sorry, but the WII kicks ass. I don't own one, but I totally understand whats going on with it. Finally, good game design trumps graphics. I've recently been invited to "WII parties" Yes, the WII is now on par with monopoly and charades.  While WE may think "YUCK" all those people that like party games love it... and they FAR FAR outnumber us. Nursing homes are even buying these things to exercise the elderly. When Nintendos president was asked if she was worried about the price drop for the PS3, she said she wasn't... because Nintendo didn't have the same audience as the PS3.

Would I want to sit home, alone, waving around a WII remote trying to play tennis? Hell no. Would I want to go to a party with 20 other people, get hammered and wave around a WII remote acting like an idiot? Now that sounds like a blast.

Finally?

What the hell are you talking about?

Look, it's not my fault the game playing board-game loving non-gaming public doesn't have a fucking clue what Culdcept, Singstar, or Guitar Hero is, but don't say stupid shit like that.

I would.

As for "good game design trumps graphics" that should be a self-explanatory statement. However, it means that gorgeous, hi-def graphics only enhances a good game design, it can't substitute for good game design (and neither can story for that matter). Video game history is littered with such failures. Advent Rising is one that stands out off the top of my head.

I wonder what Freud would think about the Wii-mote.

Whoops!


Hey, what fucking games are you playing?  I need to find those.

Ah, this is where you ragged on me... haha (to those that didn't read the other thread... ignore this line)

Sure I want more complex games for people like us. I personally think the market sucks for complex, interesting games. There isn't a single MMO I want to play right now. But that doesn't mean there isn't room in the market for the kind of thing the WII offers.

Personally, I think Nintendo's impressive achievement is the effect it's had on schild.

What can I say about F13?  It's really my favorite website in the entire universe!  I love the irreverent banter and sly wit these keyboard jockeys produce.  And I especially love the staff, they're AWESOME.

 :thumbs_up:

Doing anything while getting hammered with 20 other people is a blast.  Standing is a blast if you drink enough.

Standing? Shit, try walking backwards!

He is as blind to reality as your average Manson supporter? 

Anyhow, Retrogaming Radio brought up a good point on why the Wii might have gotten so huge.  Wii Sports as a pack in.  Nintendo makes profit off every system.  Some people are buying it JUST to play the pack in game.  Many will buy other games since they already have the machine.  A huge install base means developers want to go where the money is.

It worked with Tetris for the original Gameboy which really was a complete piece of shit.  Great games, great battery life, virtually unplayable machine.

Yet it beat the snot out of its competitors.  A killer app pack in, a cheaper price and victory in spite of less than optimal hardware.

Except of course the Wii's hardware is only sub par if you need 1080p with 60fps, 8x antialaising antisotoropic filtered real time shadowed graphics for your gameplay. 

(And if you need that I am sad to inform you that you are stupid and should come to your senses and not worry if the game is photorealistic.)

No.  The huge, huge selling point for the Gameboy was its battery life.  I had the Game Gear and loved it.  Very sweet handheld for the time, except for one huge hurdle - it could gobble up all its battery life in a couple hours.  I'd hit up the parents for more batteries, and they started to complain and later say no.  Quit asking for games on it if I couldn't play.  Price was also a problem for many people.

*shrug*

In order to play games, you have to get units into people's hands that they can play games with.  If it's too expensive to buy, too difficult to use, or requires too much equipment to setup (HD TV etc), it makes barriers that turn people away. 

Price was the biggest determining factor in the Game Boy's success over the clearly superior Game Gear and Atari Lynx. These were all out when I worked at EB in the dark ages, and we sold Game Boy's hand over fist, while there were tons of people that balked at the prices of the color handhelds.

Don't forget the Turbo Express! It had the best screen of them all. Nice TV tuner too.

But yah, I sold more Game Boys than anything else.  Big library didn't hurt it either.

Mario & Sonic Together!
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/27/mario-and-sonic-olympic-events-revealed/

(http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2007/09/mario___sonic_at_the_olympic_games-nintendo_wiiscreenshots10020marioatt.jpg)

Too bad it's not a game.

Software FTW. Tetris is so monumental, it invades schild's motherfucking.

I made the spaceship launch. Level 9. High 5.

Everyone made the spaceship launch. Try getting anywhere near the high scores in Sega Tetris.

And yea, it's all about software. Enjoy Mario and Sonic's Olympic Clusterfuck.

People were able to play the original GB without going blind?  That thing was seriously unplayable in almost every environment and was hard to see even when you could.
It was mostly fine for Tetris, but everything else was a painful joke.
I remember using the earliest GB emulators in DOS and being amazed I could actually SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON.  Half the reason the Gameboy Color Pocket was a must have wasn't just that it could fit in a pocket, its that it had a screen that you could actually view a game in.  Its generally weak color abilities had nothing on a nice screen. 

I found out one of the Mario & Sonic Olympic Games was fencing. Fencing should be pretty fun, especially as a party game. It'll definitely be worth a rental.

I agree.  I've been saying as much on other forums when I've expressed my disappointment with the Wii and its lack of AAA 3rd-party support, but it's rare that someone gets it.  Kudos.

(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/superkensey/haemcopy.jpg?t=1192157227)

I have to second the GameGear being a battery eating monster. Kinda defeats the purpose of a portable device if the only way it can work reasonably is by plugging it into the damn wall.

So Nintendo announced a bunch of their Wii Ware titles recently (downloadable games like the VC stuff but original titles).  There's a new Dr. Mario game, Pokeman Farm (I guess you transfer Pokeman from Pearl and Diamond and then do... farm related stuff with them or something), Star Soldier R, and a new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game (not the same one that was already announced for the Wii), which I was particularly interested in, as early reports described it as a Country Building RPG.

More news about the game came recently from people who attended Nintendo Conference 2007, and I like what I'm hearing so far:


Sounds almost like an FF version of Sim City in some respects (although I don't expect it to be anywhere near as complex as a Sim City game obviously).

I hate to make Schild jizz, but Slashdot is doomcasting the Wii (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/169203). Apparently sales in Japan are way down and "the bubble inflated by the novelty factor is starting to deflate".

Meh.

1) Japan is pretty irrelevant these days.
2) See all my rants about 3rd party devs treating the system like a leper and tossing out shitty shovelware titles. Casual gamers are even less likely to shell out $50 for shitty games than hardcore gamers.

Wait... what? Casual gamers are more likely to be influenced by advertising and not actually do some reading up on a game, but buy one because 'they liked the movie'. I would say that casual gamers are much more likely buy a shitty game.

Fixed typo

No, Japan is irrelevant just for the PS3 and 360.

Japan is just irrelevant period.  Unless one are a moe loving weeaboo fuck. 

Or sadly, want games that aren't puzzle, sports, RTS, or FPS. 
You just get full animu in the face while playing.  :oops:

(On a positive note, the Wii Fire Emblem has IN BATTLE HARD SAVES.  I CAN FINALLY ENJOY THE FUCKING GAME INSTEAD OF HATING THE DEVELOPERS IN A WAY ONLY FOX NEWS CAN MATCH!!!)

Ok, let me elaborate. You sell a hardcore gamer a shitty game, it's likely he won't stop buying games. He's a hardcore gamer, if you put big tits, blood and stats on it, they will buy games again.

You sell a casual gamer one shitty game? The Wii goes in the closet and he's not likely to buy games again. They may be susceptible to advertising, but they know when they've been ripped off. And many of the shovelware Wii games I've played will make a motherfucker fell ripped off.

OK, wtf is "moe loving weeaboo" and "animu"? Help me out here.

Sounds kinky.

moe, from the Japanese word 燃える means literally 'burning' but is often used in saying things are cute or adorable in a notably geeky way.
weeaboo is from a Perry Bible Fellowship comic and has been adopted by 4chan (ironically enough) as a word to describe things that have notably "Japanese" traits.
animu is a way to say anime without saying anime.

Any other questions?