Some guy from Maxis calls the Wii "a piece of shit"

[Fabricated]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/03/09/yesterday-the-wii-is-excrement-today-the-wii-is-quite-nice

Good for him. The turnaround is typical mealymouthed forced-by-my-boss apology crap, so the point stands.

[stray]

Actually, I think it's kind of lame that he took it back.

[Margalis]

His 'art' argument was kind of silly.

[Miasma]

I accidentally read the first blog comment and it kind of explains the whole thing.

[Strazos]

I still don't get the beef with the system. Nintendo went for something other than graphical superiority. I don't understand why this guy has to come out and bitch about it - is EA holding a gun to his head and forcing him to develop for it? I doubt it, and even if they are (figuratively or literally), if it's just "2 Gamecubes stuck together with duct tape," that should make it easy to program for, right?

[Nebu]

Context > All

[Strazos]

I understand that it was in a "Rant Forum," but that still doesn't take away from the fact that I think his whole rant was silly and off-base. It's like bitching that a Camry isn't more like a Corvette.

[Morfiend]

It's like bitching that a Camry isn't more like a Corvette.

To me its more like bitching that a Dune Buggy isnt like a Corvette. You just cant do the same shit with ether of them, but they both have their place. Just dont try and make one do the job of the other.

[Strazos]

Yes, I believe your analogy is more apt than my own. Good Show.

[HaemishM]

What a fuckhead. Either be a dick and stick by your comments or shut the fuck up.

[stray]

I still don't get the beef with the system. Nintendo went for something other than graphical superiority. I don't understand why this guy has to come out and bitch about it - is EA holding a gun to his head and forcing him to develop for it?

Because he's working on Spore, and can't treat Wii users to it.

His main beef wasn't with graphics either, but with AI.

[Yegolev]

People who only own a Wii are not very likely to ever want to play Spore, or even know about it.  Financials aside, that is.  I'd say it's as likely as people who bought a DS to play Brain Age or Nintendogs are to play Spore.

Anyway... what a dumbass.  The Wii is not where you're going to try to put hardcore games.  It's where you put "casual" and "family" games, not a FPS with Deep-Blue AI bots.  The mass of Wii-owners are not looking to be pwned, they want to play shiny and fun things, like fake bowling.

Also: dumbass!  Lern 2 publik-speek, lolz!  Or: Way to retract your "hardcore" rant when Zee Boss comes down on you, lolz!

See, this is an internet forum, so saying that is OK.

[stray]

Will Wright is pretty much the King of Casuals. 50 million housewives and schoolgirls say so. ;)

I think Spore would have it's audience just as much as that new Wii Sims game that's being brewed up.

And either way, the more games the better. That's the important thing. It's just a shame if you can't even have more games because the system is incapable of it. It's already hard enough to secure good games as it is (on the business side). The least they could have done is make the system technically capable of certain things.

Even more retarded is Nintendo defends their crippled hardware by saying "THIS SYSTEM IS ONLY FOR FUN". As if it's some either/or situation. Like having up-to-date technology in a console means it detracts from having fun games.

[schild]

Posts above too contradictory. Hurts.

The Wii appeals to the same people The Sims does. They will know about Spore.

The Wii is also a piece of shit when it comes to processing power for things like graphics AND AI.

His boss or/and EA did make him apologize, pretty obvious.

Truths all around. World turns.

[Krakrok]

That guy needs to get with the times. Sticking two things togather with duct tape and calling it new is all the rage.

Hyperthreading. Dual core. Dual video cards. Dual monitors. Dual band phones. Dual band wifi. Dual core 2. Dual channel ram. Double boxing. Dual accounts. CD/DVD drives. Dual CD/DVD drives.

[Margalis]

Spore is coming out for the DS IIRC...so yeah...

I have no problem with him saying the Wii isn't powerful but his argument about Nintendo not being interested in art is just silly. Processing power = art?

[stray]

I guess you could say AI could contribute to art. The same with physics.. That is, if you consider emergence and improvisation to be contributers to art in games.

Doesn't necessarily mean Nintendo isn't concerned with art though. They're just shutting themselves out of a few avenues for it (ones that will be proven to be very important though).

[Roac]

Spore is coming out for the DS IIRC...so yeah...

Yes, you recall correctly.  There has also been interest given to all three console platforms, but nothing confirmed.  For kicks, there was a comment about concern about the cost of PS3 development, linked off the Spore home page press releases.  Aside from that, this guy didn't say that Wii couldn't or wouldn't have Spore released on it, just that he didn't like the Wii.

And, imo, Spore suits the DS/Wii market better than the rest of the consoles or the PSP.  If it's released for all three I'm willing to bet that you see much better market penetration into the Nintendo line. 

[Yegolev]

The Wii appeals to the same people The Sims does. They will know about Spore.

I don't agree.  I have a working counterexample living in my house; actually since she knows about the existence of other gaming platforms and plays The Sims on a jacked-up Dell XPS, she should know about Spore before your average Brain-Ager.  We will see once Spore hits how it all falls out.  I could be totally off base here, but I can't see it being the next Sims.  The next Sims but for Gamers, maybe.  And if it is, I suggest everyone steer well clear of it, since you'll be hooking up to an endless train of buggy expansions.

I agree with the rest, though.

Also, I was just using Spore as an example.  Feel free to pick some other EA box of shit, with or without Will Wright's greasy fingerprints on it.

[schild]

When did I equate Spore to Brain Agers? No, I simply equated it to fans of The Sims. And you can be damn sure that the Sims expansion closest to the release of Spore will have some kind of forced to watch Spore trailer or some informational bits on the disk.

[Trippy]

The Wii appeals to the same people The Sims does. They will know about Spore.

I don't agree. 

I don't agree either. The Sims is a socially-acceptable way for younger women (70% of the people who play The Sims are women under 25) to play "virtual Barbie". Spore is nothing like that. Yes both are "sandbox" games but that doesn't mean people who like playing with their virtual dolls will like playing Spore.

Edit: what the heck is a "sanbox"?

[Margalis]

Spore seems to appeal to nerds and people who long for the days of more interesting PC games when novel things came out on a regular basis. I don't see the crossover with The Sims. None of the people I know who play The Sims seem like they'd have any interest in Spore, and conversely Spore sounds interesting to me but I have no interest in The Sims.

Look at say Sim Earth or Sim City - not the huge appeal of The Sims. I agree that The Sims is a grown up way to play house that doesn't require much imagination. Spore is more of a flight of fancy.

Anyone ever play Cubivore? Always wanted to give that a whirl.

[stray]

Aside from that, this guy didn't say that Wii couldn't or wouldn't have Spore released on it, just that he didn't like the Wii.

It's exactly what he's implying, given his pedigree and his particular complaints. He's Will Wright's co- designer, and more than likely, living and breathing Spore right now. I doubt this is just stemming from a vague sense of general criticism for the Wii. Most developers in his position would be speaking from experience.

[EDIT] Sim City was popular. Not Sims, of course, but not necessarily just gamer territory either.

[Venkman]

Look at say Sim Earth or Sim City - not the huge appeal of The Sims. I agree that The Sims is a grown up way to play house that doesn't require much imagination. Spore is more of a flight of fancy.

Because they hadn't figured out their target market yet, and when they realized who it was, they also got the fringe benefit of it being largely untapped.

And The Sims is of a different sort of God-mode esoterica than alien-based Spore. There'll be SOME crossover, sure. But it's not the budding-Mom or young-professional escapist crowd by and large.

Finally, Wii sales, still hot. They'll argue until the PS5 why it was popular, but that's how things go. Pundits, whether reporters or creators, react to things other people go off and do, with never the same exposure to the same reasons they went off and did it.

[stray]

He's not a pundit. He's a game designer, only reacting to how the Wii doesn't live up to certain specifications. Not to what "other people" do. What the fuck do sales have to do with anything?

[CmdrSlack]

He's not a pundit. He's a game designer, only reacting to how the Wii doesn't live up to certain specifications. Not to what "other people" do. What the fuck do sales have to do with anything?

I hate to say it, but ask Blizzard.

[Yegolev]

When did I equate Spore to Brain Agers? No, I simply equated it to fans of The Sims. And you can be damn sure that the Sims expansion closest to the release of Spore will have some kind of forced to watch Spore trailer or some informational bits on the disk.

I don't think that was you, just the general conversation was getting Sporey.  Also, the scope of my opinion did not include any inevitable marketing spam... however I can already hear my wife complaing "what's this shit?" as she loads up the expansion.  If Spore has a dollhouse component or allows you to genetically engineer metrosexuals, you might get some synergy there.  I know it's hard to imagine people that don't think about games the way I do, but I married one.

[HaemishM]

Spore is the version of the Sims for science and sci-fi geeks. It's a niche game. The Sims will ALWAYS have more mass market appeal, because it's more understandable than "put 3 protozoa together for sweet monkey sex and build the creature of your dreams." Why anyone would think because it's a sandbox-y type game that Spore would have the same market potential as the Sims is beyond me.

As for the Wii's processing power on AI... Pika? Resident Evil 4 did pretty fucking good with AI AND Graphics on the Cube, and the Wii is a souped-up Cube. Why anyone would think it can't handle AI is again, beyond me. The only thing that much more processing power such as with the 360/PS3 would give you is MORE AI on screen at once. It's like some of you hate the Wii so much you are making shit up.

[Samwise]

Spore is the version of the Sims for science and sci-fi geeks. It's a niche game.

I want to reply to this, but I munnah do it in the Spore thread.

[Yegolev]

You know what's really a piece of shit, is how if, in Twilight Princess, you save and quit after you cross the Eldin Bridge and it is destroyed but before you enter the twilight, you bone your game because you reload in the middle of Hyrule Field and cannot cross the bridge.  I'd like to blame this on the controller, but I can't figure out how.  Must be Miyamoto's fault.

[Big Gulp]

Resident Evil 4 did pretty fucking good with AI AND Graphics on the Cube

I own RE4 for the Cube, and you either have rather low graphical expectations or are overstating your case.

[schild]

RE4 is by far the best looking Gamecube game. Through anything other than component cables piped into a hi-def screen running at 480p and widescreen though, it looks like dogshit. And I only know of one other person on this board with component cables for the cube.

[Big Gulp]

RE4 is by far the best looking Gamecube game. Through anything other than component cables piped into a hi-def screen running at 480p and widescreen though, it looks like dogshit. And I only know of one other person on this board with component cables for the cube.

To tell the truth it looked like ass on my HDTV (without component cables) and on my SD bedroom TV (where the cube is currently exiled.  My bedroom is the console gulag where unorthodox consoles go so they cannot contaminate the revolutionary purity of my vanguard consoles.)

Now granted, it looks great considering it's running on a Gamecube, but that's kind of the point...  The nextgen successor is essentially just the same thing, but in an overclocked variety.

[schild]

The difference between component cables and av/s-video on the gamecube is more than night and day. It changes EVERYTHING. Same with the Wii. It's so radically different looking that I don't really have an apt cliche phrase to use on it.

That said, still kinda looks like shit, particularly compared to the REALLY late game PS2 stuff (FF12, Magna Carta.. ok that's kinda old, God of War 2, Shadow of the Colossus, etc).

I haven't used composite or s-video since the Dreamcast, on which I used a video processor to get it up to VGA.

[Fabricated]

I own the component cabling for the Gamecube and it honest to god makes a world of difference on games it supports. On even a shitty HDTV like mine it makes a game go from that vaguely blurry N64+lots of polys look to damn fine. Smash Brothers, REmake, RE:0, RE4, PSO, all look MUCH better.