Nintendo Owning

[Ronald Pagan]

[troutman]

The Wii is great, unless you think the only good games are shooting things and blowing things up. My boys, 5 and 7 love it. My wife will even use it, but would never play another system.

[Inferno]

The only way I'll ever own a Wii is if I win one or I can buy one for like $50. Other than the Virtual Library the game selection that you cant get on the 360 or PS3 just doesnt appeal to me so there's no point buying one cause it'll just collect dust.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by troutman

The Wii is great, unless you think the only good games are shooting things and blowing things up. My boys, 5 and 7 love it. My wife will even use it, but would never play another system.

Yup, my wife and I love the Wii too, it's perfect for people like us.

[Ronald Pagan]

I have a Wii. I don't play it often. I did play it alot but once I finished Mario Galaxy and Zelda I had no real reason to play.

Until I had a bunch of buddies over the other night for drinks and HNIC. Afterward we had an epic Wii Golf match that was highly competitive. I was reminded then why the Wii was a good purchase.

[Rerun]

If anybody is looking for a Wii, which are really hard to find right now, as of about 5:30 pm last evening, Walmart off of 130th ave SE had about 8 in their display case.

[JohnnyFlame]

My wife will play the Wii. Yes my wife. That is an amazing fact and virtually guarantees the Wii and Nintendo kicks the snot of the other two. The Wii is an actual breakthrough whereas the other two have come up with zilch that is new. Nothing. It's faster and the graphics are better is the mantra from the PS3 and XBox fanboys. Whoopee ding.

Meanwhile your competitor has opened up a whole new market and a new technology. Yes it could use some tweaking and the game lineup could be better overall but they play their cards right and they just keep on sailing along.

Nintendo is already adding better motion control, opened up the wiiware to developers and looks firmly like the technological innovator.

Meanwhile what are the other two going to offer in their next machine? Let me guess-it will be faster and have better graphics. Hmmmmmm.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by KTrain

If you don't like the Wii you've probably never had friends over to use it with you. It's a great party gaming system but a mediocre single player system.

Mario Kart, Big Brain Academy, Smash Bros, Tiger Woods and Guitar Hero are a lot of fun to play when you have your buddies over.

The truth from this post will echo throughout the ages.

The wii is great as a second system. Its the only system I could get my 2 ex's to play. My parents want me to specifically bring it home for Christmas since they are hosting both family functions this year.

I was down on the wii fit, after watching that first video (not the second) I might have to reconsider it

[WhiteTom]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Also PS3s Fallout was bugged to and is terrible in comparison to the XBox and PC versions. So there goes your credibility if you bought the PS3 version while having access to an XBox.

There is no need to shoot someone down because they bought the same game for a different console. There are tons of reasons to pick up a game for one console or the other. Having chosen to pick up an awesome game for the PS3 when it has fewer flaws on the 360 does not make his contribution invalid.

On topic, I have all 3 of the consoles and the Wii is the one that gets the least attention. Honestly, it just doesn't have any games that appeal to me. I like my shooters, sure, but I'm more of a Mass Effect, Fable, RPG type player and in that respect the Wii falls flat.

And Wii Music just makes me angry.

[WhiteTom]

Originally Posted by JohnnyFlame

The Wii is an actual breakthrough whereas the other two have come up with zilch that is new. Nothing. It's faster and the graphics are better is the mantra from the PS3 and XBox fanboys. Whoopee ding.

Standard motion control was the next step in innovation, for sure. The way I see it, this is being totally wasted by pumping out crappy ports of games with controls tacked on and products that aren't using the controls to their full extent.

As for the other two adding nothing new, I disagree. Microsoft has continued to innovate with their Live service, which allows an huge amount of user connectivity, for example.

Originally Posted by JohnnyFlame

Nintendo is already adding better motion control, opened up the wiiware to developers and looks firmly like the technological innovator.

The motion control should have been that way from the beginning considering that is how it was being marketed. They are now doing the fairly typical Nintendo thing (in my opinion) by selling an upgrade that they should have thought of before putting the product out in the first place.

Microsoft has also had their development environment available for creating Xbox Live Arcade games available for at least a year.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

I am a long time video game player (I have basically every console almost ever). The Wii is basically pretty bad. I have played mine a little bit, but honestly, there just are not that many games for it. And those games that do exist? They kinda suck. That is the truth.

The Wii is every parents dream console. This is why it's selling so good - it's marketing to kids, parents and casual gamers, which when you think about it, make up more numbers than the sheer hardcore gamers (like me and you) who complain about crappy consoles. It's a brilliant marketing strategy.

That, and the Japanese will snap up anything that involves technology and cuteness.

[Ronald Pagan]

That's basically it. While the Xbox and PS3 are competing over a relatively small market of serious gamers, Nintendo has chosen to broaden the market. I think it's problematic to say that all three of the video game consoles are competing with each other. Nintendo has sucked in the casual gamers and has reaped the financial benefits.

Eventually we will see Microsoft and Sony adjust their business models to tap into this market and compete directly with Nintendo.

The danger for Microsoft and Sony is the absurd profits that Nintendo is making right now. Most of those profits will be re-invested in research and development and market research. If Nintendo is smart about it, they can ensure that they have the technological edge to out-do their competitors and sell their customers what they want.

It's a game of catch-up for MS and Sony. Their business models are not profitable. Sony has lost millions of dollars making the ultra-high tech PS3 with the purpose of technologically dominating the gaming market. It hasn't worked, people didn't buy the console and the margins are too tight anyway to make any serious money. Xbox is a similar story, they tried to capture a large piece of the market by being the first entry. It resulted in millions of dollars of warranty issues and they only made money for the first time last year.

Nintendo has changed the face of the video game industry. There will always be a market for hardcore games but with sky rocketing development costs, we will see a swift scaling back of development into those type of games in favour of the cheaper to make, easier to sell casual games.

[taco.vidal]

The previous posters have nailed it that Nintendo went after an untapped market and found success.

Just to add one thing... as a casual games myself, I like to be able to pick up a game and have fun playing even if I only want to spend 30 minutes at a time and possibly not total more than a few hours in a week or even a month.

The games you talk about (in the quoted post) are not the type of game that is fun if you play sporadically every so often especially if you havent played other similar games or other games in the series.

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

I am a long time video game player (I have basically every console almost ever). The Wii is basically pretty bad. I have played mine a little bit, but honestly, there just are not that many games for it. And those games that do exist? They kinda suck. That is the truth. My wife bought me it, but I have been tempted to dump it. There is no good hockey, shooters or great RPGs. In fact, there just isn't a game worth getting the system for. I doubt I have played more than three hours on any game for the system. The 360's Call of Duty 4, I logged well over 100 hours on the on line component. And recently I have logged in about 30 hours in the PS3's Fallout 3.
Aiming those Wii controllers as well is really annoying and hurts my wrists. I prefer to be really lazy when I play a video game. And before anyone starts, I have a pretty serious job, work out at least once a day and am very married. My wife just goes to bed really early (she likes sleeping A LOT), so I prefer a game to TV.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Russic

hmmm ... nope. That just shows a lot of people buy it. A lot of people voted for Hitler too.

wow. godwin's law by post #13. not the fastest i've seen but pretty damn close.

[Kerplunk]

Originally Posted by WhiteTom

The motion control should have been that way from the beginning considering that is how it was being marketed. They are now doing the fairly typical Nintendo thing (in my opinion) by selling an upgrade that they should have thought of before putting the product out in the first place.

You know how it works. Ship now, fix later.

[PsYcNeT]

You'd think that after the system had been out for 2+ years some developer would have made a sword-fighting game that wasn't horribly buggy, un-fun, and truly lacklustre.

[Superflyer]

I have the Wii and I can sum up why I love it in one game, Resident Evil. This game is so fun I have beaten it 4 times and still start over and go again. I think this is the best one so far. The main reason is I hate the aiming on previous version where you have to use a joystick to aim where you want to shoot, now I just point my arm where it should go and I shoot there.

I have other games as well but that is the only shooter. With all the being said I am also hoping to pick up a PS3 or XBox this holiday season for other games that I can play that the Wii does not have. I do not consider myself to be a serious gamer but I am somewhere in between. So the Wii fills half of my gaming cravings but I need another system for the other half.

All systems have their place and the Wii has its own place. The one thing you have to remember is that Nintendo is a gaming comapny, that is what they do, whereas MS and Sony are other companies that also make gameing consoles so who is going to have the better feel of the market?

[PsYcNeT]

The glaring problem (to me) with Xbox and PS3 is that they are essentially under-performing semi-functional computers. FPS and RPG fans can get all that and more with a $600 PC, but the Wii exists on it's own merit.

[TurnedTheCorner]

By the same token, you could call the Wii an under-performing semi-functional console. I don't think either comparison is particularly valid. They're all different products and platforms with varying strengths and weaknesses.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by nik-

Wow ... really? Hitler? ... you're comparing the popularity of the Wii to people voting for Hitler?

lol ... ya I kind of am. I'm not saying the wii is like Hitler at all but rather making the point that just because something is the most popular doesn't necessarily mean it is the best.

I had an analogy that was less dramatic but it just didn't "pop" off the screen like I wanted it to.

For the record I don't think the wii is garbage at all. It definitely has it's strong points ... the problem is what I would consider it's strong points are things that I don't look for in a game system. I think it's awesome that my mom will play a video game with me but at the end of the day that's not the experience I'm looking for.