EricBall's Tech Projects - Nintendo Wii ? maybe not

RSS Bot · October 7, 2006

I've been reading & listening to Ben Heckendorn's (of VSCp fame) disenting opinions of the Wii, and I think he has some good points on why it may be doomed to failure. It comes down to two major design decisions: #1 no HDTV support & #2 unique controller which lead to three reasons why the Wii is doomed.

Currently I don't have an HDTV, nor any plans on buying one in the near future; and I suspect the same could be said for the majority of people. (Although with prices of HDTVs falling, I'm sure the adoption rate is now beyond the hard core early adopers.) Thus, the Wii not supporting HDTV wasn't a limitation in my mind. In fact, since the Xbox360 (and the PS3) are really geared for HDTV output, the lack of HDTV support could almost be a positive for people without HDTV. But Ben points out that consoles typically have a 5 year lifecycle, and there's a very good chance that during those 5 years HDTV will come to life. So in a couple of years, the lack of HDTV support will really start to hurt Wii. (And things like Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and the inclusion of Blu-Ray in PS3 and the XBox360 HD-DVD option will certainly drive further HDTV sales.)

Nintendo has been trumpetting the Wii's controller, particularly the motion sensing capabilities. So much so that Sony decided to change the PS3 controller from rumble to motion sensing very late in the development cycle. But Ben questions whether we will enjoy playing games by swinging our arms around or twitching our wrists. I know, for myself, it's very difficult not to move the controller around when I'm playing. I'll flinch or lead with the joystick. Maybe the software will move the character the way I want in response, but I think it's more likely that I'll be saying "I didn't want to do that!"

But more importantly, Ben points out that these two factors (combined with the significantly lower CPU/GPU power of the Wii compared to the Xbox360 and PS3) will make it significantly more difficult to develop cross-platform games for the Xbox360, PS3, PC and Wii. Yeah, I may personally avoid EA games like the plague, but those third party cross-platform games round out the library. And with the ever increasing development costs, publishers like to spread the risk and increase their customer base as much as possible. But, if it costs significantly more include the Wii in addition to the Xbox360 and PS3, or if doing so means they have to create for the lowest common denominator (the Wii) and the Xbox360 and PS3 versions suffer, then I expect the Wii will get left out in the cold. Ben also points out that the unique Wii controller will add likely cause additional problems due to the lack of comparable buttons. Yes, the Wii may be cheaper to develop for (due to it's more conventional CPU/GPU design) - but only on it's own.

Now, I have to say that part of me is tempted to buy the Wii at C$280, while the XBox360 and PS3 pricetags leave me gasping for breath. Sure the Wii's won't have as many Mature games as it's competition. But with a 6-year old son, I'm not going to be buying (or even renting) those games. My focus is going to be on the Marios and similar games for quite some time. With that, the Wii's Virtual Console is tempting. But, then again, I own a GC, N64, SNES and even a PS1; which means I should be able to get almost everything I would ever want from eBay. (Thought - I wonder if Nintendo is planning on using Virtual Console to test the markets for similar cellphone or PDA releases.)

Is the Wii doomed? Well, the future is difficult to predict, but Ben has pointed out some features considered strengths that actually may be weaknesses. The fate is ultimately in the hands of consumers - which systems and games they buy.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=2141