Monday, January 2, 2012

What is the future of Nintendo Home Console Support?

Are Wii U ready?
In an attempt to broaden an audience of a new fan base of paying gamers, it would seem logical to release a game on every system not only to benefit the gamers that don’t have the other systems, but also for the game developers themselves to gain more feedback to make even better games. So why on earth do the developers opt to the pick-and-choose option to releasing a game(s) on a select few systems rather than all of them, and shun a perfectly good fan base just because of fear that the potential buyers would be few and would rather buy the same game on HD supported systems? Yes, I’m talking about the third parties, and that system I was referring to is the Wii . 2011 was both a hit-and-miss for third party games on the system: on one hand we did get Rayman Origins out of nowhere, but on the other hand we could’ve gotten more for a system that’s on it’s last life. It’s times like these when the Wii’s hardware comes back to haunt it and the system not supporting HD graphics is a big turnoff for third party developers that want their games to look perfect. Wii’s first-party support this year is nothing to sneeze at though, and I have to hand it to Nintendo for handling yet another stellar year, and Skyward Swords delivered what it promised, but I just wish third parties did the same.

Here's a couple of examples of third-party ignorance: Capcom could have very well released Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the Wii, but shunned it downed, and as if to point the middle finger at Nintendo gamers later released Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and made Pheonix Wright of the prior DS exclusive Ace Attorney series one of the playable characters. And most recently SEGA announced that they would not be releasing Sonic 4: Episode 2 on WiiWare because of updated graphics from the first episode (and at this point you know that whenever a developer comes up and says, “This game will have improved graphics…” you know it won’t be coming to the Wii). SEGA also didn’t release Sonic Generations on the Wii last year, but oddly released it on the 3DS instead. It was later made clear by the “In 3-D!” logo on the Xbox360/PS3 versions of the game that SEGA didn’t release the game on the Wii because it didn’t support 3-D. You can easily say: “But they gave us exclusives Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Sonic Colors a few years back so stop whining!” but again I question why they would shun a new fan base and release the game on all systems except the Wii when they could’ve made more profit off of it. And they choose not to do it when 2011 looked like it was the last year of the Wii? Come on now!

This is what I originally feared for the Wii U: third party developers would look at the system, think they would have to use a gimmicky controllers whether they want to or not, and just doom the system with cash-in shovel ware and give other systems actual games just like how they treated the Wii (I‘m staring at you SoulCalibur Adventure). We’ve already lost Capcom, and other companies like Ubi-Soft have just used the Wii as a dart board to randomly shoot shovel ware at the system until the whole Wii game aisle at Best Buy is infested with garbage games shadowing good games like weeds choking on flowers, because Wii remote wagglin’ is so compulsory and necessary it must be in every game they make NO MATTER WHAT! (meanwhile, the Virtual Console controller stares on blankly)     

But I got news for you: the Wii Isn’t done just yet, shovel ware is on all systems and we must accept it, and Crapcom was always Crapcom (just sayin‘). In it’s life time, the Wii has accomplished creating a whole new fan base of people that never have played games, gave us exclusives that you can’t play anywhere else, and made us feel young again with Virtual Console, but I still feel only 60% of the system has been really tapped and explored. Nonetheless, the Wii will not die in infamy and just be considered a “fad toy”. No, it’s legacy will live on forever - in a new form called the Wii U. Here’s to hoping that third parties will give the Wii U a chance; make us proud to be Nintendo gamers.
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1 comment:

  1. Labels added.

    Also, as for Wii's first party lineup, I'm the only one who really wants Pokepark 2 :P

    ReplyDelete