By Nelson Schneider - 11/23/12 at 05:31 PM CT
The next year or so will see the final decline of the 7th Generation, as the remaining competitors wind-down support for their current-generation hardware in order to produce 8th Generation hardware to compete with the recently-released WiiU. So, as Generation 7 – one of the weirdest and most fiercely competitive hardware generations ever – grinds to a halt, it seems only appropriate to announce the winner: The Nintendo Wii.
I could gush about the Wii’s mind-boggling sales figures or the record profits Nintendo raked in through 2008 thanks to the Wii, leading the company to find itself perched atop an enormous pile of cash. But I won’t. I could do the damage control dance as fanboys of other platforms point out that the Wii’s enormous sales dropped precipitously starting in 2009 (disregarding the fact that that’s what happens once everyone on the planet owns a game console and aren’t forced to buy replacements due to shoddy build quality). But I won’t.
Regardless of the Wii’s ability to make money, that’s not the reason it won the 7th Generation Console War. Game consoles aren’t loved because they sell boatloads of units; they sell boatloads of units because they are loved.
So, why did more people love the Wii than any other platform? It all comes down to the timeline of the 7th Generation. The Wii launched as a cheap, standard definition system against unusual opponents. On one side, there were the two expensive, nearly-identical, high definition game consoles. On another side was hoary old PC gaming, with its glut of FPS/RTS and annual GPU upgrades. High definition TVs were new and expensive, while high definition PC monitors were small and expensive. For someone who just wanted to play some new games without spending a lot of money, the Wii was a no-brainer.
When compared to the other consoles of the 7th Generation, the Wii’s price was just too difficult to pass up. For the price of 4 games on one of the competitor consoles, it was possible to buy a Wii (if you could find one on store shelves). Reversing the equation returns a stomach-sinking 10-12 Wii games for the price of an Xbox 360 or PS3. And since so few people owned HDTVs prior to 2008, nobody could really appreciate the difference between the Wii’s graphics and the HD systems’ graphics. Releasing an underpowered system was a smart move by Nintendo, considering that by the time the public at large was able to truly appreciate the more powerful hardware of the HD Twins, that hardware was almost 3 years old (e.g., ancient, in computer years).
But the price wasn’t the only launch factor. While none of the three 7th Generation consoles had spectacular ‘launch window’ libraries, the Wii at least had a ‘Zelda’ game and “Excite Truck” at launch and included a pack-in tech-demo in the form of “WiiSports,” while the Xbox 360 launched with “Perfect Dark Zero” as its only notable exclusive (sold separately) and the PS3 launched with absolutely no exclusives that anyone would actually want to play.
The library situation continued to play-out oddly throughout the 7th Generation. Instead of vastly varied libraries of exclusives differentiating every gaming platform, multi-platform releases of so-called “AAA” games became the norm, filling the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 with a largely homogeneous mass of M-rated, dark, gritty, realistic games that appeal mainly to angsty teenagers (who are, of course, still the largest market segment for videogames). Predictably, Nintendo was once again given the cold shoulder by these popular third-party developers, repeating a phenomenon that has taken place every generation since Nintendo drove away third-party developers with the awful N64. What was NOT predictable was the near complete drop off of Japanese console game production (and simultaneous migration to handheld game production), leaving the sandbox free for Western developers to muscle in and fill it with… sandboxes… and PC games. These same Western developers, unable to optimize their open-world code for the weaker Wii hardware instead filled the Wii’s library with dozens of mini-game collections and other forms of shovelware in an attempt to cash-in on what they perceived to be the Wii’s completely unexpected popularity.
As game libraries shook themselves out and things began to stabilize, these Western developers came to the illogical conclusion that third-party games don’t sell well on the Wii. Naturally it had to be due to some fault on the part of the Wii or of Nintendo, and had nothing to do with the shovelware or rail-shooter versions of FPSes that developers were half-assing onto the Wii. Thus the Wii was largely left out of multi-platform releases. But instead of weakening the Wii, the lack of multi-platform games became one of its strengths.
No “AAA” games meant more creativity and diversity. And while the Wii does fall short in the category of Indie games that really started to gather Steam (witty pun is witty) on the PC during the course of the 7th Generation, it still is home to plenty of exclusive mid-budget games made by smaller developers or smaller teams under a large developer’s umbrella. The result is a huge library of exclusives with lots of genre diversity. You can’t get enough FPSes on your other consoles/PC? There are ports of several ‘Call of Duty’ games with superior aiming controls thanks to the Wii’s pointer, as well as the exclusive ‘Conduit’ games and “Red Steel 2.” You want platformers? “A Boy and His Blob” and “Sonic Colors” (the best ‘Sonic’ game since the Genesis) are both exclusive. Puzzles? “Gravity” is pretty fun. Adventure? “Zack & Wiki” does some pretty cool stuff with an old genre. What if you want weird things that can be hard to categorize but are awesome? “Little King’s Story” and “Muramasa: The Demon Blade” fit the bill perfectly.
Then, of course, there are the first-party Nintendo games: The main reason anyone buys a Nintendo console. For the first time since the NES, Nintendo gave us 3 ‘Mario’ games on the Wii, and all are awesome. The Wii is also home to 2 ‘Zelda’ games (one of which is mediocre, I won’t try to say they’re as amazing as the other first-party offerings on the Wii), 2 ‘Metroid’ games (again, somewhat iffy in quality), 2 great ‘Kirby’ games, a ‘Wario’ platformer, a ‘Paper Mario,’ and excellent entries in both the ‘Smash Bros.’ and ‘Mario Kart’ franchises. On top of their tried and true franchises, Nintendo also produced quite a bit of new stuff this gen, including the wildly popular ‘Wii____’ casual gaming series and the spectacular action/adventure, “Pandora’s Tower.”
Then there’s the big issue that really came back to bite Sony and the PS3 in the butt this-generation: RPGs. After stealing Square and Enix from Nintendo in the 5th Generation, Sony acquired a reputation as THE console to own for RPG fans. Square Enix laying down on the job is one of the primary reasons behind the ‘TEH PS3 HAZ NO GAEMZ” meme. While the entire genre has suffered mightily this-gen, the Wii is home a small stable of solid RPGs, including third-party titles like “Arc Rise Fantasia,” and “Fragile Dreams” alongside the new first/second-party titles, “Xenoblade Chronicles” and “The Last Story.” Japan even gave the Wii the next ‘Dragon Quest’ game (sadly an MMORPG). Throughout the history of videogames, ‘Dragon Quest’ has always gone to the winning hardware: DQ1-4: NES, DQ5-6: SNES, DQ7: PS1, DQ8: PS2, DQ9: friggen’ DS, DQ10: Wii.
But what about the shovelware issue? Surely that’s a sign of a problem?! Well, no, not really. What people who love to slander the Wii for its population of shovelware conveniently forget is that the winner of each console generation always has the most shovelware. PS2? Loaded with shovelware. PS1? Oh, yeah, plenty of shovelware. SNES? Yep, even the King had shovelware coming out of his ears. The only generational winner that didn’t have loads of shovelware was the NES, which was an intentional result of the Nintendo Seal of Quality in order to stem the overwhelming tide of shovelware that crashed the videogame market while Atari ( delenda est) was at the helm. Of course, even Nintendo’s best efforts couldn’t keep ALL of the shovelware away from the NES…
When I look at my collection of Wii games, I see 90%+ exclusives and no shovelware on a shelf of over 40 games – and that’s just games that cater to my specific tastes. I also see representatives of all of these genres: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Beat ‘Em Up, Fighting, FPS, Karting, Light Gun, Party, Platformer (2D and 3D), Puzzle, RPG, RTS, and Weird Stuff. And I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of them. The Wii's library is truly the best library to appear on a Nintendo console since the SNES.
Setting aside game libraries, the Wii also proved itself a winner in innovation and expanding the market for videogames. The Wiimote and Nunchuck introduced the concept of motion controls not only to gamers, but to the non-gaming population at large. Obviously, a lot of the Wii’s hardware sales were due to people buying the console with its complimentary copy of “WiiSports” to play in groups, leading thousands of Grandmas around the world to a sudden understanding of why their grandkids love ‘dem vidya games’ so much. It also seems that the casual revolution started by Nintendo with the Wii is behind the booming market for casual games on smartphones. While I, and many gamers, consider motion controls to be a horrible abomination, the fact that Sony and Microsoft both felt compelled to chase Nintendo’s tail and develop copycat technology in the form of the PlayStation Move and Xbox Kinect says otherwise. While motion controls were initially shoehorned into everything for the sake of novelty, developers (including Nintendo!) came to the realization that motion shouldn’t always replace a button, thus Wii game control schemes underwent extreme refinement over the lifetime of the hardware, allowing the games released in the Wii’s final days to offer a near perfect blend of button pressing, subtle movements, and pointer-assisted aiming.
Finally, there’s the whole online fiasco. While fanboys of other consoles love to disparage the Wii’s online functionality, I rather like it… of course I’ve never used it. I almost never feel the need to play games competitively against other people. If I’m going to play with others, I’d rather play co-op, and if I’m going to play multi-player at all, I’d rather be in the same room with the other players. While Nintendo may have screwed the pooch with the Wii’s online functionality, the Wii’s multi-player situation is far better than the Xbox 360 or PS3, as those consoles screwed the OTHER pooch of local multi-player. While PC gaming has revolved around online multi-player for over a decade, the 7th Generation is the first in which consoles started to do the same. And in the process of making super-realistic HD games that are probably multi-platform on PC, developers frequently run into the issue of consoles being unable to support more than a single instance of a game. Or maybe this ‘side effect’ is more intentional, as gamers wanting to play together will have to buy separate consoles and multiple copies of the game software in order to do so. Regardless of the intent behind this decision, the Wii is still a bastion of 4-person local multi-player.
In essence, what allowed the Wii to become the winner in a console generation in which it was an underpowered underdog is that it is the only console that still feels like a console. Inexpensive hardware and games, lots of exclusives, good games in almost every genre, simplicity, and local multi-player: These are the ingredients for a winning console, and the Wii has all of them.
Comments
Jonzor - wrote on 12/02/12 at 04:20 PM CT
Not being HDTV-useful actually ISN'T a good thing. I’m not sure why Nintendo deserves credit for ensuring extra ways the Wii would be obsolete in a few years. I mean, I see that you're saying they didn't build in features that weren't needed at the time... but... predicting the way the market will move is a GOOD business skill. Not caring how the market WILL and DID change is a BAD quality.
Excite Truck sold like, 0.5 million units. Resistance: Fall of Man sold over 4 million. I'm not sure Excite Truck stands as an example of an exclusive the PS3 can only wish it had when the PS3 had an exclusive that sold 8 times as many copies. I'd believe that the only reason Resistance sold so well was because it was the closest thing TO a game worth playing at launch (the PS3's library at launch WAS awful) but... EXCITE TRUCK does little to support the idea that people wanted the exclusives the Wii had. Things like this make the article less about why the Wii won and more about what just Nelson likes.
The lack of horsepower leading to fewer AAA titles is... not a good thing. The idea that less potential makes a console better is ludicrous. I’m sorry that you haven’t had many experiences from games that demanded good hardware that were worthwhile, but that blame goes to the developers of the games, not to the console makers for making the system powerful. Trying to praise a console maker for tying the hands of the developers is misguided at best. The only reason the Wii had the lousy hardware it did was to drive prices down, and had nothing to do with motivating developers.
The same goes with the lack of online. Having great local multiplayer is a good thing… but we don’t have to live in an either or world. Nintendo can have credit for having decent local multiplayer games, but they don’t get a pass on awful online just because the local is good.
I’m as big a fan of co-op as there is, and I’ve done about as much co-op on the Xbox 360 as the Wii. The idea that online = competitive and local = coop is in your head, and mistaken. ALL of my online with the PS3 or Xbox 360 has been coop. Nintendo COULD have made all those games that play locally go online and the multiplayer could stay the same. But they didn't, they chose awful online to save money and then tried to pass off this principle of "Local is better than online, so it's okay for online to be crappy" as some sort of noble ideal when there's no reason we should have to choose.
Lastly, this idea that the costs of the newer consoles over the Wii ruined them for the user is ACTUALLY wrong. If you look at the software tie ratios for the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii, you'll find the Wii's was the LOWEST of the three, meaning fewer games sold per system. If people were being bled dry by their pricey PS3s and 360s, they sure had a funny way of showing it.
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/Global/
