had to paste an awesome slashdot comment about Nintendo

[Death God]

I've always been a fan of Nintendo mostly because I grew up with it. But now that I am older, I'm still a fan. Just a more informed fan.

 

[Kulingile]

I never get this whole, hate a company exclusively, love a company exclusively thing. If a game is good, I'll play it. If not, I won't acknowledge it's existence.

Half the time I don't even pay attention to what company made the game I'm playing until someone actually mentions it to me. Meh I don't know, maybe there's something I'm missing.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Yeah, I'll admit they know what they're doing but they've never really caught my eye in any big way in the past up until now. I do own a Wii but my 360 seems to be the one I always use, the only thing I use the Wii for is playing old Gamecube games and watching BBC iPlayer.

They've done well as a games company, I can't deny them that, but in comparison to the newer kids on the block (Sony and Microsoft) they don't really seem to put out anything I'd consider worth picking up.

However, that aside, if Nintendo could combine their Wii technology with the 360's Kinect, I guarantee there'll be some awesome augmented reality games. Look up both Wii hacks and Kinect hacks on Youtube, one guy used the Wii tech to make augmented reality glasses and another guy hacked the Kinect so it would scan the room and turn it into a 3D layout (although it can only map one side of an object because it can't "see" the other side).

Imagine the games that could be made out of that kind of technology. That's the future of gaming right there since, let's face it, every gaming company is moving towards being the first to make a working virtual reality console. The first one to get there would make history; it's the gaming equivalent of sending a manned rocket to the moon.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

They seem to have the "bottle rocket" style of wowing people down to a science. Sure a big fire works show looks amazing, and everyone says "ahhhh...ohhhhhhh...wow!". But then you realize that they're just embers now falling from the sky. After that craziness that was the Wii initial launching they havent kept the steam going or pushed forward.

That's why they're still outselling XBox and Play Station. Because they've worn out. :3

Puuhlease.

The Wii was a huge success, crushing 360 and PS3's in number of units sold, like they were a joke.

And Wii still sales to this day. Not to mention, after such a huge boom it had, it's impossible to keep that going. 'Cause like it or not, not many people are gone to buy a second or third Wii, if there old one's not broken.

So of course sales will go down, as time goes by, less and less people fall into the category of buying a Wii, 'cause they either had one or never wanted one.

 

[poiuppx]

Unless you're playing something simple or straight-forward, playing at a distance, playing side by side with someone in close quarters using the same screen, etc., in which case a keyboard and mouse is overly large, clunky, and unneccesary. Unless Xzi thinks that, somehow, a keyboard and mouse are more appropriate for a game like Super Mario Brothers than an NES controller. And that's not even factoring in games using motion controls, since methinks a keyboard is a little harder to swing around than a WiiMote...

I didn't say keyboard and mouse. I said literal game controllers. There were several joysticks and gamepads designed for use with DOS that were years ahead of their time. Shoulder buttons, trigger buttons, even the analog stick existed on them prior to/during the SNES days.

...huh. Not to doubt the veracity of your claims, sir, but I fail to see WHY such elements would be needed in the DOS-only days. I can't imagine there was much call for shoulder buttons when playing Commander Keen or Wizardry. I admit, assuming your accuracy on this matter, it's a hole in my knowledge base; would you be so kind as to link me to information regarding this so I can better educate myself?

Well there doesn't appear to be much on Wikipedia or anything documenting the different types of old PC controllers, unfortunately. They have plenty of information on console controllers, though.

Basically you had stuff like this with multiple variations:

The one I had used thumb buttons on the side, trigger buttons in front, etc.

Through the years there were some interesting PC gamepads to be sure, like this one which is just kinda weird:

I have several stored in a box somewhere that don't really conform to today's standards at all.

Interesting... I confess, I've never seen the former before. Heck, never even heard of the company labeled on there... looks like I've got some research to do. Though I have seen the latter. Owned it, in fact. Cripes, that thing was a beast. It always felt to me like it SHOULD work just fine, but it just felt weird in my hands. Guess it makes sense I got it cheap from a Big Lots... I somehow doubt it was flying off the shelves on launch day.