Pendragon9 said:
Here's my answer. The Wii is a decent game console. The problem is ALL OF US. And Nintendo is to blame too.
We had to practice and work hard back in the old days. You wanted to complete Super Mario Brothers? You had to get the perfect knack for jumping over those f*cking fish. And then memorize the castle layout at world 8 before time ran out. Then you had to jump over Bowser in one epic hammer flung fireball frenzy that even Cthulu would shoot himself over if he could play a Nintendo with those tentacles of his.
Not going off topic, here's the point. The hard games of yesteryear trained us to play excellent games of the later times. We were ready to play what they gave us next, and that's why the games were so fun. They started out easy for the beginners, then became terribly difficult for us hardcore gamers. But by then, we had it down, and we were running past entire spike levels and blowing up mid level bosses like walking on a meadow of flowers. Thus the game could be challenging yet still fun without being frustrating.
I'm sorry, Bob, but I'm gonna have to cut you off here, since you had such a good thing going up until the final paragraph and silly additions.
As you said, old games like Super Mario Bros. had a habit of starting out easy, and jacking up the difficulty level as you progressed. Part of why the difficulty level went up was to make the games last longer, since technical limitations made it very hard to actually create a lot of content for them. This resulted in gamers that became more and more skilled, allowing for more and more complicated and difficult games. Of course eventually the rise in the difficulty curve had to stop, since most of the gamers would feel alienated if every game was a Ghosts 'n Goblins. Multiple difficulty levels was one way to keep both the challenge-seekers and the regular gamers satisfied.
But now there's still the matter of games being complicated. Since we don't have the same technical limitations anymore, developers get the chance to cram a lot more features into their games, which of course means that gamers have a lot more they need to learn in order to simply play the game. Keep in mind that we long-time Nintendo gamers started out with a D-pad and two face buttons, while the PlayStations have a good 10 buttons, two sticks and a D-pad. It's much, much harder to get into gaming for the first time today than it was 20 years ago. Or at least it was, until Nintendo saw this problem and created the Wii.
This is the point of the Wii:
Ship the machine with a game that people who don't usually play video games can relate to. Give the game simple and intuitive controls, with an amount of depth that is obviously relative to the depth present in the real-world activity it's inspired by. This is, of course, Wii Sports. People can try it, realize that playing a video game can be fun, and they have broken through the first barrier of video gaming.
Next step is to make their new customer go out and buy a new game. They don't want it to be too much of a step up in difficulty, and they don't want it to be too similar in concept to their previous product. They'd also like to add an extra perk, to further encourage a purchase. The game in question is Wii Play, the perk is the bundled Wii Remote, and amusingly enough it's the best-selling video game of all time.
Time for step 3. Take an established classic Nintendo franchise, and make some adjustments to make it appeal both to its regular fan base and to the new gamers they're "shepherding". This product is Mario Kart Wii, with the bundled Wii Wheel to make the controls more intuitive for those who haven't adjusted to using analog sticks yet... or just want a more life-like experience... or enjoy driving like drunks. (No, I don't much like the Wii Wheel, personally.) MKWii clocks in as the 9th best-selling video game ever, and also the best-selling Mario Kart game to date, just barely beating Mario Kart DS.
Now, before I move on to step 4, I'd just like to mention really quickly that, yes, Nintendo
has put out or are working on a few more games in the previously mentioned tiers. The upcoming Wii Sports Resort naturally fits into the same tier as the regular Wii Sports, although it's also used to showcase the functionality of the Wii MotionPlus, and Wii Fit probably fits into tier 2 while also slightly nudging at tier 3.
Anyway, step 4, I believe, is a game that will introduce new gamers to a game that is competitive, cooperative, and also requires an amount of skill in order to at all progress through it. I mean, let's face it, even a bad player will inevitably make it through a cup in Mario Kart, since there's no way to actually die. So this game will introduce utter defeat, and not just the "finishing last" worst-case scenario of racing. The game in question is
New Super Mario Bros Wii. Of course this is when people will start complaining about the auto-play feature the game is said to have, but if you think about it this is the best way to both maintain the rising difficulty level that is standard in the Super Mario games, while also ensuring that new gamers don't get frustrated and give up. New gamers aren't likely to have the same sense of pride about these things as us veterans, so they're given the option to watch and learn, move forward, and maybe try again later.
Well, that's about it for what I have to say here. I'm sure Nintendo will unveil their next step soon enough, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it is. Mario is likely going to continue to be the vessel for pushing new gamers into for them previously unexplored territory, and I hope that more third party developers come to realize what it is Nintendo are
really doing with their games, rather than just push out oversimplified third-rate games with badly designed control schemes.
