Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 (E3)

[LUKIE]

Nintendo were smart when they realised there was no point making it a three-way console war and created a console for everyday people with their branded characters at the fore-front. I ended up buying a Wii as I wanted to play Super Smash Bros and it was cheap, and other games on it are fun too. I have probably had more fun on my Wii then I have on my PS3 or my brothers Xbox.

[Kaney]

The Wii has a reputation for havingore shovelware because the motion controls were a license for companies to make shit games, tack on gimmicky controls and sell them. The same can be said about lazy ports of good PS3/360 games, that are utter shite on the Wii with sloppy controls to boot.

I think what Skummy is saying is that people hang Wii's shovelware around its neck like an albatross, shake their fists, and scream "NINTENDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" but, just to give an example, shitty PS3 games (the Family Guy licensed games, Harry Potter nonsense, Squad-Based Shooter #573 But This One's Not By A Major Company So Nobody Pays Attention) aren't seen as an indictment of the console. Why is Shitty Carnival Games Compilation 3 an indictment of the Wii but Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 isn't an indictment of the PS3?

I've no interest in bashing the wii at all but from what I gather the difference is that the PS3 (and Xbox) have major triple A games that outweigh the shovel ware whereas Nintendo have got Mario.

[Sousa]

In what way is Mario not a major triple A game?

[Skummy]

Yeah, if you accept "but you can't play Call Of Duty!" as a criticism of the Wii, then surely "you can't play Mario" is an equally valid criticism of the other two?

[Kaney]

I was meaning Mario was their triple A game, as opposed to the countless others available on other consoles. It's far from the only major franchise on the wii but the range is a lot smaller which is what I assume the shovelware argument is based on.

[King Ellis]

The PS2 is getting a version of FIFA 14 but the Wii U isn't. It's over, you guys!

[Colly]

I literally have a Wii to play Mario, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Goldeneye. Well worth it.

Still wish the cost of said AAA games would drop though, still want MG2 and SMB Wii.

[Dan]

The PS2 is getting a version of FIFA 14 but the Wii U isn't. It's over, you guys!

FIFA 14 is coming out on PS2, 3 & 4? Amazing.

[Sousa]

I was meaning Mario was their triple A game, as opposed to the countless others available on other consoles. It's far from the only major franchise on the wii but the range is a lot smaller which is what I assume the shovelware argument is based on.

And in Nintendo's defense--as has been said--this strategy hasn't borne out poorly for them. Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus alone sold 42 million units, which is more than the top five PS3 games combined; it's more than half the amount of actual PS3 consoles that have been sold. And that's for a $100 title.

I think what the best-selling Wii games bears out is that Nintendo does very, very well with local multiplayer; most of the best-selling non-pack-in games are party games like Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and (ugh) Mario Party. That's an extremely vital market that often gets written off in favor of online play. They've sold different kinds of games than the top-selling titles on other consoles. Their audience is very different as well; while Microsoft and Sony shoot for teenagers and guys in their 20's (i.e., most of the people on EWB), Nintendo skews toward numbers in either direction from that, younger and older. It's why my kids play the Wii but are rarely interested in, say, our PS2.

So Nintendo does have games that sell a lot of units; they're just not the sort that sell a lot of units on PS3 and XBox, and they skew toward different demographics. That, to me, is a more plausible explanation for why Wii is said to have a lot of shovelware when PS3 and XBox often have, for example, crap licensed games from kids' movies but without the motion control nonsense.

[TKz]

I like the tablet controller... I don't see what everyone's issue is with it. It's surprisingly light and comfortable and the ability to play on the tablet screen is pretty damn slick. I know Sony's gonna do that with Vita, but that's a steep cost to go along with the PS4. And lol, Smartglass.

I get the gripes about Nintendo's lack of third party support, which was certainly justified with the Wii because it couldn't do HD... but I don't get why developers aren't supporting the WiiU. Especially since most of the big titles launching on PS4 and XBO will also be on PS3 and 360.

People don't buy Wii U games because there's no games on the console. Developers don't make games for the Wii U because no one buys games on it.

I call it the Vita Effect.

[Sousa]

One other point, re: sales: XBox 360 has 7 titles have sold more than 5 million copies. PS3 has 3. Wii has 15. I'm not saying that sales are everything, but how else can we reasonably define "AAA title"?

[Skummy]

To follow up on what Sousa's saying, I think a lot of this ties into a general fallacy about gaming, the idea of the "hardcore gamer" - someone who dedicates a significant amount of time and income on gaming, and tends to lean towards first person shooters, action-adventure and the like, and a lot of high-end graphics-heavy games that require a significant investment, both in terms of time and often in terms of money.

As a result, they tend to feel that their views and their experience when it comes to gaming are somehow more relevant and should be more catered to, regardless of whether the market reflects that or not.

And it's these opinions that are most reflected in gaming magazines and on the internet, and as such, in the majority of discourse. So there's this idea that somehow the Wii "failed", because it didn't match up to their expectations of a games console - regardless of the fact that it's one of the most successful consoles of all time.

There's this idea that investing your time in "casual" gaming is somehow less valid than in "hardcore" gaming. Why is someone who spends hours on Farmville, or Angry Birds, or whatever, an object of ridicule, whereas it's a badge of honour to spend an equivalent amount of time playing Call Of Duty?

If I go home tonight and spend a couple of hours playing Kirby, why am I any less a "hardcore gamer" than someone who goes home and plays Bioshock?

Video game discourse is dominated by 18-30 white males, and so the assumptions are that their experience of the medium is the only experience, and that's far from the case, even coming from someone like myself who falls into that group.

[TKz]

Man, this whole conversation keeps on.

Can I just go back and say instead that none of the games on the Wii U really interest me and pretend this never happened?

[Sousa]

pretend this never happened?

Typical 18-30 year old white male perspective.

[LUKIE]

Did you see they are re-making Wind Waker?

Fuck TKz, stop with your hate!

[King Ellis]

I'm glad we went off on this tangent rather than 'Why I love/hate achievments' #53632.

[Sousa]

I am really excited about the fact that I'll probably be able to buy Ocarina of Time again soon.

[Dan]

Xbox One smells.

[King Ellis]

Xbox One smells.

What does it smell of? Is it comparable to how launch Xbox 360's would smell because they had a tendency to cook their own guts?

[Sousa]

Xbox One smells.

"We at Sony can say definitively that the PlayStation 4 does not smell!"