Wii U: A Hard Sell?
There is a misguided consensus amongst quite a few that Nintendo are directly competing with Sony and Microsoft...
There is a misguided consensus amongst quite a few that Nintendo are directly competing with Sony and Microsoft, which I personally believe they stopped attempting to do quite a few years ago: even if Nintendo themselves seem to forget this on occasion. This blinkered thought-process is not aided by Nintendos almost reconciliatory gesture in making the Wii U capable of outputting HD graphics (I jest slightly with this particular statement), and also its pandering to third-party development. This last point is apparent from Nintendos E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) conference in L.A. wherein they spent a large part of their presentation introducing Wii U ports of Batman: Arkham City, Mass Effect 3 and Ninja Gaiden 3 to name just a few. The presentation was also disappointing in that we only saw two Nintendo-developed games that are likely to be with us come launch: Pikmin 3 and New Super Mario Bros. U. Pikmin 3 looks fantastic in HD and New Super Mario Bros. U seemed a bit too familiar for its own good. This is especially true when you factor in New Super Mario Bros. 2 having only just recently hit the shelves, and in overpriced form on the eShop (which doesnt bode well for Nintendos future plans on digital pricing for their big-budget titles). They also neglected to even hint at any other future Nintendo franchises on Wii U. Obviously theyll arrive at some point, but it would have been nice for some acknowledgement to drum up excitement. Maybe theyll announce something exciting on Thursday 13th September at their Nintendo Wii U Preview Event in New York City (Wii U release date and launch title line-up announcements are a cert, surely?). Hardcore Or Casual?
Im not saying that Nintendo should ban third-party development on the Wii U (because that would be absurd; or that they should have stuck to standard definition), rather that emphasising it over Wii-U exclusives such as the Platinum Games developed Project P-100 (which failed to make an appearance during the presentation) only highlights a feeling of desperation on Nintendos side in trying to convince us that they can offer the same videogame playing experience as Sony and Microsoft. Surely most of us buy a Nintendo console/handheld because of Nintendos exclusive intellectual property and hardware innovations: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, the N64s analogue stick and Wiis motion-controlled Wii-mote? It seems likely that these days people buy a Nintendo console for the exclusives and PS3 or XBOX 360 for third-party games. Nintendos Wii U seems unlikely to change that. In fact I dont think Im wrong in saying that most people who solely owned a Wii console were casual gamers. I dont mean that in derogatively geeky way (though that does come across). Im just not convinced that the majority of third-party developers are going to develop titles with the Wii U specifically in mind. Maybe at first to test the consumer response, but I fear theyll get bored with trying to be innovative and go back to traditional gaming on the PS4 and whatever-its-called next-gen XBOX. There is a distinct irony in the knowledge that motion-gaming via Microsofts Kinect and PlayStations Move was inspired (blatantly nicked) from Nintendos innovation with the Wii. And that this motion-gaming function is now a mainstream component of gaming culture, presumably to play a huge part in Sony and Microsofts next-gen plans. Nintendo innovate with the peripheral aspects of hardware, and this is evident from Microsofts recent unveiling of SmartGlass, which is suspiciously similar in the functions it allegedly shares with Wii Us GamePad. Nintendo hold a lot of clout that the regular gamer probably doesnt appreciate, but the other hardware manufacturers secretly do.