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 Nintendo€™s 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 Nintendo€™s 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 doesn€™t bode well for Nintendo€™s 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 they€™ll arrive at some point, but it would have been nice for some acknowledgement to drum up excitement. Maybe they€™ll announce something exciting on Thursday 13th September at their €œNintendo 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?

I€™m 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 Nintendo€™s 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 Nintendo€™s exclusive intellectual property and hardware innovations: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, the N64€™s analogue stick and Wii€™s 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. Nintendo€™s Wii U seems unlikely to change that. In fact I don€™t think I€™m wrong in saying that most people who solely owned a Wii console were €˜casual€™ gamers. I don€™t mean that in derogatively geeky way (though that does come across€). I€™m 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 they€™ll get bored with trying to be innovative and go back to €˜traditional€™ gaming on the PS4 and whatever-it€™s-called next-gen XBOX. There is a distinct irony in the knowledge that motion-gaming via Microsoft€™s Kinect and PlayStation€™s Move was €˜inspired€™ (blatantly nicked) from Nintendo€™s 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 Microsoft€™s next-gen plans. Nintendo innovate with the peripheral aspects of hardware, and this is evident from Microsoft€™s recent unveiling of SmartGlass, which is suspiciously similar in the functions it allegedly shares with Wii U€™s GamePad. Nintendo hold a lot of clout that the regular gamer probably doesn€™t appreciate, but the other hardware manufacturer€™s secretly do.
Contributor

Darren Millard is an aspiring journalist and music devotee. Needs someone to help him understand Ableton. Also, life.