The Difference Between Fads And Trends

The title of this post is slightly misleading, but I think that Microsoft and Sony may be on the verge of compounding a major strategic error with another strategic error.  The jumping-off point for this post is a New York Times article that reviews GDC speeches by the major manufacturers and developers, with the nominal topic being social gaming.

Naturally, there’s a hagiographic section on Nintendo’s prescience in identifying the gaming casual market, and highlighting how successful that strategy has been.  But I’d like to focus a bit more on the competition’s response.  Read the rest of this entry »

Mario Kart Wii won’t necessarily be an uncontrollable nightmare

I hope I’m not the only one that’s been skeptical about how well motion controls will work with the Mario Kart franchise. Unlike the “looser” feeling of Excitetruck, Mario Kart has always been more about precision steering, whether sliding perfectly around a tough corner, aiming a green shell with lethal accuracy, or lining yourself up properly for a shortcut.  Maybe Nintendo will prove me wrong, but trying to get this level of precision out of what seems to me like miming a steering wheel seems impossible.

However, like Super Smash Bros, Nintendo is apparently not being heavy-handed with forcing a motion-controlled setup on you.  According to 1up, there will be support for various control schemes, including a Nunchuk-Wii Remote setup, GCN controllers, and the classic controller as well.  I’ll be certain to try out each of the styles once the game is finally made available (which, I’m guessing won’t be until at least September despite what Nintendo says now), but I have a feeling that one of these alternative control methods will be my preference.

Now if they can just nail the online play…

Attack of the Imitators

Man, the amount of total crap on the Wii is truly amazing. Sure, you have publishers like Conspiracy Entertainment that release nearly a dozen shovelware products to turn a quick buck, but that’s not even the half of it.

Just now I searched for Endless Ocean on Amazon, and not only did it bring up that game, but just below it with similar cover art was “Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure”. Not only that, they were undercutting the price of Endless Ocean by $1 (at $28.99). I mean, why just go diving when you can BE a sea monster… and for a dollar less to boot!

Now, obviously the games are a bit different, as Sea Monsters (according to the description) lets you play as “Six different sea monsters”, but does this not seem like a cheap imitation to anyone else?

And the Wii (and DS for that matter) are just full of these kinds of imitations. Because of the success of Nintendogs, the Wii has both “Petz Dogz 2″ and “Puppy Luv”, as well as “Petz Catz 2″ and “Kitty Luv”, not to mention “Petz Horsez 2″ and “My Horse and Me.” The success of Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Mario Party have brought us such gems as Carnival Games, EA Playground, and perhaps the best name for a game ever, Game Party (it’s sequel, likely to be called “Party Game”, is also highly anticipated).

What is wrong with this picture? Suddenly the Wii library is looking like a PC bargain bins, where all you find is a bunch of second-rate hunting, card, and casino games, only the Wii also has pet simulators, party/mini game compilations, licensed crap, and other trash. Are people actually buying this stuff?

I guess in some ways, since I’ll never buy any of this stuff, I don’t really care that much except that it’s kind of scary to walk into the Wii aisle at Circuit City only to find a sea of trashy games you’ve never heard of. On the other hand, if people actually buy this crap, this will probably be mostly the kind of games we see on the Wii during its lifetime. If that’s the fate the Wii is doomed to I’m afraid it’ll receive less and less attention from me as time goes on. And if this is a trend that Nintendo is happy with, it’s quite possible that the Wii will be the last Nintendo console I own.

Does anyone else remember the Nintendo that promised “Quality over Quantity”? Maybe they really should consider this again.

Virtual Console = Money Saver?

Kotaku links to a post at Vintage Computing comparing all of the current Virtual Console releases to their “real world” cartridge values. The verdict that the author makes is that the VC is actually cheaper than if you were to buy the actual cartridges, except potentially in the case of NES games. It’s a fair comparison, but I think there are still other factors to consider:

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Square Pegs, Round Holes

I’ve definitely noticed that my gaming tastes have changed over the years.  For example, I no longer have the stomach for many RPGs; I can’t get into the Square-led art style in fashion these days, with its gender-indeterminate leads and angst-ridden plotlines, and reading that much repetitive text (or worse, watching twelve minute movies) just isn’t something I can really enjoy any longer. 

At the same time, I’m a little puzzled by the complaint that Lost Garden raises here.  The author notes up front that the problems he noted in Mario Galaxy are really the result of his own “defects” rather than those of the game.  But he then proceeds to criticize a number of elements of the game itself, from its difficulty to its genre.  Part of this complaint, I think, stems from his disappointment that he didn’t enjoy a game that so many people loved.  But that doesn’t really excuse the complaint.

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Gamestop Selling a REAL “Virtual” Console

Nintendo is desperately trying to meet the holiday demand for its Wii console, ramping up production to 1.8 Million Wii’s a month, double what they were producing at the same time last year during the same period.  The Wii is already selling a ridiculous amount of consoles (almost a million just in the U.S. in November) and they simply can’t keep enough in stock.  So what to do?

Well, perhaps spurred on by the kind of news showing that Nintendo is losing out on potentially over a BILLION dollars because of their hardware shortage, Nintendo has apparently authorized or approved Gamestop to sell a full-priced “raincheck” for a Wii to be picked up in January on December 20th and 21st while, get this, “supplies” (of the “raincheck” receipts, I suppose) last.

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Infantilizing Gamers

Level Up points to what it essentially refers to as a hit-whoring hit piece on Mario Galaxy.  It’s undeniable that Tim Rogers’s review has more bile than his complaints warrant.  But at the same time, he hits on something that’s increasingly irritated me about new games.

Is it really necessary to remind me - every single time - that I got an [item X], or to describe how to use it (see Zelda, from Ocarina of Time to Phantom Hourglass)?  Is it really essential to have a three-part cinematic sequence whose function is to inform me that I got a star, or a new high score (see Mario Galaxy… which, even worse, does the high score thing without actually using the score concept in the game itself)?  I doubt it. 

Nintendo is perhaps worse than other companies at this, but not appreciably so.  All games seem to be extending their training sequences out into the game as a whole.  They confuse help, which should be available when requested, with coddling, which shouldn’t be available in titles targeted at the over-six set.  I’d like to see this made into at a minimum some sort of toggleable option.

Linearity Hypocrisy?

GameLife raises an interesting point that occurred to me while I was playing Super Mario Galaxy: the game is far more linear than its Nintendo 64 predecessor.  But people don’t seem to care (especially considering the success of NSMB for the DS).  Is it indicative of hypocrisy when people laud non-linear games for their inventive story-telling and the player’s control over the narrative?

My suspicion is that the answer is “sort of.”  I suspect that people overestimate the importance of narrative in the first place and that what really matters is just whether the game is fun.  Naturally, that’s a subjective assessment that can be helped or hurt by the story-telling choices that the designer makes - but it’s not necessarily a one-fits-all requirement.  I wish people would remember that more.

(By the way, is it just me or is it odd that Chris Kohler is confused by the relative outperformance of NSMB vs. Galaxy?  Sure, the latter has sold only 10% as much as the former.  But the DS has 53M consoles sold, while the Wii is still under 15M, and some of those sales are necessarily to casual gamers.  It’s a question of basic math.)

Double-Facing Kotaku On The PSP

I’m going to both agree and disagree with Kotaku (or more specifically, with Mark Wilson) simultaneously.  Jason Chen of Gizmodo wrote a column entitled “Why the PSP Might Overtake the DS.”  It was, as Wilson points out, an interesting variation of Xeno’s Paradox - well-reasoned, articulate, and deeply flawed.  I’ll provide an overview of the article, then discuss why the entire conversation is off-base.

Chen’s post contains 8 pieces of evidence for the PSP’s ultimate domination.  I’ll let you read them in detail or yourself, but they all fall into one of three categories:

• Sales momentum: The PSP has sold 1M units in Japan in two months, sales for the PSP are up while the DS’s are down, and the PSP has sold as many units as the PS2.
• Product quality: The PSP has more highly-rated games, as well as more add-ons and media interactivity.

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SMG = SMB3+

Some intriguing thoughts from Press the Buttons linking Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Bros. 3… in more than the obvious ways,