Nintendo broke away from competition with Sony and, new arrival, Microsoft with what some call the “Blue Ocean” business strategy. The Blue Ocean strategy is the metaphor of leaving a “red ocean” (one dyed by the blood of competition) for unclaimed waters filled with the potential for creating new demand. From a business stand point this brave (or stupid) move has paid off and now Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are competing for second place.

Nintendo managed to succeed because they did something more than incrementally improve and repurpose old features. Yes, Gentle Reader, I’m talking about the “I” word, innovation. It’s debatable if the Wii controller is a true innovation as some gamers will still belittle it and mock it, but from a business standpoint it’s a successful change that’s brought in tremendous profit. Nintendo is as guilty as everyone else of giving us sequels by the truck load, most games in each series offer something new every one or two games. In truth, sequels are not really a bad thing as long as they are different enough that it stands on its own or adds to the previous experience.

This is the potential folly faced by Microsoft and Sony. If both companies continue to try and outdo the other, this means they have to rely on the other to show them where it is they are going. As mentioned before, it’s a tradition in the game industry to play copy cat with your opponents and then sell what they made for a lower price or with something more appealing attached. The game Sony and Microsoft are playing is the equivalent of trying to race someone you’re following to an unknown finish line.

If the two titans do not exercise some real creative muscle and insight, they run the risk of choking their audiences’ current interest. History has shown that strokes of genius like Katamari Damacy are not that common and while they may be risky or appear too weird, it’s that their quirkiness that aid to its success. The first GTA games offered sandbox gameplay, but GTA 3 took the top down world and made it more accessible by giving the player more dimensions to see everything. This reinvention (or innovation) has made the name Grand Theft Auto globally known.

Rehashed games, or those that don’t provide much of a new gaming experience, can poison a series or genre. If the games they make for the “core” gamer are not more than uninventive sequels the interest will dissolve and the audience will vanish or develop new preferences. The market has become swamped with First Person Shooters and while some may feel that’s not bad, it clearly demonstrates that developers are vying for the attention of a certain niche while alienating possibilities. As mentioned before, even if Nintendo did not stir up this casual boom, the publishers seemed to become more focused on producing games they KNOW will sell then those that can expand the market.

When we consider that the Xbox 360 has introduced its Mii-like “Avatars” and has begun promoting its “family friendly games” and that the Playstation 3 has its “six axis” controller and demonstrated a recent swelling of fresh but casual Playstation Store games their actions foreshadow that the duo are once again trying to outdo the other as they look for the path Nintendo made. Sony and Microsoft could just stick with the audience that has carried them to their current success, but like I proposed in part 1, only a fool (or altruistic gamer) would turn down the easy money casual games bring in.

I’d expect the next Microsoft console to utilize some sort of Wii remote like peripheral and the Playstation 3 to get it’s own version of the Wii remote. If Microsoft wishes to make the most money possible, their Wii remote copy will be a peripheral rather than a brand new system.

You might think “The End is Nigh” if you’re a core gamer that detests those happy, care free casual gamers. In the event that Sony and Microsoft act like a business and chase the money, a core gamer’s won’t be lost in a changing industry if the new audience leans how to discern between crap games and software worth its price tag. If all else fails there’s always indie games.

So as of now, these are the ominous black clouds that loom over the game industry. Nintendo is getting flogged with junk casual games and Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 run the risk of tiring their comparatively small (compared to the number of casuals) core audience with incremental improvements of current software.

During the Great Depression, American movie theaters saw steady business as the consumer hungered for an escape from the troubled economy. In today’s global economic recession, it seems that people still want that escape and video games are the medium that provide it even better than a mere 2 hour movie for 20 some dollars (if you get popcorn and a drink.) The road that lies before the game industry is not likely to disappear, no matter how cluttered it becomes with obstacles. That way ahead may be uncertain, but it is not lost when there are companies that will forge new paths and people that pine for the experience.

There’s so much to be done in this game – so many things you’ll never notice until your second or third or fourth playthrough of the game – that you’ll never feel bored. Quite the opposite, first-time players may feel  a bit overwhelmed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there hasn’t been a game that really made me, at least, feel overwhelmed, since Ocarina of Time, and it’s a beautiful feeling when playing a video game. It seems like you can do everything and go everywhere. But for some people, this may seem a bit daunting. So much to do and no idea where to start? Some people may not want to muster up the effort to explore everything before them.

Another thing about Okami that seems to irk many players (not me, personally) are the voices of the characters. If you’ve ever played Animal Crossing, the voices of Okami are no less than 10 times worse than the voices in Animal Crossing, so it’s easy to understand why this may annoy people. On the other hand, the characters themselves are great, and Issun is the perfect “comic relief”-type character.

The music of Okami is beautiful, charming, entertaining, and even a bit goofy, but in a good way. The visuals are also gorgeous, and the combination of visuals and music make this game just as much a piece of art as it is a video game.

The controls are a whole different story, however. The controls work, but you have to LEARN them. The in-battle combo attacks are something that have to be practiced, but even after you’ve perfected them, wiggling and waggling the Wiimote at the correct time doesn’t always keep you chaining your combo, sometimes it’ll seem to just not register your gestures. Also, although a certain special evasive technique that is activated by thrusting the nunchuk either forwards, backwards, or to the sides, works, it doesn’t work well. It registers the movements correctly only if they’re fairly slow and over-exaggerated. The folly of this is that evasive techniques pretty much rely on being activated correctly and quickly, and if you can activate them neither quickly nor correctly, they’re rendered useless. While it is possible to easily progress through the entire game without ever using this technique, it doesn’t make it okay that it’s broken.

One of the more interesting aspects of the game is the ability to activate certain techniques by “pausing” the action and drawing certain symbols or lines with the Wiimote. These techniques can do things like slow down time in battle, hurt enemies, or incapacitate them. Unfortunately, to correctly execute these techniques, you also have to “learn” how to execute them. In general, you’re aiming for what the game wants, not what looks good. Even a simple slash attack (activated by drawing a horizontal line across the screen) may not register correctly. I’ve found that quick, imprecise gestures usually work better than slow, well-thought out gestures. Despite this, some techniques never seem to activate, or never seem to function the way you want them to, and that really is inexcusable.

One of the best things about Okami is that it manages to stay fresh and innovative throughout the whole game. One of the last battles is so awesome and amazing that I want to discuss it here, but it’s something you have to experience for yourself; and the fishing! Damn, I’m willing to say that this is the best fishing in any video game ever. Hell, it’s even better than fishing in real life, ’cause fishing in real life sucks.

I suggest that you rent Okami to guage whether this game appeals to you. Regardless, this game gets my coveted “buy” out of 10 rating.

I had been aiming to write something like this but found some of the key points I’d touch on already addressed in Alex’s “A Second Video Game Crash?” I suppose I’ve got enough to say that makes it worthy of its own article so without further ado; here is my take on what’s happening in the game industry…TODAY.

While I may not be some sort of untouchable, game industry guru, I, like many of you, carry within me a passion for video games that burns so strongly we believe it can guide us through the stagnant and uncertain time our hobby faces.

The Wii is plagued with shovelware so abundant that some would try and use it to define the system. Microsoft and Sony have been practically offering the same thing they have been for the past few years and while this may not sound like a bad thing to some people, those that have developed the insight to think ahead will see the problem with this sort of planning.

I’m going to focus on matter of the Wii before I address the potential folly of Microsoft and Sony. The Wii has been a ridiculous success. With the least amount of graphical prowess it has become the best selling console, like the PS2 was last generation, and sold so well that Nintendo can even boast that Wii Sports has sold even more than the original Super Mario Bros. On this silver cloud of new exciting things is a dark lining of reluctant publishers and confused developers that are not only unsure how to approach the Wii but don’t seem to understand the audience that have carried it to victory.

I’m talking about the casual market. Casual games are designed to be simple, enjoyable and easy to pick up and put down. A casual gamer isn’t likely to be parked somewhere for hours at a time playing a game. That is not casually gaming. As Nintendo hacked away at the brambles and lay down the ground work of a road that seem to pave itself with money developers misinterpreted “casual” as “childish” or “mini games”. They made the mistake of trying to copy something they did not understand. Brain Age is not marketed as a childrens’ game (yes, it’s on the DS but it’s part of the Touch Generation) but we’ve got plenty of Brain Age knock offs because developers think that by picking and choosing the features and ideas that seem to work they can put it all together in an easy to sell package.

This idea has slowly choked our industry and cursed us to sequels. For years, game companies have gone back and forth, taking ideas from each other, improving them incrementally and combining other ideas just to edge out the other. This habit of heavy “recycling” has become common practice for the game industry now. To better understand the situation you can think of this as a doctor treating symptoms, or identifying characteristics of profitable games, when he or she hasn’t made the effort to diagnose the illness, or what really makes the profitable games good. Publishers impeded by fear of risk or driven by greed, rape ideas that work until the beauty and wonder has vanished and all that is left is a shallow experience. Look no further then Activision’s Guitar Hero series to see what I mean. I’d go in detail about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but that’s probably an article of its own for another time. Make no mistake about it though, Gentle Reader, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are casual games.

With everyone eager to get a piece of that casual pie, buggy shovelware games that are much smaller, cheaper and easier to program (I’ve seen some that were literally made in Flash) than your standard epic adventure are congesting stores and making plenty because there are now MORE uninformed people buying games. The Wii has been saddled with the burden of the most popular console and carries on its back an even larger stock of shovelware fueled by an even bigger and more profitable game industry than the PS2 had seen. Game publishers holding the purse strings might see Wii Sports or Brain Age clones going out by the truck full, as easy money only a fool (or an altruistic gamer) would turn down.

Amongst the shameful pile of ill conceived games that litter the Wii shelves are jewels we must mine and spread word of if we hope to see things change for the little white box. We can hope that developers will eventually do more but if you must do more than hope (And you should) speak with your money. If you feel your purchases aren’t speaking loud enough, then you can carry it farther and inform those that walk into game aisles confused and lost. Even if it’s as little as telling someone that not all developers put out great titles, it is a step in the right direction.

It is my opinion that there is three ways this surge in casual gamers is going to end. They are going to forget and stop playing (as a casual it’s not that big a deal to them), they might keep playing and inject a steady flow of money into the industry that outlives us but eventually dissipates or they will become deeper invested in video games. In the third scenario, they become us. They may find joy in playing video games and adapt the ability to think resourcefully and manipulate their controls to learn more complex skills. I have a hard time seeing the second scenario coming to be and believe it will either be the first or second.

]]> http://giantenemyblog.com/press-start-what-have-wii-become/feed/ 0 http://giantenemyblog.com/dead-space-on-the-wii/ http://giantenemyblog.com/dead-space-on-the-wii/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:00:10 +0000 Mace http://giantenemyblog.com/?p=4532

EA is going to release Dead Space for the Wii. Word of this has probably spread like wildfire and there might be very few who haven’t heard this news, but there is no news like good news!  Dead Space was released for PS3 and XBox 360 October of last year and the decision to put it on the Wii means that the developer and publisher feels Isaac Clarke and the Necromorphs aren’t done yet. Does this mean the sales for both consoles didn’t meet their expectations? Probably! Should we expect additional content? Who knows!

While details are slim and all that has been said from EA is that there will be a Dead Space for the Wii it’s a safe bet that Dead Space will use the Wii remote’s pointer and allow the player to get even more precision in dismembering the horrors above the USG Ishimura. Considering the nature of Dead Space and the core gameplay similarities, over the shoulder shooter, it shares with Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 (which was also released later on the Wii) it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume it might play much like Resident Evil 4: Wii edition.

Last year EA demonstrated they were a little more than another uninspiring, sequel factory when they released two new intellectual properties, Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge. With some sort of awareness of quality within the company there’s hope that Dead Space for Wii won’t be a diluted port.

First of all, what do these casual games have anything to do with us ‘real’ gamers? Veraliis suggests that for some reason gaming becomes less fun because his grandmother is playing Peggle. Really, I don’t care at all. If I play a game because of my e-peen, I’ll at least compare myself to others that play the same game, not people that are playing an entirely different game.

Secondly, it’s not like there are suddenly less real games coming out because of these casual games. Almost all developers that make these games are new to the market. There are almost no renowned developers making flash games or easy downloadable games, unless they have already been doing so from the start (PopCap, for example). Most developers that make these kinds of games are new to the market, just looking to make a couple of bucks and using video games as a medium. These are honestly not interested in video gaming, but just see it as a business. They will never make real games, and will continue to pump out bad games until they stop making a profit.

10/10, best game of last year

So Veraliis, could you please tell me how casual games are destroying the PC? It’s the medium that’s probably suffering the least from the fad of casual games. Other systems suffer from renowned developers, like Ubisoft, making bad minigame collections or amazing Imagine games. Have you ever looked at the shelves of the Wii in a game store? At least 50% of it is pure, unfiltered crap. And do you know why? Because the Wii hasn’t got a download service for new games. You can just download your crappy games from the internet on your PC, but for the Wii you have to buy them.

The flood of casual games can be annoying, yeah. But it’s never more than a minor nuisance. The PC definitely isn’t dying because of this.

Two years ago, development studio n-Space (Call of Duty DS, Geist) showed the world its developing Wii exclusive horror game, Winter. The title, which can be compared in its style to Silent Hill, was something that stood out over the mountains of shovelware. It was an actual mature Wii title, dealing with mature subject matter and a darker storyline. It also actually LOOKED good, actually using the hardware of the Wii to a standard most developers don’t even bother with. Even though it wasn’t completed, it still looks better than a lot of Wii games (however this isn’t saying all too much).

However, due to lazy marketing teams, Winter was never meant to be. It wasn’t due to the game being poorly developed or that it didn’t have promise, it had an abundance of both. The problem was being brought in the marketing area. The idea of an “adult” game on a “kid” console was too much for them. Eventually, this led to the project being scrapped.

Now, what does this mean for the Wii? Will this just be an isolated case? Or is this just a small example of the overlying problem of the Wii. Publishers don’t want to take a chance anymore. Yes it’s all about money, but it stops quality titles coming out. Will the Wii just always be riddled with shovelware and “kid” titles?

Yes we have our No More Heroes, and we have Mad World. That’s it though. Nothing else. The rest are titles that are akin to “Barbie Horse Adventures”.

Here is to hoping there will be one day that the Wii puts out quality titles. Instead of just shovelware and “Mario Goes To The Corner Store”.

That’s essentially the rallying cry of the watchdog group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, or CCFC. The name may ring a bell to those who follow the gaming news; those who don’t, well, really didn’t miss much. 

Once again the CCFC’s antics don’t fail to deliver on the entertainment value, and this time the object of their (pointless) ire is Lego Batman: The Videogame. Why, you ask? I don’t know either. 

Let’s try to rationalize the two basic components of Lego Batman: The Videogame:

• Lego = good, educational, mindless fun.
• Batman = awesome story revolving around the concept of justice and about how crime doesn’t pay. 

I certainly don’t see any problem with it; it looks like a winning formula when looked at from any angle. But of course, CCFC being a watchdog group that dedicates itself to the unneeded, unwanted, and unnecessary cause of taking commercialism away from childhood, they condemned Lego Batman as a virtual spawn of commercial Satan, including it in their list of Toys Oppressive and Destructive to Young Children. Check out their write-up:

How do you turn the ultimate creative toy into a symbol of commercialized childhood?  Begin by partnering with media companies to sell that toy in branded kits designed for recreating movies like Star Wars, rather than creative construction.  Then, dispense with hands-on building altogether by turning your toy into a video game so that instead of deciding what to build next, children choose which cyber weapons to use to beat up their opponent.  Finally, ignore the fact it was rated suitable for ages 10 & up and partner with McDonald’s for a Happy Meal toy giveaway to simultaneously promote the video game, junk food, and the violent Dark Knight movie series to preschoolers.

See, the root of the problem (and sadly, the existence) of CCFC lies with the misguided reasoning that commercialism is bad, bad, bad for children. Blame the people of older generations who wistfully say things beginning with “You know, in the old days we [insert nice but horribly outdated activity here].” This is not to say that old games rife with physical activities are passe; this is to say that things change as time passes. What’s interesting to kids now is decidedly different compared to what was awesome during the collective childhoods of the people who comprise the CCFC.

Let’s be open-minded here. Commercialism has become and now always will be a part of every childhood. There will always be the fictional heroes that children want to idolize, there will always be merchandise related to those “heroes” that children would want to have, to let them bring a piece of their beloved idol along wherever they go. Like the Lego Batman toys and their virtual counterpart, the videogame. 

We shouldn’t also forget about the people whose lives are sustained by this aspect of childhood, and included among them are those who work in the videogame industry, who are now sadly experiencing the brunt of the current economic crisis. But the CCFC doesn’t care, right? All they care about is thinking for the children, yes?

Which brings us to my next point: why bother thinking for the children when there’s a great, awesome invention already available for this very function? Yes, I am talking about the Parental Units, also known as Mum and Dad.

These self-professed watchdogs are the very reason why people nowadays don’t exercise their ability to think for themselves or to be accountable by their actions. At the risk of saying something that has been said ad nauseum, parents are responsible in looking out for their children. Watchdogs dedicating themselves to the noble cause of saving children are, in essence, good, but at the end of the day, the parents are the ones ultimately responsible for molding their children’s thinking, especially when some of the watchdogs in question are spouting inane statements such as:

Finally, ignore the fact it was rated suitable for ages 10 & up and partner with McDonald’s for a Happy Meal toy giveaway to simultaneously promote the video game, junk food, and the violent Dark Knight movie series to preschoolers.

Last time I heard, ESRB and ratings exist. Again, another horrible example of them assuming that parents don’t and can’t provide the much-needed guidance to their kids.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?

Let that sink in for a while.

In a matter of weeks, and two more payments of thirteen dollars and some change to them, I’ll have been a paying GameFly customer for five years. Five long years. I don’t want to even think of how much of my money I’ve given to them.

It started with Viewtiful Joe for GameCube. I was trying to rent it from all my local Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos, but none of them had it, and I was getting frantic. My poor fifteen-year-old mind yielded to a banner ad on IGN or Gamespot, and I signed up for the free trial. Around the same time I had been given my own bank account with debit card linked to the family one. What better use for a 16-digit piece of plastic linked to my money than a subscription based-service?

Yes, my logic was flawed. How many 15-year-olds do you know that don’t spend their cash on video games?

But I was a happy customer. I played over a hundred games with GameFly. I never had delays on getting games and I could get the best new releases within days of release. It was fantastic. Splinter Cell, Soul Caliber, Eternal Darkness, I played them all. A glorious existence! (When it came to gaming) I saved so much money that I even was able to buy a Nintendo DS on launch day.

Then I graduated from high school and bought an Xbox 360 with money I had earned from tutoring.

Before that time, I had only Nintendo systems. And the GameCube certainly wasn’t in the same demand the Wii is in today.

Horror set in. All the good 360 games were trapped behind “Medium” and “Low” Availability. I satisfied myself by playing the Xbox games I had missed out on the previous generation. Then I ran out. I decided to go to my local Hollywood video for a few next-gen games I could try.

ATTENTION GAMEFLY: When a customer goes back to the stores he left you for, YOU HAVE FAILED.

One of the most recent changes to the site I’ve noticed is a scrolling banner telling viewers which games have been recently restocked. Yet out of the 14 games currently on my “GameQ”, none of them are available. Too Human has been out since August. de Blob is a moderately popular Wii game. The Bourne Conspiracy is almost at the six-month landmark since its release. The Darkness costs just as much for me to own forever as it does for me to rent for a month.

Am I the only one seeing something wrong here?

Having graduated from high school and being forced to swallow down economics, I can say that Supply and Demand are not balancing out here. The games that are being lauded and demanded aren’t going out to the people that want them. The games that only a few people want are taking weeks to show back up in the warehouse. I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with your business model, GameFly.

So, as a “loyal” customer and someone who’s sunk hundreds of dollars into the service, I’d like to suggest a few things to the ignoramuses that are currently running GameFly.

1. Give the games to customers in the order that they are on the queue. I want to play Prince of Persia. That’s why it’s number one on my list. I want to play that game. I don’t want to play John Woo’s Stranglehold before it. The same goes for Amped 3, Okami, God of War II, and all the other games BELOW it on the list. GameFly sends out the first available game in the list, though it will wait a day for a “Highly” available game to come in just in case. But it’s not the same. I’d gladly go gameless for 3 days to get Prince of Persia than wait five weeks for it to become available in my queue.
2. Take your store seriously. You shower me with rewards of  $5 coupons and magical 10% off deals for being such a damn cool member, but the only game that interests me in your store that I can remotely consider buying is Lumines for PS2. And that’s a remake of a PSP launch title. I’d happily give you more money, if you’d do more than sell the games that no one wants.
3. Stop telling me to rent games you don’t have. Yes, I’m aware Fallout 3 has won Game of the Year awards. I’ve also noticed that it currently is at “Low” availability. I’m not going to get Fallout 3 (if I didn’t already own it) from GameFly for a month after I click the Rent button. Stop giving me and other users false hope.
4. Give some kind of pre-order option. Oh god, how I would love another Metroid game. If Nintendo announced one though, I wouldn’t be able to put it on a wishlist or my queue until a month or so before it comes out. If I could use some kind of pre-rent option, that would be fantastic. And then you’d have an accurate representation of demand going into release. I can’t see how this would be bad.

So GameFly, this is my ultimatum. Unless I see some kind of change, I’m going to cancel my membership. You’re a fickle mistress, GameFly, and I need to go back to my original lover, owning the damn games.

It’s no surprise that Nintendo has won this gaming generation in terms of sales. Yes, we know about the shovelware and yes, we know that the Wii and the DS do have gimmicks, but even the most hardcore fanboy can’t deny the fact that Nintendo is literally making a killing, even with the recent economic crunch. Sony’s laying off people, Microsoft is planning to lay off people, Nintendo is in fact hiring more people to cart the ridiculous scads of money they’ve been making from the bank to their secret underground vaults, where they also store the world’s only supply of Nintendium. They’ve dominated each and every NPD chart since the history of forever, and it looks like they’re not stopping.

Take this latest NPD Group update, which tackles the sales of all videogame consoles last December (i.e. December of 2008). Here’s the actual list, first:

* Nintendo DS – 3,040,000
* Wii – 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 – 1,440,000
* PSP – 1,020,000
* PlayStation 3 – 726,000
* PlayStation 2 – 410,000

Oh, look, Nintendo’s at the top. No surprise there. What’s surprising is that for the entire month of December, Nintendo has sold over 5 million consoles. That’s both the Wii and the DS hardware sales combined. According to NPD, that makes a new record high – breaking the PlayStation 2’s record of 2.7 million sales for a month alone. And that’s just for the US. Nintendo is making so much money, it should be a crime.

Of course, now with all your money, Nintendo, isn’t it time to do something about your software? Come on. We’re literally eating right out of your hand. Take some risks! Be creative with your IPs! Super Mario Galaxy was great, Twilight Princess was pretty cool, but it’s always been more or the same. Ask Rockstar to help direct the next Zelda. Have Suda 51 develop the next Mario game, anything. Break the mold. PLEASE.

Despite my short rant, Nintendo still seem to want to release this in Japan around Q1 2009 with other territories coming ‘later‘* as usual. And don’t expect them to be in 1080p glorious high-definition either, because that’s a pipedream and you and I both know that. Standard 480p and don’t forget that little 512mb memory limit the Wii has going on at the minute. Or perhaps we should just put them all on SD cards like they previously suggested we do with VC titles.

Source: Yahoo Tech

*later means 2012