Zoned in

October 26, 2007

Is the Wii bubble on the verge of bursting?
By Stephen Woodward

Nintendo console showing there is more to video-game entertainment than high-def graphics

The Nintendo Wii is cleaning up in the video-game industry, having already surpassed the Xbox 360’s one year lead of 10 Million units sold in half the time; but how long will this boon last? Some believe the Wii is a complete revolution of the gaming industry, furiously waggling back the sleek polys of high-definition gaming. However, others label the Wii as a gimmick, and declare that it will be unable to sustain such powerful sales in the coming years. Before we declare a winner, let’s dive a little deeper.

One of the most common arguments that the Wii is a novelty and not a revolutionary platform is the motion control. Some “anti-wagglers” (you’ve heard it here first, folks) denounce Wii-Sports and Wii-Play as little more than mini-game fests, only able to capture our attention for 15 minute bursts, and not able to provide long, in-depth experiences that attract the hardcore player. Since the release of Metroid: Corruption to rave reviews, those arguments no longer hold water. The Wii is perfectly adept at creating rich narratives and sustaining them with innovative, motion-controlled gameplay.

But how can the Wii support realistic, hard-core games when its graphics look like GameCube 1.5, and still not support hi-definition? Well, that’s hard to answer. In reality, the Wii cannot get much more realistic than what we saw in Metroid. And honestly, I don’t think any of us want the pixilated graphics on the Wii sharpened onto a 1080p television. Ultimately, though, the question is will the people buying the Wii, or DS for that matter, care about cutting edge graphics? Little sisters and grandparents the world over answer a resounding NO! Moms working out to Wii-Fit or families playing Wii-Sports are not going to care the least bit, just so they’re having fun. As long as Nintendo stylizes the graphics and animation, as we see in Super Mario Galaxy or SSB Brawl, there is nothing to worry or complain about.


Seinfield?! Nahhh…just beautifully shaded last gen graphics”

The philosophy of both the Wii and the DS is to put gameplay over graphics; but that doesn’t mean that Nintendo games are going to look ugly from now on out. If you’ve played Metroid, or seen previews of Super Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Bros Brawl, then you’ve seen beauty in motion. With the PS3 and the Xbox360 already putting out hyper-realistic games, why would we want Nintendo to do anything else?

Another mammoth argument laid out against Nintendo is one that has been around for almost 20 years, since the days of the NES - third-party support. Nintendo is notorious for putting the squeeze on third-party developers, but even worse (or better for that matter) is the fact that Nintendo’s first-party games are just so darn good. Just this spring, Nintendo released Wii-Play bundled with a Wii-mote, and the tiny collection of mini-games has held the #1 spot for months on end, squashing any attempt by third parties to even come close.


“If all Wii games had Metroid’s art direction, you would never hear another Hi-Def complaint…ever”

If the Wii Bubble is going to sustain itself and not burst, the most important thing for Nintendo to do – even more important than new IPs – is to gain a stronghold of quality third-party support. Both the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube could be argued industry failures compared to PlayStation (though Nintendo has consistently made a profit on every console) because of their lack of third-party games. The Playstation 2 literally survived the last generation by its third-party support. Both the Wii and the DS need to become more than just Nintendo’s first-party machine – it needs to make room for other developers. Since both the consoles have taken off worldwide and established Nintendo as the dominate player in the market, third parties really don’t have a choice (if they like money, that is) but to triple jump onto the Nintendo bandwagon.

If selling 12.42 million hardware units worldwide is a fad, then Nintendo should just remain a blip on the pop culture radar (http://www.vgcharts.com). If those numbers tell us anything, video games are not just about gorgeous graphics and realistic violence. Nintendo is taking the gaming industry – whether it wants to or not – somewhere it hasn’t gone before and expanding the market to new demographics; that can only be good for the industry. Let’s just hope that the “Wii Bubble” is the name of a new original IP from a third party next year – Lord knows we need it.