Negaview

Rather than write a console review of the Nintendo Wii i think i’d rather just talk about it’s main defining features. The motion controller. In a word, it sucks. What it really needs is 1:1 control, so whatever you do with the controller happens on screen exactly. Instead what you have is an accelerometer based pointing device. What this lends itself to is incredibly imprecise control of games.

I will hand it to Nintendo, no game company innovates or takes chances as much as them. What i do NOT understand is the rabid popularity of the wii. Yes i realize that they’ve opened gaming to the masses with their ‘revolutionary’ control system. However, what the imprecise controls lend itself to is a new evolution of button mashing. A dangerous one at that, as now that there’s motion control the wild mashing of buttons is replaced by the wild swinging of limbs.

Essentially i feel Nintendo has pretty much left the core gamers behind to hang out with the ‘cool’ kids. It’s like those old sitcoms when the main character decides he or she wants to be cool and leaves behind their old childhood friends. Only to realize by the end of the show that their new cool friends are fickle and their old nerdy ones are the loyal ones. Before long Nintendo will realize this as the wii dies down and people don’t purchase any games (after all it comes with wii sports what more could they want?). That’s when they will realize that their nerdy core gamer audience were the loyal friends that kept them alive through the dark days of the nintendo 64 and gamecube. Hopefully by then it won’t be too late.