With the Nintendo Wii U officially out now, I thought it might be appropriate to reflect upon the Wii given that it’s life cycle is finally complete. It is hard to believe that it has been a full six years, thinking on that it is odd that some have said it is too early for a new system but that is about the correct time frame for a new generation, especially considering that the Wii was without a doubt the weakest of graphics wise of the last generation.
Overall I think the novelty of the motion sensor did wear off and it seems to even me to have been nothing more than a gimmick. It’s too bad because I really did see much promise in the thought. I actually think the idea was finally realized with the release of the Motion Plus, however by that point it was too little too late. Very few developers even tried to use it correctly, and at times it seemed that even Nintendo had given up on the idea. It, weirdly enough, seemed like early games used it best. Elebits was awesome as was Boom Blox.
I actually feel like the one thing Nintendo got lucky on with the Wii is that out of all the consoles, it was the Wii that saw the most original titles. In addition to the above, the Wii brought games like de Blob, Monster Hunter Tri, Xenoblade, Last Story, Muramasa Demon Blade, Zack & Wiki, Red Steel and Epic Mickey. If you looked for them, there were many gems to be had on the system.
That being said, there was crap aplenty and I feel this ultimately cost the system from being taken too seriously by mature devs and gamers alike. It made me wish that Nintendo still had the ability to approve games at a corporate level like they did back in the NES days. I mean, there was certainly plenty of crap in those days, but it was nothing compared to where it is now. Though many may say this is a problem with Nintendo itself, I’d wager that this is going to happen to any game leading console from now on.
There were a number of features that I wish that Nintendo had expounded upon. When I saw their channels and the early ones like news, weather, photo, etc. I had hoped to see a wealth of new channels come along, and updates to make the early ones more worth using. That never came. As Nintendo finished the ones they promised, they shoved them aside which is too bad. I really felt that they could have used more.
I also expected something more to be done with the built in RAM in Wii Controllers, and even expanded memory. As it stands most people don’t realize that you can save Miis onto your controller and take it to a friends house, I have never done it myself and wouldn’t even know how to without looking it up. I liked the idea, but the fact that game stats were never attached to your Mii meant that there was little reason to do it. I wanted them to expand this functionality to not only allow Mii travel but also to let you bring saved games, or even Virtual Console games to share with friends while you were there. But no. And speaking of Wii Controllers, why didn’t we ever see a variety of colors and styles like we do for the DS? And why couldn’t we ever get a wireless nunchuku or Classic Controller?
One thing that really made me sad about the Nintendo Wii in particular was that just this year the motor in it died and I had to purchase a new one. Knowing the Wii U was just around the corner I went out and bought a cheap used one that came with a few controllers, but this actually was the first Nintendo console ever to stop working for me. And yes, I still can plug in my original 25+ year old NES and get good playtime out of it. This disheartened me but I do understand it comes with the territory of movable parts that this media brings to the table. I really wish Nintendo would go for a system based on the SD card instead of Optical Media. Blu-Ray only stores 50GB if it is double layered. Now a days you can find 64GB SD Cards at a reasonable price, they can grow with the times similar to cartridges, and with prices up to $60 there is a little more room for cost of the media (though honestly I doubt SD actually costs much more than a Blu-Ray Disc anyway). Plus they have experience with the 3DS and DS.
I do see a lot of similarities between the PS1 and the Wii weirdly enough. Both systems sold a lot of units. Neither was the most powerful system on the market (I know for sure the N64 was more powerful and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saturn was too), and both had a wealth of shovelware. I am kind of hoping that Nintendo is able to duplicate what Sony did with the PS2 with the Wii U. They are already starting to with putting out the console a year or two before the competition. I am also thrilled to see major third party releases like Batman, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Mass Effect 3 being ported to the system. If that sort of third-party support continues, coupled with Nintendo’s amazing ability to make their own software, Sony and Microsoft may be in for a battle.