I was writing a post on how third parties will HATE Motion Plus. They won’t say so publicly. But they will hate Motion Plus because Nintendo continues to differentiate the Wii. Motion Plus will make it even harder to port games onto the Wii.
To illustrate how sick the Core Industry is (as opposed to the Expanded Industry), it used to be that a game company could easily make an exclusive game on a game console. This occurred last generation. It occurred more the generation prior than the last generation. One could interestingly argue that Nintendo is attempting to hasten the end of the Core Industry (along with Microsoft and Sony with it) by making it more difficult to port games over.
People bought the Wii for motion controls and all. There isn’t much point to buying a game ported from a HD console especially if the controls are subpar.
In terms of the history of consoles, the game console had a very different definition before Sony entered. There was no difference between software companies and hardware companies for the games. Arcade games, which are integrated hardware and software, were made by one company. The first game consoles (which were home version of arcade games) were the same. Even when consoles could play other games, the integration between hardware and software did not vanish. The cartridge was used to add additional hardware to the game. Zelda could not be made without the battery (or disc). Super Mario Brothers 3 could not have the drums without its special chip. There would be no Starfox without that special FX chip.
The point is that there is a difference between a game console and a platform. The platform is like Windows. It can exist on many different types of hardware, but it is still Windows. The game console is unique hardware designed to play games in its unique way.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are not really game consoles. They are game platforms, yes, but they are more like neutered computers hooked up to the TV with controllers. Sony calls its systems ‘computers’. Microsoft which is, everyone will agree, a computer company entered the game industry to counterattack Sony due to the threat and damage Sony was wreaking to Microsoft’s future on entertainment software.
From the beginning to the PlayStations, game consoles were seen as game consoles. The first party drove out the installed base, molded the hardware, and third parties jumped on board to sell to that installed base.
Ever since the PlayStations, game consoles cease to exist in publishers’ eyes. There are no more game consoles, there are only platforms. What differentiates the platforms are not gameplay differences that hardware offers. No. It is demographics, it is cultures, it is gobblygook.
When the consumer sees the Wii, they say, “Ooohhh, motion controls!” When a third party publisher looks at the Wii, they say, “Ooohhh, demographics and Wii-Sports clones!” They do not see motion controls. Or rather…
The consumer sees the Wii and goes, “Wow! Motion controls! I wonder what type of new games will be made! This is wonderful!”
Third Party publisher: “I hate motion controls! Is Nintendo deliberately trying to prevent me from porting my game over?”
Third Parties, as has most of the game industry, have forgotten the difference between consoles and platforms. The consumers, however, have not. They recognized the Wii immediately for being a console instead of trying to establish a ‘platform’. This is why the more Nintendo differentiates the Wii from the ‘platforms’, the greater sales it enjoys.
(As a great example of how absurd this has become, check out this Internet post called “Why the Wii will never get better” written, by apparently, a hacker who criticizes the Wii because it does not have a platform like the amazingly selling (not) PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Not only does he not know the difference between a platform and a console, he assumes that the ‘norm’ is the platform and criticizes Wii for being a console! Later on, he wonders why the Wii cannot have its memory expanded like a computer!! Does he, or anyone else, connect the Wii success with the deliberate attempt to not be a computer platform?)
Now let us look at the THQ’s boss who has memorably phrased the Wii as the ‘Monopoly Box in the closet’:
you look at the Wii wall and you can’t find anything. It’s a big conglomeration of junk and the Nintendo stuff pops, and a couple of other things pop, and that’s it. On PS3 and 360, same day, there was a nice neat little 25 SKUs that they were showing for each one on the rack, and it was easy to see what’s there and to see a general level of quality. The Wii is just flooded with junk and all kinds of stuff.”
Sounds like the PS2 does it not? It also sounds like THQ is having some hefty competition in the young gamer group.
Bilson stressed that THQ is “supporting the Wii” and is planning to “greenlight more Wii games: family, casual, get everyone on the couch games. I’m a big believer in that.” He continued, ” Right now, we’re not moving hardcore stuff to the Wii. We were; we stopped it, just because we’re a little risk averse. I want to be with the culture of the Monopoly box in the closet – I’ve got to feed them. I’ve got to get them to want to buy another game, because they’re not the gamers that are looking forward to the next thing next week in putting in the pre-orders and all that.”
This would be funny if it wasn’t so monotonous. If these clowns were truly interested in demographics, wouldn’t they realize there are more than ‘two’ ways to define things? Must everything be defined as ‘casual’ or ‘hardcore’?
And why is it when a company decides to make a ‘non-casual game’, it contains every hardcore cliché that exists? Many of these ‘hardcore’ games are either extremely generic or extremely weird. Madworld, with its black and white color, is extremely weird. Deadly Creatures, which is a ‘down close’ view on scorpions and spiders, is extremely weird. While these ‘hardcore’ Wii games have merits, they are just weird and wouldn’t sell even on the PS2. For some bizarre reason, it is always Nintendo’s fault that their weird games don’t sell.
It is THQ’s genius that their games sell on Wii. It is Nintendo’s fault when their games do not sell on Wii. None of this makes any sense. It isn’t even consistent in its lunacy.
What Wii gamers want is a ‘meat and potatoes’ type game that isn’t generic or ‘weird’. A Wii RPG would be nice. A Wii shooter would work. Square-Enix thought they were crazy putting out Final Fantasy III on the DS and didn’t make many copies. The result was the game was sold out in Japan when it came out, and RPGs became big money makers on the DS.
THQ is a classic example of the Birdman Fallacy at work. I should update the graphic. Have the real dog be what gamers want and ‘casual games’ be what they get. There should be a ‘hardcore game’ which represents the dog as a hellhound. No one wants a hellhound! But that is what these companies keep putting out when they focus on ‘hardcore games’. Just give me a dog!
(Plastic dog is the Wii ‘casual games’. This is not what we want. Yet, then the publisher swings to another extreme with ‘hardcore games’ which, like that hellhound below, is weird, generic, and not what we want either.)
Malstrom's Articles News 