Hi Malstrom
There was always one thing I never truly understood. I don’t like WiiPlay and I couldn’t get myself to play it more than three times (not even the tanks), even though I generally like these kinds of games and even enjoy their NES counterparts on the Virtual Console. But I think I can now put my finger on the issue. Let me explain.
If you want to play a game on Atari, you swap the cartridge, flip a switch, press a button and start playing.
If you want to play a game on the NES, you swap the cartridge, flip a switch, press start and start playing.
If you want to play a game on the SNES, you swap the cartridge, flip a switch, wait for the “Nintendo or whoever presents…” to pass, press start and start playing.
Now if you want to play a game on the Wii you have to press the power button, wait for the console to eject the disc, put the disc into its case, get the other disc out of its case and slide it into the console, click away the security warning, select the Disc Channel, wait for the animation to start, click on start, wait for the security warnings to pass by, press start (or whatever) and then finally start playing.
Out of curiosity if it’s really that much of a difference I made a comparison. Lacking an own NES or Atari I picked the next best thing, my SNES. Both consoles were plugged in, the TV was running and the fitting channel was selected, so once I flipped the switch the image would instantly appear on the screen, thus taking the speed of my individual TV out of the equation. All cartridges were lying on the coffee table in front of the couch, as well as the discs inside their cases, since discs need to be stored inside them for their protection. The controllers were next to each other and the WiiRemote had its batteries put in and at full power. Both consoles were turned off and had a game inside, since this is what consoles usually are like after finishing a game. I would count the time from getting up from the couch to the moment when I can play a game or choose a level. Included was the time it takes to put the old cartridge back to the others and the time it takes to put the old disc back into its case and place it next the other cases (on the coffee table, to the shelf).
So my results were the following:
SNES with Super Mario All Stars: 20 – 25 seconds (depending on the game I pick)
Wii with Wii Play: 1:06 minutes
So in total, the Wii takes five times longer to start a game. Out of curiosity I compared a few similar games:
Super Mario World: 20 seconds
Super Mario 5: 1:22 seconds
Zelda: a Link to the Past: 18 seconds
Zelda Twilight Princess: 1:10 minutes
Of course I would have had to run the experiment several times to get a proper average, but I think the pattern is more than obvious. If it’s a game like Monster Hunter or even Super Smash Bros. Brawl add a ton of loading times to it, and if it’s played online the waiting time can get insanely high.
WiiPlay is not the kind of game you play for a long time, but rather in small doses every now and then. But with all the procedure I have to go through just to play PONG I lose interest even before the game starts. With Virtual Console games however I don’t have most of that trouble. I can swap them quickly and there are no security warnings at all. But then again, that might be just me.
I thought about breaking up the time into its components, but what’s the point? Basically the two main time consumers are the disc medium and Nintendo’s thinking that their customers are morons.
Discs are fragile and need to be stored in their cases. You can’t just have them lying around, so you waste time fiddling around with them. Also the loading times are much longer than with cartridges. I can say it took me on average about 40 seconds to be done with both discs and be able to click away the first security warning. That’s already twice the time it takes to fully launch a SNES game, and I’m just half way through!
But that does not explain why we need all these security warnings? Why is the very first thing I see when turning on my DS or Wii a warning? Did someone sue Nintendo after their son had a seizure while playing videogames? Oh wait, they actually did:
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=8399.0
Unfortunately I can’t find any information on the final outcome, but I know these warnings started appearing on GBA and Gamecube games shortly after.
But why does the game have to tell me to make sure there is enough room around me? Or tell me to put on the wrist strap even though I just want to play a 2D Mario? It’s my business if there is enough room around me or if I want to wear the strap. I had to sit through five minutes of instructional video on how to attach and remove WiiMotion Plus. As far as I have heard there was a bug which caused the video to be played every time WiiSports Resort was launched. That’s what instruction manuals are for! It just blows my mind how Nintendo could think that it’s a good idea to throw all that stuff at us. Do they think we are this stupid? Duuuuuh, how do I attach this Motion Plus thingy? I really wish there was a video showing every single move I have to make. Duuuuh, what’s this strap thingy for? Why do I need to see who made the game? It’s not like there is any company out there which I could blindly trust blindly (except Blizzard maybe; how’s Starcraft II?). Some third parties even invented their own warnings. I guess Nintendo was still too sloppy. Okami took more than a minute to finally get me to the file selection menu, counting the time AFTER I started the game in the Disc Channel (also it turns out this is faster than anything inside the actual game – ugh, it almost ranks up with Spirit Tracks and people say it sold poorly because it was “too special for the mass market”).
So, where am I going with this? I really don’t know. The only thing I know is how it annoys me. I really miss just putting in a cartridge and start playing. I don’t know what it’s like on the PS360, but I’m pretty sure it’s not better at all. At least I don’t have to patch or install Wii games.
I can definitely relate to your complaints. I find that all the waiting it takes to get a game to load up and the fuss of placing the disc out, putting it back in its case, opening up another case, going through the warning screens, going through the vanity company logos, makes me not want to play the game at all. The only real benefit of “digital distribution” is being able to switch from game to game very quickly which is what the Virtual Console can allow.
I don’t think young gamers realize today how rapidly we would switch games. A normal play session on a game console would have a pile of cartridges all around us. Even in the arcades, we would hop from one machine to another. The idea of playing one game for hours and hours on end is an element of PC gaming, not of console gaming or arcade gaming. This behavior of console gaming of playing one game for hours and hours at a time is something that was picked up from PC gaming (as many of the ‘core market’ console games are just PC games plopped onto dumbed down computers we call Playstations and Xboxes).
In Iwata Asks interview where Iwata talked to the people who designed the Wii (this was 2006), Iwata said that his mission was to make the start-up of the Wii as fast as possible. The hardware guys were trying to cut down the time as much as possible. They expressed they wished they could have cut down the time some more.
I wish there was an option where it would allow the Wii to jump straight to the game and bypass the Channels entirely. I find myself greatly annoyed at having to find a Wiimote to so I can use the pointer to move the cursor to click on the stupid box and and to click on ‘start’. What is so annoying about this is that I may have in my hands a gamecube controller if I am playing a Gamecube game or another controller to play a Wii game. If you move your Wii around, you have to set up the sensor bar only for the sole purpose of clicking the channel box to get to your game. (I know you can hook up the classic controller and use it to move the cursor, but that is annoying too.) One of the great appeals of the DS and handheld gaming in general is how you can pop in one game and put in another in quick fashion.
A friend and I were playing Life Force on the NES several years ago. After some stupid early deaths, we reset the game a couple of times. Then, all of a sudden, we stopped, looked at each other, and said, “Did you see that?” “Do it again.” We reset Life Force again. “Oh my God…” “I can’t believe it.” When Life Force for the NES was reset, the game instantly went to the title screen. No logo spinning. No introduction. It was 0 seconds. BAM! This was remarkable even for NES games. There was no music, no sound effects for the title screen. Even older games like Gradius or Kid Icarus would have the title screen slowly slide onto the screen. Super Mario Brothers 3 had the curtains, of course. During the SNES era, almost all games had fancy logo spinning and almost all added some introduction movie of some sort. When you put in Super Mario Brothers, BAM! You got the ‘blue sky’ title screen (genius idea to show the blue sky in the title screen).
When the consumer has bought your game and put it into the machine to play, the consumer should be rewarded by getting to the game as fast as possible. Why punish the consumer with dancing logos, bizarre introductions that have nothing to do with the gameplay, theme music trumpeting the coming arrival of the title screen, on and on? What does any of that serve?
For RPGs and all, a more intricate slowness can be expected. My preferred choice is for game makers to do the start up similar to Guardian Legend or Legend of Zelda. The game starts up immediately on the title screen and, if left for a few moments, will begin the introduction, the “story”, and all the company logos.
Above: Start immediately with the title screen. If the consumer wishes to know more, after a moment the introduction, story, and other information will come including the maker of the game.
The topic of warning screens and all that we see on the DS and Wii, when they load up, and the Wii Sports games advising to re-position furniture is another issue entirely. These are all put into the game for legal reasons. The creative side doesn’t have a choice. The constant warning signs are to make it air tight that Nintendo cannot be sued.
Ever since Nintendo has entered video games, I don’t think there has ever been a period without legal warfare. For the most part, business is about merit where you focus putting out the product people want to buy. However, it is not that simple. There are gangs and mafias who masquerade as politicians and state lawyers and corporate lawyers who, when they see something profiting, will try to use the law as a tool to carve some of that profit for themselves. It is despicable. But that is the world we live in.
When Donkey Kong became a huge hit, it was absolutely no threat to MGM. MGM knew, at the time, that they had argued in court that King Kong was an open copyright. They didn’t care. They thought their highly paid Hollywood lawyers would just stomp on this puny Japanese company. Bitter Atari teamed up with members of the United States Congress and the greater Nintendo succeeded in the market, the greater the lawyers and politicians attacked.
Nintendo wasn’t sued because children’s eyes and brains are melting from video games. They were sued because Nintendo makes tons of money and ‘child destroyed from video games’ works well in public sympathy. All the news you hear from legislatures saying how they need to stop violent video games to be sold to kids and the entire Jack Thompson character is all about money grubbing. It is like gangsters pointing legal guns and demanding tribute. This is a reason why so many companies donate to politicians. There are occasions where there is a major company that refuses to do so. An example of this would be Microsoft who, as we know makes insane amount of money, who wasn’t really interested in playing to politicians. After the anti-trust lawsuit which kept pending and pending, Microsoft agreed to donate to both political parties. And then, magically, the anti-trust lawsuit was put under the table.
These warning screens are a necessary part of Nintendo continuing to do business. We won’t be able to get rid of the reason why they are there. But perhaps there is a way to make it not be a ‘nag’ screen where it delays the consumer to get into the game. A possible solution could be that the consumer could make an agreement, via Nintendo’s website via their console, to be total and ultimately responsible, and it would remove the ‘nag’ screen due to this agreement. (But the problem with this is what about used machines selling to people who made no such agreement?).
The legal nag screens need to go. There has to be some better substitute for them.
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