Predicting the Future of the Wii by Looking at the DS.
May 03 '07 (Updated Jun 04 '07)
The Bottom Line In my opinion, the Wii is starting to go down the road of what was wrong with the DS. Let the Insults Roll In.
I’m no Sony or Microsoft fanboy. I own all three next gen consoles and have fun with all of them. The Wii is starting to get me a little depressed though. I haven't been playing it as much...and each time I do, it feels less and less "revolutionary" by the passing minutes. Heck, no game since "Wii Sports" has taken full advantage of the Wiimote...and that's sad. I may not be a psychic, but I think there's a good chance the Wii will NEVER improve. Look, I'm pretty sure you can tell which direction the Wii will go by just looking at what happened to the DS. Check it out:
Developers will pump out extremely short and simple games
The games started off short and simple on the DS and then got to the point of “Lift that Rock! You beat the game!” Most new games released for the DS can easily be completed in 2 hours. And this isn't "Super Mario in under 2 hours," the games are DESIGNED to be over with in no time. Now let's look at the Wii. The games are already short for the system, and I’m finding myself beating some of them in five hours or less. These games would work as an Xbox Live Arcade or PS Network game, but charging $50 for some of these games is flat out robbery!
Companies will not improve on Wiimote sensing
Right now everyone is saying that the makers of these games just haven’t gotten the hang of the Wiimote sensing yet. Like I mentioned above, "Wii Sports" has come closest to taking advantage of the sensor. And that's the game that comes with the system. Now think back two years ago, we were all thinking the same thing about the DS. Nearly every game that came out on the DS had little to no touch screen support; but everyone was saying, "Don't worry, they'll integrate the touch screen, they have to." It wasn’t that developers were bad at integrating touch screen support; it was that using the touch screen in most cases was an inferior way to play games. The touch screen's role has since decreased, however, with most games using the extra screen as an options menu or a place to put a map. Well since the Wii is pretty much stuck with its motion controls, there’s really nothing they can do. The Wiimote can only do so much, and so far, we’re not seeing anything terribly amazing. I'm willing to bet more and more games will start requiring the "classic controller," or, like the new "Paper Mario," just call for the Wiimote to be turned on its side and used as the old Nintendo D-Pad. Don't look forward to this changing.
Nintendo will release ANYTHING!
With the DS, Nintendo would get terrible games from the most obscure developers just to boast that they had more titles than the PSP. That's cool...have fun pumping out eight iterations of "Brain Age" while I play the 3D action games that the PSP does WELL. It's called quality control. Rarely will you look at any game on the DS and see reviews that go over eight out of ten. Now the same thing is happening to the Wii. While like the DS, the system had a few good games at launch, they've since been pumping out crap and the pipeline is smelling a whole lot like poo.
Graphics won’t show any major improvement, in fact, the majority of future games may be 2D!
When the system first debuted, there were quite a few 2D games coming out with graphics that could easily go on the Gameboy Advance. Everyone thought the same thing, that in the future, most of the games would be N64 quality. Well after two years, the DS has gotten worse at providing us 3D experiences and maybe one in a dozen games are actually 3D, (no, "New Super Mario Bros." does NOT count). We’re already starting to see this trend with the Wii with games like Bust a Move Bash, Cooking Mama, Warioware: Smooth Moves, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion.
Crappy first person shooters and racers will come out.
One thing that some of the most hardcore DS fans will probably admit to is that a first person shooter and a racer does better on the PSP than a DS. This is no different on the Wii. First person shooters have a terrible aiming system and car games are extremely hard to steer. There has yet to be a truly superb FPS or racer on the Wii, and other than Metroid Prime: Hunters being alright, the same goes for the DS. Sure they’ll release them regularly, but they’ll all suck!
Loads of puzzle games will come out
Talk about cheap cash-ins! Puzzle games for the DS tend to be so simple and so boring. Sometimes they are so easy and take so long to pick up the pace that the most difficult part of the game is reading the Japanese-inspired title. I'm not sure why they even release them... the only puzzle game that people play for the DS is Meteos. Wii's future looks to be about the same, but if they decide to not to do puzzle games, expect a bunch of games that are strictly a bunch of minigames.
Online play will be restricted to only a few games.
Two years in and the DS has only a few online games. While the Gamecube jumped into the fray while Xbox Live and Playstation Online were going strong, Nintendo made only a handful of games play online for that too! They’ve had the technology for their past two systems to network gamers to play online, why would they start releasing a ton of online games now?
Lack of games developed by Nintendo.
While all the games developed by Nintendo for the DS were really great, only a slim number of them ever came out. For a system to really succeed, it is going to need some of the first party characters that Nintendo is famous for bringing us, but sadly, like the DS, very few of these have been announced. Hopefully the lack of Nintendo games for the DS signals that they were spending their time working on Wii games. Doubt it though. I mean, a system launch without a Mario game? What the heck!
Companies will release nearly identical games just to make a buck or two.
Oh no! We’re already starting to see this with the Wii with games like Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and Kororinpa: Marble Mania. And what’s this thing with them re-releasing games that come out over half of a year after their original release date on the PS2 and Xbox. Rampage: Total Destruction and Ant Bully weren’t good then and they aren’t good now! Hopefully the Wii won’t start releasing games that are nearly identical to other games on the system like the DS has started to do. Let’s just say that there are probably 10-15 Sudoku games out on the DS and several puzzlers and platformers that feel identical to each other as well.
Good luck finding a decent rpg
Recent Nintendo consoles haven’t really given us too many rpgs. The handheld systems did have quite a few and the Gameboy Advance had a ton of great ones. Now we move onto the DS and we see that it had quite a few rpgs but almost all of them were mediocre dungeon crawlers. Honestly, judging by the Gamecube and N64, I really doubt that the Wii will have many rpgs, but if it does, hopefully the companies put more work in than they did for DS rpgs. And I think all rpg gamers on DS will agree, let us get rid of drawing the squiglies to cast spells.
Kiddo games galore
I seem to remember the past few Nintendo systems having a surplus of kid games and a drought of games that will appeal to anyone over the age of fifteen. Most of the games that have come out on the DS and Gamecube have just been too simple and/or easy and/or have a kiddish look to them and just aren’t what the older video game audience is looking for. Bicker all you want! Yeah the Wii has RE4 and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon coming, but both of those are ports, and I’ve played the heck out of both of them already leaving me nothing adult-oriented for the Wii.
Honestly, I don't see Nintendo changing their ways. Why should they? People have been buying all of these games that have been coming out that suck and Mario's reeling in the cash hand over fist.
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Epinions.com ID:
cobadee
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Member: Josh
Location: Idaho
Reviews written: 234
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