Old-style controllers are for losers? [update 2]

I agree with clearskin and Spike and don't agree with d-sub, but I can see where he/she is coming from. J&R in New York always has that dude hawking the VR goggles in the videogame section, getting people to put it on and give it a shot and normally people don't come off too impressed, simply give an uncomfortable smile while trying to get away.

That said, VR Trooper goggles are not in the same ballgame as Nintendo's new lovestick. Case in point of the "broadening the demographic" point: my mom, who can't type well on a keyboard, is excited about the Wii, as in she wants to play it. Same goes for when DDR was in Best Buys for in store playing. She wanted to play it, as did the huge crowd all around the kid playing the game, most of which went along and bought the DDR set straight from the shelves.

Seeing somebody having fun doing anything, absolutely anything at all, has a huge effect on the psyche, and no other video game device has the capabilties at doing that than the Wii. All Nintendo has to do is make sure the system is in stores for demoing well before its launch and that very effect will wash over everybody.

Wow Ethan, wow. You've just proved that hard-core gamers, like yourself, stiffle innovation by shunning it before trying it. No offense, but how can you criticize the OPINION of someone who has actually used the controller without trying it yourself?
The fact of the matter is as a result of the lousy performance of the Gamecube, Nintendo has been backed into a corner, forced to innovate or perish. They obviously felt that getting into another Mhz war with Microsoft and Sony was a lost cause, and frankly I agree.
The PS2 (& XBOX & GC) generation succeeded in making games more immersive through excellent graphics and immense 3D worlds (ie GTA) which was a massive improvement over the PS/N64 generation. This time over though I don't see myself (IMHO) being so amazed by increased polycounts as I was before. Short of better graphics and newer games, what does the Xbox 360 offer over its predecessor? I see no innovation at all which is why I have not been inclined to purchase one. This controller (Wii-mote??) may just be what I'm looking for to change things if it can prove to be more than a gimmick.
I don't own stock in either Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo so I have no personal interest in who comes out on top, as long as the gamer wins in the end, hardcore or not.

-Sean

Show me where I "stifled innovation"? Have you played the Wii yet? If so, please provide me a video with how it's used..I'd love to see it. If you haven't, then you're making said statement based solely on speculation. I'm all for innovation. I'm NOT all for someone crying "Innovation!" about something that isn't even out yet. So I guess you, as well, are willing to bank on something that isn't even out yet being the best of all-time huh? All my previous post was getting at was that the hardcore sector is very much mislabeled and misunderstood. You, sir, have done nothing but prove that fact to be 100% correct with your statement.

Also, don't say "No offense" after you slam someone like you did me in your first sentence. Sorry, but your blatant fanboyism has already shown through by that point.

I'm not shunning anyone's opinion on anything, except your ill-advised and mis-informed opinion of me, which, fortunately, I don't care about anyway. But you tell me this much: Do you consider it FACT that, and I'm going to go ahead and quote this AGAIN for you sir, so maybe this time you should pay attention..."99% of people on the street will be able to pick up and play with the wii-mote." Is that a FACT? Or is that speculation? (Hint: There are no FACTS about something that is not available to the general public yet).

Nobody can make a statement like that and expect to be taken seriously. The fact that you would back it certainly speaks volumes about how:

1. Informed you are
2. Gullible you are
3. Quick to jump on the Nintendo bandwagon you are

It seems like anytime anyone on this site shoots a question at Nintendo, the entire board is quick to light up with fanboys jumping to their defense. If you had any kind of even a disputable argument, I'd listen to you. But seeing as how by simply calling a spade a spade I am somehow "stifling innovation" in your opinion, I don't see much coming in the way of that.

And for the record, everyone knows Nintendo is backed into a corner. I, for one, would like to see them come out of that corner, even if it means giving their blind followers reason to rejoice and take over the boards one more time. It's a shame that the people who play Nintendo just to play Nintendo are getting so overshadowed these days by the fanboy-type gamers.

Really I think it's a good point. A friend of mine works at a company that makes gamer-oriented furniture so I and a bunch of other friends were invited to do a photo-shoot of us sitting on the chairs playing games. We had 4 people playing a game, and the photographer had to stop everyone and get us to pose for the camera. When we were playing, it looked dull. We were all just sitting there staring blankly at the screen. Unless we were actively acting for the camera, we looked like we were watching 9/11 footage or something.

So yeah, I can imagine to a non-gamer, watching someone play with a wiimote just LOOKS a lot more fun than someone playing with a game pad.

(The exception, of course, being 10 player bomberman on saturn, where after 2 hours half the players can't speak, they're so horse from yelling and cheering. )

Ethan

"Exactly what does some journalist for Time know about playing video games?"

well for one, if he knew about playing video games, wouldnt that make his assessment of the wii that much more biased? if your assumption is true, then wii is already proving to attract the nongamer/casualgamer crowd. when elitist gamers like you use lines like that to discredit honest reviews, it sickens me more than grade A bull shit.

while im not blindly supporting that guys post, he does make a few good points. ive tried to get some of my non gamer friends to play super smash brothers and all i get is frustration. after a while they say they cant figure it out and jus give up. now, super smash brothers has an amazing ability to keep casual gamers interested. they usually dont care that theyre getting the pants beat off em, cause its fun. but when a game like that cant seem to attract non gamers, it shows the line thats been drawn around the video game crowd.

and hardcore gamers do tend to advocate stagnation in video games. in general, supporters of a company/series (nintendo fanboys included) support a companies decisions as long as theyre reasonable. they dont complain as long as u give em 10 times the polygons and 10 times the resolution.

but lemme give you an example. EA has release rehashes of all its good game franchises. but for some reason, the sims arent dead, even thought theyve been through a billion make overs. battlefield is getting a new skin and being released again. and the bf 2 community is so excited (i admit, i was too at first). however, a few of my casual gamer friends kinda jus shrugged when i showed em the trailer. one of em even asked if it was a mod...

if the guy is excited about the change in pace for the industry, dont pick it apart like youre some english teacher looking for fallacies. exaggerations dont do much but create hype in the long run ( video games only...).

Most people have missed the Point of the Times article. The Times guy, is not a hard core gamer. Yet he was instantly able to play a game, enjoy it, understand it and become addicted to it. This pretty much the praise nintendo needed. Nintendo looks to gain million and millions of players like the Times Magazine guy who really thought the old style controller was "kiddie" and "anti social". Now those people wont have that hang up.

Nintendo may not have won the HD battle or the Polygon Battle or maybe not even the Media (HD-DVD,Blueray,etc) battle but it looks like they just opened up a can of woop-ass, came out of left field and won the next gen console war....

You know, I'm just going to bail on this whole topic. It's amazing to me the amount of blind support people are pledging to this whole Wii idea.

If you're excited about something, fine. But don't go make a statement representing 99% of the gaming population unless it's something very generally agreed on, which the Wii-mote is definitly not. If I said "99% of the gaming community says Xbox 360 is the best console", I would be flamed and considered an idiot. But if it's Nintendo, I guess it's okay to say something like that. And apparently, the whole hardcore sector idea is just lost on people, so I'm not going to bother talking about it anymore.

All in all, anything else posted or said would just be a waste of time on my part. So, with that, I'll leave this one to the overwhelming population of Nintendo loyalists.

Xboxistence, why so much hate? chill. your going to pop a vein. :)

to #48, oh come on.... ... ... you lost all credibility when you said "Exactly what does some journalist for Time know about playing video games?"... .. ... that's about the stupidest thing I've heard in my whole life.... ... you just proved yourself wrong....

What is the article saying?????, that right now games are hardcore territory.. that games SHOULDN'T ask for you to be a "gamer" in order to play them or to make an opinion about them.
fact : the gaming market (hardcore) has been shrinking for some time right now (I wouldn't even be here had the wiimote not been announced.. I was pretty much done with consoles).
why????, because people have other ways of distraction that top playing the same game but now with better graphics, did you read the part that said that not even little kids of this generation are really interested???.

Now to everyone who says it is an "insult" to call the control for losers blah blah blah, my sister used to play when she was a kid, you know what she says to anyone playing this days???? "GET A LIFE", current controls ARE for losers, if you're in denial.. too bad... but they are, at least when I play I accept I look like a loser... I just don't care about it.

And NOBODY that plays DDR ok looks like a loser... everybody stops to watch, my mother even asked me about it, and told me how much fun she thought that must be.. (and even though you don't look "cool" playing donkey konga, it IS fun to watch and to try out)

I once asked two of my female-friends why dont they play, you know what one of them said "I don't know how to USE THE CONTROLLER".

As a fun fact I once watched an interview asking girls if they'd be willing to date hardcore gamers, must of them said "no", and one of them said "I think I'd be more willing to date a nintendo-kinda-gamer than a computer freak"... lets just face it.. hardcore gaming (playing >2-3 hours a day) is NOT cool, not even remotely.. is for losers... the only way you look cool is if you play rather badly so everyone realizes you don't do it often.

I have yet to meet a regular person (that's not an anti-nintendo dude, or a person completely against videogames) that's not intrigued by the Wiimote, just like the Eyetoy or the DS, when you see it, you're just gonna want to try it
and I believe is gonna be bigger than both.

Ethan-

Angry you are indeed. I am sure you are as disappointed as every other Xbox 360 owner to find that it was not worth the investment yet.

And to accuse me of fanboyism? For a matter of fact I have NEVER owned a Nintendo system. In fact I see no bias in my statement whatsoever, but fanboys like yourself see what they want I assume.

"99% of people on the street will be able to pick up and play with the wii-mote."

Instead of quoting yourself please reference the actual article. Please inform me where this phrase appears in the article, because I certainly cannot find it.

However I do agree that it is presumptuous to assume that the author represents an entire demographic. But we make these type of assumptions all the time; movie critics, video game critics, etc. so they do have some merit. Conversely assuming he has no videogame experience and was able to enjoy himself only futhers the point that the Wii may be easily accessible to a broader market.

The point that I was trying to make in that Nintendo is providing the only genuine innovation of the next generation. Whether or not that innovation will be a success it remains to be seen, but at least they are trying. Don't be so quick to shun a new idea just because it is different from what you may be used to.

PS3 upgrades the hardware and plays catch-up to the Xbox online features plus banks on its brand to carry its success over. The Xbox 360 is merely a horsepower upgrade to the original.

Which leads to one of the points that the author of the article is making; video games cannot survive unless they penetrate into the mainstream. Hardcore gamers (such as ones who buy Xbox 360 systems before any purchase-worthy titles are available) do not sell many systems, in fact only 1.4 million of them. The PS2 was a success because Joey and Suzie Sixpack bought the system as well, not just the hardcore types. Same goes for the DS which is enjoying a healthy lead in sales over the PSP. If it were up to the naysayers (myself included) I also thought bigger and stronger PSP would win, but we aren't the ones making those choices are we?

Also with increasing videogame development costs, what happens if the current generation only sells as many systems as the previous? Well that means that Ubisoft and EA and their respective shareholders will not be too happy, which consequently could lead to LESS development and fewer projects/titles. A fact which will be bad for all of us, hardcore or not.

As an avid gamer myself I want to be able to come out from the shadow of saying I love playing games without being stereotyped. Why should I be looked at any differently than someone who watches movies or tv? A system which is marketable to everyone just may do that. IMHO Sony and Microsoft, through escalating prices and industry buzz, seem to be pushing the market more to the fringe, appeasing only the hardcore-types, something which may end up ruining it for all of us.

Of course that's my 2 cents.

-Sean

My reference was to a statement posted earlier that was referred to in my initial address and was referenced therein. Broken down into Nintendo fanboy language: "You missed it. Read next time." Angry I am not, actually. I'm kicked back, playing my slew of Xbox 360 titles while you're waiting for the day you can wave a wii-mote around at stuff that isn't there and somehow not look like a loser. I find that interesting. Also interesting is how you address me as if you know what I'm thinking. You don't. You're obviously happy to jump in line and buy whatever "N" throws your way, so go to it. Whenever it comes out I mean. For right now though, I guess you can just go play DS or something.

So now you want to label me a fanboy for stating unbiased information based on information already provided to the general forum by publications named within and dually accredited? Well, in that case, fine. I'll be a Microsoft fanboy if you like. If that's what it means to be able to make statements that are of my own opinion and no one else's, if that's what it means to be able to make investments based on personal preference and not some gimmick or marketing ploy, and most importantly, if that puts me in some kind of category outside the one that you inhabit, then please, by all means, make it so.

You are definitly someone who will be purchasing a PS3 (based solely on the "facts" Sony has fed you fanboys..I'm waiting for them to tell us it can cook toast too.) and a Nintendo...well...just because everyone else is swinging that way, I'm guessing. But you make a mockery of your own commments when you say I am "as disappointed as EVERY OTHER XBOX 360 OWNER.."..such a broad statement. Of course, I'm sure you've researched every single person who bought a 360 before making such a idiotic statement, correct? No? Oh...so you live in a glass house and enjoy throwing stones then? I see.

If you want the statement I referenced, go back to my first post, read who I quoted, and read the statement. You're not worth my time to bother with reposting it here. And as such, it would probably be good for you to not post again until you actually know wtf you are trying to say and aren't sounding so moronic with your incessant babbling on about how I and "every other 360 owner" apparently feel. I'm so glad people like you still represent the minority of gamers in general. With a little luck, and if parents will stop buying their kids PS3's and 360's for their birthday just because little Sean...er...Johnny wants one, then maybe it'll stay that way.

Oh..and that's my $.02 cents.

ethan... why don't you just buy a nintendo? it's cheap, it's fun...

-teh_pwnerer

I plan on it. I'm hoping for it to be a solid second-console actually, although admittedly I really want to get it for the older classics more than anything else. But Red Steel looks sweet from what I've seen too. oh, n cool name, btw. :)

As much as I like the Rev, I can't help but to feel that these 'innovative' controllers are really the ones that look lame. Take Guitar Hero, for instance. I saw a guy playing it in Best Buy a few days ago and he looked like a complete tool. "Hey, look at me press buttons on this vaugely guitar-shaped thing!"

Please. I really hope that Nintendo doesn't make it a requirement to use motion to play games like Zelda:Twilight Princess, since it's definitely GC-bound if they do.