An editorial at The Wiire claims the Nintendo Wii actually benefits from its technical inferiority. The Uncanny Valley is an issue we have discussed before: character models that are almost lifelike but lack a certain pizzaz that renders them creepy to humans -- the E3 trailer for Heavy Rain showed a character that would fall within the Uncanny Valley.Before you cry "fanboyism!" and block out the article altogether, take a gander. Author Shawn White claims that no Nintendo Wii title will be capable of lifelike characters (that fall within the Uncanny Valley), thus removing the possibility of protagonists that creep out the character and negating all possible emotional detachment -- this is true (as far as we know). However, not all next-generation games will take full advantage of the technology, nor will they all try for lifelike animation.
Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 have amazing character animations without rendering its audience uneasy. Essentially, the decision is that of game design, not entirely of hardware -- that is the biggest flaw of his argument. It is up to the developers to realize when a character design is lifeless and creepy. Some developers may try for naturalism with Wii games -- is it really wise to say the Wii will nobly fail?
[Thanks, Vincent]
[update 1: cleaned up some language; added link to Heavy Rain trailer]
