Sorry, the Wii isn't crap

"Did you ever see the trailer for The Princess Diaries or Land Before Time XXVII(random number)? I have. I have also decided that I would rather not see any of those movies."

Ok, not actually countering my point, but thats fine. Had you said "Wii Sports and Zelda are not my cup of tea" that would have been a perfectly legitimate statment, no crime there. In fact you don't even have to play Zelda to know that YOU won't like it, I'm still with you on that. Which compares directly to you seeing a movie preview and knowing you wont like it, fair enough. Yet you make the choice to write off the ENTIRE SYSTEM, present and future, by saying its "crap" based on two games you don't prefer. Not the best way to evaluate a console's capability or what the library will have to offer down the line. In fact, to compare it to your given statment it would be like saying "Universal Studios put out a lame kiddy movie that I dont like, therefore, I will never find interest in any of their movies ever again." So again, my point remains valid.

@Lou D

Your AI interpretations are very rudimentary in nature. The true value to the AI of a game is about branching, not just decisions, but how many varying options the NPC has to choose from and how many relative alterations of behavior there would be when they make those decisions. The depth of the binary tree will determine how much is involved in the process and how much work the CPU has to do to get from event A to behavior B. The more complex the options become the more advanced the AI becomes. Heck, look at GRAW vs GRAW2, the AI has improved substantially in just about a year of development.


Vastly improved A.I.: A.I. is more challenging than ever. Watch your back as rebels send their own team members to flank your position or gain vantage points by utilizing vertical gameplay to pick you off from the rooftops above. Don't worry—your team’s got your back. Improved squad-mate A.I. now feeds you more of the information you need with descriptive commands like, "Enemy spotted behind red truck ahead."

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/t/tomclancysghostreconadvancedwarfighter2xbox360/

Anyone who uses the Constitution's protection of free speech to defend Chris Hecker needs to go out there and get a big mallet and bang it against their head. The US Constitution only protects the public from *CONGRESS* attempting to legislate speech. It DOES NOT protect people from retaliation from other private individuals.

For example, if Joystiq wanted to censor these blog posts it would be entirely legal for them to do so. This is Joystiq's blog and Joystiq is allowed to do what it wants with it. Likewise, Hecker's job is owned by EA. If EA doesn't like what Hecker said they are entirely within their rights to demote, fire, or whatever.

Now, if Komrade Pelosi said "I don't like what Hecker said so let's fine him $10,000" then the US Constitution's protection of the right to free speech WOULD come into play. Don't believe me? Then go read the Constitution for yourself.

It's no wonder people think the government is supposed to be some sort of vending machine dispensing whatever product or service a citizen desires. People are just fundamentally ignorant on what the US Constitution actually says.

Number 49, Ywu are correct I am american and I have felt we argue to much and most people are closed minded. I almost envy you for living an a country were you are not surrounded with this every freaking minute of the day.

@100

AI is one of the most complicated parts of the game.
it isnt as simple as turn, shoot, duck, run, hide that sort of thing. its extrememly complex. because it requires alot of input from the player for the AI to respond accordingly. a characters AI needs to make complex, realistic decisions based on what the player does, what the players allies do and what the AI's allies are doing.

a major gripe from alot of people is bad AI in a game. we have all been there: when a teammate runs headfirst into a wall and stays there. or they always seem to run around like idiots and get themselves killed, or throw a granade at a wall and kill themselves and other. or just general stupidity(use your imagination)

so AI need to be act as close to a human as possible.(which is impossible) but they need to ce realistic.

including programming squad manuvers depending on if the player attacks, retreats, tries to flank, gets flanked etc etc....

so taking all of these elements and making it a fun yet challenging and believable environment for the player is more difficult than you might think.

Nobody is really arguing that AI isn't complicated and hard to code. What we're arguing is that it doesn't eat processor for breakfast. Broadway was designed with physics and AI in mind, and can run more instructions per clock cycle than the a 360 core or the primary cell core. It can keep up with AI. Physics isn't too much of a problem with it either (See Elebits with literally thousands of interactive objects on screen at a time and plenty of physics calculations for all of them, and shiney shader effects.)

The wii is more capable than anybody here is giving credit for it. And this guy is just a tool who hasn't even coded for it yet.

I think the key to this is that if he hadn't been so virulent and vulgar in his initial statement, then EA and Nintendo wouldn't have been so fast to bring the hammer down

Its not that he insulted Nintendo per se, but that he did so in a way that was staunchly embarrassing to his company

Karma is fun

And about AI and physics

someone here said the Wii has to run the same processes as the PS360 at a slower clock speed

But it doesn't run the same processes at all, (much more complex processes at a slower clock speed) Broadway is really a technological marvel for how cheap and underpowered it is

IBM and Nintendo should get a lot of credit for squeezing so much capability out of so little tech

I dont know if any of you are even famaliar with the developer's rant, but comments like the one Mr. Hecker made are not surprising. especially at an open forum of industry professionals. The fact that its now getting so much coverage in the "video games press{i.e. bullshit media}" is what ruins the purity of the developers rant, its supposed to be like a behind closed doors affair, where folks in the industry can speak freely about what pisses them off without fear of retribution. Had things been different and had EA not backed the wrong pony in the system launch numbers game, this comment would have gone by with nary a hiccup. However, now that they're regretting their lack of support for the little system that could, EA (and Hecker, sadly) are choking on their words. Three cheers for corperate America. I didnt agree with the man, I love the wii, to paraphrase and possibly misquote Voltaire- "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Yeah, I read the first 20 something comments and couldn't take the rest.

You guys have no idea, the fact he took back his words shows he has more balls then I'd give anyone here credit. He probably has a family and he knows they depend on him. He laid his pride on the line and took back the words of how he really felt, for their sake.

Most AI algorithms do not need brute force processing power.

Consider this: the weak little DS can recognize handwriting. Handwriting recognition requires some serious math - the kinds of stuff Ph D students do their thesis on! The same with Wiimote gesture recognition. One such algorithm is "Hidden Markov Models", where the software is trained with sample input from dozens of users. I've worked with HMMs, and the actual computations required at run-time are very fast! Like a lot of AI, the equations are very complex, but the equations don't have to be calculated very many times (unlike 3D geometry, which has very simple equations that have to be calculated hundreds of thousands of times).

The handwriting recognition on the DS and the gesture recognition on the Wii are among the most complex and advanced algorithms we've seen in games! If the Wii can handle that, it can handle almost any AI.

...I like pie.

Chris would have been an idiot for refusing to back down if threatened with his job. Even though the Wii is a piece of shit its not worth losing your job over to make a point. These are after all game consoles and its artistic merit is still being debated (even though i fully believe in games as artistic expression personally).

Imagine having to explain to your wife that you got fired from one of those KFC/Taco Bell combo restaraunts cause you said that refried beans were limited in their culinary applications and chicken is the superior medium you like to work in, i.e., "Refried beans are shit, They are just beans cooked 2X'.

It would be a very stupid descision. Don't sweat it Chris you did the right thing.

Chris would have been an idiot for refusing to back down if threatened with his job. Even though the Wii is a piece of shit its not worth losing your job over to make a point. These are after all game consoles and its artistic merit is still being debated (even though i fully believe in games as artistic expression personally).

Imagine having to explain to your wife that you got fired from one of those KFC/Taco Bell combo restaraunts cause you said that refried beans were limited in their culinary applications and chicken is the superior medium you like to work in, i.e., "Refried beans are shit, They are just beans cooked 2X'.

It would be a very stupid descision. Don't sweat it Chris you did the right thing.

Now tear down the evil Nintendo empire from the inside of EA.

#61

Well he also could have been genuinely kidding, he could have been paid by sony/microsoft etc etc, Unless there is proof claiming he was forced to doesn't matter - his retraction is there and must be considered fact unless there is evidence to the contrary.

In any event his retraction removes his credibility, he cannot stand by his claims thus hes not some brave developer speaking of 'how crap the Wii is'. He has no backbone. Did i care? No i can understand developers not liking the Wii, its not gonna be everyones cup of tea, but lets face facts his comments now mean $#!t thanks to his retraction.

EA made the right move here. I was honestly expecting (and a dark part of myself was hoping for) him to get the can. Chris gets off the hot seats for two reasons.

1. He was at the GDC rant session so a lot of people already felt he was being more dramatic than he really feels.

2. He is working on the blessing of the Lord, that which we call SPORE. His skill is vital and shall be necessary to bring us the glory.

And while I doubt that Will Wright had anything to do with it, I imagine that he might have stepped in and smoothed things over.

Seriously, I would LOVE to see how they handled this. I bet the drama was fantastic.

Would be nice to see him fired. However by not firing him, EA is still sending a mixed message.

I give +1 to evan, the single person that seems to understand (along with the person who started this comment, but I forgot his name) that AI comes from algorhytms.

Physics is the single 'behaviour' of a part that blows of, the trajectory needs to be calculated, as well as the object has to follow the path.

AI is purely made on algorhytms (or choice patterns, if you like that more). It doesn't has much too do with a processor, graphics card or whatever some of you might think. The comment 'more power gives more options' is out of line here. Programming this kind of stuff is very intensive and prone to error, that is why you see many ai's in games that can be exploited. But this is almost completely a case where a dev should have tried to put more in it. (no offense to all devs out there, I acknowledge all work :p)

So ai does not need a stronger processor, get it out of your systems, please

All in all Miyamoto owned him with class. End of story. He could of said all that with out being so vulgar about it. It would of even been better if he said it sucks or kind of sucks. HAHA go figure. Well of to play my piece of shit. :)

He's right. Wii not only sucks, it sucks Moose balls.

Calling the Wii two gamecubes tapped together is just stupid.

The Wii isn't that powerful.

*ZING!*

GUYS THE MAN WAS JOKING. READ THE ORIGINAL COVERAGE.

Of course, with video or at least audio, it would have been easier to detect. And of course his language could have been better chosen. But...

"To illustrate his point, he searched for references to games as art on all three console manufacturers web sites. While he found numerous such references on both the official PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sites, Wii.com had none at all. He then shared quotes from executives at Sony and Microsoft talking about games as a serious artistic medium, and then a quote from a Nintendo executive saying the company only wanted to make "fun" games."

Still, I think these developer 'rants', on the whole, suck. Because of antics like this and Greg Costikyan (who actually takes his own words seriously), I find these rants hardly serious anymore.

I'll admit that I'm most supportive of Nintendo and their games. And it's a fact that the Wii can't compare to the other home consoles this generation in terms of computational ability. But calling the system a piece of crap just because of that was a little over the top. If CPU/GPU speed is the only component of comparing systems, then the PS2 was crap since the GameCube and Xbox had better specs.

Nintendo could have created a system just as powerful as the other two consoles. The same companies who helped MS design the Xbox 360 worked on the GameCube and Wii. But Nintendo decided they needed to focus on making their console stand out in other ways since the GameCube did not live up to their expectations. With the success of their 'Third Pillar' experiment (a.k.a. the DS), Nintendo discovered that changing the way people play games may be more important than the power of the system.
So instead of competing with the other two systems in another performance war, Nintendo started working on changing the controller to make it as user friendly as the touch screen was on the DS. Hence the Wiimote was born.

Considering the positive reception both systems have received from the masses, it seems like Nintendo is on to something. The lack of power will not please the 'hardcore gamers' (or developers) whose number one priority is on how pretty their games look. But Nintendo has never really been focused on them and most have shunned the company for years. (shrugs)

@47. "Wind waker didn't have shit."

You are discussing artistic merit here, and you seriously think Gears had more of it than Wind Waker. Well, strictly speaking as an art critic, up yours.


@Shaggitarius "Imagine having to explain to your wife that you got fired from one of those KFC/Taco Bell combo restaraunts cause you said that refried beans were limited in their culinary applications and chicken is the superior medium you like to work in, i.e., 'Refried beans are shit, They are just beans cooked 2X'."

That was brilliant. Best analogy of the day.



And seriously, anybody saying the Wii can't handle A.I. is full of crap. Developers can't handle A.I. I've been playing games my whole life and A.I. still sucks. There's a reason people do speedruns of every game out there. Once you get the hang of the AI, you can sprint through a whole game. (I hear Deep Blue did pretty well in 1997 though.)

Not many game programmers published papers on arificial intelligence.
Those who did serious research on AI usually demand exhorbitant sums of money or got whisked into some top secret facility in New Mexico

Guys. When you get out of High School this will make a whole lot more sense to you.

Welcome to the real world.

There's a reason you don't see execs at Dell publicly bashing Intel or AMD's latest CPU. That'd be like a sales person telling you his product is crap.

The Wii is a gimmick. Only geeks that dance around on DDR pads with an asthma inhaler in hand like Wiis.

Ok the funny thing is this.If someone says that the 360 is a system that dies alot the fanboys come outta the wood work.If someone says that the ps3 is a trojan horse that isnt more powerful than sony then the sony fanboys come out the wood work.While the wii boys and 360 fanboys laugh and point.



Now when the wii is called a piece of shit which I agree with, the nintendo fanboys come out to play.Dont be lieve me?Look at the post count.Just because he used his opinion and called the wii what he felt it was.Listen everyone knows that if you wanna play fps's on consoles then you need a 360.Jrpgs; ps3, and kiddie games get a wii.Of course you will have a couple more mature games.But the point is that if I only had zelda and a bunch of brightly colored kiddie games for my 360, I wouldnt have it for long.I dont like these types of games.But I really dont like being beat.I mean the wii is 250!Nintendo is making a profit off of it as we speak!Think about it do we really want a world that is ruled by a nintendo console?


Now before I hear the breathing of rabid fanboys that feel its cool to dis others without the same beliefs, just calm down and say you know what everyone doesnt think like me.We are all different etc.


The guy that stated that he didnt like the wii, and was grilled by myke was correct!Why?Because he would be the one paying for the wii.So he would use his opinion!I believe that its a piece of shit, but only because it doesnt offer anything new.Seriously the controls are nice and thats it.If you look at it realistically you will see games that control differently but dont offer much more.Can nintendo change?Yes they can, but to me they are the company that is terrible with releasing games.You guys just got twilight princess!I have a ps3 and a 360.Some say the ps3 is too high, and guess what that may be true for you, but for what I like and what it offers its worth it to me.(home theatre, games)


So I dont understand why everyone gets mad when people called the cube a kiddie console, and the wii looks the same as well., Yet everyone is perfectly happy calling viva pinata a kids game.You see your opinions are your opinions.Just respect the nexts mans even if they dont make any sense to you.Now everyone should be corrected with facts, and facts only, but you cant correct an opinion.



The wii is a piece of shit, and no matter what anyone says, I will not buy it till I deem it worthy.How hard is that to understand?It comes from people being so insecure that they feel everyone must like what they like, but they dont understand thats the reason we have 3 systems!For a system that suits our needs or tastes or multiple systems if you want them.If you dont play the wii that doesnt make you an untrue gamer.I have friends that dont like my 360, yet they are gamers.


You guys sound like the voters of the presidential elections every 4 years.None of the presidents offer everything you like, so I dont vote!Does that make me evil?No!Its about personal preferences, I think they are all crooks, and guess what no matter how many things they do in the community, they will always be crooks until I feel other wise, but thats for me.


Seriously I hear everyone on this blog saying that others need to grow up, when they respond by saying someone is stupid or a fool, or insert witty remark, because they dont like their system or systems of choice.


I truly believe that if most gamers could afford all systems and games then there really wouldnt be a fanboy war, but since most cant theres hate.


Its like being in a store and seeing someone buy 16 blu ray movies and you are like damn they could have gotten all of them on dvd and saved a bundle!But the truth is that they didnt want dvd, they wanted blu ray or hd dvd.Just because you cant afford something doesnt make it crazy.(referring to the ps3 price now)


So what will happen?Will some ignorant individual laugh and call me names, because the wii sucks imo, or will everyone say "you know what everyone doesnt really have to like what I like"?


Seriously If I am an idiot because I hate something based on my opinion, then that means that everyone is idiotic for doing the samething.


Be a fanboy, but dont go to war with other gamerts because you dont like what they like or believe what they believe.

That only makes you look like George Bush.:)

Come on the Wii is kiddy? Nintendo allows ANY type of game to be made for their consoles, mature-rated, teen-rated, whatever. Are most of Nintendo's games kiddy? No, sure they are brightly colored, but the definition of kiddy is "games that appeal to kids", and looking at the sales of say, Mario, they appeal to a lot more people than just kids. Nintendo Also makes mature games like Metroid Prime and Zelda, so why are you complaining? The big bunch of games are determined by 3rd party's, and it's up to them if they make "kiddy" games or not.

I think that some of the posters here are afraid to like the Wii. Yeah, I said it, in the penis-envy driven, testosterone soaked world of hardcore gaming, to be caught with a frilly white controller in your hand, waving it with reckless abandon at your TV to make a brightly colored character twist and jump as he/she careens down a wonderfully (albiet 480p) rendered mountain on a brightly colored snowboard almost certainly means you're some sort of sissy boy. Being enthralled with the remarkably fun physics of Wii bowling makes your penis smaller, and actually being able to learn how to and have fun playing Madden with an all new control scheme means you're not man enough to own a REAL next-gen console and flounder at the mercy of EA's relentless football AI.

I'm 25, and I love my Wii. SSX is an incredibly fun game and uses the motion sensitive remote to great effect. Madden 07 on the Wii was a reinvention of the game. Actually snapping one's wrist side-to-side to throw stiff-arms instead of just mashing a button is remarkably intuitive and immersing. Even the buggy, not-quite-ready-for-primetime titles like Excite Truck and Red Steel highlight great things to come for Nintendo's shiny white box. I know this is really going to bring the heat from Sony's fan front, but Excite truck plays so much better than Motorstorm, it almost makes me sad, because Excite Truck is far from perfect. If processor speed and raw power were really the secret behind AI and physics, motorstorm would by default be a much better game. Period. Unfortunately, it just looks better, and handles like a brick being driven by a brick through a field of bricks. I was ready to buy a PS3 for MS, but I can't do it when I already own a game with much better handling, crazy, off the wall physics, and an appealing control scheme. Red Steel, although it feels like it came out six months too early, shows exactly what kind of fun the FPS is going to be on the Wii when they finally hammer out the details.

I think what we may be seeing with the early Wii titles is that companies have to spend so many man-hours on polishing the controls that things like AI and graphics take a back seat. This is pretty typical when you're dealing with all-new tech. I mean, most devs never got around to using the GC to it's full potential because it was simply easier (and more profitable, due to a larger installed base of systems) to use the extra power of the Xbox or PS2 to be able to slack a little on the effeciency of your AI code. When you see games like God of War II, you're going to start to realize who the quality Dev's are. That game is going to shock some people with the capabilities of the LAST generation of consoles when you're really devoted to polishing each and every line of code.

My point is this, while Wii isn't for everyone, some of you want so badly to hate it that nothing I can say will ever bring you around. So fine, f*ck you. I'll have fun playing new, interesting games with my Wii, while you wait for something worthwhile to come out on the other consoles. Oh, and I own an Xbox 360, as well, a purchase I'm very happy with, even though there's still only a half a dozen games worth owning. In fact, I'd have to say that in this gamer's humble opinion, there are MORE wii titles worth putting on your shelf than there are for the 360. (But that's only because I don't really like squad-based or overly realistic FPS or 3PS games. I was going to make the same argument against the PS3, but that's pretty obvious. I mean, if you have a PS3, you should probably get Resistance. And that's about it.) Remember, the console doesn't make the game, the developers do. And some of the biggest guns in the industry (Hideo Kojima, anyone?) have expressed an intense interest in putting out games for Nintendo's little dream-machine. None of this changes the fact that the Wii is still too young to have any sort of real pedigree, and it's going to be this time next year that the library and the motion sensing tech are finally hitting their stride. Let's have this talk then.

All the system bashing aside, when you work for a company, you have to comply with that company's ideals. Period. If you don't, they can fire you. That has nothing to do with the first amendment, which as much as you stupid twits want to believe is ignored and defunct, is still in effect and defended every day. Trust me, if the first amendment were blown to pieces like some of you seem to think, porno would have went the way of the dinosaur, along with violent video games.

I completely agree with Chris Hecker. It is a poor pathetic excuse for a gaming console. The PSP can do better(barely) but better. I say like the gamecube time to go back to the drawing board Nintendo. Also Zelda's getting really dumb. Nintendo really are trying to make Link look like Xandar from Drawn Togather.
The Wii is worthless, just face it. Crappy games, horrible GPU, and I'm tired of the excuse of making a family console, what a load of crap, another way of saying, here take this overclocked gamecube, and here's some moronic controller that never works for 200 bucks. I'm not a Sony fan, but I'd even take the thousand degree fails every 5 minutes X-360, than a Wii. Nintendo what happened????