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pixelsword

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Why the Wii U Should be the Wii 2

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

- Juilet Cappelletti

Romeo and Juilet

Before any Wii fans protest to the notion that the Wii U should be NAMED the Wii 2, that is neither the thrust nor the theme of this article, I hope you all hang in there to get what this article is all about.

The Wii U possesses the moniker of it's predecessor, which gave a lot fans hope and inspiration for the future: The graphics are updated, Nintendo has came off of a stunning comeback over the last generation, and the base of Nintendo players have expanded exponentially compared to the last two generations of Nintendo's consoles. The future looked bright, brighter than it has been for Nintendo and it's fans for a long time. When The Wii U was revealed, it showed off it's new game, Zombi U, which looked exciting, to say the least. The survival concept seemed very enjoyable, the new aspects of how to play thrilled fans.

Almost.

While the average gamer that loves innovation was enthusiastic about the New controller, most of Nintendo's new fan base weren't lovers of innovation: as a matter of fact, a lot of the fans were very appreciative of the refreshingly simple and dynamic control scheme. A lot of new gamers, especially the more mature gamers, did not grow up to correlate a reflex action to a button push, which essentially alienated them to most forms of gaming. When playing a tennis game, a swinging motion with their arm would be the appropriate response to their experience; with the Wii, this system finally opened a door to many people who, after playing, finally realized why gamers could play games for hours on end. The Wii's controller was probably the most important gaming device since the home console in terms of bringing video gaming to the masses; it bridged the gaming and generation gap between older, inexperienced gamers and seasoned gamers. Watching someone's grandpa game along side of their granddaughter is heartwarming as you see the kid come out of the grandparents and the maturity of the children emerge as they give almost sage-like information to their newfound friend.

That is what made the Wii the most popular console for most of the last generation of consoles, and why that success was not followed up on is the most baffling thing I've ever seen in all of gaming. Not Nintendo, who already had every one of their own fans in their camp; not Sony, who put out the Sony Move in lieu of Nintendo's success; and not Microsoft, who, for some reason, thought people would use Kinect as they would the Wii's controller. This current controller turns most of the games that take advantage of Nintendo's controller offerings into "Game while you game" games; which comes off as confusing at times, even for seasoned gamers.

Although I don't agree with this notion fully, there is no reason why any of the console developers shouldn't put out a higher-powered Wii-like console for cheap and get previous Wii 3rd party developers to develop for them, set aside funds to have an in-house team to make exclusive games, and encourage indie developers to take the "wand" experience to new realms of gaming. It's a shame that such a lucrative opportunity is not fully explored since it's already been proven that the Wii did not significantly impact the sales of the other two non-wand consoles; meaning that kind of console won't under-cut any current consoles that are out already.

Nintendo has some of the brightest and best executives in gaming, period. Nintendo's longevity is a unquestionable testament to their innovation and savvy. To be honest, you don't really see the loyalty Nintendo's executives have in other companies; that being said, Nintendo's fatal flaw is that Nintendo as a company has troubles learning from both their failures and successes. When something fails, they tend to repeat their failures until it works, and when something succeeds, they often immediately attempt to innovate away from their success, sometimes resulting in failure. While I'm all for innovation, you should evolve innovation in small increments, not going too far off just for the sake of having something different than what you had before. For all of the intelligence Nintendo has at their company, they must realize that change is most useful when needed, and The Wii was one great idea that did not need any major changes.

The name Wii U isn't just a name: it was, and still is, a responsibility. A responsibility to all of Nintendo's fans, old and new, to continue hearing and responding to their concerns, a responsibility to the future to put gaming before and above innovation, an responsibility to themselves to uphold and maintain their reputation.

And if they fulfilled the needs of their fans and not their own need to innovate, whether it appears rosy or not to the average proponents of change, would be a breath of fresh air to their newfound fans, Wii-developers, and people who see the innovation and change already accomplished by the Wii itself that still haven't been fully explored...

...and it would also smell sweet.

DoctorJones3625d ago

What exactly is the point of your blog?

pixelsword3625d ago

That The Wii U should've used the Wii's original controller because by using an essentially different kind of control scheme they isolated the Wii's fan base by using a controller that's fundamentally different and therefore incompatible to the gameplay they've grown to love.

Geekman3624d ago

It's not that hard to adapt.

pixelsword3623d ago (Edited 3623d ago )

I disagree; and the success, or lack thereof, of the Wii U is a testament to such a thing.

You realize that the majority of the new Wii fan base were older gamers who didn't play any video games in the first place because of not adapting to the controller, right?

Nintendo fans first thought it was the name that threw people off, but once it was obvious that the new fan base knew about the new Wii and it was obvious that a number of them wanted a new console and didn't get one after it was released; and looking at the fact that the games, the graphics, and the prospect of buying a newer version of the Wii wasn't was turning people off, the only factor left are the difference of controllers.

Although you might find it easy to adapt to, you may have the advantage of time to get yourself accustomed to the controller, the dexterity to use a multitude of buttons; or simple fact that you have, or you can use two hands.

60FramesPerSecond3620d ago

Wii 2 would make people understand this is a new console.

120°

DF Weekly: FSR 3 frame generation comes to consoles - and we've tested it

Proof of concept for a promising new technology.

Read Full Story >>
eurogamer.net
purple1011d 22h ago

I did note that the Xbox frame-gen implementation is not perfect. There appear to be intermediate freezing issues when there's a camera cut during cinematics, but while a bit annoying, it does not intrude on gameplay (a quick look at PS5 doesn't see this issue manifest)

Xbox Can’t catch a break recently

Obscure_Observer1d 19h ago

"I did note that the Xbox frame-gen implementation is not perfect."

Grasping at straws I see.

In the video John literally says that FSR 3´s implementation on Xbox Series X is far better than the PC version on release, and they are very impressed with the results. Especially considering that they didn´t even expect such performance to be possible achieved from 30fps. Not even AMD itself recommends 30fps for frame generation.

And... perfect? It´s not perfect even on PC to this day, so I´m no sure what you mean by that.

Maybe it´s perfect on PS5, I don´t know. It would be nice if you post the source of the analysis video of the PS5 version you saw to back up your claims.

"Xbox Can’t catch a break recently"

Don´t worry about the Xbox. There´ll be PLENTY of upcoming first party games to take advantage of FSR 3 in the coming months and years.

Indiana Jones, Avowed, Fable, Shattered Space (Starfield), Gears of War 6, Perfect Dark, State of Decay 3 and many many more.

Also, I´m expecting a FSR 3 update for Hellblade II rather sooner than later.

Great times ahead.

purple1011d 4h ago

"It would be nice if you post the source of the analysis video of the PS5 version you saw to back up your claims.'

no I just quoted from the very article we are commenting on, these were digital foundry's words, saying xbox isn't perfect, but on the ps5 version, it doesn't see the issue manifest.

Tacoboto59m ago

Console warring over a framerate pause during non-interactive content in a first-of-its-kind implementation in a game no one gave a crap about when it released 9-10 months ago.

Gotta love N4G.

Eonjay49m ago

Its promising tech and what's even more funny is that it was DF that was saying it wouldn't work. If fact they were pretty emphatic about it. What's stupid about their claims is that consoles are just specialized PCs. Now imagine if they combine this with a different upscaler like TSR or the upcoming PSSR.

jznrpg30m ago

DF act like they know as much as the engineers that work on this software but they are not even close to as knowledgeable they only have tools that give them numbers and then they act like they are experts.

50°

The INDIE Live Expo 2024 event showcased +150 Games during its Saturday broadcast

"INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series connecting indie game fans all over the world, highlighted more than 150 games during its Saturday broadcast introducing world premieres, new trailers, and updates during its 10th-ever digital showcase." - INDIE Live Expo.

50°

The Texas Hold’em adventure RPG "All in Abyss: Judge the Fake" is coming to PC in 2024

"The Tokyo-based (Japan) indie games publisher Alliance Arts and indie games developer WSS playground, are today very happy and excitted to announce that their Texas Hold’em adventure RPG "All in Abyss: Judge the Fake", is coming to PC via Steam in 2024." - Jonas Ek,TGG.