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The Nintendo Wii is a machine of seemingly limitless possibility.
By bringing arcade-style gaming back into the home, with all its
immediacy, coin-op simplicity and potential for public humiliation
intact, Nintendo have discovered a very basic, and very profitable,
piece of information; video games are supposed to be fun. Somewhere,
along a derelict road littered with multi-disc epics, hyperbolic
adjectives and a rampant desire to prove that games are a 'legitimate'
source of entertainment, home gaming forgot the fun. Stories had become
impossibly po-faced and ponderous; heroes metamorphosed into whiny
navel-gazing wankers and video games became as over-the-top as an Axl
Rose funeral, directed by Michael Bay. In the rain. Wii games to the
rescue, then.
By the time the Wii hit centre stage, video game sales were up, but the simple, iconic 'plug-in and play' titles, with no console to support them, had been relegated to the back alleys of the Internet, the exclusive domain of bored net users in between porn-site excursions at 3AM. The Wii announced, in enormous neon letters for all to see, that games for the sake of gaming were back. It was like going back in time to 1974 and watching The Ramones play CBGBs for the very first time. Maybe you aren't ready for that stuff yet, but your kids are gonna love it.
Of course, utilizing groundbreaking technology and having a kick-ass design brief would be nothing if not for the Wii games, a collection of the most exciting, infuriating and downright strange ideas ever green-lighted by Nintendo. Some of the titles barely even seem like games to me (the cooking sims, for example, beggar belief) whilst others are so quaint as to bring a nostalgic tear to the duct of even the most bloodthirsty Call of Duty veteran.
By aiming their Wii games squarely at the family market, and selling the Wii not as a games console at all, but as a 'lifestyle peripheral' with something for all the family, Nintendo were able to exploit an enormous gap in the market. The veteran company avoided the nerd stigma attached like a bad smell to the existing consoles and focused on the potential gamers, who weren't being reached in the aforementioned climate; people who just wanted to have a good time. It was as if a dark cloud had shifted and a bright new day had begun.
Wii games, like the Pokemon Ditto, (no idea where that peculiar reference point came from) can be almost anything you want. There's no single demographic to target with laser-like accuracy until they grow out of it and smash your business model to bits in the process, there's no rapidly changing trends to be aware of per se. The only impetus for Nintendo as developers is to make great games. That's what makes it great! Wii games, with their curious, esoteric mixture of gee-whiz, superfragilistic, fun-filled chutzpah and just-barmy-enough-to-be-cute appeal are effortlessly likeable, that explains the success, then. Before I go, let's get this straight right now, the Wii is a stupid machine, and you look stupid whilst playing it, but that's all part of the appeal. Wii games, by way of association, are a Technicolor library of Day-Glo positivity, as intellectually challenging, yet surprisingly stimulating, as the act of pushing one too many crayons up your nose.
By the time the Wii hit centre stage, video game sales were up, but the simple, iconic 'plug-in and play' titles, with no console to support them, had been relegated to the back alleys of the Internet, the exclusive domain of bored net users in between porn-site excursions at 3AM. The Wii announced, in enormous neon letters for all to see, that games for the sake of gaming were back. It was like going back in time to 1974 and watching The Ramones play CBGBs for the very first time. Maybe you aren't ready for that stuff yet, but your kids are gonna love it.
Of course, utilizing groundbreaking technology and having a kick-ass design brief would be nothing if not for the Wii games, a collection of the most exciting, infuriating and downright strange ideas ever green-lighted by Nintendo. Some of the titles barely even seem like games to me (the cooking sims, for example, beggar belief) whilst others are so quaint as to bring a nostalgic tear to the duct of even the most bloodthirsty Call of Duty veteran.
By aiming their Wii games squarely at the family market, and selling the Wii not as a games console at all, but as a 'lifestyle peripheral' with something for all the family, Nintendo were able to exploit an enormous gap in the market. The veteran company avoided the nerd stigma attached like a bad smell to the existing consoles and focused on the potential gamers, who weren't being reached in the aforementioned climate; people who just wanted to have a good time. It was as if a dark cloud had shifted and a bright new day had begun.
Wii games, like the Pokemon Ditto, (no idea where that peculiar reference point came from) can be almost anything you want. There's no single demographic to target with laser-like accuracy until they grow out of it and smash your business model to bits in the process, there's no rapidly changing trends to be aware of per se. The only impetus for Nintendo as developers is to make great games. That's what makes it great! Wii games, with their curious, esoteric mixture of gee-whiz, superfragilistic, fun-filled chutzpah and just-barmy-enough-to-be-cute appeal are effortlessly likeable, that explains the success, then. Before I go, let's get this straight right now, the Wii is a stupid machine, and you look stupid whilst playing it, but that's all part of the appeal. Wii games, by way of association, are a Technicolor library of Day-Glo positivity, as intellectually challenging, yet surprisingly stimulating, as the act of pushing one too many crayons up your nose.
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