Cliffy B.'s brother speaks out about the Wii.

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overfeind

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#1 overfeind
Member since 2004 • 2984 Posts
My brother Cliff and I have been into games long before he ever created Gears of War. He and I played through the original Zelda together and I remember having tournaments with him where we'd play the original Nintendo Ice Hockey game. I liked to stack my team with the fat guys because they had a booming shot that could score from anywhere and were really good at checking. Cliff went the skinny guy route and tried to skate circles around me.

But the times, they are a-changing. If Nintendo has its way, young males will no longer be the dominant segment of the console audience--and this transition appears to be happening faster than I expected. The other day I was in Target looking to pick up some games when I saw an older woman--very likely a grandmother--waiting for the clerk's attention. She wanted him to get her a couple of games from inside the locked glass cabinet. When he asked her which ones, she stated Cooking Mama and Wii Play.

I could barely stifle a groan. Don't get me wrong; I think it's cute that someone who likely had no idea what a video game was would suddenly plunk down her Social Security money so she can cook virtual meals, play a rousing game of table tennis and shark her little grandchildren out of their milk money in billiards. But honestly, I had refused to believe that grandmothers were buying these things as so many news reports have claimed until I saw it with my own eyes. My story may be anecdotal, but the plural of anecdote is data, and there are more than enough news stories on this topic to suggest that this phenomenon is real.Level up MSNBC
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bugsonglass

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#2 bugsonglass
Member since 2004 • 5536 Posts
What's the moral of this story? :P
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Darth_Tigris

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#3 Darth_Tigris
Member since 2002 • 2506 Posts

What's the moral of this story? :Pbugsonglass

That if you've become a video game celebrity, you should still make time for your brother.  MAKE time.  YOU HEAR ME, DAVID???!!!  WHY DON'T YOU CALL ME ANYMORRRRRRRRRRE??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :cry:

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gaminggeek

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#4 gaminggeek
Member since 2003 • 14223 Posts

OMG! The fundamental gaming law that no one over the age of 30 should be allowed to game - has been broken. :P

Geez.

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overfeind

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#5 overfeind
Member since 2004 • 2984 Posts

What's the moral of this story? :Pbugsonglass

i didn't post the whole thing.  It is long and you will have to follow the link to read the rest,  but it seems that the "doom of the hardcore seers" are again speaking form their grand experince of gaming as how Nintendo is ruining our market because they have more games for other people and not just more games for them.

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overfeind

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#6 overfeind
Member since 2004 • 2984 Posts

OMG! The fundamental gaming law that no one over the age of 30 should be allowed to game - has been broken. :P

Geez.

gaminggeek

Of the age of 30 or a male. 

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martin_f

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#7 martin_f
Member since 2005 • 2605 Posts
Lol Im 16 and my grandmother has a Ps1 and 2 which she plays real games on!
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sheridan891

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#8 sheridan891
Member since 2006 • 298 Posts

this guy is pretty much an idiot. He's complaining that games that dont appeal to him are selling well. His worries would be well founded only if traditional games weren't selling on the wii. That is simply not the case. Zelda, Sonic, Red Steel (even though its not very good), and paper mario have all sold very well on the wii. Publishers are not going to abandon making traditional games because they arestill selling well. Maybe there will be an increase in "minigames", but they still aren't becoming the "main money makers of the industry", as this moron implies. I'm so tired of hearing people accuse nintendo of "dumbing down games". Its complete idiocy. Its not nintendo that decides what games will be popular, its the market that dictates what makes money.

If this type of game becomes more popular it will not cause a decrease in the number of fully fledged games. The industry will expand to include this new market. As the industry increases in size, so will the number of games. We'll still getall ofour classic games. Its not like people that bought Halo and GranTurismo last gen are all suddenly going to start only playing mama's cooking. The traditional market will continue to expand as it has. The only thing that will happen is a new market of "gamers" will be created, and gamingcompanies will expand to accomidate it.

He also says there are nonew "lengthy, in-depth experiences" besides zelda, which is simply false. The 3 other games i listed above all fall into that category. Also, this holiday season, the most anticipated games are Mario, Metriod, and Smash Brothers... which just happen to be full games. The system hasn't even been out 9 months. 95% of developers didn't see the success of the wii coming, and new projects will take at least a year to arrive. This guy needs to remove his head from his rear end, because the massive majority of people buying the wii aren't grandmas or even 30 year olds. They're the same people that bought playstation 2s just3 or 4years ago.

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Oilers99

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#10 Oilers99
Member since 2002 • 28844 Posts

There were several parts of the article where I just started shouting at him obvious counter-points. Why would a company stop making hardcore-oriented games if the hardcore market remains the same size? Also, if people are going gaga over these supposed mini-game collections, why include Wii Sports and Cooking Mama, which both have a definitive, easy-to-define appeal which has nothing to do with internal structure? Just because he can't see that old lady converting to hardcore games doesn't mean that other non-gamers who get into Wii can't. I'm sure there are plenty of non-gaming sci-fi fans out there. Also, what's stopping hardcore gamers from enjoying these so-called "non-games" when a lot of them are actually quite fun? The fact that he actually predicts that a few companies will continue to pander to the hardcore and make a mint for owning a monopoly on that audience is ridiculous. How many companies out there do you expect to ignore money being made?

Until there's evidence that the hardcore market is actually shrinking, and that the suppose poster boys of non-gaming, the DS and Wii, are destroying all hardcore-oriented games, there's no need to panic. Where there's a market, there will be games. If game companies can't keep up with demand, then they will expand and new ones will come into existence. The only damage I've seen inflicted upon the hardcore gaming market is by the makers of hardcore-oriented videogames themselves; an overly large reliance on sequels, but we've yet to see negative reprecussions for that, so again, no reason to panic yet. (Although I genuinely believe that too many sequels will have terrible consequences for the videogame industry as a whole, as gaming burn-out is an alarmining common thing not seen too often in films or books.)

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azad_champ

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#11 azad_champ
Member since 2005 • 3482 Posts
Nope, the TC is right. Nintendo is almost only making casual games nowadays. I liked 'em better when they did Gamecube. If Wii wins this console war then we'll see alot less Hardcore games. But Sony on the other hand has some pretty awesome hardcore projects on the way such as heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Folklore, Warhawk and I haven't even mentioned the third-party games such as MGS4 and FFXIII. I'm shocked that so many gamers on these forumsprotects Nintendo's back while Nintendo plan to do the opposite. Thanks for creating this interesting thread,man!
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bugsonglass

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#12 bugsonglass
Member since 2004 • 5536 Posts

Nope, the TC is right. Nintendo is almost only making casual games nowadays. I liked 'em better when they did Gamecube. If Wii wins this console war then we'll see alot less Hardcore games. But Sony on the other hand has some pretty awesome hardcore projects on the way such as heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Folklore, Warhawk and I haven't even mentioned the third-party games such as MGS4 and FFXIII. I'm shocked that so many gamers on these forumsprotects Nintendo's back while Nintendo plan to do the opposite. Thanks for creating this interesting thread,man!azad_champ

Actually the TC's view is quite the contrary :P

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ASK_Story

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#14 ASK_Story
Member since 2006 • 11455 Posts

I think he's over-blowing this to major proportions. The Wii's success is big, but I don't think it's going to defile the hardcore gaming scene.

The market will remain unchanged. You'll have the same market there always was for the past ten or so years, and the only thing the Wii/DS is doing is bringing more people to play games.

I think Japan is a good sign that no matter how popular the Wii/DS has become, the developers are still making all those games for the hardcore crowd. So I think there really is nothing to worry about.

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Idonomeus

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#15 Idonomeus
Member since 2006 • 2273 Posts
Yeah well I'm not too fond of the mindless shooting games your brother makes. Deal with it. In a perfect world everyone would play traditional adventure games, space/stock market/submarine/flight/war/presidential election ect. sims and strategy games of the turn-based variety but guess what? The world is not perfect! ;)
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azad_champ

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#16 azad_champ
Member since 2005 • 3482 Posts

[QUOTE="azad_champ"]Nope, the TC is right. Nintendo is almost only making casual games nowadays. I liked 'em better when they did Gamecube. If Wii wins this console war then we'll see alot less Hardcore games. But Sony on the other hand has some pretty awesome hardcore projects on the way such as heavenly Sword, Uncharted, Folklore, Warhawk and I haven't even mentioned the third-party games such as MGS4 and FFXIII. I'm shocked that so many gamers on these forumsprotects Nintendo's back while Nintendo plan to do the opposite. Thanks for creating this interesting thread,man!bugsonglass

Actually the TC's view is quite the contrary :P

The "Nope" was to the previous posters that didn't agree with the TC.

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SapSacPrime

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#17 SapSacPrime
Member since 2004 • 8925 Posts
I don't know why people assume that the new Wii/DS type software is going to replace traditional games, if you look at the DS it is infact complementing it. Traditional gaming is going no where even if Sony and MS follow Nintendo's example, because of the simple fact PC is going no where and further still all touch generation type software has been available for some time now free via a pc with a flash player installed,Nintendo just had the initiative to put it out on a cartridge.
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trifecta_basic

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#18 trifecta_basic
Member since 2003 • 11542 Posts
He'd fit right in on the neogaf forum.
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Angel_Belial

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#19 Angel_Belial
Member since 2005 • 1147 Posts
How does 'Cliff's brother' even know that the woman was buying the games for herself? If he was going to make an assumption, it should've been that she was buying them for her children/grandchildren, as that is what most women (certainly of her age, anyway) are doing when they buy video games, Wii or otherwise. What weak evidence to base his little rant on - this guy has way too much to say.
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Devouring_One

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#20 Devouring_One
Member since 2004 • 32312 Posts
so he says that games are suppose to be only for men?
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XaosII

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#21 XaosII
Member since 2003 • 16705 Posts

Im still surprise so many people doubt as though this could happen, when its already happened before.

The PC market has been suffering dumbed down games in order to cater to the console crowd. Essentially, games for hardcore PC market became rare and rare over the years favoring the console market for the sake of earning more money. Is it really so impossible to think that publishers interested in just making more money cater more games to the casual crowd?

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azad_champ

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#22 azad_champ
Member since 2005 • 3482 Posts

so he says that games are suppose to be only for men?Devouring_One

No, he says that Nintendo has abandonded hardcore players. Hardcore players aren't neccesirley men. If Sony or Microsoft wins this console war then we are safe but if Nintendo wins then it's back to movies for me. At least Hollywoodis still making blockbusters.

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selbie

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#23 selbie
Member since 2004 • 13295 Posts

The reason I think the Wii is selling so many "Mini-game" titles is because of the controller. There were plenty of these games out for the N64 and Gamecube yet they obviously didn't attract the same amount of crowds.

As far as I'm concerned he's being pretty short-sighted. There is a great amount of potential for the Wii and he thinks developers would be stupid enough to devote all their time and money to start making the next Wii Sports or Cooking Mama. Eventually the new crowd of amateur gamers will get sick of mini-games and devs will have to rely on the core gaming population for its revenue.

"But for the Wii, most third parties would rather take the easy way out and continue to port older games with the waggle tacked on than devote the time and resources to creating great new experiences. The fact that the PS2 is still going incredibly strong isn't going to help the situation either, because it and the PSP will provide the Wii with an endless supply of ports for the Wii instead of forcing publishers and developers to think of new and in-depth experiences."

This is also a load of BS. From what I know developers were forced to rush these "tacked-on" and rehashed ports because they didn't have the Dev Kits long enough to produce something substantial. It was smart for them to whip out these ports so they could cash in on the Wii's success. Now they have had some time to produce the quality games and hopefully we will see this in the coming years.

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Sandro909

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#24 Sandro909
Member since 2004 • 15221 Posts
Well he looks like him alright.
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Devouring_One

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#25 Devouring_One
Member since 2004 • 32312 Posts

[QUOTE="Devouring_One"]so he says that games are suppose to be only for men?azad_champ

No, he says that Nintendo has abandonded hardcore players. Hardcore players aren't neccesirley men. If Sony or Microsoft wins this console war then we are safe but if Nintendo wins then it's back to movies for me. At least Hollywoodis still making blockbusters.

oh, so what if games are for hardocre people. its not stopping sny or microsoft from making hardcore games
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LaP

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#26 LaP
Member since 2002 • 17786 Posts

While i don't own a DS or Wii i for one applaud Nintendo for trying to do something different.

I'm honestly not happy with where this industry is going. And i don't mind if Cliff B brother and Mark "i think i'm god" Rein don't agree with me. I don't want expensive multimedia device to become the norm. Andthis industry definately needs to stop targeting male teens still wondering what's inside their pants.

I don't say that games back in the days did not target males under 20. But there was imo more diversity. GoW is a good game but those steroid boosted heroes turned me off after 2 days.Seriously this game was so much stereotypal i thought for a moment it was made by Brute Force creators.

I thought at first that Nintendo would fail with the Wii and DS but i must change my mind. I'm surprised at how much people are interested in the Wii. Even people who should not be interested in it.I can't count the number of adults who likedumb action movie and WWE showing interest in the Wii. I take this as a testament that i'm not alone to be bored bythe current generation offering.

I don't think i'll buy a Wii (i'll probably buya DS though) but i certainlywont startacting like i'm a 30 yo man not having enough confidence inhis masculinity to try cooking mana. If Epic employees and their family want to act this way good for them. I just wonder if this is really what they all think or they just use those comments to sell their games ...