Did the Wii's early success make it a worse console?

I just saw this quote from Iwata that got me thinking:

"We think it is very important to provide people with contents in which they can easily experience glassless 3D images. In particular, we need to enhance the contents which can be enjoyed passively by non-active users, like a 3D video distribution service. We will promptly work on this after the currently planned hardware update. There is no easy road to making people understand the attraction of glassless 3D images and making Nintendo 3DS widespread. We would like to adhere to these patient efforts." - Iwata

Nintendo is looking at the decent-but-not-great sales of the 3DS and thinking "OH CRAP, we need to do more stuff to get people to buy this thing!"

What if Nintendo had been forced to do more to entice people to buy the Wii when it first came out?

When the Wii was first announced, Nintendo made a bunch of promises that never came to pass. They really talked up WiiConnect24 with stuff like messages on your birthday, automatic game updates that would download overnight, DLC, etc. And the bit of memory in the controller only ended up being used to move Miis from one console to another, even though that function had more potential. And there were other things that weren't promised but were possible and never came to be, like more Mii interaction and integrated voice chat and more first-party downloadable games.

I think one of the main reasons we never saw any really major improvements to the Wii at its core is because Nintendo never needed to put that kind of effort into selling more consoles. The Wii was sold out for at least two years and has only become easily available within the last two years or so. At that point, they were already worked intensely on the 3DS, and work on the next home console had ramped up, so any work on Wii firmware updates took a backseat.

I know this is a weird argument, but I think the Wii would've ended up being a better overall console if it hadn't sold so well so quickly. I'm not talking about better games necessarily (though I guess that could be argued, too), just the functions of the console itself. And maybe Motion Plus would've been released sooner and emphasized more if it had been necessary to boost sales.

What do you think?

I don't think that anything could save the Wii after 2008

The Wii was the "right now" console that didn't have any features to offer users or devs past 2008 when HD became the mainstream.

Nintendo is talking a lot of "well we should have got some devs to sign on" and that's great but unless Nintendo wanted to overpay for them no dev was going to waste their time on the machine. The idea of lowering their standards in various areas of development just doesn't sound like a great idea and we saw this gen that devs don't want to downgrade to work on platforms.

If the Wii sold modestly what could they have done? We'd see more Wii channels but then again the Wii's memory issue comes into play so that rules out things like expanding the Wiiware size limit. The specs of the console prevent anything.

The Wii was really stuck as it is, the combination of standard definition plus no expandability plus the fact that no dev wants to dumb down their work means that even if the Wii didn't sell like gangbusters from the jump I can't see anything that could have been done to fix it.

The only thing I think is if the Wii sold poorly we'd see a new console announced 2008 and released 2009.

I mean the last 3 years have been Nintendo trying to save the Wii, the last year we've had a sneak peek on how Nintendo would have tried to save the Wii if it didn't sell well from the start and they've shown us that they don't really have an ideas on how to bypass the limitations of the console to make that happen, hence a new machine at E3.

i see your point, but nintendo isn't short-sighted. they would have made those things in order to keep the amusing sales even on the later years. it's not a "meh, i don't need it now, it sold well the past month and it'll sell well the next month" thing, so whatever made them ignore the potential of the console was not related to the "easy money" from the first year.BrunoBRS

I agree with you in that the Wii's success made it so that Nintendo didn't HAVE to make as large of an effort to sell it. It's actually a pretty good business tactic because they can save things for when they really need them to succeed. As a consumer it's kind of disappointing, but Nintendo did more than enough to make me very happy this generation, so can't complain too much :P

What's even better is that Nintendo is wise enough to realize and acknowledge this. Another company made the mistake of resting on their laurels of the previous generation and they lost millions of dollars because of it until they realized they had to bust their butts in an explosion of first party development. Thankfully this lesson seems to be learned by Nintendo so it will be very interesting to see how they handle things in the future!

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"]i see your point, but nintendo isn't short-sighted. they would have made those things in order to keep the amusing sales even on the later years. it's not a "meh, i don't need it now, it sold well the past month and it'll sell well the next month" thing, so whatever made them ignore the potential of the console was not related to the "easy money" from the first year.JordanElek

Lack of games from third-party games made it the worst console, not the console itself.godfather_1

And Nintendo could've done things with the console to help third parties. Making the Wii Shop Channel more accessible and user friendly would be one thing (plus some marketing of it on the side). Building a better online system is another. Providing some sort of option for DLC (though they might've screwed themselves right off the bat because of hardware constraints, like Jaysonguy said), etc.

As a consumer, it's pretty easy to see in hindsight how the Wii could've been better without making hardware changes. But as a business, Nintendo didn't really HAVE to do anything to make it more appealing. That speaks volumes in terms of the Wii's appeal as it is, but it still would've been nice to see Nintendo really reach for those improvements. Can't really blame them for not using up resources when they didn't have to, though.

it made it good for nintendo i dont see how on earth a console that sold well for 4 years is making it bad for nintendo

mariokart64fan

[QUOTE="godfather_1"]Lack of games from third-party games made it the worst console, not the console itself.JordanElek

And Nintendo could've done things with the console to help third parties. Making the Wii Shop Channel more accessible and user friendly would be one thing (plus some marketing of it on the side). Building a better online system is another. Providing some sort of option for DLC (though they might've screwed themselves right off the bat because of hardware constraints, like Jaysonguy said), etc.

As a consumer, it's pretty easy to see in hindsight how the Wii could've been better without making hardware changes. But as a business, Nintendo didn't really HAVE to do anything to make it more appealing. That speaks volumes in terms of the Wii's appeal as it is, but it still would've been nice to see Nintendo really reach for those improvements. Can't really blame them for not using up resources when they didn't have to, though.

Nintendo is looking at the decent-but-not-great sales of the 3DS and thinking "OH CRAP, we need to do more stuff to get people to buy this thing!"

JordanElek

I don't really think that's what's happening though. The 3D video service has been planned since the begining. Not really an "OH CRAP" kind of deal. We will really be able to tell through how they market it though, so I guess I'll reserve my judgement on this till then.

But, for probably the 4th or 5th time in as many years here on the wii boards I will say this. I agree with Jasonguy. The wii had no place left to go a few years ago due to hardware limitations and, even worse, limitations on the imagination of developers. Not that they couldn't think of cool things to do with the Wii, butnothing that they could have ever got the funding for. The industry was just against it.

I've been anything but impressed with Nintendo's harware development, going as far as back as the N64. Their constant focus on trying to be unique instead of what's practical and what would make the most sense a few years down the line has been their achilles heel in my opinion. I'm sure that even they must've known that the Wii's hardware(beyond the motion controls) would become outdated rather quickly. But hey, the console still turned outto be a massive success and a complete cash cow in a brief period of time, so who am Ito criticize I suppose ;)

yea, i think your on to something....we might have got a ds to wii peripheral attachment or star fox and fzero...we will never know.

I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.meetroid8

Yes they were lazy and your argument doesn't help disprove that

Zelda = Gamecube game lazy port to the Wii
Mario Galaxy = Good game
Metroid 3 = Good game
Smash Bros = broken online

50/50 isn't great when there was no excuse for it

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.Jaysonguy

Yes they were lazy and your argument doesn't help disprove that

Zelda = Gamecube game lazy port to the Wii
Mario Galaxy = Good game
Metroid 3 = Good game
Smash Bros = broken online

50/50 isn't great when there was no excuse for it

but meetroid, TC was actually talking more on the features side than the game side.

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.Jaysonguy

Yes they were lazy and your argument doesn't help disprove that

Zelda = Gamecube game lazy port to the Wii
Mario Galaxy = Good game
Metroid 3 = Good game
Smash Bros = broken online

50/50 isn't great when there was no excuse for it

Nintendo was not lazy. They were too busy trying to keep up with the demand since the Wii was completely sold out worldwide for 2+ years.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.wiifan001

Yes they were lazy and your argument doesn't help disprove that

Zelda = Gamecube game lazy port to the Wii
Mario Galaxy = Good game
Metroid 3 = Good game
Smash Bros = broken online

50/50 isn't great when there was no excuse for it

Nintendo was not lazy. They were too busy trying to keep up with the demand since the Wii was completely sold out worldwide for 2+ years.

[QUOTE="wiifan001"]

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

Yes they were lazy and your argument doesn't help disprove that

Zelda = Gamecube game lazy port to the Wii
Mario Galaxy = Good game
Metroid 3 = Good game
Smash Bros = broken online

50/50 isn't great when there was no excuse for it

BrunoBRS

Nintendo was not lazy. They were too busy trying to keep up with the demand since the Wii was completely sold out worldwide for 2+ years.

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"]

[QUOTE="wiifan001"] That's a terrible mix of examples. 4 examples and you cast judgment to Nintendo over its course of what will be 5 years for the Wii as 50/50? Not applicable. There's over 10 Mario games, and Smash Bros hit its mark in so many areas offline. Brawl still has arguable the strongest, most competitive offline multiplayer in all the Wii. That's a big accomplishment!

Nintendo was not lazy. They were too busy trying to keep up with the demand since the Wii was completely sold out worldwide for 2+ years.

wiifan001

[QUOTE="wiifan001"]

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"] he just grabbed those 4 to talk about the first 2 years of the wii because those are the ones meetroid used.

BrunoBRS

You know how the success created a worse console?

They tried to add motions to everything. Mario Galaxy didn't need motion and New Super Mario is downright broken in places because of the motion.

Nintendo was lazy and instead of trying to expand gameplay they said "ehh just throw some motions in and we'll call it new"

That really hurt them this generation, their games that should have been great ended up middle of the road because they always turned to motions no matter if it was needed or not

You know how the success created a worse console?

They tried to add motions to everything. Mario Galaxy didn't need motion and New Super Mario is downright broken in places because of the motion.

Nintendo was lazy and instead of trying to expand gameplay they said "ehh just throw some motions in and we'll call it new"

That really hurt them this generation, their games that should have been great ended up middle of the road because they always turned to motions no matter if it was needed or not

Jaysonguy

You're saying motion controls created a worse console?

You're right about Mario Galaxy not needing motion controls, but those controls enhanced the gameplay that wouldn't have brought the same experience without them. Manta ray surfing, rolling on top of a ball, and controlling a fan to Mario trapped inside a bubble are just a few examples Nintendo put forth in the ideas of Mario Galaxy alone. The controls were tight, responsive, and it took advantage of the brilliant idea of motion controls to gaming.

As for New Super Mario, I don't know places you're places you're talking about...but Nintendo opted out gamecube and classsic controller support for a reason. They wanted the consumer to play it the way Nintendo wanted them to, and that's what Nintendo got.

Based on the Nintendo games I've played, motion control added, or at least side stepped if anything, way more often than motion control hurting them. Yeah, you have broken Twilight Princess and Smash Bros Brawl motion controls and other examples, but the overall management from Warioware Smooth Moves to Kirby to Metroid Prime 3 and other franchises certainly didn't hurt, much less make them lazy.

You're saying motion controls created a worse console?

wiifan001

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

[QUOTE="wiifan001"]

You're saying motion controls created a worse console?

Jaysonguy

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

Most of the cases of the Nintendo games I've played on the wii turned out either enhancing it (Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Warioware Smooth Moves, etc.) or games that side step. As long as the motion controls that side step from traditional button controls are quick and easy to perform, and responsive, adding them in isn't a bad thing, nor lazy. The Wiimote/Nunchuk has far less buttons, and Nintendo wants to push motion control. As long as the motion controls aren't at least worse and not hinder the gameplay (which most cases they aren't worse, and actually many times aren't even mandatory ala Smash Bros Brawl), I'm totally fine with motion controls.

I havent played DKC Returns, yet, so I can't comment on that.

You know how the success created a worse console?

They tried to add motions to everything. Mario Galaxy didn't need motion and New Super Mario is downright broken in places because of the motion.

Nintendo was lazy and instead of trying to expand gameplay they said "ehh just throw some motions in and we'll call it new"

That really hurt them this generation, their games that should have been great ended up middle of the road because they always turned to motions no matter if it was needed or not

Jaysonguy

I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.meetroid8

That really hurt them this generation, their games that should have been great ended up middle of the road because they always turned to motions no matter if it was needed or not

Jaysonguy

And again, I'm not talking about software. I'm talking about features of the Wii itself that could've been used to entice both users and developers.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.Jaysonguy

Jordan I would have to say I disagree, basically I guess your saying struggle would have forced their hand with the Wii and I don't think that's the case. The GC struggled and Nintendo didn't budge until the next console, the Wii struggled with the 3rd party and again, Nintendo didn't budge and come out with oft confirmed by Pachter Wii HD, that was suppose to make everything all better. The only time Nintendo ever budged was on M rated content like MK on the SNES. A struggle would not have benefited the audience at all, look at the cube, not only was their a severe lack of 3rd party support, there was less incentive for Nintendo to go nuts on the cube.

The success of the Wii actually forced Nintendo to release more titles, I can imagine if the Wii was a distant 3rd, Nintendo would have held back. Its like pick any sport, your a losing team and your not making the playoffs. You take your best players and you shelf them, no reason to run them out there and potentially get hurt with nothing to gain. I think Nintendo would have gone with the "get em next year" mentality and a lot of the software we saw, we wouldn't have. Adversity could force a companies hand to do something that benefits the consumer, like a $600 console dropping a few hundred bucks and boy oh boy, could the DLC market use a struggle, But Nintendo is a companies whose history has shown they are willing to weather the storm and come back again and that usually doesn't benefit the audience.

As I see it, those are wasted opportunities. Though, Nintendo never needed to capitalize on them.

They always had success with the Wii. Why waste money and time doing those things when they can use it elsewhere? I think Nintendo took the success of the Wii as well as what they did well and what they didn't do well, in order to design the 3DS and decide how they would market it (just look at how much they're handling stock with their partners versus the Wii). Again, they'll look at the 3DS and see how they can better improve their new hardware based on the mistakes of the older hardware.

I think they'd rather just spend that time, money and resources on building an even better platform for next gen, which would be the must talked about "Project Cafe".

[QUOTE="wiifan001"]

You're saying motion controls created a worse console?

Jaysonguy

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

[QUOTE="wiifan001"]

You're saying motion controls created a worse console?

locopatho

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

[QUOTE="locopatho"][QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

Shinobishyguy

It's honestly hardly noticeable. I've put a lot of hours into both NSMB and DKCR and I had MAYBE one or two deaths per game because I wasn't used to the motion controls timing in the beginning. To say these games were ruined by motion is a REALLY overdramatic dramatization :P

[QUOTE="locopatho"][QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

No, the console is worse because Nintendo was allowed to get lazy and tack on motion control to everything.

They used a crutch all this generation because the second they had to evolve any of their games they added motions even if they didn't need to be there.

Nintendo has atrophied this generation when it comes to games, most of their games are the same old thing made worse because of tacked on motions.

Wii Sports? That's fine

DK Country? That's &*#@^&@# criminal to allow that to be screwed up by motions.

Shinobishyguy

It doesn't ruin the games. It's just the games are SO GOOD that the fact that they are marred in any way is annoying. It's like getting to drive a Bugatti Veyron, but the steering is a bit off. Yeah it's still super awesome but I'll always be wishing I was getting the perfect experience! Cos I seriously think NSMBW and DKCR are the best 2D platformers Nintendo ever made. Yet I still find myself playing some of the older Mario games on VC instead just so I can use the cIassic pad. It's just another little "missed opportunity" that I wish Nintendo had addressed!

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.JordanElek

[QUOTE="JordanElek"]

[QUOTE="meetroid8"]I'm not sure what you mean TC. Are you saying that Nintendo was lazy during the Wii's first couple years because of the success? Because I would seriously have to argue against that, after only a little over a year we already had Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash Bros on the Wii, and they were all excellent.meetroid8

[QUOTE="meetroid8"][QUOTE="JordanElek"] I'm not talking about the software lineup at all, just the potential of the hardware. And even then, I can't call it laziness because Nintendo always has their hardware people working on new things. But without the initial runaway success, they might've had to concentrate more on the Wii to figure out how to get more compelling things into it to use as marketing tools. In the end, that kind of thing would've made the Wii more functional, like we're seeing with the 3DS.

BrunoBRS

And this is why its always important to read the OP. :P

meetroid8

But the thing with motion controls is that if they didn't catch on like they did, I don't know if the right response from Nintendo would've been "HURRY!!! MORE MOTION CONTROLS!!!" They might've backed off from too much motion from the start if they saw that it wasn't catching on.

Or maybe a more tepid response from consumers would've accelerated the development of Motion Plus so they could say "Look! It works now!" I don't know. People did complain about responsiveness from the start, but they complained with their mouths instead of their wallets, so Nintendo didn't really need to respond quickly.

Like I said in my last post, I doubt it, Nintendo's history has shown that even in difficult times, they will stay the course, they don't retreat and panic and try to come up with things to turn the tide. Sepewrath

I don't think they would have rushed out M+, the fact that system was so popular, it demands that they did it and get it right, because people would notice if they got it wrong. A struggling system would not be quite the embarrassment, if M+ came up short. Sepewrath

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but like I said, I could see it going either way. There would've been good reason to back off from motion, and there would've been good reason to make it better. I have no idea which the better choice would be. Both paths could've offered up some good games.

[QUOTE="Shinobishyguy"][QUOTE="locopatho"] I think you being a bit harsh but I do agree it's horrible the way they jammed motions into EVERYTHING. Tilting and shaking like a dbag when trying to enjoy awesome 2D platformers like Mario, Wario, DK and Kirby is awful. And shaking to spin in Galaxy is annoying to. I wish they had been "brave" (silly choice of word) enough to let those games stand on their own and not force stuff on us.locopatho

It doesn't ruin the games. It's just the games are SO GOOD that the fact that they are marred in any way is annoying. It's like getting to drive a Bugatti Veyron, but the steering is a bit off. Yeah it's still super awesome but I'll always be wishing I was getting the perfect experience! Cos I seriously think NSMBW and DKCR are the best 2D platformers Nintendo ever made. Yet I still find myself playing some of the older Mario games on VC instead just so I can use the cIassic pad. It's just another little "missed opportunity" that I wish Nintendo had addressed!

Cos I seriously think NSMBW and DKCR are the best 2D platformers Nintendo ever made. Yet I still find myself playing some of the older Mario games on VC instead just so I can use the cIassic pad. locopatho