I hope you enjoyed your first weekend with Grand Theft Auto IV. I bet you didn’t even touch your Wii.
Yeah, that could be a problem for Nintendo.
The lack of GTA IV for the Wii has been noticed by Forbes, which says such a lack may “threaten” the Wii just as its existence on the PS3 may help revive Sony’s once-ailing console. (Not “ailing” in the sense that it was a failure, but in the sense that the perception was that there were no good games for it.) People may now be “over” the Wii’s quirky little charms after seeing what proper systems can do—good luck create a game with the same scale as GTA IV on the Wii—with proper games.
Now, Forbes clearly says “Wii won’t die,” but the overall suggestion, that Wii could be in for a bit of a rough patch, is certainly enough to upset the many diehard Nintendo fans, the kind who engage in flame wars online like they’re being paid.
I’m not one to disagree with Forbes, but I think this is a matter of audience. The Wii audience is substantially made up of non-gamers. All those “non-gamer” types probably only know GTA from media coverage on its violent content. GTA’s absence won’t be terribly missed. Hardcore gamers who own a Wii knew what they were getting into, and probably own a second system already.
And for us old-time (20 to 30 years of gaming), not so hard-core gamer…not having GTA is not a big loss. I mean, I might get the game for my PS3 or 360, but right now Mario Kart and Brawl have been all that I’ve played for the last 2 months.
Now when Gears II or Resistance II comes out, the Wii might not get used. Maybe MGS4, it might actually sell me on the MGS series, yet.
agree, that is exactly my feeling. I think it is wrong to assume that its the same type of gamer who purchases either a Wii or a PS3/Xbox as their sole system. Most people who own a Wii are not going to care.
I believe this is very wishful thinking. Mario Kart Wii was just released, and Wii Fit is going to sell millions. It already has. I think Nintendo’s marketing strategy is just too strong this time around for one game to completely change the dynamic of the current industry. Plus, the Wii is on the verge of seriously using the V.R. head tracking that Johnny Lee demonstrated a few months back. The game Boom Blox is already using it, and if this gets into the right hands, an fps with a good implementation of this kind of tech would kill the other consoles–even more. Imagine a cover system with V.R. head tracking. It doesn’t get much better than that.
David,
The V.R. head tracking was dropped from Boom Blox. The explanation was that it was never really intended to be a released feature. But in light of the news that Boom Blox could go multi-platform, maybe they just didn’t think it was a feature that would make for a good port.
If we’re going to place bets on this, I think it’s extremely safe to assume that the Wii isn’t going anywhere soon. The whole “Wii gimmick will die out” theory has been going on since the first two weeks the system came out in 2006.
Well, the damn thing continues to outsell the PS3 and Xbox 360. It’s nearly impossible to find a Wii on most retails stores in the US. The console totally dominates the other two next-gen consoles in Japan and it’s on it’s way to do it in Europe as well.
The fact that the Wii is not going anywhere, has motivated some companies that mostly develop “core games” to attack it. You got Epic, Bioware and Rockstar trying to convince people that the Wii ain’t worth it. You know why? Because THEY feel threatened and scared over the fact that the core gamer audience is actually SMALL compared to the more casual gamer crowd. So they’re fighting back, as if casual games are going to make them go the way of the Dinosaurs. Did they forget that Sony started the whole “let’s cater casuals” strategy with their PS1 and PS2 consoles? How soon we forget, eh?
“is certainly enough to upset the many diehard Nintendo fans, the kind who engage in flame wars online like they’re being paid…”
^^^ Don’t be such an ignoramus. The Wii user base is more diverse than past Nintendo consoles. If it was only up to Nintendo fans, that console would never have become the success that it is. So get with the times old timer… most fanboys are currently playing GTA IV not Wii Sports.
Is this an episode of “The Unreasonable Stance” in disguise?