A Look At The Nintendo Wii So Far

The Wii has become one of the fastest selling new consoles in over a decade. It has become a huge success that developers are flocking to the Nintendo system as if it was the return of the Super NES. Gamers and analysts have been stunned, the industry is shifting towards a new direction and Nintendo is making it big once again.

As things seem all great for Nintendo fans, there are many things to consider and perhaps get concerned about. Wii Sports is one of the biggest reasons as to why Wii has become a huge success as it is largely the reason why casual and non-gamers are purchasing the Wii. Games like WarioWare, Big Brain Academy and Wii Music are fantastic titles to attract a new audience. But will Nintendo be able to continue momentum throughout the rest of the next-gen cycle? When PS2 is done for, will developers decide to port older PS2 games or invest into new IPs?

Lets be honest, the lineup so far isnt all that great. Wii has some of the worst titles available by far out of the three systems. From Legend of Dragon, Tamagotchi, World Series of Poker to games like Ant Bully, Far Cry, Rapala and Escape from Bug Island. Most PS2 ports arent that great either and some translated poorly from a graphical and even gameplay side of things. As much as Nintendo core gamers await the big three to be released this year, Metroid Prime 3 is unlikely to make a huge impact with its predecessor having poor sales and the series is not even close to Halos popularity. Brawl and Galaxy will be huge, but what about online gaming (or lack of)? As much as we would all love to believe that the system is also for non-gamers, friend-codes are nowhere near user-friendly.

Developers are also finally speaking out about Wiis technical specs. In reality the Wiis hardware is really a GameCube Plus. Its got a faster CPU and GPU with additional RAM. We have to recall that the Wiis hardware was planned this way for a long time; back when Mr. Yamauchi was planning retirement. Mr. Iwata at E3-2005 mentioned that the advances in the core technologies in the Wii would have no bearing on gameplay. Meaning, the faster CPU and extra RAM in the Wii is really their to handle non-gaming applications such as the Wii Internet browser. The extra capabilities in the GPU and the faster clock speed is a little bonus for developers.

While non-gamers and casual gamers may not care so much about graphics, many Nintendo core gamers actually do. The perception that Wii is above and beyond last-generation is likely to be false. It may have a superior processor and more RAM than the Xbox, but Xbox has a GPU that is nearly comparable to a GeForce 4 (while Wiis GPU is compared to GeForce 2 according to one developer), it has an extra texture unit and has programmable shaders. It can also stream content through the HDD, which can be beneficial. The issue with these core gamers is that most have high expectations of the Wiis graphical capabilities, which is the reason why there are constant complaints against developers delivering PS2-like graphics on the Wii (which is actually a turn-off).

Perhaps some core gamers will turn away in the near future, but it is likely these gamers will decide to purchase a 360 and PS3 as a second console when the prices have gone down. While the Wii will be bringing in new gamers (and a whole load of them), the one thing Nintendo must do in the near future is to keep these gamers intact. The marketing must continue on, developers must be kept happy and the media needs to continue praising the system. The only way Wii can fail is if Nintendo screws themselves over, otherwise expect the system to take the No. 1 spot by the end of 2008 if not sooner.

Fahid Hussain is the owner and writer of http://www.CodenameRevolution.com a gaming specific website.

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