Alot of people are arguing all kinds of things about which system is going to "win" the console wars. They look at many things for their analysis, and history has proven me wrong more often than right, but I like to spout anyway. I've been thinking about the Wii situation, and while I doubt that Nintendo will become the gaming powerhouse they once were, I am starting to turn around on their plan for this generation of systems.
Oddly enough, I've spent alot of time thinking about the same thing that Nintendo has for the past few years, what about non-gamers? Doing a radio show on game music has me used to the hardest of the hardcore, but I often think about non-gamers because people would always call in asking for Pac Man music. (Yeah, other stuff too, but Pac Man was the tops) I often wondered, why Pac Man? He was big 20 years ago, when was the last time someone released a Pac Man game anyone cared about? These people played Pac Man back in the day and quit games as they progressed. They don't even remember that Pac Man doesn't have background music.
These are people I think of when I think of non-gamers. Nintendo seems to think of your grandmother as a non-gamer. Why doesn't grandma game? Why not Mom and Dad? Why not girls? Nintendo hit on part of the answer, the controller is too complex. It really is intimidating. Ever since the Super Nintendo, with its 6 face buttons and two shoulder buttons, controllers have been a bit much. Nintendo is completely correct that their montion control system is much less intimidating than a two analog stick, 4 shoulder button system. I see it as similar to a mouse, possibly the most intuitive input device ever. Move the mouse, move the cursor. It's great.
Let me jump aside and explore why Nintendo's move to make games more accessible makes sense. As games become more hardcore, they increasingly appeal to just gamers. Gamers are big spenders. Snagging them is a huge money maker. Microsoft and Sony are fighting over the hardcore gamers by trying to out hardcore each other. Bigger and better graphics? Pretty, blockbuster games? I, and I'm sure many other hardcore gamers, want those. I and many others will buy many games for these systems, pouring royalties into Microsoft and Sony's coffers. Even within the hardcore gaming shpere, it's still about the games. GTA, Final Fantasy, Halo; these games make people buy systems, not the rendering power. But the rendering power inspires game makers to make these games. Why did people buy Gamecubes? Because they knew that Nintendo would deliver. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, we knew the games would be there. (Funny that only Metroid really delived on the Gamecube) It is all about the games, but there are many things that make games great, and Nintendo in just focusing on a area that has been neglected.
Anyway, as Microsoft and Sony fight it out for most of the game industry, Nintendo had a great idea. Why fight others for customers when you can just make new ones? All those people not gaming... they're not going to Microsoft or Sony, but perhaps with just the right plan, Nitendo can grab them. This allows Nintendo to do an entirely different business plan from the other guys, and their success is now wholly devorced from what the other companies are doing. Nintendo is free to do many more things when they aren't directly competing, and those things will ensure Nintendo's success.
But not in the way they want or you think. See, it is all about the games, and Nintendo has a plan that their competitors cannot match. Nintendo has announced that NES, SNES, and N64 games will be availible on Wii. (Somehow) I'm buying one 80% for that and 20% for the controller. I'm betting that many hardcore gamers are too. Nintendo has set themselves up as a must have second console. Microsoft and Sony don't have that super catalog to draw upon, making it a huge advantage for Nintendo.
So why don't I buy non-gamers getting the Wii? They just aren't interested in playing video games. There is a barrier beyond just the controller that Nintendo ignored. Learning how to play games. In this week's issue of Time, there is a special section on the Wii. Writer Lev Grossman tried a few Wii games, including Warioware, Zelda, and Tennis. He said the tennis was the most fun, and I bet that is the only game of the three that the non-gamers would even want to play. Warioware has never been a complex game. Many of the 5 second games can be solved by pressing one button at the right time. You can't get more simple control-wise. But the game itself is frantic, throwing different minigames at the player with ever increasing speed. Learning to handle the assault is intimidating. You will fail many times before you start to get good. Meanwhile, gamers whip from one minigame to the next, making people embarassed by their "poor" play. They don't want to put in the time to learn how to deal with the game.
Same with Zelda. Sure, you can swing your sword with the remote, but there are so many things to keep track of. Navigating dungeons, finding enemy weakspots, puzzle solving conventions. Even if you don't have to hit the right buttons to use a grappling hook, you still have to learn when you would use one. Yes, for some reason the monster filled dungeon always has that little thing that your grappling hook grabs onto on the othe side of those seemingly uncrossible gaps. Those special rules of game worlds that we all grew up with, no, you can't just climb up the ledge, no, you can't just hop that stupid fence, no, you can't just buy soap in the store, someone, somewhere has it and you have to get them to give it to you. We all learned these things a long time ago and don't even think about them anymore. To people who don't play games, they are just as intimidating as those controllers.
Tennis is different. We all know how to play tennis. Smashing the ball, lobbing ball, just barely popping it over the net by making motions with your arm is probably really fun. Much more so that trying to hit an analog button really hard or really soft. People who have never played a game can play video game tennis and have fun. They know the rules already. Video game golf, video game football, video game baseball will all be great on Wii, and everyone can play them. I'll be shocked if any non-gamers get jazzed about Mario Galaxies, no mater how "simple" the game is to play.
The reason Pac Man, and video games were so big back in the day was because
they were simple in every respect. Simple controls, simple graphics, simple concepts.
You could put the intructions on the arcade machine next to the buttons. Everyone
could pop in a quarter and enjoy the game for a few minutes, clearly worth the
25 cents it cost. Will people decide that it's worth their 200-300 dollars for
a system and some additional money for a game to swing a controller and play
tennis? Probably not. Will they have a great time when they're over at my place
playing tennis on my Wii? You bet. And when they leave, I'll play Super Mario
3 and be happy about every cent I spent on the machine.
