How Nintendo's Wii could rule the gaming world
news via jakartapost
The time has come to choose a new video game console for households and video game kiosks. Console producers, especially Wii (pronounced wee) from Nintendo Co., have targeted their systems to appeal to both young and old alike.
The question now is which console will rule the Indonesian market. Will it be Wii, PlayStation 3 (PS3) from Sony or XBOX 360 from Microsoft?
It is easy to tell who will not rule. XBOX 360 has already been out for a year without a game title that people really want to play.
Nintendo's Wii, with its innovative remote sensing controller, beats the PS3 in several aspects. Wii is the cheapest among the three consoles. With a retail price of US$249 (Rp 2.2 million), a gamer can go home with a full set, including a multi-sport game and a controller. The PS3, on the other hand, retails for $500 or and $600, with the difference depending on hard disk space.
The relatively affordable price makes the Wii more attractive for people who only want to play games. Sony, with its price, has a double objective. Its system is actually a subsidized Blu-ray player, the next wave in home video systems. If Blu-ray sells well, then High Definition Video spearheaded by other companies will have to dim its lights. Sony, however, failed to dominate its own Betamax to VHS two decades ago in the world market.
Nintendo, well known for its mustachioed plumber Mario series, is more player-oriented than PS3 in terms of innovation and playability.
Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros and the Legend of Zelda, says high-tech or realistic graphics are not their main concern. "I stood behind the gamers to study how to make the experience of gaming more fun to everybody," Shigeru said as quoted by CNN.
Nintendo has invented a new controller, a remote control-like device that people use as a magic wand or sword in fantasy games, a racket in tennis games or a gun in shooting games.
The drawback so far is that the strap, which is used to hold the controller close to the wrist, can break and fly off in the excitement of the moment. A change to a stronger strap, however, is on the way.
PS3 duplicatedcontroller concept to some extent in that it also uses motion sensor. However, their wireless controller still looks like a conventional controller which is held with both hands.
Nintendo has created pixelized characters that old school gamers have fallen in love with. Link, an elf-like hero from Legend of Zelda, and Samus Aran, probably the first superstar female to fight aliens in a game called Metroid, have ongoing series.
Not only are these characters marketable, their gameplay has been highly fluid, exact and responsive to players, compared to other video games.
The success of the current Nintendo console will depend on how many third-party game producers will support the console with their titles. Nintendo has been known to exclude many third-party releases, and this has made it suffer in the past as gamers bought other systems.
Wii's predecessor, the Nintendo 64, was left behind when the original PlayStation came out. Customers had a chance to play more games with PS than with the Nintendo 64.
Nintendo's strategy, which was to play it safe and not cater to games with violent content, has deterred mature players from buying the console.
PS2, the best-selling console of all time with over 100 million units sold, has been successful because of the multitude of titles available under its belt and moderate retail price. From role playing, shoot-em-ups to silly puzzle games, they have them all. PS3, with all its might, will have a hard time replacing PS2 in most local video game kiosks if it remains so expensive.
For Nintendo, the number of consoles sold correlates to third-party software. Could the big guys at Nintendo tolerate games such as the popular Grand Theft Auto franchise? If they can, then PS3 will be in for a much harder race.
Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, says that Wii should attract both avid gamers and non-gamers alike. Simple and easy to learn games could have the whole family enjoying playing video games together. In this sense, graphic details and computing power, which is the strength of PS3, is not a concern for Wii.
PS3, which created hysteria during its launch day, turns out to be a complicated machine. Gamers have to deal with its hard-to-understand operating interface to be able to enjoy its capabilities.
Iwata says that Wii has adapted to the increasingly busy lives of people, so a small learning curve is paramount. A person should be able to pick up the controller and learn to play a game within minutes.
Nintendo DS, a handheld released in 2004, has been selling well because of a game called Brain Age. The game is directed toward people who want to train their brain power, such as by playing Sudoku. The game, something of a rarity, sold well among older people. The crystal clear double-screen, which can be touched with the hand or a stylus, is a delight for gamers with poor eyesight.
In Indonesia, PS2 has been the household name for all gamers. However, almost all of the games sold in stalls are counterfeits, creating huge financial losses for the industry.
Back in the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) era, the first Nintendo console to hit the market, counterfeit games were already being sold, but buying original games was also affordable.
Both Wii and PS3 have tried to make it hard to play counterfeit games on their consoles.
But with original games costing about $60 for both Wii and PS3, an unavailability of counterfeit games might translate into fewer consoles being sold in the country.
Some gamers are concerned about the swarm of fake products, but they are the ones who can afford the originals.
Nintendo, which started as a card games company about a hundred years ago in Japan, has its dedicated fans. And people with fond memories of long afternoons spent with the Nintendo Entertainment System during their younger years might want to check out the Wii.
