Nerds the world over spent last week peeing into soda cans and perfecting their poor posture, as most of us were glued to live coverage, blogs and news flooding in about E3, the annual show-and-tell for the biggest names in the business.
Certainly, news sites were inundated with plenty of new tech and titles for us all to drool over (or troll in the comments, depending on your disposition). To this end, E3 can be somewhat of a battleground, with many big names contending to see who can spin the wheels of the hype machine the fastest.
This time around, it would seem Nintendo may have edged its way into first place. It’s hard to beat the amount of hype that can be generated by a new console, especially one as innovative and interesting (dare I say strange?) as the Wii U (formerly known as Project Café).
Of course, this isn’t the first time Nintendo has been called insane. Back when the Wii and the DS were still in the womb of development, many thought that the products were doomed to fail due to their refusal to conform to the standard. The DS went on to become the best-selling handheld of all time, and I hear the Wii didn’t do so badly either.
As much as Nintendo has proven themselves capable of taking something crazy and making it work, many can’t help treating this latest creation with a certain measure of skeptical trepidation. And who can blame them? The controller looks like an iPad and a Gameboy got to drinking and did something they both regretted in the morning. Crammed to the hilt with features, there seems to be little the U isn’t capable of. Yet for many, that seems to be part of the problem.
The Good… The Bad… and The Ugly.
The Wii’s success was built upon it targeting “the casual gamer”. It was the console your Dad could play tennis on, your guests could abuse at a house-party and your grandparents could understand (even Fox News couldn’t find a way to protest it). While everyone else was maxing out on the hardcore tech and power-gaming marketing, Nintendo diluted the power of their console in favour of a more diverse gameplay experience. The results were astonishing – at release a Wii was near impossible to find; Nintendo’s production simply couldn’t keep up with the staggering demand. For a long time, Wii was vastly outselling the competition. It seemed the power gamers berating the Wii’s mediocre hardware specs were a vocal minority, as the console continued to fly off the shelves. Once again, Nintendo had proved the critics wrong.
In contrast however, the Wii U is most certainly not lacking in power. Nintendo has assured everyone that it will be outperforming both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in terms of raw power. And if E3 is anything to go by, it will far surpass them in features as well. Nintendo is diving right in to the power-gaming deep-end without so much as testing the water.
While many may see this change in target market as potentially risky, I see it as a necessary evolution. Over the last year or more, the Wii has been steadily fading from the limelight. Media hype tends to follow big-name releases, and almost all of these are not supported by the Wii. The fact is, the video game industry is growing exponentially every year, and the big releases everyone wants have all become power-hungry beasts. Casual gaming has been almost monopolized by the likes of smartphones, tablets and even Facebook. When people sit down in front of their TV, most of them have lost interest in flapping their arms about, trying to make cartoon versions of themselves with large heads swing a tennis racket with varying degrees of ineptitude. They want to shoot people in the face. They want to explore lush, detailed environments and steal cars and beat up hookers. Nintendo has recognized this, and they’re evolving their product. Features such as backwards compatibility also ensure the casual gamer won’t be stranded; they’ll just no longer be the focus. Or rather, they will be – the casual gamer of 2012 is not the same animal as a few years ago.
Shooting stuff: more fun than tennis.
I feel the greatest strength to the U, and why I’m convinced it is going to be an enormous success, is the timing. In the last couple of days I have had two independent conversations with people which emphasized the importance of timing (one related to the U, the other not). Timing is something which is often overlooked, but can actually play a pivotal role in achieving success in any form. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but the Call of Duty games are a prime example of this. They’re released just in time for the holiday season every year, making sure that a huge number of their sales come in the form of holiday gifts. It would seem that the biggest target market for the Call of Duty games are adolescents from middle to upper-class families, and Mr Kotick cashes in on this year after year. While I may have my own gripes about this kind of practice, it makes extremely good business sense. But how does this relate to the U?
The U is slated for a release date “sometime in 2012”. Even with such a vague date to work with, we can be well assured that it’s going to arrive long before anything from Sony or Microsoft. It already has a long list of playable AAA titles – a list which you can be sure will be expanding as time goes on and the gears on the hype machine begin to cycle even faster. The U will be entering the market at a time when it has zero competition – and it will be the best, most powerful and feature rich console available. With such an explosive head-start on the competition, it almost won’t matter what Sony and Microsoft offer in their next generation, because the U would have already established itself by then. The Wii’s popularity has certainly tapered off, but not before Nintendo made a packet off it.
We frequently see a similar battle waged between Nvidia and ATI. The race is on to be the first to run out the next generation of powerhouse video cards. If you’re the first out of the gate, you’re the new tech that everyone looks to when deciding to upgrade. Coming in first is an enormous advantage, and Nintendo knows it.
At the moment, the only barrier to success I can foresee is an unreasonable price point – but you have to imagine this has been considered. I feel confident in saying that Nintendo is going to do it again.
Do you think the U will be unmitigated garbage or the best-selling console to date? Share your opinion in the forums, or comment below!
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