What happens to stoopid Wiis 

Duuuuh…waggle waggle….duuuuh.  

By Billy Blogs

In a recent IGN episode of their Gamescoop podcast, Daemon Hatfield called the Nintendo Wii stupid.  Needless to say that he copped quite a bit of flack for his opinion from the Nintendo community at large, going on to defend his position on his IGN blog.  He writes: 

“Wow, a lot of people flipped the fuck out after i called the Wii "stupid" on last week's Game Scoop! I was pretty surprised by the response, as this is hardly a controversial statement… 

What bothers me most about the reaction is that gamers don't seem to realize I’m on their side. I've been a Nintendo fan all my life; Mario 64 and Majora's Mask are my favourite games of all time. You and I deserve better than what Nintendo is delivering these days. Nintendo used to be the company we could count on to bring us the most technologically advanced games, packed full of the most fun and interesting game mechanics anywhere. When it arrived in 1998, Ocarina of Time was probably the greatest achievement in videogames' short lifespan. What do we have now? An underpowered system that adds goofy waggle controls to last-generation games. As I said, some developers are still producing great games with this modest hardware. But the other systems are moving the industry forward with Fallout 3, Dead Space, The Orange Box, Modern Warfare, God of War III, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Alan Wake... 

All of this is, of course, still just my opinion.”

The shirt that was inspired by this rant.

I couldn’t agree with him more.  I’ve had a falling out with my Wii for quite some time now.  I can’t even remember the last time I played a game on it.  Mad World certainly got my interest, but when I thought about all the hours of waggle ahead of me, I thought I would give it a miss.  I have to be quite honest here when I say that I’m really over the waggle.  I’m all for new tech and new ways of interacting with games and virtual environments, but sometimes the Wii feels like too much hard work.  If it isn’t the hundreds of titles lurking on the shelves at my local EB games store, most of which is big publisher shovel-ware that usually end up being nothing more than a collection of mini-games involving waggle, waggle and more waggle, it is the annoying ‘lifestyle’ advertisements on TV that show some second rate celebrity I could give two shiny shites about.   So what if Delta Goodrem and her pop-star husband are playing the Wii in a spacious all white lounge room, who cares if Kieran Perkins and some other guy I vaguely recognize from some sport I hate are playing tennis on Wii-sports, the whole thing is entirely lost on me.  In fact the more of these adverts they put out, the more out of touch with Nintendo I feel.  

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Ninty’s first party games are amazing, Mario Galaxy, Metroid, Zelda, these are all wonderful titles that I actually enjoy playing, but since these games are few and far between and involving characters I’m starting to get a little tired of seeing, my fanboydom for Nintendo is slowing to a crawl.   Now while I’m taking the side of what many might think to be that of the ‘hardcore’ gamer, I’ve been a massive fan of Nintendo for years.  No-one understands that bringing gaming to the masses is going to benefit everyone in the long run more than me (and make Nintendo bucket loads of coinage in the process) I get that and I’m not knocking their hustle. I’m just starting to get a little fatigued with the same old rehashed franchises (admittedly some still rock) and with the Wii being used as little more than a graveyard for games that wouldn’t dare show up on a Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 library, the future support of old school Nintendo supporters like me is going to diminish, only to be replaced with ‘casual’ gamers that still need to look down at their controller before pressing a button. I’m not saying that the two more powerful consoles are devoid of any bad games, but at least they aren’t consistently bad. 

 Shiggy - comin at ya with dat WOW type of cash. (Not pictured: Waggling)

If I were a kid, the Wii would’ve been the most amazing thing ever, and I truly am jealous that the entry point for children is something like the Wii.  We would’ve loved it and it looks like kids still do.  However those of us that have grown up playing Nintendo, seem to of moved on to greener pastures.  It’s sad to see the people that supported Nintendo all those years ago, have now gone their separate ways, only occasionally visiting every six months or so for a cup of coffee and a quick game of Mario.  No, it seems that gamers like us have grown up and require machines that cater to the grown up.  Makes sense really, and since Nintendo have a different idea of what they want their core audience to be from now , they will find that us old schoolers have gone on to play with bigger and badder toys.  

Maybe I’ll go and blow the dust off my Wii and load it up to play some games off the Virtual Console, maybe after another round of COD 4…maybe not.  But that's just my opinion.