The Four Stages of Wii

But the developers were right. The hardware sold way more than they thought it would, and held on for way longer, so they were wrong about that part. But it's filled to the brim with shovelware, and even people who love it and think it's so great can't or won't make good games for it. Look at Wright. He said that the Wii was the only "real" next-gen console because it's the only one that really turns gaming on its head by being so innovative. Then he makes a game which he thinks is creative and innovative, and it physically can't run on the Wii. The processor is too weak, the online functionality is crippled. Ironically, the pointer function on the Wiimote is a really good thing for Spore, but it doesn't matter because the hardware sucks.

And that's where the real revolution shows itself. It's not the machine. The machine is a souped-up Gamecube. It's not the controller; the controller is kinda cool, but gesture recognition is actually a step back from buttons in terms of ease-of-use. The "revolutionary idea" was pure hype. Absolutely top-notch, brilliant work on the part of the marketing and advertising. They sold a crappy machine at a profit to people who didn't understand video games and didn't care to. They don't really play the games, they won't get in shape with Wii Fit, the system collects dust in their homes and their money collects interest in Nintendo's bank account. Third-party devs are, as usual, put off by Nintendo's hostile behavior towards them, and this generation is the time when Nintendo figures out to make something that looks like an Apple product and advertise it well instead of focusing on software.

A brilliant move, and it sold more than anyone expected, but developers were right in saying that it's a fad, it'll get nothing but shovelware, and it's a cheap gimmick that's too weak to have good games.

"But do we need to do this in our creative lives? Do we have to take a long time to react to surprises in the marketplace?

Is there a reason we can't immediately target a new audience?"

People will always prefer what worked in the past over an uncertain future. This is the reason we have Halo 3 and Gears of War 2 bringing in tons of revenue, and more sequels and spin-offs on the way. Players don't want to invest $60 (or hundreds for a new console) in a game which may or may not entertain them. Companies don't want to sink millions into a game which may or may not be successful. This goes double for new paradigms (as in Gamecube -> Wii).

So yes, there will always be a "learning curve" of sorts for any new innovation, even in the gaming world. Only the early adopter segment is going to be able to be flexible and forward-thinking enough to invest in new innovations like the Wii platform, and if you (read: your company) aren't in that early adopter mindset category, then you will not be able to ride on the incoming tide of change.

Keep in mind, though, that not every innovation works. The early adopter segment isn't that big because a lot of innovations fall on their face, and lots of people lose lots of money. Who's to say it wasn't going to happen to the Wii? Thinking back, do you think you would have been able to confidently defend sinking a large investment of resources into the new Wii technology a year before you did?

If you want to know how to target a new audience and/or take advantage of a new innovation immediately, find the answer to that question.

Wow, anonymous (aren't all posters expected to use their names?), your arrogance is pretty staggerring. Apparently the Wii is sold to people who "don't understand video games". I guess that makes you the true enlightened one who "really gets it". It couldn't possibly be that people have different interests. No, it must be that anyone who doesn't have the same interests as you is "wrong".

And too weak to have good games? I'm very sorry for you if you feel that only games with cutting-edge graphics can be good. Personally, I think there are plenty of great games on older consoles, like Link to the Past, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid . . . I could go on for quite some time. It's too bad that you're missing out on all those great games because they don't use new technology. But I guess the only good games are the new ones, right? It's the same with music. The Beatles? What a trash band, they couldn't even do surround sound back in the 60s.

For the record, I don't own a Wii and I don't want one, but the self-important tone of your post makes you sound childish.

Yeah, Adam, posters are asked to use their real names - we'll sort Mr. Anonymous out after GDC quietens down (won't delete his post right now, we'd rather people just change their name.)

Adam, I think you misconstrued my point about not understanding games. It's not my personal assertion that they don't understand games. Nintendo deliberately targeted "non-gamers" (their term, I believe) with the Wii. Non-gamers, by definition, do not understand games. Just like illiterate people don't understand novels. There's no arrogance involved, it's just a fact.

I also don't disagree that older, lower-tech platforms had some really great games. But new games with new ideas, really progressive stuff, generally requires new platforms. You can make a new collectible card game if you want, and it can be good, but moving games forward, making bigger and more intricate games, exploring totally new spaces, all that kind of stuff...it generally requires better technology. Even Will Wright, a huge champion of the Wii and "innovation" in gaming (his word), ran into the business end of that fact with Spore when his new, creative idea physically couldn't run on the hardware. At the end of the day, the console itself is just hardware, so it might as well be powerful, in order that developers have the most possible options when making games.

Sorry that you don't like the tone.

Adam, you named Metal Gear Solid. That's actually a point in favor of needing advanced technology. Look at the second, third, and fourth games in that series. MGS 1 was a great game, no argument there. But MGS 2 had vastly-improved AI, multiple types of enemies, more enemies on-screen at once, more weapons and moves for the player to use, and it looked way better, too. MGS 3 had everything from MGS2 as well as a camo system, a food/stamina system, much bigger, more open areas, and had dogs and vehicles working alongside regular soldiers. Then the jump to the next console was made and a more robust online game (with patching!) was introduced, plus the Octo-Camo visual effect (didn't need to go to a menu for it), way more enemies, huge outdoor areas, multiple AI factions, loads more weapons and customization beyond just "suppressor or no suppressor," and, of course, much better graphics overall. (Look at MGS 4's version of Shadow Moses and compare it to MGS 1!)

Some of those graphical elements, like visually-identifiable differences in enemy type, fast texture streaming for Octo-Camo, and the raw polycount to render gigantic outdoor scenes are absolutely needed to improve the gameplay. The extra CPU cycles to run all those AIs and have AIs that can spot and attack other AIs (not just the player) is needed. The extra memory to handle complex tasks and many weapons and enemies is needed. The robust online functionality of the console, and the ability to patch...needed.

The "graphics versus gameplay" dichotomy is a fallacy. You don't have to choose between the two, and having an underpowered system does not mean that you get better games. In fact, having a more powerful system actually allows games to advance, and the Metal Gear Solid series is a great example of this. There is simply no way that the complex gameplay of MGS 4 (or even MGS 2 or 3) could exist on the original PlayStation. Hardware is just hardware, it's just there to do the computational work that the game requires, so more powerful hardware is just plain better.

Yes, it is your personal assertion that they don't understand games, because you personally can define what a game is and who is a gamer. What is reading? It is the ability to understand what concepts are meant by sets of symbols. What is playing a video game? It is the ability to use an input device to get a response on a screen. Aside from people with certain physical disabilities, *everyone* already has the necessary skills to play a video game.

To use your book analogy, you would basically be saying that people who read certain kinds of books (Harry Potter, maybe) aren't "readers" because they don't read the same books you do (War and Peace, maybe). It's pretty obvious why that's absurd with books, so shouldn't it be equally absurd with games? The fact of the matter is that most, if not all, of the software released for the Wii is video games. The people who play those games are gamers. End of story.

Secondly, I've never said that new hardware didn't allow for good games. You specifically said that the Wii is "too weak to have good games". It can play World of Goo just fine, and that was one of the best games released last year, in my opinion. Look at the system requirements for Audiosurf some time. You don't require a super computer to play it. All I'm saying is that the Wii is not "too weak to have good games" unless you have an extremely narrow version of what a good game is.

Sorry for the double post, what that first sentence should say is "you personally THINK you can define what a game is and who is a gamer".

Adam, I don't think you're reading what I wrote. Or you're just trying to put words in my mouth. Nintendo said that they are targeting "non-gamers." That is, people who, up until Nintendo sells them a Wii, did not play games. These people necessarily do not understand games, because they don't play them. A book analogy wouldn't be "people who read Harry Potter," it would be "non-readers," meaning "people who have never read a book." People in that category don't understand literature, and it's not just me saying that because I'm a Dostoyevsky snob.

Also, I didn't say that the Wii cannot possibly run any good game. That's a gross misreading of my statement at best. It obviously, at the very least, can (and does) emulate a wide variety of older titles, some of which are timeless classics like Link To The Past. What I said was that developers can't/won't/don't develop good games for it. That's not 100% accurate, there are more than zero good games on the Wii, but the bulk of its library is shovelware and we all know it. There are cases, however, where a developer has a good game idea, wants to put the game on the Wii, and then finds that other platforms can handle the game, but the Wii cannot. Spore is my example.

Please read my comments a little bit more closely. I assume that you are not willfully bringing out the straw man here, but whether or not it's on purpose, you are in fact arguing against absurd points that I never made.

You specifically said, and I quote "it's a cheap gimmick that's too weak to have good games." I copied and past those words directly from your post.

Whoops, looks like you're right on that one specific count. I overstated there.

I should have said that it's a cheap gimmick in ways that specifically lock it out from a great many good, new, innovative ideas. Ideas like simple social networking in games (look at PSN or Live! and how they handle "Friend Lists"), complex, larger-scale AI (MGS 4 as a quick example) or animation (Spore again!), and so on. So I revise that one statement.

This doesn't stop them from having any good, new stuff (World Of Goo, SMG), but it does mean that the Wii is going to get fewer good games and more shovelware, both because of hardware limitations and because it was marketed specifically to uneducated consumers ("non-gamers" in Nintendo's own phrasing).

Bob seems to be basing his entire argument on one interview from 2006 in which the president of Nintendo stated that they were trying to figure out how to attract nongamers into becoming gamers. Yes, the Wii was marked to the average consumer who did not already own a game system. In fact, most products are marketed to consumers who don't already own them! However, a nongamer who owns a gaming system has in fact become a gamer.

You argue that graphics are essential to video games. Granted, but they are not the be-all, end-all. I would argue that most video game systems are held back by an antiquated control scheme. There is a direct evolution from the dial/joystick controls of the Atari 2600 to the controllers with dual analog sticks and triggers of today. The Wii represents the first true revolution in control in a video game console. In contrast games like DDR and Guitar Hero use a gimmick to map a small set of controls onto a new controller. The Wii is something different.

In a modern analog controller each hand has an analog stick, one or more analog triggers, and a collection of buttons. In contrast the Wii remote and nunchuck allow the pitch and roll of each hand to be measured, including both position and velocity. They also provide a set of traditional controls, analog stick, analog triggers, buttons. And, an on-screen "mouse" control. How can I expect good, new, innovative ideas from a gaming system which is locked into the old control scheme with so many fewer degrees of freedom?

I think the really interesting thing with the Wii is how it has changed the face of the industry. Being specifically targeted at people who had previously been non-gamers, it's got a lot of people looking at and buying games who hadn't before. And a bigger market is always a good thing, right?

The curious part is, I would assert, is that the great majority of developers do not really know how to make games for these extra potential customers. They are a different breed, and something of an unknown factor. For many, they're simply not going to buy that many games (look at the Wii's attach rates), but will get a much longer life out of those they do. Wii Fit is still going strong, and I'm sure there are still people breaking out Wii Sports every now and then. Sure they may not play them that often, but they simply don't play games that often. These is the same kind of market that Sony courted with the SingStar games, Nintendo has just been significantly more successful with it.

The Wii has opened a new avenue for game development, and it's one where the usual rules do not apply. High-powered, super complex games are not an option here, but I would reject the idea that it was some sort of oversight of Nintendo's behalf; that in their rush to make a different type of console, with an entirely new control and input scheme, they simply forgot to beef up the hardware. In order to make the console more successful with a new market, they had to distance themselves somewhat from the offerings of the rest of the industry – marketing a device that's easy for anyone with no gaming background to play, whilst having that kind of high-powered complex game being released at the same time would dilute the message.

Whilst the Wii obviously represents an opportunity for innovation, I think it needs to be different kind of innovation from what we mostly see in the industry at the moment - and incremental improvement in the level of complexity in game mechanics, systems, etc. This is the kind of innovation that we're seeing a lot in games for the other major platforms, and most Wii owners interested in those games will most likely own at least one other platform. For the most part, I feel that a large part of the Wii user base – especially the new-comers – simply isn't interested in that.

Fletcher, I think you are making a decent point overall, but regarding the evolution of controllers, I'd say that the Wiimote is less intimidating visually than a standard gamepad, but it's not actually better. The pointer system is great. The gesture-control system, however, is just a clumsy way to use an analog piece of data (acceleration vector) as a button press. Also, have you seen the latest controller? I think it's called the "Classic Controller Pro" or something. It's almost exactly the same layout as the PS1 DualShock, which makes it essentially the same controller as the PS3/360 are using.

I'm not exactly "basing my argument" on a single interview from 2006. It's a fact that "non-gamers" are their primary targeted customer base, and backing it up by pointing out that Nintendo officially said it.

Zaid, I agree, it's good to have a wider audience. The issue that I'm trying to approach here is that the product itself is substandard, and more powerful hardware does not require more complex games to the point where middle-aged women can't understand them. Bigger audience is better. More powerful hardware is better. The platform, however, was marketed in a way that sold the hardware really well, but created a customer base that still buys very few games. It's telling that even with the huge install base of the Wii, and the "reduced development cost" that stems from lowered expectation due to hardware limitations and the "non-hardcore" demographic, developers still make so much shovelware for it, with good games few and far between.

I would agree that we need to see some innovation, but I honestly don't think we're seeing anything other than incremental on any platform, and the Wii's first-party library, for the most part, seems like it's full of retreads/sequels with minor changes. (SMG excepted from the "minor changes" part.)

The point is that just because *you* find it substandard, that doesn't mean there is a fundamental, objective level on which it is actually a bad console. Your argument is based essentially on the idea that you can read other peoples' minds. You keep saying that the people who've bought a Wii don't "understand" games or that they've been hoodwinked by Nintendo. I find it far more likely that people are buying the Wii precisely because they *do* understand what it's about. It's not that those people don't realise that the 360 or PS3 are "better", it's that they don't want what those consoles offer. It's perfectly fine if you don't like the Wii - I don't find it especially appealing either. The problem here is the fact that you feel the need to continually disparage the people who do like it just because their interests are different than yours.

"The platform, however, was marketed in a way that sold the hardware really well, but created a customer base that still buys very few games."

If they (meaning the "non-gamers" who have a Wii) don't buy many games, and they are the primary buying segment of Wii's, then why does the Wii Fit top the chart in sales each month? You have to sell a lot of games to top the other titles on this list (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22845), yet Wii Fit and Wii Play are at/near the top. The answer, of course, is that they buy fewer games per capita. These "non-gamers" won't spend money on new games nearly as often as "gamers" do.

Look at tabletop games (card and board games in particular). There is a "gamer" segment that goes out and buys and plays lots of games, often of various types and styles and complexities. Then there is a "non-gamer" segment that buys their favorite version of Monopoly and plays it once a month. Now, from design perspective, you can make quite an argument that Monopoly is a poor and outdated game (player elimination, linear movement, dice as a random element, extremely long, etc.), and someone who falls into the "gamer" segment will probably recognize this and prefer other, more modern games. But that "non-gamer" (who still *plays*, mind you) is going to play Monopoly and love it anyway. So the question is, "Is Monopoly a bad game?"

The answer *must* be no, it is not. Remember that the primary mission of games is to *entertain*. Not to have good design elements, not to look crisp, but to *entertain*. Any game that does this *cannot*, by definition, be bad.

The same logic can be applied to the Wii. If it is entertaining people, it is successful as a gaming platform. If it is making money, and it is, it is successful as a business product . By any definition that matters, the Wii is a good console.

Saying it is a bad console, in the face of the above, forgets the purpose of games, and requires a different mission for games be proposed. So, Mr. McIntyre, what mission of gaming does the Wii, as a console, fail to succeed at?

Adam, for like the tenth time...calling someone a "non-gamer" isn't an insult. It's an accurate, unbiased term, and it's Nintendo's own term. I say that the Wii is a substandard console because, as a piece of a hardware with some built-in software (OS, I/O handling, etc), it really is by any reasonable measurement weaker than the other platforms (PC, Mac, PS3, 360) of its time. I would like to stress to you the difference between the console itself, the software library that the console actually runs, and the marketing/advertising campaign. People's desires are not based on any one thing, and an uneducated consumer base is generally largely interested in the third one more than the first two.

Lee, I would give you two answers for why Wii Fit and Wii Play top the charts. First, Wii Play is kind of disingenuous to count, as it's a pack-in with a second Wiimote. There's another blog post that went up this week about that. Wii Fit is arguably being bought as home gym equipment more than as a "game," similar to an Ab Roller or a workout video.

Also, Lee, people buying something doesn't mean that they actually use it. Home gyms are actually the perfect example. I'm sure we all know someone who has bought a stair-climber or an ab workout thing or whatever and used it three times before it was folded up and left under a bed, or turned into a makeshift coatrack. Buying a product and getting use out of it (or being entertained by it) are not the same thing. "Home fitness solutions" or whatever they're called these days are financially successful in exactly this way; they tell the customer "you have a problem and we can fix it by selling you this thing" in a nice TV ad with attractive people, and then the customer buys it. Money is made, the customer most likely does not get "ripped abs in only 5 minutes a day," and the world keeps turning. Don't tell me that "it makes money" somehow equals "it's a good product," though.

I would actually say that Monopoly is a really good game, so I have a little trouble with your example.

Wow, a surprising amount of vehemence on both sides here. I would argue that nobody knows what to do with the Wii. So, we find ourselves holding onto established concepts or trying to shoe-horn pre-existing ideas onto a platform that they are generally not suited for. The Shovelware that the Wii is known for.

We can try to invest the dollars and get something new and innovative, but there will always be "hard-core" people that will not buy it simply because they think of Wii as Gamecube 1.5. Yet, there is no way to know what the large mass of people that own Wii, the non-gamers will or will not purchase at all.

Since the platform requires new kinds of thinking and is tied to a consumer base that doesn't know what it wants, I do not think that software for the Wii can ever be as succesful as software for 360 or PS3. The market is unproven. So, if we make games that target the "Gamers" the more powerful systems are the way to go, since we understand what kind of person owns them. For the Wii, all we can really do is make something and hope it sticks.

I will just post my perception, and let others discuss whether it is a fad or not.

AAA games usually require a good amount of time to be developed. I would put that mark at 2 years at the minimum, with 3 or 4 years more common. Before a generation starts, developers and publishers decide to back one platform mainly. In our case, most developers backed the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, and started building the AAA games a year or two before the consoles were launched. Few (Ubisoft, Nintendo) backed Wii.

Come November 2006, launch, and initial race. Half a year later, developers and publishers realize Wii is not a fad, and that it will be leading the market soon. They have already invested in PS3 and Xbox 360 games, though, so they test the waters releasing shovelware. A few start building AAA games.

Come November 2007, Wii overpasses Xbox 360, will overpass Xbox 360 US market soon, so they start building AAA games. In the meantime, they continue to flood the market with shovelware.

Come November 2008, the first AAA games start appearing with Fatal Frame 4 leading. Mad World soon, then Monster Hunter 3, Dragon Quest X, etc.

In conclusion: the lack of AAA games is because none supposed the console would compete against the HD twins. You cannot ask them to build AAA games in a year, those require time. The fact that Wii is filled with shovelware isn't a bad sign: it means the publishers have already decided which console will win, and therefore infect it with cheap games. I would say easily 90% of the PlayStation 2 games are shovelware, however it was not noticeable because publishers bet for PS2 at the start of the generation and a few were able to launch their AAA titles pretty soon.

The HD generation came too fast. For the next console launch, people may be ready. For now, it is burnt money for both consumers and developers.

Bob, you've said multiple times that the people who've bought Wiis don't understand games and that they've been fooled by Nintendo into buying something that they don't want. If you don't see why that's insulting (and baseless), then there really isn't any way to have a meaningful dialogue about this topic.

For the record, I think Roberto is largely right. I've also heard at least one developer say that they aren't making Wii games because they can't be ported to other consoles effectively, which I think is a silly argument given the relative install bases of the three current-gen consoles.

Eric, I fully agree with you (about the Wii and the vehemence). Perhaps the main issue with the Wii user base is that they are not the same user base that has always been there, and they do not have the same characteristics and wants. About the only characteristic that can be applied to the entire user base is their apparent fickleness.

Bob, you said "The platform, however, was marketed in a way that sold the hardware really well, but created a customer base that still buys very few games." Here the thing, as I see it: this was fully intentional. I'd go so far as to say that, currently, it is impossible to have a user base of that magnitude that also buy a significant number of games. These people aren't "hardcore games" (and I really don't want to get into a hardcore/softcore debate here, because that's a whole 'nother can of worms), and to expect them to act like them is not dealing with reality.

These new-comers may have been non-gamers, but now they are gamers. But at the same time, we have to re-evaluate our opinions on what gamers are, and that's not something that has been successfully done. Of course, the other tack to take is to maintain that they aren't gamers, and while that's equally valid, I think it's a mistake to dismiss such a large potential audience in such an off-handed manner. They simply need a different kind of product.

In the same vein, to dismiss products such as Wii Fit as not being "games" is making the same mistake. It is a product that has done what so many other Wii games have failed to do: target the Wii user base well. Of course, there likely seems to be a lot of luck in there too, but its sales are nothing to be scoffed at. Again, be careful about making assumptions on value with games here – these are the sorts of games you can play for only 5 minutes a day (again, this is not a feature that's often considered for console games), but have a much longer life span. Wii Fit still has people that play it many months later – something that a great many next gen games do not achieve (look at the huge resale industry).

Adam, I don't really know what to say here. Nintendo targeted, in their own words, "non-gamers." They specifically tried to sell a video game console to people who had no prior experience playing video games. This isn't baseless, and it's not meant to be insulting. These are facts. They marketed a product specifically to customers who had no real knowledge of the product's category. That happened. It's true. I'm sorry, but I genuinely don't understand how this can be construed as an insult.

Regarding your response to Roberto's view, it does make sense because the Wii customer base doesn't buy a lot of games, whereas the combined PC/PS3/360 market does. Due to the Wii's weak hardware and different controller, Wii games more or less need to be made just for the Wii (feel free to disagree). So it's a choice between "Wii" and "everything else." The Wii customer base doesn't buy a lot of games, especially non-Nintendo-branded ones, since many of them are still only very casually interested in games, so the choice gets made.

Anecdotally, I've seen a lot of Wiis follow the same usage pattern as home gyms. People get them, love them for a few weeks or a month, and then they collect dust. I feel completely certain that Wii Fit will follow suit, especially since it is, at its core concept, the exact same product. It's really a home fitness solution more than a game, so saying that it will probably follow the same use pattern seems fair.

Zaid, I do see the goal of converting non-gamers into gamers, but I get the general feeling that it hasn't happened yet. The Wii hasn't really been out for all that long, so I think it's safe to say that the final "success or failure" call cannot be made today.

Roberto, the fact that EA has already set up and broken down a "casual" division, apparently in response to the Wii's marketplace success, tells me that people didn't predict it, as you said, but that when they did try to correct and capitalize on it, there was some kind of problem. There was some reason why it didn't work. My personal suspicion has to do with tie rates, as I said, the customer base isn't really "into" video games (or at least not yet), so they aren't buying. That could be wrong, I don't know, it could be that they just happened to make a ton of bad games and EA lost faith in the concept. But whatever it is, the fact that EA shut it down says something.

I used to be guilty of making fun of the Wii when it was officially named "Wii," but all that changed at E3 2006. All you had to do was compare the booths.

Even though Sony had PLAYABLE PS3 games and elaborate setups for showcasing Blu-Ray movies, the lines were non-existent. Did Sony plan for crowds so well that people didn't have to wait? Hmm...

When you looked across the aisle to the Nintendo booth, you could have sworn their booth walls were made entirely of people. People waited in line for hours just to get some face time with the Wii behind the curtains. Stephen Spielberg even cut in line just to see the thing. You could tell from that point that they had something BIG on their hands.

The outcry from developers following the debut was incredulous. Talks of duct tape and lollipops were all the rage, and I couldn't understand it. For anyone seeking a truly new game experience, the Wii was the first out of the gate to take on that challenge, and it was surprising that developers didn't embrace it wholeheartedly. Did these people really think "next-generation" meant graphic fidelity?

If you really think about it, the Wii remote is the console version of the mouse, and everyone knows how the mouse changed the PC (and games) forever. Developers should have seen that potential from the outset and planned accordingly.

I can only imagine the tsunami of support from the development community once Wii2 is announced. You know, now that they "get it."

The Wii Remote is very much like a mouse. And that's good for some types of games, and bad for others, which is why it's not the only input device ever used in games. It's great for RTS games, for example, but terrible for fighting games.

The issue with the hardware is that a lot of genuinely new ideas require the capability to run advanced AI, advanced animation or graphics, advanced networking, and so on. The Wii Remote is not the issue. The Wii itself is. The Wii Remote on a powerful piece of hardware (that also supports keybaords and gamepads) would be really great. The frustration comes from the fact that this cool input device is attached to a machine that is crippled in every other way, and that has been sold to non-gamers.

Let's also get straight that "innovative" and "ground-breaking" are art-house things. Bands that play totally revolutionary new music are rarely on the radio. Movies that truly challenge long-standing social perceptions generally don't open in mainstream theaters to huge crowds following gigantic ad campaigns. Once in a while, maybe, but not very often. By courting a demographic that explicitly doesn't have prior experience with games, and then making an underpowered console, Nintendo ensured that the install base would be filled with people who had no sense of the history of the medium and thus who would not be able to understand or appreciate truly new, innovative ideas.

Pre-emptively, that's not an insult. To anybody. It's just simple logic that if you haven't played a game before, then you don't understand the language of games well enough to perceive clever and subtle insights and innovations.

@Bob
Are we talking about games or computers?

The Wii has shown the industry that evolutions in gaming does not mean "more of the same." Nintendo realized early on that the next step in hardware was not in seeing more pores and adding more buttons, so they focused on what made games FUN, and that had everything to do with interactivity. It's not like they could compete toe-to-toe with the Cells and the LIVEs of the world, so they built upon their strength, which was games.

That being said, all the things you associate with "genuinely new ideas" -- computing/graphic power -- will reach the Wii soon. However, the key technology that Nintendo wanted to showcase was the remote. Imagine where Nintendo would be if they presented a system with current-gen computing/networking power and an OPTIONAL remote. Would they be in the same position they're in now?

As for your disclaimer, I think you do all of us a disservice by claiming that you "understand the language of games well enough to perceive clever and subtle insights and innovations." According to Mr. Daglow's diagnosis, you're at Stage 2.

Jaime,

No, the Wii didn't show the industry that at all. Most of their games are just retreads. Go ahead, name the best games on the Wii. SMG, Zelda, Kart, Metroid? Those are all games that have been iterated on since the 80s (except Kart, I think that was very early 90s). Even Smash is a sequel. And right now, they're hyping up Punch-Out, which is yet another remake from the 80s. In fact, Punch-Out from the 80s with the Power Glove is practically what we're seeing now, except with 8-bit graphics. How can you fail to notice that Nintendo's releases are almost all just iterations on IPs that are, on average, over 20 years old? How does this detail escape you?

Wii Fit, you could argue, is "new" except that it's more of a workout DVD and "home fitness solution" than a game. So it really shouldn't even be put in the same category, since it's not a game. After all, going to the gym and doing pushups to get in better shape isn't a game, so going to your Wii and doing pushups to get in better shape is also not a game. It is a workout that is assisted/monitored by a computer.

As for saying that my disclaimer is a disservice to you, well, that's your problem. What I said is correct, whether you like it or not. Nice ad hominem you tacked onto the end there. I like how you pretend to be my personal shrink and act like you know the inner workings of my mind. It's a good debate tactic when you don't know what you're talking about to attack the other person instead of his actual arguments.

Look who's trying to read whose mind...

Best games on the Wii (for example):
Zack and Wiki
Red Steel
Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix
Elebits
De Blob

...aaand Wii Fit

@Bob: "I also don't disagree that older, lower-tech platforms had some really great games. But new games with new ideas, really progressive stuff, generally requires new platforms. You can make a new collectible card game if you want, and it can be good, but moving games forward, making bigger and more intricate games, exploring totally new spaces, all that kind of stuff...it generally requires better technology"

When collectible card games, an innovative, creative, entertaining, and wildly successful -- all of which is to say: progressive -- were introduced and established their role as a new genre, what, exactly, was the amazing technology? Cardboard? The printing press? Marketing? No, it was the particular way in which these ages old technologies were used.

Innovation in entertainment does not require innovation in technology. Better technology widens the base of what innovation is possible (cardboard can never run Spore, and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings simply could not have been produced twenty years ago), but limited technology does not forbid it. In fact, one could easily argue that limited technology encourages innovation, filling the classic "mother of invention" role, as evidenced by the Metal Gear series in another article here.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22938

In most cases all technological progress really does is polish the ideas that already exist (higher resolutions and polygon counts, faster framerates, more authentic simulations, etc.), except in the relatively rare cases when the innovation is itself simply leveraging the technology to accomplish an old dream (forementioned Lord of the Rings). And that's all well and good. But claiming that "progressiveness" and "new ideas" are not possible (or even simply that they are especially difficult) with old technology is just ridiculous.

Also: "The issue with the hardware is that a lot of genuinely new ideas require the capability to run advanced AI, advanced animation or graphics, advanced networking, and so on."

Advanced AI: a creative and innovative concept that has thus far been crippled by limited technology
Advanced animation: a centuries old concept, made shinier by newer technology.
Advanced networking: a decades old concept, made shinier by newer technology
...and so on.

You're equating technology/innovation in the hardware field with the same in the entertainment field. One involves the speed and manner with which data is gathered/manipulated/displayed, the other involves inspiring people to have fun. They're not the same thing.

Jaime, most of those games didn't do too well. And frankly, if Red Steel is one of the best games on your platform, then I don't know what to tell you.

Kevin: Board and card games are a great example of pure game mechanics working well. And then pointing out that Chess or Magic: The Gathering could be played online with the advancement of internet technology, with ladder-ranked matches and so on, adds to your statement about technology refining the game. However, there are games that simply cannot exist without a certain level of technology. For example, Starcraft as we know it cannot exist without a computers. We need computers at least as good as what we had in 1998, complete with internet connections that run at a certain speed. Attempting to release Starcraft in 1988 would not have worked. That game could not exist at that time, even if you were willing to settle for inferior "bells and whistles" like 16-color graphics or 320x200 resolution, and the need to support internal-speaker sound.

Regarding the "advanced" arguments you made, look at Spore. Wright loves the Wii. He wanted the game to play on the Wii. The game could not be made to run on the Wii. So, yes, it is a question of degree, because it's not like the Wii can't do any animation whatsoever. But it couldn't do animation well enough to realize Wright's creative vision. The degree of power in the technology does in fact matter. In some cases, it matters so much that being insufficiently "advanced" doesn't just mean "the game looks less pretty," it actually means "the game cannot run on this system."

Also, for reference, look what happened when they tried to make a Wii port of Dead Rising. They had to change it in major ways. Little things like "the katana doesn't cut zombies in half," which isn't a big deal. But then whole sections had to be taken out, like the part with the car. That's a bigger deal. And the photography, which was why your character was in there in the first place. And, finally, the crowds of zombies were reduced to a sparse handful, which undermines the whole feeling of the game.

I am not mistaking high-tech hardware with high-quality game design. I'm saying that the platform determines the capabilities, and many new ideas require more complex hardware. That's the bottom line. It's not just prettiness via "unimportant details" like resolution, color depth, or polygon count. It is often fundamentally-important features that are necessary to have the game execute the designer's vision. The job of a console is to give the designer a powerful system on which his or her game can run.

Kevin, to follow up on what I said earlier, your example of Metal Gear is exactly what I'm talking about. A designer who wants to make a certain game can only go so far with design alone. Solid technology is very often needed to make the game idea viable. Metal Gear Solid 4 was barely possible on the PlayStation 3. Imagine trying that game on the PlayStation 1. Or the Wii. It simply can't happen. It's not possible. The essential systems of that game are too large and complex, even with scaled-down graphics, to run on a system with weaker processing power, less memory, no internal storage, and the need to run off of discs several times smaller than the Blu-Ray. It's not just a question of polish. It's a question of being able to do it at all.

While some new games with clever, creative, new ideas can certainly be made even on ancient technology (cards, for example), there are also new game ideas that cannot be made without new technology. Since the platform is nothing more than technology, better technology always enables a wider variety of games. To use Nintendo's own product line as an example, the 8-bit NES can support games like Mega Man, but not games like Super Mario Galaxy. The Wii can support both Mega Man and Super Mario Galaxy. The Wii is a better platform for that reason.

I never said technology wasn't necessary for certain innovations; indeed, I freely acknowledge that it is (cardboard can't even run DOOM, and a 386 can't run Bioshock). But your assertions here have been that since the Wii is a heap of bad technology and can never be innovative to the industry, and this is simply false. The Wii's hardware is inferior, yes. But the Wii's significance lies mainly in its controllers and the way they are used, coupled with a liberal sprinkling of shiny marketing. You call the controller technology a "step back" from buttons, and I'm not sure where you're getting that classification. Yes, it is a bit less precise than button pressing, but in terms of the game experience - the entertainment aspect provided to the general public - it is a novel and new thing. Has the technology been around? Yeah. Is it cutting edge hardware? Hardly.

Has the general public ever been sold this kind of thing before (in an accessible way that appealed to them)? Bam. There's your innovation (and it's less niche-oriented than the Guitar Hero genre).

And now that that market has been broached by Nintendo, they are free to come out with more powerful models (if they think their market even cares about the options it would open up), and anyone else who wants to cut in on that market without coming off simply as a "Wii wannabe" has got a pretty rough task ahead of them. (Provided, of course, that the market sticks, which the industry is still watching pretty closely.) Even if you don't want to call it "entertainment innovation," you can certainly call it a pretty clever business plan.

Innovation moves in different dimensions; just because the Wii isn't a step up in electronic technology doesn't mean it isn't an advance in "game/entertainment technology," and you don't seem to be able to get over that fact. Sure, interesting new input options marketed to a broad public sporting blazing processors can do more than the same package backed by less CPU horsepower, but that's not the point; the point is that new ground is being broken. Your comments earlier in this blog clearly imply that you consider all "real" gamers to be people who view things the same way you do -- that new systems should always do as much as possible.

"While some new games with clever, creative, new ideas can certainly be made even on ancient technology (cards, for example), there are also new game ideas that cannot be made without new technology."
Guitar Hero and the experience it represents (that is, what is being sold) cannot be made without its one-of-a-kind controller. Red Steel (or whatever) relies on the nunchuk to establish its play experience. Wii Fit and its experience (regardless of its actual health benefits) cannot be made without its balance board. While some new games with clever, creative, new ideas can certainly be made even with existing controller technology (handheld button devices, for example), there are also new game ideas that cannot be made without new models."

I'm curious; do you despise Guitar Hero / Rock Band as much as you seem to despise the Wii? Because it's an excellent example of the exact same phenomenon on a smaller scale.