Wii: Established, but will the software flow?
Nobody can argue that Nintendo's Wii machine has firmly established itself as the leading console going into 2008. There were more Wiis under trees this year than any other console, the DS being the only Christmas must-have that seemed to rival the Wii (and I don't think Nintendo will see that as a bad thing).
For a machine released with one game and one controller, in one colour variety ... it has to be said. Not bad, eh?
I won't bore you with the long, drawn out speech concerning how the Wii has ended up in this strong position, it's been well covered and documented in almost every gaming blog and website under the sun. Today's news of interest however, is that the GAME group are reporting very strong end of year profits and are attributing this largely to the success of the Wii and DS, with a thought also spared for Halo 3's boost to Xbox 360 sales and Sony's price cut to stabalise the poor PS3.
In November 2007, The DS outsold the Wii in the US by 1.53 million units to 981,000 (NPD Group). It's interesting that despite the Wii being the year-end winner out there, the DS is such a strong little brother. Will Nintendo find a way to bind their winning pair together as Sony are planning to do in 2008, with their flagging PSP and new PS3? Perhaps the seperate successes of the Wii and DS are the aim of Nintendo, seeing a great strength in securing the handheld market.
Some are reporting that mobile gaming and the 're-imagining' of the Nokia N-Gage platform will both show huge increase in 2008, bolstering the handheld gaming market further and giving serious contendership for the crown of dominance. We think that the DS will still be very much the top of the pile, but it'll be a bigger pile, meaning more money for everyone and better gaming choice for every gamer. That's a good thing, and I really hope it happens.
But what for the Wii in 2008? Will people start to get bored of Wii Sports and look for more sophisticated games machines? Certainly that's what Sony are hoping will happen, and Microsoft to a lesser extent after their flurry into the casual gaming market towards the end of last year. For them, they wouldn't mind taking a fat slice of that Nintendo casual gaming pie away with them to the end of 2008.
We think the Wii will remain a very strong piece of hardware, but with three weak areas that must be dealt with for it to remain dominant. The games need to look better, there needs to be a wider choice of gaming style that isn't all for casual gamers and they need to sort out the online situation before they get lost behind the big two.
If you're a Wii owner, make sure you don't buy every piece of poo that comes out for it. Gamers must send a strong message to Nintendo and everyone else making games for the Wii - we won't be sold a gimmick. Yes, we want this new style of gaming. Yes, we like it. But no, it's not good enough to get crappy ports from the other formats which don't look half as good, it's not good enough that the Wiimotes don't detect much further than an arms length from your TV when using the infrared bar and it's not ok to keep releasing games with the gimmick of 'the Wiimote adds depth to the gameplay'. If it adds to the gameplay then great, let's have it. But if it doesn't, don't just make us wave our arms for the sake of it. Buttons are there to be used properly.
2008 will be the year Nintendo either allows the Wii to become a gimmick-driven kiddy console, or a very powerful contender to remain top of the foodchain, with games for everyone (including gimmick-drawn kids). Whichever they do, we'll be watching.
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