5 ms·

The Wii was nothing more than a collective delusion. People were buying into that, for no reason other than everyone else was. Majority of those machines sat co

The Wii was nothing more than a collective delusion. People were buying into that, for no reason other than everyone else was. Majority of those machines sat collecting dust, after the arm flailing novelty wore off. After that episode, the next Wii launches, and people knew better than to just jump on the hype train. The Switch will perform at least as poorly.

rwmj 10y ago
Mine didn't. We played group Wii Sports sessions for years.
- ashark 10y ago
  Really getting into those sorts of games in a way that made them uniquely fun quickly led to RSI pain for me, in ways that playing the same sports for real would not. Plus the person making subtle wrist-flicks while sitting on the couch would usually destroy the one standing up playing "for real". Between those two things it killed my enthusiasm for waggle controls pretty quickly. May as well have used buttons. Best console ever for rail and light-gun shooters, though. Surprised it didn't get more than it did, especially ports of older ones.
wccrawford 10y ago
My mother bought a Wii because she loved Wii Sports so much. She could have come to my house and played mine for free, but she instead bought her own. There were other games, too, but those came after she had made the decision to buy it and none of them would have convinced her to buy it. It wasn't anything close to a "delusion" to her and many others who simply loved the Wii Sports game.
- joezydeco 10y ago
  Sometimes I think people forget we are talking about toys. I didn't know people that played with toys could be "delusional". My daughter just got old enough to discover and dust off the WiiU. She's playing the copy of Kart 8 that my older son abandoned. She's having a blast.
- overcast 10y ago
  So an entire console for a free game that was included? How much time did she spend on it after the first month?
  - npizzolato 10y ago
    If the fun people had with Wii Sports was worth $200 to them (or whatever the Wii cost), then who cares if they only bought the console for that one game?
jonlucc 10y ago
I disagree. I was in college during the Wii's run, and it was the only console my friends and I played together (though several of us had other consoles). Games like Smash Bros, Super Mario Strikers, and even Wii Tennis were at least weekly events. Edit to add: I was at a party a month ago, and the hosts had their Wii available. People were playing then, too. I think maybe WiiU didn't offer what people wanted. At least among my experiences, multiplayer was vital.
- Guest98123 10y ago
  Same here, I was just finishing university at that time, and it seemed like every student house had a Wii for party games, and for casual gaming while drinking and getting ready for a night out. Aside from that, I remember guitar hero being popular. As for the Wii U, I think most people my age just moved on to a different step in our lives, we get together less often, and there just isn't the same interest or opportunities available for casual gaming with friends. I don't know what's happening with the younger generations, and what they're doing in university now.
  - shuntress 10y ago
    Same here, but I actually have a WiiU. I think the big reason it's not as popular is because the main draw (casual gaming with friends at/before parties) is something the Wii does almost as well and everyone already has a Wii. So why bother with a WiiU? Smash 4 and Nintendo Land are basically perfect party games. But the similar offerings on the Wii are so close to perfect you really don't need to switch up.
- jayrox 10y ago
  I have the same experience. My friends had weekly weekend game nights where we played Wii Sports until the early hours of the next morning. I had my own Wiimote that I took with me and I didn't even own a Wii at the time.
jerf 10y ago
We're now like a good 1.5 console generations away from the Wii and counting fast. Isn't it time to put away the console fanboyism for that generation, when we've got hot-and-fresh Switch vs. PS4 Pro vs. XBox One S action to get fanboying about? Besides, every totally knows the Genesis does what Nintendon't and the SuperNES, like, sucks to the extreme, dude.
- overcast 10y ago
  There isn't any console fanboyism, I have a PS4 because it's good blu-ray player, and covers a few exclusives that PC will never get. If they were all on PC, then I wouldn't bother with any underpowered/overpriced console.
  - jerf 10y ago
    Insulting people who buy a thing you don't like because it was a "collective delusion", for bad motives you impugn to them, because of your personal value judgment that it was "flailing novelty" and a "hype train"... for the best selling console ever... is being a fanboy, not making a real argument. Fanboyism for, as I said, a console generation now a generation and a half gone, which drains away whatever topical interest it may once have had and just leaves you insulting about a hundred million people for no particular reason.
    - overcast 10y ago
      I wasn't aware collective delusion, and hype train were insults, so I apologize.
fullshark 10y ago
Nah it's just the casual gaming market moved to mobile phones.
nilkn 10y ago
I still have friends who use the Wii occasionally -- living room dancing games in particular still seem popular. So I'm not sure how accurate this is. The bottom line is that the Wii differentiated itself in a way that people cared about at the time and the Wii U differentiated itself in a way that nobody really cared about. Also, keep in mind that even the Wii U lineup from Nintendo was a bit disappointing. It had Mario games, sure, but nothing that felt like a successor to Super Mario Galaxy. And it's only getting Zelda now that their next console is launching. I'm not at all convinced the Switch will suffer the same fate. If Nintendo effectively makes the Switch the successor to both the 3DS and the Wii U and merges their home console and portable console products and divisions, the result could end up being pretty unique and desirable. It's already got Zelda, and it will have Mario by the end of the year. Throw in full-console Pokemon, Monster Hunter, and Pikmin games -- many of which would have previously been made only for the 3DS in stripped-down mobile versions -- and I can see it really taking off. I for one skipped out on the Wii U but have already placed a preorder for the Switch. I primarily play games on my PC and the PS4 and Xbox One feel redundant and underpowered in comparison. The Switch though feels like a much more compelling package for me.
- Tomte 10y ago
  It's already got two Zelda games, and soon the new one. Yes, they're remakes, but so is MarioKart for Switch.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    Remakes/remasters weren't enough to get people to buy it, and saying that it's got the new Zelda after the console has effectively been discontinued doesn't really mean much.
    - Tomte 10y ago
      What should it mean except the plain meaning? The new Zelda is coming out for Wii U. That's certain. I have no idea what point you're trying to make.
the_gastropod 10y ago
This is so much like the "Apple is only so successful because Apple fanbois are delusional and don't know any better!" argument. It's malarkey. The Wii was a pretty phenomenal product. I also played mine for many years, and continue to play Mario Party and Smash Brothers with friends occasionally.
ilamont 10y ago
Five years ago, I read (and saved) a series of fascinating interviews about the development of the Wii. Some of them were on the Nintendo corporate sites (1) while others were from Japanese magazines that a colleague translated. It was really a remarkable tale — Iwata was a CEO who loved to work with his engineers and designers, and in the case of the Wii, they created something that was truly innovative, and not just in an engineering sense. They were targeting a different audience -- moms who controlled purchasing in Japanese households as well as nontraditional gamers. The following excerpt discusses the creation of the Wii remote/nunchuck: Iwata: I still remember the first time I saw the pointer demo in one of the conference rooms. From the moment I picked it up, it just felt right. I had handled other pointer devices before, but they are not normally responsive and leave you feeling more frustrated than relaxed. The pointer idea itself was also good, but in this case it was the sense of control, the finish of the product, that was particularly good. I suppose that was the result of the technology brought in by Mr Takeda. Ashida: Well, it was because the main controller was just a rod. (laughs) It clearly couldn't be used to control existing games. Since Wii is compatible with GameCube games, and we also had the concept of the Virtual Console, we had to make it possible to play games from the NES days, too. On top of that, we also had to consider FPS (first person shooter) games for the overseas market. These factors ultimately gave birth to the idea of combining various controllers to the main controller with an extension connector. Miyamoto: The idea of connecting controllers spread very quickly, but the Nunchuk, which had such a strong impact when it was announced, was done much later. Ashida: I first heard about the idea for the Nunchuk from Takeda-san. He said, “can you try to make something like this?” There were also requests from the development teams for Metroid and other software titles asking for a new kind of controller that uses both hands, that can offer a new type of gameplay. And so, yet again, we started out by moulding another clay model. (laughs) Takeda: This idea originally came from one of the young developers involved in the project I mentioned earlier, the one aimed at selling packaged peripherals with GameCube games. Iwata: I can still vividly recall the look of anxiety on Mr Ashida's face when he showed me the Nunchuk. What was running through your mind at that time? Ashida: Well, I thought it wouldn't fit well with the streamlined designs of the console and controller. At first, I also considered a design similar to that of the remote. But since it was so obvious that the right and left hands are used differently, I realized that making the designs similar would just make it harder to control. When I asked for Mr Takeda's advice, he reassured me that it was fine for them to be different since they would be used separately. Ikeda: we used to call the Wii Remote the Core Controller, or alternatively the Core Unit, because peripherals were attached to its extension connecter. Miyamoto: Oh, that's right, we called it the Core, didn't we? But the term Core Unit doesn't sound very accessible, even though that's what we were aiming for all along! (laughs) It was Mr Iwata who insisted that the main controller be called a remote, wasn't it? Iwata: Yes, that was something that I was unusually stubborn about. The TV remote is something always sits within reach and is picked up and used by everyone all the time. Since I wanted the controller to be used in the same way, and since it ended up looking like one in the end, I strongly believed that it should be called a remote. And also because one of the most fundamental questions behind Wii's development was why some people use the TV remote all the time, but hesitate to pick up a game controller. So I really insisted that it be called a remote. Ikeda: In the early stages of development we ran into a number of problems that we hadn't anticipated, like the fact that the controller would react to fluorescent light, for example. Creating a mechanism that prevents the controller from responding to fluorescent light and sunlight may not sound overly difficult, but it still caused us a good deal of trouble. Iwata: So, that's how the specifications of the Wii controller were decided. However, it wasn't until the Tokyo Game Show last year that it was unveiled to the general public. I was up on stage at that event, and I still vividly remember the silence that followed the video that introduced the controller. It felt like time was standing still... It was as though the audience didn't know how to react. Given that you'd all worked so hard on the controller, what did you think of that reaction? Miyamoto: Like Mr Takeda, I too was very much on edge. I was certain that they wouldn't understand Wii unless they actually tried it out for themselves, and so I was unsure how convincing the presentation alone would be. Everyone was clapping, but I couldn't help but wonder whether our message had gotten across, or whether people thought it was too unconventional. However, looking at the other unveilings at the Tokyo Game Show that day, I was very much relieved by the fact that Nintendo was the only one doing something new. Everyone else seemed to be just polishing up something that everyone had already seen before. Ashida, when asked about reax from developers: For the most part, their feedback was very positive, which was a great relief. Needless to say, there were a few cries of dissent, but most people were left with a favourable impression. Ikeda: I was often left in charge of explaining the controller's functions, but it was only when they actually got their hands on the controller that their faces would light up. Seeing this, I really felt as though we'd scored a hit. And then, immediately after they had a go on Wii, they started coming up with ideas. Right there and then they were already discussing what they could do and how they could do it! I was amazed by the speed of this. Iwata: Producers are more likely to pick up the controller and start thinking about its limitations. Creators, on the other hand, are more likely to look at what is possible, come up with ideas and ask a lot of questions. They'll go home with smiles on their faces, won't they? Iwata: In bringing Wii to the world, we've filled up countless boxes with mock-ups, prototypes, trial software, and so on. But I truly feel that none of our efforts were wasted. These concepts came and went at a remarkable pace, until we came across those special technologies that solved all of our problems at once. Nowadays, nobody has any doubts about the "d-pad with two main buttons" interface. But twenty years ago many people wondered whether such a controller could really be used to play games. So, if we continue to do what we know has to be done, our controller, which now appears quite unusual, may very well become the new standard. As someone who has made it their life’s work to make innovative products, I feel very lucky to have had the chance to witness this story from beginning to end. Everyone, thank you very much. Japanese companies are sometimes portrayed as being too conservative. However, I have found that there is a creative/innovative streak in certain firms that can lead to truly innovative products that push the engineering and creative envelopes, open up new markets, and force everyone to realize new possibilities. That's what happened with the Wii. Its success, however, was not duplicated with the WiiU. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.nintendo-europe.com/163.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.ninten...
wnevets 10y ago
The motion control hype was crazy huge during its initial launch. Most wii owners weren't "gamers" and didn't actually buy games for the thing. The list of its top selling games is kinda of a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video...
- overcast 10y ago
  That's even more depressing than I realized, and further proves my point.
- rockdoe 10y ago
  What's your definition of "games" and "gamer"? Based on "what I like", presumably?
  - wnevets 10y ago
    Within this context is going to have to be where you play games rather than only wii sports.

rwmj 10y ago

Mine didn't. We played group Wii Sports sessions for years.

ashark 10y ago
Really getting into those sorts of games in a way that made them uniquely fun quickly led to RSI pain for me, in ways that playing the same sports for real would not. Plus the person making subtle wrist-flicks while sitting on the couch would usually destroy the one standing up playing "for real". Between those two things it killed my enthusiasm for waggle controls pretty quickly. May as well have used buttons. Best console ever for rail and light-gun shooters, though. Surprised it didn't get more than it did, especially ports of older ones.

wccrawford 10y ago

My mother bought a Wii because she loved Wii Sports so much. She could have come to my house and played mine for free, but she instead bought her own. There were other games, too, but those came after she had made the decision to buy it and none of them would have convinced her to buy it. It wasn't anything close to a "delusion" to her and many others who simply loved the Wii Sports game.

joezydeco 10y ago
Sometimes I think people forget we are talking about toys. I didn't know people that played with toys could be "delusional". My daughter just got old enough to discover and dust off the WiiU. She's playing the copy of Kart 8 that my older son abandoned. She's having a blast.
overcast 10y ago
So an entire console for a free game that was included? How much time did she spend on it after the first month?
- npizzolato 10y ago
  If the fun people had with Wii Sports was worth $200 to them (or whatever the Wii cost), then who cares if they only bought the console for that one game?

jonlucc 10y ago

I disagree. I was in college during the Wii's run, and it was the only console my friends and I played together (though several of us had other consoles). Games like Smash Bros, Super Mario Strikers, and even Wii Tennis were at least weekly events. Edit to add: I was at a party a month ago, and the hosts had their Wii available. People were playing then, too. I think maybe WiiU didn't offer what people wanted. At least among my experiences, multiplayer was vital.

Guest98123 10y ago
Same here, I was just finishing university at that time, and it seemed like every student house had a Wii for party games, and for casual gaming while drinking and getting ready for a night out. Aside from that, I remember guitar hero being popular. As for the Wii U, I think most people my age just moved on to a different step in our lives, we get together less often, and there just isn't the same interest or opportunities available for casual gaming with friends. I don't know what's happening with the younger generations, and what they're doing in university now.
- shuntress 10y ago
  Same here, but I actually have a WiiU. I think the big reason it's not as popular is because the main draw (casual gaming with friends at/before parties) is something the Wii does almost as well and everyone already has a Wii. So why bother with a WiiU? Smash 4 and Nintendo Land are basically perfect party games. But the similar offerings on the Wii are so close to perfect you really don't need to switch up.
jayrox 10y ago
I have the same experience. My friends had weekly weekend game nights where we played Wii Sports until the early hours of the next morning. I had my own Wiimote that I took with me and I didn't even own a Wii at the time.

jerf 10y ago

We're now like a good 1.5 console generations away from the Wii and counting fast. Isn't it time to put away the console fanboyism for that generation, when we've got hot-and-fresh Switch vs. PS4 Pro vs. XBox One S action to get fanboying about? Besides, every totally knows the Genesis does what Nintendon't and the SuperNES, like, sucks to the extreme, dude.

overcast 10y ago
There isn't any console fanboyism, I have a PS4 because it's good blu-ray player, and covers a few exclusives that PC will never get. If they were all on PC, then I wouldn't bother with any underpowered/overpriced console.
- jerf 10y ago
  Insulting people who buy a thing you don't like because it was a "collective delusion", for bad motives you impugn to them, because of your personal value judgment that it was "flailing novelty" and a "hype train"... for the best selling console ever... is being a fanboy, not making a real argument. Fanboyism for, as I said, a console generation now a generation and a half gone, which drains away whatever topical interest it may once have had and just leaves you insulting about a hundred million people for no particular reason.
  - overcast 10y ago
    I wasn't aware collective delusion, and hype train were insults, so I apologize.

fullshark 10y ago

Nah it's just the casual gaming market moved to mobile phones.

nilkn 10y ago

I still have friends who use the Wii occasionally -- living room dancing games in particular still seem popular. So I'm not sure how accurate this is. The bottom line is that the Wii differentiated itself in a way that people cared about at the time and the Wii U differentiated itself in a way that nobody really cared about. Also, keep in mind that even the Wii U lineup from Nintendo was a bit disappointing. It had Mario games, sure, but nothing that felt like a successor to Super Mario Galaxy. And it's only getting Zelda now that their next console is launching. I'm not at all convinced the Switch will suffer the same fate. If Nintendo effectively makes the Switch the successor to both the 3DS and the Wii U and merges their home console and portable console products and divisions, the result could end up being pretty unique and desirable. It's already got Zelda, and it will have Mario by the end of the year. Throw in full-console Pokemon, Monster Hunter, and Pikmin games -- many of which would have previously been made only for the 3DS in stripped-down mobile versions -- and I can see it really taking off. I for one skipped out on the Wii U but have already placed a preorder for the Switch. I primarily play games on my PC and the PS4 and Xbox One feel redundant and underpowered in comparison. The Switch though feels like a much more compelling package for me.

Tomte 10y ago
It's already got two Zelda games, and soon the new one. Yes, they're remakes, but so is MarioKart for Switch.
- nilkn 10y ago
  Remakes/remasters weren't enough to get people to buy it, and saying that it's got the new Zelda after the console has effectively been discontinued doesn't really mean much.
  - Tomte 10y ago
    What should it mean except the plain meaning? The new Zelda is coming out for Wii U. That's certain. I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

the_gastropod 10y ago

This is so much like the "Apple is only so successful because Apple fanbois are delusional and don't know any better!" argument. It's malarkey. The Wii was a pretty phenomenal product. I also played mine for many years, and continue to play Mario Party and Smash Brothers with friends occasionally.

ilamont 10y ago

Five years ago, I read (and saved) a series of fascinating interviews about the development of the Wii. Some of them were on the Nintendo corporate sites (1) while others were from Japanese magazines that a colleague translated. It was really a remarkable tale — Iwata was a CEO who loved to work with his engineers and designers, and in the case of the Wii, they created something that was truly innovative, and not just in an engineering sense. They were targeting a different audience -- moms who controlled purchasing in Japanese households as well as nontraditional gamers. The following excerpt discusses the creation of the Wii remote/nunchuck: Iwata: I still remember the first time I saw the pointer demo in one of the conference rooms. From the moment I picked it up, it just felt right. I had handled other pointer devices before, but they are not normally responsive and leave you feeling more frustrated than relaxed. The pointer idea itself was also good, but in this case it was the sense of control, the finish of the product, that was particularly good. I suppose that was the result of the technology brought in by Mr Takeda. Ashida: Well, it was because the main controller was just a rod. (laughs) It clearly couldn't be used to control existing games. Since Wii is compatible with GameCube games, and we also had the concept of the Virtual Console, we had to make it possible to play games from the NES days, too. On top of that, we also had to consider FPS (first person shooter) games for the overseas market. These factors ultimately gave birth to the idea of combining various controllers to the main controller with an extension connector. Miyamoto: The idea of connecting controllers spread very quickly, but the Nunchuk, which had such a strong impact when it was announced, was done much later. Ashida: I first heard about the idea for the Nunchuk from Takeda-san. He said, “can you try to make something like this?” There were also requests from the development teams for Metroid and other software titles asking for a new kind of controller that uses both hands, that can offer a new type of gameplay. And so, yet again, we started out by moulding another clay model. (laughs) Takeda: This idea originally came from one of the young developers involved in the project I mentioned earlier, the one aimed at selling packaged peripherals with GameCube games. Iwata: I can still vividly recall the look of anxiety on Mr Ashida's face when he showed me the Nunchuk. What was running through your mind at that time? Ashida: Well, I thought it wouldn't fit well with the streamlined designs of the console and controller. At first, I also considered a design similar to that of the remote. But since it was so obvious that the right and left hands are used differently, I realized that making the designs similar would just make it harder to control. When I asked for Mr Takeda's advice, he reassured me that it was fine for them to be different since they would be used separately. Ikeda: we used to call the Wii Remote the Core Controller, or alternatively the Core Unit, because peripherals were attached to its extension connecter. Miyamoto: Oh, that's right, we called it the Core, didn't we? But the term Core Unit doesn't sound very accessible, even though that's what we were aiming for all along! (laughs) It was Mr Iwata who insisted that the main controller be called a remote, wasn't it? Iwata: Yes, that was something that I was unusually stubborn about. The TV remote is something always sits within reach and is picked up and used by everyone all the time. Since I wanted the controller to be used in the same way, and since it ended up looking like one in the end, I strongly believed that it should be called a remote. And also because one of the most fundamental questions behind Wii's development was why some people use the TV remote all the time, but hesitate to pick up a game controller. So I really insisted that it be called a remote. Ikeda: In the early stages of development we ran into a number of problems that we hadn't anticipated, like the fact that the controller would react to fluorescent light, for example. Creating a mechanism that prevents the controller from responding to fluorescent light and sunlight may not sound overly difficult, but it still caused us a good deal of trouble. Iwata: So, that's how the specifications of the Wii controller were decided. However, it wasn't until the Tokyo Game Show last year that it was unveiled to the general public. I was up on stage at that event, and I still vividly remember the silence that followed the video that introduced the controller. It felt like time was standing still... It was as though the audience didn't know how to react. Given that you'd all worked so hard on the controller, what did you think of that reaction? Miyamoto: Like Mr Takeda, I too was very much on edge. I was certain that they wouldn't understand Wii unless they actually tried it out for themselves, and so I was unsure how convincing the presentation alone would be. Everyone was clapping, but I couldn't help but wonder whether our message had gotten across, or whether people thought it was too unconventional. However, looking at the other unveilings at the Tokyo Game Show that day, I was very much relieved by the fact that Nintendo was the only one doing something new. Everyone else seemed to be just polishing up something that everyone had already seen before. Ashida, when asked about reax from developers: For the most part, their feedback was very positive, which was a great relief. Needless to say, there were a few cries of dissent, but most people were left with a favourable impression. Ikeda: I was often left in charge of explaining the controller's functions, but it was only when they actually got their hands on the controller that their faces would light up. Seeing this, I really felt as though we'd scored a hit. And then, immediately after they had a go on Wii, they started coming up with ideas. Right there and then they were already discussing what they could do and how they could do it! I was amazed by the speed of this. Iwata: Producers are more likely to pick up the controller and start thinking about its limitations. Creators, on the other hand, are more likely to look at what is possible, come up with ideas and ask a lot of questions. They'll go home with smiles on their faces, won't they? Iwata: In bringing Wii to the world, we've filled up countless boxes with mock-ups, prototypes, trial software, and so on. But I truly feel that none of our efforts were wasted. These concepts came and went at a remarkable pace, until we came across those special technologies that solved all of our problems at once. Nowadays, nobody has any doubts about the "d-pad with two main buttons" interface. But twenty years ago many people wondered whether such a controller could really be used to play games. So, if we continue to do what we know has to be done, our controller, which now appears quite unusual, may very well become the new standard. As someone who has made it their life’s work to make innovative products, I feel very lucky to have had the chance to witness this story from beginning to end. Everyone, thank you very much. Japanese companies are sometimes portrayed as being too conservative. However, I have found that there is a creative/innovative streak in certain firms that can lead to truly innovative products that push the engineering and creative envelopes, open up new markets, and force everyone to realize new possibilities. That's what happened with the Wii. Its success, however, was not duplicated with the WiiU. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.nintendo-europe.com/163.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100612175931/http://wii.ninten...

wnevets 10y ago

The motion control hype was crazy huge during its initial launch. Most wii owners weren't "gamers" and didn't actually buy games for the thing. The list of its top selling games is kinda of a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video...

overcast 10y ago
That's even more depressing than I realized, and further proves my point.
rockdoe 10y ago
What's your definition of "games" and "gamer"? Based on "what I like", presumably?
- wnevets 10y ago
  Within this context is going to have to be where you play games rather than only wii sports.