Happy Birthday Wii!

[Hellfire]

Exactly one year ago, Wii was released in Europe. It's been a year filled with mixed feelings: love, hate, disapointment and indIference, but still, the Wii did what it sought to do: bring new players in. That and it's selling like cupcakes.

So, what did you think of Wii's first year? Discuss all you want, but no flaming please.

Be sure to check the mainsite throughout the weekend for some special features!

 

Check out the staff roundtable (clicky)! Leave your comments!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WII!

[Shino]

It was shit. Because I don't have one.

[darksnowman]

Its made it a year and hasn't flopped, who woulda predicted that?

 

Go go Shigsy!

[Shorty]

Since grabbing one on release, I've bought Zelda, Mario and Metroid Prime. All are great although I've felt literally zero compuslion to return to them after completion. They are also, along with the rerelease of RE4 (which I didn't purchase due to it being a re-release of a game I completed 10 times already), the only games to get average scores above 9/10. To me this makes for an overall disappointing year.

 

The initial excitement Miis and Wii Sports, the pull of the Wii-fitness and the gold medals, died after a couple of months and since then the Wii has simply collected dust beneath my 360 between the major releases. To me the Wii has been further proof that Nintendo do great games well, but really fail to achieve some core ideas that can pull in serious gamers. A lot of their tactics just do not make sense to me. Why is there no demo channel? Why not meet the 360's awesome 'achievements' idea? Recently I decided to get the 360 version of Guitar Hero III over the Wii one solely because achievements are cool. Like the rumble pack or the analogue stick or online gaming, this is a gaming innovation that Nintendo should be unashamed to join in with. Why aren't they producing enough consoles to meet demand? Why can't I hook up a USB HDD to my Wii? Why do Wii points, an entirely digital entity, sell out in their stars catalogue? How the hell do you sell out of something that effectively doesn't exist!? Where is your core multiplayer service? Why are Miis so limited? In a country that produces manga characters with every hair colour under the rainbow, why must my Mii look like a balloon I drew a face on with a marker pen?

 

I'm sorry, I've gone on a real rant here. As always in these boards, I'm making an unpopular name for myself amongst the Wii fans. No doubt someone will multi-quote and pick apart everything I've said. But I'm a logical person, I apply the question "why did you do that?" to everything I see, and the Wii just makes me question so many strange decisions.

 

Don't get me wrong, Nintendo are still doing what they do best, great immersive games, but they're doing so much else wrong. I want to see a lot more ideas that appeal to me as a gamer in the second year. The only thing they've done right so far is the Virtual Console titles, but unfortunately for the most part they don't compare to the XBLA.

 

The DS still rocks.

[Hellfire]

This thread is to discuss what you think, doesn't matter if you like it or not. Someone says something, someone else will agree or disagree (which what I will do now :P).

Just as long as people can avoid "lulz fanboi" comments it's cool.

Saying achievments are an innovation akin to the control stick and rumble and ignoring the fact that Wii has motion sensing among other pretty big innovations seems like a bit of a stretch in logic to be honest.

Why aren't they meeting demand? Because they're selling a lot, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, they weren't expecting to sell this much, this regularly, so they can't keep up with production.

The points in the star catalogue "disappearing" is just a preventive measure so that too many people won't buy lots of points in a short period of time. Nintendo likes money. Go figure.

I totally agree with the USB HDD, it's about time they get that sorted. The Miis are also very limited, but there's little consequence, it's just a little feature to entertain newcomers and to be honest it's actually fun to see what people can come up with in the Check Mii Out Channel under such limitations. Still, I hope they upgrade the Miis customization.

Online doesn't seem to be the main focus with Nintendo, which was pretty much obvious, but I can play Mario Strikers, GH3 (even though I don't have it :p), MoH2 and SSBB (in the future :P) online quickly and without many hurdles, so for me it's cool. Of course that the online system doesn't compare to 360s.

Demo channel? It's already out in Japan, it will probably be here soon.

Don't really know what to say if you don't feel compelled to return to games with great replay value like Mario, Zelda or Metroid, seems like what you really like are online games, so honestly, 360s the right choice for you. Stop clinging so much to reviews though, who cares if few games are above 9/10? Do you simply avoid games like Excite Truck or Mario Strikers (to name 2 among quite a good list) because they didn't get high scores? I seriously think that's a close minded way to look at videogames.

[pedrocasilva]

Happy birthday Wii and Zelda TP the very first reason why I bought the console, followed by a few this last year.

 

Be that the next 4 years (or more) are better than the first and we have something on our hands.

[Owen]

I LOVE my Wii overall! Still a few things i'm extremely peeved about, but we live in Europe, so nothing new.

 

Mario, Metroid and Zelda have been the best games for it, obviously. All of them have kept me glued to my Wii for more then a hour, which is good.

 

Many of the other games i have are more play for about 30 mins and put down, unlike 360's catalogue of blockbusters where your glued and this is what i want alot more off.

 

It's certainly a more family/party fun console then i thought it was going to be way back before it was released, but for sheer innovation and pure simple fun it's excellent.

 

The Virtual Console didn't excite me at first, but i love the fact i have Ocarina of time, Wave Race, F-Zero etc..all there waiting for me to play!

 

Wii Sports and creating your mii's still is fantastic today, the initial spark has gone, but i still adore tennis!

 

All these voting channels and mii contest channels are a cool little feature so i want to see more!

 

I think we need to see the demo channel and a few more of Ninty's classic 'blockbusters' but judging by the release list there a awful long way off.

 

This is now my worry, third-party titles are gonna take most of 2008 it seems and i hope they don't just rehash older games and add waggle or not put alot of effort in the new ones! At the moment Brawl and Wii:Fit are the only Nintendo games we all know about which will be VERY good. I have Battalion Wars and it won't be for everyone, and DK: Barrell Blast isn't exactly a Mario Kart clone (sadly) and is certainly one for the bargain bin if i'm being honest.

 

So my major worry for 2008 is software from Nintendo themselves.

[welsh_gamer]

Happy Birthday Wii! I can't belive it's been a year.

 

Had a great Christmas last year thanks to Zelda, and should have an even better one this year with Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3 and Link's Crossbow Training.

 

A personal highlight of mine has been Mario Strikers. Played this game non-stop online for a good 3 month's, and had many fantastic games with N-E folk on it. If I did have a 360 I would be worried that I would have no social life due to the amount of online game's on it, so with Nintendo's limited online game's, I am able to balance the two.

 

The VC has had a good year too. Paper Mario is a game I never owned on the N64, and it's great to re-play Mario Kart 64 and Lylat Wars.

 

Biggest dissapointments were the short lived and boring Super Paper Mario and the delay of Medal of Honor Heroes 2.

 

I'm sure 2008 can only get better, and after seeing what games are being released in the first 6 months, I'm pretty sure of it!

[Jamba]

Hey Shorty, no fret mate because you either feel that it caters for you or doesnt. You dont have to pretend that it does.

 

I think that there needs to be a bit of a perspective put on the "lack of hot titles" point though. At this time in the 360s lifecycle, there was still very little out. I think that GoW had just come out and Lost Planet was on it's way as well but it was still littered with medium games and lots of pc ports (even though some of them were frackin great: GO CONDEMNED!)

 

My biggest concern about the Wii though is that the 3rd parties are still not pulling their weight. All the games that are not either good or great are pretty bad. And on top of that, there are lots of them. I'm hoping that this stint of "that would be awesome with Wii controls!" characterised by games like Red Steel and Heatseeker will fade. I am hoping the devs realise that doing so does not make quality games as they are either ports of frankly old material or very badly executed. They need to realise that the Wii-mote does not have to be a simulation tool that it can be used to give an extra level of gameplay, a shining example of this is the "torch" functionality in Paper Mario (even though I dont rate this game over all). They need to stop trying to make the Wii functions the saving grace of their game and just make it fit into the design as a part.

 

When more quality games start coming out, there will be a critical mass point where the average person won't have the gaming tim or money to want to buy the rubbish games. Then the devs making the shovel ware will have to think long and hard about making their games. I'm not totally surprised by the current situation though, as Nintendo have been pushing their platform as cheap to dev for and so companies will have the psychology of making a cheap title. Also everyone is cranking out the rubbish titles so they can get some serious bang for their buck. Think about it from Ubi's point of view: They spent relatively little money and time on Red Steel but they made a fortune because EVERYONE bought it. So why stop? Keep cranking out the shit until the good arrives and the poor consumers will buy it because they have no alternative (or are too dim!)

 

As far as the HDD issue goes, then I can understand why Nintendo is reluctant. They are wary about their platform becoming very easily pirateable but at the same time it's insane because they are making life difficult for devs such as the GHIII team who want to put DLC on that version. Also with the achievements, I could see how Nintendo could maybe see it as being a bit too competitive but hey hey, no biggy. Didnt realise that people were so into their achievements...

 

I do hope that we see that critical mass I was talking about in the next year though but with Nintendo (and occasionally Capcom, bless 'em) being the only people releasing quality titles, it could be a while. I hope Z'n'W becomes a franchise, probably will though (go on give us an Ace Attorney game too!)

 

Anyway, more as i think of it....

[Luke]

Happy Anniversary broke my wrist one year ago.

 

Other than that I got my Wii in April... (after playing on my friend's one with a huge arm cast a few days after it came out, couldn't do nunchuck games very well.)

 

It's been very good but sadly enough I never play things much because I have a weird temperament. I'm very happy that the Wii is in short supply rather than a constant supply because it shows the world change is good and Nintendo is good.

[darkjak]

I'm getting increasingly less imressed.

Neither Call of Duty 4, or Soul Calibur 4 are coming, despite CoD 3 and SC Legends being out. We just get the crappy ones

At least we have Zelda:TP, Mario Galaxy and Metroid Corruption. I'm thinking of buying Medal of Honor as well.

Hope we'll see something groundshaking next year, like the Metroid Prime team working on a FPS and Factor 5 working on Pilotwings.

 

The Wii becoming keyboard compatible ROCKS!

[Davey_T]

Very very glad i got one 10 months after release because the games i wanted have only just come out

[Ren of Heavens]

First-party-support: Great. To have a new great Zelda, Mario and Metroid within the first year is more than I expected. Throw in the originality and newness of Wii Sports and WarioWare and it is no doubt Nintendo have done their job.

 

Third-party support: Pretty awful. RE4 is the only super-great game and thats a 2-3 year old GC title. At least with Gamecube we got two exlusive REs (REmake and Zero) the first year as well as a quality FPS in Timesplitters 2.

 

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Nintendo looks to follow up in their second year with Wii Fit, Smash Brawl, Mario Kart and maybe Animal Crossing Wii, but third party support still seems dodgy.

[Hellfire]

Check out the staff roundtable (clicky)! Leave your comments!

[Guest Maase]

Its already one year anniversary, but i still haven't Nintendo Wii.

 

Just more 7 days and i can have my Nintendo Wii ^^