Longest Ever Queue for a Wii

Take your time guys.

I am full with half-assed impressions, and i want a solid opinion on whats hot or not about Wii.

New Mario, New Zelda, New Metroid, New Sonic, New Madden, apparently these games are excellent.
It will be probably 5 months till release and the developers have more time to tweek the final game.
Both Metroid and Red Steel need some tweeking on the controls, but I have faith that Ubisoft and Retro have been taking the critisism constructively and will deliver in the end. It is in their hands now.
The madden game is meant to be really good with intuitive controls, Mario only has some minor camera issues and Sonic is looking to be the best yet.
I cant wait to get the system, I am guessing it will be released over here in late november/early december with a price of around £150.

Oh man, I'm sure there's a hint of a nipple there - what a hottie. I'd sure like to play her Wii...

Sorry, but here's another. I mean, sure our guys will give you a full and considered report on Wii shortly. But I just played it and I gotta tell someone. NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.

I mean, it is a paradigm shift. I have not grinned like that at a gaming advance since I first saw Ridge Racer pre-launch on the PS1. That was just bringing arcade quality into the home. This is... just magic. Wii Tennis could save my lard arse from increasing lardiness. And help me get over those difficult heart-attack years cardiacly intact.

Sony were right to put the brakes on while they hastily ripped Wii off for PS3. Whether they've done a good job of it remains to be seen. Despite the kicking SPOnG took recently for suggesting that PS3 would barely be on show at E3, all those bitches were wrong, and we were right... so no-one really knows how good PS3 motion detection will be... or if it will spark an Sony vs Nintendo litigation. But not having it would be a total trainwreck.

Peter Moore may be claiming that a 360 AND a Wii works out as better value than a PS3 (disingenuously overlooking the superior graphics and the HD digital media) but I bet 360 gets a tacked on 3D motion detection device before Christmas 2007.

Yowzers...Doctordee... that's some very big words... even for you. Bit i'm glad to hear it... now i'm really pumped.

Oh yes, anyone seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFQz98jAcg8&feature=Views&page=3&t=t&f=b

Notice how everyone is running past the Sony booth...straight to Nintendo's one... must be scary for the Nintendo people working there, huge nerd stampede coming at them...

I haven't played on a Wii yet, nor a PS3, so take my comments with the amount of salt they deserve.

I can see the Wii controller being excellent for physical simulation inputs, e.g. bat/racket/club swinging, baton twirling and the like. However there are going to be some games where you need to use the other control options that the Wii supports and I think this will dent Nintendo's aim of inclusion.

Imagine the living room of tomorrow (screen borders go all wobbly as we travel in time).

"No, Dad. You can't play Metroid without the analogue stick add-on."

"Mam, you need to use the gun clip-on to play Duck Hunt."

"If you want to play Mario 64 on the virtual console, you have to use the classic controller, Sis. How many times do I have to tell you?"

I just don't see that being an easy way to get on. Sure, WiiSports will have people playing in no time, and maybe that will be enough to hook them into gaming that the above problems won't put them off. However, I have had many, many phone calls with my parents where I have to remind them where the backspace key is on a keyboard or how to close a window on their PC. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

The fact is, 99% of PS3 games will use the new controller (we have to come up with a name for it, and I hate DualShake). Even if the game could use motion sensing better or more easily with the Wii remote, the PS3 will be able to take a stab at it, and will have the advantage that you only need to think about the one controller unless you are using the eyeToy or playing something like DDR or Guitar Hero.

And another thing I've just noticed while looking through the Wii hardware shots is that the classic controller is wired. This most probably means it needs to be connected to the remote like the analogue stick, but the classic is a two-handed controller so the remote will have to hang off it or sit in your lap or something. Not an elegant solution.

Of course I'm the guy who didn't see the DS being anywhere near as big as it is, so maybe I'm just a natural devil's advocate. Or maybe I've just opened myself up to the full fury of the Nintendo faithful. Meh, it's not the first time.

Edit 13-May-2006 11:43
Just found this link on digg. A 1999 European patent awarded to Sony for a motion sensing games controller. Not to say the feature wasn't put into PS3 recently, but it wasn't a last minute project by any means.

Hmm, do you know how these patents work? Sony, MS and Nintendo have patents filed all over the place. Every piece of new technology, you name it, they have their hand in the cookie jar. Both Sony and MS filed patents for touchscreen control AGES ago. But do you really believe, if either of them came up with it now, it wouldn't be to counter Nintendo?

The Warhawk dev got TWO WEEKS to get his motion-controlled demo working, just before E3. Do you really believe this was "planned all along"?

Please.

Concerning the controller, and its add-ons. You certainly have a point, but not really at the same time. The games Nintendo is targetting non-gamers with, will NOT use these add-ons. Tennis, golf, Brain Training, Nintendogs...

I don't think my mom would feel the need to start playing Metroid, just because now, she "could". These games don't interest non-gamers.

Nintendo has been saying this all along, they want to make software that appeals to hardcore gamers, yet now they can use a more intuitive controlling device; and at the same time they want to appeal to non-gamers, with a new breed of software, with very simple controls that don't scare the non-gamer and is so "obvious" it even looks familiar.

There are plenty of non-gamers playing Brain Training or Nintendogs on DS right now, that doesn't mean they would consider playing Resident Evil DS, even is the controls were as easy as those other games.

You know, it's this sort of attitude that gets my back up with fanboys of all persuasions. "My favourite platform announced it first, therefore nobdy else can have even thought about it before then."

Nobody in the world thought of any of the features of Live before Microsoft announced them?

Nobody in the world thought of an analogue stick before Nintendo showed one on the N64 controller?

Nobody in the world thought of putting a touch screen on a hand-held before Nintendo brought out the DS?

As you so cleverly put it "Please".

There are all sorts of technical and financial reasons why nobody else deployed those technologies before the company that first got them to market. That doesn't mean that nobody else even thought of them before then.

Sony have obviously been looking into motion sensing controllers since 1999, possibly before. That's not to say Nintendo haven't been investigating them since then either. However the fact remains, Sony did not "steal" this idea from Nintendo.


Every developer gets new technology two weeks before an arbitrary date. Just because this time the arbitrary date happened to be E3 everybody is now supposed to be suspicious of the time-scales? The internets are rife with this "two weeks" information and the Nintendo fanboys are citing this as proof that Sony has only just thought about adding motion sensing into the controller.

Now they may have put motion sensing into PS3 as a reaction to Wii - I'm not even trying to deny that - but they have been developing the technology for at least seven years. They were obviously going to use it at some time.

Why is it such a stretch to think that a company like Sony has people working for it that are capable of thinking for themselves?


And if you think that Metroid is the only game that will use the analogue add-on you are mistaken. Please listen to the spirit of my argument and don't just pick apart the quick examples I gave.

If Nintendo and their third party developers are going to develop two sets of games (for old hands and new gamers, say) then that approach will surely dent the inclusive aspect of the Wii.

Note I didn't say negate it! I said dent it.

You know, there's a difference between talkin' the talk, and walkin' the walk.

Sure Sony and MS have had millions and billions of patents filed, possibly even in the relevant areas we're talking about. That's what giant corporations do. Did either of them have the guts to come forward and say:

"You know what, I'm gonna use this whacky technology to drive our indusrty in a new direction to prevent the market fom stagnating while comfortably returning money to our shareholders on ip we did sell rather than ip we kept under lock and key".

I didn't think so.

The proof that Sony clearly did throw this controller in at the last minute and didn't originally intend to have motion sensing comes from the fact that PS3 is supposed to already be available. They said spring 2006. Spring's nigh on over, and for them to "spring" this game changing feature on their developers (ahem) at what would have been such a late stage would be unthinkable. If they had launched in spring, then they would have told us, the public about their control during TGS or soon after at the latest. When do you really think they would tell developers? Launch is hardly an insignificant date. It's not entirely arbitrary either.

If Sony has been planning the motion/tilt detection part of PS3 for ages, why did they neglect to tell any developers about it? Not one seems to have heard of it before E3.

Smells of "rammed in at the last minute" Nintendo spoiler to me.

But I may be wrong.

Not sure why you quoted me before making this valid, but unrelated (to anything I said) point.

Thing is, who really cares that people who can't tie their shoe-laces will not be able to work a console with a multi-part modular controller. Those people are not really the metroid audience. They are not typically playing games now, and they will be dead soon. But if anything could start them playing games, it would be golf on the Wii.

Plus, on reflection, and despite my crass generalisations, I don't think you are giving people enough credit. The same people you are accusing of being unable to work out that certain games need certain controllers manage each day to use the toaster rather than the refridgerator to make toast. They find their way to work (at their own office, not someone else's ostensibly similar one) and they DO tie their own shoelaces. I think they can probably work out (or remember once told by an obliging 78 year old) that their favourite gamme needs "that twiddly bit that you plug in" .

The PS3 controller may have tilt detection, but it doesn't appear to have 3d spatial position detection - at least Sony were far from clear on this, and showed nothing that indicated that it has. if this proves to be the case, there are LOTS of things the Wii controller can do that the PS3 simply won't be able to. In reality, I think the PS3 controller might not be good for much more than racing games and... erm... racing games. Oh, and maybe Marble Madness!

At no point did I try to claim that the addition of motion sensing to the PS3 wasn't a recent decision. I pointed out a link I'd found that proved that Sony had been researching motion detection since at least 1999 and therefore probably hadn't stolen the ide from Nintendo. I said, in more than one place that I thought the inclusion was a response to Wii.

Perhaps this was just a flight of fancy research project that got pushed to the fore in response to a competitor, like for example a certain two-screened, touch-sensitive hand-held. Or perhaps not. There were rumours of tilt sensing in the PSP, Archer Maclean mentioned an add-on for tilt sensing for Mercury for example.

The point is, the tech wasn't stolen or ripped off. It was probably included as a reaction to Nintendo's direction, but the research had been going on for a while. Who knows, maybe it was originally slated for PS4, but was bumped up after TGS?


It's because I started with the idea that the Wii would be good for physical controls like tennis, that you mentioned. I re-wrote the opening paragraph to include more examples and the link with your point was weakened.


I did make the point that "Sure, WiiSports will have people playing in no time, and maybe that will be enough to hook them into gaming that the above problems won't put them off." So I think we have the same ideas on that point.

However, by saying they are not the people that play games you are referring to exactly the same "non-gamers" that Nintendo hopes to draw into gaming with the Wii.


The same people who do all that are the same ones who can't set the clock on their video, or can't set it to record a show they want to watch. Walking to work is not a big, scary technology and a toaster is obviously not a fridge.

Some people have a mental block when it comes to technology, and games consoles fall into that bag. The Wii will be excellent for getting these people into gaming, but I think that some aspects of it will still confuse them.

And saying that there are some games for them and some for the more hardcore is a way around that, of course, but it's hardly inclusive, is it?


I believe that the PS3 controller has accelerometers meaning it detects motion, not position. I also thought Sony had made this clear, but I have been reading a huge amount about everything at E3 so I may have mixed up where I got that from.


Racing games and flight sims are the obvious choices, but also games like Super Monkey Ball, LocoRoco and Mercury will benefit. First and third person games could possibly benefit from camera controls. The way Samus now can open doors in Metroid can also be implemented with the PS3 controller. Psi-ops and Second Sight like games can use the controller for moving things with telekinesis.

Really, the only major difference from the Wii controller is the shape of the pad, this will make sword swings and the like less likely to be implemented. However I think that the ingenuity of the games developers working on the PS3 will be similar to that of those working on the Wii and the DS. To assume otherwise is to do them a disservice.