20.Jul.2008
E3
Wii Music
Firstly, big thanks to Jason for letting me pollute the Internet with my blog in the first place, and for not deleting it after all this time of neglect. Also, big congratulations to you both too.
Secondly, E3.
For anyone that doesn’t follow this kind of stuff, E3 is a big US showcase for the major companies involved in gaming to show off their stuff. If you do some reading up on this event now, you’ll probably find a bunch of stuff about how E3 is aimed at the media and is therefore only focused on casual gaming. If you had done the same search a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have found anything that said that.
Why has this situation come about, and why do I care? Well, it has come about because of Nintendo.
Yes, you know Nintendo, the company that has had huge success with the portable DS system, and on top of that, huge success selling the Wii. Everyone knows this, even my Mum. In many respects Nintendo are dominating the market at the moment, and congratulations to them. They are selling lots of hardware, and lots of software too. There’s more to that story, but I’ll keep it out of this post.
So Nintendo came to E3, and the end result was that pretty much anyone would agree that they put on a poor show. I can’t say I have watched their full presentation, but I have seen bits, and that is enough for me. Probably the funniest, most embarrassing thing I have seen for a long time actually.
The guy flaining about in the montage above? In case you are wondering, he is playing a virtual drum kit. The software is called Wii Music. If you think the montage is funny, watch the whole performance below. It will only take 3 minutes of your time, and I guarantee you will laugh, and then cringe. If you think the drum solo is bad, just wait until gaming legend Sheygeyruru Miayamoto comes on for a saxophone solo. It is horrible. Just horrible.
The result of all this was that the entire audience (as only the hardcore sit in the audience), who were expecting some big announcements for exciting new games, were left dumbfounded and disappointed. Apparently though, most Wii owners are still happy and smiling because they are only interested in ‘casual’ games. So that’s OK then.
The almost immediate result of this, however, was Nintendo themselves realised that they had really screwed up, and then felt obliged to confess to the press about every game they have in development, in the desperate hope that it will appease someone. Appease who? The media? They are only interested in casual games. Appease Wii owners? They too are only interested in casual games. Err, so what the hell were they doing, and who exactly were they trying to appease? New Pikmin and Zelda? So where are the games? Not even screenshots??
Nintendo were so desperate. I get the impression we now know about all first party Wii software for the next two years.
To summarize, I just enjoyed seeing Nintendo squirm. Sony did it a couple of years back. They (Sony) should have got people excited about the launch of the PS3, but just ended up making a big mess of it, and it cost them. This time it was Nintendo’s turn. They were way too cocky, and ended up scrabbling for some credibility, no matter what the cost. It also went some way to show that Nintendo have created a beast but really have no control over it, and don’t know what to do with it. There’s another story there too, but maybe next time.
The other interesting thing that this fiasco seems to have triggered is something of a backlash against casual games. This whole ‘casual’ gaming thing has been a buzz word ever since the lauch of the Wii, as if pick up and play type games are something new. They’re not. Even so, it led to practically any software out there suddenly being classified as either, ‘casual’, or ‘hardcore/core’.
Finally, if E3 really is supposed to be for the media and aimed at a casual audience, then I find it pretty funny that pretty much every roundup of E3 that I have seen states that Nintendo’s presentation was clearly the weakest.
