Blue Ocean Thinking: How Nintendo's Wii Gamble Paid Off from 1UP.com

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF NOVEMBER 12 | A LOOK BACK AT THE WII

Blue Ocean Thinking: How Nintendo's Wii Gamble Paid Off

Cover Story: With Wii, Nintendo reinvented the idea of video games.

From the Beginning

I was there when Nintendo proclaimed its strategy for the Wii -- though like everyone else present, I don't think I fully appreciated what I witnessed at the time. It was during a press briefing at Nintendo of America headquarters in Redmond, seven years ago this month. Company president Reggie Fils-Aime gave an hour-long talk to a gathering of about two dozen members of the games press in which he outlined the philosophy behind Nintendo's hardware strategy.

It was a very different kind of press briefing for a game console manufacturer. Short on comparative rhetoric, with the big promises involving beloved mascots and franchises relegated to the second half, Fils-Aime's speech instead emphasized "blue ocean" thinking and "disruptive design." Inspired by W. Chan Kim and René Mauborne's then-recent book, "Blue Ocean Strategy," Fils-Aime waxed philosophical about the stagnation endemic to any medium or business that meets success with repetition; Nintendo, he explained, intended to break from that mold and not simply compete, but expand the industry.

"In the 8-Bit years, 31% of households had a gaming system," Fils-Aime stated. "This year, where is going to end up? Somewhere between 31-32%. The growth we have seen has been driven by population growth, and by duplicate ownership." Nintendo's vision, he explained, was to change that with the "Revolution," as the Wii was known at the time.

At the time, these proclamations were difficult to parse. In some respects, this talk of shifting tracks seemed almost like a tacit admission of failure. Remember, at the end of 2005, Nintendo was hardly riding high; the GameCube had failed to compete effectively with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox, reduced to also-ran status despite boasting considerably more horsepower than the PS2. The popular Game Boy Advance had withered quickly from an early peak, and while the DS had begun to find traction thanks to Nintendogs, its heavy hitters for 2005 -- the online-capable Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing: Wild World -- were still on the horizon. The company had yet to back off entirely from the suggestion that the DS was a "third pillar" of their business just in case it failed (no doubt visions of Virtual Boy were fresh in Nintendo's mind, as they were with outside observers) and they needed to fall back on the Game Boy name.

While we didn't learn anything concrete about the Wii that day, Fils-Aime's talk was more than just a windy speed bump before we were allowed to go hands-on to write about the company's fall releases. It was Nintendo's statement of intent, paving the way for the following autumn's hardware launch.

Iconoclast

By the time November 2006 rolled around and that new console arrived, Nintendo was in a different place entirely. Riding high on a sleek redesign and a growing library of excellent games, the DS had, against all odds, pulled far ahead of Sony's technologically superior PSP. The Wii pre-sold out worldwide months before its launch; for a full year, it was in such high demand that eager buyers would camp out overnight at retailers in hopes of a new shipment. Six years later, the hardware continues to edge steadily toward 100 million units sold, which will make it only the second home console to reach that landmark (after the PS2, which currently sits at 150 million) and the fourth game system period (the others being Nintendo's own Game Boy and DS).

Yet despite selling on par with the PS2, the circumstances of Wii's widespread popularity couldn't be more different. Sony's seventh-gen console benefitted from the expectations borne of its predecessor's game-changing attempts to shift the medium's demographics by aiming at maturing gamers. The PS2 rode a perfect storm of hype, value-added features, and a hammerlock on the Japanese game development industry that resulted in a massive and diverse library of great software.

The Wii, on the other hand, came from the opposite direction. It followed in the wake of the underwhelming sales of the GameCube (the third consecutive Nintendo console to sell fewer units than its predecessor). It earned the scorn of gamers and developers alike by bucking the trend of high-definition graphics; Chris Hecker referred to the system as "a piece of shit" at a Game Developers Conference session and joked that "The way you manufacture a Wii is you take two GameCubes and duct tape." He wasn't entirely wrong: The Wii actually ran on an amped version of the same processor as Nintendo's previous system. Its graphical output topped out at 480p (compared to the 1080p ceiling of other systems). It included a miserable 512 MB of internal storage (compared to the 20 and 80 GB of its competitors at launch). It had no optical audio-out port, didn't provide external storage options beyond a single SD card slot for several years, and it lacked a centralized online service (instead requiring people to share "friend codes" in order to play together). By the standards of the game hardware market -- ever advancing, ever increasing in power -- the Wii was flimsy garbage.

In short, the system couldn't begin to compete with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 -- but that was entirely the point. Nintendo had played that game for the previous two generations and lost badly to Sony both times. As Fils-Aime noted, the core gaming market had never grown as a percentage of the population since the NES days. Rather than simply fight for the same finite dollars, Nintendo's Wii would go after a different audience altogether. Hardcore gamers had been mocking the company's tendency to favor family-friendly "kiddie games" since NEC and Sega began selling their respective 16-bit consoles with anti-Nintendo attack ads in the '80s. With Wii, Nintendo hoped to remain in the family-friendly zone... but this time, their tactic was to target the rest of the family, too, not just kids. This exact strategy had begun to pay dividends with breakout DS hits like Nintendogs and Brain Age, which sold millions of copies and millions of systems to people who wouldn't normally game: Young girls, the elderly, mothers.

And the system's sales numbers speak for themselves. As we reach the end of the Wii's natural life, it's a single Black Friday from hitting 100 million units sold. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 (which had a one-year head start) has reached 70 million, while the PS3 is steadily catching up at 63 million. These are excellent numbers, especially for the 360 (which has nearly tripled its predecessor's sales), but the 360 and PS3's current sales combined still fall nearly 50 million units short of what the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox accomplished, despite the extended duration of the current hardware cycle -- a gap they're unlikely to close before the next console generation hits.

Throw Wii into the mix, however, and the current generation's unit sales exceed those of the last cycle by roughly 35 million units. Even accounting for overlap in ownership -- the "Wii60" concept of complementing Xbox 360's power with Wii's versatility was in vogue among gamers for quite a while -- it's safe to say that the Wii has helped break games beyond the boundaries to which Fils-Aime referred in that pre-Revolution talk he delivered back in 2005. Every gamer has an anecdote or two of the Wii's crossover appeal, whether it involves fellow college students playing Mario Kart for a year instead of doing kegstands or (as in my own experience from a couple of years ago) a friend's elderly immigrant parents breaking out Wii Sports during Thanksgiving dinner to show off their insane bowling skills.

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Comments (29)

Good read
Posted: Nov 15, 2012 12:00AM PST by CanWizard

i liked your article. it really encapsulated the story of the Wii and the feelings I have about the Wii in this moment of transition to a new generation. its an emotional moment.
For me the change is all the more saddening because last week my launch Wii finally went kaput. It really soldiered on, gosh darn it, but now it looks like I will have to upgrade to actually finish (or replay I guess) all those uncompleted wii games. I think I might own more games for Wii than I had for any other console.
Now that I think about it... my Gamecube fizzled out right before the Wii launched, too. Probably just a coincidence... but the Wii was serving as my Gamecube surrogate... and since the WiiU won't be up to that task maybe my Wii is going to have a second life breathed into it after all. Or maybe I'll even buy another one. Whoa. Looks like me and Wii aren't parting ways just yet.

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Haven't switched on Wii since Hurricane Sandy
Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by shady78

I know, I know, "Too Soon".
But it is the sad fact that I had been swimming along nicely, playing combinations of Xenoblade and The Last Story, but was becoming increasingly troubled by the system not wanting to load itself up whenever I wanted to play.
Careful applications of the Official Lens Cleaning Solutions only tended to solve the problem on a marginal scale.
I started wondering whether it may be my smoking problem that was somehow getting into Wii, and making the hardware not boot.
[EDIT: You may want to think twice before you light up a cigarette and initiate Wii-U chats]
My biggest concern, atm (at the moment), is this very worry-ing sounding process about how to transfer all of the Wii's memories into a small San-Disk, and then populate it into the Wii-U. This...
This is not going to be as easy as swimming into the mouth of a huge whale, is it?

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Wii was a system for dissatisfied gamers
Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by Mahew

Wii was a system made for those who didn't like the direction gaming was taking. That includes people who weren't impressed by the HD consoles, as well as people who had dropped out long ago, such as people who played on the NES but not after that, and people who just hadn't been impressed by video games at all until that point. To a point, Wii managed to present these people something more impressive than what was being offered by other consoles. Wii was for people who were harder to impress than complacent gamers satisfied with run of the mill offerings.

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As a "hardcore" gamer, I'm happy for Nintendo
Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by milkman_v1

I feel very much in the minority of gaming's core demo that has no issue with Nintendo's focus. Their approach to not be homogenized with the rest of the industry paid extraordinary dividends, and while the target audience was not the kind of gamer who has Odin Sphere in their library, the system still saw extraordinary "non-casual" games, from the Super Mario Galaxy duo, NSMBW, Twilight Princess, Sin & Punishment 2, Xenoblade, DKC Returns, SSB Brawl, Rayman Origins, No More Heroes, to a surprisingly good remake of GoldenEye of all things, not to mention the terrific offerings of the Virtual Console. It offers a terrific library for "real" gamers if they choose to mine the selection.
And I love that it got people who wouldn't touch an XBOX or PS3 to dabble in gaming. I don't give a shit if it's not going to make my mom want to go immerse herself in Skyrim, the fact that she'll pick up a Wiimote for Wii Sports Resort on her own accord is Nintendo's philosophy at work. It speaks volumes to me that no one who comes over to my place seems to want to touch my smorgasbord of systems aside from the N64 (read: Mario Kart) and the Wii. Isn't that how Nintendo became synonmous with video games in the first place, their ever-mass appeal? And you know what, some of those casual games are pretty fun; I enjoyed my time more with Skylanders, WSR, Just Dance, and EA Sports Active than Resident Evil 6 or FFXIII-2.
There seems to be the sense of entitlement that gaming only belongs to those who study SFIV move priority, Persona character profiles, or wishes the death of EA, but you know what, gaming should cast its net as wide as possible if it wants to be seen as equals with other mediums such as film and music. You know what's great about this industry? Options. Think the Wii is too casual and kiddy? There's two other consoles waiting for you. You don't want to play the causal shit? There are lots of "hardcore" games for the Wii if you actually fucking look. It's not killing the industry; quality games will always surface from the passionate teams with the skill and resources to pull it off. You may look down on the Wii, and that's fine, but the sales of the system and its games show that there's a lot more to the gaming audience than just the people who post on 1up articles. I never understood the appeal of sneering or rooting for something that may not be geared specifically for me to fail; there's enough options to make everyone happy, and if it expands the medium's audience, even "casually", then I'm all for it.

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- Not Feelings of Entitlement, but Disappointment
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  When Nintendo took the casual path, you can't blame longtime fans of the company for being disappointed in the sudden drop of artsy and/or genre-pushing titles designed for them. With games like Mario 64, Nintendo essentially kickstarted the 3-D revolution--one that we're still reaping the rewards from today. So it is strange Nintendo no longer takes a strong part in the movement it spawned.
  Instead, the Big N moved over to start the motion movement, and I think gamers of any type were initially intrigued. But Nintendo itself failed to do anything interesting with the technology, beyond some sports titles and a few other exceptions. Even Skyward Sword was sometimes an ungainly fit for the tech. It's great Nintendo got more people into gaming, but motion controls feel more like a sidestep than a true step forward, and will remain that way until VR finally takes off (or unless Kinect 2 does something incredible).
  The point is this--if Nintendo had done what it could to benefit both audiences, both casual and hardcore, there would be no complaint today. But in the Wii's later years, the closest Nintendo got to satisfying the latter (aside from Zelda) was a series of fun platformers (NSMBWii, DKC Returns, Kirby Epic Wii). All fine games, mind you, but hardly revolutionary, and still a step or two behind games like Little Big Planet on PS3 (another superb "casual" game).
  
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- @Pacario
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by spaceworm
  
  But it does come off as entitlement when gamers such as yourself ignore(sometimes on purpose) genre pushing games that Nintendo put out within the Wii's first year. Yeah I'm talking Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. Check out the article 1UP has out about the best games that utilized the Wiimote, or the thread on GAF about IR controls. MP3 is praised so many times for it's controls. Galaxy's genius was how the EAD team chose subtley with the motion elements, and not over-doing it w/ "waggle". As a first party Nintendo did great w/ their franchises on the Wii. The difference is that without solid 3rd party support, there's nothing to fill the gaps in between 1st party releases. Now let's drop that logic, and speak on the relationship between Ninty and hardcore gamers. You say, "if Nintendo had done what it could to benefit both audiences, both casual and hardcore, there would be no complaint today." You know that's a damn lie. For the simple life lesson that you can't please everyone all the time. No matter how many times Nintendo puts a 'core' game out, there's always gamers to hate or not care because it's the Big N. Check the reaction to Bayonetta 2.
  
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- Fine Games, but not Revolutionary
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  There are no revolutionary titles on the Wii. But if I was forced to choose one anyway, it'd probably be Wii Sports, as it demonstrated the whole motion concept brilliantly and got the casuals on board. But that game, from a more objective perspective, is barely more than a collection of tech demos.
  Mario Galaxy is the best game on the system, but it's not revolutionary. It didn't use motion controls in any sort of meaningful way, and it built heavily off of former Mario games. These truths by no means detract from its greatness, but they do disqualify it from being "revolutionary."
  Same with Metroid Prime 3. It's a fine game, but still a sequel, and one many feel is slightly inferior to the first two. And while the Wii controls were fine, the traditional controls of the earlier games were also excellent, so it was more of a wash than a true advancement when 3 made the shift over to motion. And it was an obvious use of the motion-based controls--there was nothing particularly clever or original about their implementation.
  I agree that sometimes fans complain about the wrong things. Perhaps they should have kept their traps shut in regards to Bayonetta 2--I don't know, that's not a series I'm invested in. But I've always been invested in Nintendo titles--that is, I was until Nintendo snubbed me for a different audience.
  
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- So let me get this.....
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by spaceworm
  
  ...straight. Nintendo failed you because games like Galaxy, Prime3 etc weren't revolutionary? Great games with high metacritic scores that fans have praised deserve no credit beacause they didn't meet your revolutionary standards? A great game isn't enough anymore, now it has to be revolutionary? This means they threw you under the bus? And yet somehow Nintendo put the jedi mind trick on you to buy over 50 Wii games, most of which you agree are good and a handful great? Well. Shoot let me know when your game/console is coming out friend. Trust I'll buy it day 1.
  
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- More an Observation
  Posted: Nov 15, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  The other systems had plenty of revolutionary or at least genre-pushing titles (Portal, Bioshock, Mass Effect, LBP, etc.), so, yes, Nintendo failed me in that its system didn't even have one. But if you want to count Mario Galaxy, I don't mind. It's my favorite on the console.
  But that's not the only reason. Terrible on-line, last-gen hardware, a lack of the kind of games a traditional Nintendo fan would expect (another Starfox, a new Earthbound, maybe a significant new franchise or two). Nintendo let its fans down unquestionably over the last few years. I still bought a ton of games, yes, but usually at huge discounts. Most certainly weren't worth $50.00.
  I guess some fans are just more forgiving (or more blind) than others.
  
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- Mmm?
  Posted: Nov 15, 2012 12:00AM PST by leogmg
  
  You know, I don’t think it’s just that some fans are more forgiving or blind. Some of us just have gotten tired of raging about it and just accept Nintendo for what they are.
  I personally didn’t feel betrayed by them when they went their casual route with the Wii, but rather when they made a lot of decisions in the N64 and GCN eras that made them lose ground to Sony and alienated the 3rd parties. That forced me to buy an additional system to play all the games I wanted, something that really irked me back then. But eventually I realized my raging was pointless (not to mention that it did came as self-entitlement at times, given how I tended to took personal offense at some of their decisions, like the Wind Waker graphics... despite the fact that I still bought the damned game).
  Eventually I suppose I just mellowed out. Nintendo was not going to change their ways no matter how much I ranted after all.
  So as I see it nowadays, as long as the company still produces good, solid games (even if not as revolutionary as they did in the past), I prefer to focus on that positive rather than long for the golden years long past gone that are very likely never going to return.
  And well, while I don’t agree with everything spaceworm says, I think he makes a valid point regarding the fact that Nintendo just can’t please everyone. Even when they actually do something commendable, some people just have a very irrational hatred against the company and demonize them no matter what.
  The particular stupidity about the issue with Bayonetta 2 was that Nintendo finally did what everyone and their mother have been telling them to do for years (approach a 3rd party developer to produce and publish a M-rated core game and make it exclusive of their console) only for the Internet to ignite in flames along the lines of “how dare they to publish a M-rated core game and make it exclusive of their console!”. In the end, the problem was that many so called hardcore gamers just hated the idea of having to play on a Nintendo system (and some later stupidly stated that they were going to boycott the game... by buying it used along with a used system *facepalm*)
  
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- What leogmg...
  Posted: Nov 16, 2012 12:00AM PST by spaceworm
  
  said. But also our own opinions and experiences are what matter most right? Pacario says the Wii didn't have one revolutionary game, I say otherwise. But please see it's facts that shape my opinion, not blind fanboyism. Pretty big facts actually that this article pointed out. The Wii beat the competition in sales. Wii Sports hooked all ages instead of one demographic. The Wii made MS and Sony jump on the bandwagon w/ Kinect & Move. The Wii CHANGED the industry. That's revolutionary dude. It doesn't matter if you don't like or approve of it. There was a significant shift in the way things are. The British didn't like giving up ownership in 1783 but it was still a revolution. And that's the pill they had to swallow. But again, our own opinions and xp is what counts. I agree about Nintendo's pitiful online for Wii and 3rd party support. And I agree Portal and Bioshock were revolutionary but only in the narrative sense. Gameplay wise; both those games just kept bringing me back to Metroid Prime 1 a generation ago. For me Galaxy revolutionized 3D platforming, and Prime 3 push the genre fwd with it's IR pointer controls. DKCR, Skyward Sword, RE4 Wii, Muramasa, Monster Hunter etc were just plain 'ol fun. The Wii did it's job for me.
  
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The Justin Bieber of Gaming
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by RealTimeTurnBased

Just because it sold well doesn't mean its good.

It was 80% casual stuff and 20% real games. The DS had a better balance of games with Brain Age and Nintendogs along with Castlevania, Contra, The World Ends With You and many more. I'm looking forward to the Wii U because it's looking to have the same balance that the DS had.

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Sixth generation
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by MattheJ1

The PS2 was sixth generation, the wii and PS3 are seventh generation! Other than that, informative review.

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- Sixth Generation?
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by Alf_Alfa
  
  NES, Super NES, N64, Gamecube, Wii= 5 for Nintendo PS3= 3 For Sony. But the
  PS falls in line with the N64
  PS2 with Gamecube and
  PS3 with the Wii....So he is right.
  Wa Wa Wa
  
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- There were 2 generations
  Posted: Nov 15, 2012 12:00AM PST by Wakkawipeout
  
  Of console gaming in the 70s before the NES. Magnavox Odyssey would be the first and the Atari 2600 and Intellevision were the second.
  
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- You forgot
  Posted: Nov 15, 2012 12:00AM PST by Alf_Alfa
  
  the atari 5200 and the odyseey 500. But in all seriousness the generation count didnt really start untill Nintendo and the (Viable) system.
  
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I won't say goodbye to the Wii
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by pcengine92

..as long as I can download games, and purchase titles for a fraction of the original cost. I still have yet to play Zelda:TP, and there's other games that I need to pick up sometime in the near future.
Good and balanced article, though. Thanks.

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great job
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by bbqsetz

great job ACTUALLY looking at the pros and cons that Nintendo has had in the last couple years. This article does a great job of talking about both sides of the argument for/against Nintendo and I love that. Most people just bash Nintendo and I loved reading this article because it was smart and well put. Thanks!!

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Drowing in that blue ocean
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by Rich_C

It's a shame when you realise the simple fact, one that I have tried to ignore in the past - they did everything possible to become a bigger hardware seller than Sony. The sad truth is that the Mario 64 sequence in that fake Nintendo ON video gets me feeling more exited than anything they have done post Gamecube. With the WiiU now approaching I find it hard to see that success ever being repeated, and it seems like an incremental improvement like the 3DS that likewise I have no interest in ever playing. I long for a time when they had genuinely great games and put real effort into the software. Bring back the red logo.

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What Does it Profit a Man to Gain the Whole World...
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario

...if it means losing his own soul?
And that essentially encapsulates everything Nintendo now is--it forsook its traditional fanbase for the easy money of the casual players. There's a lot of cash there, sure, but I will never see the Big N in the same golden light again, and I'm shocked so many fanboys still cling to the company as if it's the same artistically rich and diverse developer we once knew so long ago.

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- Well...
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by leogmg
  
  If I have to be honest, I prefer Nintendo as the souless but succesful corporate businessman that nevertheless still provides me with good games that I still greatly enjoy, rather than the starving artist who stood for his convictions and as a result ended up dying on the street, never to produce any good game again due to his tragic demise.
  
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- You Forget...
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  ...that there are plenty of sublime artistic endeavors on the other consoles, from Portal to Little Big Planet to indie stuff like Bastion and Journey.
  But, honestly, what software has appeared on the Wii over the past six years that could be considered truly revolutionary? From a purely artistic standpoint, the Wii has been woefully inadequate compared to its competitors. From Uncharted 2 to Red Dead Redemption to Heavy Rain, the generation's most ambitious, genre-busting titles have not come from Nintendo's underpowered console.
  But that's hardly surprising, I suppose.
  
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- Oh...
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by leogmg
  
  I won't deny that the advancement on storytelling, narrative and presentation in games as a whole has come from the HD consoles (in terms of gameplay mechanics themselves... not so much... the biggest innovations in that area have been incremental or architectural, either mixing elements from different genres or highly polishing them, but in practical terms, we are still playing with the same mechanics that were available in the previous generation, only vastly improved thanks to advacement in technology and the developers ingenuity).
  My comment was more along the lines of this simple fact: If Nintendo had keep trying to compete directly with Microsoft and Sony for the core audience and went the route of the HD console, rather than going after the casual audience with the underpowered Wii, the company would have either dissapeared or gone 3rd party like Sega. Not ifs or buts about that. This article actually paints very clearly what was the situation of Nintendo during the GCN era and why they decided to take a different path.
  You can probably argue like Jeremy that their strategy got them short term success at the expense of long term ruin, but if you look at the state of Sega today (not even a shell of its former self, almost on the verge of bankrupcy), well, it's possible to also argue that Nintendo's current output, less groundbreaking as it is compared to its glory days of the NES, SNES and N64, would still be far worse if they had become 3rd party.
  And in any case, even if its library was certainly plagued with a lot of crap, the Wii still had its gems. Maybe not revolutionary compared to many games on the HD consoles, but still fairly solid and enjoyable: the Mario Galaxies, Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime 3, Smash Bros. Brawl, Xenoblade Chronicles, Mario Kart Wii and a few 3rd party underappreciated gems like Rayman Origins, No More Heroes, MadWorld, the Last Story, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Muramasa, etc.
  I think those games justify the Wii's existence as a gaming console, even if one admittedly niche at its core when it comes to the dedicated gaming audience.
  Call me a fanboy if you want, but in that sense, I don't mind Nintendo's current "soulless corporate status" as long as they still provide me with solid games like Zelda, Mario and Metroid.
  
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- Thoughtful Rebuttal
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  You make some good points, but I do think you're giving Nintendo a little too much credit.
  First, gameplay has seen real progress over the years, especially in terms of competitive and cooperative multiplayer--something Nintendo was fallen behind in, namely on-line wise. Additionally, the puzzle genre has seen great leaps in mechanics, from Scribblenauts' ingenious noun and adjective gameplay to Portal's use of spatial and dimensional dynamics. And LA Noire completely reinvented the adventure genre. So, yes, I think I'm correct in believing Nintendo is falling behind the innovation curve on all levels.
  I agree that the Wii has some good games. As I wrote in another post, I have over fifty Wii titles myself. But the key word here is "good." The system has a lot of good games, but only a handful of great ones, and none that are truly revolutionary. And this is Nintendo! The Pixar of gaming! The company that redefined gaming with Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. Aren't you just a little sad Nintendo has all but abandoned its legacy?
  Now, you make a valid case that Nintendo had to do what it did to survive--but did that justify completely throwing the hardcore under a bus? That was my original point after all--Nintendo chose the cash over its loyal fans and artistic integrity. And that's fine if all one cares about is bigger and bigger profits but, again, it just seems like a soulless thing to do.
  Perhaps Nintendo could have found a compromise somewhere--a happy medium in which it produced an equal amount of ambitious, forward-thinking product along with the more casual-oriented stuff. But all we've been getting are sequels and waggle titles. And the sequels I would like to have, such as a new Star Fox or Earthbound, seem all but a fantasy at this point.
  Anyway, that's how I see it, but thanks for the comment.
  
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- Well....
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by leogmg
  
  Am I sad that they abandoned their roots and went for the profits? Yes, I am. But I don’t really see the point of fretting over it. Maybe it’s because I’m gotten more cynical now that I’m in my late 20’s and have a better understatement about how the corporate world works, but I just see it as the way things happen.
  Nintendo is not the Pixar but the Disney of videogames: A forward thinking company that ushered the golden age of the media, and either invented or brought to the masses many key advancements in the field while pushing its art form, only to become in later years a soulless corporate entity after experimenting a dark age of troubled productions.
  But I genuinely prefer that to see the company disappear or become another Sega or Atari. I genuinely believe seeing Nintendo disappear or going 3rd party would be sadder than their current state.
  Now, I agree with you in that they made a serious mistake in not balancing their approach between the casual and the hardcore audiences. They focused too much on the casual but failed to make them dedicated gamers, and in the process they also alienated the core audience and many long time fans.
  I’m not sure if they will change their ways with the Wii U, but given that (for once) Satoru Iwata has admitted that they made mistakes with the Wii, at least it seems they have realized they cannot continue on the path they were. To a certain extent their approach seems a bit more balanced now: The line-up for the launch day and the launch window timeframe is genuinely balanced between games aimed at casual players and games aimed at core gamers (even if admittedly most of those are ports) and for the first time in their history they seem to finally have developed an online and multimedia strategy. Of course, we still have to see how good it will work and it’s unlikely Nintendo will ever return to their glory days, but right now I think it’s impossible to predict how well they will fare. The industry is changing too quickly, we know very little about the Wii U beyond its first five months, and we practically know nothing about what Microsoft and Sony will bring to the table.
  I can only hope for the best, really. Disney might be a soulless machine nowadays, but they occasionally produce something exceptional (the Princess and the Frog, Wreck-It-Ralph), or at the very least buy companies with genuine artistic visions to produce it for them (like Pixar). I only can hope for Nintendo to fare in a similar way (and on that matter, I wonder what Retro Studios and Monolith Soft are working on, and I wonder if it would be good for everyone involved if Nintendo bought Platinum Games).
  
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- Fair Enough
  Posted: Nov 14, 2012 12:00AM PST by Pacario
  
  You're clearly more forgiving towards the company than I am, but to each his own.
  I do think, however, that Nintendo was a lot like Pixar once upon a time. But as you said yourself, one day Nintendo became a Disney, and that was the moment everything changed forever.
  In any event, I wholeheartedly agree with your final point: I can only hope for the best...
  I couldn't have said it better myself.
  
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Swimming out of the Blue Ocean
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by kingc8

I still remember feeling underwhelmed when the Wii U gamepad was revealed at E3 2011.
I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what it was that felt 'wrong' about the Wii U, but I have settled on the thought that, I think Nintendo should have taken the Wii Remote as the inspiration for a much smaller screen-embedded controller, instead of the old fashioned 10-button 2-joystick approach to a controller. It's like they are literally going backwards to something that didn't sell so well, rather than evolving forwards with more simplified controls.
It's like they are embarrassed by the simplicity and elegance of the Wii, which saddens me a little.

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- but they are evolving
  Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by chalksalad
  
  The most important thing that happened since the Wii was launched is the preveilance of touch based gadgets. IOS, Android et al have really dipped their feet in the blue ocean of gaming.
  These offer the most simplistic controls and this is exactly what Nintendo is proposing. It's just that this way around they offer the traditional joystick/button combo to go along with the touch screen.
  
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Good bye, nintendo wii
Posted: Nov 13, 2012 12:00AM PST by theJjTt

Excelent article¡¡¡ im completly agree ¡¡ the nintendo wii make a great diference in the game industry¡¡ dont matter the shit-like graphics power of the console¡¡, the new form of gameplay and new kind of games makes the diference¡¡ i consider wii , the most revolutionary concept in the videogames. Hopes the wii u reach the goal¡.

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