A year on

[dataDave]

I think the wii is plenty powerfull enough, its a soupoed up gamecube afterall. Seeing as the gamecube wasnt push at all really, itle give the technology time to shine instead of being forgotten and discarded.

And lets face it its not about power, its about,
1; art direction.
2; developer tallent.

Prime 3 = best graphics this year. Maybe not technically, but in my opinion artisically. The walls/floors are layered with genuine 3D moving bits pretty much everywhere you look! Best bit for me so far is that suspended organic corridor before fighting the boss that has those red orbs you need to shoot out. If you were to just have flat walls (ie generic 3rd party multiplatform game) with the highest possible texture output it would look pretty wank when compared to the other consoles. Therefore my theory is that all this graphics power offered by the 360/PS3 dev. kits just gives developers an easy way around actually spending time on in-game art. "oh yeah! let's just wack this texture on here straight from photoshop at a silly res! it'll luk gud!"

[Vince]

Anyone noticed how little the PS3 is featuring in this "debate"?

Its ironic actually as i had no interest in the PS3, but now it looks like its the only thing that will save us from all the yawnsome FPS's or mindless party games.

[ascender]

There must be some pretty fundamental reasons why devs aren't jumping on board the Wii bandwagon though? Look at the sales figures for the console, they're phenomenal. It doesn't take a genius to look at the potential there for big software houses to exploit.

So why aren't they doing it? Could it just be as simple as the fact that the console isn't powerful enough to handle the vision of devs who are used to working with the 360 & PS3 in mind? Or maybe this compromised vision they might have to settle for on the Wii wouldn't please the decision makers who want their product to look great above all else? Is the console difficult or expensive to develop for?

Given the huge user base, you have to assume that a decent percentage of its owners would be interested in some of the titles which have appeared on the other platforms, so should a Wii port not be a no-brainer?

Its also a bit narrow-minded to class all 360 owners as only being interested in mindless FPS games. Particularly when people have been getting very upset for years on here whenever Ninty's kit is being labeled as for kids only. I could understand it if all that was out there for the 360 was endless, average FPS games, but that's clearly not the case. The PS3 & 360 have also shown that you can do different things with the FPS (Bioshock) and also raise the bar for a traditional FPS (CoD4).

Someone touched on an interesting point, that for them the 360 has replaced their PC for gaming. That's exactly what's happened for me. Someone else mentioned that surely the keyboard & mouse should be replaced by now as a control mechanism. Well, that's again what the consoles have achieved. I remember the resistance to using the original Xbox controller on FPS games, but now I don't hear anyone grumbling about it and I don't even give it a second thought now.

I was always interested in where the Wii went after people got bored with Sports. That still interests me now tbh as a lot of people I know who bought a Wii on release still haven't bought another game for it. The sales figures for some of the software mentioned is very impressive, but there doesn't exactly seem to be a large number of AAA (i hate that term but it serves a purpose) titles out for the console yet. A year on and there's a handful of titles I have bought for the Wii, but the main game played in our house is still Wii Sports.

[B1gBeard]

Do we think the Wii, to more serious gamers (I'm not going to say that horrible phrase H******* G**** again), will be a bit like the GC with regards to the amount of games relevant to us?

We won't neccaserily see a huge influx of games aimed at us old gaming hats, but what we do see will be of an amazing quality. The advantage of the Wii over the GC is that it is selling like hot cakes, so although there will be X Zillion amount of party games or whatever, its lifespan will be far greater than the GC and so we have many years to look forward to the likes of SMG and No More Heroes.

[ascender]

Like many on here, I couldn't give a stuff what platform a game is on, just so long as its a good game. So the fact the Wii is selling loads can only be a good thing for us as it guarantees some special titles from Nintendo if nothing else. But as things stand, personally, there's much less on the Wii just now that I really want to play.

[Brats]

I'm not sure that Guitar Hero is a good example of the 360 doing much different. Its a pretty well established title that is more geared towards the Western Market.

It is completely different from FPS, Racers and sports games that some people believe are the only succesful titles on the system. And it is quirky. It might be a sales behemoth, but any game that requires you to strut around with a toy guitar is quirky in my book.

What sort of figures are we considering loads on the Live stuff? Considering a lot of it costs peanuts you'd expect millions to shift really. Wasn't Minter's latest pretty poor on sales?

It was, but then Space Giraffe has got to be one of the nichest games ever released. There can't be that many gamers who are happy with the look of SG (i.e. not being able to see anything).

But other games have sold well. Although there are no official stats, elkatas is wrong (as he often is - he just ignores the arguemnts he can't answer) in that the unofficial stats are fairly reliable due to the live leaderboards:

http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=666

Some nice numbers in there for some titles. Look at Uno!

Its not just this period in gaming though. The 360's life has been dominated from release by pretty much sports and FPS's. I don't think that's a bad thing though. Its very much a Western machine and wears its Star and Stripes firmly on it sleeve.

I think 'dominated' is too strong. I would argue the Neo-Geo was dominated by fighters and shooters, but the 360 isn't that specific. It has a lot of FPS, racers and sports titles, but that's no different to the SNES having loads of platformers imo. A lot of consoles have a favoured choice.

I can't be bothered, but I'm sure you know it would be easy to do a long list of 360 titles that don't fall into those categories.

I personally don't think its a machine that is encouraging or promoting diversity. Its trying, but it does appear as though it is stereo-typed. Thinking about it my 360 was kind of a replacement for my PC. It attracts similar genre's of games that I used my PC for but without the technical hassle's. CoD4, Mass Effect etc were games that would have been PC only not so long ago.

I agree with the second part, the 360 does attract games that would have been PC only a few years ago. However I think that actually increases its diversity. Western RPG's and RTS's are to genres that were pretty much non-existant on consoles, but now they are genres that thrive on the 360 along with all the other genres.

Diversity isn't just about your Buzz's and your Singstars. If the Wii has the family orientated party games tied up (and let's face it - it does) then we need consoles like the 360 to go in other directions.

[elkatas]

I think 'dominated' is too strong. I would argue the Neo-Geo was dominated by fighters and shooters, but the 360 isn't that specific.

Dominated is exactly right word when over 75 percent of all titles released for the system are FPS, driving or sports games.

[elkatas]

Here was me thinking this thread was about the Wii and its utter lack of upcoming quality 3rd party titles, yet it seems to have turned into another thread about the 360.

What you excepted? It is NTSC-UK's darling of the generation.

[Brodie]

So is Wii 'dominated' by shoddy ports and party collections then? Going by your logic it would seem so.

[gingerj]

No-one think Nintendo have an obligation to help these 3rd parties shift units? Not only from a technical standpoint but from a marketing/pr viewpoint.

Nintendo with Metroid Prime 3 created an entire channel to promote it, why couldn't they do a game of the month. With an entire channel slapping you in the face the second your Wii boots up. Game info, developer notes, screens and trailers.

From a personal point of view if I were Nintendo I'd be busting a gut to get someone like Epic Games or Factor 5. To create a plug and play scripting engine, many developers aren't to fussed it seems to push the Wii from a gfx point of view. Why not meet them half way and do the leg work and centralise the gfx work.

I really cannot see why the Wii cannot be a graphical powerhouse, pushing past what has been produce with SMG or MP3. If forum hear say and Wiki are to be trusted the Wii is about 2x more powerful than the GC and about 1.5x more powerful than the XBOX 1.

1.5x - 2x more powerful than these screens would really be fab, coupled with original art direction there's no reason why you couldn't produce games of true "next-gen" beauty.

[B1gBeard]

I agree with the second part, the 360 does attract games that would have been PC only a few years ago. However I think that actually increases its diversity. Western RPG's and RTS's are to genres that were pretty much non-existant on consoles, but now they are genres that thrive on the 360 along with all the other genres.

Diversity isn't just about your Buzz's and your Singstars. If the Wii has the family orientated party games tied up (and let's face it - it does) then we need consoles like the 360 to go in other directions.

Don't get me wrong its not a criticism. The 360 has taken over from the PC for a certain type of game for me (Bioware RPG's for example).

I'm just not buying it that the 360 is really trying to be, or is, diverse. You could list games that don't fall into the mentioned genre's as could I but the sales of those games reflect the needs of the demographic. Not that its a bad thing though as I'm quite happy playing Mass Effect on a big screen without the technical hassles that can crop up.

[elkatas]

Particularly when people have been getting very upset for years on here whenever Ninty's kit is being labeled as for kids only.

It is more when people claim that "Wii destroys gaming", "Nintendo abandons HARDCORE", "Wii will never have any game that will interest me", "Wii isn't console for TRUE* gamer", "Those who don't understand value of HD-television are idiots", "Wii is a fad", and so on. When you listen crap like that for a year, it really starts to piss you off, especially when they are mostly meant insult someone.

[Dogg Thang]

Genuine question and one relevant to the topic at hand - why does it bother you personally?

[elkatas]

Genuine question and one relevant to the topic at hand - why does it bother you personally?

Because it is ill-informed, stupid and insulting. All those previously posted claims come down to it that the poster thinks he is somehow superior because of mundane item 1, and everyone who has mundane item 2 are idiots who can't understand anything.

This thread was relatively good thread about 3rd party titles until certain persons started to shove their standard "X360 is superior and only choice for serious gamer" crap amongst the discussion. In fact, I'm starting to believe that it is impossible to have Wii thread in this forum, because they are always derailed by usual suspects. And I'm seriously wondering why I even continue posting in these forums, because this is getting ridiculous.

[fishbowlhead]

Prime 3 = best graphics this year. Maybe not technically, but in my opinion artisically. The walls/floors are layered with genuine 3D moving bits pretty much everywhere you look! Best bit for me so far is that suspended organic corridor before fighting the boss that has those red orbs you need to shoot out. If you were to just have flat walls (ie generic 3rd party multiplatform game) with the highest possible texture output it would look pretty wank when compared to the other consoles. Therefore my theory is that all this graphics power offered by the 360/PS3 dev. kits just gives developers an easy way around actually spending time on in-game art. "oh yeah! let's just wack this texture on here straight from photoshop at a silly res! it'll luk gud!"

Prime 3 has really surprised me in terms of things going on, Plants that rustle when you wlk through them and shoot them. Wildlife in the skies like birds and such. Very well thourght out textures, and generally coherent worlds and enviroments. Even when samus is in the cockpit of her drop ship theres gadgets to play with and poke at (literally thanks to the wiimote), its all quite lovley and certainly more involving than anything else ive played this year.