Game Industry, Vol. 1
“Industry” is a new blog feature and opinion piece across MyMedia that will focus primarily on the video-game industry from a financial, political and mainstream viewpoint. The feature will appear on MyMedia blogs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Houser: “Wii didn’t feel natural”
The words “didn’t feel natural” have infected the minds of Nintendo fanboys over the past couple of days. You can’t blame them, considering that Take-Two hadn’t ruled out an appearance of GTA on Wii very recently. It’s also the fact that their beloved and flawless console (and I don’t actually mean it’s flawless. I’m merely highlighting what Ninty fanboys think the Wii is) has been degraded by one of the world’s most appreciated and trailblazing video-game creators. Houser said it in as nice a way possible, but we all knew he wanted to say, “The Wii can’t do Euphoria as well as 360 and PS3, and we’re not taking a step back on consoles”.
That’s all fair and good. Besides, it’s not like the Wii community would appreciate a GTA game. I mean, considering how vast a majority of its core gamers are casual and/or non-gamers that probably haven’t and never will be able to appreciate how good the GTA series is, why go to the effort of releasing a game that has made such a massive leap this generation on the 360 and PS3, and then go back to the days of San Andreas and Vice-City from last-generation.
I don’t mean to generalise. I know plenty of hardcore gamers who play the Wii as their primary console. That’s fine. I don’t criticise them for that. What the Wii has achieved this generation and its success is something we’ve never seen before in this industry and I applaud that. However, I see the Wii as a device that attracts non-gamers and gives them the mindset that gaming is only about Wii Sports and Mini-games. And yes, I know that the Wii has Super Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes and Metroid Prime. I know! But if you think that Nintendo is using those games to appeal to a new generation of gamers, you’re being naïve. My sister wants a Wii because she wants to play Wii Sports. She knows about Wii Music and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But are these the games we want to be introducing new gamers too? What about Bioshock, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4, GTA IV, Resistance, GRAW, Half-Life? What about the games with deep narrative, mind-blowing graphics and amazing, accessible gameplay?
People might think I’m pointing out a lot of things here, especially a hatred for the Wii. But there’s no hatred on my behalf. I’m just trying to highlight a decision made by Houser against the Wii. Everyone knows what the Wii can do and what it has. And that’s fine. But as time goes on, it seems as though it’s attracting a non-gaming, ignorant audience when it comes to games. It’s as if the Wii is showcasing Meet the Spartans and Scary Movie, and the 360 and PS3 are showcasing There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old. Everyone knows that the mainstream, basic movies are going to do better at the Box-Office while the artistic, emotional and brilliant movies only attract the appreciative.
If you consider yourself a “hardcore” gamer, whether you play the Wii the most or not, I hope, for the integrity of your “hardcore” tag, that you can agree with everything above.
GTA for iPhone?
With GTAIV sales still going relatively strong around the world (but slowing down over the past few months), the possibility of another addition to the series continues to be the talking point around the gaming industry and on forums. Chinatown Wars is coming to the DS, so it would be very, very feasible to suggest that an iPhone version of the game may also be on the way.
Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey claims that he expects the game to be ported over to the iPhone, “leveraging the device's touch screen technology and accelerometer”. While this would be exciting news for the hardcore iPhone users out there, it’s hard to get excited over a game we know hardly anything about.
Obama Leads McCain by 12 Percent in Xbox Live Poll
Has the world really come to this? A software and hardware company is encouraging young people to vote in the presidential campaign over a video-game console?
Everyone knows that this hasn’t been done purely for convenience. Microsoft has done this to encourage and give young people the option of voting over their favourite console. Talk about a load of rubbish.
Perhaps if they made voting compulsory and made people care, they wouldn’t have to resort to such stupidity.
I can’t help but wonder though. If I have a US XBOX Live account, can I vote?
Submitted by Gaetano
13 hours ago
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