Wii's 3rd-Party Line-up - When Are The Big Titles Coming?

[gingerkid]

i think the wii has some good exclusives it has amazing 1st party games, all of them are great! also third party is coming there just developing games. sega is supporting also square enix is making games for end of 07 and beginning of 08.

 

[matguy87]

Good article! O and Yo F1982, Madden 2008 is coming out for the Wii some time in August with online play

 

[Rolex]

Hi Corey,

On the pulse, as always, seeing as E3 is starting to build all over! I have even read that there may be some hardware news from one of the big 3...do do doooo (*sarcastic piano*)

I do have a question for you though regarding this.. (or anyone of course)...

Considering Wii's strategy is aping that of the DS, expect a similarly wide range of software to reflect the change in third-party thinking

Now I am currently addicted to DS (scheese never saw that coming, I am a 36yr old currently trying desperately to get my Animal Crossing mortgage paid off before I reach 40, dude - because I don't wanna be tied down, you know the employment prospects there are pretty slim and Tom is a tyrant to work for - I'm gonna break away from DA MAN - yeah I'm gonna escape this rat race and move to the backcountry and do that snowboard season I always dreamed of....[oh lordy]!!) *ahem*... and as I buy more and more games for it and taking the touchscreen functionality now as second nature - and with the Wii coming good, you can see the inspiration for Wii in the DS product model.

Do you think that Nintendo are competing against or in harmony with themselves in the hardware stakes?

Can you see any clash in interests between the two products from Nintendo?

I know these are fairly rhetorical questions - the answer's no, being as they are aimed at 2 different markets...or are they :ihih: (do do doooo)*scratches girlfriends chin, looks thoughtful [me, not the gf's chin]*

Is this what Nintendo had in mind when developing the Wii - I presume it was dev'd alongside the DS at some point. To create a userbase which are in tune with the unconventional controls and 'pre-train' gamers for the Wii's larger scale control system?

I realise there are some obvious questions here with rhetorical answers. It's not the answers which are king here it's the point of views...

 

[cbrotherson]

Now I am currently addicted to DS (scheese never saw that coming, I am a 36yr old currently trying desperately to get my Animal Crossing mortgage paid off before I reach 40, dude - because I don't wanna be tied down, you know the employment prospects there are pretty slim and Tom is a tyrant to work for - I'm gonna break away from DA MAN - yeah I'm gonna escape this rat race and move to the backcountry and do that snowboard season I always dreamed of....[oh lordy]!!)

Nook owns your soul. YOUR SOUL. Should you ever pay him off, expect him to come and invade your dreams and take property of your mind. He's EVIL incarnate.

Do you think that Nintendo are competing against or in harmony with themselves in the hardware stakes?

Can you see any clash in interests between the two products from Nintendo?

I know these are fairly rhetorical questions - the answer's no, being as they are aimed at 2 different markets...or are they (do do doooo)*scratches girlfriends chin, looks thoughtful [me, not the gf's chin]*

Heh, yeah, you answered your own question in part – although as I noted way back in another feature/column, while they are aimed at two different markets, they're very much a tag-team operation, working in tandem for each other. There's cross over appeal from both, and it's important to note while DS is a very attractive machine for families, you still need more than one to play multiplayer titles, while you can get away with one Wii and one remote for some games, and even with single-player games it's still has audience overlap because it's obviously easier to watch a TV than a little touchscreen.

Both products have their own marketing and advertising budgets and appear to share certain slots (such as C4's show sponsoring), so there's a definitely a sense of hand-in-hand tactics being used.

Is this what Nintendo had in mind when developing the Wii - I presume it was dev'd alongside the DS at some point. To create a userbase which are in tune with the unconventional controls and 'pre-train' gamers for the Wii's larger scale control system?

Hmm, probably not so much at the start. When DS was in development, Nintendo was still at early stages of control selection for its next console. And when DS was finally announced, Nintendo didn’t have 100% confidence of its market viability, stating it would be a "third pillar" next to GBA. Of course, when DS broke records, GBA became the third pillar of sorts and now Nintendo has a nice problem in terms of where it goes next with its new handheld – the DS brand is so strong that it would be insane not to progress it, but the Game Boy brand is also very powerful, if comparatively dated.

It seems Nintendo was very much hopeful that DS took off as it did, which meant less of a risk to go down the route it did with Wii, but was still aware that Wii wasn’t a sure-fire success (thus minimising costs and overheads for its production and keeping architecture closer to GameCube than anything more expensive). DS tested waters for the company, but really acted as a hint that gamers are ready for something new. At the same time, Nintendo marketed its DS to the new audience most games companies have been trying to get (and still trying) since about 2003/2004 – the female casual gamer. The sheer amount of graphs and charts I saw over that period of time telling me that the medium could only expand via hitting that market… man, they're ingrained inside my eyelids I think it's a symbiosis of that, really – Wii and DS appeal to that neglected demographic while also using something new to appeal to them in the first place. There's a chicken/egg loop where marketing/control method is concerned, but ultimately it all ends up the same place.