Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Touting the Wii

Bloomberg Article

This rather interesting article puts into play the serious error that most game publishers have fallen prey to. Underestimation, while Nintendo has practiced less-than-friendly procedures regarding third party publishers in the past they seem to have learned from their past mistakes and become more publisher-friendly. The behind the scenes problems ranged from requiring developers to buy their cartridges exclusively and dismissing CD Media for the old cartridge-style games.

Nintendo, however, still lacks a few things that make other companies successful. The first is online gaming. Microsoft currently holds the market on this one with X-Box Live. Sony explored the area as well and they are currently working on a solution for the PS3. The Wii is plagued with issues regarding online content, if Nintendo could polish that up they would definitely be the top dog of the game market. The second problem is power, how long before the novelty of the Wii wears off? Who knows for sure. There is no doubt that the PS3 and the 360 are more powerful than the Wii but they are so expensive that in my opinion they are not worth the buy. I still have yet to play any of the three systems though I do want to buy a Wii. By the time I get to it the price will have dropped significantly. I still haven't purchased a DS ether.

Publishers are now starting to play catch up and I am thankful for that, Nintendo is the pioneer of the genre. They revived the game industry, I'd like to see them in charge for the simple reason that the games they produce are FUN, not just graphical masterpeices with crap gameplay.

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