The more I read, the more I believe Nintendo's "message" is nothing more than a series of empty promises and statements...
Before realizing how the Wii wand ACTUALLY functions (ie - I expected something more complex than it actually is)...most of the games shown did not interest me. Would I have given any of them (outside of Mario) a glance had they been playable with a normal control pad? Absolutely not. The wand makes things seem a tad more interesting, though none of the content looked to deliver any sort of long lasting excitement nor anything that I would expect to be memorable.
After hearing more about how the wand actually functions, however, it sounds so much less interesting. It doesn't sound like the wand offers much more in the way of quick camera control than an analog stick (let alone a mouse, which seems to be miles beyond the wand in terms of accuracy and speed) and the general amount of actions required by the player all seem so very simplistic. These games all seem to be made for the very people Nintendo keeps pushing for; non-gamers. Designing their games at the EXPENSE of gamers, however, is not want I want to see.
What worries me is that, with Sony's PS3 price, Japanese developers could flock to the Wii and I'll end up with a bunch of stuff I never wanted in place of what I was REALLY looking forward to.
Sony's approach to this whole "movement" fad is much more reasonable to me as it is clearly an extra feature on top of an awesome controller rather than the sole focus of the machine.
Nintendo impressed me with their conference and the concepts behind the Wii...but the actual product doesn't excite me. Limited, gimmicky functionality combined with weak, last generation visuals. Surely people also realize that the limited power of the machine does not limit the visuals alone.
Before realizing how the Wii wand ACTUALLY functions (ie - I expected something more complex than it actually is)...most of the games shown did not interest me. Would I have given any of them (outside of Mario) a glance had they been playable with a normal control pad? Absolutely not. The wand makes things seem a tad more interesting, though none of the content looked to deliver any sort of long lasting excitement nor anything that I would expect to be memorable.
After hearing more about how the wand actually functions, however, it sounds so much less interesting. It doesn't sound like the wand offers much more in the way of quick camera control than an analog stick (let alone a mouse, which seems to be miles beyond the wand in terms of accuracy and speed) and the general amount of actions required by the player all seem so very simplistic. These games all seem to be made for the very people Nintendo keeps pushing for; non-gamers. Designing their games at the EXPENSE of gamers, however, is not want I want to see.
What worries me is that, with Sony's PS3 price, Japanese developers could flock to the Wii and I'll end up with a bunch of stuff I never wanted in place of what I was REALLY looking forward to.
Sony's approach to this whole "movement" fad is much more reasonable to me as it is clearly an extra feature on top of an awesome controller rather than the sole focus of the machine.
Nintendo impressed me with their conference and the concepts behind the Wii...but the actual product doesn't excite me. Limited, gimmicky functionality combined with weak, last generation visuals. Surely people also realize that the limited power of the machine does not limit the visuals alone.