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Reggie: "The Wii Was Nintendo's Response to a 'Stagnant' Market"

Agreed. Yamauchi > Iwata.

He was a outstanding programmer, like seriously outstanding. He was however, a fairly mediocre and sometimes downright terrible businessman. And I agree with the statement I quoted. To me, the golden age of Nintendo will always be synonymous with Hiroshi Yamauchi. Also, Howard Linclon's influence cannot be underestimated. He was key building up close relationships with third-parties, and gave them the task to develop (often more mature) games for their systems. He recongized that players of the early Nintendo systems became older, and thus demanded more mature content. All that hard work was completely undone when Reggie came on board. Absolutely terrible, and one of the reasons why my feverish interest in Nintendo declined significantly over the last fifteen+ years. I know the difference between being a Nintendo fan then (late 80s - 90s) and being one now. Yes, there are still great games, but the "real" Nintendo died ages ago.
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
The PS2 had just become the bigest selling console of all time. How was the market "Stagnant"?

This tit gets far too much praise.
Everyone who played video games had a Playstation 2, where the market had been broken up before. What he's saying is that the Wii didn't just sell to people who were already buying video games like the Playstation 2 did. It sold to everyone who played video games, plus one to their grandma, who hadn't bought and would never buy the Playstation 2 or something like it.
 

EctoPrime

Member
The HDTV transition hurt the Wii in the second half of the generation. The image quality from component cables is very poor and even worse with the included composite. Nintendo themselves deserve some of the blame also with barren release schedules just like the N64 and Gamecube but instead of high quality games sitting on store shelves you have have piles of new cheap third party motion games and plastic junk.
 

Ten_Fold

Member
Wasn’t the wii like $249 and came with wii sports? That deal was soo killer back in 06. You got a new type of controller that made bowling at home kinda fun at the time and the idea of a motion control Zelda game was cool at the time, everything just worked for Nintendo at that time.
 

MagnesG

Banned
Glad to see that not singing Iwata's praises to the heavens doesn't equate to a ban here, that guy's been deified to the point of a cult where anything even slightly negative said about him is blasphemy. Great guy personally, but I have to agree with others here, I found him to be a shit president. He infused Nintendo with defeatism ("Nintendo's not good at competing", "We're too far behind Sony/MS's online to catch up"), eviscerated western developmental autonomy soon after his appointment turning NoA into basically a translation branch, and made Nintendo a running target of memes, mockery, and jokes for backwards-assness and incompetence ("please understand")
Wtf are you smokin' here. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
Defeatism?
Running target for incompetence? Omg.

I guess selling $600 PS3 plus with big losses for every console sold was actually a victory move. Along with the "second job" meme lol.
 

Zok310

Banned
Stagnant market coming off a console gen where Sony sold 150 million stagnated PS2, and followed by a gen where XB, Wii, and PS3 sold a combined 260 million consoles, each virtually capturing 1/3 of the market each, the most even split of sales ever.....................
 

Daymos

Member
The best thing the Wii did was force the developers at Monolithsoft to think in terms of absolute game-engine efficiency. Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii is a masterpiece of game development and the lessons they learned there were extended to their work on Zelda Breath of the wild for wii U. The whole concept runs counter to what I hate about modern gaming, which is the bloated multiplayer/microtransaction focused open world games with no soul. Like fallout76 and anthem. I was playing xenoblade on the wii alongside final fantasy 13/skyrim/kingdoms of amalur/dragon age2.. basically EA, square-enix, and Bethesda's 100 million dollar franchises.. and it was holding up and surpassing them, that's an accomplishment and a half.

Basicaly the Wii allowed a few game developers to practice (and excel at) creative thinking and intelligent game design instead of just profit maximization.
 
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The PS2 had just become the bigest selling console of all time. How was the market "Stagnant"?

This tit gets far too much praise.
You mean biggest selling DVD-console hybreed? It's more of a multimedia device than a console.

Best selling game on a 150+ million selling PS2 is GTA: SA sold 18 mil.
Best selling hame on NES with instal base of 62 mil. was SMB with 40 mil. copies sold. On SNES with 49 mil. SMBW sold 20 mil. Sega Mega Drive with install base of little more than 30 mil. had Sonic sell 15 mil.

But those were dedicated gaming platforms, unlike PS2 that had good portion of it's sales due to it playing DVDs. Otherwise, there wouldn't even be notable software on XB and GC, since PS2 sold more than 3x than both combined.
 

Birdo

Banned
Best selling hame on NES with instal base of 62 mil. was SMB with 40 mil. copies sold. On SNES with 49 mil. SMBW sold 20 mil. Sega Mega Drive with install base of little more than 30 mil. had Sonic sell 15 mil.

The biggest-selling games on NES, SNES, and MD were all bundled games. (Mario Bros., Mario World, and Sonic).

Kind of cheating. And the second best selling of all those did only half as well.
 
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Gargus

Banned
No the Wii was luck. It was in the right place at the right time.

A Wii was really just a gamecube with motion controls and motion controls had already existed, they just didn't work as well.

Wii I honestly believe was only popular due to a single game and marketing of that game. Wii sports. It had commercials showing old people playing it, and adults with their kids. More specific I think wii bowling is what created the rush to get one. It was the first game that allowed adults who would otherwise never played stupid kids games, to play stupid kids games. I worked at a hospital and in nursing school at the time and every old folks home or rehab or rec room I saw had a wii and old people playing wii bowling. 50 something year old nurses wanting a wii who never played games before were asking me where to get one.

The wii struck a fire under the mainstream audience that gaming was ok. So a lot of adults who never would allow themselves to play games now could and since other adults wanted to also it then became the cool thing to do.

I mean aside from a couple dozen games that were still mostly the same old Nintendo franchises all over again for the 47th time, and a tiny handful of 3rd party games the wii was a total garbage dump of shit games and half ass attempts. That thing was a God damn wasteland of trash which just shows how much of a flash in the pan it was and everyone's race to cash in before the fad was gone.

The wii was important at helping to make gaming even more mainstream, but it really was just luck.
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Wtf are you smokin' here. :messenger_grinning_sweat:
Defeatism?
Running target for incompetence? Omg.

I guess selling $600 PS3 plus with big losses for every console sold was actually a victory move. Along with the "second job" meme lol.
Eh, Sony's PS3 fumblings were borne of hubris from the immense success of its predecessor. Memes were mocking arrogance, not incompetence, and furthermore, by the end of the PS3's lifespan Sony had made corrections and it was performing well, to then go on the the PS4 which.....well, we've seen how well it's doing.

Incompetence is what Iwata was mocked for. Drought after drought after drought. "Please understand" after "Please understand" after "Please understand" after we'd been continually informed things were being worked on to fix the problem. Christ, shit or get off the pot. The guy went years doing this without seeming to be able to rectify what he continually bowed and begged our understanding for. It was cringe worthy.

And yes, "We're too far behind to catch up" and "Nintendo's not good at competing" are defeatisms if I've ever heard them.
 
No the Wii was luck. It was in the right place at the right time.

A Wii was really just a gamecube with motion controls and motion controls had already existed, they just didn't work as well.

Wii I honestly believe was only popular due to a single game and marketing of that game. Wii sports. It had commercials showing old people playing it, and adults with their kids. More specific I think wii bowling is what created the rush to get one. It was the first game that allowed adults who would otherwise never played stupid kids games, to play stupid kids games. I worked at a hospital and in nursing school at the time and every old folks home or rehab or rec room I saw had a wii and old people playing wii bowling. 50 something year old nurses wanting a wii who never played games before were asking me where to get one.

The wii struck a fire under the mainstream audience that gaming was ok. So a lot of adults who never would allow themselves to play games now could and since other adults wanted to also it then became the cool thing to do.

I mean aside from a couple dozen games that were still mostly the same old Nintendo franchises all over again for the 47th time, and a tiny handful of 3rd party games the wii was a total garbage dump of shit games and half ass attempts. That thing was a God damn wasteland of trash which just shows how much of a flash in the pan it was and everyone's race to cash in before the fad was gone.

The wii was important at helping to make gaming even more mainstream, but it really was just luck.
Naaa. It was the drunk console, the one you play after a few bottles with friends when everyone was to stone to get out.

It then became the hardware used to keep kids active when it was to cold to play outside.

Then came Zelda Skyward Sword 😱🥶😱🥶 It was dead after that. I don't get how all the people involded in this game were not fired instantaneity.

The Wii was a joke, even the name was a joke. Everyone was laughing at Nintendo, even the industry... no Street Fighter 4 but maybe Feet Fighter ! 😂🤣🤭
Then came the WIiU... 😱🥶🤭🤣😂
 
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The best thing the Wii did was force the developers at Monolithsoft to think in terms of absolute game-engine efficiency. Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii is a masterpiece of game development and the lessons they learned there were extended to their work on Zelda Breath of the wild for wii U. The whole concept runs counter to what I hate about modern gaming, which is the bloated multiplayer/microtransaction focused open world games with no soul. Like fallout76 and anthem. I was playing xenoblade on the wii alongside final fantasy 13/skyrim/kingdoms of amalur/dragon age2.. basically EA, square-enix, and Bethesda's 100 million dollar franchises.. and it was holding up and surpassing them, that's an accomplishment and a half.

Basicaly the Wii allowed a few game developers to practice (and excel at) creative thinking and intelligent game design instead of just profit maximization.

That game was pure magic. I played it 2 hours a day every day for 5 months! I am not usually into those games but damn that game was magical.

I also loved the Last Story, if not for the VAs being from the UK with one of them being from my local town!

The Wii was a great middle budgeted development place for those who didn't move onto HD yet and kept budgets lower, which is probably why Sonic Colours is considered one of the better 3D Sonic games as they couldn't focus on the "Gotta go Fast" mechanic as much, and used their budget wisely.
 

AbZeroNow

Neo Member
The Wii was a pretty good console. I enjoyed the Virtual Console (would play quite a bit of Nobunaga's Ambition for NES on it) and I enjoyed one of the 2K baseball games, both Mario Galaxy games and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on it. Wii U lost my interest plus all the Treehouse shenanigans of that generation was so offputting. So I mainly stuck to my Vita until this year when I finally got a Switch. Switch is a really good console, I love the games on it. NSO was good enough to spend $20 a year on, although it could be improved a lot.
 

Jetboxx

Member
The Wii was a great console, so many obscure games, so many masterpieces. As for me, the PS3 is the worst console of the generation.
 

m.i.s.

Banned
I still have mine plugged in. Looks fantastic on large screen HDTV with Component.

The definitive RE4 experience - which I still play every now and then.

Then there's the enhanced, wide-screen Metroid Prime Trilogy. While you chumps :p on NSW wait for it for whenever.

PES 2008 and subsequent, play fantastic with wiimote and nunchuck. Part action, part strategy. Stringing passes together and finally scoring. Excellent.

Just Dance 2019 recently-ish charted for Wii in the UK - yes, 12 years after launch!! So it wasn't the fickle players who abandoned Nintendo but Nintendo who abandoned them.
 

PocoJoe

Banned
Well he explains:

"Nintendo diagnosed the problem was that there wasn't innovation in the games," Fils-Aimé. "It was more and more sequels, fill in the blank version two, three, four, it was all the same. There was a lack of innovation in the play styles. The controllers had gotten overly complicated. Nintendo's solution was the Wii Remote, the integral part of the Wii proposition."

I don't think the implication was stagnant sales in the short term, but stagnant creativity and failing to seek out new customers, which would possibly lead to stagnant sales down the road.

Iwata also warned that Nintendo needed to expand into the blue ocean or gaming would grow stagnant. Is he a tit too?



Nintendo talking about sequels after sequels, oh the irony.

They have literally pushed out mario after mario since 80's. After yoshis island there havent been a single mario game worth of more than 2/5.

With this logic (stagnated creativity) they should get over the mario era and start to do real modern games and systems. There is nothing creative about an italian plumber whom jumps around and collects coins
 

Naibel

Member
People tend to forget how awesome the Wii was at the time. Never a game machine before or since hyped me this much ! This is also the only console I've ever preordered (And thank god I did, it sold out everywhere at launch).

The first time I played Wii Sports, I felt pure, unabashed bliss. Motion controls were such an incredible feat at the time ! And Twilight Princess, for all its flaws, was the Zelda game we've all been waiting for. I played the crap out of it, doing sword movements and shit ! Man, Christmas '06 was one of my favorites.

Yes indeed, the Wiimote gimmick wore out after a while and by the time SSBB came out, the honeymoon was over. But that 2-year period is still one my most treasured gaming moments.

Reggie may have overdramatized a bit the state of the gaming market, but I do agree that without the Wii/DS combo, gaming would have been a LOT duller. I certainly would have stopped playing during that time.
 
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stranno

Member
Talking about the Wiimote, check this Sega patent from November 2001.





It already featured accelerometers + rumble five years before Wii.

Of course the great idea of the Wiimote was an IR pointer + accelerometers device, together they worked perfectly and allowed many complex mechanics.

Note: Its weird how they use the Saturn as a model, maybe the idea came out before March 2001?
 
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m.i.s.

Banned
Also, casuals have always existed on every successful platform and always will.

Do you think PS2 reached 155 million without casuals? There was Singstar, karaoke, Eyetoy which really propelled the system to casuals.

And every successful system has shovelware. I once walked in to the gaming section of a well known electronics store at the height of the PS2 craze. Just row upon row of shovelware. Scooby-Doo, Garfield, SpongeBob. You name it, it was there.
 

mejin

Member
So, PS4 was the response to a new stagnant market betting on traditional market once again. Welp, I'm glad.
 
Nintendo talking about sequels after sequels, oh the irony.

They have literally pushed out mario after mario since 80's. After yoshis island there havent been a single mario game worth of more than 2/5.

With this logic (stagnated creativity) they should get over the mario era and start to do real modern games and systems. There is nothing creative about an italian plumber whom jumps around and collects coins
giphy.gif
 

Kenpachii

Member
Wasn’t the wii like $249 and came with wii sports? That deal was soo killer back in 06. You got a new type of controller that made bowling at home kinda fun at the time and the idea of a motion control Zelda game was cool at the time, everything just worked for Nintendo at that time.

That's the thing people forgot. The reason the wii sold so well was, because it was the only console that was affordable. Everything else was expensive as hell. I went to some game outlet and i saw loads of people buy a xbox + a hdtv. Which would cost you a grand. Hell i didn't even know u could play games on that thing without a HD screen. And everybody had SD screens at the time.

The Wii however was cheap and could be connected and played directly.

It also pushed further on the market sony left. For example a big reason to convince people to get a PS2 was dvd player. that's how i got the PS2 while my parents didn't like game boxes. The wii could be used as a fitness machine and it pushed more into the eye toy segment.

While sony and microsoft where chasing for the future of core gamer segment and ditched everything else. The blu-ray player on sony was never interesting because blu-ray never became the standard to start with. People moved from dvd > digital. It was a waste of money and price hike.

Sadly for nintendo the casuals all moved to mobiles and they where left with a dead market which the wii-u proved as everybody they ignored in the wii and somewhat gamecube area left there platform. Which made the wii-u a dud device straight out of the gate.
 
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The Wii was secretly an amazing system for the hardcore gamer last gen (especially when modded).

Insanely, Mario Kart Wii sales are still going strong:





...Also: The Switch is continuing to sell really well (y). It makes me happy to see Nintendo going strong this gen.
 
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