Is the Wii a failure?

I'm curious what people think.

I'm a lifelong Nintendo fan, but I'm a fan of games before that. I ordered my Wii via Ebay at an inflated price so I could get it during launch week and, for the most part, I don't regret the decision. RE4 on the Wii is the ONLY way to play that game, and Wii Sports Resort was a lot of fun. New Super Mario Bros.  and Super Mario Galaxy were a blast in every way.

But even now, so long after the release of the console, where are the games? the games promised by the concept video that debuted the system years ago. What of the promise of using the Wii controller in so many new and interesting ways. interfacing with the game world in a way not possible before. What of that?

Was it realized? Did it do what it set out to do?

Nintendo made a ton of money from it, but was it a success from their standpoint?

Do you think they will try to do the same thing with their new console?

No, not really. It was both financially and critically successful, although more the former than the latter. Still, it had some good games, some that I'll even spend the rest of my life shoving down the throats of everybody I encounter (Fragile Dreams, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, etc.).

From a financial perspective, no.

No. Don't be ridiculous.

"Never before has a console embraced worthless shovelware with such flagrance.   "

If you think about the amount of people you know who own a wii, certainly in my case it's phenomenal. Nintendo have sold a ridiculous amount of wii consoles, financially it's nothing short of a triumph.

Technically for me though I've never really enjoyed playing the wii and haver been inclined to buy one myself. What Nintendo did with the wii fit etc though, was broaden out gaming to a whole new audience.

" From a financial perspective, no.

From the perspective of it being a good console, yes.  It is a colossal failure.  Never before has a console embraced worthless shovelware with such flagrance.  

"

No way was it a failure. I've really enjoyed my time with my Wii. Played a lot of cool games on it and some were down right great. You can really tell the software side has slowed waaaaaaaay down. I'm really looking forward to see what Nintendo brings to the table next. Should be fun.

The Wii's sold over 80 million units. Maybe it's a failure to the hardcore, but it's a vulgar success in just about every other aspect.

" No. Don't be ridiculous. "

Of course not.  It's still the best selling console of this generation.  If anything that makes it the "best" and an overwhelmingly success. 

not at all, but I haven't touched my wii in years

Nintendo made a ton of money from it, but was it a success from their standpoint?

Yes it was. They still couldn't get 3rd parties to make games for it, and if they did they the games wouldn't be very successful. The really good games tended to be few and far between and put out by Nintendo. But they made lots of money, so there's that.

80 million sold does not a failure make. Some years ago i wondered to myself if this was all a master plan to root themselves in a shitload of casual homes, and then launch the Wii 2 with proper current gen specs and it would kill sony and MS on brand recognition alone... now its eems that might just happen (lets see how this new system is tho and if it gets the same multiplatform games as the other 2).

personally, i bought a wii at launch, finished twilight princess and little else, sold it about a year later and havent had one since. It was one of the worst systems ever in my opinion, no matter how good galaxy 1 and 2 are. But money talks, and Nintendo won. Im still excited for whatever the new one is tho

I would call it a roaring success.

" I've really enjoyed my time with my Wii.  "

" From a financial perspective, no.

From the perspective of it being a good console, yes.  It is a colossal failure.  Never before has a console embraced worthless shovelware with such flagrance.  

"

mean, The Wii Motion Plus has, what? one game that supports it? Was that Nintendo's plan all all along?

Naw. "Failure" implies that Nintendo set out with a goal in mind that they fucked up along the way. But the Wii's casual gaming strategy was a huge success. So successful were they, even, that Microsoft and Sony are amending their own strategies to emulate Nintendo's. A lot of us may not like the Wii, but you'd have to be a crazy person to term it a failure.

"  Are people going to, now, think twice before they buy a next generation Nintendo console because of the way the Wii turned out? Will they believe Nintendo's hype of game changing technology when they compare it against the Wii? "

Most of the people I know that bought a Wii are women that used it as a workout device.
The same type of women that will spend stupid money on stupid workout products over and over.
I got a Wii for my son, but he ended up only using it for his Gamecube games when he wasn't playing my Xbox.

The Wii (to me) is like the Chia Pet, it sells millions year after year, and is generally useless.

" @JazGalaxy: No.  When you are the best selling home console during your generation you are not a failure. "

Not by any practical metric, no. It was financially successful, and while it may not have fully realized the potential for motion control it clearly convinced Sony and MS to make their own attempts at it. Every great invention has imitations.

The one area I'd say it failed in was the ratio of good to bad games, and the number of good releases in general. Throw a dart at any Wii game display at GameStop and you'll be thrown off the premises. But also, you're more likely to hit a shovelware dud than one of the few (and they exist) genuinely inventive and fantastic Wii games. I couldn't imagine going through this generation of consoles with just the Wii, whereas I could easily be content with just the 360 or PS3.

I hope the new gimmick of Wii 2 won't be something that alienates important third-party developers, because after two generations without their support it's getting ridiculous.

" @JazGalaxy: No.  When you are the best selling home console during your generation you are not a failure. "

" Naw. "Failure" implies that Nintendo set out with a goal in mind that they fucked up along the way. But the Wii's casual gaming strategy was a huge success. So successful were they, even, that Microsoft and Sony are amending their own strategies to emulate Nintendo's. A lot of us may not like the Wii, but you'd have to be a crazy person to term it a failure. "

They made a ton of money, and hey, Monster Hunter Tri?  Awesome game.  Mario Galaxy and the sequel?  Some of the top games of the generation.  I don't see how you could think it was a failure.  Brand damage?  I really don't see how, because there are more people playing their games now than there ever were before.

I disagree with this entirely.Nintendo, starting with the n64, started to get a lot of crap for it's "seal of approval" and, in essense, standards. The reason the Playstation was able to sail to success so quickly is that it fairly quickly abandoned it's standards and it allowed companies to release almost whatever for the console. The difference between the Wii and the Playstation (or any console afterwards) is that when you think back on the Playstation, you remember the successes as well as the failures and Nintendo has, with the Wii, had far fewer successes. Many PSX games shipped in a barely playable, if playable at all, state. You just don't remember their names because you remember Final Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil. "

As a system that brought an entirely new market segment to the video games industry, it's a smashing success. What other console can claim the title of "first game console to be bought in retirement homes for exercise purposes?"

So how heavily are Microsoft and Sony invested in their motion control stuff?

I gotta say this will be a really interesting E3, and totally the year that Nintendo finally comes out with a console that straight up beams happy thoughts directly into your head.

The Wii was in no way, shape, or form, a failure.

It delivered on everything it set out to do, it revolutionized the game industry, has the two best reviewed games this generation (based on aggregators like Gamerankings), is one of the fastest and best selling game systems ever released, and both Microsoft and Sony have emulated it's style, with Microsoft's Kinect becoming a huge hit because of it.

Whether or not some of the more stubborn gamers though how it was ruining the industry, or how Western game developers dropped the ball completely, ended up being irrelevant in the end, with Nintendo finishing the generation in a distant 1st place (whether or not it stays like that is for the future to decide).

@wolf_blitzer85 said:

" So how heavily are Microsoft and Sony invested in their motion control stuff? I gotta say this will be a really interesting E3, and totally the year that Nintendo finally comes out with a console that straight up beams happy thoughts directly into your head. "

Did someone say lack of good games?

" @JasonR86 said:

" @JazGalaxy: No.  When you are the best selling home console during your generation you are not a failure. "

Clearly he meant money, when he asked where the good games were.Don't people understand how to gather meaning from a sentence without it being handed to them...?And I agree, I think it kind of is a failure. Nintendo made a cash whore. They refused to police the market and ensure that total trite shit didn't flood the market, they never encouraged 3rd parties to make awesome games on it, and often because of the casual audience, games ended up being lesser in quality because they knew most people wouldn't know the difference. "

" @JasonR86 said:

" @JazGalaxy: No.  When you are the best selling home console during your generation you are not a failure. "

Also, when you have to launch your next platform before anyone else is likely to have even ANNOUNCED a new platform, your not doing so well. The Wii peaked, and now is immediately in need of a replacement. Meanwhile, the 360 and PS3 are getting great games and transitioning into a very healthy prime. "

" As a system that brought an entirely new market segment to the video games industry, it's a smashing success. What other console can claim the title of "first game console to be bought in retirement homes for exercise purposes?"

It's a huge failure though in terms of the original crowd that made Nintendo what it is today. Sure, they managed to make a few games to cater to Nintendo fanboys, however 3rd party developers have no incentives to make anything for the system, as it is inferior in almost every way to the 360 and the PS3 in term of graphics, and the fact that people who bought the Wii only wanted it for either A. a way of working out in the home or B. the various Mario/Zelda/Metroid games that were released on it.

Overall, It's financial success means it was a success, but I think it's fair to say since the console has become a joke at this point (count the number of quicklooks with Wii games you've seen on giantbomb recently that are actually big AAA titles) that their future success with the Hardcore market is certainly in question. If the new console continues the whole "HEY GUYS CHECK OUT THIS NEW INNOVATIVE THING THAT'S GOING TO LET US INTERACT WITH GAMES IN A NEW WAY" as the sole selling point over a 360 or PS3 then it certainly won't have as many early adopters after the Wii, especially since motion controls have proven to be such a waste of time

"

" So how heavily are Microsoft and Sony invested in their motion control stuff? I gotta say this will be a really interesting E3, and totally the year that Nintendo finally comes out with a console that straight up beams happy thoughts directly into your head. "

" @Sporkbane said:

" As a system that brought an entirely new market segment to the video games industry, it's a smashing success. What other console can claim the title of "first game console to be bought in retirement homes for exercise purposes?"

It's a huge failure though in terms of the original crowd that made Nintendo what it is today. Sure, they managed to make a few games to cater to Nintendo fanboys, however 3rd party developers have no incentives to make anything for the system, as it is inferior in almost every way to the 360 and the PS3 in term of graphics, and the fact that people who bought the Wii only wanted it for either A. a way of working out in the home or B. the various Mario/Zelda/Metroid games that were released on it.

Overall, It's financial success means it was a success, but I think it's fair to say since the console has become a joke at this point (count the number of quicklooks with Wii games you've seen on giantbomb recently that are actually big AAA titles) that their future success with the Hardcore market is certainly in question. If the new console continues the whole "HEY GUYS CHECK OUT THIS NEW INNOVATIVE THING THAT'S GOING TO LET US INTERACT WITH GAMES IN A NEW WAY" as the sole selling point over a 360 or PS3 then it certainly won't have as many early adopters after the Wii, especially since motion controls have proven to be such a waste of time

"

Right, but was the Wii being sold to Retirement homes just a gimmick?I mean, I feel like we do have to make a differentiation between the people who bought the Wii because they heard about it on Oprah or through the hype of it being sold out everywhere and the people who bough it and legitimately used it.Are we seriously going to call the people who purchased it for Wii Fit and only turned it on once to be successes? A new market that was brought into gaming? Or are they just Home Shopping Club viewers who bought the Wii one day and then the next day bought a 9 stage juicer or whatever gimmick seemed neat at the time? "

" @JazGalaxy said:

" @Sporkbane said:

" As a system that brought an entirely new market segment to the video games industry, it's a smashing success. What other console can claim the title of "first game console to be bought in retirement homes for exercise purposes?"

It's a huge failure though in terms of the original crowd that made Nintendo what it is today. Sure, they managed to make a few games to cater to Nintendo fanboys, however 3rd party developers have no incentives to make anything for the system, as it is inferior in almost every way to the 360 and the PS3 in term of graphics, and the fact that people who bought the Wii only wanted it for either A. a way of working out in the home or B. the various Mario/Zelda/Metroid games that were released on it.

Overall, It's financial success means it was a success, but I think it's fair to say since the console has become a joke at this point (count the number of quicklooks with Wii games you've seen on giantbomb recently that are actually big AAA titles) that their future success with the Hardcore market is certainly in question. If the new console continues the whole "HEY GUYS CHECK OUT THIS NEW INNOVATIVE THING THAT'S GOING TO LET US INTERACT WITH GAMES IN A NEW WAY" as the sole selling point over a 360 or PS3 then it certainly won't have as many early adopters after the Wii, especially since motion controls have proven to be such a waste of time

"

Right, but was the Wii being sold to Retirement homes just a gimmick?I mean, I feel like we do have to make a differentiation between the people who bought the Wii because they heard about it on Oprah or through the hype of it being sold out everywhere and the people who bough it and legitimately used it.Are we seriously going to call the people who purchased it for Wii Fit and only turned it on once to be successes? A new market that was brought into gaming? Or are they just Home Shopping Club viewers who bought the Wii one day and then the next day bought a 9 stage juicer or whatever gimmick seemed neat at the time? "

What does it fucking matter?

Really, this is what I don't get in this argument.

It doesn't matter. 

Look, the Wii is the most important piece of hardware for the gaming industry ever, perhaps alongside the iPhone. It's the one thing in the way of gaming going the way of the comic book.

I always make this comment, people always fail to react, but it's true. Comic books were shoehorned as entertainments for nerdy kids, so they lost the ability to be relevant to a mainstream audience and they became crappy lowbrow fiction about men in costume punching each other. I mean, go to Comic Vine, those guys talk about comic book characters *as if they were real people*. You guys have no concept of how devastatingly close gaming is from becoming that. We need an infusion of young girls, soccer moms and grownup executives right away or as soon as the nerd-cool phase expires gaming is stuck doing the equivalent of drawing the same Superman story for 70 years.

So I don't give a crap about why people bought a Wii, they bought a Wii. And then some of them bought a DS and an iPhone. And perhaps because they bought Brain Training and Wii Fit they then went and bought Angry Birds and Bejeweled on their phones. And maybe, just maybe, they also bought Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton.

Which means you can still make those games and sell them to people and make money out of them. Instead of having to make Call of Duty or Gears of War for a generation of braindead jocks and idiotic teenage boys that buy the same two games a year every year.

So yeah, if you want Portal to continue to be a viable business proposition, you better hope that the Wii was a success and you better stop worrying about whether or not "it was legitimately used" by the people that bought it. 

"

Financially, no, but I've never really enjoyed playing it.

"Never before has a console embraced worthless shovelware with such flagrance.   "

Failed to maintain my interest but when it was a new thing i had a lot of fun with it.

" @NoelVeiga said:

What does it fucking matter?

Really, this is what I don't get in this argument.

It doesn't matter. 

Look, the Wii is the most important piece of hardware for the gaming industry ever, perhaps alongside the iPhone. It's the one thing in the way of gaming going the way of the comic book.

I always make this comment, people always fail to react, but it's true. Comic books were shoehorned as entertainments for nerdy kids, so they lost the ability to be relevant to a mainstream audience and they became crappy lowbrow fiction about men in costume punching each other. I mean, go to Comic Vine, those guys talk about comic book characters *as if they were real people*. You guys have no concept of how devastatingly close gaming is from becoming that. We need an infusion of young girls, soccer moms and grownup executives right away or as soon as the nerd-cool phase expires gaming is stuck doing the equivalent of drawing the same Superman story for 70 years.

So I don't give a crap about why people bought a Wii, they bought a Wii. And then some of them bought a DS and an iPhone. And perhaps because they bought Brain Training and Wii Fit they then went and bought Angry Birds and Bejeweled on their phones. And maybe, just maybe, they also bought Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton.

Which means you can still make those games and sell them to people and make money out of them. Instead of having to make Call of Duty or Gears of War for a generation of braindead jocks and idiotic teenage boys that buy the same two games a year every year.

So yeah, if you want Portal to continue to be a viable business proposition, you better hope that the Wii was a success and you better stop worrying about whether or not "it was legitimately used" by the people that bought it. 

"

wow. that's an extremely ignorant point of view. No business in the world can sell a product and not care about it's user experience. Businesses aren't built on making enough money to put their kids through college, they're built on growth and expansion. Vidoegames, more than any other industry, is a long-term game. Microsoft has been in the business for a decade and is only now starting to make money off of it."Who cares, people bought it. that's all that matters" is the business philosophy of those restaraunts you see that are open for a weekend and that's it. "

@JasonR86 said:


You know the answer to all of those questions?  'Yes, the Wii made money'.  What do you think the point of making a home console is?  People can throw out words like revolutionary, extraordinary, etc. etc.  But when it comes right down to it home consoles are deemed successful by their creators if they make money.  That's their entire purpose. 

It's more complicated than that.

Videogames are a long term business. It's not just about selling your units, cashing your checks and retiring. MS has been in the games industry for a decade and they're just now making money after their second console cycle.

I mean, look at Sony. Sony, compared to expectations, TANKED this console cycle, but the mistakes that got them there they didn't make with the PS3. After all, the PS3 was just doing what the PS2 did. Only moreso. No, the mistakes that they made with the PS3 they actually started making with the PS2. But, they didn't KNOW that because the PS2 was selling gangbusters... because of the success of the PS1.

It is entirely possible, from a business perspective, for Nintendo to, if they're not careful, say "Wii sold like hotcakes so we need a "Wii 2" to sell like EVEN MORE hotcakes!" only to find reap the fallout with the poor decisionmaking that happened with the Wii.

If the wii only sold on hype and not content, then they may be setting themselves up for a fall.

I think the fact that Microsoft and Sony had to develop proprietary hardware that mimicked what the Wii did, in terms of motion controls, suggests to me that the Wii was successful beyond just financially.

Overall, it was a success. Just look at what it did to Microsoft and Sony. Microsoft's shoving Kinect down our throats and Sony's pushing Move.

" @JazGalaxy said:

" @NoelVeiga said:

What does it fucking matter?

Really, this is what I don't get in this argument.

It doesn't matter. 

Look, the Wii is the most important piece of hardware for the gaming industry ever, perhaps alongside the iPhone. It's the one thing in the way of gaming going the way of the comic book.

I always make this comment, people always fail to react, but it's true. Comic books were shoehorned as entertainments for nerdy kids, so they lost the ability to be relevant to a mainstream audience and they became crappy lowbrow fiction about men in costume punching each other. I mean, go to Comic Vine, those guys talk about comic book characters *as if they were real people*. You guys have no concept of how devastatingly close gaming is from becoming that. We need an infusion of young girls, soccer moms and grownup executives right away or as soon as the nerd-cool phase expires gaming is stuck doing the equivalent of drawing the same Superman story for 70 years.

So I don't give a crap about why people bought a Wii, they bought a Wii. And then some of them bought a DS and an iPhone. And perhaps because they bought Brain Training and Wii Fit they then went and bought Angry Birds and Bejeweled on their phones. And maybe, just maybe, they also bought Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton.

Which means you can still make those games and sell them to people and make money out of them. Instead of having to make Call of Duty or Gears of War for a generation of braindead jocks and idiotic teenage boys that buy the same two games a year every year.

So yeah, if you want Portal to continue to be a viable business proposition, you better hope that the Wii was a success and you better stop worrying about whether or not "it was legitimately used" by the people that bought it. 

"

wow. that's an extremely ignorant point of view. No business in the world can sell a product and not care about it's user experience. Businesses aren't built on making enough money to put their kids through college, they're built on growth and expansion. Vidoegames, more than any other industry, is a long-term game. Microsoft has been in the business for a decade and is only now starting to make money off of it."Who cares, people bought it. that's all that matters" is the business philosophy of those restaraunts you see that are open for a weekend and that's it. "

...

Ok, so you agree with me.

You... agree that the business is built on expansion, so the classic, gated nerd audience needs to be expanded into the mainstream audience and the first step in that long play is to get gaming devices in their hands like the Wii, the DS and the iPhone so that they can start dabbling in gaming.

You just... decided to call me ignorant despite saying basically the same thing I said because... the rules of the Internet say you have to be hostile all the time? I guess?

"