The Nintendo Wii could have been the greatest system of all-time. Its new innovative way to play games, its sudden resurgence of multiple well-known franchises, much stronger third-party support, constant links to the past, backwards-compatibility, connections to the internet, and lower prices could have made it the greatest Nintendo product of them all—even finally triumphing over the Super Nintendo. And yet the potential was nowhere near met, despite it being a good system. The Wii was full of great ideas, but none of them were explored. And they never will be explored now that technology has caught with them with Kinect (And Nintendo’s own 3DS).
A lot of franchises made a comeback, but many others were also left in the dust. Many superior sequels were released, but so were many inferior ones (I still have not forgiven the makers of Metroid: Other M). Worst of all, there was an excellent shop that allowed you to buy old-school classics at minimal prices—and that was killed off just as fast as it arrived. And now, Nintendo all but abandoned its potentially epic system because the Nintendo 3DS is just around the corner. All the attention is now with the new handheld, which is bound to break records and usher in a new generation of gaming and potential gamers. 2011 (granted Zelda comes out this year) will most likely be the last major year for the Wii, as 2012 I am sure will bring about the next generation of Nintendo and/or the continuing domination of the 3DS in terms of gaming headlines. But let’s look back at what could have been.
This is going to be a very negative article about the Wii, so let me at least get the positives out in front. The Nintendo Wii is leagues ahead of the Nintendo Gamecube and was a few first-party titles from beating the Nintendo 64 quality-wise. The N64 had the much-better first/second party games overall (Remember, Rareware was phenomenal help back in the day) but there is no denying third-party support was much better on the Wii. The Wii introduced Super Mario into a new plateau of quality with the phenomenal 1-2 punch of the Mario Galaxy series. Donkey Kong got his best video game since Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest with DKC Returns. Mario’s best sports performance in years arrived with the cheap yet amazingly addicting Mario Strikers Charged. And lastly, Mario Kart Wii recovered the franchise after Double Dash (yuck).
The Virtual Console did bring back a lot of unsung gems like Zombies ate my Neighbors, Sin and Punishment, and Comix Zone, among others. Third-party made a nice comeback with the Guitar Hero franchise, Call of Duty, Just Dance (stop denying yourself, you like these games), and more. Best of all, in this tough economy, the Wii was the friendliest for your pocket, as it offered great classics at $5, while also offering some fun party games at $30-$40, and the biggest releases were priced at $50. Meanwhile, XBox 360 and PS3 games were running past $60—and that doesn’t include the more expensive controllers and utterly annoying downloadable content nonsense that should have come with the original games. One final note: Guitar Hero was cheapest on the Nintendo Wii at all times. Last and most importantly, Nintendo finally made its way online successfully with Mario Kart Wii (Let’s pretend like the online mode of Pokemon Battle Revolution never happened).
In spite of all these accomplishments however comes the nagging fact that Nintendo really could have gone the whole nine yards with this Wii system. The Wii, with enough nurture and love, could have easily wiped out the PS2 as the best-selling console of all-time. And while 85 million isn’t shabby, it can never catch the 145 million of the PS2 (insert the PS2s-break-down-often-so-one-person-wound-up-with-three-of-them-in-their-lifetime joke). It could have delivered death punches to both the 360 and PS3 while the competitors were expensive and lacking games earlier in the war.
Instead, Nintendo is currently adopting the step-ahead-of-curve strategy that has been perfected by Apple, which requires for Nintendo to constantly look ahead into the future to maintain pace above the competitors, even if it means neglecting newer products nearly immediately. If Kinect and the Sony Move-crappy thing had not been announced last year, I can guarantee you the 3DS would have been left a secret until this year. By the way, the Apple Strategy does not always work. See: Sega Dreamcast. Sega Saturn. Sega CD.
Here is some of the potential epicness that never occurred. Let’s start with the first-party franchises. I was stoked to see a Zelda title from the get-go and a Metroid game (with no marketing...but that’s another story) and two Mario games follow shortly after. But, the Wii has been the weakest in terms of representing the franchises. Where is Star Fox? Pikmin? F-Zero? Pokemon (Battle Revolution does not count----ever)? Advance Wars? Fire Emblem? Earthbound? Pilotwings? Golden Sun? Some of the newer franchises could have really gotten a nice popularity boost with the Wii, with Golden Sun, Advance Wars and Professor Layton being the outstanding examples. After years of monotony, we got a bunch of good new IPs, but they were all only on the Nintendo DS. And they remain strictly on the Nintendo DS. And Kid Icarus left the consoles for yet another generation, instead becoming a 3DS game.
The Virtual Console made things harder by folding so fast; it never had the chance to truly truly shine. Of course your usual Nintendo classics got the treatment, and so did a few surprises. But I would have loved to see the older Fire Emblem and Earthbound games finally make its way to the Americas. Advance Wars also had a long run in Japan before finally moving to the States in the GBA. The Virtual Console definitely did bring back the games we expected, but failed to dig deep into the gaming past. We really didn’t get enough Sega Genesis, Turbo, Neo-Geo. Even the N64 didn’t have much of a lineup. And to this day we Americans still have not received a slew of the Japanese console classics of the 90s. And if Nintendo really wanted to, they could have aimed at Sega Saturn and Sega CD, which despite the failures did have some good games. P.S.: The Japanese have it made with Virtual Console, beating us in amount of available games 590 to 380.
They say the Virtual Console miserably died in the States because of its own competition known as the WiiWare. But, the WiiWare and Virtual Console could have worked together if they set their targets straight. How about releasing a bunch of smaller games using well-known, blow-the-radar Nintendo IPs? There was no way you could compete with the XBox Marketplace, which had its incredible share of small developers making games. Why not small games featuring Professor Layton, Wario, Fire Emblem, or Pikmin? Why not make smaller-budget games using IPs and sell them on WiiWare, instead of developing a bunch of forgettable flops? Why not bunches of Wario Ware microgames? We could have had a low-budget sequel to Earthbound on WiiWare (P.S. the original Earthbound was also very low-budget). WiiWare and Virtual Console: Great ideas, poor execution, worse success because of lack of effort and overwhelming competition.
Nintendo Wii’s biggest issue was its lack of development towards its innovation. Yes, now the controller has motion-sensor. Where are all the lightsaber games? Darn it, I want to become Darth Maul in a Star Wars game!! Where are all the games with extensive swordplay? Where are the Harry Potter I-am-holding-a-wand games? Where are all the first-person shooters? The Wii could have been the greatest system of all-time for shooters. Instead, the only well-known shooter was actually Metroid Prime 3—and to a much lesser extent Goldeneye. Star Fox could have benefited greatly from this. Zelda: Twilight Princess was the only adventure game that made very good use of motion-sensor (which even then, it’s a little stretch because it was early in the lifespan). Can you imagine playing Fire Emblem and engaging in constant battles trying to conquer land as Roy or Marth or Ike? How about some Golden Sun and fighting monsters left and right as Isaac or Garret? Or where the heck is Pokemon Snap 2, in which you hold the Wiimote sideways to take pictures? Not saying they all should have happened, but come on, for God’s sakes where is Mario Paint 2?!?!!?!!
What bugs me the most about the Nintendo Wii was its total shunning of the online capabilities. There are so many franchises in the Nintendo world that would thrive ridiculously once you go online that I am shocked they didn’t jump aboard on this ship sooner. Picture these franchises going online: Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Mario Party, Pokemon (yep, I know, repeat), and even Mario Bros. could be great online. And the existing franchises that are already online didn’t push the envelope enough, like Smash Brothers and Strikers Charged. Where are the tournaments? Where are the leagues? Rank systems? Something? Anything? And each Wii comes with a photo editing system. Why not edit the photos and make a gaming card to use whenever you connect online to play?
Nintendo didn’t drop the ball on the Wii, unlike what this article is hinting at. Financially, they did not mess up in any way, shape, or form. After all, the Wii is indeed first place, and by a longshot, and the ONLY one of the three that delivered profits from the very beginning. And all this was accomplished after the third-party bailed, after the hardcore crowd bailed, and when technology started catching up, and with them still lagging behind in most modern gaming aspects. It’s a hell of an accomplishment to be the least-powerful system by a longshot and yet still outsell your competitors for many consecutive years. I will give them that. But the Wii….it can really be something. While the XBox 360 and PS3 have pretty much exhausted all their potential (and believe me, they are much better systems now because of it) the Wii has really yet to tap into theirs. And that is what hurts. It could have been something truly, really special, that could have brought back the hardcore crowd in masses while at the same time appeal to the mainstream.
So this brings us to the 3DS. This is a system that can do so much with all of its hardware capabilities, new technology, and already-strong third-party support. Sounds familiar? Yea, we had just spent 1,600 words discussing it. The 3DS is already off to a great start with Street Fighter IV, Pilotwings, Splinter Cell, Ocarina of Time, Kid Icarus, and freakin’ Metal Gear Solid making its way to the handheld in 2011. It is mildly understandable why Nintendo wants to focus so much attention to it. At the same time though, gosh, seems like my Nintendo Wii weeps softly like Brando:
“I coulda had class. I coulda been a classic. I coulda been a masterpiece. I coulda been a gem. I coulda been somebody, instead of a footnote success story, which is what I will eventually become. Let's face it. I coulda beat you Playstation 2.”
Coulda.
Woulda.
Shoulda.
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