Yeah, the stupidity of this astounds me. Why even have wireless controllers if you are going to insist that gamers play close enough to the console for their voice to be heard by a mic? Are we going to have to turn down the game's volume so that it won't drown out our voices? The only positive here I guess is that multiple people in one room can be heard. And more FC's? Arggg. Save me Nyko
As a software guy for 26 years, Nintendo is an enigma to me. On the one hand they are very innovative and creative by adding true motion sensing but then they add drawbacks by INSISTING that the actual footprint of the console no bigger than a computer DVD player. So instead of more content (more memory and hdd) we would like, we get something most of us do not care about. Fortunz, we are the biggest market still are we not? Does Nintendo EVER conduct customer focus groups? It is an easy way to head off bad implementations.
@undrclss, by "we", you mean core gamers? Yes, BUT, there are good financial reasons for the blue ocean strategy. One differentiation helps sell hardware. When a soccer mom wanders into the gaming isle, she isn't looking for a PSP or 360 99% of the time, she's looking for a DS or Wii. And although she isn't going to buy as many games per console as we will, the games that she buys are super cheap to develop, easy to sequel, and sell at the same price as multimillion dollar projects. The ROI on those games rocks. Nintendo hasn't really been punished at retail by core gamers, who still love the franchises they grew up with, and still buy them without much need of prompting (Kart, Brawl, Mario, Metroid etc). These exclusive classic franchises keep disgruntled customers half-loyal to Nintendo. And Nintendo doesn't seem to mind people like you and me wanting a second console to get oru FPS/strategy fix on.
Nintendo views themselves all too often as a publisher, rather than a platform. The dearth of 3rd party titles just isn't on the top of their mind, casuals and kids are, so when they designed the peripheral, they ignored the types of games they don't make (The Conduit, COD, MOH), and focused on what fits the Animal Crossing audience instead. They probably did do serious focus grouping, but their pool of participants were blue ocean, not core.
Honestly, I don't mind them chasing the masses and expanding gaming. I don't mind this device, heck it could even be useful for titles that allow multiple people to play online per console (Mario Kart comes to mind). I only mind that this is all Nintendo sees the need for. They promised to focus on Both the casual and the core, and they still aren't doing it.
There's a huge opening of 3rd parties here, both in software and in hardware. The hype surrounding The Conduit is no fluke. Someone is finally aiming to give us the whole package, and tons of people are excited about it, even now, 9 months before it releases. The Wii could be the whole package if High Voltage and EA (Friend Code-less online lobbies) and logitech (headset) fill the gap, and we could just start ignoring Nintendo's stubborn ignorance.
But what SHOULD have happened is Nintendo should have contracted out some work to these companies (a long time ago) to have them fill in the gaps they were leaving. If they can't be bothered to do it themselves, some partnerships were the logical course of action.
As to my title, I think Japanese business culture is responsible for tons of Nintendo's decisions lately. Remember the Goldeneye fiasco? We could be looking forward to Goldeneye (now owned by Activision) on Wii, at the cost of 360 owners getting it on XBLA, but Nintendo felt that was grossly unfair because it was a N64 game (nevermind that it was made by a studio Microsoft owns), so no body gets it. Looking back on Nintendo's decisions going all the back to the NES, there's a particular sort of tunnel vision and stubbornness that pretty much ignores the opinions of everyone outside the board room. Their focus groups are supposed to confirm their strategy, not change it. I don't culture made them choose blue ocean, but I think it has defined the way they have pursued that strategy.
You are correct about the culture. But the arrogance can be costly in the end. I work for Ford and there was a time when the Big Three American auto companys ruled this country's market. We thought we knew better then as well. Good topic.
