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What happens when a once great hardware manufacturer finds itself steadily and rapidly declining, year by year and generation by generation, in console marketshare as well as in third party software support and public brand awareness and popularity? If that company is Nintendo, the answer is: create a gimmicky piece of "new" hardware that concedes all technological progression to the company's rivals in favor of repackaging old hardware on the cheap and selling it to consumers under the deceptive banner of "Innovation." In what universe is this sort of scam considered acceptable?
Company President Satoru Iwata and game design luminary Shigeru Miyamoto, in used car salesmen fashion, are pushing the innovation line hard, but upon closer examination, it proves to be a misleading characterization of what's actually being planned for the market. The Wii is hardly what one could reliably consider a next-generation console. It is, in fact, more comparable to the slimline PS2 than it is to the moniker of a next-gen machine. While the Wii features a marginal upgrade of graphical and processing power over its predecessor, it is essentially a barely-upgraded GameCube with much of its insides cut out in order to create a smaller outward design. Aesthetically attractive, certainly, but looks do not make a new machine. Consumers should find it an unappealing concept to be asked by the multibillion dollar corporation to fork over full price for a new machine that is not appreciably more advanced than the old.
But what about the Wiimote, some misguided defenders might ask. Well, what about it? It's a controller, nothing more, and should no more be the focal point of a new system than the original PlayStation's post-launch analog controller, or the GameCube's Donkey Kong bongos. A new controller does not make an old system new, a fact which Nintendo executives tried to ignore when they scrapped their original plans of simply releasing the wiimote as a GameCube peripheral. "Why release an add-on," their thought process surely went, "When we can instead use it to swindle our consumers into paying full price again for a machine they already own?"
Wii supporters often make lofty claims that its controller will breathe new life into an industry dying of stagnation and a lack of innovation. They complain that Sony, the market leader, has consistently failed to innovate within the market. But let's unpack that claim. First, even accepting it as true, why should Sony need to innovate? Its marketing strategies, its philosophy toward gaming, and its hardware have all been emphatically embraced by consumers in the strongest possible terms, giving Sony unparalleled dominance over a once fractious console market. It's an absurd request to ask Sony to change what the company is doing when consumers are expressing such exuberant support. Even so, the claim that Sony stifles innovation is, on its face, untrue. The PlayStation 2 has been a hotbed of innovation -- from the stylistically breathtaking Okami to the wackily eccentric Katamari Damacy to cinematic games like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus (both, notably, developed by Sony itself), the machine has consistently offered original software to consumers. There's no doubt that this trend will continue with the PlayStation 3.
What's more, even if Sony were blocking innovation, a simple controller will hardly be the beacon that awakens brilliantly visionary game designers from their humdrum dormancy slaving away over the latest piece of True Crime shovelware. A controller is nothing more than an interface with the game. Analog sticks did not make games more innovative, nor did the d-pad, and nor did rumble. Innovation comes from the design of the game itself, and that is something quite different entirely from how the game is played. Something which provides the illusion of innovation while changing nothing of the essence of the experience is typically called a gimmick, not heralded as the next savior of a dying industry.
Defenders often point to two prior systems in making their baseless claims: the DS and the Dreamcast. This comparison is often raised while ignoring crucial elements of both systems. First, while the Dreamcast was indeed innovative, it was rejected wholeheartedly by the gaming public, garnering a measly 10 million in worldwide sales. Sega's last hurrah would make a poor stand-in for the Wii, though, even if it had found continued success. The reason for that is that, simply, the Dreamcast innovated through software, not hardware. While it did incorporate the hardware-based VMU, for the most part the system is remembered as a cult icon not for its gimmicks but for the radically different games it brought to players through titles like ChuChu Rocket, Space Channel 5, Phantasy Star Online, Shenmue, Rez, and Samba de Amigo. Further, while the Wii decided to skimp out entirely on technological upgrades, the Dreamcast did the exact opposite -- it offered powerful new specs and was the first on the market to do so.
Through the Dreamcast's early arrival into the next generation, gamers were greeted with new graphical experiences like the incredibly realistic cinematic Shenmue, or the stylistic Skies of Arcadia, both of which offered worlds more immersive than any that had previously been available to gamers. In this was dispelled the old myth that graphics don't matter. They do. While great graphics will not save a game that is horrid in every other respect, excellent graphics -- and a progression that continues evolving graphical presentation to greater levels -- are a necessity when it comes to fully embracing the player in a new world. Think about Dragon Quest VIII, and what really, above all else, set it apart from its predecessors. It certainly wasn't the gameplay, which hewed to the all-too-familiar traditionalism the series is known for. No, it was the graphics: the ability to present a jaw-droppingly immersive world for the player to explore. Such evolution of graphics will continue into the next-generation, creating new and amazing experiences for each player... but the Wii, and its swindled consumer-base, will be left out in the cold.
But what about the DS, the system Wii is most clearly modeled after? Doesn't the DS prove that poor graphics can be ignored if new experiences are created for the player in other ways, such as control? Not hardly. If anything, the DS proves the opposite -- that simply giving game designers a new user-interface upon which to build their games will not suddenly make those designers more inspired or less lazy. Any objective analyst could count on one hand the number of truly innovative games the DS offers which make use of its touch screen. Most of the successful DS games have, rather than making full and visionary use of the touch screen, run as far from it as possible. Animal Crossing? It's optional. Mario Kart or Mario & Luigi or New Super Mario Bros.? All but nonexistent. It's a wonder that anyone thinks the Wii will turn out differently. What's more, the DS got this way even while enjoying far healthier developmental support than the Wii is likely to ever receive. The DS was, after all, the successor to the hugely successful Game Boy Advance, the last entry in a line of handhelds that had seen complete market dominance and one ruined competitor after another. Wii, meanwhile, is the follow-up to a failed, rejected irrelevancy within the console market.
It seems that the love Nintendo, like a death row inmate who suddenly takes a liking to religion, professes towards innovation is only sincere to the extent that it will save the company from its own demise. The stagnation isn't in the industry, friends: it's Nintendo's future prospects that are stagnating. Someone should tell Mssrs. Iwata and Miyamoto that they can spare gamers the false platitudes about saving a dying industry (it's doing fine) by reaching out to non-gamers (the PS2 already did this). Rather than offer repackaged hardware bundled with gimmick peripherals, Nintendo simply needs to focus on offering competitive, progressive hardware with a lineup of quality, original software. And a few more RPGs sure wouldn't hurt, guys.
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