Top Five Wii Downfalls - XTREME-SOURCE

PTU · 12-10-2006, 11:43 PM

Here are the top five downfalls of the Wii.

Quote:

Before anybody jumps to conclusions, no I am not against Nintendo in any way. I grew up with an NES and considered myself to be a Nintendo fanboi up until the Gamecube, which didn't manage to suck me in like the previous consoles had. That said, despite having a slightly bad taste in my mouth from the Wii, I am not totally zoned away from it. I still respect it for what it is, but it will not garner any of my playtime like my other consoles do.

Before I jump into my rant, I will give a few reasons why I enjoy the console although most everyone knows these reasons personally already. It's unique... Nintendo like no one else likes to take the untraveled path and it's worked well for them. It's very portable and fits anywhere. Dual compatible! How great it was to unhook my Gamecube and actually save space by hooking up the Wii.

WiFi out of the box... which is also one of the downsides as I will get into further into the list. SD Cards to save games to. Like the PS3, this is was a great move. Lots of room to backup your games, at a very affordable price. Finally, my last "killer" reason for getting a Wii is Zelda: Twilight Princess.

All of that aside though, I couldn't help but get caught up in all the fuss that surrounded the console around the time of launch. It was touted as the coolest console ever, but after first unpacking I was not too impressed. Now to be fair... I wasn't sold on the uniqueness of the Wii for quite a while, and I still am not totally sold on it. Take into consideration that your gripes may vary from my own. I feel this is a solid list of where the Wii falls short, but could have been better.

#5 - Online Services?

Like the other next-gen consoles, the Wii is fully capable of handling online activities whether it be downloading or surfing the web. Or is it? On launch day, I had full intentions to check out what was available online. That was short lived however, as none of the special services were functional, even now, three weeks after launch. This includes the weather, news and even web browser. This lack made it feel like half of the console was missing.

Ok, perhaps I need to learn some patience, so I will just accept the fact that these services are on their way. Except the emulated games of course, because that's instant revenue for Nintendo. That could not so foolishly be left out.

This is one specific feature I was really looking forward to. There are a few old NES and N64 games that I used to enjoy, but somehow either lost or broke. The fact that downloading a game to the Wii and playing it this way seemed like a great idea. That was until I actually logged onto this poor excuse for a store. I'll quickly outline a few points as to why I think this store could be better.

* Lack of games - At the time of writing, there is only a single N64 game, and slim pickins' for the others. More are on the way, but I expected a more robust selection, seeing as how this is a direct selling point for the console.
* Prices? - $5.00 for a 20 year old sports title? $10 for Mario 64 I can understand, but I am not so sure I understand the pricing for all of the available titles. These prices are -not- that expensive in general, but they will drain your wallet when you start purchasing them freely. This is not much better than Xbox Live, but at least there the games are upgraded to a certain extent. Some of the games in this list here, should be offered for free. At least to entice people to purchase some of the newer titles.
* No Demos before you buy? - I don't really need to elaborate here.

All of this aside, I do understand that this service will prove valuable to people without computers (are there still people like this?), so it's not all bad. I am just not sure who is going to purchase a bunch of games this way... there's a lack of value.

#4 - Single Console Version

When I first learned of a "Premium" Xbox 360 console, I found it to be ridiculous. I still find it ridiculous because the Core version lacks so much. What I liked about the Premium console though was the fact that it included a hi-definition cable. I was happy as pie that the console looked great on my HDTV out of the box. Not so for the Wii though. The console includes a horrible composite cable. I am sure that all HDTV owners out there stuck with the same cable can agree... it looks horrible. On older TVs it's not a problem, 480i is a standard resolution. Running 480i on a 720p/1080p native TV though results in a headache inducing experience (muddy, bleeding colors). Thanks to the shortages though, a cable is not currently possible unless you want to pay $100+ for one online. Personally, I am waiting for some third parties to come to the rescue.

I also found it odd that the Wii included Wifi as default, and not a wired NIC. I do indeed run a wireless network, but I prefer to keep the computers near to the router plugged in for the sake of net stability. My router offers poor wireless capabilities. Regardless, it would have been nice to see wired NIC as stock option, not an add-on. Wireless could have been for the "Premium" version of the console, or as an add-on. Although the Wii is not heavy into online gaming, especially at this point, wireless connections for that type of action prove far better thanks to the lower latency. WiFi may not bother most people, but I have friends who have their Routers and Wii on the opposite side of the house. So there's not going to be much surprise when they experience lag on their consoles when they finally get an online capable game.

#3 - Too Much Motion!

Yes, I actually consider the Wii's killer selling point as one of it's downfalls. It's obvious that the Wii is designed for a new level of realism.. a truly immersive experience. That's fine... but most games for the Wii solely trust that you are a fan of this method of control. In Zelda, you can flick the remote to swing your sword. Does that make the game more realistic? No. It makes you look like an idiot, and is completely needless. I had no problem pushing a B button in previous games to swing my sword. Sitting in a chair waving your hand in the air doesn't necessarily make the game more fun.

I may be over reacting, yes. At this point of time, the control is cool... everyone loves it. But how long is it going to take before people get bored of having to stand up, or wear out their arms to play a game? At least this gets people excercise... that is one plus. I just cannot personally see it, a year from now, where people are just as enthused to play a game on the Wii because of this type of control.

#2 - Clunky Setup & GUI

The Wii is designed to be a "family" console, so I had thought the setup process would be a complete no brainer, but that wasn't the case. The entire GUI is clunky if you want to do anything but play a game. A friend asked me to send a message to his Wii, but of course I had no idea how to do such a thing. It wasn't common sense, and I didn't feel like hauling out a manual from the box I threw in the back of the closet. This stuff -should- be common sense. After finding out that you need a 16 digit code to send messages (odd in itself), it worked fine.

In the end, I just find the entire GUI to be counter-intuitive. In order to choose any option of change menu screens, you -must- use the motion sensor. It would have made sense to allow the D-Pad or even the Nunchuck attachment to surf these menus. I don't want to have to wave my hand around simply to begin a game or view my storage. One specific area where this bothered me the most though, was setting up the Wireless connection. I had to type in a 63 character password with the remote... huge pain in the ***. It would not have been so bad with the D-Pad. Sure, I could use a lower security setting on the router to gain a smaller password, but that's not the point, or my plan.

#1 - Launch titles are great...

I have to bring this up, but I am not going to truly jump the gun. I picked up Tony Hawk: Downhill Jam and Zelda with the console, without having any intension's of buying another game afterward. There are just no other launch titles that grab my attention, including some of the more hyped ones.

That leads me to another fact that I am finding out. The majority of games out right now... seem more like tech demos rather than full fledged games. Maybe this is because the publishers know very well that nobody will want to play certain games on this system for a prolonged amount of time. Either way, the games still retail for a standard price, so it would be nice to get what you pay for. TH: Downhill Jam, Excitetruck, Elebits and others all seem more like arcade games ported for the console, instead of being a Wii exclusive. The only full fledged game out right now (to my knowledge) that actually offers deep gameplay is Zelda.

Final Thoughts

Now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I want to reiterate the fact that I am not totally pissed off by the Wii. It's simply not -half- as impressive as I had hoped it would be. I didn't touch on the good points of the system in great detail, because that wasn't the point of this list. Countless other sites have taken the liberty to touch on the great points. I was touching on the things that most people haven't mentioned.

Take this list as you will. You may disagree, or you may agree. So be it. The Wii is still new, so it's hard to be really skeptical at this point. I hope to see the console stand alongside the other next-gen consoles for the years to come. Game on.

Sadalius · 12-11-2006, 04:42 AM

Yeah, the online services and games will come with time. Thats the case with any new console but I do think it could have been a little better for the launch. The other stuff I agree with. I think the gui takes quite a bit to get used to and isn't very intuitive. Like your issue with sending Wii mail, it took me a little while to figure that out myself. I mean after all, who would think that you would need to open your address book and get this freaky long number to be used as your wiimail address?

The controller does take a little getting used to, but after about 30 minutes of playing with it, I seemed to take to it pretty good. You do have to be careful though when doing things like baseball. For example, when pitching the ball, you want to make sure that the strap is on, and make sure not to actually pitch the remote as the strap can brake and the result would be the remote flying toward your TV set and either breaking your remote, TV, hitting someone or all of the above.

Getting the darned thing honed into my wireless router and fully onto my network was kind of a pain too. I went through the setup and it found my wireless router, I put in the security info and it even passed the connection test and told me there was updates. But when it when to do the updates, it would fail. After a few failed attempts, I changed the broadcast channel of my router from 6 to 11 and then it worked without a hitch.

All in all I haven't had any real issues, just stuff that I couldn't figure out easily. But alas I didn't buy this Wii for me, I got it for my daughter and I hope she enjoys it!

Silver Sony · 12-11-2006, 12:46 PM

Hello PTU

Yes i must admit, i was talking to one of my friend's recently, who had bought himself one of the Nintendo Wii's, i did ask him to give me a good review about it, and as you stated PTU, he also had a lot of problem's and state'd that he felt let down with the the overall system, and i asked him if was totally satisfied with it, and he said hell no. if i would have listened to you i would never have got one, i did explain to him that my personal thought on the Nintendo Wii, is that yes they look good, and the design is quite simplistic, the price is fair, and the console may help parent's and young people learn how to interact together, and by playing game's, will help children be more relacxed in an environment and build good relationship's, but they will never become advanced gaming console's??? Like the PS3 or the microsoft Xbox 360, and i am sure that was not Nintendo's intention or was it???
Interesting point's PTU

ionicle · 12-11-2006, 01:42 PM

i agree with

#4 the wireless is just stupid...i mean, i do have wireless, but i have a network hub in my room for a reason....so that crosses the wii off my xmas list...if it cant be pluged into wired net, and if half the net side of it, doesnt work anyway

and

#1 a console is a hunk of junk, if it doesnt have any good game's behind it, it can have all the power in the world, or all the inovation, in the world, but no games = worthless

Lord Sesshomaru · 12-11-2006, 03:14 PM

I have yet to see any in-depth tech specs about the Wii like processor speed, polygons per second, etc, I think they are simply hiding what we already know, it's not nearly as powerful as the PS3 and 360.

punqewe · 12-11-2006, 10:56 PM

hard to make a solid opinion on something that's only been out for a little over a week or so.....give them credit for releasing ON TIME LOL

Like said in the original post,maybe wait awhile and see what happens. power and all that is great...but in the end it has to be fun....and from what my buddies that have bought one have said is that it's a blast to play.

And the price is right too.

Lord Sesshomaru · 12-12-2006, 12:04 AM

Dunno, I just get the feeling the Wii will end up as a niche system, but we'll see.

Shirani Aori · 03-11-2007, 10:38 AM

:stupids:
first excuse my name cuz its really gay 2nd i do agree with a few of these things but it seems like hes never played zelda or is getting all this from reviews. i have a wii and the commercials exxagerate the motions. in zelda i can make him attack sitting down with barely any movement. btw you can hook it up wired its a connection setting. the games come eventually and it doesnt feel stupid to move the wiimote around to press the channels. not to me.
i have never even tried to mail ppl with my wii its pointless. the wii isnt made for being a computer so it shouldnt even have online or mail. i do agree that the entire wireless connection is stupid because even witha psp you can make a connection easily in 5 seconds. i found the wiimote to be a little to sensitive but wed all be complaing even if it was less sensetive even by a little bit.and there is a premium wii with better internet hdtv cable and a lot more that there working on so i both agree and disagree. (oh yea and btw in a year every console is gonna be considered as a niche system)

Lord Sesshomaru · 03-11-2007, 06:38 PM

How is every console gonna be a niche system in a year? Video games are a multibillion dollar industry, with the power, time, and money invested in making games; and a built-in audience of hundreds of million people around the globe, I don't see what you mean. Niche would indicate that something fills a specific role, I'm simply stating that I think the Wii is going to be the choice for people with kids, i.e. a family console. The other consoles will have more universal appeal and more diverse sets of titles for the average young adult imo.

Black · 03-12-2007, 02:56 AM

Wii just seems like a glorified Gamecube, complete with Gamecube ports, which are great if you want to sell your GC for $50. Zelda had some fun value for me, but I've recently jumped into Rogue Galaxy for the PS2 and I'm honestly having more fun (and the graphics are much better). IMO There's more depth to the gameplay - depsite the Wii having a waving controller. I don't see Wii being able to compete with a PS2 right now. Like LS said, it would be interesting to see an in-depth review of the specs and compare it to last gen consoles. With a re-release of a system, you would think that Nintendo would be able to push the hardware to its limits by now, and give us some stunning games.

They should have just gone with a "Pimp my Gamecube" campaign. I thought it absurd to not have the ability for hard-wired network capabilities. And nobody mentioned the speaker in the Wii-mote!! Utter crap! And I'm complaining because it absolutely drove me nuts!!! I'm so happy I returned my Wii.

It's definitely not for everyone.

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