Warning: "only for complete gaming geeks"

Read an interesting take on the commercial prospects of the video game console I just camped out in the rain to shell out hard earned dollars for. Thar article is HERE

My response is below:
_________________________

I'd disagree that the gaming industry isn't ready for a major change.

I fit the demographic of the average gamer you describe almost perfectly. I'm a white, middle class male, nearing 30 years of age. I played a lot of games from the late eighties, to the late nineties. The last major systems I bought was the Sony Playstation and the Sega Dreamcast. Like a lot of people in my age category, who have followed the gaming industry for a couple decades, I became extremely jaded after getting stuck with a large number of Sega systems that went nowhere. That experience certainly turned me into a more cautious game consumer (particularly in terms of hardware.) And while it may have been Sega's poor hardware management that turned people like me off, I think there's a lot of folks who never saw enough innovation from Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft to plunk down a serious investment for any of their systems.

The gaming industry has gone through a lot of changes since the Ataris and Coleco Visions of the 70's and eighties. One of the main changes is the budgets attributed to games now compared to then. Obviously now, they are much larger, some even outdoing the average movie production budget. But with this kind of capital expenditure on game production, and a much more saturated market of competitors, innovation suffers, because investors are far more likely to fund a game that has a "tried-and-true" formula as opposed to something completely new and adventurous. No one wants to fund something refreshing and innovative, when they can maximize their investment with the latest shiny FPS. And sure people are buying these games. The vast share of marketing in the gaming industry is going towards promoting these carbon copies. And without the same climate of development that we had in the early days of the gaming industry, when maverick programmers bucked conventional trend and come out with innovative milestones like M.U.L.E, or Starflight... large software developers are going to continue to go with the "safe-bet" games like Call-of-Duty 27, and "Heroes-Without-Arms 16."

In many ways, this is what has lead to recent growth in interest of retro games. Many gamers in my demographic ARE getting tired of the same old FPS, survival thriller, or racing/sports sim - regardless of how shiny it is. To a lot of us... graphics really DON"T matter as much as the fun-factor of a game. A friend of mine at work who's in his 40's, and has even more experience watching the industry than I do recently said to me...

"You know, if I wanted to watch something so real I thought it was a movie... I'd watch a freakin' movie." Nintendo's "Ice Hockey" for the NES, and EA's "NHLPA hockey" for the Genesis in 1992 aren't classics because we couldn't tell if we were watching a real hockey game or not... they rocked, and continue to rock cause they're so freakin' fun.

In many ways, I think it took Nintendo getting battered from the undisputed leader of the industry 20 years ago, to third place today, to figure this out. If it were still profitable for Nintendo to pump out cookie-cutter games like Microsoft and Sony do... they would. They're in a unique position right now, however where they've got a lot of talent left over from their heyday, combined with a waning presence in a market they helped shape, which has forced them to take some innovative risks.

Does this insure Nintendo's reclaimation of the gaming industry's throne? Sure doesn't.

Both Sony and Microsoft have a lot of money to throw around. Both can afford to take losses for years, just to starve competitors out and dominate by attrition. Right now, Nintendo has to rely on new ideas and innovation... and that only spells positive things for gamers.

I think the Wii will sell better than the GameCube for the same reason a game like Guitar Heroes is such a mad success today. I also think it's a bit of a longshot to assume that Nintendo will overtake either Microsoft or Sony in terms of market share during the lifetime of the three most recent consoles.

But most importantly, I think both Sony and Microsoft will find themselves emulating a lot of innovations Nintendo has developed in an attempt to keep Nintendo in third place.

The "Wii" Report - Day 2

So after at least a good 6-7 hours of near-straight game playing, tweaking, wire-juggling and general fekkin' around, I can give an initial report on how the Wii measures up to expectations.

It certainly hasn't been without it's fair share of hiccups, at least in my experience, and to mitigate some of the challenges I've had, I should mention that after spending a bit of time on the Wii-user forums, there are a tonne of people out there who haven't had any trouble getting their system to work properly at all.

Mine, on the other hand, has crashed a total of three times since I bought it yesterday. This is basically the equivalent to the old "reset-requiring freezes" the old school Nintendo would experience from time to time. Every console is basically a little computer, (even the old Ataris) and from time to time... computers will crash for any number of reasons. As computers get more complicated, there are infinitely more ways in which they can crash.

The Wii handles a crash very similar to how a computer would. Ideally, if it hasn't had a complete meltdown, an error screen will pop up with instructions on how to deal with the situation, in my case... it's told me to pull the damned game out, and turn the machine off and on.
I know that in at least two of the three crashes so far, the system failed when trying to load my new Zelda disc after I had already been playing around with some of the other channel features on the Wii. It seems to have trouble switching gears from online related stuff... directly over to a game. Don't know yet whether this is specific to the Zelda disc... or if it's a system related problem.

The majority of my headaches so far, have been in getting the online features configured. Nintendo doesn't have as much online-capability experience as the other two big-competitors, and it shows somewhat with Wii online compatibility... which is a bit picky for my liking.

I've attempted a few different ways of getting my Wii online. The first was the most common... through the existing wireless network in my apartment. This proved more difficult than I had hoped, as the Wii failed to pick-up on the network. I was hesitant to blame this on the Wii right away, however, as I've had trouble in the past with receivers recognizing my wireless router, I suspected the culprit may in fact be my foreign-language speaking wireless Belkin router. I say foreign language speaking... because I'm yet to find a non-Belkin product that can communicate with it.

My assumption ended up being correct, since after checking the Nintendo support page, it turns out that my router is in fact incompatible with the Wii.

Plan B entailed heading out to Future Shop to purchase Nintendo's USB WiFi adapter, which was initially developed for the Nintendo DS handheld system, but is said by Nintendo to be able to convert your PC's internet signal into a wireless wave for the Wii as well.

After having no trouble installing the adapter's software, I was devastated to see that my Wii failed to recognize its signal as well. Perhaps I'm giving Nintendo too much benefit of the doubt here... but I'm still attributing the problem to my router, which I suspect is somehow impeding the USB adapter's ability to send out a readable signal. The only solution I've been able to come up with is to go out and get a new router which is listed on Nintendo's compatibility chart.

All was not lost on the online front however... as one of my more generous anonymous neighbours was unknowingly kind enough to provide a wireless connection which my Wii was able to recognize. After many untimely disconnections, and a series of Wii-generated error codes, I was finally able to scrape the mandatory system updates off the Nintendo server, only to find out that two of their Wii services, (the News and Weather broadcasters) are not yet in operation... and that the third online service, (Opera-based Internet browsing) will not be available until next year... and even then, not without a one-time fee for the software! Not something I was delighted to hear.

As for the games... I've played through the included "Wii Sports," as well as my copy of "Zelda: Twilight Princess." The sports game is pretty much as enjoyable as one would have expected. At least until the novelty of the controller wears off... if ever.

But if one positive thing can be said about the Wii hardware... it should definitely be said about the controllers. I was absolutely amazed at how forgiving their operation is. I had expected a fairly tight range of movement, with lots of hiccups in their performance. Though they certainly aren't flawless, (golf clubs swinging while you're on the back-swing, etc) I was amazed at their responsiveness. Especially considering that I didn't have them operating in the most ideal of conditions.

We've got a digital projector beaming the Wii's image on one of our blank white walls. Makes for a great display, but makes it impossible to stand directly in front of the screen while playing without blacking out the picture with your shadow. Mounting the projector to the ceiling would solve the problem were we willing to shell out the dough for a contraption that would enable it to hang properly off our slanted vaulted ceiling surface. So we've had to devise a method of standing a little off center. This creates a problem with the Wii motion detector which is allowed to be either above or below your display, but certainly meant to be positioned directly in it's center, and pointed out forward. It's also suppose to attach directly to the display. Our display, of course, has no mass to connect to, and it's on a shelf below the bottom of the picture, and tilted to the left to catch our off-centre movements - two absolute no-no's in the Wii setup book... but so far, we've had very little problem with accuracy or responsiveness. A testament to their design to be sure.

In all the Wii sports games save boxing, the controls are well mapped out and intuitive. The golf makes sense... the tennis is fun, the baseball swing is amazingly accurate, and bowling is an absolute gas. Boxing, as the reviews said in advance, really is just a jumble of unresponsive punches, and poorly timed flailings. Probably not a formula that can't be fixed with more time in a follow-up version, however... and let's hope they get to that. A good Boxing game could very well be one of the most adaptable and rewarding applications for the Wii.

More after Day 3.

Wii! I got one!

Thought to myself last night... "alright... BestBuy and Future shop both have the most systems available, but they're gonna be gong shows. People will be showing up like... yesterday."

And sure enough... that's the way it was. Cruised by BestBuy at 8pm November 18th, and about 15 people had already gathered by the door.

Talked to an employee who said it still wasn't nearly as bad as three days earlier when folks began lining up 2 days in advance for the PS3.

So I could have started there, laid some roots, and been guranteed a system after a good night's wait.

But I'm getting too old for that shit. I wanted to go home. drink some beer, watch a movie, read more Wii reviews, catch a few winks, and find a way to get a Wii even after all that laziness.

Not having the funds, nor the moral ineptitude to pay a homeless person upwards of $500 bucks to wait in line for me, (as many reportedly did for the PS3) I decided to make stop by Superstore on Grandview and case the situation.

"We've only got 15 in stock," said the clerk, :on a first come first serve basis."

But there wasn't anyone waiting outside.

Nor was there when we swung by at 1:30 am on our way back from some midnight poutine on the drive.

So after a bit of discussion, we decided to take our chances, grab some shut-eye, and see what the early morning held in store.

Alarm fired off at 5:00am, and after a couple good snoozes, we were on the road.

Pulling into the Superstore parking lot minutes later, I was immediately impressed with the 12 folks in front of me who had devised the same low-key plan.

Here was a collection of calculating folks. Some looked like they had been there for some time, (deluxe lawn-chairs, time-passing laptops, and even the odd heat lamp.)

But most looked like they knew they had struck the right balance between not having to spend an entire night outside, and still getting their system, day-one.

So number 13 in line were I... two away from the limit.

The three young fellas in front of me said they had been there since 3:30 am... and they were starting to look a little fatigued.

3 more guys showed up 20 minutes after I arrived. We got chatting, and it soon donned on them that only two of them were going to go home with a system. That problem ended up getting solved twice over, as the three fellas in front of me were only getting one system between them... and again when the clerk came out at 7:00 announcing that there were in fact 18 systems in stock.
A few late-comers at the end of the line went home as the clerks handed out 18 numbered cards and told us we could take off and come back at 9:00am when they opened. One fella put out an offer to buy someone's card, but when when he turned down the only offer of $200, it looked like the order was going to stay the same.

For our part, we went to Bino's for breakfast, card in pocket, which was now numbered 11. So we were well within the limit.

After breaky, we returned to Superstore by quarter after 8... just to be safe... and by then, another sizable line had gathered.

Apparently no one bothered to tell these poor souls that all the systems were already spoken for.

A clerk finally came out at about twenty to nine, to announce that, without a numbered card, no Wii could be had... however, no one left.


By quarter to nine, pretty much everyone from the original line had appeared and began to congregate around the doors. Those without cards seemed even more determined to get a Wii... and some seemed convinced that the entire "numbered-card" scheme was a hoax to convince them to give their spot up in line.

Much to their displeasure, at 9:00, a door was opened up a few feet wary from the one the new latecomers had lined up at... and it appeared at first to be a free-for-all, as customers elbowed their way in... some hopping shopping carts and checkouts to get to the electronics department first.

Those of us with cards, however, strolled in casually, and took our place in the separate line set up for those who had endured the cold, the rain, and a good portion of the night before to get our new Nintendo.

Within 15 minutes, the system was sold out... and despite the large number of disappointed folks, no riots took place.

The final price tag? With a Wii system, the new Zelda game, two extra controllers, (one of them sold in two separate pieces) the entire thing came to $490 and change (CDN) Still well under the before tax price of the microsoft system, and certainly Sony's new PS3

So now on to the gaming!

So Hey Ekman... Do You Like B.A.?

The Slocan

Hit the Slocan up this weekend. Tend not to go there as often as most of the greasy spoons we frequent since it's a touch outta the neighbourhood.

Been around for years though, and is a commonly known place among the more gray-haired friends of ours.

Price ain't the hottest, service is going downhill somewhat, but only cause it's gettin' freakin' busy on the weekends, and the management isn't brining in new staff to keep up.

food's great... too many cops though

More on this when the "Vancouver Greasy Spoon Database" gets set up.

Buddy Dances

Buddy Dancing at the apartment. Guess who.

No reading lips kids.