Jimquisition: Why the Wii U May Have Already "Won" Next-gen

[Zhukov]

That bit of goop dripping off at the end was perfectly timed.

 

[webkilla]

I think its a good point Jim raises that the Wii U doesn't try to overreach...

I have an uncle who's tv already does web-browsing and youtube streaming quite well. He'd never buy a console to enable the same feature.

plus the 'play on console but via the handheld' - smart idea IMO. Relegate the computing to the console, while the handheld device provides the interface.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

For me region free system is what matters. That's why I stick to Sony systems, although they still have a long way to go with region free DLC... Steam is the best here, you get the code for particular region version, you get this version. Retail and digital working together. As for Sony...
Sure, SCEE is a bunch of incompetent, disgraceful morons but region free PS3 and Vita allows me to import whatever I want from wherever I want.
Wii U I will likely purchase to get Bayonetta 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3 dismemberment edition, but honestly so far I can't see myself buying anything else for it. And as long as Sony keeps stuff region free and I get my stuff like Gal Gun and Hatsune Miku games I'm sticking with PS4.

 

[gardian06]

The thing is, Jim, Nintendo has done this same thing in the past. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't This doesn't sound like a canny and insightful move by Nintendo so much as the occasional stroke of luck by a bunch of people who more or less flail around randomly.

The tablet as a playing screen is a nice one though.

It's also worth noting the slow adoption of new technologies. Smart TVs are the new gimmick which may or may not catch on, but it will be a qhile before their ubiquity threatens Sony and Microsoft even if they do. This makes it highly unlikely that it will be a threat to the upcoming sequels to the PS3 and 360. Case in point, DVD is still the leading physical medium for video, and it took the artificial death of VHS to make it dominant (and then only several years after the fact did it happen). HDTVs, what the current gens from Sony and Microsoft were built around, are just now getting to a reasonable saturation point. New gadgets may not be enoough to push these TVs, especially with an embedded userbase of Sony and Microsoft fanboys and fangirls.

Not that I particularly want to defend Microsoft's practices of putting social media and stuff ahead of gaming, but these days anything released without that sort of thing gets crapped on. It's kind of like mu;tiplayer in video games. Even if a game is 50 hours of the best storytelling ever, it will probably lose some points for not having team death match. sure, it seems stupid, but really, it seems to be what people demand. Just like they freaked out over whether the current gen could play DVDs, though DVD had become so ubiquitous at the point of launch that most microwaves come with DVD functionality (and are moving to Netflix).

I'm kind of hoping they have to break from their subscription model, though.

See the thing is it has been said that about 40% of people buying an XBox360 do so for XBLA, and then later realize "I have this system, and I can buy game disks for it", and if they can get the same, or similar experience on just their tv that means that Microsoft loses 40% of current market share, and the key reason that they even sell so many systems is because they are using the Apple ADHD off riddlen system, and keep releasing "new models" that don't actually have that great of upgrades to the system (because of development for it).

Microsoft, or Sony back away from the thing that gives them more profit then the selling of their consoles, and with more consistency.

 

[LostintheWick]

I love ketchup. It goes well with everything.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Holy fucking shit! It's the motherfucking Telebots. That is all I have to say.

 

[Garfy]

Holy fucking shit! It's the motherfucking Telebots. That is all I have to say.

Christ, I'd repressed the memory of those *things*.
That show terrified me as a kid especially the 4th evil one.

 

[wolfyrik]

Fuck the next gen consoles, what's that cartoon you showed clips of?! I know I saw that as a kid but can't quite remember, now it's going to bother me because I don't even remember enough to search for it...


Help me, Jim Sterling, You're my only hope...

 

[matrix3509]

What the fuck has this industry come to? A gaming system that emphasizes..you know..fucking gaming is considered a novel idea? Goddamnit this industry is so full of shit, it's unbelievable.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

That show terrified me as a kid especially the 4th evil one.

Spoiler: Pi(y?)ro TV online...online...

Also it appears they were called Telebugs. Well, it was a long time ago and my brain has taken a beating over the years.

 

[shrekfan246]

Smart TVs still aren't very close to providing a real hardcore gaming experience. They will, at most, have minigamey little app type games along the lines of Angry Birds or all the cheeseball Kinect games. That's the kind of gameplay the WiiU is likely to offer with a lot of its titles.

So how can the WiiU "win" when it's competing with the Smart TVs while the next entries from MS and Sony will be the hardcore traditional consoles we've come to know and love?

WiiU is trying to take on tablets, consoles and smart TVs all at once while doing nothing to appeal to someone that wants all three. Not to mention the buyers remorse it has to overcome with millions of dusty Wiis out there.

I'm betting on Microsoft in this round.

Jim's entire point in this video was that Microsoft and Sony are pushing for the "minigamey little app type games" with the way they're moving things on the Xbox 360 and PS3 right now, and if they continue in that direction instead of reeling it back toward the actual games, they're going to be competing directly with televisions that can provide the same experience without the need for a multi-hundred dollar peripheral. Which I agree with. I don't use my 360 very often, and I never use the online regardless, but I quite like my PS3 and would prefer that it keeps being fairly easy for me to access the games I want to play instead of being bogged down behind tons of Netflix or Twitter or Facebook apps which I neither want nor need.

 

[Pink Gregory]

This makes it highly unlikely that it will be a threat to the upcoming sequels to the PS3 and 360. Case in point, DVD is still the leading physical medium for video, and it took the artificial death of VHS to make it dominant (and then only several years after the fact did it happen).

Off topic, anyone remember HD-DVD?

...Didn't think so

The more I hear about the WiiU the more I like it; not-great experiences with the Wii aside (pretty much only ever had 3 games for it, and they were the only ones I wanted, although I never touched the online store...).

Either way the whole 'social media creeping in to Xbox Live' thing has been really rubbing me up the wrong way for quite a while now.

 

[Draconalis]

Wait... Jim had an end credit zinger?

Is this the first? Or have I missed others?

 

[leviadragon99]

Huh... well while all this maynot affect me much at all as I'm going ot stick with the PC for as long as it continues to be a viable platform, that is an interesting turnabout on conventional wisdom.

 

[Lex Darko]

Dear Mr. Sterling,

The escapist updates its site with new content around lunch time everyday (if on the US east coast or on EST/EDT). This means the first people to see your videos in this region are likely to be eating while watching. Now as entertaining as your videos are, seeing zoomed in pictures of piles of fecal matter is not conducive to keeping down lunch.

I'm in no way asking or suggesting you censor anything. Only asking that in the future instead of using a picture of fecal matter consider using an alternative such as: a photoshoped picture of a cow standing in a pie a crust, a picture of a toilet or a zoomed out picture of a landfill. Trust your viewers to get the meaning without showing us something that induces gagging.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Guffe]

Good episode.
I have yet to stumble into a next gen argumentation but this is a nice point.
I hope success for Nintendo, not that I wish PS or Xbox do bad either, I've just always had a Nintendo.

 

[kuolonen]

Dear Mr. Sterling,

The escapist updates its site with new content around lunch time everyday (if on the US east coast or on EST/EDT). This means the first people to see your videos in this region are likely to be eating while watching. Now as entertaining as your videos are, seeing zoomed in pictures of piles of fecal matter is not conducive to keeping down lunch.

I'm in no way asking or suggesting you censor anything. Only asking that in the future instead of using a picture of fecal matter consider using an alternative such as: a photoshoped picture of a cow standing in a pie a crust, a picture of a toilet or a zoomed out picture of a landfill. Trust your viewers to get the meaning without showing us something that induces gagging.

Thanks for your time.

I would like to sign this petition.

I have some distasteful memories involving me eating curd and unsuspectingly opening a video with Jim dressed in drag.

 

[Rad Party God]

I'm hardly pressed to yet see one good reason to buy a WiiU, but don't get me wrong, lately there have been lots of interesting news about the console itself, but I'll wait for a year or two after it gets released to decide if it's for me or not.

Also, crazy high prices in my country.

 

[Callate]

I'm not buying a Wii-U this year; I want to see if Nintendo can pull through with the promise of being a better partner in getting third-party games on the shelves, and using the tablet controller in ways that aren't just gimmicky or (worse) intrusive. And I've said as much elsewhere.

But what I haven't said as much is that the Wii-U is thus far the only console of the next generation that I'm giving serious consideration. Sony has been bobbling the Move controller like some kind of drawn-out slapstick comedy routine for more than a year, now, and Microsoft's Kinect, while it has its points, also requires a very particular kind of space to be accurate- a space I'm not terribly interested in re-arranging my living room to accommodate. Other than that, what do Microsoft and Sony have to offer?

...Their invasive desire to push into other aspects of our lives, spun as a "feature"... And more computing power.

That's not really an argument "for"; it's more of a bad joke.

I'm the local prophet of doom as far as the computing power thing goes. Short version: more power= greater costs to develop games that leverage that power= more risk, more risk aversion, more company consolidation and studio collapses. On the same line, the Wii-U, with allegedly only (only!?) twice the power of the XBox 360, may well hit a sweet spot that looks one hell of a lot more attractive to devs vs. trying to spend more developing for a console with a higher price point and less market penetration.

I think there's a good chance that the future will see people paying an extra $200 or more for a console that gives them fewer, more expensive games. Oh, and the somewhat specious notion that they're far more "hardcore" than all the widdle babies with their Wii-Us.

Said widdle babies will roll their eyes and go back to playing Bayonetta 2.