Wii is a Virus: Epic Boss

[Junaid Alam]

Wii is a Virus: Epic Boss

Epic boss Mike Capps slammed the Nintendo Wii as a "virus" that is moving the industry backward with its supposedly superficial appeal.

In an interview with IGN, Capps said he and his circle of friends found themselves buying the system after being impressed by seeing it in action, only to have it languish after a couple of months.

"It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they're like, 'Oh my God that's so cool, I'm gonna go buy it.' So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on..." he said.

Capps praised Nintendo for its ability to turn a profit and reach a wide audience but said the company was not helping move the field forward tech-wise. "As an investor you love 'em, but as a next-gen console technology maker, they don't run UE3 and they can't. ... we go forward, not back."

Capps' company has a vested interest in "next-gen" technology, as the developer of the Unreal Engine, which runs on the PC, 360 and PS3.

His comments also come on the heels of a recent New York Times article titled, "New Wii finds a big (but stingy) audience," showing that Wii owners, as casual gamers, tend to buy less software for the system because they are not driven by a need to play the newest games.

Source: IGN.com [http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/868/868001p1.html]

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[The_root_of_all_evil]

Sour grapes much?

 

[Higurashi]

Hehee, those who are driven by that need are a bit daft.

 

[fix-the-spade]

"We go forward, not back"
This from the man who produced UT3, the game with nothing new in it whatsoever. Maybe he's upset that he can't sell Nintendo the Unreal Engine for megabucks. Yet they continue to chuck out games that sell.

Funny, he says people stop playing the wii after a while. But my flatmates and I have been playing it since release to the exclusion of pretty much every other console.

Might something to do with Lylat Wars, Timesplitters 2, Smash bros Melee and all the Metroid Prime's in one place...
Although Brawl can't get to Europe fast enough.

 

[Dectilon]

Boo hoo! My company can't make any games for the Wii. It suuuuucks!

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Backwards for who? The best-selling online game of all time cracks in at 10 million (WoW), which is 'Act of God' class sales figures. Although awesome by video game standards, that's hardly as massive an appeal as movies or television. The Wii Fit is being demonstrated on freaking Oprah. New gamer, meet old gamer.

The Wii chose a weaker processor and now numerous indie developers are able to keep making games for relatively cheap costs. A Wii game costs 2 million and 18 months to make (roughly). Other next-gen consoles come in at 25-50 million and three years to make (roughly). So when someone has a creative idea for a game, which system is it viable to take the risk for? Yeah, there is a lot of shovelware, but there's also a ton of really innovative stuff coming out.

With a 50 millionish price tag on every Unreal 3 game coming out, no one is going to make a game unless it conforms to every generic standard that already exists so they know they'll make their money back. If anyone is moving the industry backwards and into the same old draconian crap they're always making, it's Epic.

 

[richasr]

I don't know anyone who still plays the Wii, or even talks about it for that matter. The fact that the Wii is way behind the PS3 and XBOX 360 technically does single it out and make it the third (fourth if you include the PC) choice for those gamers who want to play the next Unreal game or games like Haze or Killzone 2.

My friends and I liked the Wii when we first played around with it, but we were soon back on our 360s or PCs playing multiplayer on there rather than sitting around a very large TV and playing Wii Sports.

Sure he's whinging about it being a money-machine but he's also making a point about it potentially turning the games industry around; but as the post above suggests, around which way? Personally, i'm of the Unreal 3 class of gamer.

 

[Human Bomb]

Huh. You fill one hand with praise for the FACT that the Wii is pretty much selling like hotcakes, and the other with unneeded criticism for how you CHOOSE not to make games for it. Yeah, sure it doesn't allow you to make any money in Nintendo's share of the market, but don't feel sad. It's ok! Someone (see above) will always want another Unreal Engine to make the same damn games look better but not be anymore fun. Meanwhile, the only reason my own Wii doesn't see tons of use is because I'm too busy playing Smash Brothers with a ton of friends. It still gets played more than my PS2, or my brother's 360 and PS3.
As for PC, The only recent gaming fare worth ingesting on that platform has been Sins of a Solar Empire, the new Warhammer expansion, and independant games.

 

[JakubK666]

The Wii chose a weaker processor and now numerous indie 3rd party developers are able to keep making games shovelware for relatively cheap no costs.

That's more like it.

Nintendo needs to bring back it's Seal of Quality.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

The Wii chose a weaker processor and now numerous indie 3rd party developers are able to keep making games shovelware for relatively cheap no costs.

That's more like it.

Nintendo needs to bring back it's Seal of Quality.

There are plenty of indie games coming or already out on the Wii thanks to the cheap production costs that don't suck.

Just because Xbox keeps most of their shovelware on the strictly "download" end of things doesn't make them any less susceptible to the problem.

 

[greygelgoog]

I'm not a fan of the Wii, mostly as the result of bad experiences from playing with a friends Wii. But even so, Capps' comments seem unnecessarily bitter.

 

[JakubK666]

The Wii chose a weaker processor and now numerous indie 3rd party developers are able to keep making games shovelware for relatively cheap no costs.

That's more like it.

Nintendo needs to bring back it's Seal of Quality.

There are plenty of indie games coming or already out on the Wii thanks to the cheap production costs that don't suck.

Just because Xbox keeps most of their shovelware on the strictly "download" end of things doesn't make them any less susceptible to the problem.

Yeah but the difference is, xbox shovelware has shovelware pricetags.8 bucks at most.
It's still a problem but at least MS hides it at the very back of XBM.

PS: Ninja Reflex.Wii price: $40 Steam price:$10

 

[rockchild17]

this man needs to play mp3, then he'll shut up about what the wii doesn't do. in the end, he's just pissed that it doesn't run his engine, which means his company can't make games for the wii, which means his company can't sell games made on the wii, which means he can't make money off of the wii. person - profit = not happy. oh and every body, stop comparing wii shovelwhere to XBLA games. wii ware's comming so be patient.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Yeah but the difference is, xbox shovelware has shovelware pricetags.8 bucks at most.
It's still a problem but at least MS hides it at the very back of XBM.

PS: Ninja Reflex.Wii price: $40 Steam price:$10

Wii Play = 39.99 controller plus ten dollars for included shovelware
Wii Game Party = 19.99 (worst shovelware I could find, though I admit there's crap all over the place)

P.S.S. Why on Earth would you ever play Ninja Reflex on Steam?
P.S.S.S. This is getting borderline fanboy, sorry. Just to shoot my own argument I'm mostly kicking it with Virtual Console these days.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

He's got one good point though. I mean, this is the same company (Nintendo, I mean) that likes to release handhelds with serious flaws (GBA, DS), make us want to buy them, then rerelease it with all those serious flaws fixed (GBA-SP, DS Lite) about a year later. I love Nintendo, but their marketing schemes are anything but subtle.

In general, though, he does just sound like a grumpy old man ranting about heavy metal music.

 

[mwhite67]

I have a Wii and nearly all the games I've played on it except for a very select few totally suck. I think what he means by holding the industry back is the fact that the cheaper lower technology of the Wii selling so well will make console manufacturers less inclined in the next generation to release a more expensive more tecnologically capable console thus holding back software advancement.

 

[Lt. Sera]

I don't really see how the Wii is holding the industry back. I think that a lot of Wii sales were not by your stereotypical gamer. With the Wii, i think, Nintendo tapped into a new group, while maintaining a lot of it's previous base.
In any case, Epic isn't losing out on anything. It's not their target audience that is focussing solely on the Wii.

Like The_root_of_all_evil said:

Sour grapes much?

 

[Karisse]

While anything I have to say may be dismissed for not actually owning a Wii, I don't think the Wii is pushing the industry back. Though it's still in a very gimicky state, the Wiimote brought motion sensitivity back into the mainstream; Sony, who initially called the motion sensitivity a stupid idea, jumped on the bandwagon with its six-axis controllers. Furthermore, Nintendo has said before in a press release that, with the Wii, they're holding themselves in a genre of their own as they try to introduce grandma to gaming and aren't even competeting with Microsoft or Sony.

Even if Nintendo hadn't said that and Sony hadn't picked up on the motion sensitivity thing, complaining about Nintendo not pushing any envelopes isn't anything new. Nintendo 64 came kept using cartridges when Dreamcast and Playstation switched to CDs. Playstation 2 and Xbox could double as a DVD player and connect to the internet whereas the Gamecube just used minidiscs. Now the Wii comes out with yet another gimmick and it's suddenly a virus. So the Wii isn't that marvelous on the technological field - so what? Sales are up and independent programers/developers have a safer market to dabble in; maybe big studios should take that as a sign that flashy, high-powered graphics aren't all gamers want.

(Slightly off topic) All that said, I still don't know if I'm ever going to buy a Wii. With some of my friends telling me its worthy every penny and Yahtzee (more or less) giving the thumbs up for games like Super Paper Mario and No More Heroes, I'm inclined to go buy one, but then I come across articles about buyers remorse and proverbial viruses and I begin to second guess previous inclinations.

 

[gmer412]

Actually owning a wii and using it on a daily basis, I think I'm qualified to say that while it's probably not the best system for the stereotypical hardcore, foaming at the mouth, dies-if-he-hasn't-killed-something-in-the-last-four-seconds type of player, it's definitely better for me.
My situation does not allow me to play or own anything rated M or above. This makes owning a 360 or a PS3 useless. So, I play the wii. And I love it. Brawl alone could keep me content for a decade or two. It's the best thing for me.
And it's not ridiculously expensive like the PS3 was (600$????) and the 360 sort of still is. (~400$ = out of my price range) So, in conclusion, Mr. Capp can keep his opinions to himself in the future.