Hardcore Haven 08.11.06: Gaming for Grandparents

Posted by Joel Beggs on 08.11.2006

Wii wants you. Wii wants you. Wii wants you for a new recruit.

Welcome to the Hardcore Haven! A place where your undying dedication to all things gaming is celebrated, not frowned upon by a society that, quite frankly, just isn't as important as your game pad and television. Come on in, pull up an inflatable chair, and feel secure in the knowledge that you only need A,B,X and Y to get along, while the rest of the world needs at least 22 letters more to get bye. Suckers!

But don't rest too easy, for all is not well in the Hardcore Haven. Invaders are upon us! They want to take our haven away from us! People who have no right whatsoever to enjoy the things we're enjoying ARE. Lucky for us, we can identify just how this has come to be. And while identifying the problem does nothing for solving it, it does enable us to bitch and moan uncontrollably like the hardcore internet dudes we are!

Last week we looked at Sony. They're attracting casual gamers in record numbers, with a strategy that can be summed up with one little video. This week, we scrutinise Nintendo's future plans to assimilate themselves and their Wii into the mainstream consciousness. Nintendo, whose 64 and Gamecube machines have proven to be some of the best hiding places for people who aren't afraid to play games and be ashamed of it. While millions of new gamers have flocked to Sony and Microsoft's impressive libraries of racing, shooting and…umm…shoot racing games, being a Gamecube owner was a real hardcore badge of honour. Nothing says hardcore like shunning new releases almost every week, ignoring huge back catalogues, and playing the same six or seven half-decent Gamecube games over and over again.

Nintendo





Nintendo are obviously keen to reclaim a fair slice of the market share that once belonged to them. The past decade has seen the one time market leader reduced to near-obscurity. So how exactly can they return to former glories and establish themselves as a console manufacturing powerhouse once again? The picture tells approximately ONE THOUSAND words.





Rather than attempt to lure loyal XBoxers and Playstationers away from their home team with proven winners with mass appeal, Nintendo is content to beat its mighty chest and tell the world "NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE PLAY GAMES". Seemingly keen to emulate the crossover success the Nintendo DS has experienced, Nintendo is calling out the elderly, the infirm and the generally incompetent to bolster their paltry ranks. The main question here is whether the strategy that has turned the Nintendo DS into a global phenomenon can carry the Wii to such lofty heights.

The pen is mightier than the sword





Perhaps I'm biased. Perhaps the thought of sharing my favourite pastime with a bunch of one-hipped, gummy-mouthed geriatrics makes me so sick to my stomach that I just can't think straight. I don't care. It's just too hard to imagine this Wii capturing the mainstream audience it's after. Rejoice, one and all, for even when the singing and dancing masses have claimed Sony and Microsoft as their own, we will still have Nintendo's peculiarly named umbrella to hide under. WANT TO KNOW WHY?

What the DS brought to the table is a combination of innovation and functionality. Interacting directly with games with a little plastic stylus really works. Developers of DS games have managed to innovate new ideas pertaining to handheld gaming, and apply them in a way that makes them work. Whether you're getting up close and personal with an adorable little puppy, or hastily scribbling in solutions to maths problems, this format just works. The mainstream appeal of activities like caring for a puppy or using your brain may be hard to fathom for people as hardcore as us, but when you couple activities like these with the portability and ease of use of the DS and you've got a real winner. Nintendo's challenge now lies in convincing these new adopters of their handheld technology to let a little bit of Wii into their homes. (HA HA HA Will it ever get old?)

The Wii is destined to remain a Hardcore Haven. For while its fancy new motion-sensitive controller may be chock full of innovation, there is just not enough functionality to make the idea work.

The pen is also mightier than the sensor bar

The DS, and more specifically its crossover success stories Nintendogs and Brain Training, provide the willing gamer with a relaxing, rewarding time. Although Nintendo has adopted the same approach as they attempt to catapult the Wii into mainstream consciousness, the activities themselves are remarkably dissimilar. One machine has you scratching, rubbing and writing a securely held plastic pen on a close-up screen. The other has you attempting to control the movements of two separate pieces of controller AND your own body as you interact with a sensor bar that is attached to your television.





I'm not trying to rubbish this motion sensitive way of life. I'm a hardcore dude and I can handle any damn controller you throw at me (except the original xbox pads, my hands are freakishly small), I can handle. It's poor old Gertrude I'm worried about: sixty-five years young, loves her virtual puppies, keeps her brain in shape. If Nintendo get their wish and get "more people playing games", how can poor Gertrude hope to keep up with the cut and thrust of a half-hour Wii-ing session. In this case, Nintendo's vision is inherently flawed. They've come up with a way of playing games that they assert will appeal to the casual players out there, and a lot of people seem to be buying into this. But if this "Wii-mote" is truly the way to bring new sheep into the flock, if it was the most immersing gaming experience money can buy, then your RED STEEL sword would do what you told it to, your WII SPORTS tennis-racket would acknowledge more than the simple fact you've swung your arm, and your most anticipated and future best-selling game would actually use the motion sensor.

The Hardcore Haven lives on

Mark my words, this new machine will provide a fresh way of playing games. But time will tell us that this fresh way is too cumbersome and unwieldy for mainstream Earth to come to grips with. The Wii-mote will provide us with a bunch of motion-sensitive games that are either too easy or too hard, Nintendo will lose even more middle ground, and they'll be right back where they started: producing a machine played exclusively by little kids and HARDCORE DUDES. This is a good thing. Without Nintendo we gaming types wouldn't have anything to be obnoxious and condescending about.

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But hey, that's just what I think. Not impressed? The hallmark of a true hardcore gamer is his ability to be riled up by sheer opinion and argue his point until he's blue in the face. So let me have it! I can take it! Otherwise, come back next week. We'll search Microsoft's yard for yucky casual gamers, and deal with any Nintendo fans who are man enough!