Is the novelty of Wii wearing off?

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http://computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=158325

Despite it still being completely sold out in the US and UK, Wii sales are showing signs of slowing in Japan as players settle into Nintendo's new generation...

The initial hype generated by Nintendo's motion-controlled console was phenomenal. Forums erupted with Wii speculation, rumour and excitement, Gav was even live on Channel 5 News. Amazon.co.uk was completely overwhelmed when its entire pre-order allocation was sold within just seven minutes, and Wii's were flogged on eBay for as much as £900 - FIVE times the retail price.

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It was an exciting launch for sure, but one that Wii critics have claimed is a temporary phase. Opposition to the controller's motion-control concept cite it as a gimmick whose appeal would soon diminish. Are we already seeing this happen in Japan?

There are a number of reasons why gamers' interest in Wii could be waning. Most prominent is the first batch of games, many of which do a better job at exposing the obstacles of full motion control, rather than the benefits.

Red Steel is twitchy and occassionaly clumsy, Need For Speed: Most Wanted is near unplayable, Far Cry got it all wrong, and the motion control in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance just feels tacked on.

The LAST thing Wii needs is lazy ports of existing games, particularly games that have been out for A YEAR or thereabouts on other consoles (Prince of Persia, Blazing Angels). They could do more harm than good.

But if Wii is approaching a lull, it'll be a temporary one. Regular CVG forum poster, Mr Vengeance, commented: "The Wii needs some new software fast - I'm a very frustrated Wii owner right now. I need some games!" signalling the games drought to be the main concern right now.

Patience, gamers. Nintendo models Wii on the similarly-innovative DS, and look at how that went. The touch-screen console had a strong launch, followed by a slow period. It seemed PSP was going to steal Nintendo's handheld crown. It took a year for the DS' killer apps - New Super Mario Bros., Animal Crossing: Wild World, Metroid Prime Hunters, Nintendogs and Brain Training - to excel it to its current record-breaking status.

Wii has had a good start. Elebits, Wii Sports and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves are great games but, more importantly, they're blueprints for what's possible on Wii and how well motion-controlled gaming works when done properly.

Now it's all about waiting for the Wii's big guns, as CVG reader maugrim2712 points out: "The Wii will slow down for a while soon, but once games like Metroid and Mario come out it'll shoot up again."

Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Nintendo big-shot Super Smash Bros. Brawl are all due for release later this year and are bound to reignite the passion in owners as well as pull in new ones. And those are the games we know about; Nintendo is bound to have plenty of surprises in store...

Don't go forgetting about the constant stream of retro classics Nintendo continues to release via Virtual Console every week. We've finished Zelda, Excite Truck, Monkey Ball and all of Wii's bigger titles, yet the Virtual Console updates keep us turning on Wii every week, and every lunchtime for Mario Kart 64 sessions, which is still an awesome multiplayer game.

We should also consider that many third party developers, CVG has been told on different occasions, didn't receive proper Wii development kits too long before the console's release. With the average game taking well over a year to make these days, we should see an influx of third-party releases - developed specifically on Wii dev kits (not GameCube placeholders) - rushing to Wii later this year and in 2008.

Wii is not a temporary craze. Industry analysts, retailers and developers alike have backed Wii to have a healthy run in the new-generation console war.

Next Christmas is crucial for Wii. It'll have great titles and will be the cheapest console on the market. This will be when Wii will truly prove its worth. Head to the forum and tell us what you're looking forward to playing on Wii this year.
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I've had it for 3 months, so yes in a literal sense, it's not new anymore. :D

Lack of awesome games so far? Yep. Other than that, good console.
 
Wait a minute here! You mean that consoles sometimes have long software droughts? Maybe even sometimes a crappy launch lineup!?

H4rdc0r3 G4m0rz are pissy because they don't wanna play casual games with mom and pop along with having no friends to share the fun with?

Wow!

Such hard hitting news!
 
Well since New Year's I've turned my Wii on about 5 times (except to play Resident Evil 4 which I'm going through again) so yes, the novelty has worn off for me. I need to go back and finish Zelda though - I can't believe I actually stopped playing because I was so into it. I went away for the holidays and never went back to it.
 
It has worn off for me some, but mainly just due to severe lack of games that interest me. Nothing besides zelda has been anywhere near purchase worthy for me, so mine has gathered a lot of dust.

But that's just the life of an early adopter, the first 6 months to a year of a console suck as all the games are full price and there's always a drought of decent games after launch.

Things will pick up with Super Paper Mario, Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros etc.

I will say the novelty of the controller has warn off as I'm not a big fan of the big motion games like Wii sports and it's not as accurate as I'd hoped. I was hoping it could do really 1:1 motions (i.e. the sword, baseball bat etc on screen would move at the excact height, angle and speec that you swung the Wiimote) but after using the controller and learning more about the technology it doesn't seem like that is possible. :(
 
I still play my Wii every day so I guess the "novelty" hasn't worn off. Granted I have been playing mostly VC games as of late, but once some of the games I have been waiting to play (SSX, Sonic, Super Paper Mario) start coming out, I'll be playing Wii games once again.
 
I am still playing with my Wii everyday (those jokes never get old!) I have downloaded several VC games, mainly SNES games because I never had that console. Beat Twilight Princess, Marvel Alliance, Tony Hawk, and am slowly adding to the GC collection now that games are super cheap.
 
First, I think novelty is the wrong word to use. The PS3 and 360 went through a game drought after launch too, but no one ever asked if the "novelty" of those things wore off. Now, if developers stopped supporting motion control then you can say the "novelty" is gone. But until that's gone, let's call this what it is: a game drought.

Second, no, I'm happy with the Wii. Do I wish more games were out? Hell yes. Just like I wish more games were out for all the systems so everyone can enjoy them to the fullest. I own Zelda and Elebits and still haven't touched them. In fact, the only game I've played in depth is Wii Sports and I love it. Same thing with Wario Ware, though for that game you really need more than one person.

Third, the VC alone is the shit. It's hands down better than any of the competition. The only thing that's missing is a demo channel of some kind. Hopefully that will be coming in the future.
 
I agree with the article. but don't worry, my post isn't all fanboy dribble! :lol:

it wore off a few weeks ago and I sold it. It's cool, but it's just substituting hand motions for button presses...which is great for casual players, but I felt like I saw through it since I'm used to more complex controls and the comfort of a controller.

example-- I had some long Zelda sessions and for the first few minutes, I'm sitting up, making more drastic motions and am pretty into it. After about a half hour, I'm slouching and not as into it. After about an hour, I'm sitting back, doing the most minimal movement possible and found my self wishing I had a controller since it wasn't as engaging anymore-- i mght as well have been channel surfing.

anyway, the other games didn't impress me much-- elebits was just frustrating and boring (a bad combo indeed) and I beat Wario Ware in about 2 hours. Looking into the future releases, it looks black for the whole year. PS2 games with Wii controls, and 1 or 2 1st party games and VC (which is over priced and driven by nostalgia, imo.)

I'm not saying I hate the system and that the PS3 and 360 will rule all forever, I'm just waiting for the DS effect to kick in, if it does.
 
Eh. As of late I've used my Wii only for VC games and GC games that were released after I sold my GC, even though I have Wii games to play.

I love the Wii, but part of me still yearns for 'normal' gaming, if that makes sense.
 
my brother's wii is collecting dust, my ps3 is used an hr. a day. mainly gaming onn the 360 right now. i am really getting more and more angry at nintendo for not making a nex-gen type console.
 
Here's my soundbyte quote to get infuriated over, be perplexed by, or--just maybe--agree with:

The Wii's novelty is wearing off for the novelty-based crowd, i.e. the fickle frontrunners who got caught up in the holiday season hype. It was never a "novelty" for 'us' in the first place.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
 
I play it more than I had previously played games and that says a lot.. my time is mostly on weekends or I may sneak an hour or two in during the week.

/\ jollydrawf you hit the nail on the head with that quote for sure.
 
no, i still play wii sports with my buddies, not to mention the time i put in VC games. its just a drought in games right now. thatll all change soon enough. the late winter and spring has always been a shitty time for games.
 
[quote name='Zoglog']Is the novelty of Wii wearing off?

http://computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=158325[/QUOTE]

Others have pointed this out, but the term "novelty" is certainly a new way to write an article about a console that remains sold out everywhere. The early adopters might be suffering from some withdrawl due to the game drought, but its fairly common to have a lull of games after the launch window and Christmas.

Others have pointed it out, but the DS indicates that developers, Nintendo included, will start to get things out in time for the later half of 2007 that better use the Wii motion controls or adopt the CC to maintain portability.

I feel the pain for the HD lovers, but most people dont have an HD TV, so that big selling point of the 360 and PS3 are useless for many potential buyers.
 
I think I'm in game drought.

I used to Wii daily, now it's turning into a weekly affair.

But to be fair, I haven't been computer gaming or doing much other than watching my massive DVD backlog recently.

Actually, I do pull out the VC and GC games a lot more often, but I haven't even gone back and beaten Zelda since I last played it like a month ago.
 
Ive owned mine for exactly a month tommorrow and still play it everyday. I recognize that there are not a lot of games out, but I probably play Wii for an hour a day. The DS is played more due to having it portable. I still haven't played Zelda and will wait until I know I will have the time to put into it. I still love Wii Sports and play it a few times a week.
 
My Wii is used minimum of 4 hrs a day if not more. Whether it's a VC game, Wii game, Weather, News, and even internet, and now voting :p there is not a day my wii has gone without being used :)
 
Ever since I beat Rabbids I haven't had much use for my Wii. I tried playing Zelda but that game just doesn't do it for me. I find the dungeons repetitive and boring and the puzzles tedious. I mean In god of War at least you could move a box in any direction....

either way, still waiting for super smash bros ho hum :)

The PS3 has suffered a similar fate, though I still use it for blu-ray movies. But there are some titles on the horizon for the ps3 I'm interested in.
 
[quote name='CosmosTheMouse']This may be possibly due to the fact that EVERY house in Japan now has one.
What are they gonna do.... go out and buy another one?


:lol:[/QUOTE]


I dont know, how do you explain the number of DSes being sold. It really DOES print money.
 
[quote name='foltzie']I dont know, how do you explain the number of DSes being sold. It really DOES print money.[/quote]They aren't yet even in the same league, but the DS can be explained by one per person, whereas a home console is generally one per household.
 
It's hard for the "novelty" to wear off when there hasn't been a game yet that really makes good use of the new control scheme. Most games are ports with tacked on controls or controls that are mere extensions of a standard controller. We have yet to see a game that really thinks outside the box and has a control scheme no one would have thought of.

What is happening now is merely a game drought, and even then if you check out Amazon most of their best selling videogame products are Wii related.

I use to believe that the wiimote was a gimmick that would wear off, but after many hours of play I realized that it was much more. It's a control scheme that can tremendously add to a game's immersion and makes you look at games in a new fresh way. Getting off the couch and having to swing your baseball bat is an example.

Of course the fate of the wiimote and the wii lies on the shoulders of the developers who can choose to keep tacking on controls or start thinking up fresh, new ways to play with their games. Either way it is way too early to dub the wii a gimmick or novelty.
 
i've been playing the shit out of wii sports, little madden here and there. i beat red steel so i sold it, gt pro series was lame so i sold it and cod3 was the same cod shit they always put out so i sold it. now it's vc games and wii sports basically until blur comes out and march hits with it's good games. It's still a great system and i look forward to the new releases/channels/firmware updates, etc.
 
[quote name='Scrubking']It's hard for the "novelty" to wear off when there hasn't been a game yet that really makes good use of the new control scheme. Most games are ports with tacked on controls or controls that are mere extensions of a standard controller. We have yet to see a game that really thinks outside the box and has a control scheme no one would have thought of. [/QUOTE]

I would argue that Rayman and Wario Ware are indeed demonstrations for the Wiimote, but like Yoshi Touch N Go, they are basically polished tech demos. However, unlike Yoshi Touch N Go, they are fun... Enough fun for your money? Thats up to each person, I think I'll wait for those two until I can get them via a trade or used.
 
What maddening idiocy. Go look up the word novelty in the dictionary. I'll wait.

Novelty by definition wears off. What it becomes after that, is standard.
 
[quote name='Scrubking']It's hard for the "novelty" to wear off when there hasn't been a game yet that really makes good use of the new control scheme. Most games are ports with tacked on controls or controls that are mere extensions of a standard controller. We have yet to see a game that really thinks outside the box and has a control scheme no one would have thought of.[/quote]

Again, I sigh and point to Trauma Center, in my opinion, the ONLY game that wouldn't have a chance of being pulled off on another system. (DS doesn't count because the DS Trauma Center wasn't the same. The nunchuk makes for MUCH quicker surgeries, and a more fluid experience) Can anyone even think how it would work?

Sure, you could argue that Wii Sports, Madden, etc. provide brand new ways to play classic games, but we've still seen the concept before. Trauma Center is an example of an idea that has never been tried. If I were Head of Marketing at Nintendo, I'd be pushing these kinds of games just as much as Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc...if not more. If Nintendo wants to beat Sony and Microsoft this go round, they have to put these kinds of games front and center and say "You can't do that."

The sad fact is Trauma Center is out there, and I'm sure there will be others that completely utilize the Wii's motion-sensing capability, but they will go largely unnoticed, and all we'll hear about are the "ports with tacked on controls". Yes, yes, the Wii is a novelty. Motion-sensing is a joke. Hopefully someday someone will open everybody's eyes to what is possible, and what already exists.
 
i think the novelty has worn off for me honestly. ive had mine since launch day and have gone from about 8 hours of play a day to maybe 4 hours a week. now most of this is because school has started back up and i work alot but that still doesnt negate the fact that there arent any games out now that i really wanna play. i mean i never even finished Zelda, DBZ was fun for like 2 weeks (glitchy controls took all the fun out of it), and most of the VC games i downloaded ive played maybe 5 or 6 times.

i mean dont get me wrong, its still a great console and i believe it only needs a couple good first party games to jump start it again but it has, for now, lost its appeal.
 
I'd say the novelty has worn off at the moment, but I also think that's irrelevant to Nintendo's possible success. They managed to move a ton of hardware at Christmas, and they're still getting snatched off store shelves in my area.

All they need now is more software, and I think it's going to flood in this summer. A lot of developers had a wait-and-see approach to the system, but with all the hardware purchased, I get the gut feeling that a lot of major companies are going to reallocate staff to Wii projects.

You know, I've seen casual gamers walk into local Gamestops and ask "What are people playing on (system) right now?" many times. The Gamestop associates are all too ready to name a game the shopper hasn't played yet... even if it sucks.

So I think, for now, all Nintendo needs is for third parties to start producing these "flavors of the month", to build up a software library. I mean, look at the 360 commercial that ran throughout winter, touting the 360s library. I don't think a "killer app" will even be that necessary... just quantity.

But Nintendo's finally seen the flaw in the whole "quality over quantity" attitude. The DS/GBA library is proof of that--it needs to be about "quality among quantity" if they want to succeed in videogames again.

As for me personally, if my system wasn't broken right now, I'd be finishing up stroke play in SSG. Match play's done... only 10 tournaments until I get my Midnight Ring.
 
I still play my Wii several times a week and the "novelty" certainly hasn't worn off for me. Right now I'm working my way through Elebits, I still haven't beaten Rayman, I've ordered WarioWare, and I still play Wii Sports at least once a week, sometime even alone. In the next few months (before the big games like Mario, Metroid, and SSBB come out) I'm looking forward to Prince of Persia (since I haven't played the third yet), Metal of Honor Vanguard, and Super Paper Mario. Plus I still want to pick up Trama Center and Super Monkey Ball after price drops.
 
My Wii is now my old Gamecube.
Novelty wore off quick, but I'll enjoy the few games I pick up for this system.

I like Chibi Robo.
 
I think people need to stop interchanging "novelty" and "game drought." They are two entirely different concepts, and, like Dr Mario Kart stated, novelty BY DEFINITION wears off.

As for the game drought, it seems like a standard launch procedure nowadays. I still picture this like the DS--OK launch, went through a horrendous game drought soon after, and since then has been constantly producing great games.
 
Still play it every day (if not me, then my kids). I just opened my copy of Super Swing Golf. That game could be a huge time-waster if I let it ;). (Wouldn't buy it at full retail but I was lucky enough to be offered it at Gamecrazy as used but still new and sealed - it was traded in from the Fry's Wii bundles being sold that day AND I got 20% off due to the GC promo at the time).

But having said that, I finally am getting back into my PS2 backlog again. We've been finishing off Kingdom Hearts 2 the last few days. But some of that is just guilt at having such an ENORMOUS pile of unplayed PS2 games - if I don't get to them now before I buy a 360 I may never play them ;).
 
No. The only reason I use it is for the VC games, so as long as they keep coming out with games I actually want, I'm good.
 
Novely? Perhaps. I'm not likely to get that November 19th giddiness about Zelda and Wii Sports back again, nor the Thanksgiving and Christmas time with my family. But fun? Nah, it's still a great system.

At this point, we're just in a game drought. Sonic and SSX looks like they'll be decent games. Super Paper Mario has promise (if not being some mutant hybrid of genres), and of course the heavy hitters that'll come peppered throughout the year from Nintendo.

I just recently (Sunday) got a 360 and thus far really, really like it. But I think the Wii has far more potential going for it, if developers would just start using the system. Trauma Center is refined on the Wii but is still a DS port, Zelda was fantastic and I really like that the controls added a lot to the expereience, but I anxiously await a Zelda designed for the Wii from the ground up.

It took the DS a while to "find itself." Once Meteos and Kirby CC hit, it hasn't looked back. Will someone please tell our third parties to follow Sega's and EA's (did I really say that?) track-record and make some games that are at least somewhat from the ground up for the Wii? And maybe Nintendo could get Metroid finished this century, too.
 
[quote name='daroga']Novely? Perhaps. I'm not likely to get that November 19th giddiness about Zelda and Wii Sports back again, nor the Thanksgiving and Christmas time with my family. But fun? Nah, it's still a great system.

At this point, we're just in a game drought. Sonic and SSX looks like they'll be decent games. Super Paper Mario has promise (if not being some mutant hybrid of genres), and of course the heavy hitters that'll come peppered throughout the year from Nintendo.[/quote]

On last Friday's 1up Yours Podcast, Shane talked about playing Super Paper Mario. He said that it starts out like regular Paper Mario where you are walking around in a town that has a shop, an inn, etc., but when you actually start playing the game, the gameplay is very similar to Super Mario games and is broken down into stages (1-1, 1-2, etc.).

Another thing that sounds interesting is that Mario does not start out with all the abilities that you would expect him to have. Mario can't run, grab turtle shells, etc., initially and you gradually get these powers to allow you to get through stages easier.

Shane said that so far the game is really good. SPM is going to be a day-one buy for me.
 
i'm still waiting on a wii, partly because a ds does me fine for games, but also because i'm waiting to see if galaxy or a few other titles do reveal the full potential (or at least show what's possible) of the remote.

i think for much of the buying masses, FFVII was a game which opened up gaming as a more visceral experience (most of my friends who didn't care much for snes titles loved the "real life" look of VII).

I'm looking for this sort of "wow" factor from a Wii title.
 
I know it is for me when I only use it to play one wii game and a crap load of VC games. Hell if it wasn't for me getting 9500 wii points for free. (thanks boss!) I would have sold the system awhile ago.
 
[quote name='daroga']
At this point, we're just in a game drought.

...........

It took the DS a while to "find itself." [/QUOTE]

Those two things really hit the nail on the head for me. The novelty has worn off and I'm barely touching the Wii now, but I'm still excited for it as it's not a fault of the system but really just a fault of buying a launch system.

You buy at launch you get shit games for the 1st 6 months to a year (excluding the 1 or 2 great launch titles).

With a system with a new control scheme this is compounded as you'll see many games that are designed just to make use of the new control scheme rather than games that just put it to good use or use it in ways that actually improve the game experience.

We saw this with the DS with games like Yoshi's Touch and Go etc. that were just designed to do something with the touch screen.

And we're seeing it on the Wii with all the party games/minigame collections that are little more than glorified tech demos for the Wiimote and stuff like Sonic which is dumbed down into a raceresque game to have full Wiimote controller rather than just being a traditional sonic game that they could have added some Wii-controls into (i.e. move sonic with the Nunchuck, attack by swiniging the wiimote ala zelda). If the'd done the latter I may actually have been interested in Sonic.

With the DS, after a year or so we saw the overuse of the controls go away and full on stylus games actually made good use of the controls (Kirby CC, Meteos, Brain Age etc.) and other games made little or no use of the controls when developers realized it wasn't necessary to build every DS game around the stylus. Most of my favorite DS games use the stylus sparingly or not at all (NSMB, Princess Peach, Mario Kart, Castlevania games etc.).

Hopefully the Wii will be this same and by this fall/next spring we'll start seeing games either making good, creative use of the Wiimote rather than just tacking it on to replace traditional control schemes, or games making more sparing use of it (kind of like Zelda already has) where it is just used for certain functions where it makes sense.
 
I just wonder how many people really bought the wii for the "novelty" of the wii mote, yeah your mom and pop can play wii sports, and some did buy it for that, but really. For the price and new games and support for gamecube games, I would bought it, even if it had just new "normal" gamepad, I would have still bought it. I see the wii mote kinda like the microphone for gamecube no one bought the gamecube for the microphone but the games that used it, required it. In the end I almost wish they hadn't done the wii-mote, for me Zelda is great but the wii-mote doesn't make Zelda better or worst, it does make first person shooters better on the console, but without the wii-mote bashers and haters wouldn't even have anything to bash nintendo own, except the same tired already said things they crapped on nintendo for since the N64.

Why cann't people just enjoy their respective consoles, I don't hate the PS3 so far nothing wrong with it but the so overly advertised Blu-Ray(I have never watched a dvd movie on the ps2, so movie playing ability is pointless) and PRICE, and that is where they lost me because their "graphic" based competitor the xbox360 is cheaper, hence I don't have one, and VF5 and the new tekken look more like ps2.5 games not ps3 games, of course to me Soul Calibur has set the standards and if a game can be a responsive and good looking as SC then I don't care for it.

Xbox 360 no problems will be most likely my next console waiting for the price drop, new small die size cpu/gpu and a few more 20ish dollar games.
 
I agree with what I could understand in your post but...

new tekken look more like ps2.5 games not ps3 games
Click to expand...

:lol: you've only seen bad screenshots of these games and have never played or seen movies of them.
 
[quote name='mercilessming']I see the wii mote kinda like the microphone for gamecube no one bought the gamecube for the microphone but the games that used it, required it.
[/QUOTE]

eh? Like the microphone? ?????
 
I have a DVd player and I haven't watched movies on it for a week. I don't go on internet forums and whine about it now getting any use and wonder if the novelty of it has worn off.
 
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