They should just cut out the middle man with the male genitalia inspired first person plural noun theme: Phall-US.
Hard to say. I’m somewhere in between; casual by necessity (wife, kid, 2 jobs, school . . . yeah, I’ve gamed maybe 10 hours in the last 2 years), but hardcore at heart. I am certainly excited about everything but the price tag (rumored at $400).
That being said, I’d be shocked if they could replicate their success in the casual market this time around. I’ve met a lot of old ladies who bought the Wii and then realized it wasn’t as fun as the commercials made it look and it’s been sitting on their shelf for the last 4 years. And even among those who loved it, they tend to love Wii Sports and the shovelware games; what do they need to upgrade for?
Latest rumor I heard is that it could launch with GTA5. Sony and Microsoft are in trouble if this happens.
I don’t think casuals are about the time you game, but rather, the games you play.
I wouldn’t call someone who games an hour every week or two casual, if they spent that time rocking Crysis 2 or GoW.
But if that time was spent on Peggle or Pokeman 2000 “now with extra cutesy cartoony creatures”…
Well, it also depends on the way you play. Pokemon is a really unique, interesting example in that you can play the main story as a casual or hardcore gamer, for different reasons, or you can be a real life tournament battler. I’ve seen the spreadsheets, genealogy trees, nature discussion, and whatnot. Pokemon competitive battling is NOT for the casual.
If the controls are precise and if they can make an online experience like Xbox Live, I’d consider it. That’s also assuming I’d have people to play with. Otherwise, there’s about a 0% chance that I’d personally get a WiiHD, even if it did come with GTA5.
If they’re going with the penis-themed naming method my vote is (and always will be) for NintenDong.
As for the casual/hardcore divide, the way I’ve always thought about it is this: a casual gamer is someone who thinks games are basically kind of dumb, but play them anyway. A hardcore gamer thinks games are a worthwhile pastime. So (in their minds) a hardcore gamer is someone who spends time playing games, but a casual gamer is someone who wastes time playing games. Note that this says nothing about the actual value of the games being played, which I think is as it should be.
That’s not what this system is.
That’s a really good way of putting it.
Whatever it is, my post still stands.
^----Why I’ve lost interest in these threads.
The post where you said if the online system isn’t exactly like Xbox Live you wouldn’t buy it? That post? Why would anyone base their purchase of a game system on how the online matchmaking UI looked?
Anyway, if even half the rumors of the Wii 2 are true, I’ll be there on launch day with bells. BIG GIANT BELLS that chime the Legend of Zelda whistle sound when you shake them.
Because XBL is 10x better than basically everything else out there. I’m no statistician, but there is a 103% chance that Nintendo is going to screw up the online implementation, 19-times-out-of-20.
No disrespect intended, but I don’t think anyone reading this message board’s gaming forum could be surprised by this statement in any way. It’s kind of like reading a post from RickJay talking about how he is excited about the upcoming baseball season.
I think the launch of a new console is always pretty exciting. I look forward to seeing what innovations Nintendo has to offer in this iteration. I like the idea of a “smart controller” But, I don’t know how I would feel about the reality of the expense of it. But, I am sure it will be cool.
And GTA5 as a launch title is really surprising. I guess the stereotype of Nintendo only wanting warm and fuzzy PG rated stuff runs deep for me.
I was expecting a response like this actually. But seriously, rumors say the Wii 2 is going back to regular controllers AND it’ll be more powerful than the Xbox 360/likely as powerful as the PS3 AND it’ll have embedded screens attached to a standard 360-style controller. If you’re not excited for that, you’re dead.
DON’T HATE ME!..
Nintendo dropped their content restrictions nearly two decades ago.
Sony’s content policy is actually much more restrictive than Nintendo’s nowadays.
I already said it was exciting, so I don’t think I am dead!
Yeah, I remember reading about Nintendo dropping their content restrictions, I just don’t remember ever seeing a game with as much sex as the typical GTA. But, mostly it’s just me keeping Nintendo in their NES restrictive box of a million years ago.
Anyone else think the controllers as described by current rumor are bunk?
What kind of hardware can render 4, 1080p frames at least 25 times per second AND then compress and stream them over some wireless technology without an undue amount of lag AND be able to run all the other things a game is supposed to run?
Magic maybe? Wired controllers and screens that are not 1080p? Maybe the whole screen on controller is bunk?
Anyone know of existing tech that could do this and wouldn’t cost a fortune/require a monster heatsink + fan?
Doesn’t seem any more farfetched than OnLive. And that works really well… supposedly.
But personally, I think the 1080p screens are bunk. There’s no reason to pack that much high definition processing power into a screen that will mostly be used for maps/inventory lists in most games.
Honestly, I really, really, REALLY hope the on-controller screen isn’t used for much, or at least able to be turned off for most games. My girlfriend likes to watch me play console games, since she doesn’t have to sit at the computer and doesn’t have to squint (like for a DS game), and if she can’t see me switching items or doing some things (like minigames) she’s going to get bored and it’ll make it hard to play things with her.
It would actually, presumably, be 5 screens: 1 monitor + 4 controllers. And I agree; it sounds absurd. However, there are a few things to consider that might help this make more sense.
[ul]
[li]No matter what, the screens won’t be “HD”–even the iPhone’s retina display is sub-720p, and a far cry from 1080p.[/li][li]More recent rumors have suggested the screens are closer to SD resolution[/li][li]Assuming the resolution is closer to the 4" line of Galaxy phones (800x480), the combined pixels would only be 1.5 times greater than 720p, or significantly less than 1080p.[/li][/ul]
Basically, it sounds like the Wii 2 could get by with rendering one 1080p image for the main screen (or hell, maybe they’ll even go with 720p to save processing) while essentially rendering a *second * screen at a resolution close to 720p which encompasses each of the four controllers. Think of it like playing 4-player splitscreen on Xbox or PS3, except instead of having your own quadrant, the images is simply spit out to each controller’s screen instead. The only difference is the second main HD image also being output to the TV.
When put this way, the concept sounds a lot more realistic. Now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo’s new system tops out at 720p for the main display, considering the pixel count of two 720p streams is still less than one single 1080p image. And since consoles can already splitscreen pretty decently, I can imagine the last 5 years of hardware advancements shouldn’y have much trouble supporting this array–the biggest hurdle is how much graphical power will Nintendo compromise to achieve this?
Luckily, I imagine that would be a choice largely dependent on the game and ultimately left to the developer. If the controllers are merely being used as maps or item screens, that should leave plenty of horsepower left for the main TV image.
Of course, there’s still the matter of how those images are going to be wirelessly streamed to each controller, but I was just reading an article about the latest advancements in wireless HDMI technology which could work, assuming Nintendo is using a modified spec to enable streaming to four devices instead of just one.
OnLive works well, for what it is, but there is no way Nintendo will use anything similar. Nintendo’s always been big on responsiveness (they’ve talked about this with the pointer on the Wii Remote) and even in the best setting, OnLive still has a noticeable amount of lag, which can be rather jarring in fast-paced games.
Plus the costs of building the infrastructure all but ensures Nintendo won’t be taking this route.