Sony PR Chief Says Wii is a Novelty

Cue all the Spongtendo fans with pitchforks and torches calling to burn the witch, but as regards to the console itself I think there is some substance to the novelty comment. By highlighting Zelda as an example is it any less of a game on the gamecube?

I think that potentially he does have a point in the novelty factor - certainly, few DS titles make use of the full capabilities of the console.

I plan on getting a Wii if:
* Price is reduced below £150.
* Nintendo shows evidence of innovation in the games it releases for Wii, including new franchises. (Ie I am not excited by another Zelda TP, another Metroid Prime, another Smash Bros especially when I could continue to play my Gamecube discs).
* Nintendo shows evidence of substantial, quality and continuous third party support over the next year along with a promising release schedule.
* In six months there are at least several "must-have" titles unavailable on other systems.

I'm concerned that Wii will do a Gamecube - sell well at first, then sell well enough to compete for 2-3 years being held up by titles by Nintendo and a couple of third parties and then the titles drying up and being ported to other systems as the console loses support.

Scareily, Nintendo appear to be using the same style of demos as they used for Gamecube, including games that are in development and may never actually be released alomost as reasons to purchase the system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Ky2Pg4w-Y

Hummm.

I dont think thats a great comparsion between the GC/Wii that the wii might follow the GCs fate,the GC was bought by loyal nintendo fans and other gamers that saw the great games on it.

the wii is totally different.gameplay wise the XBX and PS2 gameplay wasnt that different from the GC,both had analouge,shoulder buttins,rumble etc etc.

because the wii is different from its competitors,and the wii mote has proven its innovation,the wii will succeed.

ADAM M ********************
I'm concerned that Wii will do a Gamecube - sell well at first, then sell well enough to compete for 2-3 years being held up by titles by Nintendo and a couple of third parties and then the titles drying up and being ported to other systems as the console loses support.
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i really cant see this happenin,i brought the wii to my girlfriends house last night,u shud have seen the reaction,by ALL the family from mum and dad two younger sisters and wee bro.the wii market is gona be huge,this coupled with the fact that its realitevly cheap to devolp for will ensure devolpment and success.

c this whole,ahhhhhhhh im waiting for a £30 price drop,or im gona wait until it comes out in tesco's so i can get staff discount bullshit,i dont buy it. for what u are gettin wahts £10/£20/£30?????sweet FA.

buy a wii,buy zelda,buy monkey ball complete them and get the get the "killer apps" as they cum along.

This all depends on which way you take it the wii is fun and i pesonally love it. But i'm biased, i am a nintendo fan and have waited for months for the wii.
Sony could be more fun. How you ask, they have the ability to support 7 people rather than 4 all wirelessly. However i've seen no games that support it and more importantly don't know of many games would work with this many players on the screen (BTW please don't go on about any sports games there can be no competition with the wii, even with less people. I'm talking about proper multiplayer games such as monkeyball). If they are clever they could rule on multiplayer games 7 people all on screen at once thats awesome, imagine playing on a massive HD screen .Seriously does any one else remember the fun when you linked two GC up for 8 player mariokart? (that was on two screens, but even still woot!!!)
This is the only way i believe sony can say this statement, so come on sony show the goods............
i want to see the uber expensive HD multiplayer (close to 3K money wise for the 1080p screen and console ouch!!!!) please show us some fun.........

the think that the wii is gooing to get bigger and more people how are in to games like fist person shooters and sport titles will get one
if you look at madden 07 on the wii it plays a lot better because the contoles work and is more fun than sitting down with a control pad pushing buttens

This is hilarious. The Sony fans think we're Nintendo Fanboys, the Nintendo Fanboys think we love Microsoft, the Microsoft otaku think we love Sony.

Get it in your heads. We hate corporations. We love games.

I was really responding to the part of the news article were it said he's talking nonsense, because he ought to play Zelda. Is Zelda on Wii not Zelda on gamecube with "novelty" elements stuck on?

Anyway Spongtendo has a certain ring to it. ;-)

BUT WHO LOVED SEGA AYE??? POOR POOR SEGA!!!

I love the banter between the 3 corporations and the responses from fannies, in fact, I have been known to switch allegiance for one co. just to wind up fannies of the others.

LONG MAY IT CONTINUE !!!!

Were did I infer you were nintendo fanboys? I said "Cue all the Spongtendo fans with pitchforks and torches calling to burn the witch" I was refering to the forum members who post on the news articles.

My mistake.
Apologies.

The main thing people are over looking is dev. cost. It will be much harder to justify game devs on a ps3 to companies bottom line. 500,000 sales just to break even on an investment will be a hard pill to swallow for many game studios. I don't think we will see as many niche titles in ps3s libraries this go round because of that. However, on the Wii developers can take time to experiment with new control types on a more practical cost scale, as a Nintendo Rep has told me they don't charge for the dev kits. And if the Wii is really just GameCube 1.5 as some people proclaim then many game houses should already be familiar with development on the system.

Of course on a personal level everyone who has played with my Wii has loved it. Wii sports Boxing will make anyone believe in the systems potential. Probably why it was included with the whole package.

It's a novelty that's kicking your ass!!! How's that for a novelty!!!

I am offcourse speaking of the DS which worldwide now selling two to three times more then the PSP on weekly basis.

The Wii....njaaaah...it's selling nicely enough...i had a pre-order from october in and still don't have my Wii...this is Europe! people don't pre-order stuff in Europe! (except you britts...with your yankconsumerism-copying manners)

I think its just a sign of Sony showing they have nothing good to say about the competition. He's a mouth piece for Sony so I'll say a prayer for him.

I respect that even MS can see and understand what Nintendo are doing, but when a Sony rep acts like this I have to scratch my head. I don't recall Nintendo ever being so bitter when losing out to Sony over the years (correct me if I've missed something here).

Wrong Optimus, people in europe do preorder because they don't want to miss out, but these days even a preorder can't guarantee you a system at launch, its all down to the numbers made and shipped out.

Yankconsumerism.....where'd that come from? I'd prefer to buy at launch, but if I get one a few months after I'll still be happy.

No seriously, people on continental Europe normally do not pre-order when it comes to gamehardware. I think this changed after the Xbox360 launchdebacle because pre-orders for the Wii and PS3 are high in Europe these days.

A continental europe launch mostly isn't as crazy-frenzied as you see in the US or Japan...we dont have lines, we don't have pre-order campaigns (expect the big one for the Wii...even toystores that normally don't do pre-orders ever suddenly did pre-orders, very strange) and we don't have complete sell-outs in the first week, except with the X360 and now the Wii.

The only exception of this is....good old Great Britain which is seen by continental Europe as a mini-USA when it comes to consumerism. You're nation is starting to run more and more on credit, like the US has been doing for decades, and you have the same kind of launch-frenzies as in the US, albeit probably in a smaller scale.

I'm not saying that all the brits on this site are credit-using mini-consumeryanks, i'm saying that there is a trend within Great Britain of a large portion of it's populance showing the same yank-consumer mentality.

I agree with that 100%, credit seems to be ruling our nation, I for one am trying not to use credit for the smaller things like consoles and games but I also need the latest and greatest, and right now I am trying to resist the need for that 46" 1080p lcd...

But anyhoos back to subject, Sony's PR Chief!! Sony is not going to come out and say Nintendo are great are they? And isn’t the "Novelty" thing maybe what half of us are thinking anyway? .