Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The so-called "hardcore gamer" contingent may see any move away from better graphics and story as something of a betrayal, but in a recent interview, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata makes an interesting -- and obvious -- point. "Targeting highly detailed graphics and epic stories are options, and in that situation, the gamer population doesn't increase," Iwata said, according to Asahi.com, and there's a lot of truth to those words. There are many ways to approach video games, and the epic story/epic visuals is one way. It's been the most common path to improvement in the gaming industry over the past few years -- and it wasn't really growing the market. So Nintendo, in an effort to bring in all new gamers, tried out some different options, and thus, we have Wii Sports (and more).

Iwata also says that many people shy away from gaming (or did) because so many games are a huge timesink, and here we agree. Listen, we play games like there's no tomorrow and even we think there's just not enough hours in the day for everything. Sometimes you want to plop down for five minutes and take a breather, and there are a lot of great options for that on the Wii and the DS. Apparently, people who weren't gamers felt a similar need for mental breaks, and that contributed to the rousing success of Nintendo's latest projects.

Does this mean that Nintendo will abandon the older core audience? As we've said before, no, we don't think so. Just as with the strong visual approach, the pick-up-and-play mentality is only another option. Unfortunately, it's one that makes for a lot of cheap games for developers, but we've seen enough goodness on the Wii that we're confident there will be much, much more.

[Via Develop and Kotaku]

We're taking a break this week from our usual Mii Spotlight format to discuss the future of Miis, including the forthcoming Mii-focused channel, and what we would like to see in the way of updates to the Mii creation process. We hope you don't mind ... and anyway, we're short on Miis! We can only guess you guys were far too busy immersing yourselves bodily in E3 videos and news to create any new little people this week.

But no worries! Not only will we have new and interesting ways in which to wield our Miis in the near future, games like MySims seem to be running with the super-cute avatar idea, and soon we'll be able to expand our tiny armies of near-lookalikes to epic proportions. Miis even turn up in Wii Fit, though there it seems they must do battle with faceless VR mannequins who threaten to take over our exercise plans.

Actually, Miis v. Mannequins could be an excellent game inside Wii Fit. Too bad we're mostly sure it isn't included. We do love our cartoon violence ... perhaps a little too much.

Before you go running off to troll post on various message boards, we'd like to give you some specifics. A recent CNN technology feature details some of the various chips and components found within the forty-dollar Wiimote. Among the Bluetooth converters and accelerometers is a component listed as an "audio translator," which "converts analog data such as human speech into a digital data stream. This feature is unused now but will probably be employed in future games." The approximate cost is listed at $2.00.

So, what's the deal? First, there is no actual microphone (a device capable of converting vibrational energy into electrical signals) found within the Wiimote. Though basic electrical engineering principals allow a standard speaker to act in such a fashion, the signal quality and frequency response would be unacceptably low. This chip actually requires an expansion device for it to be used at all. So why add it? It's only two dollars, but this rather unnecessary addition has cost the company several dozen million dollars. We can only assume that Nintendo or significant third parties are planning a title utilizing an expansion microphone, which will be presumably cheap enough to bundle with a title and incur no markup in price.

God knows the masses need a mainstream karaoke game (we know about Karaoke Revolution for the PS2, but it never really took off), and the Wii is just the system to do it. Like a Virginnnnn ... hey!

As I completed a microprocessors lab on the wonders of RS-232, my mind flashed back to those two rather standard ports on the back of the Wii. Yes, the Wii still has two USB 2.0 slots on its behind, and yet not a single peep has come from Nintendo regarding their usage. Were we not promised external hard drive support? A keyboard would be lovely, too; typing with the Wiimote can get excessively tedious.

Besides the obvious, though, how could the Wii make good use of these ports? Is there nothing that the Wiimote's expansion port can't cover? Hmmmm.

This is getting ridiculous. Just when we thought the mystery was solved and the conspiracy theorists were silenced, someone has to go and find another mystery flap on the Wii. What is it this time? A holographic laser cannon? An automagical DVD dongle? A nickel and dime slot for Virtual Console purchases? A scrumptious pancake maker? A completely fake photochopping attempt?

We'll leave you free to speculate about its true, potentially evil purpose while we get back to eagerly pining for the flappin' games.

[Via Joystiq]