If you notice one thing about Gaijin Games current profile of titles, there's one thing the unites them all: they all have released on Nintendo's WiiWare service. Say what you will about Nintendo's service, such as the lack of hype for games and the underdeveloped infrastructure, but Gaijin Games as seemed to found a good niche working with Big N.
This is in part that all three members of the team have a strong background with Nintendo, so “it was certainly a comfort zone” says Alex Neuse, Creative Director of the team. While they are licensed for all consoles, and don't see themselves as a Nintendo-only team, they found that the Wii offered control that was special and unique, and in the case of
BIT.TRIP Beat, offered the best control scheme on the market.
I actually asked what Alex had to say about developers “taking a dookie on the Wii,” (my question, not his) or treating the system as something not worth paying attention to. What he said blew me away: “Developers who take a dookie on Nintendo are cowards, in my opinion.”
Of course, Alex followed it up, explaining that Gaijin Games views the Wii as still a system of untapped potential. Alex points out that Nintendo has always been on the cutting edge of control design, and that the Wii remote has still not been fully tapped. In defense of his fellow developers, he says that “I think that developers are kinda scared of it because they feel the need to do something unique with it.” He argues that the fact that Sony and Microsoft have come out with their own motion controllers shows that there is a market and a potential for this new way of interacting. “If you want to make amusing fun games with unique ways of interacting with them, maybe the Wii is your platform. And I think it is ours, at least for now.”
Contest:
1:20 PM on 10.22.2009
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I mean, gaijin isn't necessarily a super positive term. I guess we're in an age where we can have that kind of irreverence and go with a "White Guy Wetware," "Foreign Devil Digital" or "Illegal Alien Adventures?"
Anyway, it just sparked my curiosity (maybe that's the point?).
Hi, I think you forgot about my fandom.
Also the way Wario Land Shake It, Muramasa the Demon Blade and Bit Trip as well, are proof that there is a market on Wii users, and people are being hollow barkers about the key audience in the system. Otherwise it would have been revealed long ago that there was no gamer audience on the 256-bit system.
i think it is all in a vicious circle: as people would keep sayin that the Wii does not have an audience for veteran gamers, companies would have not supported it in the appropriate way at all, but Capcom, Marvelous, SEGA and XSEED trusted about taking a potential in it, they DARED to make great titles on the Wii ignoring what everybody else said because they knew Nintendo very well and that many fans would still buy it for the reliability it has with it's fans.
@bobyoko
Yeah dude, everyone here hates Nintendo. Graphics possibly can't get any better. No one should try for those anymore. Natal is the future! Controllers be damned.
In terms of the downloadable games and the 'online arcade' market, I certainly agree that this is an area where there is more leeway to pick up an audience. Nevertheless, there is a good reason why you wouldn't see a F.E.A.R. 2 (for instance) taken over to the Wii.
There's a large difference between a bad game and shovelware (something the internet forgets) because a bad game could have been something that tried something new and failed by accident. Lucidy and Wii Music come to my mind as the most recent examples of some guys testing out a new idea that went sour.
Shovelware can been good or it could be bad but it's just when nobody cares about what they're making or who may buy it. That's what pisses me off the most.
@ xaligen - Third party titles are also traditionally better on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. You don't see anyone making FFXIII, GTAIV, or Resident Evil 5 for the wii.
Had Third Parties embraced the Wii earlier and made more of those types of games earlier on in its lifecycle, this would be much less of a problem today. Games like Dead Space: Extraction didn't sell as well because not enough people were interested in it. These people didn't buy a Wii at that point because they didn't see any games like this that interested them. It is a vicious cycle, and as much as the third parties whine about a lack of "Hardcore" Gamers on the Wii, they should have been making "Hardcore" games early on before those people decided that the PS3 and Xbox 360 would better provide for them. But because the assumed this little oddball console would fail, as predicted by analysts (See what I did there?), they decided to turn away from it and label Nintendo as having finally lost it. Turns out Nintendo, an old company that was apparently going the way of Sega, had come up with not just a unique console, but the most successful console of this generation.
Nintendo has been putting out as many games as it can that cater to both the more experienced gamers and newer gamers, but as much as I love my Wii, it is hard to sell a console based on just one company. If not for fact that this one company is NINTENDO, one of the most well loved, experienced, and prestigious gaming companies of all time, and a decent amount of good third-party games, the console would have died by this point. Without Nintendo taking steps to attract and supply games to this new demographic of gamers, all that would be there is some little-known console filled up with shovelware that not even the less picky newcomers would put up with anymore without a powerful central company to keep them enticed. With Nintendo, they see a higher standard of gaming. It is this that keeps them with the Wii. To say all Third Party companies and their games are this bad would be incorrect, but as far as the numbers go, the majority of them are. Perhaps when Nintendo releases their next console, which has been confirmed as HD for a long while, the third parties will finally raise their depressingly low standards.
I agree with the notion of cowardice. Very much so.
@DANGALE!
I think its just that the Wii doesn't have alot of "dig in" games. Games that will really sap alot of your time and attention, the way a Fallout 3 or Mass Effect did....
hmm, those are shooters too though...
yeah, Dan. Actually, I think you're right...
Also, I agree with most points present except the guy who said there aren't any Nintendo fans here.
Also, I agree with most points present except the guy who said there aren't any Nintendo fans here.