Wii are not Zealots

I have a Wii. It's not a perfect system, but I like it. I love video game, but I stay away from most video game-related media. Why? Because most of it sucks. Let me give an example.

Today I went to the only video game blog I visit regularly. There was a link to the latest conspiracy theory about why the Wii was selling better than the XBox 360 or the PS3. Basically, Nintendo is accused of causing console shortages. This leads to more hype or whatever, and thus leads to more sales. Of course, the entry offers no proof, but it does involve Nintendo fan baiting, which seems to be the new pasttime of non-Nintendo video game writers. The entry ends with this quote:

The fact of the matter is that the Wii is a virus being spread purposefully by Nintendo. The media has duped the public into believing the console is something more than it is, and non-gamers are eating it up. By withholding consoles from the public, Nintendo is getting fat and rich of a manufactured lie. Waving a Wiimote around might be fun for a short while, but I refuse to be one of the duped masses that spreads the virus any further, thank you very much.

This isn't the first time I've seen thinking like this. Ben Heckendorn bashed the Nintendo with the same conspiracy theory. He even had a rant about how "Core" gamers rescued the video game industry and how Nintendo was going to sink it by appealing to "casual" gamers. There's a problem with this kind of thinking. It's pure zealotry.

For example, look at the 2008 election. The Republicans aren't putting out Mr. CONSERVATIVE, who swears to shrink the government into the size of a peanut while giving expanding the military 5000 fold while promising to punch illegals and terrorists in the face. The Democrats aren't putting up Mr. PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL, who promises to expand the government to take care of everything while putting Europe in charge of us while granting marriage rights to anything.

McCain got the nomination despite the wrath of conservative bloggers, freerepublic and Limbaugh. Obama and Clinton are starting to go on EEEEEVIL FOX NEWS much to the wrath of moveon and DailyKos and other liberal websites and blogs.

Why?

BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE BLOGS, WEBSITES, OR MEDIA GUYS ARE IMPORTANT AS THEY THINK THEY ARE!!!!

You can't win an election without appealing to independants. You can't win a console war by appealing only to hardcore gamers. The XBox was a hardcore console and it barely out did the GameCube. The PS2 had both hardcore games and casual games.

So-called core gamers are not the center of the game industry. They are mistaking passion with being in the center. So-called "fanboys" (and I really hate the word) look at big games selling in the millions and mistakingly think that they are what's most important to the industry. They are not.

Zealots who argue that the Wii is underpowered and lacks enough hardcore games are missing the bigger picture. Microsoft and Sony both assumed that high definition was the next big thing, and hedge their bets on that. They assumed that everybody was going to buy a new HD TV just to play their consoles. Guess what. That new controller thing was far more attractive.

During the second console war, the Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all did the same thing. They had better graphics and controllers with keypads. They all made the "right" decisions. However, while hardcore fans went with these systems, casuals stuck to the VCS, and the industry collapsed. None of those three systems did anything "wrong", yet they all mistakenly thought keypads were the future. The industry collapsed because no one had incentive to jump to the next generation. It wasn't until Nintendo introduced its controller that people realized that they needed to jump from the Atari VCS age.

You can't just up the graphics every five years. The graphics from the NES are a huge jump from the VCS, but those jumps get smaller as time goes on. Sure, the HD graphics look good, but it's not as big a deal as it was 10, 20 years ago.

This stuff just drives video game media guys crazy because they want games to be a certain way, but the industry can't always crank those games out. Not every game can be a Grand Theft Auto. Sometimes your going to get a Tetris that'll blow audiences away and it's going to be much simpler than a game that took a year to create. Shenmue had the highest budget ever and media adoration, but it didn't save the Dreamcast.

Will the Wii win the generation? Who knows. Again, it's not a perfect system. I wish Nintendo would approve it's online system, and I want more games that really took advantage of the controller, instead of just making you wiggle it at just the right time. But it's not winning because of shortages. It's winning because Sony and Microsoft made the "right" choices, and the wrong assumptions.

(Heck, Sony apparently assumed that people would love the PS3 so much that it could poinlessly include Blu-Ray to boost its numbers in another war. So Sony's ego made them put out a system that was ridiculously expensive and feature stuff that would intimidate the public. And Sony media guys are wondering why it's being outsold by the Wii? Guess what! The PS2 didn't make DVDs successful. DVDs already won the format war by the time the PS2 rolled around. The PS2 was a just a inexpensive no-brainer. The PS3 may not look as stupid as it would have if Blu-Ray lost, but it's still a console that says "format war first, maybe games later.")