More than just a game machine?

Despite recent Nintendo’s marketing that the Wii “is more than a game machine”, it certainly is not. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 strived to be your home entertainment hub – the place to not only play games, but play movies and listen to music. The Nintendo Wii, however, was more focused on the gaming aspect – and boy, it did a poor job.

Yes, I should acknowledge that the Wii does offers some streaming services (in the US, only Netflix and Hulu Plus), but they were way too late to the game. Netflix, in particular, was launched on the Xbox 360’s Live service in 2008, and for the PlayStation 3’s PlayStation Network in 2009. YouTube has also just became available only in the United States since November this year (and that took how long?). Compared to the breadth of services offered by their rivals – either through their own integrated services (Xbox Video/Music and Sony’s Music/Video Unlimited) or third-parties – the Wii’s offerings make it hard to rationalise it is a media hub.

Interestingly, the Wii also does not support DVD playback. Nintendo did say that it would be creating a firmware update that would let it play DVD video. That was back in 2007. We’re now in 2012, and still has not occurred. Granted, pretty much everyone has a DVD player now these days.

It was missing something that would hook gamers to the platform.

On the gaming aspect – it was great for the casuals, but it was missing something, and it wasn’t technological. It was missing something that would hook gamers to the platform.

It lacked the support of many third-party developers. Many games found on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 were not available on the Wii; including the most popular games of 2011: Portal 2, L.A. Noire, Battlefield 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Those that made the jump to the Wii, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, received horrible reviews for the port, in contrast to the same game on other platforms.

(Edit: We did mention Mass Effect 3 as part of 2011. It was actually released this year – apologies, just faulty researching on my part)

It had downloadable content – through the Virtual Console and WiiWare – it did not offer any way to let users to download extra content to extend the gameplay, especially for multiplayer co-op. Look at the Halo series – the best part of the game, so I have been told by every single gaming writer on the site, is the multiplayer. The developers constantly released new maps for the multiplayer part of the game to keep it interesting.

But the best thing that hooked gamers to a particular console was an achievement system. The Xbox 360 introduced their Gamerscore system back in 2005, soon followed by Sony’s Trophies. Depending on the implementation, it ‘directed’ gamers to explore certain storylines or other aspects of the game that they would have not done. Some implementations have not only put achievements in the single-player part, but also in multiplayer. It not only expands the life of a game, but adds a social element – to compare themselves with other players (and in some cases, it can be competitive).

It needed a hook, and sadly the Wii had none. Little third-party support and no way to extend the gameplay – it is no surprise that once the excitement died down, gamers just left for their rivals. It became, essentially, a paperweight.

