Insomniac boss calls Wii a “fad”
There’s nothing like a sparky Top 10 list to cause a bit of controversy, which is something Insomniac Games chief creative officer Brian Hastings clearly knows well.
In a post on the company’s blog titled ‘10 Reasons Why PS3 Will Win This Console Generation’, he says the Wii’s popularity will fade over time. You might have guessed this from the title, of course, and from the fact that Insomniac currently makes games for, yep, the PS3.
“The Wii is currently riding on a massive wave of mainstream attention and has been purchased by lots of people who don’t normally play games. But how many of those people who are hooked on Wii Sports will also buy Wii Need For Speed?” he asks.
“Mainstream fads usually run their course within a year. As the honeymoon period fades, the Wii will be going up against more and more graphically impressive games on the PS3 and Xbox 360. More people will be buying HD televisions and looking for the most immersive and stunning experiences available. For these reasons, I think the Wii will be more successful than the GameCube or N64 but in the long run will still be outsold by the PS3.”
Don’t get the green crayons out just yet for hate-mail. He’s clearly not simply dismissing Nintendo’s console. But for me, the most exciting thing about Wii is going to be seeing how Nintendo attacks this very challenge – how it convinces those mainstream gamers to buy new games for their Wiis, and what new gameplay genres that will sprout.
The fact that Electronic Arts has bought a studio just to develop games for Wii, and is releasing exclusive games like Boogie, indicates that even the biggest beasts of the console world see Wii as an increasingly valuable gaming platform because it’s opted out of the HD wars. But we’ll have to wait and see.
(via Kotaku)
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March 28th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
I think everyone kind of misses the point here though.. It’s not about making Wii Sports fans like Need for Speed, or any other popular game infact. It’s about making more games like Wii Sports that will appeal to the Wii Sports type of audience! We can’t just make one mass market game, and then say, “ok, now you get that, you can start buying all that stuff that didn’t interest you before”!
September 18th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
everyone buying an hdtv? just because the ps3 is in the hd era, doesnt mean the people are. in fact, if nintendo released a simple graphic bosting peripheral add on like on the n64, wii can all have hd games.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Ray, I’ve been thinking the same way too. The PS3 might be in the 1080p world, but hd seems like a new thing as none of my friends have hd like me!
February 15th, 2008 at 2:59 am
HD it is not mainstream yet, sony was hoping to make it happen but the ps3 doesnt include a hdtv
December 13th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Sony’s “It’s a “fad†statement stands to be the “Mission Accomplished†of the gaming world. Here it is 2008 and the Wii is still twice as popular as its closest competitor When the PS2 outsells the PS3 by 4 million units in 2008 I’d call the PS3 a fad. Nintendo only planned a 5 yr market for the SDWii and so far it has been stellar. Sony’s ten-year plan for the PS3 is a century in technology time it’s not like Sony hasn’t had major product failures in the past. In fact Sony is a museum of failed†fad†standards: (Minidisc, Betamax, HiFD, Sony Digital Dynamic Sound). Nintendo bought itself 5 years to allow HDTV’s to reach market saturation before introduction of its HD console. This will also allow NIN to adjust its product line to reflect future consumer desire while Sony has to fend off new HD delivery innovations for the next 10 yrs.
“Blu-Ray isn’t the first, all 8 media formats Sony has introduced in the last 15 years have failed to become used in the technology industry, and the last format the introduced that was widely accepted was the 3.5″ Floppy. All the others, from the Mini-Disk to the UMD, have not caught on, due to being proprietary and expensive. Sound familiar?â€Â
December 31st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
[...] purpose is to engage and entertain in ways that are new, exciting and challenging. Which is why early calls from critics and fan boys alike that the Nintendo Wii console was just a passing “fad” [...]