James Galvin

Kotaku highlights this Wall Street Journal article which examines Nintendo’s success so far in 2007. Having never paid much attention to the portable market, the extent of the Nintendo DS’ dominance is surprising to me. What is not surprising, however, is the performance of the Wii relative to its expensive competitors.

Despite initial doubts based on the name of the product, it became clear early on that 2007 would be the year of the Wii. Following its release a few months ago, YouTube bulged with homemade videos of hillbillies swinging motion-sensing controllers in a bout of Wii boxing; a new era had dawned for console gaming.

This old video summed up the appeal of the Wii over the PS3:

For me, the pricetag is the critical factor - a quick comparison from Smyths Toystore in Ireland just for the base console with no games:

Playstation 3	€629.99
Xbox 360	€409.99
Nintendo Wii	€269.99

Even now in mid April it is difficult to get a hold of the Nintendo Wii, as retailers are constantly sold out. Hopefully this trend will influence an evolution towards smaller, cheaper gaming consoles, as opposed to bloated all-in-one entertainment centres which cost more than a ‘98 Ford Fiesta.

According to Kotaku, Nintendo have decided to change the name of the Wii. The article does not sound reliable to me, and there is no official source, so I won’t believe it just yet. I think it might be too late for Nintendo to go back on it now anyway, after all the hype and publicity given to the Wii brand already.

We have received over 200,000 e-mails with complaints about the Wii, and the console name has been commonly associated with urine. We have been the target of many jokes, and we strongly believe that it’s a bad thing for the company’s reputation.

I’m not even going to bother with a pun. Mark rightfully points out that there are more important things than the name. After much soul searching and agonising over the dilemma, I have decided to accept it and move on. Having relieved myself (doh) of that burden, the strengths of the console are so evident - the innovative “Wiimote” controller, the (predicted) low price tag, and most importantly, a Zelda title available on launch!

The reaction from E3 has been overwhelmingly in favour of the Wii - here is a video showing the queue of people waiting to have a go:

On boards.ie they are discussing a remake of Golden Axe for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Cue flashback to the snooker hall in Schull and all the money I wasted on that game. That is until I discovered “the headbutt” and then everything became so easy.

Theres also a mention of the return of Duck Hunt for the Nintendo Wii. Although I haven’t played it since 1989, I can still hear the music and the quacking of the ducks… in fact, thats all I can remember of it (I didn’t play it much, probably because the gun got lost or something). But never again shall the death cries of electronic ducks triumphantly echo off these walls. I won’t be playing the resurrected Duck Hunt, not because of any opposition to the concept of murdering innocent wild fowl, but because I could never have faith in such a badly named product as the Wii.

When the Game Cube originally came out - I was suckered by the marketing. At the time, Nintendo were the Apple of the console world. The Xbox had a 733mhz CPU and doubled up as a DVD player. The Playstation II had more (and better) games. But from the moment I saw the neat little black cube in Smyths, I had no other option. Nintendo: what has gone wrong with your marketing division?

Why can’t you give the console a different name outside of Asia? I thought all these big companies did market research? Your average Japanese person might be happy with the name Wii, but Nintendo: reconsider before its too late. Go down to Patrick Street or Grafton Street, or Eyre Square, or Picadilly Square and randomly asked 100 non-Asian people what they think. Nintendo Thundertooth, Nintendo Cyclops, Nintendo Pantherclaw, Nintendo Skullcrusher, Nintendo Doombringer, Nintendo Acorn, Nintendo Parasite… even Nintendo Revolution. Anything would beat Nintendo Wii. I am extremely confident on this one.

Meanwhile, Victor Barry points out that the PlayStation 3 will be retailing for €499. Thats roughly equivalent to a new Dell PC, three and a half iPod nanos, a decent pool table, or 49900 penny sweets. Not cheap by any means, but at least it looks and sounds cool.