In the latest "Nintendo Minute," increasingly combative VP of Corporate Affairs Denise Kaigler answers IGN's question of why the otherwise-phenomenal Excitebots doesn't support the Wii Speak peripheral. Her answer is pretty typical NOA PR—dodging the question in an unproductive and not particularly truth-ringing way.
I've got a Wii Speak myself; it sits stuck to my Sensor Bar and never gets used, and so I do feel the pain a little. I knew before Excitebots arrived that it wouldn't support Wii Speak in its online mode, and I was pretty upset about that myself. Primarily, I'd failed to follow Nintendo Lesson #1: never buy into Nintendo hardware on promise—wait for a critical mass of support first. But I was wrong to let that dampen my enthusiasm for the 'bots. Troublingly, I was letting my own internal checklists—analyzing the worth of a game based on yes or no questions of whether it has some arbitrary feature—influence my perceived value of the game, rather than the gameplay itself.
Thankfully, I was able to stop that unproductive line of thought. If I had retreated into a grumbly position of "I'm too irritated it doesn't do Wii Speak to bother with it," or perhaps "I'm too annoyed that I can't do Wii Friend invites to play with friends" (unlikely as either might have been, since I'd already tasted the "excite" of Truck), I would have missed out, terribly. Even without voice chat, the online modes are insanely fun, just like the single-player game. It took a few minutes to assemble a friend list, true, but it does the job and I got to compete against several people I knew.
Other, even less-useful checklists, may include things like what resolution something runs in, what level of sound support it has, or whether it's "mature". These are neat things to have, granted, but their presence or absence should never make nor break a game.
It is certainly not wrong to criticize Nintendo for failing to follow through on things like Wii Speak. But if you let that failure injure your interest, you might lose sight of what's so great about gaming in the first place. Would you rather become a slave to your checklists, or would you rather enjoy the slew of fun games out there? It's your choice, ultimately.
I've got a Wii Speak myself; it sits stuck to my Sensor Bar and never gets used, and so I do feel the pain a little. I knew before Excitebots arrived that it wouldn't support Wii Speak in its online mode, and I was pretty upset about that myself. Primarily, I'd failed to follow Nintendo Lesson #1: never buy into Nintendo hardware on promise—wait for a critical mass of support first. But I was wrong to let that dampen my enthusiasm for the 'bots. Troublingly, I was letting my own internal checklists—analyzing the worth of a game based on yes or no questions of whether it has some arbitrary feature—influence my perceived value of the game, rather than the gameplay itself.
Other, even less-useful checklists, may include things like what resolution something runs in, what level of sound support it has, or whether it's "mature". These are neat things to have, granted, but their presence or absence should never make nor break a game.
It is certainly not wrong to criticize Nintendo for failing to follow through on things like Wii Speak. But if you let that failure injure your interest, you might lose sight of what's so great about gaming in the first place. Would you rather become a slave to your checklists, or would you rather enjoy the slew of fun games out there? It's your choice, ultimately.