It Begins

I've always believed. Kind of.

When I first saw the Wii's controller I was...surprised. And to be honest, it wasn't a good kind of surprise. It appeared as though my favorite company, the company I had complete faith in and had always defended, had also abandoned me. The controller seemed like a desperate move by a company that was sinking and didn't know how to save itself. Nintendo had lost its grip on the console market, the market they had revived with their NES system in the early '80s. And with the utter failure of their GameCube console, Nintendo seemed to be throwing in the towel. That was my initial reaction...


As the whole notion of the controller sunk in however, I began to understand and appreciate the plan that Nintendo had set forth. It looked like a remote control, and non-gamers could relate to that. That sounds feasible... The controller has a motion sensor. It could work, if done properly... Like so many times before, Nintendo had convinced me in regards to their overall plan. I believed, but yet this was the first time I didn't truly 'believe'.


Well, the time has come. And it's not just my fanboyism fueling my belief -- that helped me get through this initial period of skepticism. This epiphany came the other night. That night I realized the Wii would, without a doubt, attain success.

Maybe I should start from the beginning. The night before the other night I was at a friend's house. Lets call him Travis, even though his name is Justin. It's confusing I know, but try not to dwell on that. Anyway, Travis had just gotten Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2 and was, quite naturally, playing it. He was jamming away on this crazy controller shaped like a guitar. As I watched him play the game, I became more and more intrigued by it. This led to me playing said game and the eventual purchase of Guitar Hero the very next day (which happened to be the day of the other night).


Once I arrived at my abode with my new possession, I noticed that not only my father but my uncle as well were at home working on their taxes. Since both of them are avid music fans, coupled with the fact that they seemed to be fascinated with the abnormally large game box in my hands, I figured they may be interested in seeing Guitar Hero in action.

So I hooked up my PS2 downstairs and started playing. Both of them enjoyed watching me play, especially when I got into the groove with the guitar. The next thing I knew, my uncle wanted to try it out.

Needless to say, I was shocked. Now both my father and uncle (my uncle being in his late fifties and my father almost at the half-century mark himself) have always enjoyed seeing some of the new games my brother and I bring home. In fact, my father used to play the NES (mostly Legend of Zelda, in fact he was the first to beat it) but had long ago stopped playing video games. And my uncle had not once wanted to try a game out. Yet here he was, getting set up to play Guitar Hero as I gave him a rundown on what he needed to do.

As expected, he sucked. But it was expected since he's never played a game before. Mid-way through the first song he began to get the hang of it and steadily improved. After a couple songs, he was doing better than I had anticipated and seemed to be enjoying himself.

My father needed to get back to his taxes, so he didn't play at that time.

Later, when my mother got home and after my uncle had left, she saw me playing the game back in my room. For whatever reason (my guess is the "controller") she came inside and watched me finish the song that I was on. After watching another song go by, and after my father had joined us in my room, she decided that my dad had to try the game out.

In an effort to shorten a story that still has a ways to go, lets just say that all three of us took turns playing Guitar Hero over the next hour or so.

Now you have to understand, my mother is completely against video games. She feels they are a waste of time. I've gotten her to show a slight interest in past games, (Kirby Canvas Curse comes to mind) however she still normally refuses to give games a try. To have her want to play Guitar Hero is a miracle unto itself, let alone have her play and enjoy herself for multiple songs.

But still, at that time, I thought nothing of it. I mean really, so she enjoyed playing the game once. She'll never want to play it again.

That's what I concluded, until I heard yet another question I thought I'd never hear. You see, we were going to my aunt's house for dinner that evening. As I was preparing to leave, my mother stopped by my room and asked if I could bring my PS2 and Guitar Hero along so that we could play it that night.

Naturally I obliged.

At my aunt's house there were several of my family members, which included: two aunts (older aunt and younger aunt) an uncle (a different one than the earlier uncle), my grandmother and my younger aunt's friend. My mother is the one that initiated the topic of the game Guitar Hero and is also the one that insisted that all of them give it a try. This includes my grandmother. Basically, everyone tried the game out and everyone enjoyed playing it. They even got to the point where they were competing for the high scores (on easy mode mind you, they weren't exactly stellar players).

Before we left for the night, I was informed that I would need to bring the game over for Easter Sunday.

The next few days I mulled over the event that had just transpired. It was still odd to me to think that both my parents and several older relatives had just spent an evening playing a video game. I could only conclude the reasoning behind this was due to the guitar controller. Without that, there is no way that I could've gotten any of them to play Guitar Hero.


And that's when the realization hit me. The Wii will succeed because of what I just witnessed. Non-gamers will want to try the system out because of the controller. Not because it's interactive; that won't be the first feature they notice. It will be because it looks like a remote control. It's a familiar object.

I hadn't fully bought into what Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had been saying about the familiarity of the design, but now I understand. Non-gamers will see the Wii controller and immediately recognize it as something they can handle.


Now I'm not a fool. I also know the other reason everyone enjoyed Guitar Hero was because they got to pretend to be a rock star. Everyone was flailing about (some more than others) while they rocked out. This is where Nintendo's peripheral attachments will come into play. Sure it will be fun to swing the controller like a sword and have the motion repeated on the television. But it will also be ten times better if you are holding an actual sword. Being able to aim with your controller will be great, especially in regards to precision. But it will be ten times better if you're aiming with a gun. So the idea alone of a motion sensor controller is good and it should help the home gaming industry take the next logical step. However, a much larger crowd can be reached if Nintendo provides additional peripherals that increase user recognition.

A perfect example is Duck Hunt for the NES. The game featured the Light Gun and is arguably one of the most recognized games on the NES. The Light Gun allowed you to take aim at ducks or clay disks in your quest to progress through the game. The only hindrance the software faced was the inability of the Light Gun to remain consistent. With recent advances in technology, that type of problem should now be a non-issue. Considering the popularity of Duck Hunt, even with the problems of the Light Gun, it's not a stretch to believe a game on the Wii (a Duck Hunt sequel perhaps?) would find success. Then tack on the ability to play a first-person shooter and you have the potential for an instant killer-app.

Getting back to Guitar Hero, the only real complaint I heard (and I have the same complaint) is that there weren't enough songs that we truly recognized. For me, I recognize about half the songs in the game. A really cool option would've been the ability to upload your own music, although integrating your songs into the game would've been a challenge to program for.

But this is why I think Nintendo has an edge. They already have a fairly good idea in knowing how to please a wide range of ages with the types of games they release. And considering they're arguably the most innovative company, one can only hope they will insist on features like the one I mentioned (adding your own music).

It's important now, more than ever, that Nintendo get their advertising act together. Just making a great, approachable game is often not enough. The draw of the Wii controller and its peripherals will not be enough. When comparing a Nintendo GameCube commercial against a Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox commercial, it's fairly obvious which companies know how to advertise to their target markets. For as long as I can remember, Nintendo has always produced poor commercials. Commercials that do not draw in additional consumers. In fact, some of the commercials may even detract from future customers. Nintendo needs to realize that they can't advertise all of their products in the exact same way. Yes, they are trying to appeal to a wide range of consumers, but with that comes the necessity for unique promotion to capture a target market.

Another vital key to the success of the Wii is Nintendo's in-store demo kiosks. Providing an easy way for consumers to try out the product, while allowing them to fully realize the capabilities of the Wii console, will be essential in convincing non-gamers to buy the Wii.

In the end, the controller alone can't sell the Nintendo Wii idea to the non-playing public. It will inevitably come down to the games. Games that gamers will want to play. Games that non-gamers will be interested in trying. Games for the family, the child, the teenager, and adult. Games have always and will continue to be the most important aspect of any home console. The controller will bring in the non-gamer crowd, but the games will need to engage them. If not, we'll lose them, perhaps forever.

I've had my share of doubts but if anybody can pull this off, it's Nintendo. I'm counting on you.