Nintendo’s Massive Failure

In the 1980’s, a little game paved the way for the direction of all gaming to come, over the next 30 years. Mario and Princess introduced platforming to the masses and even today, platforming, as in Super Mario Galaxy, is a top seller for Nintendo. Super Mario was included with Nintendo was release here in America. It was a simpler time when you actually got a “free” game with your console.

Twenty some years latter, the Nintendo released the Wii and it’s companion game, Wii Sports. Once again, Nintendo gives the video game world the “it” game. A game that shows off the console and is fun to play — two things central to the Wii’s success.

So here it is another year gone, and the Wii hasn’t seen Wii Sports: the full version. Obviously Nintendo doesn’t need to expand the great idea of Wii Sports to sell more Wiis. And Wii Sports is nothing more than a tech demo but to leave this idea only half-baked is a disservice to the Wii.

Outside of sports, Nintendo has Wii Play and Wii Carnival but those aren’t continuations of Wii Sports. With Mario and Sonic: Olympic Games, Nintendo will being slap Mario on front of any game it can, so we may see Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Track and Field, and Mario Laser Pointing Presentation Games.

But so far in the Wii’s short life, Nintendo has not capitalized on the success of Wii Sports. The potential for sports games on the Wii, is limitless. I don’t believe that future lies in traditional sports titles, like football, hockey or basketball. We’ll see (have seen) non-mainstream sports games like tennis or baseball. Rather, every stupid, silly game that wouldn’t sell on the next-gen consoles could be a massive hit on the Wii.

Just writing this blog entry, I could think of a few dozen ideas that I would like turned into a game like darts, curling, winter olympics, cricket, ping-pong and the list goes on.

Commercially, the Wii might rival the PS2 and NES as the most successful console released. But a great console needs games to play and this is one area where Wii is stuggling.

Wii Sports should have branched out into multiple titles showing off the controls of the Wii. EA Sports has tried to fill the void but the problem is their games are nothing but ports of the PS2/Xbox version with Wii controls. That’s not exactly the Wii experience people want or need. At a minimun, we should have seen Nintendo Golf, Nintendo Tennis, and Nintendo Track and Field. On this point, the Wii has been a massive failure.

Pro Evolution Dexterity (Soccer) for the Wii

I don’t quite know what to make of PES:Wii after seeing the video at IGN.

The command you have over your players is impressive. But here’s the million dollar question who is that good with the controls to pull all those things off.

I’m a bit skeptical that Konami can fine tune the controls enough to make the easy to use and quick to pull off.

Backbreaker: Realistic Crowds

IGN has posted another developer diary of Backbreaker and we still don’t see any AI in action or a clip of in-game play.

The crowds look nice in the video.

March Madness 08: More Pro than College

Here are my thoughts on this game…

• No movement of the ball to create open shots or lanes to the hoop.
• New feature of post controls forces the game into an one-man, low post game. For the AI and HUM teams, the strategy is get the ball low and let the big men get the basket.
• AI plays more like NBA Live than college basketball.

March Madness might be a chance of pace from College Hoops, but it’s still a long way from fun college basketball. NBA Live and March Madness need to scrap their engines and start fresh. And they need to do to basketball what NHL 07 and NHL 08 has done to hockey, make it fun, accessible by everyone, and rewarding because of the responsible controls.

Few people think NBA Live and March Madness are good games. Can you have fun with them? That’s really up to you. Without major over hauls to these engines, the games will remain mediocre.

The future of online leagues

One of the most interesting concepts for online text sims is coming from SI Games and Football Manager. SI Games is planning to offer a MMO soccer text game. (Read the preview .)

I think it’s so interesting that if you could transpose the idea to Madden, FIFA, MLB: The Show or just about any online sports game it would instantly be a hit. That’s if more games offered online league play, which few do.

Right now, there are two ways to handle player distribution for online leagues; draft and default teams. In contrast, FM Live plans to take a page out of a fantasy sports league set-up but throw in a twist. Instead of drafting or buying players out of the same pool, you will buy players but with a handicap — you need to build up reputation to draw the biggest names in soccer to your club. And players you buy are not taken out of the soccer universe.

The game turns into one big MMO because of the nature of the game of soccer. There are dozens of professional leagues around the world and hundreds to thousands if you want to get into the amateur and sunday kick-about levels. FM Live is merely letting the users create their leagues and teams instead of some oil baron.

There might not be a huge demand for playing a text-based soccer game in the U.S. but the ideas in FML are what sports gamers desperately need here.

Online leagues, for the games, that have them, offer two basic ways to construct your team. Run a draft, or use the default teams. Neither of which really allow the gamer to invest emotion in his little virtual players because either you get stuck playing a team you don’t want, or you are in a draft position that doesn’t let you have the better players.

If FML’s mode was used, you could create a team to your liking with some limitations. Instead of your commish having to run draft, you would be given a sizable purse to buy players. Your budget would be big enough to buy some great players but not so big to have a team of all-stars. And it would give users more options to select their favorite players.

Let’s take Madden for this example. You are given $100 million to spend but can buy anyone in the NFL. With the $100 million you need to fill out a roster so while you might have the a 99 rated QB, but not have enough to build a complete squad. Or you could try to build a team of good no-names but only have 1 superstar. Without a draft, no one locks up Champ or Peyton. This would give fans the opportunity to pick their favorite players but offer just enough strategy to balance out the teams.

While FML introduces prestige so gamers couldn’t buy all the best players, I think a fantasy football like system, allowing for duplicate players on different teams, with a salary cap, could be a shot in the arm online league play needs. It also would allow casual gamers a chance to play the game online in a league. A system like this is 5 years ahead of where sports games are currently. Some sports games only offer a basic franchise mode and some don’t even offer that.

Since EA Sports has recently talked about innovation, I think a feature like this is exactly what companies should be developing.

Merry Christmas

Sensible Coasters will return on the 26th.

Happy Christmas to everyone.

Sensible Soccer: Resource Post

SWOS Naming Conversions Quick Guide to decipher players names. Credit to Don Lupo on the Codies forums for this one.

SWOS Database Search through the SWOS universe.

Codemaster’s SWOS Forum – Forums for the SWOS XBLA Game.

Ratings of Players
T=Tackling
H=Heading
S=Speed
P=Passing
C=Ball Control
V=Velocity (shooting)
F=Finishing

Fansites
Most of you already know these but for those that don’t, here ya go.
SensibleSoccer.de (Eng/Ger)
Stay Sensible

I’ll post more links and SWOS information, when I come across them.

Sensible Soccer: More Problems Online

It seems as if the online problems they have been discussed and the reason for the 5 month delay, have not been ironed out completely.
Reports of online play issues.

The could be two reasons for this, either the SWOS servers are getting hammered and this should die down over the coming days as the traffic decreases.

Or, and this would be the sad alternative, the online portion of SWOS has bugs and will cause disconnects from matches.

Sensible Soccer: Out!

Download and Enjoy!

Sensible Soccer: Major Nelson says Tomorrow for Hard Information

Major Nelson says tomorrow (12/21) for information on SWOS. Hopefully then they’ll outline when the game will be re-released.