2 years with Nintendo Wii

People who have friends, buy a Nintendo Wii,
who have friends on the Internet - XBox 360,
and the others choose the PlayStation 3.
(from the Internet)

Back in 2008, the year I became the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii game console. I didn’t play at that time (on the computer), with a gamepad in front of the TV is not an option anymore - the worries are not the same, but sometimes it was interesting to wave the remote. I bought a prefix, several games, an extra remote control with a nunchuk and a few accessories. For periods, he played in hard drinking, for periods, on the contrary, the prefix was gathering dust; she toured several times - played with friends, applied to the service a couple of times, bought more and got games and accessories as a gift, and recently finally went online. In short, after much deliberation, I decided that I have something to say about the real state of affairs.


You can skip the next paragraph if you are aware of what the Nintendo Wii is.
The main feature of Wii against competitors is yesterday's hardware with tomorrow's player interaction interface. Both XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 are simply modern game consoles in their classic sense. Soft, sharpened by the configuration of iron, good performance, tasty picture on the screen and a gamepad in hand - that's the formula for happiness. In Nintendo, it was decided that it was possible to take iron more simply, and instead of a gamepad, to hand a player a magic wand, and that’s what will be happiness. The Wii Remote (Wiimote) can navigate in space and send signals about it to the console, as a result, the game process is as close to reality as possible and allows the player to act on a whim.
')


Here it should be noted that the idea is really great. Nintendo is head and shoulders above competitors in terms of immersion in what is happening, and the level of involvement sometimes just rolls over. I will never forget an episode of one of the games: the main character rang the mobile phone, my console vibrated and squeaked, on the TV the instruction was lit where to press, I pressed the button and automatically brought the console to my ear that the game hero repeated after me. At this time, the voice of the protagonist's boss rang out from the console ... you know, for a moment I naturally transferred to the TV, because it was I who received the incoming call, not the character on the screen, and the boss gave instructions to my ear. And this happens all the time: tennis - waving a racket, boxing - with fists, fencing - saber and forward. I will say even more, it is often necessary to play by standing and moving around the room, and not lazily sitting on the couch. And this is also a factor of the very involvement.

Perspectivity of technology can be estimated at least by the reaction of competitors. Sony is preparing for the release of the Playstation Move, Microsoft promises Newton for the XBox 360. And Nintendo already has everything, including a bunch of games, it remains only to increase the power to catch up with competitors quantitatively.

And I said about power for a reason, as the Wii picture is still depressing. I once killed time in Mediamark, viewing NFS Shift on the XBox 360. Even close to nothing to complain about - a natural movie on the screen. On Nintendo, at best, you can see a concise cartoon graphics, de facto not pretending to anything.


God forbid, the graphics will start to claim - everything, put out the light. Square fire, sticking up the ladder textures and poor special effects will constantly cut the eye. In the heat of competition or battle, this is not so important, because you are waving your sword, driving your steering wheel and shooting from your pistol, and not pressing on the multi-colored buttons, but the picture of five years ago is still not impressive. One absence of anti-aliasing is worth something.


That is why most of the games from Nintendo itself are very simple graphically. They are the most fun to use the capabilities of the remote, immersing the user deeper into what is happening. Strong players in the video game market are also lagging behind (EA, Capcom) - everything is great in terms of interfaces and interactions. But in general, it turns out that there are too few games. Go to any themed shop: if there are a pavilion for PS3 games, then for Wii there is only a stand in the corner. There are even fewer good games, and hits can be counted on fingers.

All sorts of sports collections are most good, in which you can play each other, and the gameplay of which is strongly tied to the console: bowling, darts, golf, boxing, etc., as a rule, they are a collection where everyone will find a game to their liking. Next are hits like NFS or Resident Evil - games known, developed, completed. They are refitted under the movement of the console, but rather win the overall level. There are also very decent non-sports games from Nintendo itself: usually either about Mario associates - Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Kart, etc., or old series like Legend of Zelda or Metroid. I would call the rest of the games weak: they seem to be tied to the capabilities of the console, but excessively or stupidly; or like the plot, but the plot too flat and straightforward.

Let's return to the picture and graphics. Included is only a composite cable (ordinary tulip), through which it makes sense to play only on small old TVs. On any decent monitor or something with HD nameplates it is better not to connect the composite cable at all, it's terrible . HDMI interface for the console is not provided, so any buyer needs to immediately go broke on the component cable (RGB), the company costs 2,000 rubles, not the company cable - 500. Not only that, it itself will significantly change the picture, so it will also make 480p or 576i possible , which is the technological ceiling of the console. Actually, there are no comments here.


Most everything spoils the Russification. The prefix itself with all its interfaces does not know the Russian language in principle. With regard to games, the maximum I have seen is a Russian-language cover and a Russian-language booklet inside with instructions on which buttons to press, the games themselves are completely English-speaking with switching options to German, French and other European languages. For tennis, it may not matter, and it will be difficult to pass the semantic quest. And if some even rejoice at the original voice acting or the ability to pump English, then the majority simply will not be able to penetrate, and therefore will not play with them.

In our country, English is familiar (in one form or another) to about 7 million people ( from the 2002 census ) —this is a few percent. Suppose that in recent years this number has increased, let's even add those who know French or German, anyway, on the strength of 10%, according to the most optimistic estimates. What does it mean? This means that only one in ten of our compatriots will be able to understand the console or game. Thus, the family (and it is positioned) prefix in Russia is very, very conditional.

However, in the settings you can specify the country - Russia. Guess what it will give? Not guessed, it will deprive you of WiiConnect24 online service under the pretext of the lack of web services in the specified region. Want web services? We'll have to pretend to be a resident of the United Kingdom or, for example, New Zealand. Weather channel at the same time will offer to choose a city within the specified country. But there is nothing to be upset because ...

Web service WiiShop generally miserable. First, the content is not enough, absolutely everything can be viewed in about 15-20 minutes. Secondly, everything is expensive, they want about 500 rubles from the old Super Mario. The range of prices for games: from 600 to 1000 points, to be roughly divided into rubles in half (prices for residents of the UK). There are no free games or demo versions at all, and all descriptions are so monosyllabic that there is almost no desire to buy an unfamiliar game. In terms of software, everything is still worse, there is only a free browser based on Opera and a few used stolkovy software . The inhabitants of foggy Albion have the opportunity to download the BBC iPlayer , but the player will not show anything to us, referring to the geography of our stay. Perhaps a local proxy would solve this problem, but I haven’t found one yet.

In short, the Internet provides an opportunity to update the firmware and play on the network in those games that can do it. And even the browser is stupid and except for poking, check it out is not good for anything, even not to play in flash.



Now about the officials, who are represented by the company "New Disc". This winter, I discovered that the Wii Sports CD, which comes with the set-top box, is scratched. In stores it is not for sale, and the games on it are top-notch. Written off by mail with support, they said they would change it for me inexpensively. In fact, changed for free and in just 5 minutes, which is nice and correct. Most recently (during a thunderstorm in Moscow) I found a prefix breathless, I thought that the power supply had burned down. I wrote a letter to those. support, after 2 minutes (!) received the answer: “Let the block rest for 10 minutes and turn it on again”. To the letter “Thank you, it helped” after 4 minutes (!) They explained that the defense mechanism was arranged this way, which was not written anywhere else in the manual.

Thus, there are absolutely no complaints about the service. True, there were no serious problems either.

But the same "New Disc" dictates all prices, and the prices for games and all peripherals are only one plus - they are the same everywhere, and you can not search and wait for what will be cheaper. The remote control costs 2 thousand, the LAN adapter has 2 thousand (buy a Wi-Fi router), the games also mostly cost one and a half to two thousand and almost do not become cheaper. Everything is very expensive! There is a variant of Chipovka prefix, but I don’t see the meaning of big for myself. Those five good games that are good, and so I will buy, and the remaining 25 stupid and I do not need for nothing.

If someone was too lazy to read from the beginning, then start here :-)

Results

Nintendo Wii is a very successful set-top box, qualitatively ahead of competitors for a generation or two, but quantitatively lagging behind competitors in far more mundane things than gameplay: a picture, output interfaces, a range of games, the development of web services, and software. Oil adds to the attitude to the Russian market: the complete absence of Russification and web services, a terrible price policy. For comparison: in the United States, the prefix costs $ 200, in the UK it is 150 pounds, and in Russia it is about 12 thousand rubles.

So do I regret buying and spending money? Probably not. But I cannot advise Wii to my friends, apart from the unique gameplay, the console has nothing in our realities of the extreme north of the Russian Federation :(

And, returning to the epigraph, I can safely say that with friends there is something to play with and how to spend time. But when they leave, ... it will be more pleasant to play XBox 360 or PS3, especially since soon they will get the necessary accessories for the game in the style of Wii.

PS Perhaps the post will seem to you depressing, but in fact I like the prefix. You can play NFS or GTA on a computer by purchasing a gamepad / steering wheel. And would you see a team game of bowling, or how does a man spinning a wheel in the air look like? And even just surprise on the faces of people who see it all for the first time. It is worth it, I assure!

PPS It would be extremely interesting to learn the impressions of the owners of competitive consoles on the issues mentioned.