GameCyte

As the kid-tested, mother-approved — hell, grandmother-approved — game console whose demand continues to outstrip supply over a year after release, the Nintendo Wii has certainly caused a stir — but not quite the all-out Revolution its creators originally hyped. Wii online sucks. There are few compelling hardcore games. For every critically acclaimed title that actually uses the Wii’s motion-sensing controls to some effect, there’s a steaming bucketful of shovelware with tacked-on functionality — and clip-on plastic attachments.

What can the 10.2 million American Wii owners do about it? Very little. They’ve bought into the Nintendo club, and now they’re stuck with whatever the Wii has to offer. But what they can do is pay better attention next time, and — having had a look at some of Nintendo’s track record here — decide whether they want to trust the words of Nintendo execs in future.

In part three of “Promises, Promises,” GameCyte’s look back at the promises — and results — surrounding our game systems, we take Nintendo executives to task for delivering either too little, too late, or just plain misleading gamers, all in the name of gussying up the Wii for launch.

PROMISE: “When it arrives next year, we intend for Revolution to fully serve the core gamer with new titles that fully meet their requirements.” (Satoru Iwata, President and CEO, Nintendo Corporation, 5/17/05)

Despite a focus on “all-access-gaming” that would soon prove to not only pull in casual gamers but also those who had never touched a controller in their lives, Nintendo assured E3 2005 attendees they wouldn’t forget about the core — and over the next year, promised a slate of launch titles that would set Nintendo fans’ hearts aflutter.

“One or two Wi-Fi games will be ready for launch, and I am pushing our team to make sure Smash Bros. is one of them.” (Satoru Iwata, President and CEO, Nintendo Corporation, 5/17/05)

“It’s a launch title.” (Bryan Walker, Senior Producer, Retro Studios, on the progress of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, 5/16/06)

“I don’t want to promise anything yet. But if it’s not a launch title it will definitely be there within the first six months.” (Shigeru Miyamoto, Senior Managing Director, Nintendo Corporation, on the progress of Super Mario Galaxy, 5/10/06)

Smash, Mario and Metroid: this would be a launch for the history books.

DELIVERY: “The Smash community is stoked, but when? Not next year. Not next spring. I can announce today that Smash Bros. Brawl will launch in the Americas on December 3.” (Reginald Fils-Aime, President and CEO, Nintendo of America, 7/11/07)

As early as June 2006, it came out that Iwata’s E3 2006 announcement of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a complete surprise to everyone, up to and including the “team” Iwata was supposedly pushing — the studio that would eventually develop Brawl didn’t even set up shop until October 2005. Then in a flurry of epic release date slippage, December became February, and February became March. So much for launch. Not that we Americans should complain — citizens of Australia and Europe are only finally getting their copies of Smash this week.

“Metroid Prime 3 [...] is going to come out early in 2007. That will give us fantastic momentum coming off of the launch, and will certainly be an example of how there will be no new game drought for this system.” (Reginald Fils-Aime, President and CEO, Nintendo of America, 12/19/06)

Bold words, Reggie, considering you downgraded a launch title to a “coming off of the launch” title. But if you say Metroid in early 2007, we’ll expect Metroid in early 2007…

“Where is Metroid? Metroid is not going to ship by June. We’ve announced all of our games through the end of June. And the fact with Metroid is we want to make sure that that game is perfect.” (Reginald Fils-Aime, President and CEO, Nintendo of America, 4/3/07)

Unless of course by “early 2007,” you meant August.

Considering that Miyamoto is simultaneously a god among gamers, the Time 100 most influential man of the year, and still kind enough to start his promise of an early Super Mario Galaxy release with the words “I don’t want to promise anything yet,” I feel like I’m stabbing him in the back — but it is my duty to point out that Mario also didn’t make his six-month deadline, appearing almost a full year after the Wii launched.

Was it a good thing these three triple-A first-party titles were delayed? Almost certainly — in my opinion, there’s nothing quite like those games that are polished to a mirror sheen, and I fully subscribe to the “when it’s done” philosophy of software release. But even if you agree with me, that doesn’t change the fact that Nintendo has a bit of a credibility issue. Perhaps a little bit of gamer ire will teach them to either get a decent calendar, or stop spouting release dates altogether. If the month of June is any indication, Nintendo may have learned their lesson — but then again, E3 2008 is just around the corner.

PROMISE: “Instead of a tray, a single, innovative, self-loading media bay will play both 12-centimeter optical discs used for the new system as well as Nintendo GameCube discs. Owners will have the option of equipping a small, self-contained attachment to play movies and other DVD content.” (Press Release, “Nintendo’s Compact Console Will Turn the World of Gaming on Its Side,” 5/17/05)

When the Nintendo Revolution’s features were first unveiled at E3 2005, journalists gobbled up Nintendo’s apt analogy for the console’s diminutive stature, spreading the word far and wide that the Revolution would be approximately “the size of three standard DVD cases stacked together,” and only slightly longer. Consumers looking for a cute, compact combination media device would find it in the Revolution, whose multifunction slot-loading DVD drive could trump Sony’s slimline PS2 not only in terms of backwards compatibility, but accessibility as well.

DELIVERY: “This weekend, you are going to go to a couple garage sales, and you are going to pick up a couple DVD players, and you’re going to get one probably for five bucks that’s a little banged up, and you’re going to get one for maybe $18 because it’s brand-new, out of the box, and then you’re going to go to Best Buy and get one for 29 bucks and you’re going to have three DVD players. I don’t think you need one on here.” (Perrin Kaplan, Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Nintendo of America, 9/14/06)

Over a year after the E3 2005 reveal, the astute Matt Casamassina (editor-in-chief of IGN’s Nintendo channel) noted that Nintendo had been keeping rather quiet about DVD playback, to the point that they had purposefully removed any mention of such functionality from the official hardware spec sheets. Despite his credentials, Matt’s inquiries into the situation were shot down — and nine days later, Nintendo admitted that DVD playback was out.

That is, until Sonic Solutions told the world it was back in again, come late 2007…Nintendo UK clarified that it was only confirmed for Japan…Nintendo of America revealed that it was headed to the US as well…and Nintendo Japan trumped the whole pack by explaining that rabid consumer demand across all three territories for the Wii as-is keeps their production facilities at capacity, and that the DVD movie playback would be delayed until Iwata-only-knows when.

And for the record, we’re not talking about a software update. Oh no. As of mid-2007, Nintendo planned to produce a brand-new, DVD-playing Wii that will be exactly the same internally and externally, aside from the addition of DVD playback. We admit, if they did produce a brand new unit it would partially invalidate DVD playback’s inclusion as a broken promise… but considering that the Nintendo Wii’s supply is likely to catch up to demand about the same time the sun implodes, I’d say it’s not bloody likely.

PROMISE: “Nintendo has not yet announced how Opera will be available on Wii, but I can confirm that it will not be sold as a separate item, as it is for Nintendo DS.” (Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President, Opera for Devices, 5/23/06)

“You will not have to buy Opera as an external item, as it will be available within Wii upon purchase [...] We would like all Wii users to be able to use Opera to surf the Internet.” (Scott Hedrick, 6/3/06)

In a world where software designers and indie game developers turn to the web to realize fantastic creations with little in the way of startup cost, the combination of a free web browser, an always-on game console and a revolutionary control scheme is truly exciting, and Scott Hedrick let his enthusiasm trickle into post-E3 2006 interviews, with quotes like “third parties could theoretically develop Web applications specifically for the Wii,” and “One can imagine the possibilities of what a browser can deliver to a game on a console that is always connected beyond simply browsing the Web.”

DELIVERY: “Opera’s full Web browser is available for download from the “Wii Shop Channel”. Nintendo has stated that they will offer Opera free of charge as a temporary promotion for all Wii users until June 2007. From July 2007, users can purchase the Opera browser using Wii points.” (Press Release, “Opera releases details on its browser for Nintendo’s Wii console,” 9/26/06)

“Nintendo is currently offering a free trial of Opera for Wii which is now available for download. [...] After June 30, Opera will be available for download from the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii points.” (Press Release, “Play with the Web: Opera browser now available for download on Wii,” 12/22/06)

We’re not quite sure how “full Web browser” became “free trial,” just as we’re not sure how “you will not have to buy Opera as an external item” translates to “users can purchase the Opera browser using Wii points.” Perhaps it has something to do with the change of season — the hearts of men grow fickle in the transition from summer to winter. Regardless, a $5 barrier to entry on the part of consumers means that whatever audience there would have been for Wii-specific web games and applications, it will likely be reduced. [Usage stats on the Nintendo Channel indicate that approximately 478000, or fewer than 5% of US Wii owners have downloaded the Internet Channel since launch; but there's no telling how many actually purchased the software - ed.]

PROMISE: “You’ll be able to play not just by linking up to a television but to a computer monitor as well.” (Genyo Takeda, General Manager, Nintendo Integrated Research and Development, 6/9/2004)

DELIVERY: The veracity of this statement really depends on whether you consider a $40, third-party VGA cable that doesn’t support content at 480i, and of which there are currently 57 in stock, to imply a general ability for gamers to connect the Wii to their computer monitors. Nintendo officially supports component, composite, S-Video, D-Terminal and RGB SCART, depending on where you live; but VGA gets the cold shoulder.

You’d think Nintendo would all to happy to sell us the extra cables — but I suppose these days they’re more into plastic.

Think we’re Xbox 360 fanboys? Try again. Members of the Sony Defense Force? Afraid not. We’re equal-opportunity offenders here at GameCyte.

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• Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: More Insight From the Corporate Sphere
• Wii Online Sucks, Nintendo PR Spin Suggests No Upcoming Fixes
• E3 2008: Video of Wii Music in Motion
• Wii MotionPlus an Integral, Inexpensive Piece of Nintendo’s Strategy?
• Wii Fit to Be Web-Enabled?