Why the Wii and DS deserve your respect

I'd like to state right now that I'm not writing this to be an idiot fanboy and declare Nintendo the winner of the current console war. I don't own a Wii of my own for a reason, and it's the same reason I don't own a PS3 or a 360. The software isn't there, and most of the software that would make me buy any of the systems for myself isn't even in the pipeline. I also know that nothing I'm going to say here is revolutionary. It's all stuff that I'm sure has been said before, but I've talked to a number of people lately who still didn't get it, so I'm going to throw it out there for anybody else in that boat.

I am writing this to try and explain some of what makes these two systems so popular with the general public. It's not Nintendo's hype. They've talked about how they're revolutionizing the way people play games, but the people who are important in this discussion haven't heard any of that rhetoric; it's all aimed at jaded gamers who've been screwed for supporting Nintendo two generations in a row now (though much more by the Gamecube than the N64).

What really makes the Wii and the DS so amazing is the same thing that made the mouse amazing. It's the shift from instruction to interaction and the elimination of the whole hurdle of perception that comes with it.

Those of us who are long time gamers may not get this. Playing a game with a controller is the most natural thing in the world. Yet, to a computer enthusiast, so is manipulating Linux through the command shell. To the uninitiated, both are incredibly esoteric and don't do anything to ease you into the process. There are very few people who start playing console games as adults for this very reason. As children, we're more open to ideas that don't make logical sense, so learning to manipulate a distant character through arcane series of button presses isn't as hard to cope with. To somebody who has lived sufficiently long though, the concept begins to grow ridiculous.

Nintendo is changing this. Much as the mouse (and, thus, the Graphical Operating System) opened the world of computing to the masses by creating a more intuitive sense of navigation through physical motion and interacting with data, the WiiMote and the DS's stylus based controls allow gamers interact with a game in a way that makes logical sense. If I tap the bubble, it pops, if I swing my arm, my character swings his bat. It's a direct correspondence of motion that has been missing in the past and that has left the unexposed scratching their heads in confusion.

This is a trend that should have been noticed years ago, as this sense of intuition is the exact same reason that DDR and other Bemani style games were such a cross over success all around the world. When you eliminate the curve of learning how to play a game instead of just playing it well, you open up its appeal to a market that traditional games can't even imagine.

This is why the Wii will continue to sell well, and will probably dominate the console sales market, much as the DS has (in Japan, the number of DS's is about to surpass the number of Playstation 2's, an incredible feat considering the market saturation and age of that old juggernaut). Despite these strong console sales, though, Nintendo won't post the profit numbers of either Microsoft of Sony, because their hardware to software sales ratio won't look at all similar once the two traditional game makers big war horses come out to play in the coming years. The type of people who buy just a Wii aren't going to buy all of the games that we consider "good". Whereas 90% of 360 owners will buy Halo 3, I'm willing to bet that only somewhere around 40% of Wii's will be accompanied by copies of Metroid Prime: Corruption, maybe less. It's all in the demographics.

The shift is important, though, as the Wii's hardware sales, and the sale of it's casual and "non" games, will be staggering, and it will make other companies take note. As time goes on, the system will become refined, and video games will become truly main stream. Temporarily flagship genres such as the RPG will fade back into cultdom as the video game console is brought into the open and multiplayer gaming makes a shift back from the internet back to the living room (with online elements still in tact, I'm sure), the entire demographic of gaming will shift.

I'm certainly not proclaiming the death of traditional videogames. There are some experiences, especially the more cinematic ones, that benefit little from a truly interactive control style. The biggest system sellers of this generation, and more than likely the next, will remain in the style to which we are accustomed. But the winds have begun to blow, and those of us interested in the industry, seriously or casually, need to be prepared.