A Boy and His Wii: Part One

I don't consider myself a cold-hearted person, but what warmth my heart does contain is held in strict reserve for a special few people and things; those which have played an important role in my life. It is a list that consists of family, a few very old friends, the Minnesota Twins, Louisville Cardinals, a handful of books, movies, and albums, my first car, and the products of the Nintendo Corporation.

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My relationship with Nintendo goes back as far as I can remember (to somewhere around 1985). This means I have known and loved it as long as anything on that list except family. Even my beloved Twins have to share my affections with that Japanese monolith of innovation. So it may come as little surprise to find out that I was among those, just a few years ago, shivering in line for hours outside my local Target, waiting to be one of the first to own a Wii. It was the first and only time I've done that. And having done it, the number of Nintendo gaming systems among my possessions increased to six.

Since I bought my XBox there has been little time for the Wii. It is still my preferred system for party games--and when the next Zelda game comes out I'm sure my XBox will have to gather dust for a while--but I can no longer deny that Nintendo has fallen behind its competition in what used to be its strong suit: old-fashioned gameplay.

When the Playstation and XBox first threw their respective hats into the console wars their chosen battleground demographic was an obvious one: teenage boys. As much as Nintendo had done to charm the aficionados, kids, and parents, they had let the most prolific gamers wander towards the PC game market, where their bloodlusts and blossoming libidos could be readily satisfied. Still, most owned a game console and, still, Nintendo was putting out great games. So even if those 12 to 18 year-olds were spending their weeks with Quake and Everquest, they were coming back to Zelda and Mario on the weekend. But the time spent playing online multiplayer PC games primed them to jump the Nintendo ship when the capabilities inevitably became a part of the console gaming experience as well.

The Wii does, in fact, have a built-in wireless network adapter (something neither the PS3 nor Xbox 360 can claim), but the online interactions of players and the multiplayer modes of the games are so limited that they might as well not exist. Opposing human players are so concealed behind Nintendo's veil of non-communication that were they not human at all but AI-controlled bots none would be the wiser. Those who have experienced this first hand know what I'm talking about: in the Nintendo world the internet is a cold, lonely place.

I don't profess to be an expert on anything I've addressed thus far. These observations are based solely on my first-hand experience as a committed gamer since the days when 8 bits were miraculous. But in that experience these things are apparent: 1) Nintendo has long been a reliable producer of wonderful games, the kind of games you cherish; 2) Nintendo is no longer a reliable producer of such games; 3) The Wii hurts for a superior title; 4) It lacks a single great first-person game (something Nintendo first did right on a console with GoldenEye 64); 5) The XBox and Playstation have made great first-person games a cliche.

And here is where the opportunity lies. Nintendo has a chance to use innovation to make the Wii relevant once again. All they have to do is re-invent the first-person shooter.

(Part Two Coming)

Side note:

• CONFIRMED: Netflix is Coming to Nintendo Wii (mashable.com)

This is interesting. As slow as Nintendo has been in providing online features that allow real interaction, they have totally denied the fanboys any possibility of non-gaming entertainment appearing on their hardware. This is where they lost thousands of fence-sitting casual gamers to Microsoft and Sony, because those systems excel at providing this kind of fare. But then this news comes down, and finally the Wii seems ready to find its place among living room appliances and come out of the toy box.

It's very promising; but, then again, I'll believe it when I see it. They've been telling us for years that the Wii's DVD-playing capabilities would soon be unlocked. And that promise has yet to bear fruit.