I should have seen this coming. Most people (the ones with decent heads on their shoulders) were reassured by the latest announcements by Nintendo. Finally, we have some answers to long standing questions! But, of course, you're getting a flurry of negative sentiments. Probably the death throes of those PlayStation fanboys. (Yes, believe it or not, Sony still has fanboys.) I'm going to give my opinions on the latest whining I've seen:
- The Wii will cost $249.99 US dollars.
Believe it or not, people are whining about this. As I said in my last post, Nintendo only said "no MORE than $250", but people started taking it too far and predicting their own utopian prices, going so far as to predict a $150 price point... and they got angry when it wasn't. Nintendo didn't lie to you! Why ARE you angry? It's not priced competitively? They just lost you as a customer? What are you going to buy instead? Xbox360 Core System(which isn't worth buying, and everyone knows it) is $299, the Platinum System is $399. PlayStation 3 "Lite" is $499, and the PlayStation 3 "Fat" is $599. Elementary, my dear Watson. 250 is clearly a lower number than 599. $250 isn't competitive? Which planet are you from?
- The controller sets will cost $59.98 US dollars.
I agree with people here, though. To an extent. The controller is the hot tamale, the core of the Nintendo experience. Never before done, will be copied from this point on. It's a landmark in gaming history, and quite the technological breakthrough. Get the point, yet? I really didn't expect it to be cheap. Did you? It's the Wii Remote! While I was expecting maybe $40 for the entire controller set, I'm not entirely surprised. (In fact, in hindsight, I should have known $40 was too cheap.) I'll just slowly collect controllers over time. I don't need all four at once, and remember! These things are built for portability. Nintendo's designed these things to be carried with you. When you go to play at someone's house, you're going to take your controller with you, since it's saved all your sensitivity settings. People won't need to buy controllers for people who will already have one.
- Virtual Console NES games will cost $5.
Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine. I don't even know where to start here. You don't think NES games are worth $5? How much would you pay for one on eBay? I've sold a Legend of Zelda for over $20. Granted, you won't have the original cartridge, but I'm sure it will be nearly the same. Nintendo strikes me as the people who will get game downloads right. I will easily pay $5 to play old games on my Wii. I probably won't buy the games I have already, but there are still several games I want that I don't have the original cartridges for. I'm sorry, but you whiners are stretching it for this. Let me guess, you wanted it to be $1 a rom. Maybe 10 for $8? 20 for $15? How much are you expecting to pay for Sony for their game downloads? I'll wager it's nowhere near 5 bucks, the cost of a good hamburger from some fast-food joint.
- Wii Photo Channel and Photo Manipulation
I guess good ol' Joystiq got their hopes up on the Photo Channel for some reason. Whining about how it doesn't pass off as a good manipulation platform. Well, DUH! It looks to me like it was more of a slideshow feature, with basic manipulation functions, rather than a Photoshop for Wii. Looks like they're grasping at straws here, personally. A gigabyte of space isn't enough for hosting photos? What? Since when? I've got a digital camera. You can store about 600 very nice quality photos in about a gigabyte of space. Oh, but you said less than a gig. Okay, 500MB? Is that good enough? 300 photos. It's not like the Wii is going to be used to take panoramic photos or anything! Are you going to STORE photos on the Wii? The photos don't even have to be very big unless you're viewing them on an HDTV. I got the message that it was just a little photo kiosk that you could put your favorite pictures on to show your friends, and you can get silly with all the manipulation features.
- November 19 Release Date, two days after the PS3.
People are whining about this, as if it somehow affects them. Maybe, for once, they're feeling something for Nintendo and not themselves... I doubt it. Anyway, to the point. The PS3 is scheduled for November 17, with 400,000 units available in the United States. If you ask me? By the time Nintendo releases the Wii, there won't be any PS3s left and everyone left will remember the sheer awe that is Nintendo Wii, and get that instead. Especially after seeing the gargantuan inflated prices on eBay and resell stores. This is, of course, assuming that Sony can keep this release date and not push the entire system back to March 2007, like half of it already is. Do we trust Sony? No? Then what is there to worry about, exactly? In my not so humble opinion, the Wii going head-to-head with the PS3 is no problem for Nintendo. Sony should be shaking in their bullet-ridden boots. (Seriously Sony, watch it with that gun. There are only so many times you can shoot your feet.)
- No built-in DVD playback.
Oh my! Zee world hast ended! Primarily a gaming system, people were wanting the Wii to have DVD playback. Uhm... why? Your desktops have DVD playback, your laptops have DVD playback, your TV has DVD playback already. Why did the Wii need DVD playback, exactly? The Xbox didn't. I'm sure the Xbox360 doesn't. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not sure. I'm just going off Microsoft's past.) "But the PlayStation 3 plays them!!" Yes... yes, it does. Because it's primarily a Blu-Ray/DVD player and a gaming system second. Nintendo is the opposite. There's always the future option of buying a USB attachment to play DVDs, but, for now, Nintendo doesn't want that. I'm okay with that, as you should be. Just because "everyone else is doing it" doesn't mean everyone should. It'll add nothing to the Wii, and people don't need a 17th DVD player.
So there you have it!