The Wii gets a B+ from me. No sense in really comparing it to other consoles, as it really did it's own thing most of its 5 years. I'd actually bump it up to an A, but the abysmal 2011 needs to be noted and it gets docked for that. Still up until this year I had no need for a second console as the Wii's library completely satisified me.
- 1st party line-up was outstanding. Mario Galaxies, Punch-Out, Mario Kart, Brawl, and NSMBWii were all great experiences.
- Unrivaled niche gaming. The other systems didn't have anything like Trauma Team, Order Up, Rune Factory Frontier, and Muramasa.
- WiiWare - For the first couple years amazing games were released through it. NyxQuest, Dr. Mario, Lost Winds, My Life as a King, Bit.Trip series, and the Art Style series were all good times.
- Virtual Console - While it never got quite as robust as some would have hoped, well over 300 games were released on it. 20 were good enough for me to go back and get again.
- The Balance Board - A lot of people hated it and thought it was worthless, but if nothing else it got me to enjoy yoga again. And We Ski and Snowboard was awesome.
- The Wii series of games - Wii Sports & Resort, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and hell even Wii Music were games that I spent probably too much time on.
- And finally, this was a console that had games that I could play with my dad and my son. 3 generations played this console together at once. I'll always remember that. It certainly never happened with the PS3.
Iga_Bobovic said:And you are free to grade the Wii however you want, but saying that the Wii is supposed to have some of the features is laughable. The Wii is designed with a philosophy in mind. You might not like it, but it is what it is. HD graphics are not part of the design spec, it is 2011 time to accept that.
It makes no sense to give the Wii a pass for graphics cause of "philosophy". It is in a generation where a certain level of graphics should be expected, it did not match those expectations. Head to head the Wii's graphics suck compared to the other two. Its online sucks comparably.
robio said:...
- And finally, this was a console that had games that I could play with my dad and my son. 3 generations played this console together at once. I'll always remember that. It certainly never happened with the PS3.
That is cool.
aspro said:
That is cool.
Yes that is a great point.
Dvader said:Iga_Bobovic said:And you are free to grade the Wii however you want, but saying that the Wii is supposed to have some of the features is laughable. The Wii is designed with a philosophy in mind. You might not like it, but it is what it is. HD graphics are not part of the design spec, it is 2011 time to accept that.
It makes no sense to give the Wii a pass for graphics cause of "philosophy". It is in a generation where a certain level of graphics should be expected, it did not match those expectations. Head to head the Wii's graphics suck compared to the other two. Its online sucks comparably.
So Nintendo should bankrupt itself so it can meet some non existent expectations? Who decides the standard that is acceptable and what should be expected? One could argue that Sony and Microsoft overshot themselves.
Iga_Bobovic said:So Nintendo should bankrupt itself so it can meet some non existent expectations? Who decides the standard that is acceptable and what should be expected? One could argue that Sony and Microsoft overshot themselves.
We are not judging business practices and who made the right moves. We are simply grading systems from the current generation and you cannot hold one system to a different standard from the rest, its not fair.
When it comes to grading MS I can be sure that more than one person around here is going to judge MS for choosing cheap parts, so I guess it's fair to judge Nintendo for doing the same. Except in MS's case it cost them $1.5 billion USD, whereas for Nintendo it worked out pretty nicely.
Sorr y Iga, I agree that we shouldn't judge the Wii on it's financial success, but our own experiences with the console, which willl be different for all of us.
Dvader said:Iga_Bobovic said:So Nintendo should bankrupt itself so it can meet some non existent expectations? Who decides the standard that is acceptable and what should be expected? One could argue that Sony and Microsoft overshot themselves.
We are not judging business practices and who made the right moves. We are simply grading systems from the current generation and you cannot hold one system to a different standard from the rest, its not fair.
You are not getting it. People are judging the Wii by how much fun they have. They will judge the PS3 and 360 by how much fun they had. Is that simple. They are not making a stupid checklist with standards it supposed to have, that is missing the point.
Iga_Bobovic said:You are not getting it. People are judging the Wii by how much fun they have. They will judge the PS3 and 360 by how much fun they had. Is that simple. They are not making a stupid checklist with standards it supposed to have, that is missing the point.
You are not getting it, those features are directly related to how much fun the system is, you cant separate them. If some don't mind the ugly non HD graphics, the lack of online features and lack of basically every major third party title this gen that is fine. I do mind and cause of it I ended up playing my PS3 90% of the time this gen.
Dvader said:
You are not getting it, those features are directly related to how much fun the system is, you cant separate them.
Yes you can, plenty of people did just that in this thread
Dvader said:
If some don't mind the ugly non HD graphics, the lack of online features and lack of basically every major third party title this gen that is fine.
If it is fine why are you calling people out for giving the Wii a B? No one is saying it is perfect. Neither are the 360, PS3 and PC for that matter.
For the record:
- NES - A
- SNES - A+
- N64 - C+
- GameCube - B-
- PS1 - A-
- PS2 - A
- Genesis - B+
- Saturn - C-
- Dreamcast - C+
GC and Wii are really close for me but I give the edge to Wii. DC is better than both though.
GC just didn't have enough of a varied library for my taste. If you wanted fighting games or RPGs you had almost nothing to choose from. The Wii wasn't hugely better, but there was a bigger variety of all the mainstream genres plus a lot more niche gaming to choose from.
And I was generous with my C+ on the DC. The controller was awful and the memory card videogame player thing was just dumb. One of the worst gimmicks ever that for some reason always gets forgotten about (probably because it was on the DC). 3rd Party support was non-existant after the first year and its best games got ported to the GC.
The thing the GC has i that it's home to 2 (well I guess 3 if you count TP) of my favorite games ever, MP and RE4. The wii has awesome games but outside TP it doesn't have any games I would hold to that standard even though galaxy is close. Plus you got two other real exclusive RE games.
Dvader said:I'm calling them out cause I would love to see how they rate other consoles in comparison. If the wii is a B then what is SNES, PS1, PS2, NES, etc. It's more of a spacing issue with the grades rather than what they gave it.
You should talk 90% of games with high production value get scored between 9.0 and a 10 by you. It is so bad that I consider a 9.0 score a disappointment.
About scoring the Wii compared to other Nintendo consoles.
It is so much better than the GC, the only thing the gamecube has over it are F-Zero, Waverace, 1080 and I wanted to say Starfox, but I realized the last awesome one was on the N64. N64 is tricky, one on hand you had two great Zeldas, Perfect Dark, Turok, but there was no Metroid. I will say it is about even, maybe once Xenoblade, Last Story and Skyward Sword come around it might edge it out. SNES and NES was better but only thanks to 3rd party support, NIntendo is on fire with 1st party this gen.
The DS conquers all when it comes to handhelds. The best 3 gaming platforms are SNES, PS2 and DS. That is of course if we are not counting PC.
Dvader said:I'm calling them out cause I would love to see how they rate other consoles in comparison. If the wii is a B then what is SNES, PS1, PS2, NES, etc. It's more of a spacing issue with the grades rather than what they gave it.
SNES: B+ (Lots of shovelware, but the sheer volume of quality liftes it up)
PS1: B (Good library, but low specs)
PS2: B+ (Depth of library, but low specs)
NES: D (Hardware failures, shovelware)
(only rating the ones Vader wanted).
robio said:GC just didn't have enough of a varied library for my taste. If you wanted fighting games or RPGs you had almost nothing to choose from. ..
Compared to the PS2, yes. Compared to the XB, they were about the same. The gamecube did have a diverse library though. Back then the third parties were able to more easily port games because of the more standard controller. I've got NBA Street, Madden, the Midway games etc... that are identical to their PS2/XB bretheren. So it had all the good western stuff, plus the superior japanese product like Skies of Arcadia, Billy Hatcher, Ikaruga and the Nintendo stuff.
I don't want to grade it. I just want to say ...
Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros, Metroid Prime 3 and Trilogy, Metroid Other M, Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl, Punch Out, Elebits, Muramasa, Zack & Wiki, No More Heroes, No More Heroes 2, Madworld (yes Madworld), Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Sin & Punishment 2, Little King's Story, Okami, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Super Paper Mario, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Goldeneye, Red Steel 2, Trauma Centres 1, 2 & Trauma Team, Monster Hunter Tri., Bully, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories ... Xenoblade to come, Zelda: Skyward Sword, hopefully The Last Story and Dragon Quest X.
I won't even delve into Wiiware and Virtual Console offerings.
What meaning to the grades have?
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
This makes my earlier point. If Nintendo wanted to go after the gaming market, they would have included those features. Their philosophy was to prioritise hardware price in order to maximise market share.