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Sliced Gaming Feature: Wii - One Year On

Writer: Nick Schaedel
Posted: 7th December 2007, 11:24am

One year ago today, the Wii crash-landed in Australia and radically changed the industry down under. Since then, the industry broke the one billion dollar mark in yearly sales, and the success of the Wii and DS has brought our passion into the focus of the mainstream media. But has it been all good? Has the face of gaming changed as we know it? Our staff – from those without the system through to those with every current generation platform – present their thoughts on the year that was.

Let me kick it off with a rather lengthy look at the system from the perspective of someone who doesn’t own any other consoles, but thankfully the other, less obsessive staff members have been much more restrained in their responses.

NICK SCHAEDEL:
DS, GBA, Wii

This year has been one of highs and lows for Nintendo’s money-printing darling in Australia. For every announcement or release that we rejoice, there’s something that brings it down. It’s a system of uneasy oppositions, and it will be very interesting to see whether its undeniable success continues well into the future.

The price tag of $400 is more than people are paying elsewhere in the world for the same system, and with the US dollar dropping so rapidly importing is becoming increasingly more beneficial for your bank statement. At the same time, it’s leagues below Sony’s PS3 down here (and even though you can pay less for a cheaper system, you’re also getting less hardware to go with it). It’s still a little way below a decent Xbox 360, though the recent Arcade bundle is getting scarily close to the Wii price point – close enough for consumers to look at it as another viable option at that price bracket. At the same time, Nintendo seems to have followed my advice – or at least come to the same conclusion themselves – and have priced some Wii games at the $80 mark, which is again more than overseas but is still an extra $20-40 in your pocket compared to a 360 or PS3 title.

Australia has also suffered from whimsical release schedules that delayed some games painfully beyond their release overseas (see Excite Truck and Super Paper Mario). Unbelievably, there’s still no firm release date for Trauma Center – a launch title in the US. Seriously…WTF? The system has been criticised for a ‘gaming drought’, which is true to an extent, but you can’t deny the weekly virtual console updates, and people have selective memories about the state of the first-year releases on the 360 (and the PS3 has had similar issues). At the same time, when the games hit, they hit hard. We’ve had a brand new Zelda game, a Metroid title, a classic Mario platformer and an addition to his RPG series all in the space of twelve months. In another three, we’ll have a new Smash Bros. too.

Nintendo has said that the Wii is an inclusive console, one for everyone from eight to eighty. And (continued next page)