Spore Dev Blasts Wii as “Shit”
- Scribbled on March 7th, 2007 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in GDC, Industry News, Nintendo Wii, WTF
Chris Hecker, one of the developers working on Will Wright’s Spore, blasted Nintnedo’s console during the morning “Burning Mad - Game Publishers Rant” today. In his speech entitled “Fear of a Wii Planet”, he called the Wii “a piece of shit”. Among his gripes, he called it “severely underpowered”, not just in terms of graphical capabilities, but in terms of its ability to feature any sort of good artificial intelligence. He claimed, “It’s not clear to me that Nintendo gives a shit about games as an art form,” pointing out that while Sony and Microsoft viewed video games as an art form, Nintendo was only concerned with making the Wii a toy, and that “…the way you manufacture a Wii is you take two GameCubes and duct tape.” To close, he made the ultimatum: First, recognize and push games as serious art. And two, “make a console that doesn’t suck ass.”
(Thanks, IGN and Nintendo Wii Fanboy.)
March 8th, 2007 at 3:08 am
I’ll certainly be willing to give him that the Wii is underpowered, but saying that Sony and MS view games as art and Nintendo doesn’t - seriously, what’s this guy smoking? Nintendo is the only console maker who gives even passing consideration to games as art. Sony and MS measure their consoles as nothing beyond how many pixels they can push out and would clearly be happy with a library consisting of nothing but generic shooters and generic sports games. Nintendo, meanwhile, is buy reinventing the entire concept of what a game console can be. Again.
March 8th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Ditto what Drocket said.
This developer is saying some stupid shit. So he is having trouble porting code written first on the PC to the Wii, well go figure, duh.
And since when does processing/graphical power = art anyway? A good artist would be able to work with any tools he has in front of him, this guys must not be a good artist then.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I agree with Jedi_Kez. But Drocket, games like Ico, Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus, and Okami are just four examples of Sony’s commitment to games as art.
There simply are no comparable offerings on the original Xbox or the 360 - which is fine. When I want to play a good FPS with multiplayer competition, I don’t even think about Sony or Nintendo. But a game like Shadow of the Colossus would be laughed off the Xbox by most as boring. That’s not to say that Playstation owners didn’t think it was boring, but at least the game showed up on the system.
As for Nintendo, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I would consider art. Let me know what you think. I’d say Nintendo excels better at story lines, mass appeal, and creativity. 15 years from now, nobody’s going to be talking about how great the story behind Halo or God of War was, but time has shown that Nintendo’s games are remembered.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Jordan Lund, who occasionally posts here at GS, said in the newsgroup:
While I’ve had great fun with the Wii, it does suffer from the same problem as the DS. The games simply are not challenging. This has been my issue with Nintendo for some time… I’m not sure when it started happening though.
I was talking with someone I know at a local retailer re: all things Wii. They said the machines continue to sell out as soon as they get them, but the software is just sitting around. Not a good sign. If the casual gamers are satisfied doing the Wii Sports thing it’s, long term, going to spell death for the platform.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:38 am
“15 years from now, nobody’s going to be talking about how great the story behind Halo or God of War was, but time has shown that Nintendo’s games are remembered.”
Now that is just batshit crazy. People are definitely discussing, say, Halo’s plot. THERE ARE BEST-SELLING NOVELS BASED ON IT.
How many novels have been written about Mario? Or Zelda? Can you tell me what the plot of the original The Legend of Zelda was?
Saying no one is going to remember the plot of Halo is like saying no one is going to remember the plot of the first Star Wars. Halo 2 sold $125M worth of preorders on the FIRST DAY for a REASON.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Jonah, Halo sucks. Plain and simple
It’s like Gears of War: another damn shooter.
Nobody has written a book about Mario, but has anyone had a cartoon about Halo? Works both ways.
If I had to base a success on either the Wii or the PS3 I’d say “it’s too early to tell”
The PS3 has no games, high price and a lot of power that is yet to be harnessed.
The Wii has a list of games, a few good ones that people love, but little commitment yet from third party developers.
History shows the Nintendo products being left behind - but the Wii is selling better than the older products, a larger audience may change the minds of developers when it comes to making games on it (you make games for the largest audience you can find right?)
History shows the PlayStation rocking the industry, but every empire can crumble. The PS2 didn’t have all the negative hype as the PS3 does now.
The best selling PC game was Myst before being taken over by The Sims. What does that say to the industry? Casual games sell - the Wii is about Casual gaming.
The Wii _has potential_ to do very well and if anyone says different I believe they’re wrong. The PS3 has potential to capture a large audience if they can get games and bring down console price.
They both have potential, let us see what they do with it.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:28 am
The Wii may be selling better, but it’s games aren’t. The fact is, does Grandma care about Link? No.
It’s the same cycle all over again - people buy tons of the new Nintendo console (N64, Gamecube) with one hot title (Super Mario 64, anyone?), then Nintendo completely fucks up and alienates every third party dev, and the attach rate of games to console for the Nintendo platform is obscenely low, leading to third party devs just porting games like Madden to it.
Like I’ve said below, once Wii’s are freely available, will there be any sort of third party support?
I know a lot of Wii owners who played the Wii for a few days, then stopped due to lack of interest.
The problem is this: is the Wii a real console, or a $250 toy masquerading as one.
The original NES had Robbie the Robot - how many people gave a shit about that? Gimmicks don’t sell consoles - games do. The NES, for example, had the best arcade ports of any console, and soon built a huge library of games, even though they charged obscene license fees to third party devs for that stupid “Nintendo Seal of Quality”.
Nintendo can no longer play those games. It’s 2007, not 1987.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I have no that Halo will be remembered, but I don’t believe it will be the story people will remember. Sales don’t mean the story is actually good. The Halo story isn’t particularly unique. Earth versus aliens is a common theme in games and movies. Obviously, that’s a generalization of the story but it’s still accurate. Halo 2 certainly attempted to develop the story, but nothing about the Halo story is ground-breaking. It is just executed better with fluid gameplay, beautiful environments, and excellent music. The Halo story is definitely not pushing the Halo franchise - the gameplay is.
It is no surprise that a top selling video game has comparable success with a related novel. But this has nothing to do with the quality of the story. It has everything to do with associated merchandising of the Halo franchise. And if we consider the NES part of the first generation of video games, then comparing the plot of a first generation video game (Zelda) with a third generation game (Halo) seems blatantly unfair. Video games 20 years ago were lucky to have any story, much less a well-thought out one. However, the passage of time and ground-breaking story telling in franchises like Zelda have paved the way for the depth in story telling we see in some games today.
Halo 2’s first day pre-order success had very little to do with a compelling story. It was due largely to the fact that 1) Halo=Xbox, and 2) Online multiplayer.
Xbox is a competitor today because of Halo, there is no argument over that. Halo was the first Xbox must-have franchise and gave Xbox owners something to call their own. This bought the console precious time while Microsoft tried to convince developers that the Xbox was here to stay.
The importance of the Halo story to gamers is quickly revealed by the fact that the single player campaign takes a back seat to the multiplayer. The vast majority of people simply do not buy first person shooters to play the single player campaign - especially on the Xbox due to the quality of Xbox Live. For each big new FPS that comes out, I see countless online threads and polls asking if people will ever even play the single player campaign. Of all the Xbox FPS multiplayer games, Halo is the most likely to draw people into the single player campaign, but again, that doesn’t mean that the story is brilliant or unique.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on your Star Wars comment. As an avid Star Wars fan (the originals) and movie fan, I know of very few people who would compare the storylines of Star Wars and Halo.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:00 am
[...] and raving during the “Burning Mad: Game Developers Rant” seminar, of course. While his “Fear of a Wii Planet” rant was the most controversial (and entertaining) rant during the talk, other developers got a [...]
March 8th, 2007 at 11:04 am
“I have no that Halo will be remembered, but I don’t believe it will be the story people will remember.”
Facts say you’re WRONG. The Halo universe is one that a lot of people dig, and get into.
Not only are there novels about it, with a ton of backstory, but a popular graphic novel AND a comic book series about to be made.
Also, it’s crossing over into other genres (see: Halo Wars).
Please, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s unpopular. Just the opposite.
Question: how much fan fic is there about Mario or Sonic?
March 8th, 2007 at 11:16 am
>>>>>The original NES had Robbie the Robot - how many people gave a shit about that? Gimmicks don’t sell consoles - games do.
Nintendo put Rob in there to get the system on toy store shelves. This was all post atari - 80’s video game ‘crash.’ Stores were scared of selling a video game system. It was definitely a gimmick, but it definitely sold consoles.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:17 am
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72890-0.html
March 8th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Rob didn’t sell games or the console, trust me.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Yes, Tom - I posted that “Are you a Fanboy” article.
You might want to examine the first tell-tale sign for yourself: “Your System Has No Flaws”. The Wii has definite flaws, and potentially system-killing ones.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Calm down Jonah, I don’t even own a Wii; I’m still happy playing with Robbie
I wasn’t trying to take credit for your article. It just seems we have quite a fan-boy fight going here.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Jonah,
I own both Halo and Halo 2 and have completed both single-player campaigns on the two hardest levels. I absolutely love the gameplay and environments in them. I also enjoy the story.
Just because I don’t think the story is timeless or ground-breaking doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Don’t make that assumption.
Again, just because something sells well doesn’t mean it is critically acclaimed. Spiderman 3 will no doubt be the top box office seller this year but it won’t even be mentioned for any non-visual Academy Awards.
Halo Wars, graphic novels, and comic books are just more examples of merchandising and fans craving for more things Halo. Take the Halo name off those products and few would care about the story - especially gamers.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:33 am
“The problem is this: is the Wii a real console, or a $250 toy masquerading as one.”
I absolutely agree with this concern.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:34 am
No, your basic insistance is that Halo is derivative, therefore not timeless. Star Wars is extremely derivative, too. It’s probably the most derivative piece of filmmaking in the last 50 years.
Critics called the songs from “The Wizard of Oz” “boring, uninspired and forgettable”. Ebert called “The Sound of Silence” the same thing from “The Graduate”.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am
“It’s the same cycle all over again - people buy tons of the new Nintendo console (N64, Gamecube) with one hot title (Super Mario 64, anyone?), then Nintendo completely fucks up and alienates every third party dev, and the attach rate of games to console for the Nintendo platform is obscenely low, leading to third party devs just porting games like Madden to it.”
It has yet to be seen if the console will be like N64 or GameCube. You don’t see that much third party support in the games out there, but they’ve still got a large selection of games.
The attach rate for the games is low? The attach rate for the PS3 games is that much better?
By that, Nintendo should have released 6 games on launch and slowly let the other ones out over the course of the next few months?
Every Wii owner I know plays the Wii many times a week, some don’t even use their 360 anymore. So it works both way.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Tom,
I hope you’re not saying that you can’t even discuss the quality of the story in a game without being labeled a fanboy.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:39 am
“The attach rate for the games is low? The attach rate for the PS3 games is that much better?”
Well, now, that’s Sony’s problem too, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter how neat “Home” is if they don’t have any games to play for it, right?
Microsoft hasn’t been perfect, but they’ve done a ton of things right, and when they do something wrong, they try their best to fix it. The MVP program they have (consultation by hardcore gamers and fans) should be duplicated by every company wanting to toss its hat in the console ring.
This whole thing is starting to bore me - you guys can discuss this amongst yourselves. I’m moving on.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
[...] system isn’t just a novelty toy (or a “piece of crap” as has been stated by some developers.) Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
March 18th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
[...] Is Nintendo being lazy, economical, or just dealing with a machine that’s comprised of two GameCubes and duct tape? Comment away. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
[...] many may argue that the Nintendo Wii is just a peripheralized version of the Gamecube (or two Gamecubes duct taped together) it was only a matter of time before we started to see some cheesy cash-ins for the Wii, as well as [...]