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Nintendo Let Down
By Corvus | April 13, 2007
As you’ve no doubt read already, the final Wii browser was released this week. It has better zoom features, multi-cursor support, an auto-hiding taskbar, built in search feature, and… I don’t know, some other cool things too probably.
What it does not have is the one feature I feel it must have if Nintendo wants to stay relevant as the foremost innovative game console — a Flash 9 client.
As I’m not actively pursuing the release of a Flash version of AddiCube anymore, it doesn’t have as great an impact on me as it once would have, but it’s still a disappointment. My first disappointment with the Wii, actually. Now that’s due mostly to my low expectations of the Virtual Console downloads and antipathy for the weather and news channels I’m sure, but this is truly the first official release for the Wii which I’ve felt a bit of let-down over.
I know! They could make it up to me by giving me a DS Demo Channel by the end of the month! If that Paper Mario screenshot, which seems to promise DS connectivity, floating around is real (link), the system update which preceded the browser update may just contain some more goodies for us…
Here’s hoping!
Tagged:Games. |
April 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Well I don’t know what it means, but I can say that the screenshot is real — just saw it in-game yesterday. Here’s hopin’ for the cool things being on the way.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Just out of curiousity, why abandon Flash 9 for Addicube? We shifted to Unity for Cuttlecandy about a month ago, getting us out of months of development hell trying to get it to perform in Flash 8. If you can get it to work in Flash 9 though, it seems like a great way to go. Otherwise, I’d recommend Unity, it can do cross-platform browser-embedding with the caveat of a low penetration plug-in.
Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about Wii. What’s going to happen is the rapid diversification of the web-game playing audience will field a competetive advantage over Nintendo will they will eventually rise to meet. They are, however, enjoying really nice profit margins in the more conventional console space, which compared to the web-space is like earth compared to jupiter, but they’ll be investing in space exploration - as it were - when the ROI becomes ripe enough.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Though I’d add: the only advantage the Wii remote holds over the Mouse, from an interface design perspective, is the Roll axis. That and four other buttons, but whatever. You can do alot with that added axis of control, but by the time the market premium’s for interface design, and indeed experience has risen to demand that level of control, Wii will already have a Flash client. I’m talking 2010 at the earliest.
April 15th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Well I’ve used the device in mention… and it didn’t do anything much other than add recipes to my collection. I think they were just being clever by using the DS as an in-game computer… bah.