Thursday, August 14, 2008

Fad boss says the Sega is not a Wii

In preparation to the arrival of MadWorld on the Wii, Simon Jeffery (SoA boss) decided to go shake some coconut tree at Edge (ex Next Generation), with the following trumpeting announcement (which we all knew about):

The Wii is a very cost effective platform to experiment with. There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general.
If it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent.

Hey! Nice PR Simon.
I still find a lot of irony in that, considering the junk Sega has released over the last years.
I’m still not sold on the new Sonic Unleashed, called Sonic World Adventure in Japan. Huh, the more distant from the USA, the more sissy the name.

The Wii is a great opportunity for hitting hardcore gamers. No one is doing that.
With MadWorld from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii gamers want to move on to mature games.
They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that.

Well, for the moment, yes, they do. That or the PS3.
What we see is, after all, Nintendo remembering that they still were there to sell the Wii and its rubbish platform balances because of legions of faithful fans.
I'd also question what's mature about slicing limbs and choppin' heads off...

“The Wii is just a fad” argument [is] very much disproven.

This only because of Nintendo’s knee jerking move which surprised everybody, although I think they were just pushing the inevitable, even after those repeated claims that the hardcore segment were to be dismissed.
Remember, the casual audience was clearly not going to support the console beyond more gimmicky additions. They’d be actually very shocked that their little posh universe would be raped by the inroad of such heretic violence on their own sacred lands:

It seems a shame that the game's manufacturer have decided to exclusively release this game on the Wii. I believe it will spoil the family fun image of the Wii.

The image indeed.

It's basically all they care about. That's the core of the buzz, it's about "mii too" demeanour.

They want to entertain that idea that they're not old but current, that they're playing video games too, they even have bet on the most successful console, which loves them (and their money) in return, a machine for a civilized age, gratifying their assumed flair and even their imagined superiority to gamers who still live in a metaphorical cave, clutched to primitive and violent steam machines, and this makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it's superficial to the highest degree.

But the realities of business come. Pride is hurt.

The masquerade is over, for there will be blood on the hands of Wii owners.

No comments: