Because by now we've all read enough Umbrella Chronicles updates to last us at least the next couple days, here's a great interview from Spong with Yasuhiro Wada, creator of the Harvest Moon series (a topic near and dear to my heart). He talks about his inspiration for the series-- it was Zelda that made him want to design games, and his own rural upbringing that inspired HM-- his take on violent games, and about the Nintendo DS and PSP (whose futuristic Harvest Moon game is a little bit Blade Runner, apparently).The most interesting part of the interview is Wada's posit that Wii's main competitor is neither of the other next-gen consoles, but in fact, the Nintendo DS. As an innovator on the traditional game experience, his point is a particularly salient one.
Wii Sports is the only current game that can't be played on any other console. And future games planned for the Wii show little deviation from this-- releases of games already being played by the rather specific DS market. Thinking about this, it's quite plausible to view the Wii-- from its play style to its fledgling library-- as a stationary DS. Why would players prefer to play Brain Training sitting in their living room as opposed to on their commute?
Nintendo once struggled in the console market because it couldn't compete with Playstation and XBox, and found its shine again once it embraced this fact. Wiimote is a neato newfangled gimmick, but I prefer my touch screen. Certainly it's early to make a definitive judgment on any console, but it'd definitely be wise for Nintendo to consider some alternative angles for Wii, lest it become another Gamecube-- cute, bright, tight, and pretty much nothing to play on it that you wouldn't rather play on something else.
