Wii Predictions for 2008
--A.D. Olson, January 2nd, 2008
The Wii has had a tremendous first year, and with 2008 now the present, I figured it's about time that I lay out my thoughts as to where the Wii is going to end up twelve more months down the road. Note that I have no insider knowledge, not even a rep at Nintendo or any other publisher at this time, and therefore, this is all just guessing and wishful thinking on my part.
Without further ado, here are the ten Wiisels.com predictions for the Wii console, in no particular order.
1. Nintendo will revive the Kid Icarus franchise.
I've already made it known that I want to see this happen. I can't see any of the other big franchises making a second appearance this early on in the console's life, and Nintendo really doesn't have many unannounced big guns to fire. Kid Icarus is a fair bet, and we want to see it happen. Hopefully they take the Twilight Princess style and apply it to Pit, make him older, call it simply Icarus... Or maybe it won't star Pit, seeing as how he died at the end of the Kid Icarus sequel that was released on the GameBoy, in its four shades of creamy spinach glory.
2. Nintendo will announce the next North American EarthBound game.
The Wii is a console where dreams really do come true - Sonic and Mario appear in a game together for the first time, a sequel to the Saturn hit NiGHTS finally materializes, and now, a new Earthbound game - or maybe finally Mother 3.
3. Nintendo will release a headset for online communication.
This is a no-brainer, and it's definitely going to happen. It's a matter of time, and there is almost a full year left for Nintendo to pull one out of their hat. If I can't chat to my friends while playing Madden NFL 09* on my Wii, then Nintendo's online service is doomed. (* - I don't really play Madden, I'm just saying, it'll be out this year.)
4. Nintendo will provide some kind of storage solution.
Anyone who has a lust for old-school gaming has surely, by now, filled their Wii's memory completely full of retro gaming goodness. It's true that the Wii has a lonely 512MB of flash to store data on, however, only half of this is actually available to you for storing your downloads and saved game data. The other half may be used for the operating system, message board messages and pictures, or perhaps it's simply locked. The latter would allow Nintendo to unlock it with a simple firmware update, effectively doubling the storage space of the Wii at no cost to them or the user (not unlike what Sony did with the PSP's CPU speed). The former, however, would press Nintendo into allowing launching from SD cards (PSP can do this with Memory Sticks, with much larger game sizes), or to providing a USB-based storage solution, either USB Mass Storage support or a proprietary hard drive addon. I'm pulling for SD cards because they are now extremely cheap and many people previously owned or bought one specifically for the Wii, only to find out that they are nearly useless (Excite Truck and Endless Ocean being the exceptions). The least ideal solution is a proprietary hard drive addon, as I'm sure Nintendo will overprice it, and developers won't ever take advantage of it due to the small market penetration (outside of WiiWare). Either way, we're going to get a firmware update out of the deal, and something has to happen before or soon after WiiWare launches, especially when games that could be fully-fledged releases, like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers' replacement, The Little King and the Promised Land, will be appearing as download-only games. Yes, there is supposed to be a limit of 40MB per WiiWare title, but even if Square-Enix manages to obey that restriction, the 256MB of internal storage won't hold more than a half-dozen WiiWare titles of that size.
5. EA will announce Rock Band 2, and Wii will be supported.
Sure, Wii isn't good enough for the first Rock Band, if recent statements do hold true, and Wii owners everywhere are a little ticked at getting the shaft. However, they will be much more than forgiving when they absolutely eat up the hype for the sequel, to be announced next year. I don't forget, and EA has a lot to make up for in my eyes. Personally, I'm sick of the Wii getting shafted when even the PS2 gets games like this, and Wii don't (see what I did there?).
6. Wii Fit will have medium sales, and Balance Board will lack future support.
Like the GameCube's broadband adapter and unlike the Wii Zapper, the Balance Board will see only a small, small number of applications, as developers will effectively waste money developing for a peripheral that collects dust in few homes and on many store shelves. The Wii Zapper has been supported by only a few games so far, but it's definitely caught on because it's cheap to buy, easy to code controls for, and it doesn't make or break gameplay at all. Conversely, the Balance Board can't exactly be replicated by the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, as they behave totally differently. The few games that do support the Board will offer alternate (and likely better) control schemes, so as to attempt to not lose sales due to Balance Board exclusivity. I could be totally wrong about this, because with the abysmal sales of great games like Metroid Prime 3 and Zack and Wiki in North America, compared to the undeserved success of Mario Party 8 and Carnival Games, it's really difficult to predict what the [very curious] Wii owners will do. But, in my opinion, immersion isn't even a factor here - there aren't many things you do in real life standing still or just leaning side-to-side. If we can't have a basketball game where you have to actually dribble the ball or get fouled for travelling, then why do we need a game where you play a cashier at 7-11 where you actually have to stand all day? Doing pushups isn't fun without the balance board, and I highly doubt that seeing an untextured figure replicating my up pushing on my television screen will suddenly make them exciting and fun. I'm hoping the Balance Board goes the way of the Power Glove. It's just not needed.
7. Nintendo will release the Everyone's Nintendo Channel in North America.
I'm just trying to get my correct predictions percentage up with this one! Actually, I hope that will not be the final name. It'd be really silly for them to name something the "Nintendo Channel for People With Brown Hair and Blue Eyes" - really, who else is the channel going to be for, if not for Everyone? Just call it the My Nintendo Channel. I want it for me, not for everyone else. I use my Wii, not everyone. Me. Mine. My.
8. Macromedia will update their embedded Flash player.
If you're like me, you're pretty annoyed at the Internet Channel's ability to play recent Flash content. It seriously limits the casual usefulness of the browser, which I believe was the intent. Although I use it a ton, I think most people don't really touch it since most multimedia won't play. Macromedia is the cause here, and they are also the solution. With any luck, they'll get off their laurels and update their software so that the ever-expanding embedded browsing world can play with the rest of the Net.
9. Wii sales will remain strong and continue in first place.
Most people can't say that they predicted the Wii would sell out for six months straight, nevermind the better part of thirteen months. Myself, I thought that it'd be hard to find for at least six months, and that's why I was seventh in line on launch day, and waited for the better part of seventeen hours. Anyone who REALLY wanted a Wii that badly had already put the money aside months earlier, and made it a point to be there on launch day. The people who showed up late to the party had nobody to blame but themselves. All that to say, I told you so... I did see many Wiis lining shelves in July, but they were starting to go by August. I think this year will be more of the same, but with even more of a lull in the summer, in certain areas. However, I think that the PS3 will come close to catching up with the 360, which seems to have stagnated slightly, and possibly passing it if Home launches as well as Little Big Planet. Wii software sales should improve substantially for third-party software, and as higher-quality games get put onto shelves, we should see many more third-party million-sellers added to the currently-short list. By the year's end, Wii should be sitting pretty with approximately 40 thousand units sold.
10. Wii will finally get an exclusive RTS game, and it won't suck.
And by RTS I don't mean some cutesy Pikmin-like kiddy game. I mean a real RTS, with guns or swords or something of the sort. It will prove the Wii to be the console with the most workable control scheme for both FPS games and RTS games. Goblin Commander is the only decent console RTS I can think of, so I'd love to see a Goblin Commander 2 for the Wii, exclusive or not, so long as they work the controls properly. It's obvious that there is a huge void here, in this genre, and the first publisher to fill it will reap the benefits - just so long as it's not pitting you against hordes of Ninajbread Men.
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A.D.