Five Reasons I'm Not Buying a Wii

by RPG Site Staff on 25 September, 2006

Sure, the Wii looks like it'll be the run away winner of the Next-Gen consoles; with Microsoft selling a total of around 3 Xbox 360s in Japan and Sony making you choose between it's latest console and your first car. Despite all this, I won't be helping Nintendo win this battle.

So with my unending ingenuity (almost paralleling Sony with their stunning announcement of naming their new console the PlayStation 3...genius), I made a list of why I shall not buy a Wii.

5. I never want to have this conversation:
Friend: What are you doing?
Kevin: I'm going to go get a Wii.
Friend: You mean you're going to go take a wee?
Kevin: No. Get.
Friend: So'you like to be urinated on now?

Ok, so maybe it wouldn't happen exactly like that, but in all seriousness it just doesn't have the same vibe to it as the others. I think I've said more than a few times "Hey, you want to come over, play some PS2?" and I just don't like the sound of it if I have Wii in there instead, and I know many who feel the same.

4. Nintendo.
If I don't buy one I'm not jumping on the Wii bandwagon. Nintendo has always had a large number of "fanboys" surrounding them, and it's just tiring. Brand loyalty with Nintendo is almost equivalent to religion. People who (virtually) baselessly defend something as vehemently as the Wii has been defended in these past few months are annoying. Plain and simple; it irritates me. Just because you love something doesn't mean everyone has to. And feel free to call me any of the consortium of insults I shall undoubtedly be called for my opinion. I would be surprised if some of them created a proper response to this article.

To be fair, this doesn't simply apply to Nintendo of course - it is quickly becoming a cornerstone of the gaming industry, with Zelda, Final Fantasy, Halo, and Metal Gear not even having to put out a quality game to sell millions of copies. Nintendo don't have the best track record in recent years, with their last two home consoles essentially proving to be a failure, despite having some of the best if not the best games of that generation on them - which is even more worrying. I just wonder if Nintendo are better with handhelds and have lost their touch with home consoles. I'm not a fanboy - they'll need to prove it to me before I buy a Wii. This just adds an extra little reason why I'm not buying the Wii.

3. Graphics.
I've always thought of graphics as an overemphasized part of gaming; yeah it's nice when everything's life-like, but it's not something that makes or breaks game. Recently though, my opinion has been changing: if I couldn't see Yuna's expression, see her tears fall into the Macalania Spring, would I even remember that scene?

Nice graphics in Twilight Princess, but nothing spectacular.

And so much to my own dismay, I have decided graphics are important to me, and the Wii won't be excelling in this field. I've seen shots of Twilight Princess, and the graphics of the Wii are clearly nothing to scoff at, but the capabilities of the console do not match the 360 or PlayStation 3. If I want a truly immersive console experience in terms of what I'm looking at, I won't find it with the Wii.

An unimpressive frame from the newest Crystal Chronicles.

2. The Wiimote.
Yeah, you can make it sound like a good idea: it's a new design leading to a new way to play games, but really it should just be a small addition to some games. I wouldn't mind trying the Wii Remote out, it really does look like an interesting idea, but I don't want to be stuck holding onto a stick the whole time I'm playing. I like a nice sturdy controller to play with, one that I can grab a good hold of with both hands and that's comfortable to hold.
I've played a lot of NES in the past, you know the one with the controller that leaves your hands aching when you put it down; turn the Wii mote sideways and looks just like it, not too appealing to me. I don't want to have to ice my hands after I play a game for twenty minutes.

The catastrophe Nintendo's calling a controller.

"But it's motion sensing, so it's awesome!" right? The motion part of it is definitely cool - maybe for parties - but when I'm playing video games I'm lying in bed being almost as lazy as humanly possible. I DO NOT want to be working up a sweat when I'm playing a game. I do not want to have to be swinging the damn ergonomic disaster around my room to try and get Link to kill a Tektite.

1. Games.
What else could be number one?

I'm here writing this article for a site devoted to RPGs, so as you can guess, good RPGs is a console's selling point for me. So let's just go through what RPGs we know are going to be on the Wii......ok, well that was fun.

Honestly now, let's think about it: Zelda, a game that I'm sure will be magnificent and has the possibility of going down as the one of the greatest games of all time. This is a game I would like to play, but although we do cover it here at RPGSite, it isn't a true RPG (in my closed, self-righteous mind at least). So yes, I'm sure it will be a great game, but for it's not and one that I would enjoy, but I love RPGs and to me Zelda isn't an RPG.

There'll also been Fire Emblem, Pokemon and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers on the RPG front.... but Crystal Chronicles was in my opinion the worst installment of Final Fantasy in the last 19 years. A game I think will be mediocre at best is certainly not going to make me run out and buy its console.

RPGs were common on the PS2. Hopefully they will be for the PS3.

Next we have Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors which, from what I've heard, will be ruined my the Wii Remote. Again it comes back to me lying in bed and being lazy. There are going to maybe 1000 battles in the game (and I think that's a very steep underestimate), and for everyone of those battles I have to swing this remote around? Not my taste at least.

Harvest Moon, Fire Emblem, and Sword of Legendia may prove to be decent games, but I'm not banking a console on them.

Even if I don't look at the Wii from an RPG-lover perspective though, I still have trouble seeing why I, a 19 year old, would be scrambling for it. Much like the Game Cube the Wii appears to have a tendency towards younger gamers; Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Sonic and the Secret Rings, SpongeBob Squarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and the list just goes on and on. I'm not closed minded enough to think that there are no games being made for the older gamers: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent, Far Cry Vengeance to name a couple. RPGs aren't all I play, I do enjoy stealth games, but why go for Splinter Cell, when I could have Metal Gear? Far Cry looks enjoyable, but trumped by Halo.

Nintendo's showing for games looks wholly unimpressive and unappetizing to me.

Nintendo's hopes rest on these shoulders?

Now admittedly I wasn't all that serious through many of these points, but my last point is the key and why would I buy a system if it's not going to have any games I want? The answer of course, is simple: I wouldn't, and I won't. You may have noticed I over-used the word "but" and that's the whole point; sure the Wii isn't terrible by any means, BUT there it never really seems to excel either. It doesn't seem like it's made for somebody like me. The Wii may truly blow Sony and Microsoft away, but it won't be any thanks to me.