Is the Wii U hardcore... - shadthedad's Blog

shadthedad's Blog

Is the Wii U hardcore...

Posted on November 13, 2012 at 09:46 AM.

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Our lives have morphed into one of extreme multi-tasking. If you're watching television...you are also on your Facebook page checking status updates. Listening to music...well you are probably surfing the Internet too. It is only logical that over time our technology began to mimic such changes in the way we go about executing various tasks throughout our lives.

What the Wii U is attempting to do is quite ambitious to video gaming, and Nintendo may be the only gaming company who's capable of intuitively fabricating this together; they are about to put multi-tasking into mainstream video gaming! Promoted as a new way to game and centered around the buzzword asymmetrical game play---from a single player-gaming experience, asymmetrical gameplay allows you to do several things at once giving the gamer more control over the experience. If you are the privileged few who game on high-end, PC, gaming rigs you have been asymmetrically gaming for years and are fully aware of this potentially, new, trend in video gaming.

NINTENDO'S GAME PLAN

Similar to Nintendo making gaming accessible to non-gamers through the original Wii and it's motion controller, they will now make hardcore gaming (a gaming style which requires multi-tasking/asymmetrical gameplay) accessible to gamers who game in front of their television rather than the personal computer. Yes, it is ground breaking to allow gamers to game on the touchscreen Gamepad without monopolizing the television. Cute, Mii-verse is charming with oodles of potential, but the disruptive innovation is found in the Wii U's tablet controller through the graduation of generations of gamers from simplistic and outdated controls of gaming found in Xbox 360/PS3 controllers--and to a larger extent...the Wii Remote; into more submersible levels of gaming which most hardcore/PC gamers experience. This may be the primary reasoning behind Mii-Verse. Right or wrong, PC gamers have gotten the stigma of being anti-social and irresponsibly obsessed with their video gaming compared to their console counterparts. This phenomenon may be due to the level of immersion which multi-tasked (through more control) gaming provides. So if you tie a level of social empathy into every Wii U sold (Mii-verse) it allows gamers to still be extremely core about their gaming lifestyle without jeopardizing their relationships outside of the video gaming experience.

HISTORY IN GAMING

In 1977, Atari released the 2600 video game console. Popular at the time, it was extremely easy to use due to the simplistic design of its controller. The Atari 2600 joystick had only one, single, button! The Atari 2600 went on to have solid success before flaming out while almost single handedly driving the video gaming industry into extinction until the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) rolled in to save the day with its new controller---centered around 8 touch-based buttons (Wii U Gamepad) rather than a joystick (wii remote). True, playing the NES controller was awkward at first and required constant and quick glances at the controller, but after mastery you were no longer looking down at the controller but looking up at the tv while maneuvering a little plumber on a mission to find his princess---and then you were hooked on video gaming!

November 18th marks an important date in video gaming history. The gaming and technological world is taking note to see if Nintendo can pull it off. The stage is set, bets are placed, and the gamers are thirsty; only one thing left to do... Prepare to game!