Uh oh. Did you feel that? It was Nintendo's shudder when they realized that they might not have the upper hand anymore. The Wii Motion Plus, what once seemed like another nail in Microsoft and Sony's coffin, now looks like one of Nintendo's old forays into forgettable peripherals. Motion controllers are old tech now and the other two guys might of caught up in an overzealous leap.
Don't get me wrong here. Nintendo isn't crashing and burning right now. But now they are playing defense to justify themselves. Unfortunately it's not coming off very well. Nintendo definitely had us drinking their Kool-aid for sure. People were storming stores looking for plastic wheels, boards with pressurized feet, and analog sticks with an accelerometer in them. In the wake of Project Natal (Microsoft's motion tech) and whatever Sony's will be named motion tech, this makes all of Nintendo's efforts either look very archaic or very childish. Did I mention expensive? No one really knows what the price will be for Natal and PS3's tech but, there were some clues dropped for anybody who wants to pay attention. They did say that Natal was going to be packaged in with 360 units. That can't be said yet with Motion Plus and at 25 bucks a pop you just paid 100 bucks to get everybody on your system up to date. Not to mention the 3 other Wiimotes you bought to get everybody to play. $220 now if you are keeping score. How many Natals do you need to have 4 people play? One. Now you have a place with a bunch of white plastic laying around.
Yet you are going to have the forum dwellers post with all their exquisite apathy and shrug. Looking cooler than ever before. They will say that Nintendo's works just fine and it's good enough for them. Or that Natal and Sony's tech isn't that great. What was Nintendo's new tech? The heart monitor. That will definitely see as much use as the Wiispeak. Maybe it'll be easy to point out how horrible the presentation was for Natal and laugh. Yet I suppose everybody is easy to forget about last years Wii Music and Ravi Drums. You could say Natal-station3(whatever) won't work as advertised. Fair enough I say. I am not holding my breath for being able to show my girlfriends new dresses they should buy and have an online fashion party. But people are playing it and their impressions are way more positive than I thought were going to be.
In the end maybe this the best thing for Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and all of us. Competition will spur more innovation. Maybe it'll spur better use of motion controls in actual games. Whatever it is, it will definitely be a unique time to be a gamer. Less party games though. Oh god the party games.
Oh and what the fuck is up with that Milo? Peter, seriously?
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