Just what the world needs - another middle-aged financial journalist undergoing a 'Wii-piphany'. But Jeffrey O'Brien of Fortune Magazine does at least provide a long and detailed look at Nintendo's business practise in this excitable Wii story, which begins with the journalist playing Wii boxing with Miyamoto.
To start with it blasts us with the familiar 'Wii is amazing because anyone can play - ha ha it's showing Sony and Microsoft a thing or two' schtick. I'm so tired of this. It's like Singstar, Dance Dance Revolution and, for heavens sake, the whole PC casual gaming phenomenon never happened. It seems there are a lot of people who are scared and confused by where games are going - Wii is a comforting reposte. A re-direction along accessible lines.
Nowhere does O'Brien address the key issue of software availability. What are we meant to do between the big in-house releases? Of course, that's not a problem to Nintendo, because its business model is built to survive on two or three software sales per year, per customer. Is this the golden future we are all meant to be looking forward too? Wii is an astonishing concept - so clever and so brave of Nintendo. It is so much fun. But it cannot be the only way.
