I got to play some Nintendo Wii this weekend for only the second time ever. My friend brought it over to another friend's house, and we played for hours. I can't get enough of it.
We played Wii Sports, which includes tennis, boxing, golf, bowling, and baseball. All from one controller a little bigger than the size of my hand, I can play all of these different games, going through the real motions necessary to play the games "in person", or "the old way."
The Wii is going to change what video gamers will expect from video games in the future. We can now actually play a sport on a video game and use the same muscles that we would if we were playing in real life. In a few years, gamers will not be satisfied with playing a game where you only press buttons and watch a representation of yourself act out your command. Soon they will demand that they be able to act out every motion themselves.
This leads me to ask how the Wii will be used in the future. Will trainers and youth coaches start telling the parents of the 8-year-old kids on the team to "go home and practice your swing on your Wii for an hour before you go to bed tonight?"
The other major observation I had from playing the Wii and watching my friends compete against each other: We created ourselves in the game. We weren't picking current stars of professional sports and "controlling" them in our game. We all made "Mii's", which are characters that you get to customize that look as much like yourself as you want. Then we competed by controlling an onscreen likeness of ourselves.
This leads me to ask: Will the idolization of sports stars start to be less important, and instead an emphasis on our own sports accomplishments be more sought after? If I can control a likeness of myself and play a game of baseball, will I start to care less about Ken Griffey Jr. or Frank Thomas? Will I only see them as inspiration to practice my swing until I'm as good as them, instead of just wanting to "control" them in my game?
Obviously, only time will tell. But after playing the Wii, I'm optimistic for my future children when it comes to their video game consumption.
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2 comments:
Hey Frank,
I've only had the opportunity to play Wii once but I loved it and am now feverishly searching for one of my own. I think its particularly great for women since we hardly ever have any characters in video games to work with. Unless you count Dead or Alive where every female character wears thongs. I think the Mii revolution democratizes gaming by literally showing that ANYONE can play and not the elite few.
-Kristin
Kristin,
That's a great point about female gamers. There really aren't that many characters in games that are "normal" females that aren't in the game just for the male gamer's pleasure.
I've always wanted to know if there are sports video games for women that are equivalent to the men's games. For example, is there a WNBA video game like the multiple NBA games? Also, are there any college sports video games for women that would be equivalent to NCAA Football 2007 for men?
Finally, your comment made me think about the idea of coed sports and whether that will be more common in the future. In Wii Sports right now, there are men and women on the same team. Will this lead to more coed adult rec sports leagues in 10 years? More equal numbers of men and women on company softball teams?
Who knows, but really interesting. Thanks for posting.
-Frank
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