Sega: Wii is most expensive board game on Earth
Stoking the “Wii is a fad” argument this time is Darren Williams of Sega, saying that the Nintendo console is something families will oly play at Christmas, but won’t touch again for the rest of the year. It’s become “the most expensive board game on Earth,” he says.
Stoking the “Wii is a fad” argument this time is Darren Williams, Sega A&R’s head of content. Hey, we haven’t had one of these in a while.
Williams believes that the Wii is a fad (sorta, inasmuch as a board game is a fad), and is also skeptical that the Wii may be the stepping stone for new gamers to move up to the big boys, the Xbox 360 and the PS3:
I think on one hand the Wii has become the most expensive board game on Earth.
It’s the kind of thing that families will play at Christmas, and probably won’t play again throughout the remainder of the year. So things like Wii Sports, Wii Fit to a certain extent, that’s great.
[…] So whether or not it will become an entry point to go onto different gaming, high-def gaming? […] The Wii is great fun because it’s a very physical machine. Any game that doesn’t take advantage of the Wii’s input methodology tends to be a little bit sneered upon.
[…] I think there’s a market on the Wii for different tastes of gaming. Whether then people will graduate upwards, that’s an open question. I’m skeptical about it, because I think what the Wii offers is a very physical, fun experience.
Simply put – the PS3 and 360 don’t offer the type of physical gaming the Wii does, so it’s unlikely that those who only got into gaming because of the Wii will step up to the HD level. Williams does, however, posits this thought:
It will be interesting to see what Nintendo does with the Wii 2 – how they choose to combat Sony and Microsoft, because they’ve obviously won through with the input methodology, but where do they go next? The fact that we don’t know, but Nintendo probably does, is why it’s the biggest company in Japan.
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