Monday Night Musings: Re-inventing The Wheel
With Mario Kart Wii only a week away from releasing here in the States, and already released in most of the rest of the world, soon many Wii owners will be tightly gripping the new Wii Wheel. The Wheel itself has received mixed reviews, and some even view it as just an advertising ploy; however, this add-on peripheral bundling is not a new incident. In fact, I can remember things like this ever since R.O.B. was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System (and yes anyone with more knowledge can feel free to school me by pointing out something even older, I'm sure there is plenty). So the art of extraneous peripherals is by no means a new fad; nevertheless, it seems like it is happening more and more in the past few years. We have the Wii Wheel, Wii Zapper, Playstation Eye, and some might even argue the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 (sorry bad joke). Add to that the addition of motion controls to controllers (and the rumors of future ones to come) and it seems like more and more accessory 'stuff' is due to hit the market. So why the sudden influx of extras? It's not like they are inventing the wheel with any of these items? Any ideas?
Feel free to view my thoughts on the topic after the jump.
As for my take on the issue, I feel like it's a matter of economics and marketing. First, as sales in the past year can attest to, the gaming population is steadily increasing in all parts of the world. With a larger audience comes a larger gaming palate to satisfy. And simple macro-economics would say where there is high demand, it is profitable for supply to follow. As with any growing media, the larger it becomes, the more segmented the genres within it become; Granted, these peripherals are not a "sub-culture" in and of themselves, but many of the games they support are niche genres. At the same time, there's the marketing side of things, nifty add-ons can spark consumer interest and are tidy small sum costs they can extract for people willing to pay it. Hell, the free-to-play MMOs are almost built around this idea.
Overall, I find it an interesting trend and would like to see where it leads us. I just hope it's not the poor house.
PixelPoet
Posted to Miscellany on 21 April 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: monday night musings, playstation eye, wii wheel, wii zapper
Name: Dave
I love my Wii, I really do (and I'm not ashamed to be one of "those guys") but I shudder to think of the cardboard box I'll be pulling out of my closet in 2 or 3 years. A tangled mess of nunchuck wires, classic controllers, wheels, balance boards, guitar controllers, plastic gun-esque shells, Gamecube controllers, etc. I'm 100% into what Nintendo's doing this generation, but I wonder when it's going to be too much...and where the hell I'm going to put it all.
I agree with what you're saying Pixel, but on the other hand... I love the extras!
I bought a Wii wheel for Excite Truck, I'll have another with Mario Kart, I've got a PS3 Eye (for Eye of Judgment!), and I'm sure in the life cycle of the Wii I will accumulate many others.
I didn't buy a zapper though, so I think that is an indicator that I can tell when a product is crap and when it is worthwhile.