Design By Tim

Matt wrote a response to his recent post on frustration he has with the button layout of the GameCube controller when playing Super Mario World on the Wii.

Not too long ago I wrote a post on this blog titled WTF Nintendo?. In it I expressed my frustration toward the button layout on the GameCube controller when playing Super Mario World on the Wii. There were many similar postings on various forums, so I felt justified in my position. I knew that a single post on a no-name blog wasn’t going to do anything so I turned my blog post into a letter; Presented in a slightly more diplomatic fashion of course. I mailed it out the next day but really never expected a response.

Apparently, the great Nintendo must have head his pleas for redemption of a sorted issue. They tracked him down at his home with a phone call (gotta love the Internet). Please note he used snail mail to make them aware of this troubling feature abuse. Using the following points they explained the reasoning behind the layout of the controller etc…

• Not much QA is done on Virtual Console games, after all these games were well tested 15+ years ago. They just make sure the game runs and send it out.
• If you compare the button letters of a GameCube controller to a Super Nintendo controller you can see that they match up perfectly. It’s the GameCube button layout that’s messed up.
• Nintendo does not have a mechanism in place to “recall” a VC game.
• Nintendo designed the Classic Controller for the virtual console and thus it is the preferred method of input. (read “Cough up the cash, that’s what we made that classic controller for.”)
• Nintendo reps have no fore-knowledge of upcoming VC games (I had to ask about Pilotwings).

Even after sending him a free classic controller to enjoy the Nintendo freedom. It hasn’t swayed his opinion of the pricyness of hotness, yet has really sucked him in as a big N evanglist to the new classic controller.

This is a great segway into my complaint over Wii Strikers and online play. I love the game - it can easily be the best game since the console game out (in my mind it easily rivals Wii Sports, Tiger Woods, and Excite Truck). There have been many hours of tears, sore fingers and wrists and spilt drinks over jubilation.

However, thankfully they included that wrist strap on the controllers because I do not know how many times I have cursed the day when playing online that the connection drops. I (almost*) know it’s not my side of the connection, because I have run speed tests before and after playing when the connection will drop and there is no change in the speed. So either it’s Nintendo’s servers, or the other players - I find it odd that other players would be so routine to drop off.

What I find strange as well as when I first got the game - online play was crisp (albeit connection drops weren’t a problem then either). Now when I can log in - game play freezes and stutters. What’s with this? Granted I use the notorious *Comcast at home for the connection and with the recent debacle over traffic shaping it really wouldn’t surprise me if the Wii has been mistaken for something that they would shape.

So Nintendo - I know this lame - but I challenge you to find me and surprise me with some token of your affection seeing as how I must be your greatest evangelist (at least in Richmond Va - there I gave you a hint to find me). I need this fixed - because without confidence in online play with Strikers why should the future online games be any better. Wake up folks if the 360 and ps3 can have it - it has to be available for the Wii. The experience is what it’s all about and in my opinion the experience without online play severely limits the future of this as a legitimate big player in the console arena.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 7:03 am and is filed under Branding, Business, Rant, Usability.