WhyGamesMatter

So I was sitting in my favorite online community’s IRC channel watching the E3 coverage, and I saw the presentation on the Wii-U. I’ve been excited about the thought of using asynchronous information in a game for a long time, and I think this might be our first glimpse of the future of gaming.

As I thought about it, the first thing that came to my mind was sports games. It is now very easy to secretly select your plays on a game like Madden, or to have the HUD of EAsports NHL games off of the screen and onto the controller.

While thinking about that possibility, I realized that it would be possible to remove the HUD from ALL games and move them to the controllers. Imagine if you could play through a game using the regular game control scheme on the controller, but the wives of players that like to watch the games could watch them like a film on the main screen.

I noticed a lot of skepticism among my friends and fellow IRC chatters. The best argument that I have heard against the WiiU is a technological one: everything you are doing with the WiiU controller, you could do with the PS3 and a Vita. That might be true, but my response to that is generally “sure they can, but will they?” Nintendo is once again trying to innovate in an industry that yearns for innovation. Whether they succeed or fail, I can appreciate that they are trying.

And that’s why I will likely purchase a WiiU at launch, regardless of what they think.

Today’s images shows the constructions of card castles. This is a long, arduous task, but if the builder is steady and patient, an amazing product emerges.

You may remember my post last month about how game delays make me really happy. When a game is released, nobody remembers how many times it was delayed or if it was delivered on time. The ONLY thing that matters is the quality of the game.

So when I read recently that The Last Guardian would only ship “when absolutely ready,” I got really happy.

If you aren’t aware of this game, I suggest you look at the following trailer.

If it is anything like its predecessors (Ico and Shadow of the Colossus), it’s going to be amazing.