That’s your biggest takeaway from the Switch, not the fact that it’s a portable console with detachable controllers that can expand to your TV!? Or is that too integral and less of a gimmick…?
I’m wondering if a lot used it in minor ways so you forget easily. I remember Brawl would use it when you selected a character, but I may only be remembering because it was a meme on TikTok for a bit. I remember one microgame in Warioware using it when you answered a phone which was funny.
I remember hearing that red steel had a multiplayer mode where your objective was played out of the Wiimote’s speaker to keep it secret from other players
It makes me sad that so few games utilized the potential of the WiiU gamepad. There was this game called Zombie U that managed to really show how incredible it could be. There was a mode where players would be in a zombie wave survival arena except 1 player would instead be controlling the spawns via a map on the gamepad. They could see where the other players were, where the weak spots were, and had their own progression tree to unlock better zombies.
The problem with the Wii U is it wasn’t just another underpowered Nintendo console. It was an underpowered Nintendo console that games had to be completely different or specifically designed for to truly take advantage of.
Here’s my thing, so many Wii games that leaned too heavily into the Wiimote were annoying. I don’t necessarily believe games leaning more into the game pad would’ve made them enjoyable experiences. I think it’s just nostalgia. We remember things like Wii sports because it was fun and everyone had it, not because it used the Wiimotes.
disagree. the wiimote was on a different level altogether. with amazing response time and accuracy. and the great many games that did take good advantage of them.
i had hopes that the joycons would be a good replacement to finally bring back the fun physical element of old wii; since it came with sports and all that. but holy hell they are so bad. not only are they bad, the quality is shit. 16 years later everyone’s wii motes still work, joiycons tho? i’ve had to replace 4 so far and i’ve had the console for what, 2 years?
the joycon detachment is such a lie, they should have just bundled a standard controller and left the joycons permanently attached to all devices.
You’re joking, surely. While the analog stick drift is a huge problem in terms of quality, the motion controls are objectively better. Go play Mario Galaxy on the Wii and play it in 3d All Stars on Switch and tell me the Switch version isn’t better. The fact that you aren’t bound to pointing directly at the screen due to the motion bar thingy is huge. The sort of tilt assist aiming in games like BotW and TotK are worlds better than any point aiming mechanics from the Wii.
Nothing I’ve said before is about the life span of the parts. The analog sticks breaking on Joycons sucks and is awful, but don’t sit here and act like that makes the Wiimote better. Motion controls on Switch are so much better than Wii.
thanks for the recommendation. my teenage son is obsessed with the Wii U, he asked for one for Christmas two years ago. neither of us had heard of this game though! i picked it up for 16 on amazon just now.
The Famicom had a modem with online shopping and horse race gambling. It also had a floppy disk module with a ram adapter that also added an extra audio channel. Zelda 1 and 2 debuted on this. It also had 3D goggles, the predecessor to the Virtual Boy. It also had an entire keyboard that plugged in, and a cartridge packed with sprites, tiles, sound effects, and example code you could hack up and save to another add-on: a cassette tape recorder that saved your game projects encoded in audio.
The Super Famicom had a radio receiver that clicked onto the bottom that downloaded new games from space.
The Game Boy had an entire cartridge pin for audio passthrough so future tech built into cartridges could preprocess sound and send it straight to output.
The N64 also had a floppy-disk loading module.
The GameCube had a module that plays DMG, GBC, and GBA games (but more importantly turns the GameCube into an actual cube).
The ports were all on the same bus! You can send signals meant for any of the three of them into any of the three of them and it’ll work.
Well, the memory card slots and Serial Ports 1 and 2 anyway. The Game Boy Player connects via the parallel port.
The NES had an expansion port on the bottom.
The SNES also had an expansion port.
The virtual boy…existed.
The N64 had an expansion port, a ram upgrade, and a controller memory pack.
The gamecube had an expansion port, and a handle.
The Wiimote has a speaker inside, that only 1 game ever used (that I played).
The WiiU had the WiiU gamepad.
The Switch had the IR sensor, and HD rumble.
That’s your biggest takeaway from the Switch, not the fact that it’s a portable console with detachable controllers that can expand to your TV!? Or is that too integral and less of a gimmick…?
The things listed were the gimmicks announced but never used.
You must’ve only played 1 wii game because pretty much every game used that speaker
I’m wondering if a lot used it in minor ways so you forget easily. I remember Brawl would use it when you selected a character, but I may only be remembering because it was a meme on TikTok for a bit. I remember one microgame in Warioware using it when you answered a phone which was funny.
I remember hearing that red steel had a multiplayer mode where your objective was played out of the Wiimote’s speaker to keep it secret from other players
I used the N64 expansion port.
Rogue Squadron bundled it in, improved graphics and load time.
Made other games run faster too if I recall.
It makes me sad that so few games utilized the potential of the WiiU gamepad. There was this game called Zombie U that managed to really show how incredible it could be. There was a mode where players would be in a zombie wave survival arena except 1 player would instead be controlling the spawns via a map on the gamepad. They could see where the other players were, where the weak spots were, and had their own progression tree to unlock better zombies.
The problem with the Wii U is it wasn’t just another underpowered Nintendo console. It was an underpowered Nintendo console that games had to be completely different or specifically designed for to truly take advantage of.
Here’s my thing, so many Wii games that leaned too heavily into the Wiimote were annoying. I don’t necessarily believe games leaning more into the game pad would’ve made them enjoyable experiences. I think it’s just nostalgia. We remember things like Wii sports because it was fun and everyone had it, not because it used the Wiimotes.
disagree. the wiimote was on a different level altogether. with amazing response time and accuracy. and the great many games that did take good advantage of them.
i had hopes that the joycons would be a good replacement to finally bring back the fun physical element of old wii; since it came with sports and all that. but holy hell they are so bad. not only are they bad, the quality is shit. 16 years later everyone’s wii motes still work, joiycons tho? i’ve had to replace 4 so far and i’ve had the console for what, 2 years?
the joycon detachment is such a lie, they should have just bundled a standard controller and left the joycons permanently attached to all devices.
You’re joking, surely. While the analog stick drift is a huge problem in terms of quality, the motion controls are objectively better. Go play Mario Galaxy on the Wii and play it in 3d All Stars on Switch and tell me the Switch version isn’t better. The fact that you aren’t bound to pointing directly at the screen due to the motion bar thingy is huge. The sort of tilt assist aiming in games like BotW and TotK are worlds better than any point aiming mechanics from the Wii.
Nothing I’ve said before is about the life span of the parts. The analog sticks breaking on Joycons sucks and is awful, but don’t sit here and act like that makes the Wiimote better. Motion controls on Switch are so much better than Wii.
thanks for the recommendation. my teenage son is obsessed with the Wii U, he asked for one for Christmas two years ago. neither of us had heard of this game though! i picked it up for 16 on amazon just now.
The Famicom had a modem with online shopping and horse race gambling. It also had a floppy disk module with a ram adapter that also added an extra audio channel. Zelda 1 and 2 debuted on this. It also had 3D goggles, the predecessor to the Virtual Boy. It also had an entire keyboard that plugged in, and a cartridge packed with sprites, tiles, sound effects, and example code you could hack up and save to another add-on: a cassette tape recorder that saved your game projects encoded in audio.
The Super Famicom had a radio receiver that clicked onto the bottom that downloaded new games from space.
The Game Boy had an entire cartridge pin for audio passthrough so future tech built into cartridges could preprocess sound and send it straight to output.
The N64 also had a floppy-disk loading module.
The GameCube had a module that plays DMG, GBC, and GBA games (but more importantly turns the GameCube into an actual cube).
wow that is interesting as hell. would be fun to play with all that stuff!
There’s still time!
Three ports, actually. One for network, one for the GBA player, and one that wasn’t used as far as I can recall.
Not totally useless!
The ports were all on the same bus! You can send signals meant for any of the three of them into any of the three of them and it’ll work.
Well, the memory card slots and Serial Ports 1 and 2 anyway. The Game Boy Player connects via the parallel port.
https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/gamecube/
At least half of those were definitely used.
Crusty wiimote sounds are a staple
Don’t forget the rumble packs. N64 had one, not sure if there were others.
Logitech had a rumble mouse. The only game I know used it was black & white
I loved Black & White! Always tried to play benevolently, but with enough frustration I ended up razing everything