Media Law Post #5
Ryan Smith
For my technology I'll be teaching about in my post, I wanted to talk about something that almost everyone if not everyone in the class has used, but may not know the history of or the inner workings of, that being the Nintendo Wii. The motion controller that gave the Wii its name did not have its origin in gaming, but instead in aeronautics. The technology was first developed by a company named Gyration, and was only pitched for gaming 2 decades after its creation. Funnily enough, just like Blockbuster refusing to buy out Netflix and later regretting that decision, the exact same situation happened when it came to the Wii. Tom Quinn, Gyration's CEO, pitched his technology to Steve Balmer, Microsoft's CEO at the time and he loved the idea, but the Xbox team felt the exact opposite, and the opportunity was lost for Microsoft. After the unsuccessful pitch to Xbox, Quinn pitched his technology to Sony, which had the same outcome. The Playstation team were also not fans of his idea, which only left Nintendo to pitch to. Thankfully for him, Nintendo did partner with him for their next console, which they named the Wii, and ironically, the Wii outsold both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 because of its unique technology. Unlike Netflix, which was rejected by one company to partner with only for them to regret it when being eclipsed in popularity, Gyration was rejected by two, and who knows, maybe if Microsoft or Sony ended up partnering with them instead of Nintendo, it would have sold less in the end.
Funnily enough, despite the fact that the company that partnered with Nintendo to make the Wii was called "Gyration", the Wii Remote did not include a gyroscope inside at first, only an accelerometer. This meant that the Wii could tell if you were swinging the remote, but not in which direction. This was okay for games like Wii Tennis where all you had to do was swing the remote, but it was restrictive for developers that wanted to create experiences where you had to swing the remote in a certain way. It wasn't until 3 years after the launch of the Wii that the Wii Motion Plus accessory was released to be added to the Wii Remote adding a gyroscope to the controller for more accurate motion. This led to games being developed for the more accurate updated controller like Wii Sports Resort and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
In a similar fashion, despite the Wii's controller being called the "Wii Remote" (unofficially dubbed as "Wiimote" by fans), it cannot be used as a remote control for TV, but its successor, the Wii U Gamepad can be used as a TV Remote.
Pictured: Wii U Gamepad being used as a TV Remote (Image credit to nsidr.com)
Using a hacked Wii though, you can play DVDs with the Wii. Although nowadays this isn't helpful at all on the account that DVDs have been replaced by Blu-Rays and then streaming, not to mention that the Wii is a standard definition machine, but at the time this was a neat perk since hacking a Wii was and still is very easy.
The Wii accomplished a ton during its time. It revolutionized the gaming industry by popularizing motion controls in video games, which is fitting since the codename for the Wii was the Revolution, as well as making casual gaming as big as it is today. Neither of those two concepts would be as big as they are now if it were not for the Wii, and we can still see remnants of the Wii in Nintendo's newest console, the Switch. It's unknown what Nintendo's future in hardware is going to be, but they've always been known for innovation, for better or for worse. I'm sure whatever they come up with next for their next console is going to be something none of us could've seen coming.
Sources:
Nintendo Wii - Did You Know Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VUu5NTKFIU
Wii Secrets and Censorship - Did You Know Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T8WK8QbNQk
Comments
Post a Comment