The Mini Wii is Dumb

I wish we lived in a world where I could sit down and say "The Mini Wii is dumb" and list off its features and have the collective read it and go "Oh yeah, that is kind of dumb" without going into detail.  Because it would be so easy and this really doesn't need the kind of elaboration that I'll have to put into this post.  It is honestly baffling that this thing exists and I really don't think there's a way to actually hand-wave it whatsoever.  Don't get me wrong, it -will- be, and when pressed, such arguments will go nowhere and fast, but the important thing to realize is that there is really just no leg here to stand on.  Even from an unbiased stance, which I am clearly not unbiased, but I can see things as such, there are some major issues here and it's less about what it is than what it honestly could mean, or be implied.  If taken as a statement, which everything that isn't Nintendo yet is released to people who play games is apparently a statement of intent, then this is just yet another moment of Nintendo waving their arms frantically with no clear direction.

The easiest place to start is with the feature list of the Mini Wii so that whatever I say afterwards is in context and not me just blah blahing about how terrible shit is.  (Shit is terrible.)  As you can tell, the Mini Wii is...well, smaller.  The exact size, I don't know, but the already smaller Wii (at least, I think the latest Non-BC models were smaller) is now even smaller and I can't help but look at the picture above and suspect it's around the size of a PS3 Game Case, though perhaps a little thicker.  I'm probably way off, but the Wii is already small, so imagine that smaller and you're good to go.  Everything else, aside, it -does- look pretty neat, but I'm a sucker for Black and Red, so that would be the reason why for that.  It seems like the power and eject(?) buttons are the only buttons it has and I can't help but think that it opens from the top.  I could look it up, but honestly, it doesn't matter a whit, as that's all purely cosmetic and that really doesn't determine whether a thing is dumb or not.

Now, being as small as it is, you're probably wondering how it has the stuff that the Wii itself has, like USB Ports, a Wi-Fi receiver (but no ethernet port because whyyyyyyy), storage and the like, and if you weren't, you probably are now.  It's a valid thing to wonder about, and absolutely none of that is known to the public because why would we need to know that when it comes out in two weeks, except the whole Wi-Fi situation.  You see, the Mini Wii cannot connect to the internet.  At all.  For any reason.  Reasons that are emblazoned on Nintendo's Official Wii Page.  Reasons like....online multi-player (like with Animal Crossing:  City Folk that came bundled with Wii Speak so you could talk to your friends while you played Animal Crossing online) or watching Netflix or similar services (which is currently being touted....what, everywhere?) or even buying/downloading Virtual Console games.  You know, the games from the past that are apparently the golden days of gaming and everything was sugar and rainbows and Nintendo games were so good we have so much nostalgia for them to this day?  The games people got really excited to be able to play again in an entirely legal way?  Yeah.  Those games.  Not on the Mini Wii.

So, alright, that's....that's fine, I guess, because it's probably really cheap, right?  Right?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, because the Wii is pretty cheap already so long as you're not buying all sorts of goddamn accessories for it that are vital for only one game here and there, but no, because it's $99.  Now, I was under the impression that the Wii itself, like the (new) basic one that you can go out anywhere and buy one of because everybody wanted one for a while there but not so much anymore, was selling for $99.  I was....not wrong, but the thing is, you cannot find just a Wii by itself for sale first-hand.  Every Wii for sale out there is bundled with at least a game for around $120-$130.  So take out the cost of the game, and you're basically looking at $99 for the starter kit for the Wii which is exactly what's bundled with the Mini Wii.  A Sensor Bar (which isn't optional), a Wiimote Plus (as in a Wii Remote that has Motion+ built into it already for all of five games that support it without paying the extra $20) and a Nunchuck, plus the cables that are standard which you kind of have to include unless it's the 3DS XL in places that aren't America which means that I guess they are not standard to Nintendo.

Oh, and it can't play GameCube games.  But that's not new.  You....you knew about that, right?  That Wiis made in the last year or so don't have GC backwards compatibility.  Because they don't.  I wasn't sure if you heard.  BC is kind of a sticky point for people in other cases.  Apparently not with Nintendo, I guess, but I suppose this is just me being petty at this point.

If, for whatever reason, you really really want a Mini Wii because you hate Online things and don't currently own a Wii or something, then you'll have to wait until December 7th when it launches exclusively in Canada.  Oh, I didn't mention that?  Yeah, it's Canada exclusive through the 'holiday season', so you can't buy it anywhere else.  If you'd even want to.  I mean, personally, I think you'd be better off buying a Wii that is the same cost and has a game and can connect to the internet, or even a Wii U that plays Virtual Console games and won't upscale Wii games at all or anything and you still have to play them with the Wiimote, and possibly not play them online either?  Okay, so maybe you're just better off buying a regular Wii.  If you really really want to play Wii games with the firm knowledge that you can play it online if the game supports it (protip:  it probably won't), or you just want to jump on the Virtual Console and don't want to shell out for a Wii U, then there you go.  But I guess if you want to support Nintendo completely and totally giving the finger to Online after just releasing a system that is supposed to be super-duper online friendly and don't worry that that's really conflicting signals at all then, hey.  Go for it.

Okay, I'll Bite. The -Hell- is an Ouya?

I mean, yes, I understand what the Ouya is, and I understand the concept behind it and all of that, but it still manages to confound me on several basic levels as I look at it.  So perhaps it's less a question of 'what is' the Ouya and moreso 'why is the Ouya a thing'?  It is apparently a pretty common question, and I would suggest that it's not one born of ignorance or anything like that.  Rather, I don't think it's an inherently negative thing to question this thing, since all of these gaming devices invariably get questioned by the dumbest people for the stupidest reasons anyway as is.  I qualify this, of course, because the people that believe in this thing, believe in it hard, as these types of things tend to draw, so questioning it doesn't generally end well.  At least, a little less well than questioning something like the Wii or the Vita or the like would go.  Since those types of things aren't exactly as 'new' as the Ouya, and thus have been around such scrutiny for much much longer than this.

So, for the uninformed, of which I imagine there might be several of you, my question of "What is the Ouya" might be your own.  Essentially, the Ouya is a $99 Gaming Console that will cater specifically to games on the Android marketplace, serving as a hub to bring those games from your phone to your television.  Yes those games that are always featured so prominently as "Also on the Android Marketplace" (after the iTunes App Store) that sell for peanuts since they don't have to go through any real certifications or the like (ESRB and the equivalent ratings, mostly) are going to be playable on your TV through this box.  I say "Are going to be" instead of "would be", because this thing is going to be a thing, barring some patent infringement injunctions or the like.  Thanks to Kickstarter, the thing raised $1 Million in a single day, which completely funded it, as the goal was $950,000 over the course of 30 days.  So, it's well over that and there's....still 29 days left.  And people will throw absurd amounts of money at this thing regardless, since the minimum backing (of $99) nets them a console and controller, meaning they'll be able to get it and...uh...play...things on it.

So, using basic math to get rough numbers, since the actual Kickstarter page is going to be a hotbed of action for a week still, let's point out a few things.  As I said, minimum backing (just looked at the Kickstarter, and there's a few pledge tiers below that.) bare minimum to get the Ouya is $95 (Well, technically, the $95 pledge limit has been reached, leaving only the $99), so let's just make that a nice, even happy $100.  Take the fact that pretty much by the time that Joystiq article went live, they already breached the million mark into account.  Just roughing the numbers up a little, that's ~10,000 people interested enough in the device to throw down money for it's eventual maybe release on the very first day such a thing is possible.  I think the actual numbers were something around 8,000 people, since there are several levels of pledges, of course, but like I said, the Kickstarter page will be wild for a time yet and any numbers I give you here have no chance of being anywhere near 'up-to-date', so I'm not going to bother a whole lot.  So let's just run with what I said and say that 10,000 people want to buy this thing, or more importantly at this juncture, simply want this thing to exist.  And the question I have for these people specifically is the one I posed earlier:  "Why?"

I have a few theories, of course, which are the only things I can come up with to really justify the existence of the thing.  Obviously the first and easiest bullet point for this to make is the idea that the full console experience is simply $99 upfront, wherein thereafter you can theoretically enjoy the thing without adding in another cent.  This is because the developers of Ouya ask (read:  Will probably make it mandatory) that everybody who supports the device offer at least -some level- of free gaming, whether it be a trial version and/or a demo, or simply making their game free-to-play with micro-transactions.  Which of course right there means that every Android game out there already will not be compatible with the Ouya by default.  If the controller didn't make that obvious enough, at least.  Of course, this kind of relies on the hope that the people who work on this thing won't be jerks and only make demos of their games to put in the bare minimum in an attempt for the max level of profit that could be wrung from an indie game (which varies from none at all to astronomical amounts, apparently).  I mean, I'm not saying that I expect that to happen, I'm just saying that when it comes to going the extra mile, I can't really name a lot of developers that are willing to do it.

Honestly, pretty much the only other reason is because I imagine a lot of people will see it as 'legitimizing' mobile gaming if there's this console directly related to the games for it.  Since you're not going to see traditional 'console' games (Beyond those that have been ported to Android/iTunes for a quick buck, but shut up that's not indie maaaan) on this thing, but simply games that have been specifically designed for....well, I guess not specifically the mobile scene anymore.  I guess it's more a creature of circumstance, since it's a console specifically built for indie designers, who have simply taken to the mobile scene for the ease of use and development when compared to actual consoles.  And PC, apparently.  Not quite sure how that works, but there you go.  Regardless, that's really what I think this whole project is, less about pushing the Android platform and more about simply giving Indie developers a console since apparently there's no place for Indie Developers in modern gaming.  Not like XBox Live Indie Games, Playstation Pub Fund or, you know, PC Gaming exists or anything.

Anyways, something I had been wondering about, which the Kickstarter page sort of tentatively confirmed for me is whether or not the Ouya itself would be a development platform or simply a box that plays games.  It seems that it's the former, thankfully, which makes a -ton- of sense, so that is something entirely in its favor as well.  While I'm a bit wary about the possibility of games being made 'only' for the Ouya (from people who want to take advantage of the controller rather than the full touchscreen interface) I admit that it's not a terribly bad option if the games themselves are worth it.  That's sort of where Indie Gaming as a whole proves to help and defeat itself at the same time, I think.  For every Minecraft and every Breath of Death VII, you get poorly slapped together clones of other games and games like Alphachimp by the barrelful simply because it's just as easy as coming up with some sort of idea and knowing just enough coding to slide by with the barest of essentials.  Because it's so easy, everyone can do it, but because it's so easy everyone can do it.  I hope the italics sort of helped deliver the underlying message there.

Still, with the launch of the Ouya not happening til March 2013 at the earliest (barring some legal issues or such as I mentioned before.  Personally, looking at the Ouya dashboard makes me think of the 360's, but I'm not sure if that's accurate.), there's still plenty of time for the plot to thicken.  As it's a console where things must be developed -for- it within the rather lax guidelines provided, it's going to have to find some support, and I'm not sure there's a whole lot of it out there.  At least, not in the terms of people who want to develop for something specifically assuming there are people who have spent $99 on this device who are also going to be willing to play your game.  As with most consoles, we could probably see the rather easy porting of existing games (but will companies like Squeenix and EA who have mobile games out there support it?) but if people are as consistent as they've proved to be, there will be no end of the bitching until fresh new things come out of it.  So maybe we'll see something of a renaissance of new innovation come out of this.  Or...maybe everyone will just forget about it come March.  I probably will.