As always, I asked the staff of Nintendo World Report to respond to a question of my choosing. This week I asked them about the effect of the Wii's control scheme.

Question: "In a purely financial sense the Wii has been successful, but on its other goals (expanding the market and simplifying control) has it succeeded? Please cite examples."

Nick DiMola

The Wii has clearly been successful in expanding the market.

Given the success of games like Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Wii Music, Carnival Games, and others, it's evident that a new market is purchasing all of these games. Whether this market is retained and refocused on core titles remains to be seen, but this will be evident when titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii releases and the next generation eventually rolls around.

As for simplifying controls, I'd say in most cases where effort has been exerted, controls have seen significant simplification and improvement. In most cases where little to no effort has been put into the title, the result is a wagglefest where control is imprecise and oft frustrating. I'd like to say that Motion+ will improve this situation, but Motion+ compatibility won't implement itself. Until developers decide to refocus their effort on a quality play experience, they will continue to take the easy way out: waggle to win.

Jon Lindemann

The Wii was certainly expanded the market...for Nintendo's games. I don't think it's been as much of a buoy for the video game industry at large as many people believe. The Wii console went outside of the normal bounds of video games to reach people, instead of staying within the conventional bounds and drawing them in. It's like when an underground musician changes up their sound to appeal to the masses; that's essentially what Nintendo has done, and more power to them. I don't think most Wii owners are any more interested in video games now than they were before; they're interested in Wii Fit or Wii Sports, but not video games in general. The Wii is one of those rare products that has transcended its genre to become an iconic pop culture device, like the iPod. A lot of people have iPods, but just because they have one doesn't mean they're going to stop listening to Nickleback and start listening to hardcore underground punk.

What the Wii has done is raise the profile of video gaming in a positive way, which is never a bad thing. With the PS3 and 360 gaming was once again becoming a "niche" activity for 18-34-year-old males.

On the control side of things, Nintendo has presented a great control alternative, but it has not, and never will, supplant traditional controls. It's an excellent option for games that benefit from allowing the player to interactively swing an object or hit something, but it's not so great for games that require long play sessions or a lot of menu manipulation. What Nintendo has done is made motion control a standard control method, and pretty much created a new genre of games. It was hyperbolically oversold as being The Second Coming, but in reality it's simply another excellent way for players to interact with their games. It's not a new idea, but Nintendo made it viable and made it work.

Andy Goergen

I think they've certainly made gaming look easier from the outside looking in. Everyone who sees Wii Sports says "hey, I can do that", but Wii Sports is the exception and the only reason it looks simple to play is because the game is, in fact, simple. Every time I've put a group of people in front of a game like Wario Ware, the controls have gotten in the way. People don't understand why the game isn't responding to them, even though I've told them 7-8 times to stand further away from the TV and point at the sensor bar, not the TV. It has always created frustration.

In some ways, Nintendo has made things more complicated by taking predictability away from gaming control. Standard controls are more precise, and easier to achieve the same result over time. With motion controls, a whole new skill has had to be learned in order to get the game to do what you want it to do, and most of the time it is impossible to gauge how well the game is actually programmed because you have no idea if you're doing what the game really wants you to do.

On top of that, games which have simply mapped a control mechanic to "shake remote" have not been improved OR simplified. (I'm looking at you, Mario Galaxy. Twilight Princess, you too.)

So no, I don't think that they've achieved their goal of simplifying gaming controls, I just think they've made it LOOK that way to the onlookers who only see Wii Sports which can get away with it because it is a simplified game to start with.

Jon Lindemann

For a while now I've thought that the genius of the Wii is that it pulled in what I call the "Dave & Buster's" crowd. You know, those people that go to Dave & Buster's every few months to let their kids pew pew with House of the Dead and Dance Dance Revolution arcade cabinets. What Nintendo did was bring that experience home, attracting an entire audience that likes that experience but doesn't really like video games in general.

James Jones

Pew-Pew Jon? Really?

Are there any tangible examples of a game that has simpler control because of the remote?

My first thought is Excite Truck. I have set , who dislike the racing game experience, in front of Excite Truck and the knew "what to do." Not just that, they've enjoyed themselves.

Jon Lindemann

Yes, pew pew. Really.

Racing games certainly benefited from motion control as well. It's much easier to tell somebody to "hold the controller like a steering wheel and press A to accelerate" instead of "OK, it's the left analog stick to accelerate, X to brake, right analog stick for the camera, O to shift gears, press down on the right analog stick to check your rear-view mirror..."

Zach Miller

The damn "Blue Ocean" strategy certainly has opened the floodgates. My parents want to play Beatles Rock Band on the Wii now, and they both love Wii Sports. My in-laws loved Wii Sports Resort.

As for the [success of the] control scheme, it's a bit of a mixed bag. There's entirely too much waggle, but I think that the Wii Motion Plus will bring about a 2nd Coming in terms of interaction.

Pedro Hernandez

I think the Wii overall has been a great success. The controls have yet to reach full potential, sure, but I think they did a pretty good job of attracting people into gaming, because the idea was so novel. I think it has done an amazing job creating a new audience. While some may not see it, I think its a good thing. There's a positive audience because now whenever someone says that "Gaming if bad for you" we can say that people are losing weight with Wii Fit and families are bonding over games like Wii Sports. It might not be much but at the very least gaming isn't so stereotypical.

Jon Lindemann

I absolutely agree, Pedro. Nintendo has certainly gone to some lengths to lessen the negative stigma attached to video gaming in North America. I think they've also introduced motion control as a standard aspect of all consoles going forward, or rather, made motion-controlled software a standard video game "offering," if you will. But Nintendo innovating on the controller side of things is nothing new, since they've been doing it with every console since the NES.

Lukasz Balicki

I think that the Wii Remote helped many genres beyond racing games. A few genres that come to mind are point and click adventures, light gun games, and first person/third person shooters.

Point and Click games, before the Wii Remote, rarely existed on consoles. Those console titles had awkward and clunky controls; the genre usually stayed on PC because the controls were built with the computer mouse in mind. The Wii Remote IR pointer flawlessly emulates the PC mouse.

Ever since the advent of new TVs that doesn't use CRT technology (such as plasma, LCD, DLP) the light gun genre essentially died. Modern light gun games both in the arcade and on home console uses technology that is similar or exactly the same that is found on the Wii Remote IR and the Sensor Bar set up. While Wii is the home of light gun games in this generation, Namco Bandai released Time Crisis for the PS3. The funny thing is that the latest iteration of the Gun Con (Namco's line of light guns on PlayStation plaforms) uses sensors that you put on your TV with infrared emitters which is very similar to Wii's sensor bar.

First and Third person shoots with the Wii Remote allows better accuracy when compared to dual analog controllers. At times FPS games with a dual analog controller are clunky or cumbersome.

On the top of my mind, the only genre that was negatively impacted by the Wii Remote are fighting games. Practically all fighting games on Wii give an option to play those types of games with the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller.

Chuck Jose

To add onto the topic of simplified controls, I feel as if the Wii is only beginning to realize the true meaning of that.

All this time developers have been simplifying controls in a way so that the demographic can range down to a new born child shaking a rattle. Instead of a "wagglefest," as stated by Nick DiMola, Nintendo needs to continue to set the new direction of more intuitive controls. With the help of the Wii MotionPlus, games need to start having experiences that require no instructions and require more knowledge acquired in everyday life. Every person capable of motor skills can comprehend the action of picking flowers. So, until we see a game that doesn't require you to shake vigorously to [pick flowers] the Wii hasn't truly succeeded in simplifying controls.