The Wii Learning Curve - Nintendo Exec on Wii Remote

With the Wii, Nintendo is clearly going after different segment of the market. In fact, Nintendo is making it no secret that it is trying to reach outside the market to capture non-gamers. Part of its ‘mainstreaming’ strategy is in the Wii controller(s) with its unconventional but very involving integration with games. At a recent event in New York, several people were observed to pick up the Wii remote only to find that they didn’t know what to do with it.

“Once you get it in your hands, it starts coming pretty naturally, I think. In fairness, that’s why we didn’t have more [PR] folks there with each game trying to walk people through it,” said Nintendo of America executive Reggie Fils-Aime in an AOL Games interview. “Part of our own learning is observing, watching how people adjust. How do they learn to use the control scheme? And how do we take some of that learning and … share it with consumers when they buy it.”

Daily Tech - The Wii Learning Curve

Back to the Wii remote — who in their right mind will really want to wave their arms around for five hours at a time?

Let’s take ‘Wii Tennis.’ If you want, you can play ‘Wii Tennis’ with those big old strokes, like we did up on stage at E3 this year. Or, you can sit down and play it with these short little movements, with your hands resting on your knees, like I’m doing here [mimics holding invisible controller on knees in front of him]. And it works just fine. Same with ‘Metroid Prime 3.’ I find that really natural. Or with the ‘Zelda’ game, with the swinging sword? It’s all just a little motion. It doesn’t have to be these big, extreme swings.

And I do think that what consumers are going to find is that there will be some games where they’re really going to want to exaggerate, and there are going to be some games where things are going to be more subtle. It may, in fact, be the same game, but it might depend on where you are from a level standpoint in the game.

AOL Games - Interview with Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime