Wow! We have a Wii, and Wii have a problem

12/27/2006

I was not planning on putting a game console in our house. Even with all their computing power, no game console can match my souped up development machine. However, the Wii is nothing short of a marvel and a must have even for non gamers.

Wowii!

In recent months we've seen a lot of excitement around the release of the XBox 360 and Playstation 3. If you are a hardcore gamer and especially if you do not want to muck with a PC and monitor, fine game consoles they are. But really if one looks at it, they are just up to date Atari 2600's. Sure the games are flashier and much more realistic, but the human interface is still the joystick. And certainly the joystick has been improved, its not a stick that merely senses eight directions and only has one button. But the console is still just a fancy joystick. Want to swordfight? Well remember to press button 6. Shoot a gun? Well first use one of the directional controllers to point, then remember quick to push button 4. And bowling? Well kind of aim that guy using the joystick... well you get the idea. Its having a single interface for all your daily routines. Imagine if airplanes, cars, radios and even your bathtub used a single universal controller. Would be pretty frustrating would it not?

Wii fixes this problem using their new motion sensitive controller. When I first saw demos and videos, it looked interesting. Interesting enough in fact to buy one for home use. I expected it to be a short lived novelty that would probably wear off. However using the Wii controller is nothing short of amazing, games are so much more intuitive. You simply do not have to think as much about HOW to do what you want and can simply focus on what you want. Want to swing the sword? No problem, swing the controller. Same for fishing, or bowling. Shoot a gun? Point and shoot. Watching people use it is not enough, you really do have to try it for yourself. I wonder how long it will remain Wii only, and I have to wonder can such a controller be made and plugged into an XBox 360 or a Playstation 3? If not will we see it in the next XBox or Playstation?

Returning to Computers

Even if you do not care about games. Try a Wii. Then think about the software you use or develop on your computer. Or think about your TV, DVD and so on. Would it not be so much more intuitive if we could just point at menus instead of using funky buttons to move around? Not to mention the vibration and sound feedback of the Wii controller. What about a universal controller for your home system with a central controller that feeds into all devices? Now that would be cool.

But there are some Wii problems

The Wii hardware is amazing. However the online services and some of the software really needs some work. It is always frustrating to encounter such problems, but when coupled with something so amazing like the Wii hardware, it really is a downright tragedy.

WiFi

The Wii has WiFi, but if your WAP has the default settings there is a good chance you cannot connect it, and the Wii error messages are messages like "Wii error 51330". The Nintendo forums are full of people with answers like "Reconfigure your WAP to be on channel 1". In this day and age, getting on WiFi should not be this difficult especially in consumer devices.

Getting Online

If you buy a Wii in Europe, only about 6 countries are supported, even though Wii is sold in all the other countries. So take a Wii home and dare set your country? Not if you want to get things like weather. But it is not clear that setting your country is the problem. I set my Wii to Cyprus and tried to connect. It kept telling me "This service is not currently available." Only after changing it to United Kingdom can I access the weather. And now I can see Cyprus weather but only by scrolling and moving the globe as my home city is London. Is it really so hard to allow users to set a position on the globe as home? And I still cannot connect to WiiStore, it says "Please wait", even though I let it wait 12+ hours. And when I do get there, must I now have a credit card with a UK address? Some say its legal mumbo jumbo, I don't buy it. The EU is a common market its just as easy to do business in all 25 EU member states as it is in all 50 US states, maybe easier because the EU does not have regulation happy California to deal with.

Nintendo Website

What a horrid and frustrating turd of logic Nintendo website is! So much so, one begins to think it may have been purposefully designed so. The natural path would be to go to Nintendo.com for new users? Right? After all Nintendo makes the Wii, and when you go to Nintendo.com there is a lot of information on the Wii. But nearly everything on the site requires you to register.

So because of this, everyone else is rejected? Why was this not stated up front? Why are users required to proceed partially through the sign up process before being told it is only for the US and Canada? Would it be too hard to tell this to users up front? Or here is an imaginative idea, check the users IP and if it is not in the US display a very big and prominent warning first. Even if the IP is external do not prevent them from proceeding, after all IP's change and people do travel. But it does not stop there, even after a user gets this far they have to click the link to find out the details in a pop up window.

To make matters worse, to fully activate your warranty you have to register. Now how does this leave customers feeling?

Nintendo Europe?

Oh sure, if you search around you will eventually find Nintendo-Europe.com. But from Nintendo.com even after users are "beaten down" no mention or offer to direct users towards Nintendo Europe ever emerges. It is like they are two islands, and everyone should just automatically know that Nintendo.com is not a global site, but for Americans and Canadians only. So after finding Nintendo-Europe, one would hope that at least Europeans would be well served? Nope!

So here is this confusing dialog. So if you are not in the UK or Ireland, select the controls above. But on the very same page below are the following countries:

Are you confused yet? And what about the other EU countries? There are currently 25 EU member states. I did not check the US site, I wonder if small states like Rhode Island and Delaware are missing?

And outside of America, Canada, and Europe?

I cannot even begin to imagine the user experience outside of the "supported" areas. It is amazing how well the Wii hardware is, yet Nintendo cannot get the basics of customer support and service right.

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