The Race is Over (Before it Even Began)

I’m sure most of you remember one of the great advertising wars of our generation. The battle for dominance in the American brewing industry has had many incarnations, perhaps none of which were as memorable as the one started by Miller with their “President of Beers” campaign. The timing was right (the months leading up to the U.S. Presidential Election), the character was well chosen (the other, non-David Cross guy from ‘Mr. Show’, who also gives a masterful performance as the marriage counselor in ‘Arrested Development’, Season 1), and the script was great.

An unveiled jab at Budweiser’s “The King of Beer” moniker and image, the Miller campaign had many highlights. Shots ranged from the opening ad’s line, “I guess they never got the memo. America is a DEMOCRACY, break it down: ‘Demo… cracy’!”, to the not-so-veiled jabs at George W.’s occasional mixing of words when the President of Beers candidate declares Bud’s actions a “Traveshamockery”. This campaign made it impossible for even the most ardent Budweiser fan to hold back a snicker or two.

And then came the response. First of all, Budweiser routinely blows away all competition with their advertising. Whether it’s the Super Bowl or just run-of-the-mill prime-time programming, their presences is always felt, and their ads are almost always good. Because of this picking a fight with the Budweiser advertising agency probably wasn’t such a good idea (and possible a little bit of a desperate move by Miller). Especially considering the fact that they forgot to take into account one little detail.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the race for President of Beers has come to an abrupt end,” declared the Budweiser Donkey (his introduction to the Budweiser family was another great ad in a string of successful animal promoters). He goes on to describe his discussion with the Budweiser Clydesdales, where he learned that Miller had recently been purchased by South African Breweries. This, of course, makes them ineligible to become President of Beers. And as if these ads weren’t enough, Miller weakly filed a lawsuit against Budweiser, further incriminating themselves as the losers, in a campaign war they themselves had started.

The reason I bring this up is simple. Another race has “come to an abrupt end”. The race to be king (or President, if you will) of the next-generation home video gaming consoles. As you might remember, I wrote an article laying out the race for you all several months back, and I’m not only standing by my predictions that Nintendo’s newly re-christened “Wii” (formerly the ‘Revolution’) will change gaming as we know it, but is going to win the race for dominance in this generation of console gaming.

Why should we care that Nintendo will be the winner, and why are you so confident about this fact, you may ask? First of all, we should care because, well, Nintendo are the good guys. They all but invented video gaming, and they’ve also been the driving force behind innovation for over 20 years. Not only that, Microsoft and Sony (like their fathers before them, aka Sega and Turbo Graphics), are the bad guys. And by that I mean, they just jumped on the bandwagon and hoped that copying and maybe slightly improving things with their system, they could make some extra money. Never mind that in the cases of Sony and Microsoft their strategy basically is limited to using the raw power of resources at their disposal (read: lots and lots of money) to kill all competition: whether they make a profit right now or not. They’re the Wal-Mart of the gaming world: you get in the store, and it’s a nice easy shopping experience, but deep down you know you’re selling your soul (and the souls of every local small business) to save a few bucks. We all do it, but when/if we ever get to the point where money is no longer the only object, we start shopping at Target again…

And secondly, to answer why I am so confident Nintendo will come out on top. Anyone who was at, has read about, or watched any footage from the recent E3 convention must, at the very least, admit that it could turn out that way. Nintendo blew away the competition at E3. Their lines were backed up for as much as 4 hours wait time! They had more games to play than anyone thought possible, considering how short a time it’s been since they finally gave developers a kit to start programming for the new system (although some were merely demos to help people understand and get used to the controller, there were 27 playable games in all). From the latest Zelda game where you can use your off-hand to smash enemies in the mouth with your shield while swinging your sword (as well as literally pulling back the bow-string while aiming a deadly arrow), to ‘Excite Truck’ (sound familiar to the myriad of ‘Excite Bike’ fans out there?), where you hold the controller sideways in both ands and merely manipulate it in space to change directions and set your car up for a smooth landing after a larger-than-life jump, this system will be not only fun, but intuitive to play.

Another reason I’m so confident goes back to the Miller vs. Bud analogy. After the ads proclaiming Miller’s ineligibility for the “race”, Miller weakly filed a lawsuit (and lost). Sony has done the equivalent, by adding “tilt” functionality to their controller at the last minute. It’s clearly a last-ditch effort to damper some of the effect of Nintendo’s unveiling of their gyroscope controller several months back Before you even think this means they’re going to be able to offer the same game play, hold your collective Clydesdale horses. This is NOT the same as what the Nintendo “Wii-mote” has to offer.

First of all, the Sony controller only offers 6 direction tilting (forward-backward, left-right, and up-down). This is fine and dandy for some things (like flight similar, such as the game ‘Warhawk’ which Sony demoed this feature on), but does not offer near the same game-play options as the Wii’s control. Not only can the Wii-mote sense complete three-dimensional movement (different than tilting in that the system can sense when the controller actually moves in each direction, as well as when it tilts), allowing for complex functional activities such as swinging a tennis racquet, a golf club, or slicing with a sword). On top of that, the analog attachment, which can be plugged into the controller (this one is dubbed the “Nunchuk”) to provide for more game-play elements (allowing movement of a character while aiming with the Wii-mote, for instance), also has motion sensing capabilities. This allows for very integrated game play such as the Zelda example used earlier where the player controls movement with the left (nunchak) hand, while aiming or swinging with the right hand, while also performing accessory movements like blocking or hitting people with the shield.

The third and final reason I’m confident enough to guarantee Nintendo’s success is the price-point. The system is expected to debut at around $200, or possibly even less. The PS3, on the other hand, is expected to debut at a price similar to the XBox 360, or between $400-$600. This not only gives Nintendo a distinct advantage for people in the market for one gaming system, but (and possibly more importantly) opens it up to be everybody’s second favorite. Now I’m not saying this is Nintendo’s goal, or what will happen. I’m simply pointing out that anyone in the market to own two systems is more likely to buy the Nintendo Wii as one of those systems for the more diverse games it will bring to the table, as well as the fact that buying not one, but two $600 systems would be more than a little bit cost prohibitive (Pictured above and left, 'Red Steel').

So are you ready for a Revolution? As soon as I heard that ‘Zelda: Twilight Princess’ would be launched simultaneously on the Gamecube and Wii (of course with much added functionality on the Wii) as a launch-day title, I made up my mind that I will pre-order. Call me a Nintendo junkie, call me a blind follower, call me whatever you want. But I’m excited, and I think you gamers everywhere should be too!