Wii owners "graduating" to Move

By Robert Purchese Published 15 September, 2010

Take-Two: Kids want "a true HD experience."

Take-Two big cheese Ben Feder believes kids, like his own, are ready to leave their Wiis behind - and PlayStation Move and Kinect are the perfect "bridge" into "a true HD experience".

"The PS3 with Move, in my view, is the Wii HD system," Feder shared at an investor conference in New York, attended by IGN. "Maybe mom isn't playing, but the kids are graduating, and Microsoft and Sony have both provided a bridge to bring them over."

"I do believe Nintendo did widen the audience," he added. "I can't tell you how many people are going to graduate, but I do believe [Nintendo] raised a generation of kids to play videogames that are now growing up and wanting a true HD experience."

Feder recounted how his own son received a Wii when he was nine years-old but is now - as a teenager - "too embarrassed" to invite his friends over to play it.

The Take-Two boss touched on numerous other areas during his talk. One noteworthy outburst was his declaration that "good games don't make it any more". "In fact," he elaborated, "good is the new bad; games have to be great, and there's no company like Take-Two to make the best games in the industry."

PlayStation Move arrives in shops this Friday. Kinect arrives on 10th November.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • itamae #1 2 years ago

    "It's basically the Wii", says suit, to please investors.

  • Fab4 #2 2 years ago

    I call "Bullshit". Kids don't give a fuck about HD.

  • TonyHarrison #3 2 years ago

    I'm guessing his son turned into Kevin the teenager...

  • CrispyXUK64 #4 2 years ago

    Is he psychic?

  • callum9999 #5 2 years ago

    Fab4 - I think you'll find they do...

    Ask a bunch of school-age children/teenagers what console they have and the answer would usually be either PS3/Xbox as the Wii is seen as too childish. The only child I know how still likes their wii is a 5 year old...

    I know its not just because its HD but no self respecting teenager owns a Wii nowadays!
    Edited by callum9999 at 15/09/10 @ 15:54

  • ryandsimmons #6 2 years ago

    @Fab4

    Depends what you mean by kids. After 10 years old or so I'd say they do.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #7 2 years ago

    Perhaps, as a teenager, his son now wants to play Call of Duty or something from his stable, like Grand Theft Auto...?

  • kangarootoo #8 2 years ago

    @Fab4

    Wasn't his entire point that kids grow up, and when they grow up, they care about HD?

    Edit: I'm not saying he is right, but saying "kids don't care about HD" is missing the point, as nobody said they do.
    Edited by kangarootoo at 15/09/10 @ 15:56

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #9 2 years ago

    kinda agree fab, but the newer gen of gamers have been spoilt with flashy graphics over gameplay, 'it looks pritty' is their thing.

    That said I don't really see many 'kids' (ie parents) dropping a perfectly good Wii for another £300/£400 console to get the same experence in motion control, although Move has at least the edge with PS3's current games being patched over to at least allow a bigger selection of games other then the 'ripoff' Wii titles both the other formats offer..

    As I've said many times before unless they own the format already Move/Kenect will not be a day 1 purchase for parents who's children/families Sony and MS are trying to take from Nintendo, a controler isn't a console seller - the software is.
    Edited by Kremlik at 15/09/10 @ 15:58

  • drumbaby #10 2 years ago

    "...a controler isn't a console seller - the software is. "

    And yet the Wii sells ludicrous amounts?

  • Der_tolle_Emil #11 2 years ago

    I heard this one before. But appearently people cared more about the Wiimote than HD; So now that MS and Sony copied the Wiimote to remedy this situation they are back to "...but we've got HD!" argument?

    Let's see how it goes this time.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #12 2 years ago

    Peer pressure innit.

    Next he'll find out his son's got little Sally up the duff and will have to sell his PS Move to pay for his crack habit.

    /shakes head at society

  • CallousB #13 2 years ago

    "Ask a bunch of school-age children/teenagers what console they have and the answer would usually be either PS3/Xbox as the Wii is seen as too childish"

    Not surprising .... the gaming media and devs who bled money on the 360/PS3 have been doing their upmost to convince consumers of that for the last 4 years...so it was bound to happen eventually.
    Edited by CallousB at 15/09/10 @ 15:59

  • NimbusTLD #14 2 years ago

    Wait, your name is I Cheese??

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #15 2 years ago

    @drum- look at Wii's pricetag and then look at the NON-shovelware titles, thats why it sells, granted it has a skip and a half load of shovelware but it's core titles are soild.

    It's only a matter of time where the PS3 and 360 have the same - just look at their former formats... a shovelware fest is there as well, didn't stop the core games from making them shine out either, in fact it made them look FAR better becuase of it
    Edited by Kremlik at 15/09/10 @ 16:04

  • billy-beauts #16 2 years ago

    I just graduated myself, being a European kid. I can't tell you too much so far except the table tennis demo shows that there is quite a lot more to work with for developers than with the Wii. Should be a lot more than just waggle fests anyway.

  • sonicyoda #17 2 years ago

    I still like my Wii and I'm 22! It recently got fed Metroid Other M and the Prime Trilogy so it's a happy little machine at the moment!

  • spekkeh #18 2 years ago

    Ignatius-cheese's first post was spot-on. Of all the major franchises T2 owns (Bioshock, GTA etc.) only Manhunt was released for Wii, a long, long time ago. This seems more like wishful thinking than actual theory.

  • brseg #19 2 years ago

    Pachter said the same at his PAX panel last week. (Pach attack ). I'm not saying he's right, but he made a good case.

  • Fab4 #20 2 years ago

    My niece is just turning 13 and all her friends still enjoy the Wii.

    I'm guessing 'kids' equates to 'teenage boys'.

  • TonyCocaCola #21 2 years ago

    Hang on, hes the boss of Take 2 and his son only has a wii?

  • Toothball #22 2 years ago

    Teenagers get embarrassed about everything though. Parents, hair in unusual places, the opposite sex, wallpaper, you name it. Getting embarrassed about not having an HD console is just the latest in a near endless list of teenage woes.

  • I\'mListening #23 2 years ago

    I own a ps3 and 360 (used to have a wii) but I don't care all that much for HD - then again, I'm not a kid

  • rivuzu #24 2 years ago

    22 year old guy, I still play the Wii. Sorry, does that make me a child?
    Hardly f-ing think so.

    Consoles have their moments. With Wii, it was the first motion controller. 360 can probably be defined by Live and FPS's. PS3 would be the first Blu-Ray console (tbh, the only good thing I can think of about it right now).

    Just sick of the Sony Copyright Infringement machine they have running now. From their DualShock fiasco up until this Wii clone, they've done nothing but pinch ideas.

  • Dizzy #25 2 years ago

    Lol

  • Geordiemp #26 2 years ago

    ^^ who came up with motion control first ? Look it up, Big N were not so revolutionary as you think

    Who came to market first is a different answer....Big N

  • DefendoCroc #27 2 years ago

    I agree with Fab4 ... and to call total BS.
    Kids dont care about HD, but they probably do care about *good* games ... by simply copying a shitty Wii game and making it HD does not make it good ... Sony are just going to shovel out a bunch of HD wii rip-off games: result = fail.

    And yes we have a Wii in our house .. and i have kids .. and no we wont be upgrading our wii to a sony.
    Edited by DefendoCroc at 15/09/10 @ 16:50

  • el_pollo_diablo #28 2 years ago

    @rivuzu

    To be fair Windows borrowed hugely from other systems and the Kinect is essentially a pumped up eyetoy. I'm not saying Sony haven't nicked ideas (move is pretty blatant imho), but they're no worse than Microsoft in that respect.

  • INTELIGENCIA #29 2 years ago

    This is why I love Nintendo, making other companies jealous since 1985 lol. I'm 20 and I have a Wii and seriously I cba with any of the other systems besides the DS, and no I'm not a casual gamer.

  • Kervik #30 2 years ago

    Ask a bunch of school-age children/teenagers what console they have and the answer would usually be either PS3/Xbox as the Wii is seen as too childish. The only child I know how still likes their wii is a 5 year old.

    @Callum9999 - I'm 13 and use the PC, Wii and DS as my main consoles. Also have an N64 and Gameboy Micro. ;)

    In response to the article: the Wii's hardware is already powerful enough to satisfy my needs. Nintendo put too much money into advertising shovelware and other family-orientated games and not advertising games that will appeal to hardcore and casual (who don't want family games) gamers. There are loads of excellent games out for the Wii, and the console is competent enough to handle them well the fact is there are a ton of people who simply can't be arsed with hunting down Wii games with good reviews and thus lose interest quickly.

    Only people obsessed with graphics and who require good games to be marketed towards their audience specifically will throw money at these technologies. Nintendo did it first, slipped up on appealing to a massive audience and now MicroSoft and Sony are ripping them off -- it's not big deal that these will be playing video games in better resolution and with better textures details.

  • Sunworship #31 2 years ago

    They're not remotely the wii hd as they lack the most important component which wii launched with: Nintendo quality software.

    Sony may get to a high enough standard within a year or two as they've gone for a system that's easy to develop for, including retrofitting games. MS are looking pretty screwed.

  • Machiavellian #32 2 years ago

    Fab4 - I think you'll find they do...

    Ask a bunch of school-age children/teenagers what console they have and the answer would usually be either PS3/Xbox as the Wii is seen as too childish. The only child I know how still likes their wii is a 5 year old...


    Actually, from my experience, kids do not care about HD. In other words, they care what their friends are playing much more then they care about graphics. Case in point, my sons plays for hours on those horrible looking free to play games on the PC. He plays it because his friends play it all the while he has a 360, PS3, DS and Wii he can play at any time with games that totally blow away those free to play mmo.

  • Pikmins #33 2 years ago

    With shit like Carnival games from Take two , I believe that his son has had enough of playing shitty games coming out from his dad's company.

  • Osmond #34 2 years ago

    very true ive know a few kids who got a wii for xmas when they were 10 and now 2 to 3 years later they have a 360's. Although move/kinect wont sell like the WII , i do believe they will cut into nintendo's sales figures and prevent the wii market from growing to hit ps2 levels.

  • scouserfuller9 #35 2 years ago

    Well new kids are born everyday to get their hands on the Wii to take the place of those who have become teenagers and gone to the PS3 so I can only guess he's thinking humans will no longer be produced!?

  • geox30 #36 2 years ago

    I love my Wii also at 32!But I can relate to the teenage boys argument-boys,not girls,as mentioned correctly.Kids don't want to be kids,but when they are far gone from being a kid,they realise how much fun it was...

  • makeamazing #37 2 years ago

    There will obviously be people moving across no doubt... I think there are many reasons why kids want to play a different machine, mine started to play the PS3 when i purchased it and moved the wii to the corner of the house.. but my oldest would probably have played less Wii even if i hadnt moved it.

    The real reason he has probably said this, is that they are one of many publishers who have pretty much deserted the Wii and obviously would prefer people to upscale because it means more potential customers for them. I dont see a problem with this reasoning, (even if it is alittle bit of a sweeping statement). As someone else said, as some people grow too old for the Wii, some others will come along to replace them, so as this was a call to investors, i suspect this was their advising them that they are probably not going to do major development on the wii (except carnival games perhaps).

  • yagisencho #38 2 years ago

    It's true. I've been jonesing for HD Mario, Metroid, Zelda, et al since before the Wii arrived.

  • spookyzombie #39 2 years ago

    I think he's about right. I work in a games store and we're seeing more and more Wii's traded in by the week. Most of them exchange them for 360 Elites (preowned). Starting to have more preowned Wii's in than any other console in our stockroom

  • orangpelupa #40 2 years ago

    "Take-Two: Kids want "a true HD experience.""

    How about those statistic saying so many PS3 and xbox 360 still connected to SDTV (or to HDTV but using SD cables).

    maybe will differ from country to country, at least in my country, not many people can tell the difference between SD DVD to HD 720p. Between 60fps vs 30fps and so on. Even many of them still play PS2 and PS1 :D

    btw, i think those who played Wii, then "graduate" to Move is because the games. THere more serious "hard core" game in Move :) (the KZ, HR, etc)
    Although when tired, maybe they will still play Wii. (many stupid-short-fun game)

  • t8yman #41 2 years ago

    thats strange, because my kids still play ssbb, new super mario wii and mariokart more than ANY game in our house- and believe me - theres plenty of choice. my kids couldnt care less about HD - they want a game they understand, can play against friends, with a controller that they can handle. and for all my cynicism about the wii - it delivers on all of those fronts.

  • IronCladChicken #42 2 years ago

    @spookyzombie
    The Wii is still the best selling console... so that makes sense...
    Also, have there abeen any Video Games sites which didn't spend the first few years after launch belittling the Wii?
    Eurogamer seemed to take the Wii's release as a personal insult.

  • darth_paul #43 2 years ago

    @geox30
    lol... you're a wise man, my friend. 30 here, and it was way much better back then ;-)

    funny, im not going to buy Move. still enjoy playing on the wii. i must be crazy, of course :p
    Edited by darth_paul at 16/09/10 @ 12:05

  • VeggieWokker #44 2 years ago

    Just turned 24 and play my Wii almost every day. I'm impressed by the technology of the Move, but I wouldn't buy an expensive console, a new pair of controllers and a HDTV to "graduate". What keeps me loyal to Nintendo are the Marios, the Metroids (except Other M), the Zeldas and some third party games, not resolution or processing power.