Is Nintendo Overdoing the Peripheral Thing?

When the Nintendo Wii was offically revealed to the world, it was met with quite the mixed reaction. Some people thought that the motion-sensing control scheme was innovative. Others thought that the Wii Remote and Nunchuk were terribly gimmicky, saying that while people would have fun with the system initially, they would ultimately abandon it for “real games” when the novelty factor wore off.

In a sense, you could say that both parties were right. I don’t play Wii Sports anymore, but I still believe that the gesture-based controls were pretty cool at the time. They’re still pretty cool as Nintendo (and third party developers) continue to develop new ways to make use of Wii controls. At the same time, the novelty factor has worn off.

So, what does Nintendo do? Introduce more novelty, of course. You can’t fully appreciate certain shooter games without the Wii Zapper and you don’t get the real Mario Kart Wii experience without the Wii Wheel. At the E3 press conference, Nintendo introduced us to even more peripherals, not to mention the guitars and instruments involved in games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

I understand that novelty sells, but is Nintendo overdoing the peripheral thing? How many accessories is too many? Are they selling new control schemes rather than interesting games?

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