The 10 Wii accessories Nintendo has to make...

Zeus and  Mithras! It's all happening again...

As someone who has owned every glorious generation of Nintendo's consoles, a horribly familiar wave of  doubt has just swept ashore. I now give it just six months (enough to get us past Christmas, at least) before you walk into a games store, look at the range of Wii titles on sale, and decide there is nothing of even fleeting interest. Wii Music? I can go to Don Quiote and buy a REAL saxophone for that money. Ooh! What's this? A slightly quirky sports game that makes the Wii remote behave like a tiddly wink flipper's delicate hand. Please.

The Wii may be wonderful, and it may have done marvellous things to further the cause of video games, but the cycle is starting to look distressingly predictable. Same with the N64, same with the GameCube. You get a brilliant Mario game, a brilliant Zelda, a brilliant unexpected hit (Goldeneye, Pikmin) a few Mario derivatives and then a string of disappointments you'll play for perhaps three hours at best.

And yesterday, Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo seemed to admit that the Wii was heading in that general direction. In a somewhat topsy-turvy interview that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, my friend Yukari Iwatani Kane managed to get Iwata to say the following: "Wii Music completes what Miyamoto wrote in his proposal when he came up for the idea for the Wii. He was saying that he needs to think up more ideas now."

Blimey. So arguably the most inventive brain in video games is struggling for ideas. Very good. Carry on..."Most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now. We might think up some more and we might make them if we do, but we don't have any plans to release a whole lot more."

Sell! Sell! Mayday!

But fear not, Nintendo. Urban Dirt is here with 10 helpful suggestions for new Wii accessories. Delightfully Japan-themed, but aimed at an international audience.

1) The Wii Kickback: a realistic plastic wallet filled with virtual Wii cash for bribes. With back-pocket quick-draw features and special under-the-table mode. For use with various titles including BentCop IV - escape from Azabu, and the industrial-themed title Didn't we need planning permission?

2) The Wii Destructo: a realistic plastic lump hammer of the sort currently being used to knock down 15,000 shoddily-built condominiums in Kanagawa. Features a "run silent" mode to ensure that the scandal doesn't make it into the Nikkei. For use with various titles including Yoshi's Negative Equity Island and Mickey Mouse's Tofu Cement Factory.

3) The Wii "King Elizabeth" Whisky: a realistic plastic bottle of C-grade Scotch cack-handedly crafted by an Asian distillery to look classy in a D-grade hostess bar. Be Yumi from Aomori or Dao-Ming from Hanzhong! Features voice-activated AutoGiggle function that responds to jokes by brain-dead clients. For use with various titles including Princess Peach's Sleaze Party and Economic Migration - Flight from Akita.

4) The Wii Bozo Bureaucrat's Stylus: a realistic plastic pen of the sort wielded by a superannuated, intellectual dwarf whose view of the world extends no further than the Doutor coffee shop at Kasumigaseki station. Works more or less like a normal pen, but massively and destructively over-responds to the slightest movement. For use with various titles including Love It? Ban It! and PaperShuffle III - The Road to Nowhere.

5) The Wii Prescripto-Pad: a realistic plastic doctor's prescription book just like a real Japanese doctor's! Features thousands of virtual pages - you just recklessly over-medicate and go! For use with various titles including A Pimple you say? Take these and these and these and these and these...

6) The Wii Whacky Wig: a realistic plastic version of an unrealistic salaryman's wig. Just balance the Wii Whacky Wig on your head and navigate your way through a virtual workplace without colleagues cottoning-on! Watch out for high-powered air conditioners, draughty corridors and windy walks to the office canteen! For use with various titles including Zelda and the Doomed Secretarial Romance and The Hideous Hairpiece of Hiro Hakata.

7) The Wii BirthrateBoy: a realistic plastic newborn child. First Nintendo introduced millions of newcomers to the world of video games, now it is going one further: introducing  a generation of 20-something Japanese couples to the interactive, motion-sensitive children they will never actually bear. Features a direct-dial mobile connection to local branches of consumer loan companies and other quick sources of financing. For use with various titles including Congratulations Mrs Tanaka, it's a timebomb! and Demography for Beginners: 2 x 0.9 = Oblivion.

8) The Wii DeathKill GlowBucket: a realistic plastic bucket of nuclear waste material. In celebration of many years of feeble safety standards, fraud and denial in Japan's nuclear power industry, try dragging a dangerously leaky pail of heavy water through a virtual Tepco facility or Rokkasho reprocessing plant without an IAEA inspector seeing you! Features a geiger counter (batteries not included). For use with various titles including NightVision II - Mario's Glowing Pants and Fault-line? What Fault-line?

9) The Wii SmackBlow Dog Trainer: a realistic plastic bundle of illegal narcotics as used by the ever idiotic Japanese Customs officers at Narita Airport. Simply insert the dope in the side pocket of an unsuspecting passenger's bag and see if the dozy sniffer dogs ever find it. Don't worry if they don't, it's only a game! For use with various titles including Welcome to Japan, Foreign Pigdog and Crikey I'm a drugs smuggler!

10) The Wii SmackBlow Sumo Trainer: a realistic plastic selection of "encouragement" implements  with which to assist in the training of a confused and unhappy young sumo wrestler living away from home for the first time. Comes with a broken beer bottle, aluminium baseball bat, frying pan, burning cigarette and wooden floorboard. For use with various titles including Hail jolly fat man! Where is your pain? and Stop, stop! He's had enough. Not!

Comments

[CB]

Awesome!!
They need to branch out into some more grown up games but I guess those can't be written here

[Masrock]

I've been waitng for some useful hacker to turn the Wii FIT balance board into the Wii F*CK sexual aid.

Imagine the fun as you and your partner stand or sit together to race each other to your climax or just train solo for fun or to improve stamina or consider the naughty multiplayer mode for swingers parties!

Tell me THAT wouldn't sell!

Masrock

Get a life

[Mike Ball]

Everyone's missing the best musical instrument for a Wii game...

WOBBLEBOARD HERO

You too can be Rolf Harris, using your controls to simulate the mighty wobbleboard with such hits as Stairway to Heaven and Sun Arise.

You could just see the advert where two (little) boys are playing along when one turns into the mighty Antipodean legend himself.

[Helen]

Can I assume the author of this article is experiencing sour grapes as his other half has forbidden him from bringing one into the house?

Oh, sorry, his mommy has locked it away because he didn't do his homework...

[JP]

This article has it spot on. I've owned every nintendo console there is and yes there is a familiar feeling creeping into the Wii. The thing is with previous consoles it took Nintendo several years before they had exhausted their 'reserves' of guaranteed system sellers. The Wii has reach this point in half the time. I was hoping that this was to make way for some new and exciting software but the situation looks dire right now. There is nothing announced by Nintendo I am even remotely excited about.

One possible saving grace with the Wii is the fact it has sold so well and this can only bode well for generating interest from 3rd parties. If Nintendo can't come up with some quality software, here's hoping they can instead.

[The Judge]

A sure fire best seller for WII would be the WII ESS 3, a new harward accelerator and media interface.

Simply move your WII over a bit, replace the leads to the old white unit with the leads to the new shiny black third party SONY PS3 unit, and hey presto, the WII as it should have been all along.

Lo and behold you will be able to play actual Next-gen games and not the poxy rubbish like that Penguin balancing game on WII-fit.

[Dylan]

They should make a balance board type device that provides feedback with treadmill-type belts. That way, when your onscreen character gets pushed/pulled, the player gets pushed/pulled.

[Jon Lane]

I couldn't agree more. I have had every carnation of Nintendo console and enjoyed them all. My Wii only lasted 2 months before it went on ebay. It was a huge disappointment. Zelda really didn't cut it for me which was a big downer.

The best thing they can do now is make a load of good games using the interface that they have already. Stop p!ssing about with stupid new control methods and get down to what they do best - making video games!

Maybe, just maybe i might buy another one then.

[digital underground]

the WiiBrator app is creating a buzz, The work of Team DWiildo, it's a way to convert the jack-of-all-trades Wiimote into a "relaxation" device.

[Mario Barraza]

It's so sad to see how self-centered this generation has turned. Most of what is being said in this page is about their personal views and experiences rather than seeing it on the larger scale, including the main article.

With comments about how to replace the Wii with a PS3, to how they sold their Wii on ebay and maybe some day buy another IF Nintendo makes the games THEY like, You can tell their sense of maturity. Clearly these people can barely understand the process of improvement as long as they keep receiving what they like.

Of course the Wii is not a perfect machine! Just like the nes, Snes, Genesis, N64, PS, PS2, XBOX, and all the future machines won't be! It is what is called a process, but thanks to Nintendo we have a machine that is changing not only the entire gaming experience, but also opening the way for endless posibilities.

Nobody is forced to buy a wii, or all its accesories. We all have a mind that allows us to discern what we want and what we don't. If Nintendo is making a mistake, they will eventually correct it or someone else will take over, the way it has always been. And if you think is better to buy a "REAL saxophone" rather than another accesory, then do it... maybe you'll grow into a better musician than you are at videogame blogging.