Future video games? Playing themselves?

[Blue Protoman]

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/14/new-super-mario-bros-wii-future-titles-will-play-themselves/

Apparently,. future Nintendo games (starting with New Super Mario Bros. Wii) will be able to play themselves in hard areas.

Thing is, though, we already have video games that play themselves.  There's so many of them, they're in a different genre.  They're called "movies".  The downside of movies, though, is that they tend to be much shorter than interactive video games, and have very little replay value.

And now, for my actual opinion;

What is this madness?

[UglyJoe]

Eh, it's optional.  The game is just as challenging as it ever would have been as long as you don't use the new feature.  No big deal.  The point is so you can see how you are able to beat a difficult stage.  (Miyamoto has hinted in interviews that you wouldn't be able to save after using the feature, so, if that's the case, it's more of a video walkthrough).

I'm the type of gamer who would prefer to spend hours trying to figure out a single level rather than consult a FAQ.  It's frustrating, yeah, but the sense of accomplishment I feel afterward (usually) makes up for it.

I realize that not all people are the same, though.  Some just want to enjoy a game.  If they're faced with a difficult part, they just want to be able to move on.  If that's what's fun for them, cool.  Enjoy your game.

In regards to the "this turns video games into movies" argument, I really see it more as a "scene selection".  Just like you can skip boring scenes on DVDs, this will let you skip boring/difficult levels of games.  It's a different and semi-new concept for gaming, but I fail to see what's wrong with it.

[MaxXimus]

Gaming companies probably don't want you to get up from your game, possibly risk turning it off, or losing interest. Some people are probably too lazy to get up and check gamefaqs. Perhaps it was even added so that store owners could set the games in their display to auto play.  I would be curious to know whether if when the demo play was activated, your charactors ai would be playing in such a way that you could swear that it was a tool assisted run on an emulator. Haha.

[manuel]

As long as it's optional, I don't see any problem.
Just don't use it and you don't even know it's there.

[Blue Protoman]

Well, yeah...  Hopefully this means future games are harder.

I like my difficulty to be about as hard as Contra 4 on Easy (which is still pretty challenging).

[Byron]

If anything, this means that future games are going to get even easier. If they're giving us the ability to have all the hard parts done for us, I think that says a lot about how much faith game companies have in us. They're only going to sell us what they think we're going to buy, and if they think we're too stupid and lazy to want anything harder than Barney's Hide & Seek, that's all we're gonna get.

[manuel]

We'll have to wait and see where this leads.

How I understand it, tthe game won't let you save the progress you didn't make yourself. Furthermore, I'm very sure you won't be able to skip the last boss fight and see the ending without beating the game yourself.

It's more like you watch a video walkthrough on youtube, and then try it yourself. I have done that, too. The gae doesn't become easier that way, it's just they're cutting out the youtube part. 

[Byron]

Ah, then I misunderstood. There's nothing wrong with showing you how it's done, I suppose.

[manuel]

No guarantee.
This is only how I understood it, I could be terribly wrong. 

[L___E___T]

Essentially, it's to make SMB more csual orientated.

Tradionally, the only difference gameplay wise between SMB 1 and those mindless 'causal' games is like this:

"SMB is easy to pick up, but hard to master"
"Peggle is easy to pick up, hard to put down"

The thing is, casual gameplay makes more money, it's what keeps old grannies glued to one armed bandits, they don't want a challenge, so this, effectively opens up SMB to all those people with Wiis and only Wii fit, see?  it's a great hook to widen the audience without corrupting the gameplay, so here's to Nintendo and let's see if it works for them.  So long as they still keep giving us things like red steel 2 and Metroid other M.