LogFAQs > #876560340

But the real power of the Wii showed itself in 2007. It started at the beginning of the year with Wii Play, a poor man's Wii Sports that came with a free Wii Remote and sold like 30 million copies over the course of its life. By the end of the year, the Wii was an absolute fad. Shovelware was starting to come out of every corner and it was all minigame collections. Carnival Games was the most infamous example. It was a terrible minigame collection. It got crushed by every review site. It has sold over 7 million copies. We were still in Brawl hype mode so the Wii wasn't public enemy #1 just yet but it was getting there. The Wii was the best selling console of 2007, but it wasn't crazy - 6.2 million to Xbox 360's 4.6. 2008 is where things went off the rails as the Wii sold double the closest competitor and broke 10 million units.

Of course, I wasn't really playing those huge games in 2007. For me, 2007 was all about Ace Attorney. AA2 started the year out strong and AA3 put a cap on it. We were spoiled - there was four years before the series made it to the states and we got all three games within two years. Now we would be lucky to get one game in two years. While it wasn't directly related to Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk hit in 2007 which was very much in the same visual novel spirit. Not as quirky or goofy but just as intriguing. Pokemon hit the DS with Diamond/Pearl and Etrian Odyssey made its debut too.

If I wasn't playing DS, I was probably playing PS2. God of War 2 basically closed the door on the hardware by pushing it to its absolute limit. This game was super impressive technically and a lot better game than the original. I really love God of War 2 for reasons unknown - I think it just climaxes wonderfully and the combat is just fun enough to keep the great setpieces interesting. Persona launched in 1996 but in reality the first game that had any kind of mainstream pull was Persona 3 which also hit in 2007. I love Persona 3 a lot but I would never play the PS2 version again - more on this in a later year.

I could keep going on more and more games. Rock Band hit in 2007 alongside Guitar Hero 3. 2007 was probably the pinnacle of the plastic instruments era which probably qualifies as a fad if we're calling the Wii a fad. It came out, got hugely popular for 3-4 years and then faded back down into a core audience that stuck with it but couldn't sustain the massive sales numbers. GH3 probably sold something like 8 million copies LTD, maybe more. Meanwhile, Rock Band took it to the next level with drums and vocals. The game + equipment was something like $200 and people were gladly shelling it out. That shit was real for a while there. Crysis came out on PC and crushed graphics cards for years (not to mention consoles - that game was next-gen in a way that made new consoles look bad.) Blue Dragon was Mistwalker's first game and was notable not only for Sakaguchi's return to video games but also it being a Japanese 360 exclusive. Dragon Quest Monsters returned on DS with Joker. Odin Sphere had beautiful art but garbage load times. The list goes on.

Video games were healthy in 2007. You had multiple fads blowing up and huge trends that would last for years to come. You had the highest ranking game of all time. Most notably in my eyes, 2007 was the year that American devs took over. All of the big games on the HD twins were made by western devs. We'd get to know Bioware, Irrational, Naughty Dog and Infinity Ward like we knew Capcom, Konami, SNK and Square back when. Times were changing with the new console generation and they were changing fast.
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xyzzy