An Open Letter to Nintendo

[Kim]

Isn't Fatal Frame 4 the one directed by Suda 51? And we aren't getting that cuz why?

I could always use another Professor Layton as well.

[Jagos]

I use hardcore gamer to mean someone that goes to fully complete a game. It's not enough to get 100% on a game. It's enough to get 100% of everything, beat the game with a blindfold and one hand eating a turkey sandwich with your mouth underwater. That's what I mean by hardcore. You'll play this game to death before you trade it in for the story. Kinda what I want to do for Mirror's Edge but that's another story.

With that defined, I know of quite a few gamers that could do that and become the new Wii hardcore. Also, the Wii isn't defined by this gamer. It's defined by the first party almost exclusively. Who make good products. I mean, I'm not against the Wii. Hell, I don't have one. But they did a damn good job of keeping people satisfied for the last 2-3 years.

And to answer this:

but I can't remember any recent game to come out for the Wii that I actually gave a damn about.

Punch-Out. Nuff said.

[Zilla]

Blue, you make a good point about asking for two different things, but LS makes a good point as well. I've converted away from Nintendo. I loved Gamecube, and I had high hopes for the Wii, but nothing. Brawl disappointed me. Red Steel was mediocre. The only things I actually used my Wii for were Twilight Princess, also available for Gamecube, and Guitar Hero III, and that's cross platform. I tried, oh how I tried to love it, and for a year, I held out hope, but then I got a 360 from eBay and haven't looked back since. The last game I bought for Wii was Endless Ocean, which I must say I am satisfied with, but I haven't been able to play that game since the first week I bought it. Oblivion and GTA IV already make up for my entire Wii library.

Edit: Hey, who put 4 pages of discussion in here?

I do feel disenfranchised by Nintendo. I've gotten to the point where I don't care about keeping up with Wii releases because it's been such a long drought. While reading those pages I missed, I remembered I did play Wii Sports quite a bit and Boom Blox was pretty fun, but they weren't really the kind of games I'm looking for.

N64 did not fail, it's one of the best systems and libraries I can think of. It had a GREAT good-to-bad game ratio and a ton of unsung awesome titles (Hybrid Heaven, Flying Dragon, Body Harvest, WinBack (one without crappy voice acting), the BEST Harvest Moon, the BEST StarFox, the BEST F-Zero). Gamecube was a start of a downfall perhaps, but it still was very well done and had a more-than-decent and competitive library. Melee was a game that I kept playing until about October, and that was just because I moved away from the people I used to play with, and they all bought into Brawl while I didn't. The GameCube had a ton of great games on it, and a lot of them weren't first party. Second Sight, TimeSplitters 2, XIII, WarioWare Inc, Luigi's Mansion, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, PSO, Animal Crossing, NEARLY the best Harvest Moon (Magical Melodies, not A Wonderful Life), Tales of Symphonia, ...

I actually feel like I'm running dry on the gamecube already, but there were some good ones.


Another case in point, when was the last time Penny-Arcade did a strip about a Wii game? Hell, how about any online comic? I think Fanboys did one about the Nintendo press conference, but there's been a lack of real substance coming out for the fanbase. Just a generation ago, it was Xbox for the casual gamers who couldn't respect the intense nuances of deep gameplay, Playstation for the loads of content and shovelware, and Nintendo for the stalwart hardcore fans that had been with the industry for a long time. Now, those positions have really shuffled. Nintendo seems to be the Mom and Pop system, the one that kids will get made fun of while their peers are playing the serious games on the 360, and PlayStation has gone from offering the plethora of varied third party support to the lone outsider that almost tries to cater to the audience Nintendo had but without Nintendo's reliability and price.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I have pretty much the exact opposite experience of Zilla. I never play my 360 anymore and pretty much exclusively play my Wii.
Why?
Because the "hardcore" games just don't resonante with me anymore. Somewhere along the line "hardcore gaming" seems to have become first person shooters, not a favoured genre of mine, and related games where I'm a guy running around shooting/stabbing people. None of the big titles on the 360 interest me and the last one I played was GTA 4 which was same old, same old.
The Wii has loads of crap and bollocks on it but it is more varied crap and bollocks and I can at least get some visceral pleasure out of it.

[Mirai Gen]

SMB I don't think that's fair, considering most of the games that have the first person perspective are so incredibly not a FPS (Which is a majority of what is coming out right now and in the future).

Fallout 3. I mean, really.

The Wii has loads of crap and bollocks on it but it is more varied crap and bollocks and I can at least get some visceral pleasure out of it.

And...I don't even know what to say about this. You like getting varied and different stuff despite it being garbage? Um, okay?

Reason I usually play my 360 is because it's the only way I can kill some time without completely destroying my arm muscles, and I'm a big fan of online. Which Nintendo has made quite clear they hate.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Dante Must Die

SMB I don't think that's fair, considering most of the games that have the first person perspective are so incredibly not a FPS (Which is a majority of what is coming out right now and in the future).

Fallout 3. I mean, really.

And...I don't even know what to say about this. You like getting varied and different stuff despite it being garbage? Um, okay?

The point was that everything is pretty garbage so I might as well have varied garbage than same old same old garbage. I haven't played any games on 360 I've really enjoyed.
Haven't played Fallout 3 so I can't comment on its gameplay but the setting is fairly hackneyed so I don't feel like playing.
ANd yeah I was totally exaggerating but I do find a lot of "sameness" on 360 titles which everyone seems to enjoy but not me.

[Grand Master Kickface]

I'll just leave this here.

Even though the article is 3 and a half years old, it still holds true today and makes Nintendo's strategy perfectly lucid. Basically, if Nintendo doesn't expand the market base, no one else is going to, and eventually gaming will become more and more of a niche hobby until it stops existing altogether. It's only because Nintendo continually ropes in new players that video games have any longevity as a medium, and Wii was an absolutely necessary move for the industry's long-term health.

Now for some of my personal thoughts. I agree with Philbert in that we're all old and jaded and thusly the magic of games wears off much more quickly than it does for younger people. I played Sonic 3 and Knuckles for two years straight as a kid, and I am certain that it would be the same for Super Mario Galaxy if I was an 8-year-old kid today. Additionally, the prevalence of shovelware doesn't mean that deeper (I also despise the term "hardcore" in reference to games) suddenly stop existing; it just seems like it because we're thinking on a comparative level rather than looking at games individually. On that subject, the Wii is only 2 years old, and it looks to us like previous consoles had a greater number of good games because we're looking back on their entire 5-6 year catalog retrospectively. Just give it time.

Edit: Oh, and the DS by itself is pretty capable of satisfying the "hardcore" appetite. Etrian Odyssey and Contra 4 anyone?

[Jagos]

That's a nice article. After applying it to fighting games as well as RTS, it does make a lot of sense. EX: I could play Street Fighter II but when it came time for Street Fighter 3 I was left out, simply because I couldn't pull off all of the supers and combos to remain competitive in an arcade. I also like the conclusion for that article:

Nintendo’s strategy of pursuing innovation benefits the entire industry. It brings in new audiences and creates new genres that provide innovative and exciting experiences. The radical new controller is a great example of this strategy in action.

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Grand Master Kickface

I'll just leave this here.

Even though the article is 3 and a half years old, it still holds true today and makes Nintendo's strategy perfectly lucid. Basically, if Nintendo doesn't expand the market base, no one else is going to, and eventually gaming will become more and more of a niche hobby until it stops existing altogether. It's only because Nintendo continually ropes in new players that video games have any longevity as a medium, and Wii was an absolutely necessary move for the industry's long-term health.

Now for some of my personal thoughts. I agree with Philbert in that we're all old and jaded and thusly the magic of games wears off much more quickly than it does for younger people. I played Sonic 3 and Knuckles for two years straight as a kid, and I am certain that it would be the same for Super Mario Galaxy if I was an 8-year-old kid today. Additionally, the prevalence of shovelware doesn't mean that deeper (I also despise the term "hardcore" in reference to games) suddenly stop existing; it just seems like it because we're thinking on a comparative level rather than looking at games individually. On that subject, the Wii is only 2 years old, and it looks to us like previous consoles had a greater number of good games because we're looking back on their entire 5-6 year catalog retrospectively. Just give it time.

Edit: Oh, and the DS by itself is pretty capable of satisfying the "hardcore" appetite. Etrian Odyssey and Contra 4 anyone?

But you do know that even if that 50 billion dollars industry ever became "Niche" and then... dead. that would easily take more time to happen than we have to live... right?

I for one think that all 3 major companies dropped the ball big, this time. But Nintendo was more... painfull.

On one hand, we have the Hardware version of the Windows... the 360. Unstable, unreliable, dependant of 3rd party software to even make a living, but consumed by the masses.
On the other side, we have sony, who has a good product but cant get their head straight for 5 minutes to promote the thing without making it seem shit.

And then, there is nintendo... i just dont know what happened there. It's the gamecube all over again. we have a ton of Crapware and Shovelware, a handfull of new bright spots and a couple of First party diamonds

It's not about "Hardcore"... it's about normal. Common gamers are becoming "Hardcore" and non-gamers are becoming "Casual", who are the new "Common". To the point that if you play wiifit or cooking momma, you're casual. But if you play Mass effect, you're Hardcore... but in the end, what happens is that Nintendo isnt offering what was expected. Microsoft and Sony offer consistency. Nintendo, right now, dosent really have that... they offered revolutionary gaming, well... they are not delivering. there are VERY FEW games that are good, and would only work like that on the Wii or that are better on the Wii... those are the small revolutions Nintendo is bringing, but that was not what they sold. And now, second year in... people are starting to notice that.

Nintendo has drove itself into a corner, and i expect some big surprises in 2009, or else, i would bet the wii is going to have a shorter life.

[Squall Leonhart]

Originally Posted by Bellsouth Minion

But you do know that even if that 50 billion dollars industry ever became "Niche" and then... dead. that would easily take more time to happen than we have to live... right?[...]

Are you saying "why bother"? 'Cause expanding the market means increasing profit. Within your lifespan.

[...]Nintendo has drove itself into a corner, and i expect some big surprises in 2009, or else, i would bet the wii is going to have a shorter life.

Originally Posted by Regulus Tera

[...]Regarding third parties, this thread is a good place to start. 2009 seems to be a killer year for Wii.