As it stands, I’m a massive Nintendo fiend. My gaming history started at the age of 5 with a Game Boy, and has since moved onto the Game Boy Colour, Advance, DS, N64 and Wii though not necessarily in that order. While everyone was playing the Playstation, I was content with my N64, and while I admit I missed out on the Gamecube for the Playstation (& Playstation 2), I always heavily anticipated the then-Nintendo Revolution. Fans of other consoles would tell me “That Revolution is going to fail hard, Sony/Microsoft are going to way outsell that terrible thing”. However, while they were off dismissing it, I was off learning all I could about all of the consoles, choosing when possible to not dismiss either of the other consoles, but maintaining Nintendo’s Revolution would do the best.
Then warning signs showed up; Nintendo changed the name to Wii, and the internet collectively turned into 8 year olds trying to come up with the lastest funny joke about the name of a console they hadn’t even played, and immediately dismissed. Sony began to copy Nintendo’s motion control plans with the SIXAXIS, and things looked even bleaker for Nintendo. Then Nintendo claimed they weren’t even part of the “Console Wars” this generation, and didn’t consider themselves part of the battle between the companies. Still, for me, it wasn’t entirely about the marketing, or the strategy, it was all about the games. Nintendo managed to have a strategy and games lineup that was one that hadn’t been attempted seriously before: Appeal to the hardcore, while try to appeal to and sell to casual gamers. Why? It was a seemingly brilliant long-term strategy wherein by appealing to the casual and non-gamers with games designed towards them, in the future, Nintendo could turn them into gamers in the long term, meaning that gaming itself would grow in the feature.
And you know what? It worked fantastically.
Nintendo managed to take something that many people didn’t want to work, and made it stick. The result? The Wii has practically printed money for them. With games like Twilight Princess at launch for the hardcore, and the Wii games series for the casuals, it was pretty clear Nintendo knew what they were doing. And it’s clear they still do.
Until that group of gamers who are never happy at anything gaming ever does came along, and decided that no matter what Nintendo did was never going to be good enough, and they’d be damned if Nintendo continued.
“Waaa, waaaa, there’s not enough hardcore games!” Cried the haters.
“That’s not a problem!” Nintendo replied “Not only have we made casual games, but we’ve also made Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Twilight Princess, Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Strikers: Charged Football, Punch Out!, Super Paper Mario and more! You know, not just casual games, but ones that appeal to hardcore and casual gamers alike!”
“That’s not enough YOU’VE ABANDONED THE HARDCORE WAAAAA!”
“Not really, but we also have 3rd parties making games such as No More Heroes, No More Heroes 2, the Conduit, Okami, Zack and Wiki, Red Steel 2 Madworld, Dead Space: Extraction, Boy and His Blob, Darkside & Umbrella Chronicles, to name but a very small amount…”
“Well that’s fine. We just won’t buy any of those games, and we’ll still complain you don’t appeal enough to the hardcore”
“…Okay. How about we make another Mario Galaxy focused for those who beat the first one by making it extra difficult, Metroid: Other M; a game that ties in everything Metroid and is made mostly by Team Ninja, and a new Zelda game, and announce all of those before E3 2010 so you know we have even more up our sleeve?”
“WAAAAAA THE WII ISN’T IN HD WAAAAAAAAA ABANDONING THE HARDCORE”
“But only about 10% of people who own a TV even really have a HDTV or the necessary stuff to play a lot of things in HD, and we don’t even know how many of that 10% is gamers, and what’s the point if the only people demanding it are the ones who won’t buy our stuff anyway?”
“WAAAAAAA you force motion controls on everyone motion controls suck you’re ruining gaming!”
“…Except we don’t force it on anyone? We just provide the tools for people to use what they want. Keep in mind that motion controls are a relatively new idea in videogames, and you’re bound to get a lot of people messing it up while we try and get our feet with what we can actually do with this technology?”
“NATAL AND MOVE WILL DO IT BETTER!”
“Didn’t you just say motion controls were ruining everything?”
“NINTENDO ABANDONED THE HARDCORE!”
“… You know what? I’m leaving”.
As whiny as that comes across, I have literally come into arguments just like this with people. People who claim Nintendo is abandoning the hardcore, then ignore any and every attempt by Nintendo or a 3rd party to appeal to them. People who claim motion controls suck, but Natal and Move will do it better and show everyone after they’ve had a few years to catch up to Nintendo and realise they want the casual market too just like Nintendo has been doing, but it’s only bad when Nintendo does it. People who ignore the fact that Nintendo have supported the Wii far more than they ever did with the Gamecube, that the Wii is Gamecube compatible, that it has a Virtual Console with tons of old games from loads of different consoles in the past, it has a section for people to make and download Wiiware titles that are digitally distributed. People who will just use any pathetic, null and void argument or standpoint they can to try and make some stupid point that Nintendo has apparently done something they haven’t done at any point.
For all those people, I have one thing to show you.
It’s called a door. If you don’t like anything I’ve said, or anything Nintendo does, you are more than free to walk through it.
Just don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. If you can fit your stupid swollen head through it, in any case.
<3 Edward.
