Wii won’t cramp your core gaming style
Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 3:05am by Blake
In the latest issue of Nintendo Power, managing editor Scott Pelland makes a great point on why even though Wii changes things, it doesn’t necessarily spell doom for core gamers. And I quote:
Just as bears aren’t really the number-one threat to America as asserted by Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report, Wii isn’t the number-one threat to gamers as many industry pundits have recently griped. Their argument goes something like this: if Wii is a huge success, then game publishers will put all their development dollars, yen, pounds, and euros into making Wii Sports knockoffs and sushi-rolling sims while more-complex titles for core gamers will become as rare as grizzly bears in Manhattan. The argument ignores publishers’ primary motivation, which is money. Money, to the tune of more than 10 billion dollars annually, has flowed from gamers to game publishers over recent years, and most of that spending was on shooters, adventures, RPGs, and other core-friendly titles. The thought that game companies would turn their back on that market is just silly.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Core gamers had already left Nintendo a long time ago, hence we came to be called the “Nintendo hardcore fanbase”. During the last gen. Nintendo was mocked for using bright colors on their games, and were referred as “kiddie games” with only Eternal Darkness & Resident Evil being the mature titles during it’s lifetime. we have never been considered the core market, that being the Sony Playstation 1 & 2 users, many have now jumped ship to the Xbox bandwagon. If anyone of the “Nintendo hardcore fanbase” thinks they are going to be left out, it seems you are not part of that group, and probably have a second console to play. Nintendo will continue to release their franchises, which in the main part why many of us buy this consoles they sell. You also buy original third party titles that seem to be different and feel weird when they announce it for another console.
I bought a Ps2 last year to get all those famous games of the last gen, so I bought like 20 titles, yet I still feel that the Gamecube was a better system even if the main publisher of AAA was Nintendo, with Capcom in second place.
I guess it comes on how you feel about the direction Nintendo is taking and if you will follow or leave it at that. For me, I have been feeling like I don’t have time to play all my games and I really don’t try to put effort on making time to play. I have like 7 games without more than a couple hours playtime and have yet to finish.
I guess the “HARDCORE” or “CASUAL” adjective really depends on how much free time you have.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:28 am
If money was the motivation of 3rd parties’ efforts, then they wouldn’t put all their eggs in two very expensive baskets and none in the third cheap basket. They then wouldn’t continue to put more eggs in the two expensive baskets as the existing eggs shrivelled and the cheap basket spontaneously generated new eggs from nothing. They then wouldn’t continue to put all their eggs in the expensive dying basket and none in the life giving basket after they watch most of the expensive-basket eggs die, and the spontaneously generated eggs grow into record breakingly plump chickens.
All this has come to pass.
Developers ignored Nintendo after they said they’d make a cheap system with new possiblities for innovation. They then ignored Nintendo, after they wowed the world at E306 and clearly showed there was something to their plan. They then ignored Nintendo after they produced record sales and profits off of the back of practically no supporting software. E307 has clearly shown they plan on continuing to ignore Nintendo.
All this has happened in the face of declining profits, increasing costs, stagnating sales, and even monstrous losses surrounding the two competitors.
Clearly MONEY and LOGIC aren’t the guiding forces at most 3rd parties right now.
I wouldn’t rely on that changing before they’re dead.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:38 am
To steal a bit from Wired Magazine and do my own thang with it:
Expired: hardcore
Tired: casual gamer
Wired: cas-core
July 26th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Nice Dave.
Anyway… Jack, a few days ago:
“I’m getting the distinct impression that this argument is taking on an atheist versus religious person vibe. An yet, like an insane person, I keep coming back trying to explain things the same way and expect a different result. Sigh.
Anyway, developers prefer the system that makes them money. Crytek is an exception. Horsepower games are a niche, and this generation will expose that more than ever before. I imagine that when Crytek’s love child sells a few million copies and they don’t really make the money back that they invested in this ambitious project, you won’t see them trying it ever again.”
This Nintendo Power guy, today:
“The argument ignores publishers’ primary motivation, which is money. Money, to the tune of more than 10 billion dollars annually, has flowed from gamers to game publishers over recent years, and most of that spending was on shooters, adventures, RPGs, and other core-friendly titles. The thought that game companies would turn their back on that market is just silly.”
Could these magazine start paying Infendo already?
July 26th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
The hardcore gamer market is $5-7 Billion Sony and MS have had that sewn up for a while. Nintendo is trying to slice a little off of that with titles like Red Steel and Godfather and other things that they would not have published or licensed in the “good old days”.
In the mean time they have realized that there is a huge untapped market for casual, semi-casual, and nostalgic game created by aging gamers (a lot of gamers are hitting mid-life now and their play styles are changing) and mainstream adoption of the game medium as entertainment. (personally I think this shift was caused by the saturation of TV with reality shows
). Nintendo is raking in the dough from tapping that market.
Recent events are showing that MS and Sony are now trying to move into those markets with some of their more mainstream and family friendly games as well as the focus on nostalgia and casual and semi casual games on line. They are trying to get a piece of the new market that Nintendo has discovered and currently pwns.
I expect the Next generation console from Nintendo will be HD compatible (they didn’t need it this time, since the HD TV market penetration is so small) and they will remove the horse power issue. Now if we could just get some of the AAA “hardcore” games on the Wii2 like GoW2, MGS5 and GTx, then we would only need one console. Right.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
What is Scott Pelland talking about?? Bears ARE the #1 threat to America!!
As for Wii being the #1 threat to hardcore gamers, well, it is too soon to tell: developers of those kind of games usually stick to the platform that is the easiest to program for, which is usually the one that has the biggest adoption rate. But only after they are familiar with it, which is usually at least one year after its launch!
July 26th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
@ InvisibleMan
…BULL
Easiest to develop for? PS2 perhaps? PS3? SNES? None of these were/are the easiest to develop for, but developers have stuck with them, usually when it holds the market (from the get go), but sometimes when it was stupid. Look also how easier console were ignored; Dreamcast, N64 (Vs Saturn, not psx), DS, Gamecube…
You are correct however that the developers are going for the ‘easiest’ this gen. The situation seems different now because of Microsoft’s “developers developers developers” mentality (in lieu of a more sensible consumer oriented approach for a non-monopoliser), and the crazy bribes…err, investments they’re making. Make no mistake, it won’t get them anywhere. The most retarded part? The lower expectations mean that even if they maximised the hardware, Wii development would be cheaper and easier.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
If “E307 has clearly shown they plan on continuing to ignore Nintendo”, then how does the Wii have almost as many exclusives in development as the other two put together, after tallying up the announcements at E307, when the Wii was trailing the 360 going into the event?
Are these new Wii-exclusive announcements all from independent developers who’ve never put out a game before, or do you feel Wii games simply count for less for some reason?
July 30th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Exclusives, for me, only matter if the games coming out are games I’m interested in, the same goes with multi-platform titles. Unfortunately, very little is coming to the Wii regardless of what the excluisivity status of such games are in, at least for now. Getting more games like M&M racing isn’t going to cut it and since it’s become a sore spot to hear more games like this as oppose to the next Gears of War or MGS4 people trumpet about for the other system, frustration has become all too quick to bubble to the surface.