I don't think that family friendly and casual titles are losing their appeal on Nintendo platforms, only that certain series have lost a bit of appeal, and this is supported by your data.

The NSMB Series - when it debuted it was an event. I can remember my regret having purchased a PSP when I saw people at work playing NSMB on DS. 2D Mario platformers had been dormant for so long, the pent up demand was crazy. Now they've done it 4 times without offering too much that's new. It's like Brett Favre's 4th comeback or Michael Jordan joining the Wizzards. Not big news anymore.

Brain Training - This is a series that has been hugely impacted by smartphones. Also, edutainment isn't really all that fun.

MarioKart and Animal Crossing are loved by casuals and continue to thrive. I think Wii U is ripe for a good casual title that uses the touch screen, but it needs to be something creative. I'm curious to see if the Wii-Series still has appeal.

Your examples are indeed interesting. but in my opinion you get the completely wrong conclusions from them.

Your exceptions are interesting though: Just Dance didn't shrink. it just sold on Wii, nearly the same as the previous installments. I'm somewhat confident, that if you count all versions of JD4 together (Wii, WiiU, PS3, X360) it is as big as the predecessors or even bigger. but still most of it sold on Wii. That shows: the people that were buying this game, WiiSports, WiiFit and so on haven't moved anywhere. They are still present and still buying games. I think Brain Age, Nintendogs and Art Academy would still sell well if offered for DS or Wii. But WiiU and 3DS weren't built for them. They have no reason to buy them. That also includes PS3 and 4 and X360 and One. Except Sony or Microsoft do something clever to get this folk.

I don't think NSMB and Mario Kart is bought by the same group of people. Mario Kart was sold well on all consoles. While people that never gamed before and don't want to learn something for having fun (the people most here call casuals) weren't buying Mario Kart on Gamecube or N64. And they weren't buying the old 2D-Marios on NES and SNES. That were sold to old-school gamers. Yes, they were present on Wii and DS too, but the main sales came from "casuals". While the 3DS and WiiU failed to cater to the needs of "casuals", the 3DS was successful in attracting the japanese main-gaming-community, the PSP-crowd and ... the old-school-gamers. So this explains the good sales of Mario Kart 7 and the moderate sales of NSMB2.

Really, dude?

You can't think of any real-life events that make EA sports titles different from something like Just Dance?

There are new albums of dance music out every year, new concerts, new awards doesn't that compare to sports updates?

I wanted to contribute something to this thread but this post says things much more coherently than I could at the moment, good job Pokoko.

P.S.  You might want to consider adding Animal Crossing to your OP, HappyD.  I don't know about "family friendly" but Iwata admitted a while back that it attracts a large female audience.  I was surprised to see it tracking behind the DS version on the numbers here on VGC, but then I remembered digitial was a significant factor for it.

Its a niche console. Not much in the way of multi-platformers, just nintendo games pushing sales. Too few titles and far between to do that. And for most people like me that already have played those games for over 20 years now are not all that hyped. Some remain dedicated and thats fine. The fact is that games like just dance is being compaired says it all. Its out of gas like guitar hero.

Id rather play the old nes, snes, and n64 games than any console after that from nintendo (besides eternal darkness on GC) But really the N64 was the last time I was wowed by a nintendo game.

REALLY?!?

You're comparing games that are releasing at the beginning of a life cycle vs end of life cycle.

Casual gaming??? A casual gamer would never spend more then $200-250 for a gaming console. The WiiU is a hardcore gaming machine until they get a further price drop. Nintendo will not get any of the casual gaming market until they drop the price under the current $299.99.

At $299.99 Nintendo is only attracting hardcore gamer and hobbyist gamer. Nintendo is still not dropping the price because they know that the casual buyer are still buying Wii, PS3 And Xbox 360. Casual gamers would rather buy a PS3 and Xbox 360 whom have a much bigger library and are much cheaper then the WiiU.

This year is the year of the next gen console release, wait till next holiday season the battle will be for the casual gaming market and a Nintendo WiiU will go for 250$ or less.

~Mod Edit~

This post has been moderated.

-Smeags

Added, good idea.

Yet another series that bridged well from the DS to the 3DS. It begs the question why AC and not NSMB. Or why Mario Kart but not Nintendogs. I think the answers have been brought up here and there, but it's not something that has an easy answer.

Could be as simple as software quality. Did Nintendogs and Cats bring enough new material to the table? City Folk was heavily criticized for not adding enough to the franchise, but New Leaf is very highly regarded. Sales seem to reflect that.

Ofc casuals pay 300 for a console, people easily pay 800 for an iphone.

Anyway i agree with what the laststarfight said.