Editorial: Nintendon't Care About Hardcore?

[Resident_Hazard]

Nintendo has always been trying to expand out beyond just gamers. The NES showed a whole family on the box playing the system. They've always incorporated a learning curve or tutorial in their games. They've always tried to appeal to everyone. The Wii and DS are the moments when they found the working formula for this long-time goal.

On top of which, Nintendo has not abandoned the core gamer. If anything, third party companies have done that where the Wii is considered since too many neither try to understand Nintendo's modern business model nor do they try to focus on appealing to target audiences. In the first year of the Wii's release, Nintendo gave us new titles from three flagship franchises: Mario, Zelda, and Metroid--and they delivered a killer app within about the first year (Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl) when neither MS nor Sony managed that. Their killer apps didn't come until much later.

The first year the Wii was out, Nintendo released Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, SSBB, Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars II, Excite Truck, Paper Mario, and others. That's hardly an abandonment of core gamers. They've also mentioned Kirby and Pikmin titles in the works at various times, as well as titles like Disaster: Day of Crisis and Fatal Frame IV.

I think it's sad that the essay's author actually mentioned that it took about 3-4 years to craft Super Mario Galaxy, mentioned that Nintendo has stated that work is well under way for future core titles, and still just assumes that the only thing they see in their future is Wii Music. Pathetic. I don't mind at all that Nintendo still wants to appeal to the Blue Ocean crowd, nor do I mind when they decide to let 3rd party companies take center stage for a while. After all, that's what they did during the twilight years of the SNES--when Square pretty much ruled that roost.

Nintendo is not going to drop core gaming like they dropped playing cards back in the day. Core gaming is a major part of their business and they know that. Sure, I'm a little annoyed that some core games (like SMG and MP3: Corruption) were easier than I had wanted, but then again, it's not like I didn't still have tons of fun playing them.