Nintendo: core gamers can`t never be satisfied

[Erik Aston]

Funny how Sony and Microsoft and most third parties treat the expanded audience as if they were stupid, and all the people who have read up on Blue Ocean and Disruption yap about that, and how Wii Sports and Wii Fit and Nintendogs and Brain Training are revolutionary...

And all of that is true...

But then when you turn around and look at Nintendo's core offerings (traditional, content-oriented games), folks in here are just sucking up to Nintendo, and patting them on the back for being embarrassingly defensive and combatitive in an inoccuous interview.

Its the same way third parties failing on Wii are acting. They put out terrible "casual" games, mistaking the new Wii audience for the low end of the old core audience, and then when they don't sell, they act like "geez, why aren't you satisfied?"

If core gamers (again, established gamers who look to games to experience content) aren't satisfied with Zelda and Metroid and Animal Crossing this time around, DON'T BLAME THE CUSTOMERS. Any company that blames the customers and says "they can never be satisfied" is going to lose that customer base. Basically, Kaigler thinks that core gamers who are dissatisfied with Wii are STUPID. If they were smart, they would understand how great Nintendo's products are (product-oriented instead of customer-oriented).

Nintendo is, bizarrely, mistaking the core audience for the high-end of their new audience, when they produce "innovation" focused games with core franchises. They are two different markets, both still in transition due to the sudden emergence of the new market.

I hope NCL doesn't feel the same way as Kaigler does.

Doesn't anyone remember when Link to the Past came out? And when Ocarina came out? These games were HUGE FREAKING DEALS. For younger folks who might not know, the climate around Ocarina was similar to that around GTAIII, and even more fevered than that around Halo 2 or CoD4. It was an absolutely monumental moment within the existing core audience. Obviously, even though sales are huge, WW, TP and PH were not quite the same. Nintendo used to create such moments with some regularity. Probably most frequently on SNES, with Mario, Zelda, Kart, DKC, Star Fox, and help from third parties with Street Fighter, FF, Chrono, etc. That's why the section of the core who were gaming during SNES times worship the SNES.

The industry in general created these moments less frequently in the PS2 era, which is why the market was ripe for disruption. Folks like myself, who couldn't put their finger on WHY, but just weren't as happy with games anymore, were the first tier of Nintendo's blue ocean strategy--"fringe customers." But I know people who were more upscale customers in the PS2 era, and just loved and competely ate up the games of that era, and now have multiple current gen consoles that they rarely play. Why? PS3 and 360 are overloaded with PC-type games; they are basically casual PCs, and Nintendo is focusing on "innovating" with their core franchises, instead of digging deeper into core values to produce more "OMG" games like Ocarina.

So there's this whole middle-of-the-road "core" that have a right to feel unsatisfied until someone starts making top tier games for them. Not watered down PC games. Not seemingly traditional games that scrap content for "innovation" like Animal Crossing Wii or Phantom Hourglass. But a new Melee-like moment, a new Ocarina-like moment, a new Street Fighter 2-like moment. Brawl, Galaxy and Mario Kart were close, but they aren't enough. Just like Wii Sports wouldn't be enough without Mario Party, Wii Play, Mario and Sonic, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Crossbow Training all coming behind it.

I do think some of those core mistaken in saying that 'the games are too easy.' I think the perceived easiness is folks' familiarity with the gameplay mechanics, combined with a lack of interesting new content.