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Soundwave on 14 May 2009
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noname2200 said:
Soundwave said:
Soriku said:

Pretty true. They can't live off casual games forever.

Or more to the point -- they need a balance. I think Nintendo now realizes they put all their eggs into Wii Music and they are now feeling a little bit of a pinch because of that. 

I think they also probably realize they need to increase their dev resources. If they had a Donkey Kong or Star Fox or Zelda game for this spring/summer ... a missed oppurtunity.

I'm actually going to agree AND disagree with BOTH of you. How's that?!

 

Seriously though, if we take Nintendo at their word (and they've been following through on it for years now) then Nintendo never intended to "go casual," or to balance "casual" and "hardcore" offerings. Remember, Nintendo's goal, as they themselves have often stated, is disruption, i.e. to make a market  where the values are completely different than they were before, and in which the values of both the core and expanded audiences adapt to meet these new values.

In other words, they don't want games that appeal to "casual" gamers on the one hand, and "hardcore" gamers on the other. They want games that include both at once. And they're currently in the preliminary stage of bringing the two together, as they explained last April in their "bridge games" speech.

I have to admit, I'm deeply intrigued to see if/when/how they pull this off...

 

Mario Kart Wii and Punch-Out! are examples of bridge games. 

I would still consider those "core" games but they are accessible enough to casual players. 

Reggie said with a straight face last year at E3 that Animal Crossing was their "core title" .... I think they have paid the price for that. 

You can't ignore us core gamers forever. But I think this is a good thing -- you will now see a more aggressive Nintendo starting at E3. 

People want the big Nintendo guns like a new Mario, new Zelda, new Donkey Kong, Star Fox, etc. ... this is not an audience Nintendo can just ignore. They will now be forced to have more this fall than just Pikmin 3.