trestres said:
Kenryoku_Maxis said:
trestres said:
That's the point, the main focus of Nintendo with the Wii are the new gamers/the mainstream. They don't believe that advertising a game for the core is necessary because they think they will sell for themselves. WRONG. Most of their core releases have bombed in Japan, bombed terribly. They all have in common the lack of advertisement and media previous to release.
Third parties followed suit. They saw that games like Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Mario Kart, Guitar Hero, etc were successful, and now that's what they are aiming for. Core games are a rare happening that will almost definitely never end up better on the Wii than they would have on other console.
Third parties don't advertise their core games, because they know they aren't top quality and they know that Nintendo themselves don't care to advertise core games either.
Retailers have already showed signs that they are unwilling to stock core Wii games. Excitebots, Punch Out, Muramasa, Little King's Story, Disaster: DoC are all examples. The core market is already a niche market on the Wii. |
Nintendo doesn't believe in dropping the core market. And they definitely still believe in advertising. This has been a big misconception since they said they're moving into new markets, but they're still making plenty of 'core' games themselves. If anything, it was people on the internet and third parties who developed this image for Nintendo that they were dropping the 'core' gamer and alienated them.
I totally agree that since Third Parties had this mentality and started throwing a bunch of shovelware on the system, the Wii has gotten a negative image of being a 'casual' system. But its not Nintendo who developed that image. They were trying to branch out to obtain the 'younger' and 'older' demographic but still had their eyes on the making the same core games they always did (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc) and came through with them in their FIRST YEAR. With even bigger titles coming the following year like Mario Galaxy, Brawl, Fire Emblem, etc.
Pretty much it all comes back to the third parties dropping the ball and alienating themselves from the Wii from the beginning. if its Nintendos fault for not subsidizing their development costs and doing 'everything they could' to get them to work on their system, then perhaps its better that they didn't. It backfired for them on the GC and caused us to have less good games on the system as a whole. Maybe on the next system third parties will actually give Nintendo a try this time.
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Zelda was being hyped for about 3 years already since its announcement for the GC at E3 2004. Compare the hype that Zelda got to the new Zelda DS is getting in less than a month. There's clearly no hype or interest being built around their games anymore, unless it's a new thing like Wii Music/Fit/Sports. Games like Disaster, Punch-Out (Save for the USA), Excitebots, Batallion Wars 2, Captain Rainbow, Takt of Magic, Sin & Punishment 2, Trace Memory R have all performed abysmally. And none of them got hyped and were all released by surprise. None of them was advertised properly either. Nintendo doesn't advertise their core franchises anymore.
They have a wrong misconception that core games sell for themselves, even worse when not even the core gamer knows what he will get when he buys the game. They don't want to spend a penny on making people aware of the core games. But they spend millions advertising their casual games. Plus they should have figured out already that the only core gamers who bought the Wii are the loyal Nintendo fans, most of the other guys moved onto the HD consoles. Mostly because of the selection of games and the HW specs. Nintendo has managed to remain relevant only with the new gamers and then the Nintendo fan is also at risk, since I have seen thousands of posts across hundreds of websites where Nintendo fans have been showing discontent with the current efforts made by Nintendo. It's a general feeling.
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All your examples are games that did 'abysmally' in Japan. Once again, a market where the Wii is being crumbled by the DS. Iwata has pointed out that they need to fix this, but its not so cut and dry that everything is Nintendos fault and they're losing their core market. And they are not simply dropping all support for their games aside from their 'Wii' titles. Even here in America they're advertising multiple titles beyond just WiiFit/WiiSports Resort. From 'Mario and Sonic & The Olympic Winter Games' to 'Metroid Prime Trilogy', Nintendo markets their games and not just their 'Wii' brand.
Now you may not think these games are 'core' enough, but they still are being marketed. And you can bet that soon Zelda: Spirit Tracks and NSMB: Wii will as well. Its 100x more than Third Parties are doing.
c0rd said:
Nintendo blazes its own path. They don't pay third parties for games, because their strategy is to create a userbase the third parties cannot ignore. They just weren't able to create enough compelling software to sustain the sales (bet way too much on Wii Music / Animal Crossing). I imagine they were out of ideas. Still, the "core gamers" are not Nintendo's most important customers. Not only are they a smaller group, but the whole industry is already competing for them. They want the interest they generated in 2007 with Wii Sports/Fit, not the kind PS3 the is getting with its lineup.
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While I do think Nintendo had a plan with the Wii to try to coax Third Parties to their side with a 'unique and multi-facetted system', at the same time I think what Nintendo itself was doing was just what it always does. Develop so many original games completely based on their own ideas practically off the cuff (WiiMusic anyone) that they just try to do their own thing. I mean, if you read the background development of things like 'Miis', WiiMusic and WiiFit, they've been in the 'idea' stage since the NES days. Somehow I don't find their 'Wii' lineup be some kind of conspiracy to alter gaming. Or to alienate Third Parties. Its just the wacky (and admittedly genius) developers doing what they do (though WiiMusic probably should have been skipped).
