I think a lot of people still don’t understand what happened to make the Wii so successful ...
There has been a massive move on all consoles towards 4 player local game-play in a large part because of Nintendo’s efforts to make gaming more acceptable among the masses. Games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario Kart have all sold amazingly well because they were 4 player games. A lot of the games which reviewers bashed were reviewed in a single player setting, and were actually quite enjoyable in a multiplayer setting, and sold well because word of mouth and firsthand experience with these games is far more important towards sales than reviews or marketing.
In my opinion, Microsoft and Sony would be doing better focusing on 1080p 6-player split screen on games like Mario Kart than they are by focusing on motion controls; especially if rumours are true and few of these motion controlled games will support more than 2 players.
Casual gamers aren't "dumb" they just have a very different play-style than most reviewers; and qualities that make a game review well do not make a casual game fun.
