Iwata: Wii U/3DS will cater to core gamers first, mass market second

[Arius Dion]

LoL. Where to begin? For the life of me I've never been able to grasp what the hell a casual gamer is. I've always felt it was a dismissive term the industry coined in order to marginalize the Wii's success and its customers.

What Mr.Iwata illustrates in his most recent investors meeting is his total lack of understanding what made Wii and DS, for that matter, a success in the first place. Which is scary tbh. Because if you are wrong in understanding your success, you will be wrong in attempting to replicate that success. If your premise is wrong, your conclusions drawn from said premise will inevitably be wrong as well.

I don't know when it happened, but I somewhere along the way became the 'casual gamer' lol. I bought a Wii not for Twilight Princess, but for Wii Sports. The Wii U just doesn't look appealing to me atm. And CEO speak will not get me excited about the Wii U. Iwata speaks as if the Wii was a 'mistake.' But for me the Wii was my favorite system since the SNES..up until 2010-11, coincidentally, the same years when IGN was talking about Nintendo catering to the 'hardcore'

The only company responsible for the Wii's success was Nintendo, third parties did not make the Wii, therefore they could never break the Wii. I fear gen 7 is probably my swan song from gaming. Wii U is not a Wii 2 or Super Wii, it is looking more like a Gamecube in Wii's clothing. The only shortcomings I could see about the Wii in its prime, was its lack of online capablities or OS, graphical output means jack shit. But since tech always improves, I would have expected the next Wii to fix these flaws, HD output was inevitable, but honestly. I would of just improved the accuracy and comfort of the Wiimote, included a classic controller out the box for the gamers who prefer that way to game, allowed the VC and other games purchased on the Wii to be transferred to the new system without additional cost etc.

I'd also give games like MK and 2D Mario the royal treatment in production values. I'm not a PC gamer, so with Nintendo looking to go that route, I must bid farewell, as they are the last of an old guard. I don't think Wii U will be a success. I will wait until E3 to see if this remains true. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If Iwata and company are following the same formula as 3DS or even Sony and M$, and expecting healthy profits, they will be sadly mistaken. And by definition, they would also be rather insane.