Anti-Nintendo biased in the enthusiast media

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The perception that Wii games need more rigorous standards arises largely from vocal hardcore gamers who cannot, and do not want to, believe that a collection of mini-games is hammering their peccadillo du jour in the marketplace.

Ed Barton, Screen Digest

 

It's no secret that the casual news media, and in most cases, general gamer, enjoys and respects the Wii and the DS as a gaming device. However, the underground enthusiast press are not big fans. The majority of these English, often web based journalism sites are, as a fact, adamantly against the Wii, DS, Nintendo in general.

 

As I see it, there is a divide between the percieved goal of Nintendo, and the rosecolored trim these gaming journalists see as the ideal future of the game industry. They resent Nintendo's success as they feel it sharply contrasts any success other companies may have, with a more traditional approach to gaming.

 

The enthusiast press is constantly backed up by readers, who often hold seperate interest from what is fair and balanced reporting.

 

The biggest anti-Wii journalism sites on the net are:

 

Kotaku.com

Neogaf.com

 

Contrary to this, there are also sites that seem to favor the Wii as a medium compared to other consoles:

 

IGN.com

Gonintendo.com

Xplay

 

And sites that make every attempt to stay completely unbiased:

 

Gamespot.com

1up.com 

 

The problem lies in the communities of even the pro Nintendo and unbiased sites, as they are also largely Anti-Nintendo. To figure out why, you should read the opening sentance of this article.

 

While it is rare for even the pro-Nintendo sites to openly applaud Nintendo for anything they do, it is in every other article that the anti-Nintendo sites attempt to diminish the Wii's success, and spread the fanboy propoganda that is so far, unproven. It only takes one listen to any David Jaffe interview to see how he feels about Nintendo.

 

Any story against Nintendo is instantly picked up and ran with on virtually all of these sites, while often stories against Sony and the 360 are buried, such as the Burnout series requirment of a hard-drive, or the increased cost of the MGS series for the Playstation 3.

 

A quick scroll through the comments section of any arcitle that even mentions Nintendo is littered with hate speach about the Wii, and paints the system in broad strokes, in a negative light, while stories against the Xbox360 are often waved aside as unimportant, and even if they are reported fairly which so often they are not, flamed for poor editorilization for speaking out against Nintendo's competitors.

 

With the domination of the Wii, Nintendo is now, by far, the most talked about subject, not only in gaming, but perhaps across the entire internet, and those gamers who have been reading the hatespeech and propoganda presented by these smear sites have in turn, began to smear the Wii out of ignorance.

 

3rd party support

3rd party sales

Multiplat games

Casual games

 

The enthusiast press would have you believe that these are strong arguments against the Wii and its success, but history and facts have proven them wrong. While, in the meantime, good news about the Wii, such as Monster Hunter 3 exclusivity, is often ignored.

 

The main developers in the industry, the Japanese, have a hard time distinguishing between facts and smears as they are reported in America, and the smear merchants have attempted, and sometimes successfully, to draw third party support away from the Wii. Afterall, their goal is not to fix the Wii's faults, but to point them out as a reason not to purchase or play the console, over your traditional system.

 

That's the thing, though. Nothing the enthusiast press says has any effect on the Wii's actual sales number, because the vast majority of gamers are limited to getting their gaming news from G4 or EGM, if at all.

 

The fact is, quality 3rd party support of the Wii is increasing. Rock Band, Monster Hunter 3, and many others can be contributed directly to successful sales.

Sales of most quality 3rd party games besides Zack and Wiki have been brisk and at or above expectations for their regions.

Multiplat games released on the Wii, 360, and PS3(Guitar Hero 3) have heavily favored the 360 and the Wii, while relegating the PS3 to distant third positions.

"Casuals" games sell well on the Wii. However, so do hardcore games, in fact, they sell very well, and Nintendo is releasing "hardcore" games at a very brisk rate, while also allowing them to appeal to everyone, same for Nintendo "casual" games, which can often appeal to the hardcore player.

 

However, you won't hear such obvious speculation on most of those sites. Instead you'll hear, "Nintendo getting 3rd party support? /laff" or some other such passive agressive comment meant to discredit and marginalize Nintendo.

 

The enthusiast media is great at these little, funny, negative spin rubs, especially kotaku. However, get into a debate with any one of these people and they can't defend their stances for one second, without it resorting to those said reporters trolling with their responses and dodging the questions that they don't have any answers for.

 

The fact that this biased exists is obvious, however, you'll be remiss to find anyone who would ever admit it within the industry.