You’re so wrong that it’s gone from being not funny to being absolutely hilarious. To begin with, no one on these forums should be a “hardcore” gamer. There is no such thing as a “hardcore” or a “casual” gamer, despite the junk that the enthusiast press may be trying to shove down our throats for the past few years. I’ve already written a lengthy and rather dull essay on this site about the matter, so rather than bore you all again I’ll restrain myself to pointing out that all of us here play and enjoy some “casual” games, and that “casual gamers” are always the primary consumers of every “hardcore” game that goes platinum.
And yes, I read your later explanation about what separates a “casual” game from a hardcore one, and I have to say I’m less than impressed: if “depth” is what divides the two, then almost no first person shooter out there qualifies as a “hardcore” game, while every Sim game made headed by Will Wright is the ultimate “hardcore” game. If “depth” is what determines which games are magically good enough for us and which ones aren’t, then all of the Grand Theft Autos are more “casual” than a retired maid playing Wii Sports. If “depth” is the arbiter of what’s worth “our” time as “hardcore gamers”, the only games any of us should be playing are the Europa Universalis series. Sorry dude, but your logic makes zero sense.
But let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that you are somehow right about there being such a divide. Your argument, then, is that the Wii is somehow going to make all developers devote so much of their time and resources to “casual” games that we “hardcore” gamers, who are far too good for such casual crap as Tetris and would never in our life be caught playing Guitar Hero, will somehow be left out in the lurch. That’s patently absurd. In case you haven’t noticed, even Nintendo, who’s spearheading this “casual” movement that you fear so much, is still primarily making more traditional games. Here, have a look at their Wii releases.
http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=&console=Wii&developer=&publisher=245&genre=&keyword=&order=Sales
Seems to me that the vast majority of Nintendo’s titles are not “casual”, unless of course Mario, Metroid, Zelda, and the like have morphed overnight into being “casual” games. It’s possible, of course. I mean, the current king of “hardcore” games, GTA, was called a casual title only a few years ago, so since that idiotic title is so amorphous that a game could go from being at the bottom of the “hardcore” list to the top, I suppose another game can go from the top to the bottom quicker than a drunken prom date. But since I refuse to believe that that’s happened, I have to ask what exactly it is that makes you think that all publishers are going to suddenly devote so much of their resources to “casual” games that the hardcore snobs will have nothing left to play.
But Nintendo is only one publisher, so perhaps you’re afraid that it’s an exception rather than the rule? Unfortunately, you’re wrong there too. You’ll notice, for instance, that the stream of traditional titles has hardly abated since the Wii was introduced. The PS3 and the 360, your bastion of “hardcore-ness”, are still getting plenty of games narrowly tailored to the 16-25 male demographic. What’s more, so is the Wii, unless it’s somehow escaped your attention that almost all the major cross-platform releases coming out this year also have a Wii version. Call of Duty 5, Guitar Hero IV, Sonic Unleashed, the list goes on and on. As an added bonus, we’re also seeing exclusive Wii games that you would consider “hardcore” coming out soon. Or have you not noticed the announcements of such games as The Conduit, or Mad World, or the newest version of Castlevania? Actually, I’m sure you haven’t noticed that, otherwise you wouldn’t have made such a ludicrous claim to begin with.
Finally, the part of your post that made me laugh the most. “(Y)our preferred form of entertainment will go down the shitter as it becomes less and less profitable to make hardcore games.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s already less and less profitable to make hardcore games on the 360 and PS3, and that’s without the Wii somehow sapping their sales away. Haven’t you noticed yet that publishers and developers who are working on those two platforms are reporting record revenue, but lower profits than last generation? Heck, EA actually posted a loss for its last fiscal quarter, and it’s blaming much of that on the development of its big-budget HD games. It’s simple logic, really. We know for a fact that developing games for the 360 and PS3 cost two, three, sometimes even more on average than games for the Wii and PS2.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18389
And yet publishers are only charging one-fifth more for their games this generation than the last. How, pray tell, do you expect developers and publishers to continue to be profitable on your systems when it costs them a lot more to develop for them, while having only a pittance more in compensation? If anything, a few big-budget bombs on those systems can cause even a fairly large publisher to start cutting staff, while big-budget games for the 360 and PS3 are putting even the big-name publishers in some financial difficulty. Recall, for instance, the fact that a Konami executive essentially went on record as saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 basically has to sell millions of copies to make a return on its investment, unless you can figure out some other way to interpret Konami's need to have the game sell a million copies on day one.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/29/metal-gear-solid-4-producer-says-game-needs-to-sell-a-million-co/
And it's not just the big boys who are feeling the heat here. Hell, smaller developers who’ve been losing money on those two platforms have been making a killing on the Wii precisely because their developments costs are lower for that system than they are for the 360 and PS3. Indeed, some new developers are choosing to make games for the Wii for precisely that reason.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18247
So can you please explain to me why the Wii is supposed to be the death knell of hardcore gaming, when from all the data we have it appears that it’s the development costs of the HD consoles that are causing profits to drop, studios to merge, and developers to close down? I’d go into more details about why you’re wrong, except I not only think that not only is this post long enough already, but I seriously suspect that I’ve put far more thought into your post than you did.
Edit: Apologies everyone. I didn't realize how big of a rant that was...
