Nintendo Belongs in the Toy Aisle
Will Wright, the creator of The Sims series said so himself, “Wii games I've enjoyed felt more like toys than like games”. While the game designer and co-founder of EA Maxis has his own way of seeing things and calls this a beneficial “broadening” of the industry, the cries of gaming fanatics who have been Nintendo's biggest fans up until recently are heard worldwide. We don't want your toys, and we don't want you in our video games aisle anymore because you abandoned us.
Any true gamer will agree that Nintendo belongs in the toy aisle right there between the remote control cars and the sit n’ spins. DS, 3DS, Wii, and even Wii U are trying to appeal to an audience that is significantly broader than any other gaming console's audience. In a way it can be said that this tactic is merely a pathetic attempt to gain recognition and increase their net worth while finding a loophole around having to actually compete directly against real gaming consoles such as Microsoft Xbox, Xbox 360, Kinect and Sony Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation Move, PSP, PS Vita, and more.
If Nintendo were to actually attempt to compete face-to-face with any of those consoles it would undoubtedly get its butt handed to it. Sure, Nintendo is a classic system and has released many games that have had plenty of success, including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, and more. But that was the old classic Nintendo. Now that Nintendo is no longer the top dog of gaming consoles, it is trying to stay afloat by finding ways to appeal to a mass audience rather than the true, respectable, gamer audience.
Not only is Nintendo reaching for the pockets of anyone willing to buy its game console, it is taking advantage of its customers because these customers are paying for a system that they know nothing about, when what they should know is that Nintendo Wii and Wii U is already outdated upon release. Gaming consoles such as Microsoft Xbox, Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3 are respected by true gamers because these consoles and the games that go with them are not overly focused on gimmicks and stay true to their real gamer audience rather than trying to sell out to anyone who is willing to buy the system.
Nintendo Wii and Wii U are drastically hyped up, do focus on gimmicks, and rely on that to get the sales that it is getting. Wii and Wii U is constantly needing to come up with new material because it has an audience that is only looking for the next best thing. This gaming segment is constantly struggling to stay relevant, whereas other gaming consoles that have remained loyal to their original, real gamer audience has received the same loyalty back and will continue to do so as long as it does not try to irrationally please everyone, like Nintendo has been doing.
Nintendo Wii is a fun, family-friendly game consoles with games like Family Feud, Monster Jam, Tron, Hello Kitty and a number of hands-on sports games (golf, boxing, soccer, tennis, and more found in the Wii Sports, Deca Sports titles and elsewhere). Anyone can go out and buy a Nintendo Wii, but that does not make them a real gamer, so it doesn’t seem right to have them walking amongst people who are buying games like God of War, Halo, Bayonetta, LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, Fable, and Gears of War, people who are true gamers. Nintendo Wii has failed to offer any hardcore online or mature single player experiences that the real, deep-seeded gamers are demanding (outside of a few barely noticed attempts). Nintendo is no longer good enough for gamers and it is for all the above reasons that Nintendo belongs in the toy aisle.
Many would cling to hope that the Nintendo Wii U has solved these problems. Some would even go as far to say that the “next-generation” Wii-U is more advanced than the current offerings of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. If this was true, it would seem Nintendo's confidence has faltered and they are also possibly behind schedule on this project as trailers to other games, prototypes of games that don't exist yet, and vague features (not complete, official specs) were all they had to show for it at this year's massive Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 2011). The reality of the matter is that Wii U will most likely be more of what we expect from Nintendo. Outdated hardware, something like what we see from the Xbox 360 with slight improvements, a bunch of third-party ports, and the same Nintendo gimmicks and franchises that grow more tired every generation cycle. In conclusion, I agree with Will Wright's statement that the Nintendo Wii belongs in the toy aisle, and I have laid out above the reasons. But I don't think it's just the Wii, I think it's all of Nintendo's products at this point including the Wii U. In the end only time will tell if Nintendo stays in this rut and remains the butt of all 'casual gamer' and non-gamer jokes made by real gamers rocking their PS3, 360, or PC.
Console War: Nintendo vs Sony vs Microsoft
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