Close enough for what?  A cut scene?  Walk a little... cut scene... walk a little more... cut scene... battle... cut scene.

It's a good game, but I wish that I was playing more and not watching.  I'd call it a good, but not great game.

So what else is coming out published by Nintendo this year?

I've said this before: get out of the opening area. Jeez. Xenoblade is 95% gameplay throughout the whole 70+ hours of playtime. The Last Story is coming out this year, too, making the Wii's last year in the sun much better than the GameCube's was... or the Nintendo 64's for that matter. >_>

We may still see Pandora's Tower and Project Zero II as well. Maybe.

I've played about 20 hours and there's still a ton of cutscenes...

Also, I've heard from people that have played both The Last Story and Xenoblade that Xenoblade is a much better game.

Come on man... you know that the quality of Nintendo's games for the Wii has dropped dramatically.   The lists on the first page back me up.  Don't get me wrong, I love the Wii I really do but I can't stand that Nintendo abandoned it.

I actually believe that 2010 and 2011 were the greatest years for the Wii, beating 2008 into 3rd place. Here in the U.K, we saw:

Xenoblade Chronicles (August 2011)
DKCR (December 2010)
Monster Hunter 3 (April 2010)
Zelda: SS (November 2011)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (February 2011)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (June 2010)
Tatsunoko vs Capcom (January 2010)

The VC also saw IMO the 3 greatest RPGs (if we exclude Xenoblade Chronicles):

Ogre Battle 64 (March 2010)
Chrono Trigger (May 2011)
Final Fantasy VI (March 2011)

You have two Capcom (were they published by Ninty in the UK?) games in there and VC isn't a new release.

That´s exactly what Malstrom has been saying for a long time.

I don’t want to derail your thread since it’s about the Wii and its abrupt decline; plus the fact that my thread that is in the works will specifically be about this topic, so I’d rather debate it there.  However, I’ll address why the Gamecube comparison isn’t accurate:

Personally, I loved the Gamecube.  It’s my third favorite home console of all time behind only the NES and SNES.  That said, there were many terrible missteps made during the Gamecube era, and, fortunately for Nintendo, there are several fundamental differences with the WiiU’s position.

First, the Gamecube (and original Xbox) both launched late against the PS2, whose brand and positioning was hugely popular at the time.  Second, Nintendo was coming off of a console that was not very successful in the market.  Third, the Gamecube had absolutely nothing to distinguish it from the competition.  And lastly, the Gamecube lacked any games throughout its entire lifetime, save for Smash Bros and Mario Kart, that would help to propel it into the mass market.  The first three of these points will be non-issues for WiiU, and if Iwata’s recent statement is to be believed, Nintendo realizes that evergreen software is imperative even if their early focus is the core.

So I don’t think their plan is to neglect giving people what they want at all, I think they want to try and give everyone what they want.  Sure, there are a number of variables involved that could keep WiiU from doing great:  Core gamers could stick with PS360 or wait for their successors, people could not take to the new controller, etc.  But if they can comprise their library of their 1st party games and the vast majority of 3rd party games as well (while launching early and utilizing their new controller well), they could also become unstoppable next gen.

@amp316

On a serious note: assuming Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Galaxy, NSMB, Animal Crossing, Metroid Trilogy, Smash Brothers, Twilight Princess, Mario Kart and Wii Fit were a good first wave of software, what should have been the appropriate second wave?

I understand having Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports Resort and Galaxy 2 was redundant, as was having two Kirby games. Also the lack of motion plus support was surely an issue, and Skyward Sword was WAY too late in the game.

But what should it have looked like?
Your basic premise is that most of the games of the second half of the generation were clones of games that came in the first part, or worse, which I agree with.
So these are a few Nintendo games I think could have made sense:

Pilot Wings - a much expanded version of what we got in Resort basically.
Mach Rider (with optional first person view using motion plus, this could be like a "casual" sim game, not a gritty realistic death-trap. More like a "Wii Motorcycle" type game which could open the door to other casual simulation games if it did well)
Luigi's Mansion 2
Wrecking Crew Wii (I'm sure there are a ton of clever ways motion controls could have been used here)
StarFox

I'd imagine at least three of those (pilot wings, mach rider and wrecking crew) being evergreen sellers and appealing to non-gamers if done right.

are we thinking along the same lines here or did you have other games in mind?

for me, at least, the genre I was most looking forward to seeing on Wii was that of simulation games, like Wii Sports, Trauma Team etc. But they needed to be done just right (ie. with exactly the correct amount of realism) in order to become phenomena on the level of Wii Sports.

"After 2008 Nintendo stopped releasing the kinds of games that they did in 2007 and 2008."

That's the funniest statement in the whole topic to me. You basically spent the whole introduction pointing out how the games Nintendo was releasing in '09-'12 were exactly the same as the ones that came before.

What games did Nintendo release in 2007? Hm, Mario Galaxy, Mario Party 8, Super Paper Mario, Big Brain Academy Wii Degree, WarioWare Smooth Moves ('07 NA & EU release), Mario Strikers Charged, Metroid Prime 3, Link's Crossbow Training, Wii Play ('07 in NA)... compare to Mario Galaxy 2, Mario Party 9, Wii Party, Fortune Street, Rhythm Heaven Fever, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Sports Mix, Metroid Other M, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Play Motion, etc.

How about 2008? Mario Kart Wii, Brawl, Animal Crossing, Wii Music (!), Wii Fit, Wario Land Shake It, Endless Ocean... am I missing something here? That's not a lot of games. The only big ones there are Kart and Brawl. Fit --> Fit Plus, Wario Land is like an amalgamation of NSMB and WarioWare, Endless Ocean --> Endless Ocean 2.

Hardware sales may have dropped in '09 and '10, but that's normal for a console 4-5 years into its lifespan, especially for a console that sold so well so quickly. The Wii peaked in '08; the PS2 peaked in '02; the GBA and GameCube peaked in '03, the XBox in '04. The thing is, even after dropping for two years, Wii hardware sales in '10 were greater than they were in '07 -- and Wii software peaked in '10. 2010 may have been the Wii's best year.

The proof is in the fact that you had to casually dismiss a lot of great games to make your list work. 2011 was the only truly weak year for first-party Wii software.

And you should play more of Xenoblade. There are some cutscenes and stuff, especially about halfway through the game, but there is a LOT of gameplay between them. You can play for hours and not watch a single cutscene, then get a couple of 5 minute ones in a row, then back to hours of no cutscenes. It depends on how you play the game, too.

Actually, if anything, the Wii is the first Nintendo home console that has been interesting in many years. If indications weren't apparent in the first year of the N64 when the system only got about 15 game releases total in a full year; then after Ocarina of Time, Nintendo was clearly in the dark ages. I don't think 2011 was as bad as any year between the end of 1998 through to Holidays 2006 on the Nintendo home console front.