I also don't get the criteria.

Why are 3D Mario and Zelda excluded? They're hardcore games. And even though a company like Disney is mainly kid-centric, a game like Epic Mickey is still a hardcore game. If Monster Hunter can be included with dragons in it, why no Star Fox with a fox in it?

Excluding one game and not the next effectively makes the list useless. Unless your criteria was that the games should have 'realistic character models' to compare what games with realistic character models on Nintendo systems do against games with realistic character models on other systems, and predict ZombiU sales, a game with realistic character models.

Zelda had assault, killing, kidnap, and 'breaking and entering.' I guess a "hardcore" game has blood and cussing in it, sounds like a challenging game for only the true to the heart videogamers LOL

Criteria is in a nutshell no cartoony aesthetic/family-centric brands allowed.

I may revise it to allow Zelda, but that's about it.

If it's a character property that could guess star on an episode of Seasame Street without people doing a double take -- nope.

We already know Mario/Pokemon/DK/Kirby do great on Nintendo platforms. I want to have one thread that focuses on franchises that have been on Nintendo consoles and are outside that design aesthetic.

I can certainly differentiate between James Bond and Mario, but I can't categorize all games so simply into two groups of "family-oriented" and "hardcore".

I'd contest that there's as much difference between the audiences for 1080 Snowboarding and Resident Evil as there is between, say, Pokemon and Just Dance. I doubt I'm the only one here who thinks this way and I highly doubt that the sales of games work that way, making this thread seem rather silly to me.

@happydolphin I'm not sure I can even agree that there is a witchhunt. Of course, that may be because I'm part of it, but I really don't see any reason for which you should be so passionately against anyone who's on the other side of this "casual Nintendo" argument. You find us overly defensive and dismissive of any arguments against Nintendo and we find you ridiculous in your arguments. There's nothing objectively wrong with us that I can concede we need to improve.

Regardless, telling people off really never helps, :P. No one's gonna concede that they've been doing something wrong when you just outright say it to them like that.

But from the list above all you really have is some violent games where you kill things and a couple racing simulators. Is this what it really means to aim at an older audience? Surely adults are not this boring and can enjoy family oriented games as you call them. Why can't you consider jsut dance aimed at older audience, expecially for female games? sure kids play them but at the same time when we were young, we played goldeneye, so does that make goldeneye family riented as people of all ages played it?

I really think what you have done is listed what you think adult oriented games mean to you based on the types of games you like. By your defintion sure I agree that the Wii hasn't got many good sales. But can you blame Wii owners when, the ports from gcn and ps2 where better efforts than actual 3rd party created wii games. Even all the EA sports games at one stage turned into some weird childish franchise (i think in 2009), did EA expect people to buy that crap?

The simplest thing I can say is, there are a lot of factors that determine a game's success.

One example of what determes success is shipped volumes. MGS TS on GCN at least in Australia pretty much had one shipment to cover pre orders. The only way you could get the game was if someone didn't pay for their preorder and it ended up on shelf.

Then this thread isn't for you, just leave it at that.

This is to focus on games on Nintendo consoles that do not have the benefit of a family-friendly/cartoony design nature and to look at how they've performed historically. Simple as that. No need to get defensive about it.

We know Mario is great and Just Dance sells like gangbusters on the Wii, OK? This thread is focusing on other types of games. It's relevant today because Nintendo is attempting to broaden their demographic appeal very obviously with the Wii U (at least to some extent).

If you have suggestion of a game that you feel should be added within the criteria clearly laid out in the OP I'll be happy to add it to the list if warranted, which I already have done with several other suggestions from other posters.

I've always liked you immortal, so it's nothing personal. I'm just totally fed up of the usual arguments and people labeling others as misrepresenting simply because they aim to point out possible truths using sales numbers selectively so as to draw patterns.

It's been a burden on me for the longest time and I'm going to vehemently fight against it, this is where I'm starting.

We are here to learn, we are here to analyze and we are here to speculate. If every time someone emits a hypothesis that has gaps but could use work, that people bash it, we will go nowhere on vgchartz. I think it's time we tried something new.

your thread should be based on age ratings, you cant put "hardcore" in the title and then exclude the best selling hardcore titles because of whatever reason
NO, M rated games dont sell well on Nintendo consoles
Hardcore games sell a lot on Nintendo consoles

DaD, he included Metroid. That's not rated M. There are a few others too. Try to think outside the box a bit, if possible.

Lol, Im pretty sure people would do a double take if MARIO was on Seasame Street and on top of that it isn't animated lol, they use puppets.