Hello - I've been lurking on these forums for weeks now, and people talking about Nintendo abandoning their "hardcore" fans is one thing that comes up often enough. The cries became far worse after e3 hit - I'll admit, I was a bit disappointed there weren't many surprises as well.
I've never paid all that much attention to the videogame business until recently (although I've always been a console gamer, since I was born). All the whining about Nintendo made me curious as to whether they've really been softening up on their core games or not.
I decided to take a look at Nintendo's games on the previous console, the GCN, and compare where each console was at similar points in time. I don't believe anybody complained about Nintendo abondoning them during the GCN days, so if their support is anywhere similar, then there should be nothing to complain about, right?
Here is a list of Nintendo published games from each console and their respective U.S. release dates (I'm listing Nintendo games only, as the complaints are directed towards them alone). The dates were taken from wiki, so let me know if any of them are off or I'm missing anything. The following is a jpeg image, sorry if it's blurry:
The core games launched are surpringly parallel between the two systems. By the end of it's second year, each system has had an iteration of Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Metroid, Mario Party, Animal Crossing, Wario, and a few sports games. As for the remaining games, many of them can be compared to another in terms of how "hardcore" the game is (not debating about quality here, but the focus of the game):
That leaves only 1 core title left GCN has over Wii - Star Fox. Instead, the Wii has the Wii Series, Endless Ocean, Big Brain Academy, and some WiiWare titles. Even in the chance the disappointed "hardcore" gamers would prefer a Star Fox Adventures over all these titles, the titles are responsible for turning the Wii into the leading console. While this does mean the Wii gets loads of shovelware, it also means mainstream 3rd party games will show up on the platform that wouldn't otherwise have (Japanese titles at least, like Monster Hunter 3).
Conclusion: Nintendo's effort for the core gamers has not gone down. Instead, they've just released more games for the "casual" audience. I believe this is a superior strategy to what they did in the GCN days, not just for Nintendo, but the gamers as well - even if the games are not for the "hardcore", the sales will no doubt bring 3rd parties to the system, ensuring that in time, there will be many more core games than the GCN ever had.
Oh, and I apologize if a thread like this was made before, as I didn't see any like it. Otherwise, feel free to link here whenever the "hardcore" speak of Nintendo abandoning their old fans, because it appears that isn't the case.
!! and welcome to Vgchartz
