Hardly a day goes by without seeing someone create a post or a thread that states (essentially) that Nintendo’s lack of first party "Hard-Core" titles over this Christmas season is a sign that Nintendo has abandoned the "Core" gamer. Being that this argument is spread by people who have always been critical of everything Nintendo has done, I’m not going to try to argue against that and I’m going to focus on the absence of these titles from the current upcoming line-up.

It seems to me that Nintendo is releasing less first party titles for the Wii this holiday season then they have released for any home console during the holiday season for a very long time; on top of this there seems to be a hole in their line-up which would (typically) have one of their major first party "Core" titles. This doesn’t follow Nintendo’s typical strategy for the holiday season and it says (to me) that one or more games probably go delayed and we didn’t know about it.

Now, why would a game (or possibly multiple games) on the Wii see delays given that the development cycle (by now) should be very familiar given how similar it is to previous generation game development? The one thing I could thing of, is the one thing everyone seemed universally excited about from Nintendo’s E3 press event, Wii MotionPlus.

Consider that for Nintendo to show off Wii MotionPlus at E3, with Wii Sports: Resort, the add-on would have had to be fairly far along in development for months; and for it to have been in that state, it is quite possible that Wii MotionPlus began development 12 or more months ago.

Imagine you’re one of the key designers within Nintendo’s first party studios and you’re asked to give your input about a (very) early prototype of an add-on which gives one-to-one motion control on the Wiimote. Suddenly you start to see the barriers that are preventing you from developing the kind of game you wanted to with Zelda, Mario, Metroid, or Kid Icarus seem to be disappearing and you regain that feeling of freedom you received when you first started working with the Wiimote.

Now, being that inside Nintendo there has always been the belief that a delayed game is eventually good, how do you react when (pretty much) every one of your key designers comes to you and asks to be able to delay their game to take advantage of the Wii MotionPlus?

Finally to add some more (un-provable) speculation, it is quite possible that Nintendo agreed to allow these developers to delay their games to use the Wii MotionPlus and still thought it was possible to launch during the holiday season. The one thing that one-to-one motion controls really can bring to a "Core" game is complexity and depth and it is plausible that in the face of this many developers required additional time to tweak their games to give the user the experience they would desire; in the face of this, Wii MotionPlus and the games associated with it could have (easily) seen further delays in order to give the best overall experience possible.

This is just a thought, and I’m certain some people will get overly excited by what I suggest whilst others see it as me being overly optimistic about how Nintendo works. The question I will ask that started me down this thought process is "Would you rather have the Zelda, Mario and Kid-Icarus you dreamed were possible when you heard about the Wiimote, or would you rather have these games at Christmas?"

Do you think Nintendo care that some core titles are delayed or not? With or without them the Wii will probably still being sold out this holiday season.

Wii isn't a hardcore console. it is a casual...even too some extent childish console. If you wanted hardcore, you should have gotten a PS3 or xbox 360

I don't have complains about Wii lineup for this holiday. In fact I'm going to buy only 2 Nintendo games, the rest are 3d parties like de Blob, Little King's Story, Tales of Symphonia also I'm waiting for a release date for Fragile and Fatal Frame

I think this would have been one of the major considerations ...

Nintendo (quite possibly) saw the line-up of third party titles and the massive sales of the Wii and thought that they really didn't need to add anything to push Wii sales at Christmas; after all, the Wii has seen holiday season like sales through out the year and will likely be sold out (regardless) for the entire Christmas season.

Personally, I do think it is far more likely that the absence of certain titles from their line-up this year is more likely caused by a delayed game than Nintendo no longer being interested in those gamers; this delay could have been caused by business decisions, design issues, or (as I suggested) a move towards the Wii MotionPlus add-on.

I don't think you can describe the one console which has been able to attract adult women gamers (and gamers over the age of 40) in large numbers as being childish in any way shape or form; its popularity among demographics outside of the 13 to 21 year old male demographic suggests that it may be the most mature console on the market even though it lacks "Mature" titles.

Anyways, my point wasn't arguing that Nintendo was really pushing heavily into the "Hard-Core" market as much as trying to explain the absence of titles that you would typically see during the holiday season. If Nintendo had truely abandoned their "Core" gamers I suspect we would have seen a similar number of titles to previous years being released without any titles that appealed to "Core" gamers.

i was pissed at E3 but all that is out of my system now, i am looking forward to about 7-8 games for the rest of the year, if fatal frame 4 gets 2008 release date i would be happy gamer.

but nintendo should show some good games next year.

How old are you really? by your comment you can't be more then a teenager.

@Happysquirrel
Can't really say that you discovered america or anything the like with your post, but of course someof it is valid, some is speculation, and some of it seems very, very far fetched.

You have to hand it to Nintendo that during the first 1,5 years of Wiis life cycle, they managed to dish out all the games that are main sereis titles (SMG, Zelda, MK, SSBB) which is pretty unprecedented. I really would think that beyond the urge to have their future games use the motionplus, they really just would'nt have too many games that would appeal to everyone like the ones written above, that would be ready to dish out for this holiday season.

Besides, with Nintendo practically hammering 3rd party sales, it would be a good thing to let them have a bit of space during the holiday season. If by any chance the lineup for this year doesn't result in at least 3-4 3rd party million sellers, there will be a problem imo.

Did you even read the OP?