Most hardcore gamers and gaming journalists dont hate the wii , they just ignore it. No amount of sales can make these people care about the wii.

No, what he's referring to is the video game crash of 1983 when the common acceptance of video games among general consumers (not gamers) led to an influx of systems and more damaging, a flood of poor quality titles that were cranked out in minimal time in an attempt to jump on board a popular trend and cash in.

We all know how that turned out.

I see it happening with the Wii already. New budget titles, likely only to be bought by unassuming consumers who don't know how to judge quality titles and don't read reviews or video game press. Also a lot of shoddy peripherals that no one really needs and generally don't enhance the basic playing experience (read: waste of money).

The difference is that there are still quality titles on the platform that are selling more than well enough to guarantee future sequels to franchises, some of which have been running for almost two decades.

Most general consumers who don't know next to nothing about games are still safe buying just about any game published by Nintendo.

The trick is getting them to buy a $50 quality game instead of a $20-30 game that probably shouldn't have been published in the first place.

General consumers often look at price first if they don't know the difference in quality or aren't buying based upon good word of mouth advice.

No amount of sales?  You don't want to guess 75 million or 100 million or when it passes PS2?  These reviewers will either have to learn how to seriously professionally review Wii games or be niche reviewers for a much smaller audience than they used to have.

What do you guys have against reviewers all of a sudden?
I can't think of any Metacritic scores for Wii games that I really disagree with besides Corruption being way too low (it's a 95+ game, I reckon) and Boom Blox being way too high.

Nice read. Cannot argue any points at all

Just because casual gamers aren't going to hardcore review sites that tell them all their favorite games suck, doesn't mean they're not getting informed.  They ask their friends for advice, they look up good games on Google or Ask.com or Yahoo! Answers.  Once at Yahoo! Answers I stumbled upon a large group of people in their 40s and older who just started gaming on the Wii, and they were giving each other advice on what games to get for themselves and what games to get for their kids.

The game market is not going to crash again.  Today's market has nothing in common with 1983's market.  You think they both have a flood of crappy titles?  1983's flood was a dozen times bigger and there was no internet to help people sort through it at all.  I think the majority of games have always been pretty awful, but now we can even watch gameplay videos of every game ever online.  And if you're not in the loop and going to GameTrailers or other sites, you at least know how to look a game up on YouTube.

It's a backlash against all the negative press the Wii has been getting from review sites and gaming magazines.

When people are really partial to their platform, that will tend to happen.

Pretty pointless to focus on all the negative since a lot of it is warranted, regardless of anyone's fan-like tendencies. Better instead to focus on the quality titles and what has been done right so far (beyond just sales; sales don't justify being able to sell any old garbage on it just because it's popular).

If you really like the platform, make it your personal crusade to see that general consumers buy the quality titles instead of the budget dreck, which is very likely to disappoint.

And accept that the gaming press is unlikely to ever warm to the Wii as a platform because of the change in direction the Nintendo market has made.

I agree with most Wii reviews (other than hating the 100% system) but I think the majority of other games are reviewed way too high.

The majority of the gaming press has been built around the PS1-PS2 generations, that is what they know, that is their business. The Wii is a change from that, just like the NES was a change from the 2nd generation (look at the difference in controllers, 1st gen were usually things you needed to put on a table with a keypad and a joystick... Nintendo brought that back for the NES with the d-pad and just 2 action buttons.

I'm with the Aussie here, the market leader gets loads of crap that drags down overall scores and reviews. My favourite console of all time (the PS2) had a percentage-wise much lower number of good games than its competitors, the X-box and the Gamecube. Most games were shit, actually, and the really good ones were very far between indeed. Of course, I realize this, unlike quite a few Ninty owners this gen who can't seem to wrap their heads around it.

'awaits typical response as to my lack of insight and how I'm wrong'