Good points well made.

However, where do you put games that are both simple and punishing? For example, the original Super Monkey Ball used one stick and no buttons and yet the hard courses were uncompromisingly hardcore.

I often think I belong to a group of gamers that never seems to be represented. On one extreme you have Wii Sports and on the other you have something like, say, Mass Effect with a huge story mode requiring hours of investment. I'm not against either, but my personal preference is something sort of in between, something simple and accessible that can be played for short periods of time but that you can spend months mastering. Hence the Treasure logo as my profile pic.

Incidentally, I think that although the Wii is far from ideal, it is the current gen console that most fits my gaming needs.

I'm more concerned about the loss of quality. The fact that the audience wants simple games doesn't mean they want rubbish games - even Nintendo falls into the "shovelware trap".

Super Mario Bros. was a simple game, yes, but it had fantastic level design, catchy music, a well thought out "mythos"* and most importantly a sense of progression and development - the game got harder through the levels until you felt you'd achieved something by beating it.

All of this "casuals don't want goals, they want 'free roaming'/'everyone's a winner' mechanics" like Animal Crossing or Wii Music is rubbish too. Games need to be accessible but rewarding.

Let me give you some examples of this - these games are accessible and rewarding, and sold well amongst core fans and casual players:

Pokémon Red/Blue

New Super Mario Bros.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Mario Kart Wii

*That doesn't mean story or dialogue. It means the characters fit with the levels fit with the enemies, so that the result was "predictable" within the framework of the game, i.e. it was easy to see that lava was dangerous and coins were valuable. Nothing was out of place.

But they just finished Galaxy a mere year ago! They're not sacrificing the good stuff for the casual pap, they're making both at the same time.

I guess you're sort of right, but the N64 and Gamecube were not about simple controllers.

Completely different from what I thought the topic was about when I saw the title. Thought it was possibly in response to DS's low sales last couple of weeks in Americas and you were saying the low sales isn't because of low stock following the high Christmas sales but rather people have lost interest in DS and the same thing will soon happen to Wii.

Anyway Nintendo is a business and you only have to look at sales to know that they have done absolutely the right choice and I think anyone who says Nintendo should have gone a different path is an idiot.

^ They were also Nintendo's two lowest selling consoles :P

Can I add a game or two to the complex list.... Battalion Wars 2 and SSX:Blur. There is a lot to learn in those games, and particularly for BWii you need to be good at doing lots of stuff at once.

Well Nintendo do enough "Hardcore" games for me to enjoy.

Just beacuse we haven't seen any for almost a year doesn't mean they don't have any in development, I rather wait 6 months extra so I can enjoy M+ controls then have them released today.

Can't understand why people still don't realise why it's taken so long for a new "core" Nintendo game.... M+M+M+M+M+

Nintendo hasn't changed at all imo. They haven't had the best of third party support since over a decade ago with the SNES. The main reasons to buy a Nintendo console have been first party games for a LONG TIME now.

Nintendo was never about hyper-violent games.

And as far as their "core" franchises... well they've released AAA or AA games in basically all of them. They haven't abandoned anything. People bring up Wii Fitt but like to pretend that the power pad and all those aerobics games never came out on the NES.

People will say Wii Music isn't even a game, then they totally forget about Mario Paint on the SNES.

They mention shovelware, but forget about how the first few years of the SNES were nothing but, "lets slap the word 'Super' in front of anything and it'll be a hit!!!"

Ninty is still the same. 14 year olds run the internet and they no memory of anything going past the PS2.

Great Post! I just wanted to point out that there are also those of us that moved on, but now have returned home because somehow the fun got lost in all that complexity and challenge.