Lou Kesten is the Associated Press's video game writer. His columns appear in newspapers and publications in (at least) the US and Canada. He also seems to have a typical gaming journalists' view of the Wii. The only problem is that he is much more widely available to the general public than your typical gaming journalist.

In the paragraph below, he seems to have misinterpreted the reason for Nintendo lowering its profit forecast (the Yen). He also makes the obligatory statement about the Wii not being played (which objective data shows it is being played).

While I realize that Nintendo is in a lull of releases (speculated on this forum to be awaiting Wii Motion Plus final release), it makes you wonder what others know ... of think they know ... or want to believe they know ... or if they know anything.

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=e020208A

Mario's blues: The video-game industry has been battered by the economy and Nintendo, whose Wii and DS have dominated the current generation of game hardware, isn't immune. Nintendo slashed its profit forecast for the year ending in March by one-third. That led to a slide in Nintendo stock and questions about whether Wii sales have peaked. The question for gamers: When is Nintendo going to shift its focus toward producing more Wii software? The company's U.S. release calendar for the first half of 2009, led by its "Punch-Out. " remake, is awfully thin, and many of those once-elusive Wii consoles are starting to gather dust.

Example of the typical perspective on the Wii from Kesten.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/29/entertainment/e052637S71.DTL

With so little happening in the video-game industry this week, there's no better time to conduct an Airing of Grievances. So, in honor of "Seinfeld" patriarch and Festivus creator Frank Costanza, here are the worst games of 2008. No soup for them.

2. "Wii Music" (Nintendo, for the Wii): In the age of "Rock Band," using the Wiimote to mime playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or "Yankee Doodle" just doesn't cut it. It's the most ill-conceived and poorly timed game in the stellar career of designer Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Mario and "The Legend of Zelda" franchises. He'll come back.

Hot Christmas item most likely to be all over eBay by February: "Wii Fit."

Mike from Morgantown

Heh...I guess hes not heard of House of the Dead and Deadly creatures. Sure it isn't Nintendo, but it still helps to wipe the dust off the Wii.

On another note... If these games sell less than My Petz Horse, I will hate the wii forever.

the only industry that seems to be going down the crap shut faster then the automotive is the news and journalism

I think Kesten hates Nintendo more than the Wii.

His next item in his current column talks about Sega and EA's offerings for the Wii.

Wii abides: Oddly enough, it could fall to Sega to keep hardcore Wii players happy. Once a competitor for Nintendo, Sega is releasing three of early 2009's most anticipated Wii titles: the zombie-survival game "House of the Dead: Overkill," the gory brawler "MadWorld" and the sci-fi shooter "The Conduit."

And Electronic Arts, whose "Boom Blox" was one of the Wii's unheralded delights last year, has announced a sequel: "Boom Blox Bash Party." So while Nintendophiles are waiting for news of the next "Legend of Zelda" games, third-party publishers could be keeping their Wiis humming.

But he does miss a lot of harder edge games coming out by a lot of different people -- as Nintendo prepares its next releases and let's third parties do what they can.  And people seem to forget that NIntendo has a 4/5 ratio of first-party top sellers on its consoles -- compared to a 1/5 ratio for Sony and Microsoft.

Mike from Morgantown

He proably bought a ton of nin stock wen the SNES was riding high, then was like “okay I will stick this thru when they released the 64” then just decided to bail out during the cube days with a “well you had a good run but I have to go some place else—I know I will get sony stock”

Then when wii hit nin rose to new heights and his sony fell so now he blames wii fit ;)

Shouldn't you hate consumers for buying one over the other? The Wii didn't make this situation magically happen.

I wouldn't blame the consumer.

I mean, release House of the dead and My Happy Kitty on the 360 and see which one sells more. Shenanigans like this are only possible on the Wii.

One could blame the companies for making these games I guess. Damn you Ubisoft@!

The ammount of people that must hate me for not buying a game must be tremendous then. V_V

It's a sad article, because I couldn't laugh... maybe it was too sad to laugh at.

At least I finished reading it with an open mind, I tried to keep it fresh and not add any objections into my thoughts... wierd; I guess it really was just a sad article.

Someone was saying Print Journalism is going down faster than Link with his iron boots sinks in Hyrule Lake, that is the reason they seem to paint a picture of some giant whirlpool and everything is sinking into it.

Cause and Effect explains chicken and the egg situation, News seems to be the middle man in this situation.

You should blame the companies for not marketing them. Ubisoft actually markets its "Petz" and "Imagine" games. Games like "Zak & Wiki" and "Okami" barely got any marketing whatsoever. What did the Wii have to do with the former game selling better than the latter?

 Ever heard of the Nintendo DS? You know, the system where Ubisoft ported all those petz games over from? (Which were orginally on the PC) According to this website, Petz: Catz 2 is a million seller. Something the DS Castlevania games will likely never do even if we had their missing European data.

And I wouldn't be talking up the 360 crowd either. This is the same system where in sales Army of Two curbs stomps The Orange Box, Need for Speed: Pro Street crushes Burnout Paradise, and The Force Unleashed outsold every game SEGA has published on the 360, except Superstar Tennis, which is a bundled game. =P