Nintendo's Wii arrived on the video game scene in 2006 like a rocket. It took off rapidly reaching sales peaks that no other console had ever scaled so quickly even though it had massive hurdles to surpass such as the fact that it was running on last gen rather than current gen tech and had just a handful of games in the old reliable Nintendo series to promote its sales. And Nintendo seemed to be handling things so brilliantly with this console.
However, a few more hurdles popped up in the Wii's path. For one the venerable company Nintendo really had no idea what the majority of today's gamers really want in a gaming system having last had the lead in consoles in the mid 1990's. They didn't know what to give modern gamers. Then they had the problem that as more of their consoles reached store shelves (much of its success driven by shortages during the past three Christmases) more consumers would finally be able to see the console's true abilities paired up against those of the much more powerful PS3 and 360 with their superior lineups of core games geared more towards real gamers.
However, the straw that broke the camel's back began with a very lackluster conferance that Nintendo put on at E3 in 2008 when they had promised gamers core games in all of the traditional series yet only managed to announce that Animal Crossing (kind of a core game and kind of not and actually a series that was still rather in its infancy as far as being able to attract mass audiences) and Wii Music ( a very heavily critically derided and boringly presented game at E3 that made many choose to get up and do their laundry instead of watching its E3 presentation when they felt as if they had been gipped out of a 5 star Square Enix rpg on the fledgling console).
Now we're seeing Nintendo's marketshare falling off, its worldwide sales decreasing, the rise of Sony back to prominence in Japan, and most of Nintendo's new series (No More Heroes, Muramasa, and Madworld) failing to find any really sizeable audience (even though by all accounts all three are good games; they just don't appeal to the new audience that Nintendo tried to create for gaming with the Wii as they would the audiences of more traditional gamers on either PS3 or 360).
The 360 is also rising in the Americas and the 360 and PS3 both show the promise of being able to outperform the Wii in Europe now (granted the 360's shelflife might not last too much longer before Microsoft decides to bring out their next super game console).
So, the Wii's star is beginning to set much as many prophecied. However, the Wii, it was a nice fad while it lasted, and Nintendo shouldn't let anyone take that fact away from them.
Heavens to Murgatoids.
