I am not surprised. Journalism turned from reporting the truth to selling the media format (whether its shifting newspapers or getting people on to a website to increase ad rev etc) a long time ago. It's a poor article indeed. It's sad that its likely to become commonplace in the future. Although, I do think that Wii Music did damage Miyamoto's reputation.

^ I would argue that may be the nature of gaming journalism and mainstream journalism regarding gaming, but we should expect better.

I already did.  And if you weren't too busy trying to bring down Wii owners you perhaps may have read it.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=2447686

See once again, you people miss the point and go crying about how unfair life is...get over it already.

I am not going to bother with the colored comments within my post. It is not only retarded but also makes threads obnoxious to read.

Actually no, it does not give perspective. It does not explain how the sales of the various consoles, and indeed the video game market over-all are doing. For all we know (from the article) the entire industry is down 57% and Nintendo is just feeling it like everyone else. There is nothing that attempts to describe how its doing because that would be counter productive to his agenda, or be considered informative and the mark of a good article. Nice try though.

Also, you repeatedly assert that the article is about the largest drop in gaming history, but I see no evidence of that in the original article. It is talking about Nintendo's recent fall from grace and how it has "nothing on the immediate horizon to match the success of hardware-shifting titles such as Wii Fit and Wii Mario Kart," which is a patently false claim with New Super Mario Bros Wii right there on the horizon (Fall release). Hell he talks about the PS3 in the damned article. In fact only once does he mention as an aside that it is one of (but not) the largest drop off in console history. How on earth do you spin that into talking about only Nintendo? Ballsy move, but not very well thought. Try a different tack to defend it.

Actually I have not left out the third option at all, and you admitted in your comments I was right. He failed to properly research even the most basic of facts before making claims in his article. He has blatantly false statements as facts. These are easily proven wrong, which any competent journalist would be ashamed to have in an article he wrote. So we are at he is an incompetent journalist and the article is poorly written. Glad we could agree.

You might also want to try and read my posts rather than skim them for sound bites. They are cohesive, and paragraphs support each other. They do not float out in the ether waiting to be disproven line by line. Next time read it all, take it in, and then try forming a coherent counter argument to it. Also I would recommend using his bit about the stuff being "hardware moving" to try and discount Wii Fit Plus as a big title. It does nothing to hamper the claim on NSMBWii though. That one you will have to find something clever to discount it on your own. And no, him thinking it won't be big does not count. He thinks SMG2 will be big, and it sold around half of what NSMB sold.

I note you are continually ignoring my post which you requested to see.

He can't find interesting sound bites to troll in it. Without that he has no real content. You have to see it from his perspective.

I see you repeatedly insult my reading comprehension, and yet you have entirely misread my first statement. In it, I have said not one thing about the current games market. In fact, giving a holistic picture right now would make Nintendo look worse than the competition. Especially if you compare it against the 360 which is up year over year (as I recall off hand) and is increasing in sales during its fourth year (which breaks all established trends). Hopefully the irony is not lost on you though.

What does anything you have said have to do with the article at all? You claimed the article was about Nintendo having the biggest drop in history. A claim the article in question does not make. I have to assume the rest of that is just trying to obfuscate the fact that you got caught in a bad trolling attempt. Better luck next time. Especially considering the fact that I addressed your second part later in the post. Try that reading the whole post thing. It makes you seem less stupid.

Allow me to explain to you a simple fact about journalism. Every story that will ever be written is already planned out. All they are looking for is names, and dates to fill in the blanks. Sensationalism sells. However, if you get very basic facts wrong you look incompetent. Then the news article of the day becomes about how said journalist is incapable of doing his job, and is forced to try and defend is obvious incompetence to his current, and possible future employers. It is important to follow a train of thought all the way to the end.

I hope you point out that "fail" in one of my posts. Do it soon. I am going to be busy at work in a little bit, and I could use a good chuckle.

The basic facts of Nintendo sales and profits being way down are accurate, but are typically sensationalised. I can understand why people get annoyed by that. I find it a little surprising an article like this appeared on the Times website-it's supposed to be a fairly prestigious and intelligent British paper. I'd expect an article like this in the Daily Mail or perhaps the Mirror (which had a "Nintendo admits iPhone hammers DS" article up the other day).

The ignorance of Nintendo's Q4 plans is the major oversight in this article. Not mentioning sequels to two of the biggest releases of the decade in an article were he does mention the "potentially lucrative" Mario Galaxy 2 is a poor admission. His comments about the Tokyo Game Show are also unclear-it is not specified whether Nintendo display titles there (which they do not) or whether he is talking about the notable keynotes from TGS, including Iwata's unveiling of the Wii remote in 2005. His comments suggesting Miyamoto's reputation have been badly damaged by Wii Music, or that he had a reputation as infallible before Wii Music are also fairly poor. One 'unsuccessful' release when compared with everything else he has contributed to the success of Wii and DS (and by extension, gaming in general) has not done any significant damage to his reputation.

This article does not bash the Wii, but it does sensationalise and ignore certain facts that would be relevant to Nintendo's position now and in the coming months. Any analysis of a text is informed by the reader themselves, by their own personal dispositions and such. So to a certain extent, it could be argued the conclusions gathered from this article by forum members say more about the forum members themselves that it does the article. And before those of you defending the article and championing it as a fair analysis of Nintendo's current position decide this supports your conclusions regarding Wii owners, understand it also paints you as eager to believe sensationalised negative news about Nintendo, just as it paints a hyper defensive picture of some Wii owners.

Such conclusions are of course not infallible, so perhaps treating each other and each others' opnions of this article with a little more respect would be a good idea. For a slightly more balanced article from Times Online regarding Nintendo's financial results, check this one out:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6733954.ece

And you appear to be one of those whinyHD fanboys who can't stand it when someone making a "Wii is doomed" article looks stupid doing so.

So anyone who disagrees wit hthe article and points out its flaws is a Wii fanboy? Right...

Just like anyone who criticizes the States, is supposedly anti-American (according to Fox anyways) >.<.