Something that has puzzled me ever since I started reading your blog is how the hardcore always predict the fall of the Wii. I’ve heard all kinds of things:
“The fad is dying.” (I actually saw this very recently! People still believe it’s a fad!)
“Nintendo needs to release Wii HD to compete.”
“Sales are down, OMG! Nintendo is dying!” (Or in this case, Nintendo is responsible for the decline of the market)
And something that always puzzles me, is this:
What about Sony?
The hardcore love to compare the Wii to the PS3 and 360, their third party libraries in particular, yet no-one mentions anything about Sony’s blunder with the PS3 (only here have I seen it being brought up). As I mentioned in my email asking about innovation, I’ve seen how the hardcore can twist and turn arguments to make it sound like Nintendo is doomed all the time, and the PS3 is always on the rise. Always.
Yet it amazes me all the time whenever someone starts talking about the “demise” of Wii. The worst part is, no-one ever attributes this to Wii Music, or Animal Crossing. No-one ever mentions the word ‘momentum’. Instead, they say that “Nintendo is lazy”. Why on earth do we not see an article that says “Sony is stupid”? Why do we not see an article saying “Sony is Losing Profits”?
But no, the closest thing we get is the Kotaku post up there. And what does it say? “Sony is losing money but not as much as last year!” Or even better, “Next year will be Sony’s year! NEXT YEAR!” 2010 also happens to be the so-called “Wii HD” year. Isn’t that funny.
I am so sick and tired of seeing “casual” gaming being walked all over by these hardcore elitists who believe that gaming should be theirs entirely. I am sick of these gamers who believe that gaming should be about stories and immersion, and that arcade gameplay is a thing of the past. I’m sick of the gaming industry, and I’m suck of having to witness Nintendo being ridiculed and “doomed” while Sony and Microsoft get nothing but optimism and praise. I used to laugh at this, but now it just makes me tired to witness. Shouldn’t gamers have learned by now? Shouldn’t third parties have learned by now? Is it all a plot to bring Nintendo down, or are gamers and developers really that stuck in their own egos that they cannot possibly see two feet ahead of what’s going on before them?
They are industry first, gamers second. People like you and me are gamers first, industry second if ever.
When given a choice to talk about the industry or gaming, they always choose industry. People in the industry are ‘gods’ while gamers are just ‘dirt’. What gamers think about a game doesn’t matter. What only matters is how the industry thinks about it.
They talk as if industry and gaming are one of the same. But they are not. They are correct when they keep screaming when a Wii Sports or Wii Fit appears that it is “destroying gaming!” Since they perceive gaming to be the “industry”, they are absolutely correct that those Wii products are disrupting the industry.
I, myself, am a gamer the Industry cannot sell to and does not wish to sell to. I never participate in the hype. Gamers like myself cannot be easily manipulated. The Wii’s disruption is bringing in tons of people like me who cannot be manipulated or brainwashed by the ‘industry’.
The shouts that the Expanded Audience are buying trash is projection. It is the Core Gamers that have been brainwashed into buying trash. The Expanded Audience has higher standards which is why the Industry has so many problems with them. The “Casual Game Industry” for the Wii has collapsed which confirms the Expanded Audience demands quality, not the same old industry rot that they think they can peddle. The Expanded Audience just have a more sophisticated taste in games than the Core Gamers do. The Expanded Audience won’t put up with much bullshit.
Noticing this high sophistication and savvy tastes of the Expanded Audience, I have asked myself why this is. The answer is very simple. The Expanded Audience are the Exiled Old School Gamers. There is a reason why they are responding to games like Wii Sports and Mario 5 so strongly. What the Wii is doing today is what the Atari and NES did decades ago.
Believe it or not, things were much worse for Nintendo during the NES time. Nintendo was included with the Japanese bashing of the time. The US Congress was against Nintendo and would use the company as a political football to kick around. Worse, Atari was a sore loser and tied Nintendo up in the courts.
What is similar to that era and this one is that every year of the NES had analysts declare it to be Nintendo’s last good year. What is also similar is that third party companies resisted putting games on it such as Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts did.
You shouldn’t get mad at any of this. You should laugh. This industry is in the midst of a long term meltdown. Instead of getting angry at, say, news pieces that Bloomberg writes on how Nintendo is destroying the game industry, you should laugh at them because they are genuinely funny. In one, Bloomberg would quote an analyst on the performance of Nintendo which the analyst responded, “Nintendo is doomed!” on cue and then quoted Microsoft on Microsoft’s performance, “Microsoft is doing fantastic!” Microsoft would respond. Apparently noticing this criticism, next story by the same writer has Bloomberg quote Reggie at length but still writes the story as “Nintendo is doomed!” Unfortunately, the beginning of the story where it says Nintendo’s lead over rivals is shrinking as its sales are not as good as last year shows that the writer does not understand math. If a console is still outselling its rivals, then the lead grows, not decreases.
Kotaku is funny because years ago, they got an analyst to specifically say that the new gamers coming in to DS and Wii cannot possibly use games like Brain Age or Wii Sports as ‘gateway drugs’ to lead to other games. Oh, and that DS and Wii aren’t going to be around too much longer. What do we learn?
An analyst quote in the present is “news”. An analyst quote from the past ends up becoming “absurdity”. It looks like these ‘analysts’ will pretty much say anything to suck up to some company or to the industry in general.
In the Kotaku one you linked to, the analyst declares that Core Gaming is doing good because Xbox 360 and PS3 games are up while Wii games are down. Yet, Wii games still dominate. Core Gaming is doing ’so well’ that core gaming companies are laying people off and drowning in red ink. If Core Gaming keeps doing this well, they will do a Kefka and make a monument to non-existence.
If the so-called ‘casual crowd’ is going away, then why is the DS doing so well? The DS relies very much on the ‘casual crowd’. The analyst intentionally does not mention the DS even though it is included with all the NPD data next to the other consoles.
If you were from Mars, you would think by the news stories that Nintendo is about to go third party.
“It is because the Industry hates Nintendo!”
But note that the hostility actually isn’t so much against Nintendo as it is against the Expanded Audience.
“Well, they don’t like how grandmas and housewives are coming to change their games.”
But that isn’t it either. Games like Mario 5, which is the sequel to the epitome of old school game: classic platform Mario is receiving much hostility. So it clearly isn’t grandmas and housewives they hate.
The “Game Industry”, as we have come to know it, is in the midst of cracking up. If it wasn’t, these pundits wouldn’t be acting so hurt and angry.
Reader, you and I should have a drink over the rubble of the Industry. We will toast the classic games that allowed the Industry to exist. And then we will toast the classic games that have not been made yet. And then, finally, we will toast the gamers which is something the “Industry” never did.
