Wait, what? You can criticize Nintendo...

It's the whiny crap we're calling IGN out for. They act like spoiled kids who want ever more attention, and are never satisfied (you think they were satisfied with the Gamecube?). Then they make moronic arguments to justify themselves.

Mind you I am guessing blind because you don't actually want to stand behind your opinion. There are 2 possible reasons for that, but we will ignore that for now.

Criticizing them is no more difficult that anyone else. The problem is what people harp on. They go on about the online service, but your average internet gamer was more than informed to know the score on that one pre-purchase. Same applies to the HD graphics. Then you have the dearth of complaints about not enough core titles, but the lack of them means the people who truly value those games won't be Wii only owners. I could claim the same about the vast majority of the cookie cutter complaints against the system.

Beyond that you are unfairly characterizing the behavior as unique to one console's fanbase. I cannot tell you the number of conversations I have had where people refused to believe I don't like online gaming, or that HD graphics really don't register for me. Hell I made a thread when I was about to buy a 360 trying to understand the hatred against the Arcade model. What I got was people telling me that I would need the features I didn't care about over and over despite clearly stating I didn't care.

This swings the other was as well naturally. Some people dislike local multiplayer with a bunch of friends, or despise motion controls. They are on the opposite end of the spectrum from me with people insisting they cannot possibly have the opinion they do. There is also talk about different genres etc etc. I always despise that because it becomes discussion of what a "real" game is, or the tired Metarankings get thrown about the "objectively" measure game quality.

The only reason I can think it would seem more prevalent is due to the mainstream gaming media. Most of the people belong to the old guard of games, and see the PS360 as what should be the natural evolution of the hobby. As such they criticize the Wii for functions that simply are not desired by its fanbase. This is not to say there is a great big conspiracy against the system. However, you will see articles that get slammed because their complaints simply due not resonate with the fanbase. This gets to be a "war" as it inevitably gets thrown out that the Wii fans are simply in denial, and are just blindly following Nintendo rather than trying to have an open dialogue and see things from a different perspective.

the sense of accomplishment thing is one of the most absurd things I have ever read

I really don't enjoy the fact that video games have become something more than just games that you play on a television.

I'll play what I want to play, and you do the same.

I agree with everything about your post except this one little part. I actually feel that a lot of criticism is actually coming from the new guard....people who started gaming with the PS2 and Xbox...and possibly the PS1.  Half of the old guard are people who started on Atari and went straight to Sega..they never liked Nintendo anyway. The other half are people who started on Atari and grew with the NES and SNES. Most of them (like me) are still Nintendo fans to this day. 

This is mostly just a terminology issue. By old guard I mean people who were content with the direction the video game industry was going before the DS released. This cannot be rigidly defined by age. I would agree a lot of the Nintendo specific backlash on forums and the like come from people who have only ever known the Sony dominated era. The same was true when the Playstation first hit the market though, and the demographic of gaming started changing. Video game enthusiasts seem to resent any shift to include a wider audience.

Its a matter of the content of criticism. Different criticisms get hurled at Nintendo than at Sony and Microsoft, and so elicits different responses. I doubt too many of us are proper Nintendo cheerleaders, just supporting whatever they do, and so its not the case that we would shoot down all criticism. I imagine a fair few of us have criticisms of our own. Most of the criticisms we deal with, however, are from old and tired arguments

I have 2 opinions on this, and Wii fans please dont bash me till you read both...

The first is that I agree with a lot of it. Not all of it (achievements being that important is definetly one of them). I stood in line for 4 hours for a Wii and was really excited for TP, but its just been one disappointment after another for me. I'm bored out of my mind with my Wii, and have only turned it on once (for Punch-Out, which I only played for 2 days) in the last year. I would describe myself as a "hard-core" gamer, and yes, they have totally lost me. I won't buy their next console.

My second point is....I would never say all this in a podcast for the Wii section of a website. Fans are going there because they are excited about what they own and they want to read about new stuff coming for it. At the VERY least they should offer a counter-arguement by those that love the Wii.

If you don't want people to jump down your throat then you need to do 2 things. First off, say what you actually agree with. Most of what is up there is absolute non-sense. It is some of the worst trolling I could imagine, though I attribute a lot of that to lack of context. 2 you will need to justify your opinions. Simply saying achievements are better than motion controls is not useful to a discussion. I could give you a very good argument to motion controls being the absolute best thing to come out of this generation that wouldn't even need to include Nintendo.

Ah, the good old days when we all hated those newfangled Madden players with a passion that bordered on insanity. Now they're the "hardcore"!