Now who's twisting words.  For your first actual answering of one of my points, you twisted mine.  I didn't say the PS2 and the Wii have competely matching software as you just implied.  I said the PS2 was the 'least powerful graphically of its generation' (like the Wii) and had 'tons of shovelware' (like the Wii).  And I said that multiple of the games that the PS2 got scored over 90 on metacritic were games that Wii are getting downscored on, such as puzzle, mini-game and casual titles.  Three distinct points that have nothing to do with EITHER the points you keep trying to accuse me of making or the one you are making up now.  One of them is even a comparison of hardware.

If you continue to insist the discussion is about the PERSON making the argument, it isn't going to go anywhere.  But now that we're at least back to the actual points, maybe we can get somewhere.

New Super Mario Bros Wii was a very VERY good game.  But unlike the Mario games that came before it, even New Super Mario Bros on the DS, it didn't really do that much new.  The powers were basically rehashed, the levels were all remixed, the concept and even the basic game premise was about 'nostalgia'.  None of that is bad.  Heck, the game is going to sell 15 million BECAUSE of this.  But compared to something like Mario 3, Mario World or heck, Mario Galaxy, it didn't do that much 'new' stuff.  The only new things are probably the co-op mode, the few added technical aspects (like the levels of light in some levels and added control of Mario) and the Penguin Suit.

And really now, New Super Mario Bros Wii got plenty of good scores.  Much higher than other games on the Wii.  And there's plenty of other games on the GameCube that did original things.  Metroid Prime, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Resident Evil 4, Mario Sunshine, Mario RPG: Thousand-Year Door, Wind Waker, Smash Bros Melee, etc...

Your post didn't really need a reply... Or am i missing something?

Oh, okay. Sorry. I just wasn't sure you saw it.

It's an interesting jumping off point for conversation, though, because it brigns up the question of whether "AAA" status is determined by a publisher, a developer.... or does it vary betwen systems?

Ahh yeah i saw it.

No idea. Although im guessing it's mainly down to a mixture of critical acclaim, hype and to a lesser extent... Sales expectations.

I apologize, I am being unclear

I mean that, taking AAA as a measure of budget and an expectation concerning returns, would the "AAA" standard be determined by developers or publishers? Does a AAA budget for a Wii game differ from a AAA budget for an HD game? These are interesting questions!

The whole reason metadarlings came up was because I suggested we find a new word to use instead of AAA.

The reason I suggested that, is because I'm tired of arguing semantics of words. Yes, in the past AAA has meant many different things in many different fields. We don't know the exact origin of how it exists in the gaming world, as there is a lot of speculation.

It could be a quality measure of an investment, coming from the insurance field.
It could be from when EGM or whoever used a 3-person rating process, meaning that for a game to be considered AAA, it had to be given an A by 3 editors in the same review.
It could be a description of the production level, ie $$$, as coming from the movie industry

One thing I've been a little frustrated about with the "new gamers" in this generation is that they've insisted on renaming everything that we've been naming.

So, I just skipped a couple pages of arguing by just caving in and suggesting a new word. That way, we can use that word, which was in part made by the people who had a problem with the old word.

On that same topic, we still don't have a new word to use for the people who play the traditional games like platformers, fps, sports and such. We used to call them core gamers, and while I agree it's not the most intuitive description (core is a marketing term), it was the word we used and we knew what it meant. Maybe some of you have noticed in my posts but I call them "traditional gamers" now.

So on one hand, maybe we need a new, more descriptive term, but on the other hand, the word we've been using for years has been fine until one side decided it was unfair.

I see now.

Im guessing whatever budget it is, would be decided by the developer before the project started... But would have to be agreed with by the publisher also.

Im guessing a AAA budget for a Wii game, would be about average for an HD game. Although i personally have no idea, all just speculation.

Frankly, all these terms, such as 'hardcore' and 'casual' or 'AAA' and 'top tier' seem to be just buzz words developed by both the internet forum goers and the reviewers who cater to them.  As they have all sprung up at different times over the course of the internets lifetime and gotten popular by those that frequent the internet.  At the start of last generation, terms like 'casual' and 'AAA' weren't very common.  People simply called you a child for liking a game that they now call the 'casual' genre.  And they used the term 'high budget' where they now call 'AAA'.  But now people use them like they're second nature and you're stupid if you question their use, because everyone from reviewers to regular people outside of the internet are using them.

But mark my words, within a few more years, probably around the time we have the next set of consoles, we'll be using a whole new set of stupid buzz words to describe the same junk.

Eh, I've been using core and hardcore for a long time now. I've known the term at least 10 years or longer.

The interesting thing about your post is this first line:

"Frankly, all these terms, such as 'hardcore' and 'casual' or 'AAA' and 'top tier' seem to be just buzz words developed by both the internet forum goers and the reviewers who cater to them."

This group of internet forum-goers and the reviewers, isn't that us? Are we not the internet forum goers? I'm not trying to single you out, but that seems to be the argument that people have when they question the use of certain words. "Oh that's just something, people on the internet made up", but see here, we're ON the internet.

At least that's how it feels to me. The other problem with this whole argument of semantics, is that even if we settle a new word in this forum, nobody else will know about it. There will constantly be argument over what a word means. It's just so frustrating. Especially when there seem to be a lot of people online who are more than ready to turn semantics into a straw man argument.

theprof00, you make a good point

Changing terminology is just something you have to expect. I'm just fighting it on the "AAA" front because it's more common on VGChartz than anywhere else on the internet - I'm pretty sure GAF, for example, uses it to refer to budget