Nintendo: Lose, Lose Situation
While Nintendo’s fortune has been turned around since the Gamecube era with the release of the phenomenal DS and later the Wii consoles, all is not rosy with the ‘hardcore’ gaming crowd.
Ever since Nintendo bought ‘new ways to play’ via the features of the Wii and DS’s new control methods, along came a massively expanded audience that had not necessarily had the term ‘video game’ included as their past-time activities. More so than ever, girls, parents and even grandparents are playing videogames and more specifically Wii and DS thanks to Nintendo’s vision and risk of creating this new hardware.
A new audience requires new software and just as the demographics have changed in gaming, so have the games themselves. Wii Sports, Brain Training, Nintendogs, the ‘Petz’ titles and Deca Sports are a few examples that spring to mind. These titles are not necessarily ‘traditional’ videogames, though they are all multi-million sellers and they are all a result of the expanded audience. Of course the Nintendo faithful are still playing the franchises they know and love – Zelda, Mario, Metroid as well as Wii Sports. So everyone is catered for, everyone is happy right? Worng. It it is the hardcore gamer that are causing the ruckus in the Nintendo arena.
For years now the hardcore gamer has complained of Nintendo’s apparent change in priorities for software development. Many Nintendo fans complain on forums that they have been ‘abandoned’ in favour of casual titles. While this may ring true to a certain extent, you cannot blame Nintendo for following a path that is succeeding. They are a business first and foremost and therefore their first priority is to cater for sharholders, or more simply, make a profit. Profiting they are.
Let’s not forget at this stage that very early in the Wii’s lifecycle we have seen the release of a new Mario game, a new Zelda game, new Metroid, Mario Kart. Even so, many people, myself included were very disappointed with Nintendo’s E3 showing in 2008. Wii Music and a near identical version of Animal Crossing DS for Wii did little to quench peoples hunger for core first party titles. The Internet was once again rife with disappointment from Nintendo loyalists – ‘where are the core games?’ they cried.
The core games were there, not literally, but being worked on in the background. Critical successes namely GTA: Chinatown Wars, Madworld and House of the Dead. Nintendo decided at E3 last year to concentrate on its casual titles. The company know better than their followers their target market and what is keeping those shareholders happy. Hence the ‘casual’ theme at E3 2008. At the same time they know their customers have been loyal and expect much of the company and their first party ‘hardcore’ titles. I am sure Reggie and Co. had many discussions with Rockstar for example to get the GTA franchise on a Nintendo console.
So the hardcore gamer moaned of lacking mature titles, Nintendo listened, reacted and so did third party developers. A stream of hardcore titles entered the market and the hardcore gamer simply did not respond. Madworld, GTA and House of the Dead all sold way below expectations. Nintendo and it’s third party developers put their money where there mouth is, why did the harcore gamer not follow suit?
It is hard to believe that with Nintendo’s impressive hardware and software sales worldwide month after month, that in a certain respect the big N is in a lose – lose situation. The company receives much flack for ignoring the hardcore gamer, yet when they are fed, the gamer choses not to eat. What more can Nintendo and the third party developers do?
I am not a fortune teller but I can imagine what they will do is approach mature Wii and DS content with much caution from hereon in and continue to pump out casual title after casual title. Can you blame them? Should the hardcore gamer continue to have the right to moan about something they desire but don’t support.
No.
Filed under Corporate, Editorials, News, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Sony & Microsoft by on Apr 18th, 2009. Comment. 
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Comments on Nintendo: Lose, Lose Situation
I am sick of people using those three games as examples.
IDK why Chinatown Wars didn’t sell. My guess is is that it wasn’t the GTA game people wanted on their Nintendo console. If there had been a more GTA 3/VC/SA version on the WII then it probaly would’ve sold like cakes.
Now for those two other games people keep using, House of Dead: Overkill and Madworld. They are NOT hardcore titles. They’re two game that use cursing and blood to appear “badass”. That doesn’t mean it’s necesarilly hardcore.
HoDO is basically a game you could find at any arcade. Arcade games never struck me as hardcore. Oh but what this? Instead of the plastic gun of the arcades they give you the wiimote. And what else? OMG! It broke the guiness world record for most uses of the F bomb. Big deal. That doesn’t stop it from being just another 5 hour rail shooter that has no depth to it.
MadWorld is pretty much the same. It’s another 5 hour game that has no depth either. All you do is run around and do random things to kill people and in the process get tons of blood which is only made clearer because the rest of the world is black and white.
So there you have it. You wanna know why those “hardcore” games aren’t selling? Because aren’t everyone elses definition of hardcore. Compare HoDO and MW to the hardcore games on HD consoles. Gears of War series, Halo 3, Fallout 3, Assassin’s Creed series, GTAIV, Left 4 Dead, Killzone 2, Bioshock series, Dead Space, Resident Evil 5, Orange Box, Devil May Cry 4, Soul Caliber 4, Street Fighters 4, Tales of Vesperia, Modern Warface series. And even look at the upcoming games: Prototype, Assassin’s Creed 2, BioShock 2, FFXIII/vs.XIII, Infamous, Modern Warfare 2, Half-Life 2 episode 3.
What are the differences between those and your version of hardcore? Lenght, depth, staying power, replay value. No amount of red paint and cursing can hide that.
I’m sorry, but if arcade-style shooting ISN’T considered “hardcore” that’s messed up.
And MadWorld is definitely what I’d consider hardcore, too, not because of its subject matter but because of its gameplay. It’s an action game that actually plays well.
It has more depth than you seem to think it does. Have you actually PLAYED it?
Anyway, I will agree that most of the games you listed (aside from Assassin’s Creed, perhaps, which I actually consider a casualcore game because it’s just not really THAT deep or complex) are more “hardcore” as far as my definition goes, but the point is this:
Nintendo has been delivering the same level of quality 1st party games they did on GCN and in the same quanitity, generally, and 3rd parties are trying to make efforts to quality games with depth only to see miniscule sales figures.
In other words, the hardcore need to quit their bitching if they aren’t gonna put their money where their mouth is.
House of the Dead looks good to me, but Madworld is a little too gruesome. GTA is never my cup of tea, but there are plenty of so called hardcore games on the DS.
@D3STINY_SM4SHER-I’ll put my money where my mouth is when a game like one of the ones I said comes out. I’m not gonna buy two 5 hour games that are mostly called core because one broke the record on F bombs and the other is trying to look badass.
I intend on buying The Conduit, Tales of Graces, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Arc Rise Fantasia, FFCCCB, No More Heroes 2, Klonoa, Excitebots, Sin and Punishmen 2, Lostwinds 2, and Pikmin 3. So I’m doing my part.
Light gun games have been popular on the Wii. HotD 2&3, Re:UC, and Ghost Squad all were successful at retail. HotD:Overkill’s disappointing sales are due either to the light gun fad being over, or its f-bombs being so over the top that it actually put people off.
Anyway, publishers need to watch what people actually buy rather than than listening to what they say they want to buy. Listening to the customer is not nearly as useful as watching the customer. If Sega did that, they’d realize violence alone hasn’t sold games since the original Mortal Kombat.
I’m also sad about MadWorld, it is such a great game! Not only is it a fun, graphically stunning beat’em’up, but it’s a game that could Only be made on Wii. The motion controls make the game so much more fun than if it was on some other console. it takes the Wii and uses its strengths in a great way.
I agree that these people are getting a little too picky for their own good, but I also hope that a couple of poor sales figures won’t stop companies from producing good games on the Wii
Something people are forgetting, is the fact that game sales on these Nintendo consoles do not have the same curve they traditionally did, or the same curve they do on the PS3/360. Truth-be-told, Madworld and No More Heroes were very niche games. I own both of them, great games, but niche – just like Killer 7 last gen.
Yet, No More Heroes had tremendous staying power: Its first week was ~70 000 units, but to date it has sold over 400 000. Not bad.
Call of Duty World at War on Wii debuted weak, with something like 50-60k sold. But to date, it has over a million copies sold. One. Million.
On the DS scene, Call of Duty 4 released with some poor number of sales, something like 30k. But to date, it has over 500k sold.
These are not failures. Not every single game released on the 360 or PS3 sells amazing, that is “core”. Only quality core games do.
Where are these same quality titles on the Wii? Only Nintendo Supplies them, so far. And Nintendo’s titles sometimes may be niche – Just look @ Disaster:DOC or Fatal Frame 4 in Japan.
Thats just the way it is.
Watch the new Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles game perform admirably.
And Watch GTA hit at least 500k on the DS. Sales curves are just different with the Wii.
That is all.
p.s. those numbers can be verified via VGCHARTZ.com