I remember a time when…
…being able to tell people that I have owned a Nintendo Wii since midnight November 19, 2007 – the moment the Wii was released – was a legitimate bragging right.
I’m a member of Nintendo’s hardcore fan base – a group that is well-known for its loyalty and enthusiasm to the entire gaming community – and I’m pissed off. In times like these, when Nintendo’s focus is more on getting Grandma and Grandpa to buy gifts for their legions of fake neighbors in Animal Crossing: City Folk, I’m enraged by the lack of quality gaming Nintendo is developing for its fans.
The hardcore fan base doesn’t care about what color ponies you can raise in the next Barbie: Horse Adventures game or jump for joy over the release of Wii Olympics – we want the next Zelda or Metroid game to come out, dazzle us, and keep us happy and entertained until the next game in the series comes to the market. Nintendo’s roster of 2009 games and attitude towards its fans, however, seem to indicate that they no longer give a damn.
After the debut of Microsoft’s Xbox 360, the other two leading developers released their systems. It has been little over a year since the Wii’s release, and Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s president, revealed in an interview with German website Spiegel Online that if the Wii had not been successful, he would have had to start looking for another job. Roughly translated, “I was lucky everything worked so quickly.”
However, the Wii is successful; financially, it is the most successful video game console ever released, far outselling its competitors. However, the system’s success has also changed Nintendo’s view on how to succeed in the industry. Their attitude seems to have become ‘less is more’ as they embrace the ‘anyone can play’ demographic, and the attitude is crushing the faith of diehard Nintendo fans – a group that defines the words loyalty and dedication.
Lately, Nintendo’s selection of Wii games (at least 60% of which are marketed towards non-gamers) is almost entirely unappealing to hardcore and casual gamers. While developers can make easy money by turning out Wii games catering to ‘everybody’ these games are typically unfulfilling. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Wii Sports, but when a hardcore gamer gets to the point where they can’t get much better at a game, the game gets boring unless it has something called replay value – the ability to stay fresh and entertaining despite the fact that you’ve beat it a hundred times. To a console gamer, this is usually the deciding factor in buying a game.
After the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo has practically stopped releasing games of quality, while other consoles continue to produce blockbuster games like Silent Hill 5 and Bioshock. In the age of next-gen consoles, the Wii is not nearly as mechanically powerful as either of its opponents, yet greatly outsells them because it is at least $100 cheaper and comes with the game that most buyers want: Wii Sports. Another $100 will get them Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board, which is an exercise routine instead of an actual game. After various daytime talk shows like Ellen and Oprah discovered that Wii Fit helps lose weight and get in shape, the Wii’s popularity craze grew. People of any age were then encouraged to purchase the system, because having a personal fitness trainer for $100 that you can actually enjoy in the comfort of your own home is much better than taking your stress to the gym.
It is a system that has brought gaming to people that would never have touched it before, but at what cost to Nintendo’s loyal fan base? While games like Metal Gear Solid 4 have kept the majority of the gaming community entertained, gamers that own only a Wii suffer silently. To them, the Nintendo that they once mutually knew and loved has sold them out in order to turn a profit.
Early on in the Wii’s development, Nintendo decided to get more third-party developers involved with its roster of launch titles. Because Nintendo takes too much time to produce games that fans appreciate, they lose business from that group. Some third-party developers often have good game ideas that would work perfectly on the Wii, but don’t pursue them. In late 2007, a survival-horror game with a 1920’s black-and-white gothic horror film feeling named Sadness was supposed to be released exclusively for Wii by January 2009. Upon seeing the trailer for the game, looking at some of the concept art, and listening to some of the game music that was on Sadness’ website, I was definitely looking forward to it.
The true sadness came when news came out that its developer gave up on it to focus on other games, although luckily it was recently finished by a new developer and is expected to be released in late March. Winter, another revolutionary survival-horror Wii-only title, was terminated because the developer decided that a mature, adult game would not work on “a console made for kids and old people.”
It can be easy to lose sight of what you enjoy in recreational video games when companies start to care less about customer satisfaction and more about financial gain. What we must remember to do is to never lose our love for the hobby simply because the situation is bleak. One day, Nintendo might embrace its true fans again. But until that day comes, I’m sticking with Mega Man emulators.
