You Got Wii Fit, What More Do You Need?
In a quite extensive interview with VentureBeat (which is well worth a read), Reggie Fils-Aime had a few words on the matter of the hardcore Nintendo gamer. When asked about the disappointment felt by a lot of people this summer due to Nintendo’s lacklustre performance, Fils-Aime explained that they simply expected an unreasonable amount.
The gaming enthusiast that buys a tremendous amount of games is truly insatiable. As an example, in March, we launched ‘œSuper Smash Bros. Brawl.’ In April, we launched ‘œMario Kart.’ In later April, we launched ‘œWii Fit.’ Then, in July, at E3, they say, ‘œwhere are the games?’ They say they want the next Mario game. ‘œSuper Mario Galaxy’ isn’t even a year old yet. We believe today that we have shown a plethora of games and genres that can satisfy the most casual to the most core. Even that doesn’t seem like it’s enough.
Two remakes and a casual sports game should definitely be enough to quell even the hardest of hardcore gamer’s burning lust right? Not to mention the fact that gamers can’t be done with SMG already? It’s not even been out a full year!
When asked about the simplicity of Wii Music, Fils-Aime explained that it’s actually very hard, and unsurprisingly, they expect it to sell bucket-loads.
What’s powerful in Wii Music is this juxtaposition of something that looks so simple but is wonderfully difficult to master. We may have done that title an injustice at E3 by showing something that looked so easy. [...] We don’t publicly talk about sales targets but our expectation is it will be one of our top sellers.
So there you have it hardcore gamers, Wii Music is your game.
With all the pressure on Nintendo to appear kid-friendly, I do wonder if a lot of the frustration felt by gamers such as myself stems simply from the lack of publicity for actual games such as MadWorld or The House of the Dead: Overkill.
There are games coming out for the Wii, but I get the impression Nintendo are almost ashamed of them, trying to push them out the back door quietly so as not to disturb the casual gamers waiting in line at the front.
Via: IGN
Nintendo are on the money train and they don’t want to derail it. Even if that means they left all their faithful customers at the station.
What bothers me even more about this is the fact that Nintendo thinks all the hardcore gamer wants are games from the big three: Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Not to say that we don’t want those games, but some new and fresh ideas (like Earthbound or Pikmin) that made Nintendo famous in the first place are what I think most fans really want.